User talk:BrownHairedGirl

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18:09 Wednesday 15 May 2024 Please click here to leave a new message for me (BrownHairedGirl) Note: if you leave a new message for me on this page, I will reply on this page unless you ask me to reply somewhere else. If you are replying to an existing message, please remember to: sign your comments, by placing ~~~~ at the end of the comments (see WP:SIG) indent your comment by placing a colon before the start of the first line (add an extra colon if you are relying to a reply)	click here to leave a new message for BrownHairedGirl BrownHairedGirl's archives + Cumulative index
Wikipedia Admin I have been an administrator since May 2006. Administrators have access to a few technical features which help with maintenance. I regard admin powers as a privilege to be used sparingly and judiciously, but if you require the assistance of an admin, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page. If you want admin help, please do try to explain clearly what you want done, and why, and please do remember to include any relevant links or diffs. I'll try to either help you myself or direct you to a more experienced person if appropriate.

missing you @ CFD

Hi BHG -- I noticed you hadn't been doing CFD much lately, and I have to say, your approach & sense is much missed. --Lquilter (talk) 15:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm afraid that CfD gets rather mind-numbing and I have been suffering fron a bit of CFD-burnout. Between the deletionists-with-a-mission and the ignore-all-guidelines people, discussions there can be pretty frustrating. Sometimes it is possible have a sensible discussion which does actually address the issues, but too often it's less of a discussion than a dialogue of the deaf.

I may decide at some pint to pop my head back in again, but for now I'm getting much more satisfaction out of creating content rather than organising it. I have been doing a lot of research on Seanad Éireann, which I have really enjoyed, and which has allowed me to hugely expand coverage of that subject and create some articles along the way which I'm rather pleased with, two DYK-featured articles this week. The Seanad has been very poorly covered in wikipedia to date, and researching it brings back some interesting memories of a times in my youth when I spent spent a week stuffing 100,000 envelopes with a candidate's election address!

Anyway, pls do let me know if there are interesting CfDs, and I'll see if I have anything to contribute to them. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:18, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I hear you. I will keep you posted on CFDs, although I'm always wary of going astray of the anti-polling guidelines! --Lquilter (talk) 18:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

ZOMG!

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		99% major/100% minor edit summaries! Amazing! That kicks the crap out of my 70/100 stat. For taking the time to fill out them edit summaries, I, Two One Six Five Five (21655), award BrownHairedGirl with this Defender of the Wiki Barnstar. Two One Six Five Five τ ʃ 18:40, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Edit summaries do take time, but not much, and a good edit summary saves a lot of time for other editors who are tracking what's being done to articles on their watchlist. Even with popups, checking diffs is a lot slower :( --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Roosky

Hi, would you have a moment to look at Roosky please? Looks to me like User:CianDiffl has added a whole bunch of content which might be fluff and is probably not encyclopaedic, but I'm no expert. Would appreciate your opinion, please. Thanks! --AndrewHowse (talk) 22:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. Your reversion was undone, so I have reverted again, and left a note at Talk:Roosky. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to look. --AndrewHowse (talk) 01:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the rest of CianDiffl (talk · contribs)'s work, and it appears to be all vandalism or silliness:

• A bit of childish vandalism to Fine Gael
• More childish nonsense] added to Riverstown

So I have reverted the rest, and issued a second warning. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:25, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

That does rather support the case, doesn't it? --AndrewHowse (talk) 01:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It does indeed :( It's a pity in a way: at first glance I thought that it might actually be a rather good expansion of the article on Roosky, which has always been one my favourite villages in all of Ireland ... but there's so much nonsense in the midst of the plausible stuff that I wouldn't trust any of it :( --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Comment requested

I watched you in the ISBN discussion, and I started questioning myself elsewhere. I f I promise to explain to you the origin of the word pedant, would you care to look over another discussion and offer a comment?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 04:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

OK! Go ahead :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Your bot

Hi BHG, is your bot up and running again ? Is so can you have it add {{WikiProject Ireland}} to pages in Category:WikiProject_Gaelic_Games_articles, Thanks Gnevin (talk) 17:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for running this, Also quick one of you {{GaelicGamesByYear}} the previous decade is an upper case G and it throwing off the template , can you change to g , cheers Gnevin (talk) 21:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm afraid that the Windows computer on which I run the bot is still not very well (power connection prob on the motherboard). I'll see if I can coax it into running for long enough to do a bot run, but no promises.

However, if I do get it running, all it can do is to add the tag with no parameters set. All the bot can do is to mark the articles as being in need of assessment, and meanwhile, they will end up in Category:Unknown-importance Ireland articles and Category:Unassessed Ireland articles.

There are already hundreds of GAA articles which were automatically classed as stubs, but which have no importance assessment: since this list generated by CatScan. As you can see from that list, there is already a backlog of over 400 articles needing manual assessment. I have just manually assessed about fifty of them, but do you or anyone else from the GAA project have the energy to do more?

In addition to the articles already auto-tagged as stubs, there are over 1,000 GAA articles which are not tagged for {{WikiProject Ireland}} -- see this Cat Scan report. I wonder is there much benefit in blank-tagging another thousand-plus article where are there hundreds which still need their assessments to be completed? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok don't worry about it , just thought if it was a simple as a quick bot run then I no one would really be put out Gnevin (talk) 11:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

PS Pls can you explain further what the problem is with {{GaelicGamesByYear}}. I can't see anything wrong, but I may not be looking in the right place :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

<noinclude>{{pp-template}}</noinclude>{{portalpar|Sports and games|Sports and games.png}}{{portalpar|Ireland|Four Provinces Flag.svg}} '''[[Gaelic games]]''' in the year '''[[{{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}}{{{y|}}}]]''' {{DEFAULTSORT:Gaelic games}} {{year by category |m={{{m|}}} |c={{{c|}}} |d={{{d|}}} |y={{{y|}}} |cat=in Gaelic games |sortkey=Gaelic games |parent={{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}}{{{y|}}} in sports |subcat={{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}}{{{y|}}} in Ireland }} {{ #ifexist: Category:{{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}}{{{y|}}} in Northern Ireland | [[Category:{{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}}{{{y|}}} in Northern Ireland| Gaelic games]] | }} <includeonly> [[:category:{{#expr: {{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}} - 1}}0s in Gaelic Games|{{#expr: {{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}} - 1}}0s <<]] — '''[[:category:{{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}}0s in Gaelic games|{{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}}0s]]''' — [[:category:{{#expr: {{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}} + 1}}0s in Gaelic games|>> {{#expr: {{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}} + 1}}0s]] <!-- [[Category:{{#expr: {{{m|}}}{{{c|}}} + 1}}{{ #ifeq: {{{c}}}|0|st|th}} century in Gaelic games|{{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}}{{{y|}}}]] --> [[Category:{{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}}0s in Gaelic games|{{{m|}}}{{{c|}}}{{{d|}}}{{{y|}}}]] </includeonly><noinclude></noinclude>

See Category:2007_in_Gaelic_games the link back to the 90's Gnevin (talk) 11:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and sorry I was slow on the uptake. I think that this fix has done it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:44, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Cheers for that Gnevin (talk) 21:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The direction this seem to be going is not what I thought was the intention when I suggested you be contacted to see if your bot would do what they wanted. I understood the GAA project wanted the GAA articles tagged with their GAA tag, not with our Ireland project tag, which they should be anyway. Sorry to hear the PC is not in good form; that's why I use a Mac! Cheers ww2censor (talk) 03:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Now now a Mac's PSU is hardly any more reliable than a PC's :D Gnevin (talk) 11:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

In this case, it was a matter of someone getting tangled in the powerlead to my laptop and pulling at it rather than disentangling themselves, with the effect of breaking the cable (which was easily replaced) and the straining connection between the 19Volt socket and the motherboard (which will require a soldering iron). Since the person entangled has a more senior position in the household (on account of having learnt how to walk on all four legs rather than balancing precariously on just two), I just have to accept this as one-of-those-things and put up with it. And while IU dunno if Macs are more dog-proof, my friend's mac laptop collapsed and died pretty quickly when his water bottle leaked all over it, and the replacement cost three times as much as my laptop. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:55, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Protestant Reformation

User:Tvarkytojas is removing (at speed) a lot of articles and sub-categories from Category:Protestant Reformation. I'm no expert on this but suspect these (and other) edits are often dubious. T is also putting categories in alphabetical order ... is this recommended somewhere? -- roundhouse0 (talk) 18:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The category removals look v dodgy to me, and I suggest raising this on the talk page of Tvarkytojas (talk · contribs).

