User talk:Giano

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Demand the choice to upload to Wikipedia only. [1] [2]

Old messages are at:

• User talk:Giano II/archive 1 (From Oct 2004)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 2 (From Jan 2005)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 3 (From July 2005)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 4 (From Jan 2006)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 5 (From July 2006)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 6 (From Jan 2007)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 7 (From July 2007)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 8 (From Jan 2008)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 9 (From July 2008)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 10 (From Jan 2009)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 11 (From July 2009)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 12 (From Jan 2010)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 13 (From July 2010)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 14 (From Jan 2011)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 15 (From July 2011)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 16 (From Jan 2012)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 17 (From Jan 2013)
• User talk:Giano II/archive 18 (From July 2013)
• User talk:Giano/archive 19 (From Jan 2014)

This user has been on Wikipedia for 19 years, 6 months and 7 days.

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why else has he not been desysopped

Because, even if we could come to an agreement about his actions (we can't, and that means there are some that do and some that don't condone it), his peers are not able to desysop him. Only Arbcom can. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:24, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Then it woudl be a good idea if his peers recommended to Arbcom that they get straight on with it, before he does any more damage.  Giano  16:28, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion

Hi Giano,

You feel so strongly about Eric's situation, so I thought maybe you should start a thread about it on Jimbo's talk just as you did about your block on Commons. It could make an interesting discussion about "a totalitarian, secretive climate" and hopefully it will bring Eric back.

Regards. 69.181.40.211 (talk) 15:25, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• I think Jimbo has heard quite enough from me lately. I think Eric's situation is appalling; Admins can't wrongly insult and accuse people of dreadful crimes and then refuse to apologise because that person may have committed a crime in the past of may do so in the future - that's the road to something very unpleasant. I've said all I can say on the subject; it's now up to the community to decide if they are happy with Admins treading that road.  Giano  15:40, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• Well, Jimbo's talk page is a good place for the discussions that attract the wider community. I am sure he doesn't mind. Maybe I would start this discussion myself.69.181.40.211 (talk) 16:24, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• It's a free country - at least it is here on this side of the pond, but I would give our young friend another chance to unreservedly apologise to Eric before you do so.  Giano  17:37, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• Now you got me lost. What Eric Gorman has to do with all of that?69.181.40.211 (talk) 19:42, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• Have you tried a daily aspirin crumbled into a gin and tonic? My great aunt is convinced that it's saved her senility and dementia. I'm going try it now, I become so confused. I think I meant Kevin Gorman, then perhaps I didn't - who knows who I meant.  Giano  19:47, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Mount Vernon

Hi Giano, recently inserted an Infobox as well as some other changes for Mount Vernon, which I see you undid, stating that it was not necessary and to not add without a Tall Page discussion. I'm a rather new contributor and not familiar with a Tall Page discussion. Any guidance you can provide would be very much appreciated. Landry76 (talk) 16:05, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

• Firstly, let me congratulate on your skills as a new user; I doubt I could assemble such an accomplished info box, even after years of editing [3], let alone on my first ever edit [4]. Secondly, contrary to some Wikipedians belief, info boxes are not mandatory, as was established in an Arbcom case last year. This is especially true on pages connected with the arts (eg: architecture) If you strongly believe the page needs one, the the etiquette is to raise the matter on the talk page of Mount Vernon where the matter will be debated by the primary editors of that page (of whom I am one) - these are the editors who have written and maintain the page.  Giano  16:15, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you Giano. Personally, I like the info boxes as it gives a quick snapshot of the building in question. However, in looking through the history I can see that this page had an info box in the past, which has been subsequently removed. So I won't press the issue. Thank you for your insight.

Landry76 (talk) 17:30, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you Landry76; I note that you've e-instated your other edits. Please be aware that these contain copy violation. This is against Wikipedia's policy; you cannot copy paste or slightly alter text from other site. I suggest you revert these changes or rewrite them.  Giano  17:53, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Your RFAR

Why is everybody recusing at your RFAR? Have you forgotten to wine and dine the jury? Bishonen | talk 17:20, 18 February 2014 (UTC).

