User talk:Abd/Archive 4

Candidate for rule 0

It's "Don't be a dick". I've always suspected that when someone is block/banned for what seems like a bunch of petty reasons, this is what they are really being blocked for. You just can't say it because the essay itself says that calling someone a dick is in itself a "dick move". It would definitely be inappropriate as a block reason. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 05:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Nice to see that someone has read User:Abd/Rule 0. The most common Rule 0 violation asserted is probably WP:TROLL. Trolling, by definition, involves an imputation of motive. The alleged motive is to irritate, anger, offend, disrupt. Sometimes this really is a user's motive, but quite often the user is just trying to express what they think, to do what they think they should be allowed to do, etc.

As an example, User:Absidy was blocked with the summary:

• 16:27, 24 February 2008 Jehochman (Talk | contribs) blocked "Absidy (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Trolling

Was he trolling? Yes, I believe he was. He wanted to be blocked, he was thoroughly frustrated by the response to his proposals, he was under attack (filing SSP reports for a continuation account that openly acknowledges its history?), and he'd tried to leave Wikipedia before, and, obviously, found it difficult to stop contributing. (This user goes back, I understand, to 2004, though I've only seen history to 2005.)

So under IAR, Jehochman's action could be seen as legitimate. Block policy would have prohibited the block, for the "trolling" was incivility to Jehochman, not to anyone else. Previously to that, Absidy had dropped a message to every member of ArbComm suggesting that they name proxies. He wasn't soliciting a proxy for himself, he was calling attention to the idea, through a limited number of Talk page posts. Jehochman warned him for canvassing, though WP:CANVASS doesn't cover an action like this. There was no RfC or other process happening at the time. Again, Absidy was an experienced user. He knew that, though his action was legitimate, it would trigger response, it would be considered disruptive. He also knew that Jehocham was likely not to laugh at his incivility. Other admins would have taken it as a joke, and would simply have laughed. It was not a personal insult. ("Incivility" is really a relationship, there is no intrinsic incivility. If I give a friend unwanted advice, and he says, "Thanks. Fuck you too!" It's not uncivil, it is how friends sometimes talk to each other. Tell someone else in a different context, "Fuck you!" and it is highly uncivil.

(Jehochman later unblocked him, after I pointed out that his block was improper as being COI, pointing, then, to the Physchim62 ArbComm case, which was just confirmed again, as I'd predicted, by the Tango desysopping. Jehochman had cooled down and we were able to have "a bit of tea" together and he relented.)

Once there was attention on Absidy, though, with the idea that he was disruptive, every action was seen through that lens. He did not again troll for offended response. He had done it once, and he apologized. Still, because Absidy's interest had become Wikipedia process, and because WP process is stuck in a loop, unable to change for reasons easily understood by those with group process experience, everything he did aroused outraged response. And when he did what he would have been able to do without a problem as an ordinary user, he was indef blocked. We don't normally block people for creating improper articles or making improper edits, even when they are vandalism (which his edits were not). And especially we don't do it unless they repeat the offense after being warned. He never repeated any offense except one: Rule 0 violation.

The most blatant sign of this occurred when User:Obuibo Mbstpo, his next account, was blocked and his return (ultimately as User:Larry E. Jordan) was being negotiated. He had been indef blocked for creating a hoax article and placing a piece of humor in an article, both in mainspace. (This user never received any block that wasn't indef, itself a block policy violation for a productive editor, which he certainly was.) By this time, he was cooperating closely with Newyorkbrad on parliamentary procedure articles, he had built the Wikiproject and was prolific in setting up articles. So there were users, including a member of ArbComm, who really wanted him back. A deal was offered: he could come back if he promised to stay out of Wikipedia space. I.e., out of working on policy.

Wait a minute! He's indef blocked for mainspace violations, and he can come back, and edit mainspace, if he doesn't touch guidelines and policy? This was about as blatant an admission as possible that the real offense was touching policy livewires, but his actions in WP space were, in themselves, legitimate. And he refused to accept the deal, as, he stated, it was his right as a user to participate in policy. (He had also started adding canned AfD comments, which was considered blockable by some, but the same sort of thing had been, by consensus, found acceptable for User:Kmweber with RfAs.)

All this would come out were this to go to ArbComm, I'm sure. ArbComm is the one place where there is some orderly process, trial before verdict, deliberation before decision. Elsewhere much that takes place is right out of Alice in Wonderland. In AfDs, for example, a "charge" is brought and the "jury" immediately starts to vote with conclusions, very often before the "defense" has any opportunity to present evidence and argument. It is, quite literally, insane. (In standard deliberative process, there is only one "vote" allowed on a proposal before argument, and, in fact, all voting other than that one is prohibited, argumen

Absidy, or whatever we might call him, usually it's, now, Sarsaparilla, saw much of this, and his real offense was pointing it out. Then, being in his mid-twenties, and quite impulsive, he jaywalked. Indef block. I've stood with him on quite a few issues, and, I'm quite sure, I'd be blocked at the drop of a hat if I give the cabal an excuse. (The "cabal" is mostly informal, it's a kind of group-think.) Absidy, for personal, off-wiki reasons, doesn't want to pursue formal DR process, it actually risks harm for him for reasons that have nothing to do with Wikipedia policy, if I assume he's telling me the truth, and I've no reason to doubt it; in fact, his actions, otherwise seemingly erratic, become explainable if this is true. Otherwise this would all have been resolved long ago.

Absidy's last block was for creating an article on non-notable subject. The article text was jocular, but true. By this time, the user had some serious enemies, really out to get him, and charges were made through IP edits that were, directly, lies. The "crowd," essentially, didn't notice that they were being led by the nose into a riot. Instead of looking at, "Why is this IP editor so interested in this, who is he?," they took the suggestions and ran with them. "Yeah! He's awful! How could he do such a thing! Obscene hotline! Think about the children!" But the hotline Absidy described wasn't legally obscene, I hear worse on the radio every day. It was, quite arguably, in poor taste, not my idea of nice humor, but how many users actually called it to find out for themselves? If they did, they did not bother to contradict the lies. And when I did, it was interpreted, as mobs will do, as simply biased. WP:AGF? You know, that's policy, not a guideline. But Rule 0 trumps it. --Abd (talk) 15:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

RfD nomination of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Asset Voting

I have nominated Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Asset Voting (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. rootology (T) 23:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Rootology, for the notice. And thanks for the withdrawal of the nomination, as well. --Abd (talk) 02:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(Text from User talk:Yellowbeard:) WARNING: Meat puppetry, double voting in an AfD, and edit warring

This edit was meat puppetry for a blocked user: [1]

[2] was meat puppetry, and is a double vote by you. Your contributions to an AfD should be signed by you. If they come from another user, under some circumstances, that may be justifiable, but you still must sign then, not make it appear that they were added by the other user. (That the user's contribution was previously removed doesn't change this. It was legitimately removed, blocked editors are not allowed to vote in AfDs, and blocked editor contributions may be removed on sight. Fredrick day even acknowledged this in the AN/I report.)

Either of these could result in a block if continued, both together even more so. Remember, I can't block you, only your actions can result in that. (And I wouldn't have touched a block button with a ten-foot-pole over you, which is why your canvassing in my RfA, that got you blocked, was really not very bright, unless you don't care about your account, which, I suppose, might be the case.) --Abd (talk) 12:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Then, of course, your defense for the banned user Sarsaparilla is also "meat puppetry" and "double voting". Yellowbeard (talk) 13:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

To explain this to the puzzled reader: The first part of this is a warning that I dropped on Yellowbeard's Talk page, and then he responds.

No, I take responsibility for any edits of Sarsaparilla that I have restored, and you gave no examples. I doubt that you could find any. I've never restored controversial edits of his, as far as I recall, that I could not and would not have made on my own. If you think I'm guilty of meat puppetry, then make a claim of it. But you *did* restore the illegitimate vote of a blocked user, without signing it or taking responsibility for it. You've been warned. Next step wouldn't be up to me. But if you continue, I predict, you will be blocked. Go ahead, make my day. I wouldn't say that to most users, even when I disagree strongly with them. But your Wikipedia activities have been purely destructive, even if some actions have been legitimate, looked at singly. You are POV pushing by selective deletion. Interesting idea. And poison.--Abd (talk) 13:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

If you have an issue with the status or repeated voting of editors in AFD, please place a comment to that effect after their opinion, or strike out the vote using <s> tags. The closing admin will then review the matter. Please don't delete or change other people's votes in other ways. Stifle (talk) 14:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Abd, please follow Stifle's advice. Actually, you don't even need to strike out the votes, you can just add a comment saying "This Ip is most probably a sockpuppet of user User:Fredrick day" so that other !voters and the closing admin are aware of this. You can see that removing votes just don't work, since many editors are against doing that and prefer that the !vote stays even if it's going to be discounted. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't generally ignore advice from any user until and unless I determine that the advice is truly wrong. So, even though I haven't done that yet, or the reverse, I'm not going to barge ahead like a bull elephant, don't worry. But here is the issue. Fredric day is expert at making suggestions that a fair number of editors will jump on. "Yeah! That's outrageous! Lynch him! -- or, in this case, lynch the article." Allowing him the right to edit the AfD is giving him exactly what he wants, and it's harmful. Any substantive arguments in what he posts can be made by any other editor, as I noted in the AN/I report (I think it was the second, filed by Yellowbeard.) I would have left something in place myself if I thought there was any argument there not already made by Yellowbeard. But the editor putting the argument and comment in needs to take responsibility for it.

He actually said, when he made the mistake that caused him to be outed as the vandal he was, "I don't need this account anyway, I can do what I want more freely without an account." And, given the attitude of some users, he may be right. As an IP editor he can say whatever he likes without having any responsibility at all, he has discovered that most are not willing to do what it takes to actually block him. So.... this is the situation. Block policy means nothing. I could do exactly what he is doing, it's trivial. Is this the direction we want this project to go? I'm not going to do it in the middle of an AfD, I don't want to prejudice it more than it already was by what need to be said, but when the AfD is over, these issues will be going through process for extended community comment. At least that's my intention.--Abd (talk) 19:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

OK --Enric Naval (talk) 20:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

There appears to be differing opinion on this. I have not deleted "repeat votes." There is no question about the status of the blocked user, the only question is who is going to deal with it and exactly how. I *did* strike out as my first action. The editor reverted it. The editor in question has no right to vote in AfDs. Period. I'm not willing to edit war with any legitimate editor, including yourself, Stifle, so if you see me doing something improper, fix it. Again, let me repeat this: there is no question about the status of the editor involved. When a "legitimate" editor -- he still is, he's not blocked -- restored the edit improperly, no strikeout, no note, no signature -- I did not revert it. Someone else did. So, got any kites to fly, Stifle? You might find it more fun. I have been very open and direct about what I was doing. The removal of material was announced on AN/I before it was done.[3] Nobody objected then. --Abd (talk) 16:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Mailing list posts

I've just been reading en-wiki-l (the English Wikipedia mailing list) for May, and I just wanted to say I found myself agreeing with a lot of what you wrote. Have you thought of, or already, written any more permanent essays on the subjects? Stuff like sourcing subpages (some articles do have something similar set up manually as a talk page subpage), new editors and the rates of attrition or increase, and so on? I particularly liked the "ladder that built the project being chopped away" and the "the tide comes in and washes out, over and over, leaving only a little behind" bits. Carcharoth (talk) 01:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This post for example, about talk page approaches. I have seen several talk page archives by topic, and they work quite well. WP:CONTEXT was the most recent one I saw. Alternatively, people can produce digests of talk page discussions. Summaries of past positions and answers to frequently asked questions. You can end up with a fairly good guideline at the end of such a process, and if it is well managed, you can point people to it. WP:PEREN is a good example, as is Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Explanations. I've also seen some talk page archives labelled with a summary of what was discussed in each archive. Something like this, but with descriptions of the content of each archive (as well as the date). Some people do this with their own personal user page talk archives. I'm desperately trying to remember the example - but can't remember if it was an article or project talk page. I think it was actually an article. The point is, though, that with enough people managing a talk page, really good systems can be set up. Talk:Evolution/FAQ is another example. Carcharoth (talk) 01:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. We have tended to focus on Articles as "building the project." But, in fact, the encyclopedic project is much larger than that. We need structure behind the visible iceberg of articles, and "knowledge" exists in hierarchies of notability, not as black and white notable/not-notable. While it is possible to create "objective" standards for notability, they are subjectively created; in the real world, what is notable to an individual varies from moment to moment; what is notable to societies varies from society to society. My own conclusion is that we should toss notability as being relevant to inclusion, for verifiability includes a minimal level of notability; more accurately, for something to be more than a mere suggested contribution to the project, there should be independent verification, agreement if you will, of the notability of the thing. Because of frivolous verification, which will occur, we then need to restrict the class of those who can verify, and this is part of what flagged revisions allows, though it could be done without that software facility.