The alphabetical sorting of categories has been matter of long-running disputes, with no consensus: see Wikipedia:Categorization FAQ#In_what_order_should_categories_be_listed_within_the_article.3F. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:52, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Tvarkytojas doesn't respond (or stop) - see his talk; and is also allegedly a sock of someone else (the blocked user:Pionier) - see his user page. I'm not sure that I've yet found a definitely useful edit of his. -- roundhouse0 (talk) 17:00, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that the best way forward would be to raise this at WP:ANI. It looks to me like a sock-block might be in order, but that may require a checkuser and so far I haven't seen the evidence for the sockpuppetry allegation (checkuser requires evidence). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:14, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I too didn't find the evidence compelling; apparently it is a spillover from Lithuanian wiki where there is evidence (which is all Dutch to me). Anyway people seem to be sorting it out, to some extent. -- roundhouse0 (talk) 12:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Glad someone else is on the case. It looks like a lot of work, so I'm relieved to be able to leave them to it! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

What now?

Appreciate you have other things to do, but I need some sort of idea on how you want things done. A simple if < 1100 would be easiest, but if you've got a better plan I'd like to hear it. Thanks, Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:51, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. The admin who closed the deletion review either didn't even bother reading the discussion carefully enough to actually see the problems that were explained, or else chose to ignore them. That's about par for the course in the fanatical deletion of these categories, but I haven't the energy to spend more time trying to argue against this sort of thing :(

Anyway, as closing admin, please can you confine yourself to just merging the categories; the redlinks can remain for now. I will start a discussion at WT:IE on the options for restructuring the templates to deal with this situation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:05, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Fine by me. I'll try and catch the discussion. I don't normally read WPIE (or WPSCO) stuff, but that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

red block floating astray

Something's amiss with the red block of text at bottom of the page - it's obscuring the last message, so presumably will now hide part of this one! PamD (talk) 21:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I just changed archivebot, and one of the side-effects was that this talkpage is no longer categorised, and I needed to change {{UserTalkReplyhere|cat=yes}} to {{UserTalkReplyhere|cat=no}}. Seems OK now :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant means block

Just suffered a 24 hour block (which I managed to get lifted) for being disruptive in Years in Ireland. See my talk page - makes you glad to be a part of this. Ardfern (talk) 22:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

What sort of system can lead to Ardfern being blocked without any proper warning or discussion? Sarah777 (talk) 22:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

File:Old form Execute.jpg

Wikipedians enforce justice on a miscreant who flagrantly creates content relating to human history, rather than concentrating on fiction.

Oh dear :( As I wrote 6 weeks ago, when the articles were under attack, there's a bizarrely screwed-up sense of priorities at work here, where this sort of historical work gets attacked.

The deletion of the years-in-Ireland categories does not create a new policy, it just creates a precedent for AfD ... and AfD is not bound by precedent. It would have been entirely in order for Ardfern to have been warned that further such categories were likely to be deleted, but moving so quickly to a block was simply vindictive. Furthermore, if such a block were justified, it should not have been imposed by the admin who closed the DRV without bothering to read it properly.

However, please folks, don't go getting yourself further (probably longer) blocks over this. Yes, once again, Irish editors have been stitched up, and wikipedia's coverage of Irish history has been impeded, but ... big but it's really important to remember that however much we are provoked, incivility or pparent WP:POINT violations won't help us undo the damage.

It's quite clear that this sort of thing is not going to stop soon, and that for the moment deletionists have the wind in their sails. I will try to find the energy later today to raise Ardfern's block at ANI as a misuse of admin power, but we aren't going to be able to deal with stuff if the key editors are blocked, or if their contrubutions to discussions are disparaged on the grounds of a bulging block — even if the blocks have been unreasonably imposed, mud sticks :(

The situation now is that, however perverse the situation is, several dozen categories have been deleted, and the deletionists will likely return soon to start deleting the others. At this point, we need to figure out how to cope with the effects of this, and I will post some suggestions to WT:IE. Please don't leave me as the only one still standing to carry on the work! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Just stopped by to say, "HOWDY!"

• 
  --HOWDY!--

--Sallicio^{$\color {Red}\oplus$} 04:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Hiya son! Hope you're doing OK. :) -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

List of events named massacres

Thanks for closing Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres (2nd nomination) because it was not an easy one to do. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome! It was an interesting exercise, but I jumped in because I thought that despite various tangles on the debate, it would be unsatisfactory to simply close it with a one-line "no consensus" comment, as happened to the first AfD. When I started, I thought that my closure was likely to be a verbose "no consensus" which would be little better, but the debate had achieved more than I initially thought. I dunno if you noticed, but I was asked over to the article's talk page to discuss the closure, and have been pleasantly surprised to find that discussion quite constructive. There may even (touch wood) be an emerging consensus on a very precise set of inclusion criteria! (see Talk:List of events named massacres#Explanation_and_question_from_AfD_closer).

If that happens, there will obviously still be room for argument about the inclusion of individual events, but at least there will be an agreed mechanism for assessing them. I think that the AfD debate will have been very useful if it helps to stabilise the article. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Tiananmen_Square_Massacre Kittybrewster ☎ 13:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Have left a link there to the discussion on inclusion criteria. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Your message to me on Sarah's talk page

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Hello BHG. I wonder if you will reconsider your message to me left on Sarah's talk page for a number of reasons. Firstly, shouting doesn't make your point any more germane than typing in regular text. Secondly, I have my own talk page where you can draw attention to error you may think I have made and thirdly, last time I read WP:NPA and WP:CIV, it didn't permit name-calling, so I politely reminded Sarah of that, asked her to stop, warned her what would happen if she continued along those lines and informed her of the due process to express her grievances. I have quite a good relationship with Sarah, and as it has in the past, had hoped that my discussion with her may prevented this from escalating further. I didn't block her and had no intention of blocking her. So if you consider those actions be "victimisation" and "too trigger-happy" then what exactly do you call your message to me?

Furthermore, clearly Sarah herself didn't consider that I was "victimising her" [1] and your less-than-helpful message was set after her apology and unblocking, so exactly what purpose is is supposed to serve? Sheesh. Rockpocket 17:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Rock, may I ask you to step back a bit here and look at what's happening?

Sarah had yet another block imposed on her for an outburst, in this case a rather mild one. I don't like being called a "fascist" either, but it's a fairly common occurrence when taking any sort of authority role online, and I see similar epithets being attached to admins on a fairly regular basis; as SlimVirgin pointed out at ANI, far worse things are said every day.

The reason I commented there was that the whole episode looks to me very much like a punish-the-usual suspects exercise, and I wanted to add a clear note for anyone who reads that section in the future that Sarah is being unfairly treated. No, it wasn't you who blocked Sarah, and you weren't advocating her blocking, and the real problem there is Tyrenius wading in yet again ... but there was something about your msg that looked to me like the latest in a pile-on, where the outburst gets taken very seriously but no attempt is made to deal with the reasons for it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I made it perfectly clear I would help her deal with the reasons for her outburst of she queried them in the appropriate manner. Sarah is an adult (and, from what I can tell, she is a pretty bright one at that). She is more than capable of writing in a neutral manner when she wants to, but if editors see that name-calling and personal abuse achieves results then they will continue to use that tactic. So if and when Sarah phrases her concerns in a civil way, I will help her address them, but I will not respond to accusations of fascism and I don't think anyone else should either. While I also don't think one should be blocked for making a comment like that, one should be aware that if it becomes habitual, then it will lead down that path. That is a fact (borne out by the discussion at AN) and telling Sarah that is not inappropriate.