(watching) what I see is the following: I know the victim, so I am not able to be neutral, so I can't help him, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:27, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I suspect my dearest, little Bishoflower that the answers to your recusal questions are all in my statements there, and I'm sure that the Arbcom are completely incorruptible.  Giano  17:31, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• @Gerda, if you feel he's a victim, you need to stand up there and tell people so. He needs the support of his friends. I can hardly go knocking on doors asking people to support him.  Giano  17:44, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• What do you mean, "feel", I know he is and said so. He told me/us what to expect from arbcom, and was he right (as most of the time). What do you expect? More precisely: do you expect my name to be helpful? I'm afraid the opposite might be true, again as Eric expressed well (as most of the time), --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:53, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• Eric says a lot of things, but at the end of the day the Arbcom is the only thing that can save him from being a complete outcast and outlaw here. If I didn't think that the current slurs on his name were totally offensive, uncalled for and based on an assumption that he is fair game for any new admin trying to make his name, I would not have made my first ever request for Arbitration - I am not the Arbitration Committee's greatest fan either. I wouldn't worry about your name not helping him; I'm told Wikipediocracy are saying the case will be declined because it's me requesting it. So there's not a lot to loose - is there?  Giano  18:14, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• . You must also remember Gerda, that our Mr Gorman is a university Wikipedian in residence, he lectures in Wikipedia and is a former employee/intern of the WMF, so one would expect him to have a basic knowledge of our rules and policies. If this case is declined, it will be a return to the Wikipedia of the early 2000s when editors were bullied and trounced without redress by an unelected chosen few.  Giano  18:25, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• I started talking to Kevin, as you know, and am sure he will not repeat. I don't agree that "Arbcom is the only thing that can save Eric from being a complete outcast". We ARE outcasts, it's on record (my talk archive 2013, look for the word, was 9-11), arbcom will not change that, I live with it and wish some proud men would also grow up to be indepedent of what others think (simply because Wikipedia is better with them than without, and - my mantra - every good one gone makes it harder for us who try to stay) ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:37, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• I didn't know you were in dialogue with Kevin, but I'm sure he appreciates it. Never mind, now Eric is an outlaw, you can be his Maid Marion; unless there's a queue for the position.  Giano  18:43, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I know that Kevin said he had no interest in apologizing but that might go a long way as far as Eric is concerned. Eric seems to be usually one that accepts apologies.--MONGO 19:41, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• Eric's pretty upset, MONGO, love him or hate him, Eric Corbett's has been very wronged here; those insults were beyond foul. I will always defend the wronged. Eric will hate me calling him the wronged, but in this instance, that's what he most certainly is. Nobody but a former WMF employee/intern would have escaped insulting another editor so viciously and wrongly, unless possibly that editor was Eric Corbett - so we have a double whammy here. I'm sure that you're correct, an apology would be helpful, whether Eric can forgive if not forget edit sumaries such as this, [5] is a matter for him. My advice would be to accept it and move on. I wonder if we shall ever live to see such an event - bearing in mind that apologies do not contain the conjunction "if."  Giano  20:06, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Giano, I'm pretty sure that you're overselling the WMF angle. I don't think that really had anything to do with it; given the amount of distrust (and one would almost say disdain) that many people in the community hold for the WMF, that would be a black mark against Kevin, if anything. This has more to do with the fact that it was Eric he was against than the fact that Kevin had some internships with the WMF. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:10, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I was making the point that some are trying to excuse his behaviour on account of him being a new admin. I would expect those lecturing on Wikipedia and teaching others how to be Wikipedians, WMF employees and WMF interns to be a little more familiar with what is expected of an admin - wouldn't you?  Giano  20:17, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Not really--it's more that I would expect people who are admins to be a little more familiar with what is expected of an admin. But them's the breaks. To clarify: I might've expected the WMF and its employees to be more familiar with what admins do when I first arrived here, but since then, I've seen that the WMF is out of tune with the enwiki community to a surprising extent. That's actually not necessarily a bad thing; the WMF caters to more communities than just enwiki, and it isn't supposed to govern anything anyway. But it's true: the WMF doesn't administrate enwiki, so there's no particular reason (or need) that it would know how to do so. Similarly, people who teach people how to edit Wikipedia don't necessarily have to know what it's like to be an admin, because being an admin is actually vastly different from being an editor, which incidentally is part of the reason why good editors, like Eric, don't always fare well at RfA (though there are of course other reasons). Being good at being an editor, and even being good at teaching others to be editors, does not imply the skillset required to be a good admin. I would've expected more from a new admin, at least from my perspective; I know that I personally tread lightly in a new position like that, and jumping into an Eric mess is the exact diametric opposite of treading lightly, but I'm not Kevin, so I dunno. I do know that Kevin sought other opinions before acting, which is good, but what really worries me here is that those other admins couldn't have thought of anything better to do than what they told Kevin to do (or, for that matter, that they had Kevin do it, rather than stepping up and doing it themselves). Certainly a small, self-selected group of people can act as an echo chamber all too easily, and that might have been what happened here. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:46, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• I'm afraid that I never saw the thread where Kevin was seeking guidance from other Admins; perhaps it was elsewhere?  Giano  21:42, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Here is the diff of Kevin saying so. I don't know whether it was on IRC or not; I do know that it wasn't in the admin channel, though. Notice that that request was placed a day after the events on Jimbo's talk page.

    If I may digress for a moment: I've found that people place far more importance to the -en-admins IRC channel than it merits. Most notably, very little of import actually happens there; it's more for simple socializing than anything else. (For example, probably at least half of my contributions to the channel are me complaining about how hungry I am.) We do discuss Wikipedia issues, but not nearly as often as one might think, and virtually never from the perspective of "what are we, as a group, going to do about this?" Really, it's more just us arguing about our personal opinions. I know it seems cabalistic, but it's actually very tame and boring. To be honest, its appeal for me is basically that it's a place where one can talk without the chance that any old troll will join the channel and start being annoying to everyone. The fact that it's restricted to admins in particular really has very little to do with it; it's more just the fact that it's restricted at all. Also, the assortment of people and opinions make it very far from unanimous on most subjects (perhaps surprisingly, admins are not nearly as identical as we might appear), so there's hardly any opportunity for hiveminded cabaling to take place. That's not to say that there aren't problems with it, and I very much would like for it to be at least partially logged publicly (and have said so), but partial logs can be easily forged, and full logs might cause privacy concerns, so I guess it's not quite as easy as simply flipping a switch. I've been told by people who have been around longer than I that the admin channel was indeed quite cabalistic in the past, but that it has changed in recent years, and I've seen little, if any, evidence that it is still so. IRC might still be cabalistic as a whole, through things like PMs and private, user-created channels, but -en-admins appears to no longer be an example. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:12, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I am well aware of past behaviour of the IRC Admins chanel - I was the one who exposed it. Nowadays - has it changed? Who knows? Perhaps it was Snowolf who gave the poor advice; he was the one who let him in [6]; then again perhas it wasn't [7]. This is the trouble with all this "cloak" and dagger stupidity and claims of secret evidence, it does rather encourage one to think the worst.  Giano  22:21, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree; that's why I think the Wikipedia channels should be logged, but I guess I'm in the minority about that. As far as whether the admins channel has changed--well, it sure seems that it has to me, but you're of course under no obligation to take my word for it. :) I know that, for my part, I'd never perform an admin action that is, either explicitly or implicitly, "per IRC"; justification onwiki is mandatory in my eyes, as is really any major discussion that led to action. The only exception for me are things like revision deletion of private information: such things should be discussed offwiki, to avoid spreading the very information one needs hidden. (And by the way, I have no idea who it was that Kevin consulted, but I very much doubt it was Snowolf.) Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:35, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what advice I am supposed to have given, regarding what and to who. I'm about to step away from the PC for a bit, but I will reply to any questions or comments you may have for me, Giano. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 22:47, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully Giano doesn't mind me commenting here, but, from my reading of the page - I think Giano suspects you (who strongly disagreed with the course of action I took, and said so, in public, on my talk page...) were one of the people who suggested that course of action in the first place. I imagine you will probably find this as confusing as I do, but to be clear to everyone else: no, Snowolf didn't suggest the course of action I took to me, heh. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:04, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

You can hardly be surprised that people speculate about you. You say you took your advice in secret (I doubt that anyone gave you such woefully bad advice) so we shall just have to speculate on who, if anyone, gave it. Your evidence is secret so we must again speculate if it even exists. The only thing we know for sure is that which can be safely assumed assumed from your refusal to give Eric the long overdue apology he deserves - You are unfit to be an Admin; now, please go go back to your secret IRC channel and garner some sympathy there because you won't find it on this page.  Giano  08:10, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

A diff from someone who does see this correctly

I wish I had written this diff, and I wish the Arbcom had the wisdom if its writer.  Giano  10:42, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Arbcom case name

After discussion with arbs and clerks, I made what I felt was a change to a neutral case name.

If you would like to discuss it, feel free to. I am a brand-new clerk, so perhaps you didn't realize the edit was not by a random editor.--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:52, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Please keep in mind that rollback is only for obvious vandalism and certainly not to perpetuate an edit war. The edits on Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case do not qualify as vandalism, nor are your reverts minor edits. Kind regards, Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 18:55, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Following Ed's point: I would just like to say that my use of rollback here was actually a misclick—I had no intention of getting involved with this at all. That said, I would ask that you please not revert it. NW (Talk) 19:00, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

RfAR edit warring

Please don't continue to edit war over such a silly issue. You'll just end up blocked. -- John Reaves 18:54, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Reversions

You seem to be in an edit war regarding the Arbitration request title. I'd like to suggest that you self revert prior to having an "Edit War" block imposed upon you. Arbitration Clerks (Sphilbrick and Rockfang), Arbitrators (Floquenbeam), and other editors at large. Failure to desist from revert warring could entirely torpedo your entire action before the Arbitration committee. Hasteur (talk) 18:57, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

• The Arbcom will shortly be dismissing the case - sweeping it under the carpet is more accurate description. I don't see why the case name makes a great deal of difference, it's accurate after all. Unless that is the archives have to portray Mr Gorman in a good light too. It really is quite despicable.  Giano  19:01, 19 February 2014 (UTC)