We will soon have two visible layers: ordinary articles, editable by anyone, but which may take an extra step to see, and flagged revisions, as a top layer. With this, it becomes possible to relax notability requirements, thus maerliorating one of the most contentious areas of Wikipedia process. Ultimately, I'd see more layers than this, all the way from a top layer consisting of rigorously reviewed and validated and consensus-notable (positive consensus, not lack of consensus that it isn't notable) material, down to a "submissions" layer from which all that would be deleted would be copyvio and BLP violations, speedy stuff, generally.

Debate would be over what *level* of notability is appropriate. These are normal editorial decisions, and the results are not drastic, and easily adjustable later.

Underneath the article layer should be a whole layer that reports, in an NPOV fashion, the debate over the article, which includes listing every proposed source, with commentary on the source. If, for example, a source was proposed but rejected for some reason, that reason should be detailed. Now, this meta-encyclopedia takes work. Lots of work. However, the alternative to it is that work is repeated over and over, without building anything. Talk is there, for sure, but not organized, typically. As you have pointed out, sometimes aspects of this work have been done. But there is no organized effort to do it.

This brings us to what is often my central point: we need structure, we need something more than the ad-hoc formation of virtual committees (the editors working on each article). This ad-hoc committee worked well enough at the beginning, and something like it will be, always, the basic way we function. However, this is ultimately inadequate as the scale increases, and, if we consider the drastic inefficiency of the tidal formation of articles, it never really was very good at the beginning, but a seemingly inexhaustible supply of editors made it seem to function well. We simply didn't count as important all the editors who went away in disgust. The classic solution is some variation of top-down organization, and we have seen efforts in that direction. Esperanza, with its elected "board," AMA, which, as I recall, had a coordinator of some kind, and now WP:Governance with a proposal for an elected assembly.

There is another proposed solution, which was never detailed; rather, the basic tool for creating the structure, a proxy system, was proposed for experiment; this was very hastily rejected, with attempts to actually delete all record of it. As to my essays, you might read User:Abd/Rule 0. The proposer of WP:PRX was practically immolated, indef blocked, three times, currently considered banned, for the Wikipedia equivalent of jaywalking, while clear vandals get three warnings. Currently, there is an AfD for Asset voting which, regardless of its notability according to current standards, suggests a method of electing an assembly which, in fact, avoids ordinary elections. (You won't see this in the article, because there is no source for it other than my own writings here and off-wiki.) Asset Voting was historically proposed (without that name) by Lewis Carroll as a method of improving the results of Single transferable vote, where he suggests that voters who didn't have the knowledge to rank all the candidates could, instead, simply vote for one, and that candidate could manage the vote transfers from there on. Carroll was looking at the problems of purely using a Preferential voting ballot, and he confronted the voter ignorance issue directly: instead of blaming the voter, he cut through the gordian knot that had entangled so many writing on the subject and looked instead at the basic issue of representation. In an Asset Voting system, everyone is represented by a candidate chosen by the person, and it is possible to make this a "standing election." That is, voters can change their votes at any time, and the composition of the assembly could shift. (In my off-wiki proposals, I'd handle this with the creation of additional seats; the seats losing their quota would be able to participate in deliberation for some latency period, or by general consent of the assembly, but they would lose their votes immediately.)

It is possible to retain the direct democracy aspect of Wikipedia *and* have a "concentrated" representative system to carry on focused deliberation and even decision based on estimation of general consensus, and to retain the advisory aspect of consensus; all this has been done before, the only really new idea is Delegable proxy, which is quite similar to Asset voting (and the proxy assignments organized as in WP:PRX could be the standing election "ballot"). (Delegable proxy was an article moved from Liquid democracy, an article created way back and at some point deleted, recreated by me as a new editor with no clue about the prior history, and then worked on by others, not by me, eventually expanded, in spite of some protest by me, way beyond normal reliable sourcing standards -- way beyond. I avoided editing the article once I'd realized the COI problem, and did not vote in the AfD which deleted it, though I commented extensively. That article, by the way, was quite informative, it's an example of how a useful article is deleted by the application of notability standards. Similarly, Michael Nordfors was deleted; however, his project that used delegable proxy, Demoex still exists. (Delegable proxy was deleted, what links from that is, I think, Proxy voting which is really a far broader concept.) It is as if the world were tossing Wikipedia a rope which could be used to rescue it from the pickle it's in, and Wikipedia looks at the rope with suspicion. "Fringe." "POV-pushing." "We don't vote." "Sock puppet heaven!" (Which was preposterous: I was named as a proxy by the proposer, and, immediately, he and I were checkusered. Puppet masters don't explicitly connect themselves with their socks! And in an advisory structure, which is what most voting is about on Wikipedia, votes literally don't count, and socks can't invent new arguments. The only reason we have a problem with canvassing and sock votes is that we *do* consider votes more than we should, and we don't have systems for measuring consensus on a broad scale, so a relatively small number of false votes and a relatively small error in sample size or bias due to self-selection can loom large.)

But how to we get from here to there? The fuss over WP:PRX shows how the existing structures don't encourage deliberation; rather, they encourage knee-jerk responses. If someone actually writes in detail, as I tend to do, it is widely decried as "bloviation" or "too much, why don't you boil it down?" Now, when I have a POV to push, when I'm not reflecting and participating in shared deliberation, I have a conclusion and I think it important to convince others of it, I do write far more concisely. It takes much longer than simply reflecting on the topic. I tend to be more of a writer than an editor, though I've been an editor professionally, I can do it.

We need to build structures that build consensus over the process rather than just merely a default "rough" consensus over the results. We have policy and guidelines pages that supposedly reflect consensus but which sometimes do not reflect the actual practice of editors, for most editors don't participate in editing the guidelines pages. (This same kind of deviation is seen, sometimes, in Town Meeting government, where Town Meeting may vote one way over an issue that law requires to be submitted to secret ballot as a general election, and then the voters vote quite differently. It is not, as some might think, that voters are afraid to express themselves at Town Meeting, but that participation in Town Meeting is inconvenient and requires relatively high motivation; in my small town, it was common that a lot of phone calls were made to scare up a quorum of 5% of the registered voters; Town Meeting is self-selected and a biased sample of those very interested in Town business and projects, whereas the general election is a much larger sample, with the larger sample including many voters who haven't considered the issue in depth. No conclusion can be drawn from this about which "side" is right; what's clear is that the communication and trust were not adequate for the Town Meeting and the voters to be in close agreement with each other.)

We don't have deliberative structures. However, we could create those structures, and it takes no central policy to do so. WP:PRX, in spite of its rejection, doesn't require central approval, until and unless we are prepared to forbid the individual expressions of trust that proxy files represent. Indeed, there will be such efforts. The rejection of Esperanza was strange. Esperanza had no power over users who did not choose to participate, and it did not consume resources except from those who voluntarily chose to contribute them. What became clear to me from the common argument against WP:PRX that it was like Esperanza was that, indeed, the similarity was seen: both involved voluntary coordination and organization of coordination among editors. Yet without this organization, Wikipedia will be increasingly vulnerable to covert coordination and what might be called "affinity coordination," that is, the bringing of focused attention on some issue by editors who watch each other's Talk pages, follow similar articles, and who will pick out the same issues from the Articles for Deletion lists.

In any case, what attracted your attention, Cacharoth, was some specific examples of the introduction (or the wider use) of examples of the elements of deliberation. What I see as most important, though, is that editors who can see the problems and possible solutions start to formally recognize each other. It happens informally, and that is not enough. WP:PRX is a technique for doing that. If we take Carroll's implementation, and use a preferential "ballot," participants would have more control over proxy recognition on any particular issue. There was a previous Wikimedia proposal that referred to Candidate Proxy, a prior name for Asset Voting, with users naming proxies in various areas. My preference, though, is for the very simplest form, which is a single proxy assignment that may then be varied with special proxy lists set up, say, for Wikiprojects. The special proxy assignment trumps the general proxy assignment for that specific area, but if there is no special proxy assignment, the general proxy stands. This, then is maximally simple from the point of view of the individual user; it complicates the analysis, but not much. And proxy analysis isn't necessary for most purposes; what is really important is the expression of trust involved in assigning a proxy. It has one simple meaning to me: "If I don't participate in some issue, for whatever reason, I trust that the participation of this user will be reasonably trustworthy to represent what I'd conclude, if I did participate." It is not a specific ratification of whatever the proxy does, it is not an implication that the user and proxy would "vote" the same way, but we may assume that "on average," they would, if the assignment is sincere. But there is an additional effect, which is a probable concentration of trustworthiness in proxies which are widely trusted, especially if they are widely trusted by those who are themselves widely trusted.

The actual behavior of delegable proxy we won't know until it has been tried, for some substantial time; hence, the initial proposal was merely to set up the mechanism and see what happens. If nobody uses it, no harm done. No change in policy was proposed. Proxies could not vote in the name of their clients. But those who want to understand the votes in, say, an RfA, might take a look at proxies, particularly if the balance was marginal. Was it truly marginal, or was there major participation bias? How do do this wasn't specified, nor should it be. It would be up to the one who wants to be advised. Which could be WMF, it could be a closing admin, it could be Jimbo, it could be any user who simply wants to understand a result, and possibly, to anticipate what would happen if the user appeals the decision. A decision that got weaker, seen through proxy analysis, would, in theory, have more chance of being reversed on appeal, whereas one that got stronger under such analysis, forget about it. Tools for proxy analysis would be developed that would allow, for example, weighting by number of edits or, perhaps, the disregard of new accounts. Or by any standard that people wanted to use. The basic elements of a delegable proxy system are two: a proxy table, showing proxy assignments for all "members," and a list of participants in some debate or vote. Analysis from that can be done by anyone, and I've advised against it being a central tool: central tools can be corrupted or even openly controlled. --Abd (talk) 17:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Your hierarchy of notabilities reminds of the hierarchy of science at WP:PSCI --Enric Naval (talk) 20:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Notice that your hierachy will partially overlap on the lowest stage with specialized wikies like Wookiepedia that currently handles all the fancruft and on the highest stage with Scholarpedia that is handling certain scientific stuff (read the details on its article) --Enric Naval (talk) 21:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

"Puppet masters don't explicitly connect themselves with their socks!" LOL, no. There are some stupid sockpupeteers that will out their socks on stupid ways (I have seen it myself, but I'm not going to give names) --Enric Naval (talk) 04:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I've seen it happen by mistake. User:Fredrick day would log out and make outrageous IP edits, signing them "Section 31." One day, he made such an edit and apparently forgot to log out, so there was his edit shown in History, signed "Section 31." He immediately commented, "I don't need this account anyway." And he went on to say he had others. There is another account which made an IP edit acknowledging his user name; it happened to be the same IP that had been used a few times by Fredrick day. I filed an SSP report, and checkuser, and it came back inconclusive. I don't want to mention the user name because, at this point, the presumption is that he's innocent and it was merely a rare coincidence. However, I've been continuing research on it using more advanced analytical techniques. We'll see. It's on the back burner at the moment. In any case, sock puppetry becomes less of a problem with delegable proxy, not more. For starters, it would take some serious sock puppetry to affect proxy expansions much, because I expect analysts to consider things like edit counts. An account that registers and assigns a proxy and doesn't come back is probably going to add no weight at all, but risk detection. I'm sure some will try it. But if it gets to the scale where it could affect things, it could be detected. One fairly simple standard would be to discount proxies from accounts that haven't edited in the last thirty days. Why thirty days? Checkuser evidence expiration. If discounting such proxies shifts results, I'd suspect something was up and would want to look closer at these accounts.--Abd (talk) 04:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

If you want to see a real mess of a votation, with sockpuppets abounding, go to Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Dihydrogen_Monoxide_3. I'm interested on knowing how delegation proxies would prevent this from happening. Also, please, don't try to remove or strike votes there even if they are obvious socks, since it has already been attempted and it was rebuffed on the talk page on the basis that it's supposed to be done by arbitrators only. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Delegable proxy would not, in itself, stop anything from happening. But it makes structure possible that could stop it. Several things need to be done to deal with the problem. Our present RfC process (and an RfA is an RfC) is essentially backwards. As I've been writing later, verdict first, trial later. We need to separate evidence from opinion and conclusions. Evidence is NPOV, we really should know about that! So, first of all, deliberative process: informal discussion can go on with no rules at all, but formal decision making is different. First, there is a motion, and no formal discussion until it is seconded. Then we could have arguments, to be sure, but if we want consensus, we should put argument off, at least argument about the final result. Instead we collect evidence. So an evidence page is built and sourced. Testimony is evidence, but it should be attributed and relevant. *Then* arguments are presented. *Then* when all this has been complete, and there is consensus that it is complete (RRONR requires a 2/3 vote, so much for the myth that Robert's Rules is purely majoritarian), voting takes place. Voting is just a support. Sock puppetry is pretty much irrelevant to the first and second parts. And the third is advisory only.