The message that you took issue with was in reply to a question from Sarah (as noted in my edit summary [2]). You will also note that was my last edit for a period of hours during which time the drama unfolded, so I was entirely unaware she was about to be blocked. Therefore it was not "piling on", it was directly addressing her query. If you are unhappy with Tyrenius' block, then by all means bring it up with him but I strongly object to you tarring me with that "trigger-happy" brush, simply because I happened to be having a parallel, but completely independent, discussion with Sarah. I'm sorry if I appear curt in discussion with you, but I am very disappointed by this. I have had faced enough unfair accusations from Vk et al about victimisation without expecting something similar from an admin. Rockpocket 02:35, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Look, the issue I am trying to focus we have here is that is that whenever Sarah raises a problem, the responses are focusing on the way she expresses herself rather than on the underlying issues. This is creating a vicious cycle where Sarah makes an outburst, admins pile in to condemn the outburst, and the underlying problem is never considered, which merely builds up a problem for the future. As you know, I too have frequently advised Sarah to tone down her language, but I remain convinced that we are not going to break this cycle unless the problem of the inappropriate language in Sarah's outbursts is separated from the substance of her complaints, and both are addressed.

I hope that Sarah's promise to try restraint works for her, but I also hope that you to have noticed that it followed the intervention of a previously uninvolved admin (SlimVirgin). That's why I think that it would be far the best for the troubles-related admins to take a step back — we already have the evidence that outsiders are producing better results. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:03, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

And would you include yourself in that group of "troubles-related admins" who should "take a step back"? If not, why not? --John (talk) 17:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

If SV is willing to keep Sarah's tongue in check, then that is perfectly fine with me. I can't help contrasting your response to this with the incident where you blocked Vk after clashing with him over baronet renamings. You were happy to block him then, despite being "directly involved", and his underlying issues didn't seem to factor into it [3] Was that victimisation? In contrast, my position now is consistent with my position then: I am always happy to address underlying issues when they are presented in a civil way. The comment you took issue with made that very clear. Feeling hard done by or the victim of perceived injustice is not an acceptable justification for being disruptive or abusive. Your actions seem to suggest you think it is (in this instance, if not when Vk was the subject).

Your comments over the last few days clearly suggest you give mileage to the idea that nationality and/or politics is an issue here. Notwithstanding you have no idea what my nationality is, I second John's call that if anyone should "take a step back" then you should consider your own position, because you are the only admin, among all who have commented, that sees a conspiracy here. I'll continue to enforce our policies as I see fit, with discussion and polite requests. If you consider that to be "trigger happy" then I ask that you seek wider input from the community before issuing accusations in future. The irony here is that Sarah and I were, and remain on, perfectly good terms. Its only your accusations that have led to any bad feeling here. Way to go in calming things down.

I think I have said enough on this, because it has angered me more than all the abuse that has come my way on this issue. That I expected, this I didn't. I have a huge amount of respect for you, BHG, but I think your post was rash, showed very poor-judgment and a lack of understanding of what was actually going on at the time. Rockpocket 18:15, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

BHG, your points are rhetorical but not validated with evidence. The point Sarah was making about Ardfern's block had been addressed before her remarks: he was already unblocked, when she made them. You say univolved admins have produced better results. An univolved admin Rjd0060 reviewed the block and endorsed it, but I don't think you are saying this is a better result. Naturally User:SlimVirgin's suggestion to unblock is going to get a positive response—that would happen any time someone is unblocked. However, it was not unilateral: it was done in liaison with an "involved" admin, me, and it was a collaborative decision.[4] Your statement that I am "involved" as regards Sarah is not validated by the clarification discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/The_Troubles#Request_for_Clarification_of_Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.2FThe_Troubles. According to your suggestion, none of the admins listed at the troubles ArbCom should sanction any of the editors listed there. Is this seriously what you are suggesting? The description "punish-the-usual suspects exercise" is not true. No one is being sanctioned because they are a "usual suspect". They will be sanctioned if they offend. If they don't, then they will not be. I strongly object to your pejorative "the real problem there is Tyrenius wading in yet again." Perhaps you would provide proof of this, rather than just making groundless accusations. Otherwise, withdraw your statement. This is the first time I have blocked Sarah. Do you think that Alison was wrong to have previously blocked Sarah? If not, why not? If not, then you are applying inconsistent standards. I have made a full reply to your points at Wikipedia:An/i#Response_to_BrownHaired_Girl, which you have not acknowledged. Tyrenius (talk) 18:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I see zero support for your position at the AN/I discussion BHG. Perhaps it would be better to answer the points made there before "wading in" again. I found your intervention on this issue very unhelpful. We expect abuse from abusive editors, that is part of the job. Very few problematic editors are grateful to be sanctioned in my experience. So it goes. What we do not (and should not) expect is an admin throwing around accusations against other admins who have made a good faith attempt to resolve problems, after the original problem has been solved. Please consider the feedback you have been given here and at AN/I before getting involved again in a situation where you could be seen (I am sure it was not your intention) as supporting and enabling the abusive behaviour of another editor. Thanks for your consideration. --John (talk) 21:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

John, I am in the process writing a reply here. Please can you all back of a bit and give me a chance to respond? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, there's a whole bundle of things here, and I'll try picking up on a few of the points, but I don't have the time to write an essay in response.

First, Tyrenius's claim that Ardfern's block had been addressed before Sarah's outburst. Actually, it hadn't: he had been unblocked, but there had been no follow-up on why such a bad block had been imposed in the first place, and why an unusually hard-working and stay-out-of-conflict editor had been pounced on so rapidly and blocked as if he had violated a policy.

Secondly, both of you are missing the point that there was no suggestion that Sarah was herself engaged in anything disruptive in relation to content of wikipedia, or disrupting any discusion process: her offence consisted solely of sounding off on her own talk page and on mine. Blocks are supposed to be preventive, not punitive, and I fail to see why there was a pressing need for Tyrenius to block Sarah at 00:28[5], when Rockpocket had left a warning half-an-hour before[6] and there had been no further comment from Sarah. Please see Wikipedia:No personal attacks#Recurring_attacks:

Recurring, non-disruptive personal attacks that do not stop after reasoned requests to cease should be resolved through the dispute resolution process. Especially when personal attacks arise as the result of heated debate over article content, informal mediation and third-party opinions are often the best ways to resolve the conflict. Similarly, Wikiquette alerts offers a "streamlined" source of outside opinion. In most circumstances, problems with personal attacks can be resolved if editors work together and focus on content, and immediate administrator action is not required.

Note that last bit "immediate administrator action is not required". Yet in this case, it's what happened, and as result a huge amount of energy has been displaced into discussion of the block rather than the underlying complaint.

This doesn't help, and that's why I have objected: one bad block (on Ardfern) produced an outburst, which was then followed up with another bad block, and objections to that block then produce another storm :( Rather than reaching for the block button, we would all save ourselves an awful lot of energy to devote to content if there was some effort to divert Sarah777 into effective use of the dispute-resolution channels ... but that isn't going to happen so long as the response remains a pile-in.

Rockpocket draws a comparison with my block of Vintagekits over the baronets renaming. If you check back on that saga, you will find a crucial distinction: that block was placed to stop an ongoing disruptive pattern of editing the content of the encyclopedia, when requests to desist had been unsuccessful. The situation was complex, and the explanation was necessarily long, which is why I blocked first and explained later: not as ideal thing to do, but as the lesser of two evils, to stop immediate and ongoing disruption of content. That wasn't the case with Sarah: her offence consisted solely of inappropriate adjectives on her own talk page, and I have seen no suggestion that she was in any way editing content disruptively.

I'm not now going to spend another huge chunk of time engaged in collecting diffs and trying to match the output of the three other admins. My main interest is in content, and that's where I want to devote my energies. I have raised this problem because, with regret, some admins who I have previously respected appear to have become overly focused on the single issue of Sarah's outbursts, and are not helping to divert those grievances down the proper channels.

