User talk:Wee Curry Monster

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——————————————— Wee Curry Monster's Talk Page ——————————————— Please note that it is 6:44 AM (GMT), where I live I will normally reply to your message on your talk page but will frequently reply here if it is warranted. To be honest, the way I respond is chaotic and haphazard, don't be offended if I forget. For information, I have removed all user pages from my watchlist and the drama boards of WP:ANI and WP:AN, I am not interested in that nonsense. One of my pet hates is the drive by tagger. People whose sole contribution to wikipedia is adding multiple {{cn}} tags to articles but never getting off their lazy backsides to find citations themselves. One aspect of this that is particularly irritating is they're often added in the middle of a sentence ignoring the existing citation, which 99% of the time corroborates the information. If you remove unneeded tags, provide an edit summary to that effect, their usual response is to edit war a tag back pompously spouting off about policy. If you're one of these people coming here to give me a lecture because I removed your tag, well, I strongly suggest you don't. I recommend WP:SOFIXIT ie get off your lazy backside and do the donkey work yourself instead of leaving it to others. I realise this is personal opinion but I consider the only use for tags is A) as a personal reminder to go back and fix something, B) to tag something you're concerned about, intuitively feel is correct but you can't find a cite or finally C) you've tried to find a cite, can't corroborate information but someone is edit warring challenged material back into an article. Do any of those and its thumbs up from me! Please post new messages at the bottom of this page and don't forget to give your message a heading. Remember to sign using the four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your message. Please be civil, if you fail to be civil I will simply ignore you. As a Glaswegian (born, bred and proud of it) I speak directly and don't pussy foot around. Whilst I'm direct, I do try to be polite. I have observed there are far too many editors on Wikipedia who take offence at comments I and others make. Usually this is because they read into a comment, a totally unintended meaning. Remember text is a crap medium for conveying nuance. What you interpret as sarcasm in all probability was a light hearted or jocular remark. Textual communication is further complicated by cultural differences in the way English is used. For example: An American describing something as quite nice will mean it as a compliment, whereas a Brit is more than likely saying it is crap. If you find yourself here after taking offence at something I've written, breathe, count to ten and assume good faith before posting. If I've deleted your message, basically that means I've read it and nothing else. I do tend to delete what I regard as niff naff and trivia. Repeatedly adding the same message to my talk page will simply piss me off and more than likely just be deleted. Refer to WP:3RR, I can delete comments on my own talk page if I like but you don't get to badger me. Per WP:UP#CMT I am perfectly within my rights to remove comments. If you're asked not to comment here then please respect that and don't. There are a number of friendly talk page stalkers, who have my permission to remove comments that are unwelcome. If they do so, please respect my wishes and do not revert. I do not claim to be infallible, occasionally I'll revert something in error. I've also noticed a tendency when editing on my tablet to occasionally hit Rollback by accident. If you've spotted what you think is a strange edit of mine, accidental rollback is usually the answer. Feel free to point it out to me but if its rollback I would suggest you just revert; I don't mind people fixing my screw ups. If you're here because of the revert of a reasonable edit, then may I suggest you first of all ask yourself did you provide an informative edit summary or properly source the edit I reverted. You will find a civil comment will receive a reply (and most likely an apology if warranted). User:Antandrus some time ago wrote an excellent essay entitled observations on Wikipedia behavior. I suggest it as recommended reading to everyone. I used to do a lot of work on recent changes patrolling to stop wikifiddling, vandalism and partisan changes to the articles on my watchlist. I don't tend to do that much these days but long ago came to the conclusion that most people who post such crap do so because they think Wikipedia exists to right great wrongs or set the world to rights. Sorry but, newsflash, it doesn't; its an encyclopedia nothing more. A bed rock policy of Wikipedia is to present a neutral point of view. Contrary to popular opinion this does not mean we have to represent ALL views. Rather wikipedia represents the predominant views in the literature, this doesn't mean that we represent fringe material with undue prominence. The more advanced POV pushers decide after reading a bit of policy that sourcing makes their edits bulletproof. Wrong again. Sources have to be reliable, so the conspiracy website or the book by a crank doesn't mean your edit is sacrosanct. If you've come to wikipedia because you're convinced J. Edgar Hoover was the second gunman on the grassy knoll please jog on. I've pointed you to relevant policy about why your edit was removed in what was intended to be a humorous manner, so please don't bug me any further. The essay WP:DICK is often trotted out on wikipedia, I try not to refer it to myself anymore. Why? It's my observation that most editors who refer to that essay are complete and utter dicks themselves. It's a sad fact that there are still a lot of arseholes editing wikipedia, it's not worth getting into a spat with them as they're determined they will have the last word and thereby "win" the discussion. Sometimes, best thing is to just walk away and as my grannie used to say "let the baby have it's chocolate". If you're new to Wikipedia, please see Welcome to Wikipedia or frequently asked questions. If you need editing help, head here.

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“ Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they look for a place to dump it. And if you let them, they’ll dump it on you. So when someone wants to dump on you, don’t take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Believe me. You’ll be happier. --THE LAW OF THE GARBAGE TRUCK ”

To all the garbage trucks I've offended unwittingly, I just want to...

1.) Smile.

2.) Wave.

3.) And wish you well.

4.) Bye... I'm moving on !

Have a nice day !

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Thomas B ANI Thread

Hi WCM. I may be out of line (and feel free to tell me if I am) but I'd suggest that we avoid posting any more arguments to the Thomas B thread at ANI. All the recent posts (including mine, so I'm likely biased :p ) have been neutrally worded, asking for some sort of closure. This could very well mean an admin reviews, weighs arguments against policy, and finds no violation. That's not what I think is the right call, but it'd be closure and I'd be satisfied that consensus was achieved.

In particular, I have two concerns. First, further arguments might reignite the debate, put off actual closure, and keep everyone (especially Thomas B) in the stressful limbo of having an open ANI complaint for longer.

Second, your post feels more on the incendiary than enlightening side. I think you'd made your point amply that you believe the complaint is strategic (i.e., removing an opponent) rather than genuine in the rest of the thread, so a closer would see this and take it into account. (Ideally. I'm assuming things run as they're supposed to; a dangerous assumption, perhaps?) I also feel like you may be tarring many editors with the same brush; upon rereading your comment, it seems that there are only two editors it's directed at, but my first reading made me think you were describing all the "support" voters as vexatious. To be clear, once I got past my own emotional reaction, (pesky things, those) I was led to believe that you were referring only two the two editors who supported the unarchiving, but I worry that others may have similar reactions to mine and start replying in a heated way.

In any case, feel free to disregard all this if it feels like it's off-base. While we may disagree on that thread, I respect you as an editor, am aware that I'm a newbie, and am happy to accept "Sorry, mate, I think you're mistaken" as a perfectly acceptable response to me here. I hope this message finds you well, and doesn't make your day any worse! EducatedRedneck (talk) 13:40, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're aware but ANI is only for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems. Quite often if there is nothing to warrant action the SySops will just allow editors to vent, then the thread drops off into archive without any action being taken. The complaint is effectively closed, no one gets hurt.

In this case, this has already happened twice on both threads, which is a pretty good indication that nothing actionable was seen. However, they've then been restored to ANI, now they're adding templates to stop them being archived and lobbying for an admin to close them. They seem determined to keep them open and to have something hanging over people who disagree with them. You'll notice the chilling effect their tactics have had; I've walked away from this article, Elemimele has, Fiveby has, Isaidnoway has. Springee and Nemov note the BLP concerns but are steering clear. Thomas B is blocked.

The case is also weird in that they're not presenting any evidence. They're making a lot of accusations sure but nothing that backs them up and if you do look it simply isn't there. Thomas B didn't forum shop, he raised the issue once at the appropriate board. WCM_email 14:14, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

First, thank you for the background on ANI. While I was aware of the urgent or chronic and intractable metric, I may have been missing the context of admins letting ANI act as a pressure relief valve, letting editors vent then letting the issue die quietly.

I agree that the Forum Shopping has no merit, but I do feel that bludgeoning/disruptive editing does. I understand we disagree on this, and I respect your reasoning that the risk of BLP concerns not being raised outweighs the risk of editors becoming exhausted by Thomas B allegedly relitigating the same issue. Your point on the chilling effect of ANI is also well-taken; it's sort of a miniature WP:NLT in that way.

While I'd still like to see the thread closed, I'll drop a note to Nicholas about taking archival as a "no consensus for sanctions" response. The tag holding off on archiving is already in place, though, and I wouldn't feel comfortable reverting.

Does this sound like a reasonable way to move forward? I agree that keeping it open is not helping the encyclopedia, and absent an admin coming in to close, I'd like to have a plan to put it to bed so everyone can get on with editing. Thank you again for taking the time to talk with me and explain the things I've missed; I really appreciate this! EducatedRedneck (talk) 14:25, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

The problem with Thomas is that he tries to be helpful, assumes good faith in everyone and he is also verbose in sharing his knowledge. It might come across as bludgeoning and I've tried to council him to not reply quite as much as he does. You'll notice by the way, I haven't once called for sanctions against anyone nor has he. There are some quite serious BLP issues with the article at present and I'm perplexed that an admin hasn't stepped in to deal with them. I've already had one senior admin hint to me that they were aware of what was going on.

If I might offer you some advice, think long and hard before you get too involved in this. The main reason I am walking away, is that I've been around long enough to see this headed to arbcom. As I've already hinted no one walks away from arbcom untouched by the experience. The stupid thing is if they'd only let it die I would have gone on my merry way a long time ago. WCM_email 14:45, 8 April 2024 (UTC)