User talk:Thatcher/Alpha

Sathya Sai Baba

I would like to apologize to the participants for not being able to give this issue more attention recently; holidays, of course, and other forms of stress. I am going out of town for a few days and will have limited internet access. I will try and address some of your points before I go. In the meantime, I have consolidated all the SSB-related posts at User talk:Thatcher131/SSB. You may continue to use that as neutral ground, if you like, but I probably will nto be able to comment extensively for a few more days. Thatcher131 08:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I have some understanding for your lack of response. More or less in correspondence with what user:Pjacobi wrote, disputes about cults (I prefer this term because it is better defined than NRM) in Wikipedia and elsewhere, tend to be complicated, intense, and endless. Andries 12:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Yaksha

Yaksha (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is continuing with moves.  :/ I am tempted to take it to ANI again, but if it's being handled at the ArbCom level, I'll hold off. Do you have any recommendations on how I should proceed? --Elonka 23:21, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

You could always ask for help at ANI, but as there is an open arbitration case the admins there will probably pass the buck. Fred is working on Brahma Kumaris now so you are probably next. Thatcher131 03:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. BTW, I am seeing that the attacks on me are increasing, to the point of dragging up pretty much any dispute I've been involved with on Wikipedia, ever. There are also dozens of really blatantly false charges and claims of things I said or did. A big game of "Elonka said," with few if any diffs. For example, I'm now charged with "tendentious editing of articles," even though to my knowledge, I have made no controversial edits to any articles -- all the disputes have been talkpage-related.

Mostly I've just been ignoring the really rabid stuff as not worthy of my time to even respond to, but as this is my first ArbCom case I'm really unsure on the procedure here. In your opinion, should I spend any time rebutting the peripheral stuff, or providing defenses for these charges about disputes which happened over a year ago? Or in other words, when an arbitrator starts looking at things, if they are interested in one of these bizarre claims, will they possibly say, "Elonka, what do you have to say about the following XYZ charges?" Or does all my evidence have to be in place ahead of time? :/ --Elonka 22:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Pay very close attention to any comments the arbitrators make on the workshop page; comments on other peoples' proposals and especially any proposals they write themselves. (Well, "they" usually means Fred Bauder, but not always.) If Fred writes a proposal "The moon is made of green cheese." there is a good chance he thinks this is relevant to deciding the case, and may appear in the final decision. So at that point, if you have evidence to the contrary, you can comment in the comments section of that proposal. To make a more concrete example, if Fred posted Elonka has been uncivil with some diffs, you might want to make a comment, depending on the situation, such as, That was a long time ago and I have learned to be more civil, or I was provoked [diff] [diff]" or "Yes, but I apologized the next day [diff] [diff]." Thatcher131 08:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Mediation Woes

You told the group on the 9/11 page to seek mediation if the link was gonig to continue to be an issue. Well someone brought the issue back up and I told them to start a mediation. Someone went and started a request for mediation and then Tom Harrison doesnt want to participate. Does that remove him from later being able to argue over the legitmacy of the link? He keeps attempting to get the link passed without arguement, just numbers. Turns out Abe Froman who gave the third party view was actually looking at the page wrong, he was unaware that you highlight the newspaper names to get the full citation. Anyway back to those who do not wish to participate in any mediation, what happens, can they just keep returning to the arguement if mediation goes my way? --NuclearZer0 17:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it, mediation is voluntary and the outcome is not enforceable. MedCab might take a case in which a significant party refuses to participate, but MedCom won't. If the participants agree with you, and represent a significant fraction of the active editors on that article, you would have a good argument that consensus is behind you, and the mediation participnats should be willing to share the load of adding or removing the link if Tom decides to edit war over it. I personally don't like the site, it has a very strong editorial point of view, which should be avoided in controversial situations. Sort of like the Case for impeachment against George W. Bush article of a while back, it uses links to reliable sources in a very biased way. I suspect it does not link to all, or the best, sources, and I'll bet that when one of its sources is later debunked, that doesn't get a link. By picking and choosing, it can build a stronger case than could otherwise be supported if editors with multiple points of view were involved. As I said on the talk page, the issue is really not whether the site meets WP:EL, the issue is, assuming it does meet EL, should it be included? That's a matter of editorial judgement. If a mediation proceeding involves most of the significant editors on an article (from both sides) and there is an amicable settlement either way, I would hope that an experienced editor, much less an admin, would respect that, even if he didn't participate. Thatcher131 08:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Clerking