Please, rather than engaging in further piles of diff-collecting, can we try working together to assist Sarah777 in using the dispute-resolution processes when she feels aggrieved? It would be far more likely to produce satisfactory results all round than focusing solely on the incivility, and if we can show Sarah how dispute resolution can produce mutually agreeable outcomes, we can all get away from this increasingly circular argument about language and about who said what when. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

PS, as an alternative, I would be ready to take up John's suggestion for all four of us recuse ourselves from further admin dealings with Sarah. I would prefer that we actually worked together to find a solutions, but all of us stepping back would be a better path than the present one. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:44, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation and self-justifications. One small correction; I did not suggest that you (or we) recuse from anything, I asked you to clarify whether you included yourself in the call to pull back from certain unspecified areas of Wikipedia. I will take it that you do not. Re "some admins who I have previously respected"; I'll be up front and admit I have lost a lot of respect for you over this matter and your ways of dealing with it. However, I now consider the matter closed and I agree with the conclusion you make above, although not with much of the rest of what you have said. All the best, --John (talk) 22:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

My comparison with Vk's block was to with respect to Fram's block of Adfern (not Sarah's). As far as I can tell Fram considered there to be an ongoing disruptive pattern of editing to the content of the encyclopedia, when requests to desist had been unsuccessful. He said in justification:

"You didn't feel the need to discuss or appeal, but continued to add the categories to numerous articles, and to create the articles. The sensible discussion was the CfD and the DRV: the consistency was being applied now, but you tried to disrupt this, despite the CfD, the DRV, and the two messages above. If you stop creating these categories, I have no problem with you being unblocked. If you intend to continue editing like you were doing before the block, I see no reason to lift it." [He lifted it a short time later, when Adfern agreed to discuss the issues]

That seems to be pretty similar to your reasoning for blocking Vk and hence not "grossly unfair and out-of-process" (your words). Now, there my be more to it than meets the eye as I'm not familiar with the background, but the reasoning behind it appears sound and pretty damn far from "fascist" behaviour.

Finally, I assume as you did before, you are again referring to me among "admins who I have previously respected" who "appear to have become overly focused on the single issue of Sarah's outbursts, and are not helping to divert those grievances down the proper channels." Did you actually read the message that you made that accusation in response to? [7] Because the whole point of that reply was to direct Sarah's grievances down the proper channels. So I understand you wish to get back to content writing, but I would very much like you to tell me what I did that justified your accusations because all you have offered so far was that a "bad block" was made (that had absolutely nothing to do with me and was made after I went off line) and that I was not helping to divert Sarah's grievances down the proper channels (when that was exactly what I was doing). If you don't wish to waste your time doing that then at least have the good grace to withdraw your accusations. Rockpocket 23:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I am not going to go round and round in circles raking over the coals on this. I have said what I meant to say, and I don't see any need to withdraw my observation that the interventions pouncing on Sarah's intemperate language had the unneccesary effect of turning a drama into a crisis.

However, I will note that Fram had made policy on the hoof, in deciding that creating pre-1100 categories was a blockable offence. Creating the categories did not disrupt any existing content or break any links, as Vk's efforts were doing.

So far as I am concerned, the situation remains that a quite unnecessary wikidrama was created by responses which focused solely on the expression of Sarah's complaint, rather than on the substance. I think we have established that we disagree on this, so I am now closing this discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

poking-in-of-nose

I don't really like to see hassle between two Admins I admire, Rock and BHG. (And Rock is correct that we have no issues - he seems to come closer than anyone at understanding where I'm coming from). But I must record that that isn't to say I am happy or feel that the blocks on Ardfern or subsequently myself were right. (In fact were it not for my attempts at civility I'd need to accurately express my true views and feelings on on both in very uncivil terms). I feel the agreement to compromise by my blocker after the intervention of Slim was due to the fact that the intemperate circumstances of the block would likely lead to embarrassment should this go to Arbcom rather than any sense of fair play. (This is my reading of the situation and I realise that the mere explanation of it leaves me open yet again to accusations of incivility; so please appreciate that my comments here are very measured. (Read the comments of the said editor at the ANI as to his preferred "solution" to the "problem" - aka, me - to understand why I feel as I do). And I realise that I'm not "tuned-in" to the dominant Wiki-culture but I must say that I find the characterisation of BHG's comments as "unhelpful" (code for what?) and demands for explanations sounds to me as somewhat intimidating to BHG; which I assume isn't the intention? Sarah777 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 23:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

categorization

Hi BHG -- It's not a CFD but this discussion on Wikipedia talk:Categorization about use of HIDDEN to conceal some "intersection" categories has, I think, very broad implications for categorization policy. If you haven't looked at it yet I think you'll want to. Cheers, Laura Q / Lquilter (talk) 21:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks -- I have made a few comments there, and have more to add. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:01, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Categorization#An_interesting_analysis_but_a_bad_idea_for_restructuring. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:04, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

WikiMapia template

Hello. I see the earlier discussion here has been archived, but your restoration of Template:WikiMapia on January 31 was removed on February 10. I just noticed this today and have restored it again. As I mentioned in my edit summary, although I support the GeoHack effort, I feel that the WikiMapia template has its uses. Also, I've seen a lot of discussion at Wikipedia talk: External links but have not seen any consensus to disable the WikiMapia template. -- Zyxw (talk) 14:40, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

clarification of your ruling on a recent AfD debate

You recently closed the AfD debate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres (2nd nomination) with a ruling that the list should be kept, but renamed: List of events named massacres. This has been done, but due to on going debate I need to ask you for a clarification.

Editors are debating the following: 1) the name change means that an event that is cleary named "massacre" in reliable sources can be included, or 2) the change means that only events that are named "massacre" in their Wikipedia articles (ie in the title or in BOLD in the lead) are to be included.

The prime example of this debate is whether to include the Tiananmen Square Massacre... called such in numerous reliable sources, but not called that in the lead of our Wikipedia article on the topic - Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 (note, however, that it is called a massacre later in the text.)

It would be helpful if you, as the closing admin of the AfD, were to pop over and clarify your intent as it relates to this issue. Blueboar (talk) 15:23, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your note: see my explanation at Talk:List of events named massacres#Explanation_and_question_from_AfD_closer. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:56, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

Thank you for the detail you put into the difficult closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres (2nd nomination) and for your subsequent explanation.

One issue on which you didn’t comment was the merits of the article for navigation purposes. I feel that more navigation aids are needed, but that we wikipedians are having trouble with summary articles for contentious subjects. Other examples include Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Psychiatric abuse (second nomination), which in the end was judged too much a POV target, and Animal testing, which through the controversy is coming along pretty well. Search functions are of limited use when you don’t know exactly what you are looking for. Categories are a rather dry way to browse. Navigation boxes are good if you are already close to where you want to be. Pages like List of events named massacre, to me, serve usefully like navigation boxes for broad subject areas. I’d be interesting in your thoughts. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:13, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, Joe.

I honestly don't think that there is any easy answer to that one, because the usefulness of navigational aids may conflict with the policy of WP:NPOV.

Off the top of my head, I could think of many navigational aids which some readers would find useful: List of atrocities committed by the United States under Republican presidents, List of British Labour Party politicians in financial misconduct scandals, List of wars in which France was the aggressor, List of heads of state alleged to have been war criminals ... and on we go. All of those would undoubtedly be useful navigational aids for some readers, but because their premise is decidedly biased, they clearly fail the neutrality test.

Lists like this can end up being rather useless as navigational aids, because their selection criteria are somewhat arbitrary. Whatever the arguments for keeping List of events named massacres, I don't see that it's much help as a navigational aid; it's more an object of curiosity, a pointer to one aspect of the issues around naming of mass killings, focusing solely on one particular emotive term amongst many possible labels, some of them similarly emotive. For example, List of events named massacres omits all of the incidents known as Bloody Sunday, which makes it pretty useless for anyone looking for a navigational aid to the subject of mass killings.

I'm sure that a very good encyclopedic article could be written discussing how these events are named, and why e.g. the Rape of Nanking got that name, or how American scholars, politicians and American media handled the labelling of My Lai Massacre as a "massacre" rather than using a more benign term such as "incident". Similarly, neutral lists could be constructed as good navigational aids by using neutral inclusion criteria: a List of wars involving France rather than a List of wars in which France was the aggressor, a List of ethical issues in psychiatry rather than a List of psychiatric abuses.