Now, imagine we do have a proxy system in place, and people are leaning on it. I'd expect to see *fewer* comments, not more. Why bother commenting if it (1) doesn't add anything new and (2) someone you trust is already voting and your proxy will be counted? So while there may be few comments and few votes, they will represent many users. A few odd votes coming in from sock puppets, a drop in the bucket, I'd expect. To have a serious affect, the socking must be serious, and, I predict, pretty visible. Edit count. Word count. Stuff that's hard to fake. Remember, the method of analysis of a proxy expansion is up to the analyst, the one who wishes to be advised (or who is trusted by the one who wishes to be advised). Edit count can be considered, age of accounts, etc. I predict that some fairly sophisticated tools will be built.

But underneath this is a hidden power, that would only become openly manifest if truly needed. A delegable proxy network is like a phone tree. If resources are needed, they'd be available. If an organization has, associated with it, a DP network of most of the users, it can, if somehow it's hijacked or corrupted, be reproduced anew in a flash. Key point: proxies and clients would, I'd expect, have direct contact information. I can say that I wouldn't accept a proxy from someone who wouldn't tell me who he or she was, and I similarly would not give one to such a person. (Some think that people who want power will take proxies from anyone, but you're going to look pretty bad if you have a bunch of illegitimate users who have named you. We might, even, eventually *require* that proxies validate the identity (confidentially, I'd assume) of clients. But that's not crucial in a Free Association context, where votes don't control, they only advise. --Abd (talk) 01:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Of course, all discussions will just be outsourced to the evidence gathering phase, where disruptive editors will try to discard any evidence that they don't like in order to shortcircuit the process before it reaches the phase where it can't be tricked. Which means that you will need a lot of punitive control in order to keep the evidence gathering from running out of control. This shouldn't be much of a problem, mind you, the rules for what is allowed during the evidence gathering phase can probably be refined along the way.

So many technical terms. I suppose that you refer to Robert's Rules of Order. No idea about DP network or phone tree. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry. DP = Delegable Proxy. A version of the article which was on Wikipedia is at [4]. Yes. RRONR, Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised. Phone tree. I was shocked to find that Wikipedia doesn't have an article on this. Google "phone tree" ... anyway, a phone tree is a device commonly used in organizations for contacting everyone quickly. Each member has a list of people to call with some emergency notification, say. The structure is a pyramid. See [5].

Now, "punitive control." Every person and every meeting of people has the right to protect itself from disruption. Every meeting. We tend to think of Wikipedia as one huge organization, but, in fact, what we have is a very large number of small meetings. Protection is not punishment. One of the problems I've seen is that too many administrators lose sight of this; block policy is clear: punishment as a motive for a block is improper. To me, the model Free Association (FA) is Alcoholics Anonymous. There is no blacklist, no list of people who can't attend AA meetings. Individual meetings can decide to expel someone, but they can still go to another meeting. If someone is disruptive, again and again and again, they could eventually get to the point where they can't walk in, but a person would really have to try hard to get to that point.

So every virtual committee should be able to protect itself from disruption. What's disruption? I've seen disagreement be considered disruption, however, this is a wiki, and if someone writes long diatribes, there is no requirement than anyone even read them. Personal attacks are disruptive. Edit warring is disruptive. So how to protect the "virtual committee"? Well, discussions can take place anywhere. One example is that a page can be set up in a user's space: in a user's space, the user is effectively a defacto administrator. 3RR restrictions do not ordinarily apply to a user editing his own pages, and anyone who tries to edit war with a user in their own space will normally get blocked very quickly, and properly so. So editors can meet where they choose. It doesn't have to be in the Talk page for the article they are working on, if there is a problem there. True disruption can be dealt with through blocks, but this requires admin action, and admins are few and far between, in the real article world. So, around administrators, I'd see a penumbra of trusted users (trusted by the administrator) who feed the administrator, and if this is documented, there comes to be a larger group to contact, and it's easier to find someone congenial, someone who will take the time to undertand the problem. When I first encountered a serious sock puppet article ownership situation, and I tried to get admin help, with a 3RR report (blatant 3RR violation by an IP editor who turned out to be about as COI as possible on the topic), I was told "AGF" and other platitudes, thoroughly useless for dealing with a very serious and very experienced sock master. Essentially, the administrator didn't have time to investigate. (We had an exchange about this in my RfAs.)

Delegable proxy builds, spontaneously, networks. It's really the way a nervous system works. The communications load is distributed so that no individual need handle too much information, that's how it's like a phone tree. --Abd (talk) 03:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Soooo, ok, I can see several ways in which the system can be gamed or disrupted. However, it's a waste of time to discuss them unless the test of fire has been done. That's it, the DP system, as far as I know, has not been actually tested on any online participative community where anonimity of accounts is allowed. Part of the reason because the DP proposal was rejected was simply the fact that the proposal has not been executed on any smaller community where the rough parts of the system could be worked out and then designed out of the system.

You see, for online communities, I think that everybody uses the very usual combination of powerless editors + omnipotent administrators appointed by the owner + owner, with the bigger systems having a few community moderators thrown in the mix to facilitate communication between the unwashed mass of users and the upper echelons.

That combination has worked out successfully on many fora, small and big. So, to get it replaced by a new system, you need to be able to showcase a few communities where the DP system has worked successfully. Basically, you are right now trying to start the house by the roof. Nobody online will believe that a RL system works online until they see it working a few times. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

You are correct that DP hasn't been tested, at least not formally. (DP is what many communities do informally.) But I think you have not thought this all the way through. Not to worry, it's a very new idea and few could manage "thinking it all the way through" at first pass. Where to begin?

WP:PRX was rejected for a whole series of reasons and, I must say, excuses. The most common reason given was "We don't vote." Given that WP:PRX didn't propose voting *at all*, this was a tad frustrating..... It proposed, only, setting up a system whereby users could name another trusted user, which we called a "proxy" because that is what proxies are, trusted. But no powers were assigned to the proxy. None. Later, maybe, the community could decide to do something with this, but that would be highly speculative. WP:PRX merely allowed experimentation with the structure, not with any assignment of powers. The rejection of DP because of power considerations is pretty common. I agree absolutely, I would not hand the car keys to a DP system without seeing some demonstrations, without having some reason to be confident that something unanticipated, and serious, would not happen.

You are again correct about the usual, default power structure. That's what Wikipeida *actually* is, though the "omnipotent" administrators mostly keep their hands off. If it were, in fact, required to believe that DP would help on Wikipedia before trying it out, it would, indeed, be as you describe. Now, there still is the belief problem. People -- not just Wikipedians -- appear to be very reluctant to try DP out, even though the cost is about zero, and, in my experience, naming a proxy, developing that relationship (which is really bidirectional), is quite useful. No cost, and I claim it is useful. If people were rational, there would be some trying it! But we are not "rational," or, more accurately, there are other considerations. We have filters protecting us from new ideas, for good reason. And this is the real "bootstrap" problem. However, there is a way around it. Small groups. There is nothing about WP:PRX that requires mass adoption, and it could become useful even if a very small number of users start to play with it. Most people will not, from a casual contact with the idea, even come close to anticipating the ways that it would be useful. Look, it took me several years of writing about this before one person actually paid enough attention to "get it." And get it he did. He sometimes writes about it now, and what he writes is pretty much exactly what I'd write, except he is far more succinct. (This is Jan Kok, co-founder of the Center for Range Voting.) Warren D. Smith, the more famous co-founder, still doesn't get it. Maybe that's because he is a mathematician, whereas Jan is a political activist with a lot of people skills.) There are now a few others. And one of them was a very experienced Wikipedian, very smart, and he got very excited. You know what happened to him. I'd say he still has a tendency to think in terms of control structures.

But my proposals, outside, are almost entirely "FA/DP." Free Association with Delegable Proxy. Free Association is a term I use for a rigorously libertarian structure. Small-l libertarian, not capital-L. No central decision-making to speak of. Voting is advisory only, power remains entirely with the members. Excepting minimal amounts that might be collected for deliberately minimized group expenses -- easily covered by a few members tossing in very small amounts (just like Alcoholics Anonymous, and AA was the inspiration for the FA concept) -- there is no amassing of assets which then requires central decision. Delegable Proxy in such a situation has one basic purpose: to facilitate the voluntary communication, cooperation, and coordination of members who use it.

Now, in fact, FA/DP could be seen as dangerous, and I think that intuitions about this are part of the reason for rejection. What's the danger? It is the classic danger of democracy. What if the people actually do start acting coherently? Imagine you are a long-time Wikipedian. You have helped craft policies and guidelines to protect your vision of the project. What if the great mass of editors, most of whom haven't read the guidelines, suddenly had power? Would they support the existing policies and procedures? Or would they wreck the place? (And if someone is thinking like this, they probably don't think of a third possibility.) But, let me say, simply, it won't happen. FA/DP, if implemented in anything like what I'd propose, would be extremely safe. It would be highly unlikely to undertake destructive change. The DP structure, I believe, will tend to concentrate wisdom, not ignorance. Inexperienced Wikipedians, once they realize that they might name a proxy, won't pick some other newbie, usually, they will pick an experienced Wikipedian whose work they have seen and admire, and who is willing to help them integrate with the community. The fear of the great unwashed taking over is a very common one in volunteer organizations once they have reached a certain size. But, in fact, we can look at, say, Town Meeting government. The people aren't nearly as ignorant and self-serving as we sometimes fear, I've seen these "ordinary citizens" in action.

So there are at least two safeguards: first of all, my claim that the structure would concentrate wisdom or "trustworthiness," and, secondly, it is all advisory. WMF can watch what is going on and could pull the plug on anything. This kind of voluntary relationship between players is typical of FAs. In AA, there is a board which holds copyrights and the like, and publishes literature. That's Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. It's a standard board structure. Legally, the board, I think, is self-appointed, but, just like WMF (with at least some board seats), the AAWS board traditionally respects the election of board members by the AA World Service Conference, which is a delegate body. (Itself interesting, how the delegates are election -- by supermajority, ordinarily -- I'm pretty sure Bill W. would have been quite interested in DP.)

And we have to consider the alternative. Nonprofit volunteer organizations tend, in the long run, to go in a number of directions, if they meet with reasonable success. Very commonly, they become professional. Staff is hired. And staff preserve their own interests. Positions that were volunteer initially become paid positions, which is connected with grants being obtained. The public they serve, initially very involved, initially thinking of the project as "theirs," increasingly views the project as "theirs." And then there is increasing difficulty attracting voluntary public support, and increasing dependence on grants. However, if they continue to perform a valuable service, they may be able to keep things in balance. Many long-time nonprofits are like this. But they are no longer innovative, and they tend to become highly conservative. (Please don't think of this as any kind of condemnation of traditional structures. They work. But not for certain things.)

If it's correct that the mass of editors would change things, if they could (i.e., if they were organized such that they could act coherently), then Wikipedia is swimming upstream. Because of the excitement of the project and its possibilities, we have been able to attract new editors as the old ones burn out. But why did we burn out editors in the first place? It's all that swimming upstream!

People thinking of DP for the first time often think of power flowing upward, of "voting." But one of the major effects of DP that I'd expect is movement of information and advice in the opposite direction. Consider a mature DP structure: there are a relatively small number of members who are highly trusted, and, because this is a relatively small group, traditional techniques for finding consensus in small groups should function well. (Wikipedia uses some of these, not others, and, because the understanding of the process tends to be not explicit, it often fails to be effective at finding genuine consensus but only a "rough consensus," which can indeed be rough on a minority of participants! And, sooner or later, everyone is in the group that gets roughed up. So to speak.) The small group negotiates, on behalf of the whole group, and with constant feedback and validation from the whole group, efficiently, consensus. This consensus is then communicated out to the members, through their proxies.' Someone they trust explains to them why, no, they can't use the story their Uncle Fred told them as a source for the article. They have a real person to talk to about an issue they might have with policies and guidelines, someone who will listen to them, and, indeed, if the client comes up with some cogent argument that hasn't already been well-considered, they will take it up the structure.

That's a mature system. But it will function something like this even when it it is really small. A few hundred editors using delegable proxy, especially if a few of them were quite active, would be a major force for the improvement of the project.

"Improvement? Why improvement? Maybe they'd wreck the project!"

Well, I doubt it. Why bother? If this is what a few hundred editors wanted to do, they could do it already, and it would be quite difficult to stop them. We proposed WP:PRX for on-wiki formalization of the network of trust. It could be done off-wiki (with or without harmful intent; indeed, it seems quite possible that the first structures like this will be off-wiki, which certainly isn't how I'd have preferred it, but, in FA/DP theory, the independence of the communication structures between members from any central control is a crucial concept. AA doesn't control, at all, the individual meetings, which is where the large bulk of communication happens in AA.)