Wrt our earlier conversation, FloNight's election to the committee doesn't mean that there's a vacancy for another trainee, does it? David Mestel^(Talk) 18:54, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Probably. Will be addressed after the holidays are over. Thatcher131 08:23, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Righto. David Mestel^(Talk) 08:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I am John Bambenek

- crz crztalk 05:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, is this an "I am SPARTACUS" moment or are you trying to tell me something important? E-mail me if the latter. Thatcher131 06:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

NVM... This was a joke. I loved your edit summary about recycling the RfAr, which accused me of being John Bambenek from UIUC, into a lovely article about tree frogs. This was another awkward attempt at crazy russian humor. Forgive it. - crz crztalk 16:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

No problem at all. I should probably not be posting at 2:40 AM local time anyway. Thatcher131 01:57, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Tree frogs

... are not accustomed to wearing socks, and do not have hands large enough to use socks for puppetry; in addition to which, the fabric interferes with their grip on the trees, resulting in some falls. Perhaps some impoverished children would have been happier recipients. I appreciate your efforts at recycling, but please spend a little more time thinking about the appropriate location and the environmental impact. Thank you. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 12:58, 27 Dec 2006 (UTC).

I'm not as sure that tree frogs were a bad choice. That particular arbitration submission needed an injection of frogginess, as in its original state it was not exactly ribbit-ing. Newyorkbrad 13:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh... that was painful. I may be scarred for life, which must mean it was a good pun. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Surely you're not so naive as not to recognise the Global Wikipedia Conspiracy toward keeping this article, in which Jimbo, Brad and Angela are all socks (metaphorically speaking) of Bambanek? Ah, but of course, this surely means that you're in on it too! You must be instantly banned/desysopped/drummed out of Wikipedia as a meatpuppet! David Mestel^(Talk) 17:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Query about check user

Hi Thatcher, I've put up a check user request regarding User:Lotuslander, [1] and it hasn't gone onto the page, but instead into a category of requests not yet added to the main page. See Category:Checkuser requests to be listed. This always happens when I do create a check user request. Can you see whether I've something wrong, or is it just that there's a delay? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Essjay runs a bot that adds new cases to the Checkuser/Pending section based on that category. It usually takes just a few minutes. (This prevents orphan cases when the user forgets to list it themself.) I see that Daniel has moved the case to a IP check--I guess it depends on the outcome and what is disclosed as to how it should ultimately be dealt with. Thatcher131 13:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks Thatcher. I thought I'd messed it up in some way. That was an excellent comment you left on Talk:Rachel Marsden by the way. You really hit the nail on the head. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 13:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Adjudication rejection

Thanks, Thatcher-adjudication seemed pretty inappropriate to me too. I just have never been near the proceedure before and thought I might have missed something.Felix-felix 13:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

checkuser Redstone357

Hi Thatcher, I've added Redstone357 to the Yarillastremenog-checkuser, which I'm hoping is the correct procedure rather than opening a new case. As clerk, can you make sure that this doesn't fall through the cracks? (Or tell me to open a new case if that's the appropriate venue.) Bucketsofg 15:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Objection!

While I won't revert your edit, I respectfully disagree with your gramatical corrections to my post in the Deltabeignet case. One would say "in September" rather than "on September," so "in or about September to December 2006" strikes me as correct. And "differently from" is certainly preferred to "differently than," particularly what follows is a simple noun phrase and there is no pile of words that a "than" could cut through. See e.g. [2] [3].