With regard to mass killings, I think that there many ways in which neutral lists could be created by focusing on clearly defined aspects of the spectrum of events defined as "massacre": List of mass killings of civilians in war, List of mass killings of civilians in defeated siege towns, List of mass killings of captured soldiers, List of mass killings of civilians other than in war, and so on. (Those examples may be flawed, but I hope that the intention is clear; inclusion criteria which are not designed to further any particular perspective, and which are reasonably capable of being applied objectively).

I hope that helps. I'm all in favour of navigational aids, and WP:CLS rightly stresses that all the different tools can have their uses. But editors building these tools do need to be careful to construct these navigational aids in ways that are clearly neutral and not arbitrary, otherwise their work risks being deleted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:52, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Quick move?

 Done Would it be possible to move Ronald Arthur Dalzell, 12th Earl of Carnwath over Ronald Dalzell, 12th Earl of Carnwath? Both started out as dupes by the same author, but the first now has more history. Choess (talk) 00:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Done, and histories merged. Hope it's all OK! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Alice in blunderland

Thanks for the note and welcome to the minefield. Outstanding analysis, very clear indeed, if I may say so. The effort probably drained you of spelling energy - still a nice Freudian slip in your post: "altough"! Tyrenius (talk) 00:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm a good speller, but a lousy typist, so if that's the only typo I was doing well! Anyway, glad you reckoned my comments helped, and as you can see I have added some more, in search of precision. To my surprise, it does seem that it may well be possible to reach agreement on a clear and policy-based set of inclusion criteria. Alhamdulillah! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Well there was restuarant, but I've just changed that for you. Your latest proposal looks even better. I can't wait to get out of there! Tyrenius (talk) 04:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I often look at these cases and decide to stay clear unless I can see an exit strategy. In this case, I think that all we can do is try to nail the list down as securely as possible to reliance on reliable sources, NOR etc, and beyond that its up to the editors involved to decide whether they want to make it work or to drag it back to a battleground by reintroducing subjective criteria. If that happens, then I think that a return to AfD would be inevitable. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:51, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I too wish to congratulate you on your close and subsequent clarifications. It is good to have the benefit of your involvement there. --John (talk) 17:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, John. I should point out that it's all built on the heavy-lifting which Tyrenius did at AfD, by explaining the revised criteria. Without that, the closure would have been "delete" ... which would have saved a lot of ongoing work, but would have left a lot of editors unhappy. We still don't quite have an agreed solution, but, we might be getting there .... fingers crossed! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I know, saw Ty's work there. What say we jointly award Tyrenius a Barnstar? Sorry for disagreeing with you over the Sarah777 incident; on reflection I admire the fact that you are prepared to stand up and defend a problematic user with good intentions, strong views and an intelligent mind. A large proportion of the oppose votes in my RfA were cast on a similar basis, because of a situation when I tried to defend someone who was trying to refresh things and got (in my opinion) unfairly treated, and it was felt that I had criticised admins, who were, looking back on it, probably just trying their best as I was, to act fairly as they saw it, support each other, and improve the project. Anyway, all water under the bridge in both cases I hope, and keep up the good work. Get back to me on the Barnstar proposal if you will. Best, --John (talk) 03:32, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar for Ty sounds like a great idea -- count me in. (tho do we actually have a walked-across-a-minefield-and-lived-to-tell-the-tale barnstar? <grin>)

As to Sarah777, I think that one of the ironies was that we all seemed to pretty much agree of the basics — that Sarah is a valued contributor, an original character, and filled with good intentions, but with far too short a fuse — but differed on the path to a solution. I came away feeling a bit fed up with having found once again myself in a minority (my friends are forever advising me to stick my neck out less often!), but I still think that it was a discussion worth having, even if it was painful for all involved, and I'm glad that you too know that feeling. I do hope that it won't impede us working together again; I think that while supporting other admins is important, the best results in any team come when people are prepared when necessary to question a course of action. (One friend describes this process as an endless cycle of "forming, storming, norming, performing", and insists that all the phases are necessary). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The minefield comparison is well-merited. I propose the Surreal Barnstar, on the basis that first of all and most importantly I think Ty will appreciate that one, and secondly it is somewhat surreal what actually happened, I hope you'll agree. See also my proposed message; if you agree please add your own and then either move to Ty's user page or else I will. As to working together in the future, I look forward to that; two such prolific Wikipedians (I have almost half your edit count!) are bound to bump into each other again. --John (talk) 05:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Surreal is a great choice, so I have added my sig and will move it across. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

barnstar moved to User_talk:Tyrenius#Double_congratulations --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice work. Thanks for that. Take care. --John (talk) 16:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I was going to post here to endorse the "moving on together" conversation above, which has, I feel, already happened anyway in advance of the discussion (a novel eventuality on wiki). I'm posting now also to thank you for literally surreal star, by which I am honored and highly amused also, as predicted. I shall try to summon up the energy to have a look at the current state of the debate. Ty 00:24, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

100,000+ Contributions to Wikipedia

Is that true?

Do you do edit changes one letter at a time to boost your edit count? (that's supposed to be a joke. Lame though it is.)

Seriously though, 100,000 is huge!! compared to the edit numbers I usually see.

I don't really have much to say, except to express my amazement.

Best wishes, Wanderer57 (talk) 06:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Fraid it's not one letter at a time, though it is boosted by some big AWB runs, which probably accounts for 15-20K edits, and a lot of minor edits cos I'm a pedant about disambiguation (as well as many other things).

The rest is accounted for by obsessiveness, and getting stuck into too many big projects (Irish politicians, and British ones, and their associated constituencies), and way too many CfDs. I'm sure its all in the DSM IV somewhere ;) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I read the DSM regularly (be honest; almost continuously) on SDM's and I'm pretty sure the DSM does not cover your case. Perhaps your proximity to the Blarney Stone is the root cause. ;o) Wanderer57 (talk) 06:53, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, considering that the DSM pathologises just about everything other aspect of human existence, I'm surprised it has omitted me! I think that the Blarney Stone has an alibi, because I have been in exile for most of the last two decades, but maybe its influence was ingrained before I took the traditional Irish career move :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I've been assured on excellent authority (i.e., after several glasses of Irish whiskey, the good stuff, not the cheap stuff that's shipped overseas) that the influence of the Blarney Stone does not wear off with time. It's like riding a bicycle. Wanderer57 (talk) 07:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

PS - I'll be very disappointed if you don't ask what SDM's are.

Alright, I'll tell you. They are self-diagnosis missions. Cheers, Wanderer57 (talk) 07:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm disappointed. I thought it meant something exotic like Sex with Dead Marsupials, and it feels like a real let-down to find that it's something as tame as self-diagnosis missions. ;) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Touché! Wanderer57 (talk) 16:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Ceist duit

{{WikiProject Ireland category}} I see you have replaced the "conventional" tag with this - have you any guidelines as to where we should use this rather than the other one? Sarah777 (talk) 11:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Freagra!

Just figured it out - that was a category page - tá'im sach mall ar maidin :) Sarah777 (talk) 11:32, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Ya got it in one :)

AFAICR, BHGbot's first job was to add this to squillions of categories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Searching for previously deleted pages

Hello BHG, A previously deleted page has been recreated, how can I find the previous deletion debate? I looked at articles for deletion but there doesn't seem to be a way to search and I really don't have the time to trek through all of 2007 archives. The page itself, regrettably, doesn't have any clue either that it's a recreation of a deleted page. Valenciano (talk) 20:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you tell me which page this is, so that I can take a look?

Meanwhile, an AfD debate for ThisArticleByValenciano is to be found at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ThisArticleByValenciano. That may help you find an AfD is there was one. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:19, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I found it, it was the one on Daithi Doolan. WP seems a bit user unfriendly in cases like this though. Thanks, Valenciano (talk) 21:02, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you help me with the formatting though please on the AFD discussions page? I just can't get it to show up like the others. Thanks, Valenciano (talk) 21:48, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I have checked Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daithí Doolan (2nd nomination), and commented there, and it all looks fine to me. (It would have helped if you had given me a link, but I found it through your contribs list). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:19, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

For your information

Hi BHG. FYI. Wanting to alert you to a discussion where I mentioned you by name. I'm still too involved, but I'm still following the various discussions around age-related and longevity and supercentenarian articles. I'm off to comment in the RfC on Ruby Muhammad now. Carcharoth (talk) 23:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. I have left a note on Bart Versieck's talkpage, responding to your comments. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:13, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

If we're doing the "leaving the note for this type of thing" thing, here my thing. Hope that all is well. Cheers, CP 17:22, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Sir Matthew Brown, Bt.

