User talk:MZMcBride: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 17:42, 11 June 2008

Can you check my speedy close at UCFD

Howdy, I recently came across a bunch of empty categories. I figured the creator had some grand plan, and that the plan probably needed discussing, so instead of just {{db-c1}}ing the (always) empty categories, I mentioned them at UCFD. Of course I was completely off-base: the creator replied that he had just made a mistake, and wanted them deleted (probably he though blanking the page was enough). I did a non-admin closure of the UCFD, and just wanted an admin to check it out.

I also asked asked Atheanara to check my closure, so no worries. I figure you close a lot of these, so it should be easy to check.

Comments welcome, but I think I'm pretty certain "just ask the user on his talk page first" is a good lesson to take away. Thanks for any help. JackSchmidt (talk) 18:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of Meryl Runion page

I'm not sure I'm leaving this question in the right place. From what I can tell, MZMcBride deleted the page on Meryl Runion. I had created the page but received no notice that it was being challenged or deleted. Is it possible to have the page placed in a sandbox so that I might work on fixing what was deemed lacking? Writerms (talk) 00:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)writerms[reply]

what does csd g4 mean?

Why was succinct deleted?

Wrong "Speedy Deletion"

You performed a "speedy deletion" on Church of the Assumption-Rivne.jpg without even reading my reasons for keeping the image. The image you deleted was NOT a "bit-for-bit" copy of the image in Wikicommons. If you had read my comments on every relevant talk page you would have known that the images were NOT identical (I took BOTH photos) and that the image on Wikicommons was an inferior image to the one you deleted. I demand that you undo the speedy deletion and do what I asked you to do--replace the Wikicommons image with the superior image which you deleted. I don't know how to "replace" images in Wikicommons. (Taivo (talk) 04:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Your name was posted with another editor's so I sent this message to both of you. The other editor had performed the deletion so you can ignore this. (Taivo (talk) 09:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Regarding the lowering of protection on Barack Obama

You phrased your reasoning well. I think, in the end, this will be for the best, even though it was somewhat of a risk unprotecting when the dispute is still so fiery. So far, the edit warring has ceased, so your remark must have had some positive effect. As you say, we are a wiki. Cheers, and best of luck, -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

... And we have a POV pusher

User:Life.temp gutted the article, removing a total of 732 words in two consecutive edits: [1][2] I placed the following warning on his/her Talk page and on the article Talk page: [3] He/she removed the warning from the user Talk page with a personal attack in the edit summary [4] and discussed this warning in two edits on the article Talk page,[5][6] proving that he/she had seen the warning and was aware of increased concerns about edit warring. Nevertheless, last night Life.temp again gutted the article, ripping out nearly 1,000 words this time: [7] None of these edits were accompanied by anything resembling consensus. It is obvious that Life.temp's goal is to expunge any controversy from the article. I request a block of at least 24 hours for Life.temp. Thank you. Kossack4Truth (talk) 11:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

shoop da whoop

can you please tell me why shoop da whoop is protected and you deleted the talk page? 12.226.11.161 (talk) 21:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tundrabuggy

MZMcBride, can I please ask you to reconsider your topic ban of TundraBuggy? I've been trying, as an uninvolved administrator, to regain control of the situation at Muhammad al-Durrah, so I'd like to make sure that admins are speaking with one voice there. See Talk:Muhammad al-Durrah#Conditions for editing. TundraBuggy was actually doing what I'd asked him to do. --El on ka 19:45, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, he wasn't. : - ) He was making an point-y and unproductive edit that did nothing other than incite other users. At my count, we currently have 2,407,460 articles on the English Wikipedia alone. Tundrabuggy is free to edit any of them, except this one, as he's proven to be incapable of good judgment and collaborative editing when dealing with this particular subject. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I respectfully disagree. I had asked an editor to do something, he did it, and then another admin (yourself) came along and put a 90-day topic ban on him. This seems excessive to me, and it also undermines my authority in the situation. I don't want to to just overrule you or take things to ANI or AE... Can we find a compromise here? --El on ka 20:12, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also disagree. You can not, in and of yourself, place a topic ban on someone as you have no more authority than anyone else. Only an RFC or ArbCom ruling can place a topic ban. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, he does have the authority to do a topic ban, as long as he's an uninvolved admin, dealing with someone who's been notified of ArbCom restrictions (as TundraBuggy was). The issue here though is that one admin said "do something" and another admin said "I'm going to ban you for doing it." It's basically a wheel war. So MZMcBride, before this escalates further, can you please reconsider? --El on ka 20:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reconsider? I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand what you mean. A slight inconvenience for one particular editor doesn't seem like something that needs too much discussion. Tundrabuggy is banned from this particular article for making edits that are unproductive and unhelpful. You seem to think that he added the word 'reported' on your say-so, but I see no indication of that. I don't intend to wheel war, however, I also don't intend to allow users to be disruptive. Tundrabuggy's edits are disruptive. As such, he won't be making them any further. And really, I'd like to hear what he has to say on the issue (if anything) before others come jumping to his defense. More than likely, he knew that his actions would result in a response like this. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a completely uninvolved person, the edit that caused the ban appears good faith to me. The "reporting" of the death is probably undisputed (or this topic is far weirder than anything in my experience, so ignore me) and probably was involved in making the person some sort of icon/symbol (the image caption says the "scene" was iconic, not just the death). If the edit could be taken as good faith (not just by me), then it seems reasonable to let the previous admin (Elonka) handle it. On the other hand, the edit summary was strongly worded for such a simple change, so it is not hard to see where MZMcBride is coming from. As someone who has not been jaded by watching too many edit wars, I'd say "it sounds harmless, let Elonka continue". My interactions with MZMcBride have given me the impression that he is quite reasonable, so I assume the topic ban is also a reasonable solution, and my comment is only meant as some sort of alternate perspective. JackSchmidt (talk) 20:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, let me explain things in a bit more detail, then hopefully it will make more sense... The Muhammad al-Durrah article has been in a state of conflict for quite some time. As a result of edit-warring, the page was protected. An AE (Arbitration Enforcement) thread was also started.[8] The conflict also came up at ANI,[9] as some of the involved editors are administrators (ChrisO, SlimVirgin). One of the issues was that ChrisO (an involved editor) was placing editors such as Tundrabuggy under restrictions, even though he really didn't have the authority to do that since he was so involved (see the ANI thread for more discussion on this). My own connection is that I'm a member of the ArbCom-appointed Working Group on cultural and ethnic edit wars, and I occasionally help out at as an uninvolved administrator at AE. I've also been running some experiments on using new techniques to address persistent ethnic disputes on Wikipedia. For example, I've been quite successful with moderating some very complex disputes between Hungarian and Slovakian editors. (see User talk:Elonka/Hungarian-Slovakian experiment), where I started with a situation of near chaos, with many extraordinarly frustrated editors, and new admin threads starting up every couple days, but within a month I was able to get things calmed down to the point where it's about ready to stamp "resolved" on the whole thing. I was also one of the major writers of Wikipedia:New admin school/Dealing with disputes.

I first heard of the Muhammad al-Durrah article a few days ago, when I spotted the thread at ANI. I also saw at ANI that a couple of the involved admins (such as ChrisO) were practically begging for an uninvolved admin to come over and help. I hadn't gotten into major Israeli-Palestinian disputes before (I've been avoiding it, to be honest), but I decided to try and help with this one. So, I posted as much as the AE thread, and offered my services at the article talkpage.[10] Some of the key participants accepted me as a mediator/moderator, and so over the last couple days, I've been working on identifying all of the involved parties, and then gradually trying to "cat herd" them into the direction of civility and constructive editing. I hadn't issued any blocks, but I'd been giving mild cautions and "nudges" to multiple editors. In my opinion, Tundrabuggy was actually one of the more cooperative and civil ones and was responding well to my guidance.

Earlier today, I contacted the admin who had placed protection on the page, and asked him to lift protection. He did, and I posted my list of editing restrictions on the talkpage,[11] where I was encouraging editors to, in a nutshell, "Stay civil, don't revert, change instead of delete". There was disagreement about whether or not this was the best course, but I stood firm, and Tundrabuggy was the first editor to dip his toe into the water, by changing one word. MZMcBride then appeared out of nowhere, and slapped a 90-day topic ban on Tundrabuggy. :/

I acknowledge that MZM was acting in good faith, but it's not making my job easier, since he has inadvertently undermined the mediation that I was doing. So, at this point, what I would prefer if (1) MZMcBride could lift this restriction; and (2) if he could check with me before placing further restrictions on anyone on that page, as that helps me to maintain the necessary authority to get things calmed down. Again, I understand that MZM thought that he was trying to help stabilize the situation. However, it's at cross-purposes with what I'm trying to do. And like I said, Tundrabuggy was voluntarily moderating his behavior to what I was asking.

Does that help explain? MZM, if you have any questions, please let me know. :) --El on ka 21:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would be deeply worrying to see an administrator come to the defense of a new editor who is almost entirely concerned with one incident, even if we didn't know that the story is intimately linked to a campaign to have journalists lose their jobs. By an outside organisation, recently caught cheating here in the project. There is nothing wrong with SPAs (I'm one myself), but the sudden appearance of this influence is not normal. PR^talk 21:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, MZM, how about this: I agree with you that Tundrabuggy could definitely be a more trusted editor, if he were to spend some time editing other articles. However, I'd like to go ahead and allow Tundrabuggy to participate at the al-Durrah talkpage, since his recent comments were useful and civil. After he's also edited a few other articles, I would also like to take it upon myself to review the article ban at that time, rather than waiting out the full 90 days. If you have any objections to this, let me know. --El on ka 00:06, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously, it's one article and one talk page. Jayvdb said he, or another admin, would re-evaluate the situation in a month or so. There truly isn't a need for this level of discussion for something so minor. It's time to move on. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for authorizing other admins to review the situation. Also, you don't have to answer, but I am just curious about something... How did you hear about Tundrabuggy's edit? To my knowledge you have never edited the article or its talkpage, neither were you at the AE thread, nor the ANI threads, and your contribs show that you weren't on recent changes patrol at the time, either. But then shortly after Tundrabuggy added one single word to the article,[12] you put a hefty 90-day topic ban on him, with no warning, telling him that the edit proved that he was "unable to contribute productively".[13] So, um, just how did you hear about it? Thanks, --El on ka 05:25, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Soft redirect

Really thanks, I didn't know that :-) Bye, --.screen (talk) 09:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your intervention requested =

Please see Talk:Muhammad al-Durrah#Abusive editing by 6SJ7. If what Tundrabuggy did was dubious, what 6SJ7 has just done is inexcusable. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 83: / Line 83: @@
 Really thanks, I didn't know that :-) Bye, --[[User:.screen|.screen]] ([[User talk:.screen|talk]]) 09:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
+== Your intervention requested ===
+Please see [[Talk:Muhammad al-Durrah#Abusive editing by 6SJ7]]. If what Tundrabuggy did was dubious, what 6SJ7 has just done is inexcusable. -- [[User:ChrisO|ChrisO]] ([[User talk:ChrisO|talk]]) 17:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)