I appreciate your attention to detail on matters such as this, as you know, but even Homer nods. Regards, Newyorkbrad 03:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Whatever you want. Fred will rewrite it anyway and has his own unique grammatical constructions, sometimes. Thatcher131 03:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

That's a righteous observation. Feel free to tree-frog archive this thread. Newyorkbrad 03:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

On behalf of tree frogs everywhere, thank you for the strikeout. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 23:05, 31 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Arbcom cases & Google

Hello. For obvious reasons, would it be OK to courtesy-blank the Evidence and Workshop pages of the R.M. BLP ArbCom case? They're showing up quite prominently on Google. Kla'quot 03:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Let me think about it tomorrow when I get back home. I'm on a 5 year old Dell running Win98 and IE6 right now, as opposed to my normal G5 widescreen iMac and tabbed browsing. Thatcher131 03:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Firefox on a Mac, ain't it the best? Thanks, Kla'quot 03:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity Thatcher, which do you prefer? The PC or the Mac? And is the Mac a laptop? Ekantik ^talk 02:49, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Pages like this should be excluded from google search using a robots tag. 67.117.130.181 15:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

You?

Is it you who left the message here, or an impersonator? Prodego ^talk 04:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

"None yet"?

You might want to revise the header Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Waldorf_education#Final_decision_.28none_yet.29 – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 14:57, 31 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Edit warring at Anthroposophy

The edit warring continues worse than ever, in my opinion. I wish it weren't so, but Pete K is completely interfering with my own efforts toward progress so far. He may not be the only guilty one, but Pete K is reverting my own contributions as if the article belongs to him personally. And he has kept me so busy by undoing what I've fixed that I haven't had time to see what other editors are changing. His latest with me is an edit war to preserve confirmed plagiarized language, including removing my good faith change to keep the message intact but to rewrite it so it isn't copied word for word. (It's ungrammatical also.) He has turned a deaf ear to all my explanations on talk pages. It is like talking to a wall. He only cooperates with administrators it looks like, but not other editors involved in the articles. Besides, he changes things like his own opinion is good enough to alter in the article what independent sources referenced have said. (See edit war over book Philosophy of Freedom.) Does the arbitration decision and policies at wikipedia apply to other people but not to him? It's a fair estimate that about two thirds of his edits to articles made since this went to arbitration, including most of those made since the decision, have been reverts. So far he's either rewritten a statement so its wrong, or just took out each of the independent source materials I've found for fact tages he put there. He has also restored the mistakes he's made that I've tried to fix (including that plagiarized sentence, which after telling him 3 times he can't do, added a sneered comment "boring" and put it back). And ignored my telling him of sources that he claims say something that they don't say at all. I mean, at all. After pointing one example of it to him over and over again, first he defended it in several messages, then he admitted I was correct, but I see the bad reference is still there.

His revert wars with me would be completely avoidable with good faith consultation between us on talk pages, but he has made little attempt I can see to work cooperatively, and won't take my concerns seriously and at least checking them out before arguing with me. With PEte K, it's revert first, talk only if he's got no more reverts coming. He's so bold, he reverted a source I found to replace a fact tag, saying "text doesn't say that" but he hadn't even read the text. When I quoted it to him, he pretended it means something altogether different than what it says--so now that he reads it, he distorts it and edits the passage in the article to new words that are the opposite of what the source said. So if he disagrees with something, he first pretended the source doesn't say it, then insisted the source is wrong if it did, and finally, that the source says something other than the words written in it clearly indicate. It's a crazy waste of time--5 or 6 edits back and forth over something that was obviously fine in the first place once an independent source was found.

I'm trying to remain civil threw this, but it is hard to accept this disruptive activity is done in good faith. But I'm finding it impossible to edit there without edit warring with Pete K. What little progress has been made has been achieved only after Pete K has reverted me more than once. I have tried to avoid reverting mistakes he has made, but he leaves little choice when he won't be persuaded to correct them himself. Venado 22:17, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it got through

There's been a little discussion of it too - but I thought I should put my opinion of it on-wiki. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 20:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom Clerks

Good evening (GMT time); I am formally expressing my interest in becoming an ArbCom Clerk; I have already contacted User:MacGyverMagic and he referred me to you, informing me that although the clerk staff list is full, I can ask to be put on a backup list. I am currently looking to donate a large portion of my time on Wikipedia to a Dispute Resolution organisation, and I have decided that the Arbitration Committee is the best option. I understand the function of a clerk, and I am one of the current Checkuser standby clerks. Therefore, I am going to ask you to place me on the waiting list - so long as you do not doubt my abilities.