Please would you speedy delete this redirect. The "political activist" appears to exist, though in my opinion he is nn. The baronetcy and son of Lord Brown stuff is total nonsense. - Kittybrewster ☎ 15:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Since the article was known by that title until earlier today, I think it's fairer to leave the redirect in place until the AfD closes, to help locate the AfD. But even the article is kept for some bizarre reason, the redirect should be deleted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Baronetcy boxes

I would be very grateful if you could check that I have made the boxes on William Lemon and his son, Charles Lemon correctly, and all other necessaries . . . Vernon White ^{. . . Talk} 22:27, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The boxes were very nearly perfect; the only tweak was to pipe the Lemon Baronets link to "Baronet" rather than to "Lemon", i.e. [[Lemon Baronets|Baronet]] rather than [[Lemon Baronets|Lemon]]

I also did a few minor tweaks, such as converting dates to UK format and placing footnote refs before punctuation (rather than after it) ... and added the succession boxes to Charles Lemon for his time as MP. Those are a poin-in the neck in multi-seat constituencies :( --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:51, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on these articles and Carclew House. I hope to add some more material on Charles Lemon's parliamentary activities. Vernon White ^{. . . Talk} 20:11, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Peers who were also baronets

Your views are sought at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Baronetcies#Peers_who_were_Baronets - Kittybrewster ☎ 23:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I have left a comment there. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Harblocking bots

I cannot stress strongly enough that Bots should never be hardblocked. Aside from the fact that you will autoblock non admin Bot users who run them from their own IP, the damage that can be caused by blocking the toolserver IP is considerable. If you do accidentally hardblock a Bot, please lift the autoblock as soon as possible as well as reducing the block to a soft one. I have done this for the BetacommandBot autoblock - [8]. Thanks, WjBscribe 13:50, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The hardblock was unintentional, and I promptly replaced it with a softblock. Thanks very much for stepping in so promptly to help fix my mistake by lifting the autoblock. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

West Cornwall MP Succession box

Please could you help with Michael Williams (MP)? I got in rather a tangle! Vernon White ^{. . . Talk} 21:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not surprised -- those 2-seat constituencies make for horribly complicated succession boxes. I#'ll give it a go now. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Now done. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Diligence

Just a note of acknowledgement for your diligence - if I may - in helping to bring Betacommand to heel. I'd leave you a barnstar, but that seems to be debased coin. Thanks and good luck. Wiggy! (talk) 02:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! That's very kind of you.

Now if you could tell me how to I could learn to walk away from hornet's nests, that'd be even better than a barnstar :) I woukd like a quiet life, but don't often seem to manage to achieve it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Complete mess

I see you are following up some of what has been happening with BetacommandBot. It is a complete mess at the moment, partly I think because some people are reacting very defensively. I was surprised though to see the reaction to your comments, as I know you are active in category-related matters (hence you noticed what was going on) and you don't seem to have been involved with BetacommandBot issues before. In other words, you were a newcomer to these latest debate, and you got treated very shabbily in my opinion. I had previously thought that the defensive attitude of Betacommand and others only occurred with non-free image work or those that had annoyed them, but it seems that there is a real disconnect happening here, a failure to engage with others, and to recognise genuine criticism and to respond politely. MickMacNee, who made some very strong criticisms earlier, seems to have been blacklisted and gets warned off regularly despite making valid points in an OK manner. As I said, a complete mess. Do you have ideas for what to do? Carcharoth (talk) 02:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That's eerie: I was just thinking of messaging you in a similar vein, because you see,m to be one of the few other voices there who has managed to retrain some perspective on it all.

What to do? Easy — run away, fast, stick our heads in the sand, and avoid all the time commitment, hassle and enemy-making that will inevitably come from getting involved in an issue as messy as this one. (As Percy French said, "best be a a coward for 5 minutes/than a dead man all your life")

OK, I don't actually mean that -- that's my self-protective self speaking to the try-to-fix-the-problem me, and I'm afraid that the easy-life me has already lost my internal argument about this. I do have a few ideas, and I'll try to set some of them out in a few minutes, but first I need to replenish my flask of tea. Back soon! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see what we do other than, at this point, go to arbcom (in my mind, specifically about chronic incivility, not so much about bot issues). But, frankly, I hate the idea of touching the tar baby. Nandesuka (talk) 05:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Some thoughts on this mess

I should explain that I have spent most of the last two decades involved pretty much full-time in various political or semi-political campaigning activities, where there are a lot of people heavily committed to things they feel very passionately about, and plenty of opportunities for disappointment, misunderstanding and conflict.

One situation which regularly occurs is where the leadership is forced by circumstances to pursue a course of action which will be controversial with the members/supporters, but which has to be done. Sometimes these are internal issues, such as budget cuts, and sometimes they are related to the organisation's goals, such as a choice having to be made between priorities. I have been sucked into countless bitter disputes in such matters, and they are always pretty horrible for all concerned. However, I eventually began to realise that since this sort of thing is pretty much inevitable, there's no point in simply bemoaning it: it's important to learn how to handle it in an effective way.

This situation seems pretty similar. The fair use image problem had to be dealt with, and it was inevitably going to cause a lot of very bitter objections. However, so far as I can see, there was very little effective planning on how to handle all those inevitable protests, and minimise the damage caused by the process.

I have not read little of the history, but from what I can see of how things are being handled now, the fundamental problem was that the fair use issue seems to have been approached primarily as a technical problem — how to identify, tag, and if necessary remove non-free images — when some minimal hazard analysis should have shown that the community-anger problem was in fact going to be much more serious.

That set off a pretty much inevitable cycle of a necessarily-hyperactive bot starting work, massive howls of anguish, too many of them turning into very unpleasant attacks ... leading to defensiveness and counter-attacks by a bot operator who must have felt with full justification that he was being savaged by a million mad dogs.

I have a huge amount of sympathy for Betacommand in this, who seems to have been ill-equipped and under-supported in this. He ended up an appallingly exposed position, and it must have been absolutely horrible for him.

I think it's quite unfair to pin all the blame for this on Betacommand: in many way, he has been hung out to dry. He clearly has great programming skills, but his communication skills seem poor (at least by now; he may simply be burnt out after too much flack); but above all, he simply didn't have enough backup, and enough supportive people to help him distinguish effectively between shooting-the-messenger abuse and valid criticisms of the processes in use.

The whole process should have been differently structured from the outset, with Betacommand concentrating on his main skill (programming), and a team of other editors to take the flack and -- crucially -- do the painful and difficult job of both defusing the attacks rather than escalating the responses, and taking great care to try to see whether the torrent of abuse and complaints included legitimate criticisms of the process. That last bit is vital: in these situations, many people who have valid complaints do not make them politely or constructively, but if the situation is going to avoid descending into a brawl, it is really important to accept that a person who is behaving in a hostile and unreasonable way may still have a genuine grievance.

Trying to find those genuine grievances takes a cool head, which can be hard to maintain under fire, which is why it's important to have a team of people taking the flack, who can take a break when it gets too much and who can remain open enough to keep on looking for ways to improve the course of action.

That doesn't seem to have happened here: so far as I can see, there was plenty of scope for improving the way the bot worked, with more conciliatory and informative notices, and perhaps a dedicated noticeboard for user grievances with a team of people trained to handle them, but that too much energy was spent on firefighting the protests rather than improving the process.

So we got into a deadly cycle where user complaints were not always effectively addressed even when there was scope for improvement, partly because Betacommand (the person who should have been implementing the fixes) was getting too scarred because he had been too exposed, and those who supported the work were too quick to rush to defence of BC's inevitable lapses, rather than trying to both support the bot operator and maintain high standards.

I know that this must read so far as a don't-start-here comment, but bear with me. I am sure that the flaws in process design which led to this situation were as usual the result of cockup rather than conspiracy, and that the very loose management structure of wikipedia makes it very hard to plan for and co-ordinate the handling of a situation such as this; most wikipedia processes are ad hoc and unstructured, and formal processes such as RfC, XfD, arbcom, etc, have evolved slowly over a long time to deal with issues where experience has shown a need for careful handling, and a lot of time has been available to buikd consensus on an appropriate process.

There's no point in crying over the fact that this could have been handled better; what matters is learning from what's happened, and improving the processes.

One of the necessary steps is already underway: taking Betacommand out of the front line as the operator of the non-free image bot. That should have been done a long tine ago, but notwithstanding concerns about he details, the fact that is being done now is a very welcome development.

That process has starkly revealed the other major flaw in the process: that bot approval and bot management is being treated as if it were a solely technical task. Your have rightly pointed to a need for BRFA reform, and I think that's crucial, because it seems clear to me that most of the problems with Betacommand's bots have not been technical, they have social. We need some structure for ensuring that impact of the bot on collaborative efforts can be reviewed before authorisation is given, because that collaboration is at the core of wikipedia. The intentions of Betacommand's bot have been generally good (with a few lapses), but as BAG's instant-approval of the new bot showed, there simply isn't any effective mechanism for examining the effect of bots on collaborative work, and on the techniques and patterns of work which editors have developed. That's a recipe for trouble, because it simply means that problems are not addressed until they become conflicts, and the ANI ends up becoming a forum for (largely unsuccessful) attempts at conflict resolution.

I think it's important to acknowledge that BAG does a fine job of technically assessing bots: assessing their suitability for the task, setting their edit rate, imposing limitations on their scope, etc. The fact that there are so many bots operating with so few technical problems is a credit to their work.

However, just as you or I don't have the technical savvy of programming and server technologies to assess the technical side, it's unreasonable to expect the technical wizards in BAG to be familiar with all the processes and conventions at work amongst editors. That's no criticism of the BAG people, just a reflection that of the fact few editors (if any) understand the whole of this huge and diverse project.

The problem now is that the storms seem to have left BAG feeling very defensive, and I don't know how it will be possible to reopen dialogue. But if that can be done, the best suggestion I have so far is that BRFA should be explicitly cast as a two-part process:

1. technical assesment of a bot's suitability for its task, as at present
2. a fixed period of community consultation on the merits of the bot, where input is specifically sought from interested parties -- whether that's relevant wikiprojects, WT:CFD for CFD-related bots, WT:CAT for other category-related bots, etc. Sure, there will inevitably be some excess noise, but better noise before a bot starts work than after editors find it causing unwanted ill-effects.

In addition to this, I think that there needs to be some lightweight process for discussing issues which arise with a bot, something without the intensity of RfC or the raucousness of WP:ANI. I didn't know whether WP:BOWN might fit the bill, but if a bot could be improved there doesn't currently seem to be in practice any intermediate step between a private note to the bot owner and a complaint at ANI (which is inevitably taken as an accusation). Take as one example the issue I raised wrt to BetacommandBot's edit summaries being so much less informative than Cyedbot's: there should be somewhere that this sort of thing could be raised in a constructive atmosphere, but in a placed where discussion is centralised.

That's pretty much all I can suggest for now. The one issue I haven't really touched on is Betacommand, because it's a difficult one to see solutions. I fear that it is headed to arbcom, which I think is unfortunate, because arbcom tends to polarise, at least until a case is settled. All I can suggest for now is that Betacommand should be moved into a much less exposed position wrt to non-free images, but the problem remains that his bots do many other tasks and however it has happened, he is now in no mood to hear any concerns about their operation as anything other than nonsense or personal attack. I don't know how that can be addressed without confrontation; arbcom is now areal possibility, but will polarise. I wonder if there might be consensus for some sort of diplomatic and neutral task force to review BC's authorised tasks and how they are run, and see if it can come up with a set of proposals for reducing conflict?

However, I'm afraid that I don't have much confidence that Betacommand can avoid arbcom. He seems to focus on the technical abilities of his bots, and is comparative weak in the collaborative aspects of understanding the potentially huge effects that these tools can have on wikipedia's very fragile ecology, and these problems are longstanding, predating the nonfree image cleanup. Would mentorship be appropriate?

Anyway, that's all for now. Hope this helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That is a good assessment of the situation, and thanks for writing that, especially the bit about how Betacommand was left exposed - I've alternately supported and criticised him, and it was distressing to see others taking positions of unqualified support or unqualified abuse. Also, the bit about BAG reform is good. I do have a few points to raise or add. (1) A help desk was set up: Wikipedia:Image copyright help desk (though this was relatively late in the approximately 2-year-long process); (2) There is a proposed RfC process for users and their bots at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct#Use of bot privileges (very new and untested); (3) There was an arbitration case before about Betacommand: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand; (4) There was an MfD about BAG, see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Bots/Approvals group. I'm sure you knew most of this already, but I'm noting them here for the record. Hope it helps. Carcharoth (talk) 09:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If someone comes to my talkpage with a civil, non-aggressive comment/request I do respond to them and try to be as helpful as I can. As for BAG and this new bot, BAG does not normally do that, I had conducted a lot of private discussion to line things up. had the NFC bot followed normal process within 12 hours it would have been bogged down with trolls and others trying to just stop the handover. in any discussion that I get involved with (for the most part) turn into a flame war and a pissing match. In an attempt to actually improve the encyclopedia Prior discussion with all involved parties, from me, BAG, and the Bcrat were conducted. Bot clones are normally processed fairly quickly. this was forced through to avoid trolls. just look at the talk page for an example. If a use comes to me with a comment/question/suggestion, and they dont post directly to AN/ANI or some other flamefest I gladly listen and do my best to address their issue. see the recent posts to BCBot's talkpage. there was an issue with redirects it was brought to my attention, I addressed it and reverted the edits in question. no big deal. β^_command 17:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that's not the case. See User talk:Betacommand/20080301#Removal_of_redlinked_categories: two hours after asked not to remove redlinked cats without authorisation[9], you resumed that work[10] , and continued when challenged again two hours later[11]. You continued for a further 80 minutes until challenged again, and when a further challenge[12] did not produce an immediate stop [13], the bot was blocked (4 minutes after the request). By the time it was blocked, you has actually stopped, but by then the matter was on its way to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Betacommand#Categories.

At that point, it would have been very simple for you to say something along the lines of "Sorry, I thought that this was part of CfD work. There seems to be concern that it is not, and since it does not seem to be unambiguously viewed as part of CfD work, I will not resume that task unless there is explicit authorisation from BAG to do so. In the meantime I will revert the redlinked-categ-removal edits which the bot has just made - please may I have rollback privileges to do so".

That sort of assurance made promptly, up-front, would have been a wonderful assurance of good faith. Unfortunately, you didn't make any such offer, and that's why things spiralled. You didn't acknowledge that this was an unapproved task, you didn't offer to seek explicit approval for this task in future, and you didn't offer to revert despite numerous requests.