Wikipedia is highly suspicious of voluntary organizations of editors. That's what is behind the rejection of Esperanze and of the Association of Mediation Advocates. The fear is that these would push some POV. But the POV pushing is happening anyway, in two ways: through external organizations that are sometimes quite sophisticated as to how they manipulate Wikipedia. How do I know that they exist? Well, it's an inference from this: there have been clumsy efforts, that were easily detected. The value of the manipulation of information on Wikipedia is high, enough to fund serious consultants and people who aren't going to make those stupid mistakes. So, I infer, it's happening. I'd expect a serious organization to dedicate time to develop users who do nothing but stellar work, gain admin status, and more. Just think: what could you do to Wikipedia with patience and a few million dollars?

The other way it happens is through the relatively unconscious cultural biases of the body of active editors. Because we have no way of measuring broad consensus (a few hundred votes on something is unusual, with, what, six million registered editors?) we really don't know whether the core group is serving the larger group or serving itself. Don't get me wrong. The way that Wikipedia works is, in some ways, brilliant. And FA/DP is actually a way to preserve that against pressures that would naturally -- and by precedent -- lead in a quite different direction.

Remember Rule Number One? Increasingly, it is becoming obsolete. In my RfA, I was asked what the most important rule or policy was that would guide my work. I answered, "Rule Number One, Ignore all rules. I was practically pilloried. Well, not really, I still had about 50% which was pretty good for, I think it was,"[[Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." But it does mean that what is best for the project can never be captured in a fixed set of rules. Increasingly, though, we see dependence on the guidelines as if they were controlling and to even suggest something different is disruptive. Instead of guidelines being expressions of actual practice, not controlling practice but enabling people to predict, reasonably well, how the community will decide in a situation, they become true rules, laws, statutes to be interpreted literally with attention to the exact letter.

A common example is the issue of reliable sourcing for things that are, in fact, well-known. Absolutely, we should have reliable source for everything that people might possibly question. But what I've seen is the use of WP:RS to remove material that is not at all controversial. The material is verifiable, say, for example, by mention in hundreds of independent posts on mailing lists and wikis and blogs and web pages, none of which are RS. The text in the article attributes the material, so that in the event that the material, say, turns out to be a false rumor that simply spread all over the place (I've seen some of those start with the insertion of some propaganda on Wikipedia!), what the text said was still true. "According to So-and-so,"... The basic policy is verifiability. Then the proper question would be article balance, and the really basic question: does this text serve the purpose of making the project, intended to be the "sum of all human knowledge," more complete and more useful, in addition to being more interesting. This question is, in actual practice, decided normally by editorial consensus. The problem arises when somebody not familiar with the topic of the article pops in and, without consensus, removes material considered to be unsourced, citing sourcing policies. Or impeaches a source that the editors had concluded was adequate for the specific situation. (For example, for some purposes and under some conditions, blogs and web pages and mailing list posts can be considered verification for text in an article. I personally insist upon attribution in those cases, and I don't use those locations for "fact," other than the fact of some expression by the author.)

In order to have the original concept of the project survive the problems of scale, we need means of finding consensus on a large scale. If we can accomplish this, we can meet the challenge of scale, stop burning out editors, and recruit, in fact, all of humanity for the project to collect the "sum of all human knowledge." Right now, people put what they know in the encyclopedia, having been told that it is the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit," and they get their fingers burnt, all too often. Delegable Proxy, proposed simply as an experiment by setting up the proxy assignment mechanisms and proxy reporting (Proxy Tables), without any specification of how it is to be used, is a step toward the possibility of this vision.

By the way, it took Jan Kok, one of the smartest people I've communicated with, about a year to get it, though when he got it, he got is all the way. Our Wikipedian friend is likewise very bright, but it took him a few months, and he still doesn't see the whole thing, I think. Of course, Jan is about twice his age. I'm in no hurry in the sense that I know that it will take time, it seems to take most people about a year of exposure to the idea before it starts to sink in. That will change when there are functioning demonstration projects, probably within the next year. Most people need to see concrete examples.

Wikipedia, when it works, is efficient. That is, to decide on content for the article on widgets, we don't need to hold a vote of six million editors. Or even a vote of an editorial board with twelve members, or ArbComm. Normally, it's one editor, or two or three. If they agree, fine. Done. If not, a few more people get involved.

But there are too many places and ways in which the efficiency breaks down. Flagged revisions, I predict, is going to ease this, but FA/DP was designed for efficiency. And explaining that I won't do today, except to say that FA/DP process naturally involves only the minimum effort necessary to find a functioning consensus; it expands participation, again efficiently, only when needed. It is almost as if it was designed for Wikipedia. But it wasn't. --Abd (talk) 22:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

re: vandal voting schemes

I checked the contribution histories of the major players in the recent debate. They're all newer accounts than the last time. Of course, it could be a sockpuppet account - there's never any way to be sure. But the editing styles appear different from what I remember. I'm afraid I don't remember the name of the vandal from last time. I want to say that the username started with an l or 1 but I'm not sure of that. It was several years back. If I find it in the history, I'll drop you a note. Rossami (talk) 23:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

IP check

Regarding this diff (and the request for an explanation), you may be interested to know Lucasbfr is regularly involved in clerking the many checkuser subpages. The content in question was moved to the IP check archive per Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Procedures#IP check. :) – Luna Santin (talk) 13:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure. I'll check to make sure, but I assume that I've already been reverted. Let me suggest to Lucasbr that a more descriptive edit summary would be useful, like "Clerk clearing page," but no big deal. I just happened to be watching Recent Changes and saw that massive removal of material, and the fastest way to question it was to revert it, something that, if it was legitimate, I'd expect to be rapidly undone and do no harm in the meanwhile, and less trouble, in fact, than answering an inquiry.... My apologies for any inconvenience. --Abd (talk) 16:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

No trouble at all (well, at least not for me). :) Grateful to have people watching the checkuser subpages, and having put in a good bit of time on RC patrol myself, I can certainly see why that got your attention! Thanks for that. – Luna Santin (talk) 18:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks =)

Thanks for your words of humor (I chuckled) and advice on my RFA analysis. I'll definitely keep all that in mind. and I probably won't even touch these new buttons for a few days! (especially not while I have this bucket on my head) ;> xenocidic (talk) 02:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

As you know, policy and guidelines play second fiddle to actual practice. Therefore you should make sure to keep the bucket firmly in place while pressing the buttons or swinging the mop. Otherwise you might have a point of view, and you would then be POV-pushing. If, by any accident, you should see anything with one eye, make sure to keep the other eye firmly closed, or else you might fall into depth perception, seeing things from more than one point of view simultaneously, and we all know how confused this can make us. --Abd (talk) 03:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Re recent comments to my comments on WP:CANVASS

Thanks again for your comments. They were very useful. Now that the current AFD is over, I've added a notice to our project page as a general method of notifying potentially interested editors of current and closed deletion debates. Here. I would appreciate your feedback as this section in-light of the Canvassing guidelines. Thanks.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

French presidential election 2007

I have replyied to you: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ryan_Postlethwaite#Help_me.2C_French_presidential_election.2C_2007 ]] Before accusing me of edit warring, why did you delete my edit with no explication Blanchisserie 16:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

(this editor was mistaken, I didn't delete any edits of his. I've also informed the editor how to sign comments, most of my discussion of this is on the editor's Talk page or on the Talk page for the admin who previously blocked him. There, he claimed that another editor had told him to "fuck off." I asked for the exact French. He responded here: --Abd (talk) 16:12, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

"Point. Va voir ailleurs." can be translated by "fuck off" Blanchisserie 16:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

"Can be." It also appears to mean: "No. See you around." Which is quite arguably dismissive, i.e., could "mean" the same as "fuck off," but is far more polite. In English. Now, I'd defer on this to a neutral editor who could judge the colloquial French. Nevertheless, the edit in question,[6] appears to be mildly uncivil, of a kind of incivility that is far too common. Translated, part of it is, "Wikipedia is not here so you can have your publicity." Which was just plain unnecessary and, indeed, insulting. However, Blanchisserie, this is Wikipedia. Many editors are uncivil to this level. Yet we still must find ways to cooperate. You are a COI editor. If you edit war on the article -- and it seems you are -- you will be blocked. Calm down and work patiently, seek consensus, and you might get your link, or not, I can't predict. My impression, though, is that yes, the link may be appropriate. Though as a site in French, it might not be appropriate for en.wiki, a separate question. --Abd (talk) 16:10, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello, You have written in the Talk page "Blanchisserie here asserts that he is an academic. (1) Blanchisserie, please provide documentation of this, it will help" I am an academic of Université Paris 8, but I do not want my real identity revealed in Wikipedia or Internet, so what can I provide for my assertion ? -Blanchisserie 08:01, 11 June 2008 (UTC)-

Probably you can't. However, the issue is the web site. I don't personally doubt you, but what is the source of information for the web site? Why should it be trusted? I think you might realize that if authorship or editorship of the web site is anonymous, it cannot be trusted as a reliable source. Part of being an academic is that one's personal reputation is on the line if one is deceptive or simply wrong. What solution do you see to this problem? --Abd (talk) 12:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I did not think about this, I am going to amend the web site so as to clearly identify the source of information and the purpose. -Blanchisserie 06:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blanchisserie (talk • contribs)

AfD nomination of Donna Upson

An article that you have been involved in editing, Donna Upson, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donna Upson (3rd nomination). Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? GreenJoe 20:14, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

User:GreenJoe retired, comments

This comment was placed on User talk:GreenJoe, however, GreenJoe reverted it,[7], with the edit summary, "violated rules," thus continuing the pattern. GreenJoe has a perfect right to remove whatever he likes from his Talk page, though the right declines when edit summaries become abusive. This summary wasn't quite abusive, though I do wonder what rule was violated. So little time, so many unanswered questions.... --Abd (talk) 16:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

GreenJoe has announced his retirement, here and in various places, apparently over disputes regarding his repeated nomination of Donna Upson for deletion. GreenJoe was a long-time, very active user, and I found it puzzling that he would bail over what, on the surface, would seem a mild disagreement by Wikipedia standards. GreenJoe was never blocked. However, reviewing his Talk page history, I found some troubling edits. He'd been warned many times, and reverted some of the warnings with an abusive edit summary. Most recent first:

00:45, 22 June 2008 [8] warning from Shereth "disruption"(stands)

21:48, 21 June 2008 [9] warning from DoubleBlue "personal attack" (stands)

The above warnings have not been reverted, and are part of the incident over which GreenJoe has abruptly retired. However, further back, there are these:

00:05, 6 June 2008 [10] GJ reverts warning over behavior similar to his behavior in the current AfD flap, as "rm stupidity." (Similar to his reply to me in Talk:Donna Upson of "reply to moron.)

• Green Joe responds, however, to the user, with [11], "I offer my apologies. I've had a long, crappy day and it's no excuse for my not assume good faith myself. GreenJoe 01:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)"

23:57, 5 June 2008[12] (similar to above, I think it's related. Same user)

• Green Joe dropped a vandalism tag on the user's Talk page for an edit (next day he apologizes).[13]

02:33, 2 June 2008[14] GJ clears Talk page. Included were these comments:

• I'd also ask you to consider that you have a bit of a habit of simply ignoring established consensus if it conflicts with how you personally think things should be. Please familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's actual policies and precedents, because you appear to approach a lot of situations with an attitude of pure tendentiousness. For example, calling somebody petty just because they don't agree with you, even if they're being as polite and civil about it as User:Nat was, is inappropriate Wikipedia behaviour. Bearcat (talk) 17:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• For starters, non-admins are allowed to close XfD discussions that don't require deletion. Admins hold no more authority over any other editor. I'm not sure what you think you'll accomplish with a TFD nomination of Template:WPCanada Navigation. There is about a snowballs chance in hell of it being deleted. Would you mind at least explaining why on earth it should be deleted? Even your nomination text doesn't make any sense. -- Ned Scott 05:10, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
• Yes, I removed your prod of the Student Christian Movement of Canada, and then you accused me of COI, saying that I was the one who wrote the article. Thanks, but wrong. User:Paul foord created it, not me. Your actions here may appear to some as terse and rude, so it might behoove you to be aware of who you are accusing of what. Peace out. --Eclipse98 (talk) 06:48, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
• Your recent comments are becoming uncivil. Please stop. Several editors have brought up valid concerns about your votes, and responding with "get a life" and posting templated messages telling people to AGF doesn't help the situation. Please stop. Thanks. Al Tally ^talk 13:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

There is more, quite a bit more, but GreenJoe's habit of responding to comments on his Talk page with replies on the commenting user's Talk page makes it tedious to research. I'm not preparing an ArbComm case here! I'm simply interested in what causes a user to get so upset that they retire over what might seem to be a fairly small disagreement. What I see is a pattern of incivility, with hints that it is related to off-wiki stress. I'd suggest one thing: if we are too stressed to explain edits and AfD nominations in proper detail, perhaps we are too stressed to edit Wikipedia, and taking a break would be a good idea. Getting attached to results in the Wikipedia environment is just about guaranteed to make anyone uncivil! GreenJoe made quite a mess with the incorrect naming of his AfDs for Donna Upson, and it's only partly been undone. That's a sign of someone in a hurry, he was not a stranger to AfDs. --Abd (talk) 15:05, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

AfD comments

I have replied to you on my user-talk page, and would welcome your reply. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 18:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

No personal attacks

I've removed your personal attack on another editor. I think it's better if you don't restore it. Please be careful about making comments that appear to be intended only to attack the good faith of well established editors. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 17:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, AOANLAT. I edited out what was less relevant to the AfD and put it back, leaving a diff to the full material. As to "attack" on the "good faith of well-established editors," what in the world are you talking about? Good faith was not attacked, for one. Behavior was described, and, I'd submit, accurately. Killerofcruft asked a question, and, from review of his history, it had an obvious answer. He is practically an SPA, as implied by his name, which has been noted by many. He's all over AN/I the last two days. He can be an SPA, but just as we might discount !votes from, say, Kmweber under some circumstances, it's relevant, in fact, that an editor has a strong deletionist agenda, just as it would be relevant if an editor clearly votes Keep on everything without any consideration of the particulars of the article. 'Nuff said, for now; if you care to discuss this further, you are welcome to do so.--Abd (talk) 21:18, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: about User:Killerofcruft

(comment left on User talk:Arcayne)

Since you seem to have befriended this user and are working with him, you might warn him about his behavior, it looks like he's trying to get himself sanctioned. You are welcome to look at my contributions and his, of course. I hadn't looked at his contributions for days, though he seems to think I'm wikistalking him, but I did just look, and it seems he is preparing evidence for an RfC or AN/I report over me.[15] He narrowly escaped blocking yesterday, and, as I pointed out in today's AN/I report over his behavior, the AN/I report yesterday closed with a mention that it was adequate as a warning; yet he, as I point out today, dismissed it as a "lot of crap." If he keeps this up, he's not long for editing here. (I could document, solidly, every "accusation" I've made regarding him, but haven't considered it necessary, since I was *not* arguing that he should be blocked, quite the contrary, in the first AN/I report. That might change if he continues on this suicidal course.) So.... a word to the wise? A stitch in time?--Abd (talk) 18:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure. I will let him know. It bears pointing out that you and I haven't had the best of interactions, either, and I know from personal experience that when you don't agree with someone, you do tend to snipe at the other guy and poison the well of editorial discussion. As well, the unsubstantiated accusation of sock-puppetry that Killerofcruft notes was never withdrawn or apologized for, and you doing so might have gone a long way to avoiding the situation. Lastly, if keeping a sandbox/sidepage of unfortunate interactions was against the rules, I can name at least three editors who would be blockety-block-blocked 'til the cows came home. It isn't, on its face, uncivil or telling of bad faith; on the other hand, watching his edits (how else would you know of the sandbox additon?) opens yourself to claims of wikistalking and harassment.

As previously noted, I will let him know that I believe he is stepping over the line (I happen to agree with you there). Maybe the both of you could step away from each other for a bit. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 19:04, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree about poisoning the well. No complaint was made or intended about that sandbox, I was simply pointing to it to show you his probable intentions, which are, in my opinion, next to wiki-suicidal. If he files the complaint, I'd be forced to document all of what I've stated, and I am not trying to get him blocked, but that could. He has a perfect right to use his sandbox as he is, I saw nothing there that crossed any boundary, and he has a conditional right to use RfC or AN/I, provided that he understands that it will focus even more attention on him. I pinged you because you have probably the best chance of stopping him; if I wanted him blocked, I certainly would not have warned you.

As to prior interactions, I have a short memory. I suspected what you just stated, but, in fact, I assume good faith except when the reverse is staring me in the face. I'm not bothering to look back at the prior interactions. I'm a little troubled about your encouragement of Koc's "attack," "nuke" mode of dealing with non-notable material, it tends to increase the battlefield aspect of Wikipedia, the opposite of what we need, but we can leave that aside.

As to the sock puppetry, I didn't make the original "accusations." Koc still looks like a sock to me, very much like a sock of a banned user. The question, really, is which one. If he behaved with his prior account as he is behaving now, almost certainly he was either blocked or on his way to it. I realize that this is far less than conclusive, but recent interactions have started to raise suspicion on my part to the point where I am increasingly motivated to file an SSP report. The first AN/I report on him actually suggested it. He's been treading on thin ice, and *most* of it has nothing to do with me. The difference with me is that I've been telling him what he's doing, suggesting again and again that he back off. He seems to take that as a challenge.

I'm not seeking him out. But I do see stuff, and I comment on it. He edit-warred on the AfD being discussed in AN/I today.[16] [17] I didn't take it there. Because he may have been technically correct as to the AfD itself, as to the article itself, he's found some support there. But the edit warring is the problem. And in that AfD, he is arguing tendentiously, responding to nearly every comment he disagrees with, with it often getting personal. He's attracting other users questioning whether or not he is a sock. If he is actually going to dive into AfD process, he'd have to have a thick skin, and simply not respond when people make irrelevant comments about his person. I could say more, but it enters more speculative realms, I'll just say that it is entirely possible he knows exactly what he is doing.

Are you aware, Arcayne, of how he came to my attention? It was over an AfD for the article on Donna Upson, and I noticed that because User:Durova, whose Talk I watch, had been solicited, effectively, to comment (she didn't put enough time into it and totally missed the evidence, as did many -- I'd say all -- of the Delete voters.) The article isn't marginal. Killerofcruft registered in the middle of that AfD and immediately voted in it. Now, Arcayne, you've been around. What does that look like? Within a few days, Killerofcruft was featured on AN/I for entirely other reasons. I intervened there, mentioned two obvious puppet masters, and then stated that I didn't think the evidence warranted SSP at the time. I was more concerned about the incivility, which was continuing in a pattern quite similar to that of User:GreenJoe, who had "retired" as a result of running into a stone wall of community consensus (and who was likewise becoming uncivil, in similar ways).

It's not necessary for you to become familiar with all the history; I commented on your Talk just because I thought you could help. He's obviously not going to respond to my suggestions and advice, hence you. If he files that complaint, it's all going to come out in fully-documented form; every edit that he complains about had evidence behind it, it was not merely speculation, nor was it personal attack; I already write too much, if I'd documented everything it would have taken twice as long. Let's put it this way. I occasionally predict that if an editor continues as they are, they will be blocked. I've not been wrong yet, it typically hasn't taken more than a few days. If I recall correctly, two editors have filed AN reports on me. One is community banned (and was blocked immediately upon filing the report) and the other is indef blocked. And is a reasonable possibility for the puppet master here, if there is one. That particular block evader vandalized my web page in the midst of an incident with Koc involved. Could be a coincidence. Or not. He's tricky, uses multiple ISPs to avoid checkuser, has shown himself utterly unconcerned by being blocked, laughs at it. Viciously uncivil. Killerofcruft is not responsible -- yet -- for what User:Fredrick day was like. But, to add on little straw to the load on the camel's back, Fd was a cruft-killer, crusader against non-notability, taking losses, apparently, personally. So, Arcayne, one caveat: be careful. Help him, give him every opportunity to show that he is sincere in wanting to improve the encyclopedia, but don't go so far in that mud tossed at him ends up splattered on you. --Abd (talk) 21:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the warning, and agree that his entry into the AfD right after registering smells like Fisherman's Wharf, but without an rfcu or SSP result, it's just bad faith to even suggest socking. I am not saying he isn't a sock - if he is, he will screw up at some point and be found out. Wackiness will ensue, amidst a great gnashing of teeth and likely bitter recriminations. Until then, it's best to accentuate the positive. I am not defending his combative attitude, and had even gone so far as to counsel him on how to dial it back.

And it looks like he's turned the corner on this. While it's a bit cynical to believe its a Christmas Miracle, I am willing to let bygones be bygones and hope for the best. It sounds like you are ready to do that as well. My fingers are crossed as well. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 22:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Human beings are, in case you haven't noticed, complicated. I have had no vendetta or crusade going against KoC -- who has now changed his name, which we could hope is a good sign, though roses and leopards, etc., I have merely commented when I considered that it served the purposes of the project. I'm not personally involved with *any* of the articles which have been touched. I'm an inclusionist, yes, but, frankly, don't care that much to risk my account over fighting for it, I have more important work to do than to struggle over the details of fancruft or other obscurities, or, for that matter, over the details of Wikipedia guidelines. I'm seeking systemic solutions, i.e., solutions to how we make decisions, not pushing for some particular decision. And incivility is a big thing for me, I've seen it do major damage, contributing to user burnout and flameout. There is a difference between describing behavior -- without pushing for some specific conclusion, such as Block the Bastard! Sock Puppet! Troll!, and incivility. If the description is gratuitous, yes, it can be a problem. Sometimes I have, with an article, a POV. You don't see me running to AN/I because someone calls me a "POV-pusher," because it can be relevant. If "POV-pusher" becomes all the person says, then, maybe I would. When I was accused of being a sock puppet (rather preposterously, but never mind), I didn't attack the persons, I just calmly responded, if needed, and ignored it, if nothing was needed. If one is going to get involved with contentious matters on Wikipedia, there is going to be incivility, but we can try to keep it down. When it comes to editor behavior, if an editor is behaving in a manner known to be common among banned users returning as socks, it is quite appropriate to notice it with comment. It is not appropriate to treat the user like shit, nor, I believe, to block the user if the user is not being disruptive. But in this case, there was behavior that was disruptive (that's part of the pattern!). Discussion of this is legitimate, but it should be civil. Most of it was. The charges of bad faith made by the user, against many, not just against me, quite simply, were not warranted, even if the comments were incorrect. I don't see any evidence of some agenda involved in pursuing or harassing this user. Rather, his behavior was distressing many, and that is (with some caveats) the very definition of disruptive. The caveats are important. What this user intends to do is going to distress some. But the basic intention, properly done, isn't disruptive in itself. It is *how* that it is done that becomes very important. If he -- or you -- are going to be seriously pursuing "cruft" and "non-notable" articles, I highly recommend becoming the very soul of politeness and caution and willingness to see the other side, indeed, to help the other side when you can. You will be more effective, and you will be a worthy adversary for the dedicated inclusionists. Wikipedia benefits from healthy debate, but civility is crucial to this, for when incivility arises, the whole discussion can be derailed and can be made for reasons other than the welfare of the project.

mKR Sources page

I put some references you probably don't have in User:Rhmccullough/Sandbox/Sources.html Rhmccullough (talk) 05:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I may have a completely new aspect of mKR for you. If you give me your email address, I'll forward the exchange I just had with Clint Jeffery. Rhmccullough (talk) 10:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I had another inspiration. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Grey_Knight#mKR_sources Rhmccullough (talk) 03:55, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your assistance regarding Star Trek article block

First, I thank you for your receptiveness and opennesss.

Second, I was most definitely not engaged in a war of any kind. My understanding of the three-revert rule was not it does not apply to obvious vandalism. To me, arbitrary removal of sourced content (this is what I perceived, let's be clear; obviously the blocking admin did not agree) is vandalism and not subject to protection from reverts. The blocking admin's condescending tone suggests that he really didn't care about the facts. A look at his talk page appears to show at least one other user who had issues with him. So be it.

I have told him politely that I will submit an admin abuse notice. At the same time, if you look at the Star Trek discussion page, you'll see that I posted a question regarding just what is a "fan film" -- perhaps clarifying that will lead to better discussion and better pages. I want to be helpful.

17:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)Raryel ([User talk:Raryel|talk])

I understand that you thought you were doing right. Because that possibility existed, and you did not disregard a warning, a 24-hour block was inappropriate. Sometimes a very short block is used, and that *might* have been justified here. For me to conclude more than this would require more research than I can handle right now.

I don't see that you told the admin -- except maybe on your Talk page, which he might not be watching (or might) -- that you planned to file an "admin abuse notice." On your Talk page, I recommend, immediately, you strike that out. You can change your mind later. It does *no* good to threaten it. Strike out by placing <s> before the text you are striking and </s> after it. Add a note that you are going to try to work it out with the administrator.

Then go to the administrator's Talk page and make the polite request I mentioned. Very important: Assume good faith is a major guideline. Used to be called a policy, but it's hard to enforce. Assume that the administrator made an innocent error, that it was not abuse, but a simple mistake. That's probably the case, you know. Be extra careful to avoid blame. It is *much* easier -- and safer -- to try to resolve something at this level than to go through formal process. Don't even *think* about formal process unless all else has failed. It can seriously backfire, for starters. One step at a time. Try it. More than half the time, it will work, possibly more than that, it depends on the administrator, there are a few (fortunately relatively few) who seem to have an attitude of "whatever I did was right, and I ain't about to change my mind." Don't expect that and you probably won't see it!

Now, about your signature. Sign with this: ~~~~. That's all, four tildes, and it will put the time and Talk page stuff in automatically, you do *not* add it manually. One possible glitch: your preferences shouldn't be set to any signature at all. Sometimes users think they should put their name in there. Don't, until and unless you know what you are doing. If something is there, take it out and everything should work fine. --Abd (talk) 18:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Rhmccullough user space and External References

I'm sorry that I have irritated you with my "obstinate" behavior. Because of my inexperience, I did not understand the policy re: user space until yesterday. When you deleted my edits from mKR space, and told me not to put anything in mKR space, I thought that meant that I was supposed to "hide" everything in my user space. I never understood that it was acceptable to talk to others about my user space, and to "point" them to my user space for clarification.

For me, exactly the same reasoning applies to my External References. I previously thought I had to "hide" all my External References. If I have finally understood you, I am free to mention External References on any talk page, and to "point" others to specific areas of http://mKRmKE.org/ for clarification.

That is why I got mad, and rebelled against the "censorship". It was my understanding, at that time, that I was forbidden to talk about my user space, and forbidden to show any one my user space. Rhmccullough (talk) 19:10, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

That's right. It's important to understand this. You did not understand what was being said to you, and you made assumptions about it instead of asking for clarification. Then you responded as if something was happening that wasn't. Wikipedia is a very large community, which has developed it's own relatively unique process. It is very easy to misunderstand it. The core of active users, the ones who really run the place, is probably about 500 people. Most of them will bend over backwards to help you. If you ask. Some will help you just because they notice that you need help. If you accept it. And others will see you only through the tinted lenses of their point of view. These would just as soon watch you step on thorns as to remove them from your path. When you make a clueless comment, they will jump on it and try to use it against you or for whatever their agenda is. In short, this is a human community. Big surprise!

I advised you to not comment in the AfD. You went ahead and did, so, voluminously. I'm probably going to move that to Talk. You, theoretically, have the right to move it back, once, but I don't advise it. Someone else will move it back if they think it useful there, and then that person will be responsible for the irritation of the administrator has he or she has to read through something not relevant to the matter being considered. If mKR isn't notable -- by Wikipedia standards, which may have nothing to do, directly, with absolute importance -- then all your comments about why you think it important and others should think so too, and the history of the ideas, and all that, are irrelevant.

Wikipedia depends for vetting subject on the vast network of outside publicatinos, publications which have something to lose if they waste space on non-notable stuff.

Suppose you have just discovered the answer to, say, global warming. You have found a micro-organism that magically fixes it, and all people need to do is put a pot of this stuff in their yard and feed it. So you go to Wikipedia and announce it. What is wrong with this picture?

Wikipedia isn't the place to announce it. It isn't a community bulletin board. There are other wikis which would welcome the announcement. That's not what Wikipedia is for. It is not a place to publish original research, period. Go to any traditional encyclopedia, and look for articles on the latest discoveries, found just before publication. Unless they received wide notice in print before the encyclopedia publication, there won't be any mention of them. Wikipedia isn't simply a wiki, it is a wiki used to create an encyclopedia, which is a "compendium of all human knowledge," and you have to gloss "knowledge" to understand this properly. It doesn't mean anything that anyone knows. It means knowledge which is shared more than minimally. I'd disagree, I'd say that the standard for notability should be far lower, but I won't go there now, because that idea is currently irrelevant. Wikipedia must as constituted, restrict what it has articles on to what can be "reliably sourced." That is not crisply defined, so we do have a little wiggle room, but not much. Look around for information on mKR. Most of it has been written by you. Your mailing list on yahoogroups, that is really almost an announcement list, not an active user community. Notability of mKR is marginal, unless there is more of an interested community than we see. There are signs that this larger community exists -- if there were not, I'd have given up -- but unless that larger community has left some usable traces somewhere, the article will go.

That isn't going to hurt mKR, Mr. McCullough. People who want to find it will still be able to find it. But if you want mKR to survive as more than a footnote, there is going to have to be a user community that is far more active. And encouraging that community should be, I'd suggest, your number one priority. And this has very little to do with Wikipedia. Wikipedia will not stand or fall based on whether it keeps or deletes the article, now or in the future. Nor will you.

You find that micro-organism? What do you do? Try to interest *one* person. If you can't get one person to be interested enough to do something about it, you aren't going to find a community and you aren't going to convince the world, even if you are right as rain. Once you have one person, the two of you will find it twice as easy to find a third, and so forth. One of the problems with Ayn Rand's philosophy is that it seems to tend to be radically individualist, overlooking the fact that human beings evolved to be social animals. If we didn't function as coherent communities, we'd be individuals, sure, and we might even survive, but how? You are an engineer. Imagine engineering with no standardization of components. If everyone makes screws according to their own concept of what the "best screw" would be, well, we might have some better screws, maybe, but we wouldn't have mass production and then the low cost of screws and then all the sophisticated engineering that doesn't even have to consider, much, what the ideal screw is. It uses what is available, and because of the mass production, plenty is available. mKR will not survive you if that community does not develop, and the best time for it to develop is before you are gone. --Abd (talk) 19:37, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, and I accept it intellectually. But my emotions still say that "things are notable because they are valuable." My intellect has to remind me that "notability is not caused by value." Rhmccullough (talk) 06:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Right. "Notability" is Wikipedia speak for "Noticed." It means actual notice, to the extent that reliable source is created. Wikipedia is about what has been noticed in that way. Now, the edges of that are not crisp. I have argued that, in fact, if two people agree that something is notable, and those people are trustworthy -- which requires a definition of that -- then it is noticed. This is a radical inclusionist standard, and it requires, to be usable, something that we don't currently have, an article hierarchy. There is a tool that has been developed and implemented in the MediaWiki software called Flagged Revisions, which allows certain revisions to be flagged. And then the default display for readers might be only revisions with a certain flag, and only a certain class of users can add that flag. It is under debate now. The intention is to create at least two layers of articles: the "validated" or "verified" versions of articles and the "working versions" that anyone can edit. To see the working versions, one may have to be logged in, in order to be able to set a preference. As an example, it is all being debated. But this leads to an obvious possibility, what I'd call a "Submitted layer." A deeper layer, and no deletion except for hoaxes, obvious nonsense, or illegal content. This is Pure Wiki Deletion, actually. Simply blanking an article does it, in effect. The submission layer would not be googleable, probably, to answer the concerns about spam. However, anyone could read the content. We'd get rid of AfD entirely, and thus of the most contentious area of Wikipedia space. AfD is an editor-killer, in my observation. And *nobody* likes seeing the content that they spent hours on simply deleted, and even to see it you have to go begging to an adminstrator. *They* can see it, and this gives them one more editorial advantage, which they are not supposed to have (there are about 1600 administrators, but only a few hundred are substantially active, I think.) ..... --Abd (talk) 14:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Your attack page

You may wish to comment at An/I about your attack page. --Allemandtando (talk) 22:59, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

relations and hierarchies

Diligent Terrier is back, and with one stroke of his editor's pen, he has virtually destroyed the mKR article.

(See same topic at bottom of mKR talk page.)

With that section deleted, I'm no longer proud of the article.

It is unbelievable how little understanding he has.

Rhmccullough (talk) 06:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry. You wrote a piece of an article in your Sandbox. That was pretty good, I thought. It's not for Wikipedia, probably. Get it published somewhere else!!!

Wikipedia isn't for writers, it's for plagiarists, as long as they keep it fuzzy enough, and editors. You cannot be the author of that article.

Get something published somewhere else, somebody other than you can put it in an article here.

I've said a number of times that the MKR article might have to be stubbed. That means cut back to the minimum that can be established with reliable source. Take a look at some related languages, you'll see that some of the articles are very short, even if they may be more notable (not "more important," that's something different) than mKR.

If we can get a stubbed article out of danger of deletion, it's possible to expand it carefully. I think I explained this before. Many articles have "marginal" sources. Look at sourcing for Resource Description Framework! That article could run into trouble, but, in fact, there is lots of source for it, so it would escape. My point is that if notability is established, then each individual fact in the article can be sourced less stringently, if it is not controversial and isn't just made up here. As I've mentioned, it is even possible, sometimes, to use mailing list sources for certain things. Meanwhile, mKR isn't going to live in the real world if you don't manage to get more published about it. Think about that. Wikipedia is not crucial to the future of mKR, Wikipedia has articles about dead languages, it doesn't do them any good. What is crucial is that a healthy user community develop. Think about how to encourage that. --Abd (talk) 06:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Any way you'd just let it go?

On the MKR deletion discussion.. your incessant ruleslawyering is a large part of what got us into this mess. I really wish you'd stop it, now. I can see that you're "enjoying the fireworks" as you say, but Wikipedia is not supposed to be about causing fireworks for your own personal amusement. It's been quite disruptive. Friday (talk) 18:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I did not cause the fireworks. Period. If I had, that would be disruption. So if you are serious, act. Either back it up -- and risk your own reputation and buttons -- or back off. Warning noted.

What is going on now, with the closure and reversion, is wikidrama. I didn't expect it and I didn't cause it, but there is *nothing* that says I can't enjoy the show, and nothing that says I can't note that, for example, Rubin shouldn't have touched the closure. Perhaps you might try enjoying it yourself. A little enjoyment, some sense of humor, wouldn't hurt. Good luck. --Abd (talk) 18:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with some of what you write. But, if this truly is your style and you don't intend to change it, please consider not participating in AFD. Your comments tend to be painfully longwinded and full of attempts to sidetrack useful discussion into irrelevancies. I can't make you stop, but I can ask, so this is what I've done. Friday (talk) 18:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you can ask. Thank you. Understand that I've been writing on-line since the mid 1980s, and I've encountered the "long-winded" comment before, more than a few times. Some people like what I write, very much, and some detest it. I can say that none of it is truly irrelevant. The very disagreement on that page was over what was relevant: was it notability or process? So when I wrote about process, naturally you considered it irrelevant. So I have to discount your comment. Rather, you might notice how many times others pick up what I say, long time Wikipedians, and confirm and reinforce it. I'm certainly not always right, but I'm not stupid and my time is precious to me. I wouldn't waste it writing what I didn't think was important, and that some people don't see the importance simply goes with the territory. I can see what many others can't, often. It's a blessing and a curse, called Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, not a marginal case. It means that on intelligence tests, I mostly blew out the tests, they are not designed to measure beyond 99.9. But with certain other skills, easy for others, I'm a total boob. My brain works differently than "normal." Well, I've learned, shall we say, workarounds, for some of it. Do not think of me as some kind of enemy. I'm not your enemy, I rarely take any of this personally. Watch. Sometimes people, after they've known me for a while, come to appreciate what I can do. --Abd (talk) 19:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't remotely believe you're an enemy. I believe your good faith efforts have a disruptive effect that you don't intend or appreciate. Anyway, I've said what I wanted to say, thanks for listening. Friday (talk) 19:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd certainly want to know if that is true, so, perhaps I'll provide you with an opportunity to document that. Did my participation in the AfD disrupt it? It's not going to be an easy question to answer, but I'll probably do most of the work. The real problem, though, was at AN/I, not in the AfD itself. I've started putting together a record (first) and analysis (later) of that. It's been mentioned at AN/I, itself, in another report about it made by another user. You want to talk about disruption, by the way, you might start looking there. In any case, the beginning of the report is at User:Abd/MKR incident, if you watch it, you'd see more as it develops. (Or not, as you like). I'm taking the opportunity to study this incident closely, because, too often, we simply move on and forget and then it is deja vu all over again. The goal of this is not to pin the blame on anyone, and, in fact, my opinion is that, while certainly individual actors made mistakes, with or without good faith, the problem is almost never the people, it is the system. I.e., people always make mistakes, and a good system self-corrects efficiently, without chewing people up in the process. Except for those who cling tenaciously to their mistakes, like User:Physchim62 or User:Tango. The original error was recoverable, the clinging caused loss of the buttons.--Abd (talk) 19:20, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I take an afternoon nap, and look at what happens. I believe Fran was wrong in ignoring procedural issues, and the article was notable, if borderline, but as you pointed out, the article can be worked on in peace now. Now to consider DRV, RFC/U, ArbCom, and policy/guideline revision issues. I'm not doing anything yet, since we all need a breather. And I will study and analyze this whole mess also. — Becksguy (talk) 00:19, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Can't trust 'em for a minute, can you? There were always two issues here. This is my take on it. We already had eight administrators who had !voted. If they are a random sample, then we can roughly predict the odds as to which consideration a new, uninvolved administrator will consider most important. Thus we were facing a 5/8 chance that it would close Delete, based on primacy of the notability issue, and 3/8 based on the primacy of procedure and precedent. I was fascinated to see the age-of-account sort of the !votes. We got three votes from the first three years of Wikipedia, all Keep. In any case, the article is here now. This is the reason why I think this better than a No Consensus outcome (Keep was obviously highly unlikely). With NC, the article would have continued in article space, under conditions where every source that is weak in any way would be torn to shreds. It would be extremely difficult to build up a set of collectively acceptable sources. They already did this: removed all sources that were weak in any way, didn't put in sourcs that were found and discussed in Talk, and when a strong source, Griswold's publication of McCullough's article, was asserted in the AfD, they dismissed it with spurious arguments ("Griswold had retired" was the most amusing one.) With enough of them tag teaming, and some of these people do that, it would have been quite a struggle, and quite likely the article wouldn't have been ready for the inevitable, under those conditions, AfD. Good chance it would have closed with a more conclusive Delete, rather than the interpretive one here. In user space, the article can be developed, as you noticed, in peace, and it looks we may have some expert cooperation, we'll see. As I hinted elsewhere, it's possible to create source, if there are cooperating experts, as one possibility. (New territory? I don't know. But it is a way of satisfying WP:V, actually a very old way. Ask an expert! That's how the original encyclopedias were written, more or less.) Then, we can decide when the article is ready, and take it back. It's much cleaner, much more efficient.

Did you see my response on my user page. Interesting that you have ADD, as I do also (I much prefer that term to ADHD, since I'm not hyperactive). I remember that there was a connection with being rather bright and ADD. One of my good Wiki friends (that I met in real life) also has it. The real victim in this mess is the community and process (really due process). And also the author who just wanted to write an article about this nifty software. I came to WP to write articles and yet I feel like I'm spending more time over the last year fighting barbarians at the gates. As to your comment on influencing others, I think people need to speak up about what we see as procedural problems if WP is to grow. The processes that worked when it was a small project haven't scaled up to the massive size WP is now in my view. Too many like it the way it is now, and are extremely resistant to change, which is also partly human nature. — Becksguy (talk) 02:11, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Talk:MKR (programming language)/Sources

Talk:MKR (programming language)/Sources, a page you created, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Talk:MKR (programming language)/Sources and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Talk:MKR (programming language)/Sources during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 21:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I see it's been userfied. That's fine. Helpful. --Abd (talk) 21:52, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

If I could ask

Might I trouble you to avoid the comparison of me to a dog that might turn all Cujo on a dime? Honestly, post to AN/I contained some mischaracterizations that would take a lot more time to address than I really want to spend. I remember you from the Ibiza discussion, and you weren't the most polite fellow in that discussion or even the second most polite. I would ask that you try to avoid commenting about me, as you cannot seem to address my actions either correctly or with good faith. Thanks in advance. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 03:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that you read it that way. I certainly did not intend any personal offense, and I think that you might do well to try to understand the analogy. The point was that a dog that is not dangerous alone can become dangerous in a pack. That's not Cujo and that's not "on a dime," it is about what happens to any of us when we become too involved with a group of people egging each other on in the "battle for all truth and reliable sourcing." It can happen in the other direction with inclusionists. It is an us vs. them approach to the project, and it is doomed; to some extent, this is the number one problem on Wikipedia at this time. I have people, off the project, cheering me for some of the work I've done here and, believe me, it is quite dangerous, if it were to lead me to start thinking of editors who disagree with me or oppose my actions as "the enemy."

Please try to look at the overall balance of what I write and do. Actually, I don't remember the Ibiza discussion. I will say, however, that I can sometimes be almost brutally honest, but I'm also pretty careful about what I say and I don't gratuitously insult. I am very concerned about what I could only call a deletionist cabal that is connected with User:Allemandtando, and I think you may have been sucked into that, whereas, on your own, you'd have been more restrained.

You were improperly blocked, definitely, that was blatantly clear, and, had you not been promptly unblocked, I'd have been on AN/I immediately, working to get you unblocked ASAP. (I was putting my girls to bed, and saw the block on my Palm, at about the time it was done, because your Talk page is on my watchlist, but I don't edit from the Palm, so it was some time later that I got to a computer that I edit from, and it was over. The block was totally improper and that was the worst thing happening, so that took priority. But below that, why was Edokter, who should have known better, sucked into blocking you, a totally bone-headed move that could still cost him his bit and which is certainly going to attract attention to his possible edit warring with you? He was sucked in because he was, I'm suspecting, outraged by your behavior, and that kind of outrage is common when an editor comes in and starts hacking up an article without discussion and finding consensus. It takes hours to write a section of an article, for some people, and then in a minute someone comes in and deletes it. Process, Arcayne. There were two issues in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MKR (programming language) (2nd nomination): notability and process. The notability of an individual article is normally a very minor issue, but the process by which we determine notability is a big issue, Wikipedia can fall apart of the community doesn't function cooperatively. The same is true for every piece of text in the project. There are guidelines, and there is the process by which the guidelines are interpreted. If you focus only on the guidelines, and ignore the process, and then act vigorously, you will likely be disruptive and, almost certainly, you will be blocked, it is just a matter of time. And you will be scratching your head, wondering why it all happened, must be those evil inclusionists, you were just enforcing the rules.... But you are not the "enforcer of the rules," and, indeed, there really aren't any rules that bind the community, the community is the ultimate arbiter, not any individual or cabal. We determine the application of the RS guidelines to each and every article through a rough consensus of editors, and when a collection of editors develop, perhaps, some bias, sitting on an article, we bring in a broader community. Not the Lone Ranger to shoot up the bad guys. I will do one revert with considerable thought. Two takes a major reason, and probably, already, some support shown, and three ... I rarely do three reverts, period. It's happened when I've encountered tag-teaming and, last time it happened, I realized that the result of what the other side was doing was actually what I wanted, so I stopped opposing it. (Essentially, a group of POV editors outsmarted themselves, demanding notability for a fact that they were misrepresenting, it was a critical piece of their standard propaganda. They were demanding that this fact be in the lead, but, of course, as they would represent it, which was not true to source. I eventually "gave up" and let it be in the lead, and then simply added the missing quoted material -- not interpreted -- that made the real meaning clear, which was the exact opposite of what they wanted. And then, of course, the same editors tried to take it out as not being important. "Wait a minute! You just edit warred to keep this in because of how important this source is, and now you want it out? Nope. It stays in.

I don't do even one revert, except for vandalism, without discussion. I don't take out major text without discussion. If I want to take out a lot of text, I'll do it with a series of edits, so that editors can pick and choose which edits to accept and which to revert. I'll always give a reason in Talk for any edit likely to be controversial, and won't contentiously edit a reversion without attempting to find consensus by, for example, incorporating what I can of the other editor's ideas or purpose. The goal really is to find agreement, not to "enforce standards." Enforcing standards is contrary to the very foundation of Wikipedia, and, no, this does not mean that we should ignore the guidelines. It means we work together in understanding how to apply them to the situation, and where we can't find consensus in a small group, we pull in and involve a larger group. And it takes time. Someone coming in with a samurai sword cutting of the Hydra Heads of Fancruft is highly disruptive. Clean up articles, but this is a massive project and it is massive because of the participation of many, many people, and when one person tries to be the big Hero and fix it all, it does more damage than good, and it can be serious, long-term damage. --Abd (talk) 04:57, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your extensive reply. I agree with virtually everything you say, and can see where I have been fallible in how I have edited in some situations. While I I don't see myself as the Big Hero come to kill the fancruft, I have seen myself as a protector of the wiki when it comes to vastly skewed interpretations of our policy. I don't want to have to run to an admin every time I run into an intractable edit-warrior or pov-pusher. I consider myself fairly nimble on my editorial feet, and able to deal with some situations.

As well, I don't think I have been sucked into any pack/deletionist cabal. If you will note the first (and pretty much only) article that we worked on was the one on lightsaber combat. I had appraised folk on the discussion page of that of the need to significant clean-up for over two months, without reply. I had done precisely the same thing with the article Clone Wars, a A Visual Dictionary. When no results were forthcoming on the latter, I nominated it for deletion after a month of awaiting clean-up, and it was eventually deleted. In the lightsaber combat article, I think i was actually the one to nominate it for deletion as well (its 6th nomination), after waiting two months for any significant clean-up. After the nom, I decided to see if anything could be salvaged, and I am fairly certain that the only reason it was not deleted was due to my efforts to clean up the article and notifying the AfD discussion.

I am not a deletionist, and I have warned Allemantando to lighten up on the aggressive mood he is setting in his interaction with others. When he didn't appear to take heed of that advice, I went back to my other articles and left him to do what he wanted without my involvement. I do see that sort of behavior as corrosive to the environment - far more so than an admin abusing their own tools. It's like the police, responding to a hostage situation in a bank, blow up the entire town the bank is located in.

If it is amenable to you, I would like to consult with you further on issues I might encounter in articles and with editors. I will try to implement some of the philosophies you have expressed here, so the questions I eventually ask will usually be clarifying in nature. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 17:22, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

It is gratifying to me to see your response, it means to me that you read what I wrote, and the attitude you show will, I'm sure, protect you from any serious harm from any mistakes you might make. The block you just went through did not harm your reputation, in itself. I've often said that if a user has a lot of edits and hasn't been blocked, he or she is not trying hard enough. When we try hard to improve something we love, we will run into people who will take offense, even if we bend over backwards to avoid it (but not at the cost of our integrity.) Wikipedia actually has policies which help with this. WP:AGF used to be a policy, it was demoted purely because of the difficulty in enforcing it. But it remains, in fact, a foundation policy, and failure to follow it is actually a form of incivility. AGF doesn't mean that one never voices suspicions, but it does mean that suspicions, if voiced, are stated as such, are reasonable inferences, but are not stated as proven facts, or even as allegations unless there is a prima facie case to establish the matter. (There are lots of parallels with common law: basic principle of common law is that testimony is presumed true unless controverted.) Anyway, consult me any time you like, and you may also email me, should you decide that better.

I'll give an example of AGF and the voicing of suspicions. I've been checkusered with respect to alleged sock puppetry with another user, because of certain coincidences of opinions. As it happened, that user is forty years younger than I, first contact me as, more or less, a political opponent, but ... actually read what I wrote back and decided that what I was doing was more important than anything else he had seen. And he started to work for it, in his own way, which was that of an enthusiastic young man in his mid-twenties. Anyway, it wasn't an unreasonable suspicion, though, in fact, the one who filed the report could have rather easily verified that the accusation was preposterous; had he followed up on the evidence he had, he'd not have needed the checkuser, he'd have seen two independent accounts going back to 2005 with coincidence of interests only in the last eight or nine months. But I made no fuss about it (beyond issues that did not reflect badly on the filer). I assume that he had a legitimate concern and had no trouble with AGF. The same principles could be applied to the situation with Allemandtando. Is he a blocked user? Anyone who understands Wikipedia and how blocked users operate when they return after checkuser expiration would suspect it. It is reasonable to state the suspicion. It would not be reasonable to block him or to attempt to block him without proof. The suspicion being voiced merely allows the community to consider the question; perhaps someone notices something as a result that everyone else overlooks. And if someone is sufficiently exercises, they can file an SSP report and perhaps checkuser. And none of that need be uncivil. Anway, thanks again. And, really, I was quite pleased by your response regarding Edokter. Very, very good work. You come out smelling like a rose. And you got a block in your record, withdrawn, which is better in my book than a barnstar, it is a real certification of effort -- even if you did make a mistake, which is by no means clear to me at this point. Anyone trying hard enough will make mistakes. The question is what we do afterwards. Mistakes are, in fact, the absolutely fastest way to learn. It's much better than doing things right all the time, if that is based on timidity rather than clear knowledge. What kills people (sometimes literally) is clinging to the idea that they were right. Being "right" is almost useless, it can make it impossible to learn. Now, I really will Save Page this time.... --Abd (talk) 19:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead and make a sub-page for my talk pages

I feel that articles should be deleted if they don't meet the criteria of WP:N and WP:V/RS. I'm part of a big cabal. We all get together on friday nights and talk about how we are going to follow wikipedia policy. Spread the word. Protonk (talk) 16:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't call, for myself, that a "belief," but I agree that, under present policy, they should. I don't think of policy as something to "follow," exactly. It is something we create, collectively, as a clear expression of community consensus at one time, and it can change, and, in fact, it does change. There are edits to policy pages all the time, including some that stick. So what I discuss on Friday night, so to speak, is how we can set and maintain policy in the best interests of the project, and of the community without which the project cannot exist. As to your talk pages, if you would like me to review them, for some reason, I'd be happy to. What would you have me be looking for?