Cheers and regards,
Anthonycfc ^{[T • C]} 22:40, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Article Protection

Hi Thatcher131, I have not been following the article for a long while, but I noticed that Kosovo has been protected for over a month. Is this part of the article probation? Thanks, Asterion^talk 23:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I protected it due to edit warring, it seemed more reasonable than trying to figure out which editors to block or ban. There haven't been any other requests to unprotect or {{edit protected}} requests, so I've left it alone. I'll be happy to unprotect it if you think the parties have settled down. Thatcher131 23:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I am as puzzled as you are that no one has even bothered to request unprotection. I will check the talk page and test the water. Cheers, Asterion^talk 23:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

bibliography link at SSB comment page

Could you look at Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba/Comments and tell me if you're ok with what I put there? I will spare you the longwinded policy justification for it if you think the url is ok based on its contents. If necessary I can defend it at more length. I think the link is valuable and will be helpful to anyone seriously trying to improve the SSB article, which is pretty weak right now. See also this comment. Thanks. 67.117.130.181 16:49, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Seriously?

I thnik I am going to drop the username soon, I have a million proxies I can use instead. Wouldnt that sucks to lose another contributor. --NuclearZer0 17:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't recommend that. You got off easy on the sock thing the first time, but not again. In my opinion, the two images have technical copyright problems. I'm sure that having them nominated by your regular opponents contributes to a feeling of persecution. It would be best to ask for a review by a neutral admin who knows a lot about images, rather than bickering among yourselves. I can help a little, or I would recommend Durin, to start with. I also don't think that your probation was meant to endorse complaints to WP:AE as the first attempt at communication, with no attempt to engage you on your talk or the noticeboard talk page first. But stubborness on your part does not help. You might approach User:UninvitedCompany about this. He is newly elected to Arbcom on a platform that included, among other things, resistance to the overuse of probation. You can reference me if you like, as well as the various comments I have made in past disputes. I would say that some kind of arbitration remedy is still needed in your case as you continue to get into conflicts, but maybe he has some creative ideas that would be less susceptible to abuse. Thatcher131 18:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I am gonig to horribly violate WP:AGF but in the hope of explaining to you what happened. I was part of a clique that included Morton, Tbeatty, Mongo, Tom etc. we used to communicate off wiki for deletions, using the noticeboard basically. I would get emails telling me how I should vote and what guidelines etc. Kinda whats on the noticeboard now. Anyway I recently exposed the truth since its really not against any guidelines to tell people how they should vote and what policies, as long as you do it off wiki or in your own user space, meaning not posting to each persons. I cited this as a flaw and exposed how it worked etc, the admin protection we had under an understanding kinda thing, we were doing MONGO's dirty work and all. So Morton posts on my page basically saying he wont be my friend anymore, then removing me from his friends list all together on his own user page. Then in came the workers, I say workers because certain people play certain roles, like Morton removes sources from articles to prep them for WP:RS complains during the AfD, I pose as neutral to give the board a good image and play passive agressive, Tbeatty kinda does as Morton does. Arthur Rubin plays far neutral, not seeming like a member at all, Hipocrite does a lot of the agitating on talk pages and "snitching" and we all work together to preserve our versions. Tom reverts, the Morton, then Tbeatty, then Arthur, then Hipocrite etc. Since the article is on the noticeboard we know what to watch. We know what limits to push, what talk infuriates people. Just keep callnig the opposing party "truthers" and "conspiracy theorists" and they will get annoyed, and usually say something stupid enough to be cited for WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF etc. The thing is Thatcher is the system works on 1 to 1 editing, 3RR stops revert wars when its 1 to 1, but when its 3-1, it just helps maintain a particular view. Its why Travb, FAAFA, Nescio, Seabhcan, Stone Put To Sky, etc ended up on the losing end or gone or de-sysop'd, they worked alone and didnt form up to make their own boards etc. Their own "teams". You can see usually from the AfD's, one person makes an arguement and everyone just rephrases it or says, "per morton", yet they appear to be a concensus because 7 editors on one AfD is higher then normal for such a little known topic, and they all vote the same ... Anyway happy new year, I am gonig to log my trends offline most likely for voting habits of people on that noticeboard as well as admin actions by some etc. Feel free to remove or keep, I mean, what happens when the truth is that people operate in bad faith? --NuclearZer0 19:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC)