User talk:73.69.251.97

January 2021

Anonymous users from this IP address have been blocked from editing for a period of 31 hours for making personal attacks towards other editors.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. Acroterion (talk) 21:52, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If this is a shared IP address and you are an uninvolved editor with a registered account, you may continue to edit by logging in.

Bull. There was no personal attack. Block me for life. I do not care anymore.

Knee jerk reaction. My apologies. I do not believe there was any personal attack, however I do believe whoever made the claim may have taken it as such, or, may have been using the claim as a tool to further his/her agenda. I do plan to challenge the claim below.

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.

73.69.251.97 (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

First of all, blocking policy requires “repeated” violations as per Wiki blocking policy. “Persistent attacks” are also specified. Neither of these conditions were met, which I believe gives the appearance of this particular block to be purely punitive in nature. Whoever initiated this block did not appear to look into and evaluate the conversation that had been taking place on the page in question. What happened is right there plain as day on the current edition of said page (excluding the entry I made that was deemed to be a personal attack, which is still in recent history).

The section in which the conversation takes place is regarding the article’s infobox under predecessors and successors. Suggestions had been made by other users that the information appeared to be wrong. The reason I was there was because the information there also appeared incorrect to me. I suggested that I agreed with other users saying it didn’t look right, and a user promptly refuted what I said and suggested I might be trolling.

Rather than accuse the user of attacking me, I did some digging by following links in the box and found that following the links cleared up my confusion. So I suggested changes that could be made to help prevent other visitors from being confused by the information due to how it is currently presented. Rather than discuss the suggestions, a second user flat out told me to “Just stop this...”

I do apologize for losing my temper a bit, but I believe that if enough admins take a close look at what is happening with that page (as I did) it seems that a few, if not more, are determined to shut down any suggestions that don’t make sense to themselves. This is far from diplomatic, and borders, in my opinion, on dictatorial behavior, which is where my unfortunate comment (now removed) came out of. I admit my choice of wording may have been inflammatory. However, I also charge that suggesting users are trolls, and telling them to “stop it,” is equally inflammatory. Yet, I never complained to admins about any of it. All I wanted was an intelligent discussion using reason and diplomacy. What I got, essentially, was “Shut up and quit causing trouble.”

Are you kidding me? Seriously. Is Wikipedia supposed to be like this? I don’t believe the majority of users here think so. I certainly don’t. And I’m NOT new here. I actually was a registered user for a long time (user:sentientparadox now user:GoneForGood). I’ve never been in the habit of causing problems here on Wiki. I’m still not. But if you take a closer look at what’s really happening with the article Nazi Germany, and it’s talk page, I honestly believe you will come to agree that something not good is happening there.

In all honesty, the more stuff like this happens on the Wiki, the less faith I have in the voracity of its tenets. So little faith do I have now, that I’m really not concerned with whether I am blocked, or even banned for life. But I believe you all might care. Otherwise, why would you be involved?

I must ask finally, if blocks are not yo be punitive, and are supposed to be about preventing disruption: How is this block, after one moment of indiscretion, not punitive? And how is one momentary lack of discretion on a talk page few have even viewed other than those involved with the article, “disruptive” to Wikipedia in general?

That is all I have to say. Thanks for reading. Whatever will be will be. 73.69.251.97 (talk) 23:52, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Accept reason:

Per discussion Acroterion (talk) 18:41, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have a lot of patience with editors who attack other editors by going "ACHTUNG!" in discussions about Nazi Germany[1] Your denial that there was a problem with your edit indicates to me that you seem to be more interested in an argument than a resolution, Please explain how you will reconsider your approach to interacting with other editors, rather than escalating. You are not obligated to be warned, and you are not entitled to treat other editors as opponents, or the encyclopedia as a battlefield. Acroterion (talk) 00:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have not denied there was a problem. In fact, I freely admitted it. Perhaps my admission was not as forthright as you would have preferred.

It was wrong. Period. I could make excuses that ACHTUNG actually means “respect” in German, and it does. But that isn’t what I meant. I freely admit that. It was stupid.

I would like to point out that you want me to explain how I can avoid escalating similar situations in the future. That’s easy. I’m not new to this sort of thing. Anyone who isn’t is bound to take an occasional misstep. It’s part of being human. The path to avoiding escalation is as simple as making genuine attempts to understand other’s points of view. That’s hard to do however, when they aren’t making any attempts at all to understand your own, and not even attempting to explain their own viewpoint, but simply shutting you down as if your own point of view has no validity, and isn’t worthy of discussion.

I’m hearing how wrong I was in this situation, and I admit freely, I was. I would hope the unwillingness to even attempt discussion on the part of others is equally seen as wrong. Being called a troll is inflammatory. It is a personal attack. So is being told to “stop it” when nothing but constructive suggestions are being offered up for discussion. I would hope (but I am NOT asking for proof) that that behavior is also being addressed. That was just as wrong.

I’m NOT suggesting that their behaviors excuse mine. They do not. I’ve apologized. It is right here on my IP page for both of them to read if they should choose. I can’t put it anywhere else under these circumstances.

In the future, I would be happy to discuss improvement to the article in question, but that would require others to be willing to do the same. At least two users so far, have not been willing, but have both chosen to attack me. That’s fine. I can let that go and ignore it.

But does that mean I should just shut up and go away? That’s not what Wikipedia is about. It never has been.73.69.251.97 (talk) 01:14, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

BTW: This is an honest request to understand something that I am at this time unable to fathom. How did I “vindicate” your decision to block me? Please explain. I simply do not understand this. 73.69.251.97 (talk) 07:19, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Your initial response amounted to a denial that you were doing anything wrong. Since you've reconsidered, I'd be happy to unblock with the admonishment to think it over before you post. Blocks aren't meant as punishment. When wading into controversial topics it's easy for you to misunderstand people and they to misunderstand you. Acroterion (talk) 13:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose we are going to have to agree to disagree on the point of denial. I feel that although I may have used soft language in admitting what I did, it wasn’t strong enough for you. I personally do not see any evidence of denial in my first response. All I see is an attempt to explain, not excuse. I guess you don’t see it that way. We disagree. That’s fine, but it’s also unfortunate. There are two sides to what happened there, and I feel only one side is being addressed. The bottom line for me personally is that I still feel the infobox is misleading. It seems clear that those who are able to fix that don’t even want to admit it is misleading. I used to think Wikipedia was all about eventually discovering and exposing truth. Too many incidents like this show that it isn’t about that at all anymore. It’s interpersonal politics and personalities are overshadowing the quest for true articles that do not mislead and confuse readers. Don’t worry. I’m done with wasting my time on that issue. It’s just not worth it. One day in the future Wikipedia will be gone anyway, so what’s the point? Have a good day and thanks for your time.

"Discovering and exposing truth" as a governing ethos for crowdsourced media hasn't been shown to work very well, and it's definitely not how WP works. It's axiomatic, for instance, that people who choose usernames with "truth" in them are up to no good. WP is a mirror of established scholarship, for better or worse, we're not here to create knowledge, we're supposed to be compiling it. Acroterion (talk) 18:32, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Totally agree. You’re misunderstanding my use of “expose” though. I mean exposing the world to what is found. In other words, compiling and displaying. While it works well much of the time, it also often fails miserably. The greatest issue of all is that over time what is compiled changes drastically. And that is directly due to crowdsourcing. Wiki’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Over time what is seen as truth will change. Anyway it’s all easy to turn into a long discussion. I’m getting ready for this big nor’easter. It takes a long time to pick decent movies. 😝 Have a good one.

Irony here is that the user that instigated all this to begin with and led to frustrating me to the point of blatantly implying his/her dictatorial behaviors has since been banned. Should have been banned long before this happened. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.61.21.255 (talk) 13:54, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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