I could guess as to what you are referring with apparent sarcasm (there are a couple of possibilities), but I'd rather not. If you have something specific to say, and you say it civilly, you are welcome to say it here on my Talk. As sarcasm, though, the above is marginal. It's still okay, as an introduction, if you are willing to seriously discuss your real issue. --Abd (talk) 18:56, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure. I'm not sure why you are being coy. I came here because you appear to be monitoring and archiving discussions on Allemandatondo's talk page to some end. Presumably you feel that he has either organized or is organizing some concerted effort to delete pages without regard to merit. The diffs displayed on his warning show at least an interest in connecting his possible breaches of policy with users who cheered him on or (seemingly) exhorted him to those breeches. I feel that such a monitoring effort is superfluous and coercive. It is superfluous because no information beyond what is provided by the software will be maintained. It is coercive because the existence of the page and declaration of intent to use said page in future disciplinary hearings would dissuade editors from talking with Allemantando (or cause them to move conversations off-wiki). All conversations are designed to be transparent to all users. You are free, of course, to record whatever conversations you wish for whatever purpose. Neither I nor anyone else can constrain you. But security from review does not imply security from comment. If you choose to pursue an extra-legal course of action against allemantando and those who would comment on his talk page, your actions will (and should) be described as they are: intrusive, unwanted, uncivil and McCarthyite. since happening upon his talk page I have been called a cancer, an asshole, an elitist and a prick. I am disinclined to be tarred a conspirator as well. Protonk (talk) 20:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to go, but, first of all, I have not "archived" discussions on that Talk page. Where? Allemandtando's recent hysteria has been about a page set up to neutrally examine, in one place, the behavior, absent accusations, of a user who has been seen as disruptive by more than I, many more. It's not a "kangaroo court," for starters, as he has called it, because (1) there are no charges, and (2) there is no judgement process. Charges might be made, but not in that file, and not necessarily by me. Judgment, if any, would be rendered by the community through existing process, if it ever comes before the community, and to predict that in advance of looking at the evidence would be, indeed, abusive, wouldn't it?

I am not being coy. I'm being very, very direct and straight.--Abd (talk) 20:33, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

But as I've said above, such a page is practically superfluous, as nothing on there would be introduced into a proceeding. all that is neccessary would be the diffs of comments or edits made by alle and others. You are (as I say...or more precisely, as it is unnecessary for me to say) free to record whatever you like for whatever reason. If you want to save diffs so you don't have to dig through them later, it isn't my business to stop you. But to say this: "That may be happening. In any possible ArbComm case over this user's behavior, if it comes to that, others who have actively encouraged and cheered it (and to some extent enabled it) will, quite likely, be included. (As well as those who have severely criticized it and who are asserted to have been uncivil to the user.)" and then begin to record future conversations is coercive on face. How do I communicate with allemantando? Do I presume that agreement will be confused for collusion and say nothing? What if I'm innocent of the workings of arbcomm or ANI or RFC? What if I want to collaborate on cleaning up 40K articles? Inherently, selection and sequestration implies judgment. I'm not implying that you wield some power of censure over anyone who comments there. I'm implying that selection and display of comments for future disciplinary review presents itself as coercive power: announcing that you seek to bring collaborators to the arbcomm and then recording the record of collaboration is not inconsequential. whether or not you file charges personally is immaterial. Your comments and the subsequent monitoring page represent a de facto declaration that communication with allemantando is inherently suspect. Protonk (talk) 20:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Have you looked at the page, Protonk? What do you think would be there? The plan is that it would be diffs, organized with brief summary, (sometimes just the edit summary.) So, yes, if I "want to save diffs so you don't have to dig through them later, it isn't" your "business to" stop me. You are now referring to something other than what is on the page itself, comment on it elsewhere. And that comment is a simple truth. Communicate with Allemandtando normally, and that comment has nothing to do with you. Communicate with him with cheers when he is disruptive, should you do that, you might find it being evidence of your own behavior. The risk is not from me, personally, but from the community's reaction to disruption. I don't know you and I'm not at all familiar with your contributions or position. What I'm writing is totally general, and it is not a new situation that I created. It's just a reminder of the real, present situation. By all means, cooperate on the cleanup of articles. But be careful that, when you do this, you follow Wikipedia procedure, and that you respect the consensus of editors (which does not mean that you can't challenge it, it means that you don't challenge it with edit warring or tag-team edit warring, which can be considered the same thing. I.e., under those conditions, you could be held responsible for edit warring from a single revert. Be very, very careful about edit warring, about repetitive changes back and forth to an article. It's the most common cause of a block, that and incivility, so be sure to communicate about the articles with other editors in a civil manner. Assume good faith and a common goal about the overall welfare of the project, even if you may disagree about particular application of guidelines and policy. Do that and you will be safe. I did not declare that "communication with Allemandtando is inherently suspect." Period. It isn't. That was his interpretation. Take a look at the section just above this. Arcayne has been a supporter of Allemandtando, though he appears to have pulled himself back a bit. I'm suggesting that editors be careful about what they cheer. That could backfire, that's what I'm saying, and also be careful about teaming up to force some position on an article; that, likewise, has historically resulted in sanctions. Cooperate with other editors toward improving articles, respecting consensus process, not just notability and verifiability guidelines, which depend for interpretation on consensus process, they do not replace it. Do that, and there is no threat to you from what I or others might do. --Abd (talk) 21:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

By the way, much of what you wrote is directly contrary to what I've said. I said that I had no plans to bring "collaborators" to ArbComm. I don't have plans to go to ArbComm at all. It is a possibility. I, personally, prefer to review evidence before making charges! --Abd (talk) 21:20, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

We can go back and forth as to whether or not you personally intend to bring cases to arbcomm or whether or not you personally are bringing a threat to bear. My interpretation of the diff in question (above) and the page creation itself are probably skewed by where I saw them first (on alle's talk page). We are not going to reach agreement as to the implicit purpose of gathering information or the impact it may have on future collaboration.

I don't personally fear sanction for my actions, nor do I plan to undertake any action that might draw such sanction independently. Most editors who would have occasion to comment on alle's talk page feel the same way (I presume). However, I am uninterested in the appearance of heightened scrutiny, however dispassionate you may feel it is. Private collection of evidence (in other words, that apart from a bureaucratic process) appears, on face, to be an assumption of bad faith and an unwelcome intrusion into normal conversation. You do not need to hold a kangaroo court in order for this to be unseemly. The simple matter of selection and display (as I said above) represents judgment on your part (here I mean judgment in the sense that you choose among pieces of evidence rather than dispense a ruling).

I firmly dispute the assertion that I or any other editor need be concerned about "what I cheer on". I agree with you 100% that all editors should refrain from using collusion to game the system. If I am collaborating with Allemantando to avoid 3RR or overturn consensus on issues, let the hammer fall. But if I "cheer him on" or provide moral support for actions he undertakes on his own to ends that I feel are good (e.g. if he decides to go on a crusade against a class of articles and I defend him from an IP barrage or tell him he should stay the course, which I did, check his talk page before he moved most of it and archived the rest), I think that a record of that on a page designed to build evidence for (or against, as you assert) a disciplinary review is wholly unacceptable. WP is not a democracy, moot court, etc., but I'm uninterested in being held under suspicion for my opinions on an editor.

As a minor point of fact, assembly of evidence is rarely a neutral activity. It is inherently prosecutorial, as lack of evidence of misconduct is not considered evidence for lack of misconduct. It seeks an end state--that of sufficient evidence to judge guilt or innocence--and as such is not process oriented. It presents (inherently) no method of rebuttal, as the evidence gathered is from you and only you (presumably). It is also (should we model this after a grand jury process) unfair to conduct in the open, as the accumulation of evidence may connote guilt where no guilt is formally asserted (see your claim that you will only bring charges or ask them to be brought should the evidence you compile demand it). This is not a morally neutral course of action. It is not without consequence. Please consider those consequences (and the ones above about the coercive impact this may have on potential collboration with allemantando) before continuing this project. You don't need to submit to my review. You don't need my permission to do any of this. Nor do you need the permission of the subject. But please don't interpret that lack of constraint as license to investigate. Protonk (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

There is so much wrong-headedness in the above that I'm at a loss where to begin, so I'll, for the moment, stick with the end. I have a license to investigate. All Wikipedia editors do. I do not have a license to harass. But, should I so choose, I do have a license to prosecute, and, again, we all do. While the decision to prosecute or not requires judgment (and we can be held responsible for that judgment, frivolous prosecution is sanctionable), we do not, individually, have a right to ultimately judge and convict, beyond administrators having the right to make ad-hoc judgments and act upon them prior to consultation. I have warned editors that if they conspire, collude, or encourage disruptive behavior, they could be held responsible for the behavior, as much as the actor. If Protonk doesn't do that, he's safe from that. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, and no such thing as an absolute guarantee of safety. "Associating" with a problem editor, even if actually blameless, can bring some risks, but I would not encourage editors to guide themselves by this, for association under those circumstances, while keeping away from "aiding and abetting" improper behavior, is actually laudable, not legitimately sanctionable. Clear? --Abd (talk) 15:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

If that's how you feel, I'm afraid I'll have to refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram. I sincerely hope this will be the end of our conversations. Protonk (talk) 16:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

This is an uncivil interchange, capped with a sophisticated "Fuck off!" from Protonk, see Private Eye (magazine)#Litigation. There is, however, a major difference between the present situation and the one Private Eye faced. The interchange here was initiated by Protonk, whereas the interchange in the case cited was initiated by a possible plaintiff. Private Eye managed to make a thoroughly funny response that accomplished, quite effectively, their legal and professional purposes. (The joke would be particularly funny to lawyers, I'm sure, who would recognize immediately that the possible plaintiff had totally set up the situation by asking that question, and that Private Eye's response was absolutely on point, not merely a simple joke.) What Protonk has done, on the other hand, is to drop a sarcastic note on my Talk page, to which I replied with serious and civil discussion. And then it is precisely as if he then responded "Fuck off!" On my Talk page, in an exchange he initiated. That's uncivil, and gratuitously so. I did not personally warn Protonk, and my last comment here, to which he responded this way, confirmed (1) that association, per se was not properly risk, though it does entail risks because of human nature, and (2) that encouraging disruptive behavior was disruptive. I do not file civility complaints against users who simply are rude on my Talk page. In fact, I don't recall initiating any civility complaints at all, nor, ever, a complaint (RfC or AN/I report) for "aiding and abetting" disruption. However, this interchange can, as a result, stand as a warning, should someone else file such a complaint.

Writing this, and with some other things I've written in the past few days, I conclude that I should, in fact, formally warn Protonk, if someone else hasn't already (and because of the indirection of it, it might easily be overlooked). He may then answer, on his own Talk page, "Fuck off!" if he chooses. An angry -- or possibly contemptuous -- answer, like that, is fairly normal when being warned, and, though I don't issue many formal warnings, I've followed quite a few cases based on such a response. So, an additional warning: the community will not normally approve of a block for an angry response in one's own user space; however, some administrators do it anyway. If they are involved, they've lost their bits for it, but I've never seen such a consequence when they were neutral and merely interpreted the situation, possibly, incorrectly. Or correctly. Personally, I find the risk from serious rudeness in response to a warning to not be worth any possible emotional satisfaction from the gain, and many, many times, I have responded politely to warnings and rudeness, as I attempted here, and the editor turns into a friend. So, entirely aside from the moral issues, it's smarter to be polite, even though it may have not accomplished any great good here, as to increased harmony. Caveat emptor. --Abd (talk) 18:37, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Apology to Allemandtando

Contrary to what is emblazoned on his Talk page, I'm not "constantly monitoring" his contributions and missed that, in an edit summary on his Talk page, he asked me not to edit there. Thus I mistakenly stated that he had not asked me to not edit his page. I apologize for that. My edit, however, was a warning, and, while I will respect Allemandtando's request in general, should I find it appropriate to issue formal warnings for behavior -- something I have mostly chosen not to do, so far -- I reserve the right to warn this user, as with any other, (and any other with me), in the place set up for that: the User Talk page. I ask that no other user remove such warnings, but Allemandtando is totally free to remove them on sight. --Abd (talk) 21:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

How much patience?

A new definition of a minor edit: [18] deleting work of several editors with a flick of Twinkle. How much patience needs the community to demonstrate to this user? And that kind of "edit" in an article under probation. So as you expressed the need for uninvolved admins to intervene, I leave this in your hands. Note that SA has been blocked for edit warring for 48 hrs. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:18, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Jossi, I'm not an administrator, so I can't directly help. When I suggested that you not be the one to deal with SA, I did not mean, at all, that you could not act as an ordinary user to take reports of his behavior to AN/I. I merely meant that the use of your tools would be improper. It is absolutely essential that administrators refrain from using their tools when they are a party to a dispute, or have a history of conflict with a user. Ignoring this is the fastest way to be desysopped. It happened to User:Physchim62, to User:Tango, and I'm seeing a possible seed of such a result with User:Cryptic. Because you have asked, I will take a look at that edit. It is a different matter that it may beneficial for you, personally, to simply keep away from SA issues; but by asking me, you have essentially done the same thing as taking it to AN/I, except that I can't directly respond, I could only, myself, take it to AN/I, which I'll do if I see sufficient cause. I'll respond again here after I've looked. --Abd (talk) 01:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

It looks like he's not escaping notice, Jossi. A massive Twinkle revert marked "minor." While that could happen by accident, it certainly looks bad. An edit summary of "remove lies" doesn't help either.... I don't think SA is long for the project, if he doesn't massively change his ways. --Abd (talk) 03:58, 3 July 2008 (UTC)