User talk:E.M.Gregory

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Re: thank you for noticing

I went through a similar pattern of yours and I tried countless times to discuss with... her (I was convinced ST was a "him") about the same issues you raised, particularly mass voting at AfDs copy-pasting ultra-vague and often difficult to understand one-line comments (even five per minute) and mass-nominating for deletion every poorly sourced (according to them) article they stumble in, without any sort of WP:BEFORE, without notifying the article creators, and often even ignoring the sources which are already in the article. Unfortunately, I had similar (lack of) responses, and in fact the worst thing is ST's IDONTHEARTHAT attitude and their lack of improvements over time (the absurd Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hazeldine is just from yesterday). As I said multiple times, ST apparently has a typical WIKIPEDIA:THE VIDEOGAME attitude, they don't really care about improving the encyclopedia but just use WP as it was a game, and just as a way to spend their free time. About ANI, ST had some ventures there, eg. see here and here, both of them closed as no consensus. This user has some unexpected die hard defenders (one of them had has the guts to describe ST's work at AfD as "invaluable") who would prevent a new ANI report from ending with a different outcome from no consensus. So sorry, I haven't any advice other than keep on noting these issues in talk page and AfD discussions, maybe one day this editor will open their eyes or some decent admin will note it and will took some countermeasures (but I am a bit skeptical on it). Cavarrone 19:31, 3 August 2016 (UTC

Linking ot a similar response form another user, to make it easier for me to locate.[1].E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:44, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Not sure, probably you would need page mover rights or the assistence of an admin to do it. Cavarrone 04:56, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Cavarrone I have made several requests on ST's talk page, (you're right, Swister is male) asking that he slow down and read articles for plausible claims to notability before bringing them to ADF. He has deleted my requests and yesterday told me never to bring such a request to his talk page again. I was just looking at yet another article that should never have been brought to AFD, and found a complaint there from a highly experienced and respected editor @NorthAmerica1000:. NorthAmerica1000 was creating the article Willamette Valley Vineyards and "was still working on adding sources, copy editing, etc., and the nominator just came along and nominated for deletion in the middle of this. It would have been nice to have had more time to work on the article. See also WP:OVERZEALOUS" [2]. I am considering bringing a complaint to ANI, requesting something specific, such as a temporary ban on bringing articles to AFD, or some sort of mentoring arrangement (despite the fact that ST is a long-time editor) under which ST would have to run articles by some designated editor before bringing them to AFD. If, that is, either of you think that such a request/discussion has a chance of being anything more than a waste of editorial time, as so many of Swister's AFD nominations and his iVotes at AFD are.E.M.Gregory (talk) 11:18, 16 August 2016 (UTC):::::@Cavarrone:@Northamerica1000:

Normally, I would strongly recommend pinging/notifying the user being discussed here to allow them to present their point of view. However, the user has stated that they don't want to communicate with me (here), so I won't be pinging them. However, pinging DGG, who has worked with this user for some time, who can perhaps provide some input. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:58, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

(Also pinging Cavarrone) I have noticed that the user frequently uses the "silent treatment" against users to to limit communication. Here are some diff examples in addition to those above: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] [9]. This could be potentially perceived as Wikipedia:Gaming the system, using such statements in an intentional manner as a technique to avoid any type of criticism, because if a user then attempts to communicate directly about genuine, important concerns, (even in a calm, civil manner, as I have always done) the user can then just point to behavioral guidelines and threaten to go to ANI and such. I'm not stating that gaming is certainly occurring, only that it could be perceived as a possibility. While I understand that the user apparently just wants to be left alone to continuously nominate articles for deletion, it seems reasonable that questionable nominations will be challenged. Also, the user nominates a great deal of articles for deletion, and per this high rate, it is reasonable that some editors will have questions or concerns.

Also, inre this diff, it is concerning and inappropriate for the user to make demands to another user to not deprod articles they have prodded. Also, users have repeatedly asked the user to consider slowing down over a significant period of time, to follow proper procedures, etc. other than at ANI (e.g. [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17]). North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 12:21, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Inre concerns about the user's AfD nominations, here's the AfD stats for their nominations. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 14:15, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Struck that during his most recent 500 visits to AFD, Swister has iVoted to keep only once.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:01, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Just to see what a totally rational, utterly objective voting pattern would look like (yes, this editor is aware of the NOJOKINGONWIKIPEDIA rule), I ran the same search on my own edits [18]. 99 keeps 178 deletes.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:08, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

@Michig:@Sam Sailor:@Unscintillating, Kvng, St170e, and Atlantic306:@MelanieN:@Rebbing: who have also been involved with Swister on this issue.:E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:53, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

@Michig, Sam Sailor, Unscintillating, Kvng, St170e, Atlantic306, MelanieN, and Rebbing: Re-pinging, because users added later (diffs: [19], [20], [21], [22]) may not have received the ping, because the notifications only work based apparently upon the initial signature added (see Wikipedia:Notifications). North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:03, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

1. The ratio of keep to delete !votes will depend on what articles one chooses to vote on. (Indeed, I have perhaps cynically) advised people interested in RfA to make sure they have a good balance.) I could easily get a record of !voting only for delete, and the articles always getting deleted, or exactly the opposite. On the other hand, anyone who likes to !vote on the really problematic articles where opinion is divided will not have a very good record of having their !votes match the results. (and the same goes for AfD nominations, or Prods, or CSD nominations, or AfC decisions) Take a look for example at the Speedies that stay un-acted on the longest--those are ones where no admin is willing to commit themselves.) That said, I agree with you that ST's balance is wrong. The question is how to get him to correct it.

2. A few very well established editors here have the habit of using very demanding messages on their Prod nominations. Such messages may intimidate the beginners, but when I patrol prods, I make a point of seeing how many I can disagree with. With one particular editor, this has been going on for years--I'm sure he's aware of me. Neither of us has ever confronted the other. But with the recent group of ST's Prods, I decided to let others decide most of them, and the ones I did do were mainly ones I disagreed with, in the hope he'd get the message. (It's impossible to patrol Prod without being aware of who placed them, for editors who use characteristic messages)

3. Over the years, my own characteristic idiosyncrasy (or perversity, if you prefer) has been to go opposite to the prevailing direction, with the excuse of trying to keep it from going overboard. 8 years ago was a very deletionist period, and I tried to keep as many articles as possible if there was any possible argument. The last few years has seen altogether too many promotional articles being kept, so I concentrate on them and do just the opposite. I expect to "lose" much of the time. I don't really think of it as losing, I think of it as contributing to the dialogue, and to avoid feeling frustrated, I rarely look back.

4. Seven Years ago I proposed a change to deletion policy requiring the use of WP:FIRST, to the extent of making it impossible to nominate an afd without it. It actually did get consensus, but I don't like the work of actually implementing procedures, so it was never done, and the next time it was proposed it did not have consensus. And it shouldn't have, because Notability is not the only reason for deletion, and no absolute requirement would be able to deal with the variations. (I think we often concentrate on notability, without enough regard to all the other possible reasons for WP:NOT,many of which are much less fuzzy. ) Nor do we usually focus on the general questions of 1/would people expect to find this in an encyclopedia ; and 2/ would it help the encyclopedia to have this article. Nor have we ever found a satisfactory way of dealing and enforcing all the various combination article and merge possibilities, or preventing merges from being destructive, or following up on decisions to keep, provided that promotionalism is removed or the article is improved in other ways. We can deal with keep/delete decisions much better than anything involving content.

5. In practice, AfD is not only for deleting articles. It also serves the function of testing consensus, or determining an effective guideline, and so I will sometimes nominate an article without expecting or hoping for any particular result. And despite what we customarily say, AfD is often the only effective way of getting cleanup. (similarly with speedy or prod--indeed , BLPProd has this as one of its specific purposes, of trying to get articles sourced if possible.

6. There are many reasons why someone may have a very unbalanced approach: hoping to gradually shift consensus, focussing on only one aspect of the problem, and other potentially good reasons which can overall be helpful. There are also some that are unhelpful but not culpable, in my experience mainly doing too much of the same thing, There are also a range of unhelpful reasons, including laziness and incompetence and bias. Of course these can be countered by others !voting or deciding the right way, but its not productive to waste time on articles that will be speedy keep (it is not altogether absurd to spend time on articles which one is unable to source, and for wihich others find sources)--or to have to go to afd to delete an article which should be a clear CSD.

As an un-numbered point, I'll get in touch with the editor. If I can't convince he, then we may have a problem. DGG ( talk ) 19:27, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I just want to say that while you and I often disagree, I cannot recall finding your nominations irresponsible or uninformed. Swister, by contrast, came to my attention over time as I began to recognize his name because his ivotes were literally unintelligible, because his opinions were so clearly contrary to evidence that I or other editors had presented and to what I was seeing with my own eyes in searches, and because articles he brought to AFD with an assertion that his searches have found no significant sources, so frewuently proved with even so simple an exploration as doing something so simple as clicking HighBeam in the tool bar in Swister's nomination statement proves the contrary. [[23]] He edits so incredibly fast that I am almost persuaded that he simply takes pages with a smallish number of sources and editors, and throws them up at AFD withot searching at all - or even reading some of them. And that his iVotes at AFD are exactly what they look like: opinions rendered without querying the sources. The problem with all of this, of course, is that although AFD has multiple purposes, it is supposed to be a place to bring articles where notability is questionable in some way. He wastes a tremendous amount of editorial time, and makes WP a frustrating and unpleasant place to work. Nor can Swister, in my experience, be swayed from a position once taken. In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shelley Webb, the AFD where I lost my ability to WP:AGF when dealing with Swister, I was clearly exasperated by the time of my Aug. 3 edit, the one that starts "A confession and an hypothesis..." but Swister's arrogant, stubborn refusal to consider that he might have acted hastily show why I have come to the conclusion that SwisterTwister's editing is a problem that needs to be addressed.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:30, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

there are very few editors at AfD who are willing to actually admit error: you and I are among them, and I can think of about 10 others. A certain amount of stubbornness is par for the course here at WP. But of course it can get too extreme, and a few inclusionists and deletionists both have been too extreme and were treated accordingly. But I have always found that at AfD the best course even with a few of the most arrogant deletionists I encountered in my first few years here, and even a few of the people I encounter now who do not consider promotionalism a reason for deletion, is never to mention their name in an afd discussion. (To a certain extent, the notification system and pinging does make it harder, to avoid names,if one wishes to alert someone to a contrary argument; but still , it can be limited to a ping; and there's no point in even that if it's clear the person is watching.) The only time I will mention an opponents name in an AfD is if I have a honest non-ironic reason to thank them or praise them, and I do look for such opportunities. (In return, I find they do the same for me). Even in a discussion about an afd, or about an edit, as here, you will notice I am avoiding names. I, and most experienced admins, try even to avoid that in AfD, except of the initial statement of the problem.

More generally, too many people see WP as a place to safely get personal, more than they would face-to-face. I however see it as a place where one can completely avoid getting person, and just focus on the argument, because you don't have to think about whom the other party is or what they have otherwise done. DGG ( talk ) 17:51, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

There's definitely a problem here, and a lot of time is being wasted by these AfD nominations, but if it continues my preference would be for discussing it on one of the noticeboards rather than on another user's talk page so that everything is out in the open. --Michig (talk) 09:42, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Was pinged so I will comment briefly: As a frequent AfD patroller I am very familiar with ST's comments on nominations. They are sometimes semi-incoherent and rarely add any insight to the discussion. (Samples:"Delete as entirely PR, nothing at all consisting of independent substance of how there's enough for its own notability, all enough for deleting."[24] "Delete because having two appearances is not anywhere near enough to suggest her own notability and, at best, she's best mentioned at a lost as a whole, not for her own actual article and this is because there's no independent notability substance."[25]) I hadn't looked before at his record of nominating AfD's but the record is kind of appalling. 1500 articles nominated, and only 58.7% of them deleted? This must be creating an enormous waste of other editors' time. It may well be time to put some kind of limit on his AfD activities. I can't evaluate his PROD nominations since he doesn't keep a PROD log, but that may need to be looked at as well. I agree that a user page is not the place to discuss this, especially when he himself is not part of the discussion. If this is taken to a noticeboard I will comment there. --MelanieN (talk) 17:55, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

ST has been perfectly clear that he does not want to discuss his behavior or even hear from me (and apparently several others also). Any challenge is met with belligerence. My assumption was that since AfD is not a vote and his contributions have not been particularly comprehensible and consistently delete, that any administrator with AfD experience would know not to give these much weighting. Wishful thinking perhaps. Stuff like this is not fun so lately I choose to WP:VOLUNTEER elsewhere. 04:45, 26 August 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kvng (talk • contribs)

A cup of coffee for you!

Thanks for your ongoing contributions and efforts to improve Wikipedia. North America1000 02:37, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

rfc

As a recent editor to Planned presidential transition of Donald Trump, you may be interested in a recent RfC that has been opened. LavaBaron (talk) 22:48, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Carrie Morgridge is temporarily back

But the deletion discussion continues.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:15, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

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Antisemitism in France

You should know that your significant and very well-sourced edits to the referenced article have been deleted several times by one user for spurious reasons; so far, others have been able to put your edits back. Cheerio, XavierItzm (talk) 14:55, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Please see the talk page and pay attention to my edit summaries. I had very clear reasons for these deletions. If you have a problem with them, please engage with them on the talk page and read the relevant wikipedia policies. -Dan Eisenberg (talk) 20:04, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Nomination of The Bloody Day in Jaffa for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article The Bloody Day in Jaffa is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Bloody Day in Jaffa until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Huldra (talk) 20:37, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

A courtesy notice posted ~24 hours after this highly experienced editor started an AFD on an article with a WP:SNOWBALL's chance of being deleted. It has, however, been the occasion of a 2 slanderous attack(s) on my editing. 3 if you count the outrageous tone of Nom. The Middle East: a topic where rational human beings lose their cool.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:00, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Nomination of Kate Prusack for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Kate Prusack is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kate Prusack until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. DGG ( talk ) 00:27, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	Thank you for your diligence in research re: Edward William Cornelius Humphrey. Mitzi.humphrey (talk) 15:53, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

ANI discussion notice

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is User:SwisterTwister. Thank you. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:59, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

ANI

The case you are making at ANI is pretty weak. I would suggest withdrawing it. Even if it was a lot stronger the people here do not care about blatant antisemitism when it comes from an ostensible "anti-Zionist". No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:12, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

@No More Mr Nice Guy: I think Nick Clegg got this right, but I will bow to your experienced judgment. How do I "withdraw"?E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:34, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

I have no doubt Clegg got it right, but my experience is that they usually punish anyone who points out antisemitic comments by other editors, unless it's some kind of blatant caricature "Jews drink childrens' blood!" sort of thing. On the other hand, Floq seems to be willing to look into this, so it's really up to you. You should understand that this may end with them putting some kind of sanction on you for daring to complain, though. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:39, 30 August 2016 (UTC)