You run one of the most active bots in wikipedia, and there are bound to be objections to some of its work. If you are going to be the person to run this bot, you really do need to make sure that you look carefully at objections, making absolutely sure that the bot's task is authorised, and leaving no-one in any doubt that if there is any question about the effects, that you will back off — in other words, when you are this exposed, set yourself the highest possible standards. That has not been happening, and that's why the objections to your not are not confined to those who simply dislke nonfree content compliance. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

The Barnstar of (True) Diligence

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		For all the crap that you've been facing for doing your job as an admin, and not backing down when called a "dumbass." Bellwether BC 06:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! That's very kind of you. This hasn't been a fun few days (though I did have a bit of a giggle about being called a "dick"; my name ought have been a bit of a clure about that one!), but I hope that we may be able find some way of diverting all this conflict into some more constructive process which could produce solutions rather than more heat. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think arbcom is the only logical next step. RfC would simply devolve into ... never mind. You know the old saying about "nothing nice to say." Anyway, I appreciate your attempt to prod BC into some constructive changes, and I am truly sorry that you've had to deal with the base incivility that he tends to dish out when challenged. You didn't deserve it. BTW, many thanks to Maxim for the barnstar template... ;) Bellwether ^B_C 06:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I will reiterate my position here that an arbcom case would not be helpful before the deadline of 23 March. We should all work towards ensuring that the deadline passes peacefully and that there is not abrupt change of policy after that date, and that the non-free content criteria compliance planning and work continues. If incivility, disruption and failure to work with others (whether in non-free image work or in other areas) continues in the month after that deadline has passed, then I will personally file the arbitration case (or at least support anyone who does). But I will not support an arbitration case before 23 March (though I will provide evidence if one is filed and accepted). Carcharoth (talk) 10:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again, BellWether, for the nice comments. As to arbcom, I see where Carcharoth is coming from, and I personally don't want this to go to arbcom, because it's such a time-intensive process, and it rarely seems to breed any goodwill. However, I think that our success in avoiding that will depend to a certain extent on how BC conducts himself, and I rather despair on that front: the people issuing him barnstars despite his misconduct are entrenching him in his incivility and failure to work collaboratively, and the permanent-critics are goading him. The only potential good point on the horizon seems to be the long-overdue new bot, which should at least shield him from some of the random abuse. (HOW DAIR YEW FASHIST DELEAT MY IMAGE!!!!!!!! ITS A HUGE BAND And the HOTTEST GARRIDGE-PUNK GREWP IN SOUTH EEST DULUTH SINCE .... YOU ARE AN IGGGGNORANT ....) etc --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think one of the problems is that he takes the last type of criticism personally, and then lumps those who legitimately criticize him into that same category. I've done a bit of FUR image work in response to the mass-taggings, trying to bring some clearly compliant images in line with BC's "letter-of-the-law" tagging, but I just got discouraged and overwhelmed with the mass of images there are to look at, and I finally stopped. For awhile, I attempted to engage him at his talk, but that was met with resistance/hostility, so I stopped that as well. Anyways, since two of the most coherent critics aren't willing to go the arbcom route (I really have admired how both you and Carch have "carried yourselves" through this fiasco), I guess we've sixteen more days of incivility to get through. I may just leave the issue alone completely during that time, as I'm growing more than a bit weary of it. Regards, Bellwether ^B_C 12:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It can take a very long time to learn how to insulate oneself from that sort of tirade. I was in a position for a few years where I was a public whipping post, getting a steady stream of hate mail and a few death threats -- only from my own side of course, per the old rule that the people opposite are your opponents, but your enemies are behind you -- and on several occasions I just flipped with it. Frankly, when the sh1t is hitting the fan all the time, it's very hard to resist the temptation to just take no prisoners, and shoot on sight. When 9 out of ten criticisms are unfounded, it can feel like too much work to try to filter out the ones that are genuine.

We'll just have to see how it goes for the next two weeks .... --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Louis Chirillo

On the test page User:Kitty53/Test page, I am working on creating an article on Louis Chirillo. He is going to have his Wikipedia article ready in the future. Brown Haired Girl, you may help me with the article if you have time, or have another user help me. Thank you. Respond on my talk page if you can't do so.Kitty53 (talk) 21:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Kitty, I'm sorry that I am not really in a position to give this much time, but the main point I would urge you consider is the need for references in reliable sources, and the need to use footnotes. WP:CITE explains how to do this, and WP:BLP explains why it is particularly important to do this for an article on a living person.

You should also consider WP:BIO, which explains the importance of demonstrating taht the person is notable. In general, it will in most cases be more than enough to cite two items of substantial coverage in reliable sources which are independent of Chirillo. However, note that while a directory listing such as IMDB can be a good way of referencing some points of fact, this sort of listing does not establish notability.

Hope this helps!--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

MP Box

Please could you help with an MP box for Edward William Wynne Pendarves. Vernon White ^{. . . Talk} 23:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, that's done. The syntax is pretty horrible, but do you think that if you used that one as a model you might be able to try making one yourself next time? Obviously, I'd be happy to look over it and suggest changes if you like. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#BetacommandBot

I've listed an arbitration case under this tentative name to resolve the longstanding conflict basically surrounding this issue. This is a message to inform you that you're listed a party there. Maxim_(talk) 00:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I have mentioned your talk page comment above in my statement. I would urge you to submit a version of that yourself. Carcharoth (talk) 07:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

One last question Re: List of events named massacre

I think we are all but settled, and can let the list run for a while to see if the revised version works or not ... but we are having one final disagreement about the inclusion criteria that we could use your input on... should we put the inclusion criteria in hidden text or state it in plain visible text for all to see? Arguments for and against are stated on the talk page. Please drop by and opine. Thanks. Blueboar (talk) 01:10, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Arguments for seem to consist solely of WP:IAR. Arguments against include Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid. --John (talk) 01:20, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll comment at Talk:List of events named massacres. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I've moved it to Wikipedia: space.  :) Corvus cornix_talk 07:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

That was very quick. The draft was misnamed any way, so I deleted it. Could any further comments please be made at Talk:List of events named massacres. Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Talk:List of events named massacres/Inclusion criteria

There's a typo - "lastest" should presumably be "latest"! PamD (talk) 08:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Pam. Maybe "lastest" should be a word, but at this stage it isn't :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:19, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Too much like "most unique"! Cheers. PamD (talk) 09:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

When we forced to "play"^* sports at school, most people came near to last on at least some occasions. But I managed it so often that I think "lastest" would have been an appropriate adjective: "Yes, BHG was the lastest of the last". :)
^{*I deplore the use of the word "play" for such systematic and institutionalised humiliation} --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry

Hello BHG. Chatting with you today reminded me how much of a good editor you are. I wanted to offer a flower of apology for my rather intemperate response to your comments last week. You caught me at an unfortunate time and I reacted badly to what was clearly an attempt to help. I regret that and hope it will not effect our working relationship in the future. Rockpocket 05:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much, that's sweet of you. :) (And not just because I love flowers!)

I think I owe you an apology too, for stomping in rather heavily in the argument over how to coax Sarah; I intended to try to calm a difficult situation, but since that wasn't the effect, I evidently got my approach all wrong. Delighted to see that we have moved on, even if our sockpuppeteer friend hasn't! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

"Troll"?

Troll, is it? Giano doesn't get to discuss the Troubles now? Mind your mouth and your tone, girlfriend. Please. Bishonen | talk 08:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC).

It's lovely to hear from you again Bishonen, though it's a pity that you only ever pop up on my talk page to defend Giano's trolling.

If Giano's interventions could occasionally acknowledge a few a salient points, they might be better received: e.g. the substantive problem here is a long-term disruptive editor who has been banned for using sockpuppets after umpteen last chances, and Giano does not support enforcement of the ban, preferring to attack the admins dealing with the case.

If you are concerned about "mouth and tone", could you please pay some attention to Giano's description of an arbcom ruling as a device to protect their "errors stupidity", or this instance of himdenouncing admins as "stupid" for enforcing policy against a banned sockpupeteer? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't pop up on any pages much lately. But I'm making an exception, because for you to post a provocative sneer at a user on civility parole seems so... so... well, I'll keep my vocabulary to myself. The best I can hope is that you weren't aware of doing that. (Even though a glance at Giano's page is enough for full information). Bishonen | talk 14:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC).

P.S. Ah. I now see that you were perfectly aware of it. [14][15]. You insult a user on civility parole... oh boy, I'm still blinking in amazement here. I'm sorry, but I must change my mind and be more explicit: that, BHG, was a dirty thing to do. Bishonen | talk 14:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC).

No, I became aware of Giano's civility patrol after I made my comment about his trolling, and I stand by it. Giano has a long history of sniping at anyone who takes enforcement action against Vk. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Bishonen, a troll is a troll is a troll. Just because someone is your friend does not mean they are not a troll. I am however glad that you are taking an interest in civility. _(1 == 2)^Until 14:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Another Cornish MP needs a Box

Please can you help, yet again, with a complex box for John Hearle Tremayne MP for Cornwall for 20 years. Vernon White ^{. . . Talk} 09:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you think that you could have a go at this one, perhaps by using the box from Edward William Wynne Pendarves as a template? I'd be happy to look over it afterwards. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)