User talk:Nergaal/dead

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Podesta

OK, at this point you seem to be not getting it to a fairly high degree, so I am going to make this a formal warning. John Podesta is a living individual, and there are several other living individuals identified either explicitly or implicitly in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. The claims have been completely discredited. They are fabrications. There is zero credible evidence to support them, and reliable sources are unanimous in identifying this as a deliberately false story. I strongly suggest you walk away at this point because if you continue to promote false equivalency on this then I will have to block you for violating WP:BLP. This is not a drill. Facts matter, especially when living individuals are involved. OK? Guy (Help!) 23:36, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I closed the discussion because you are digging yourself a hole. If you want to end up topic banned under WP:AE then go right ahead, but I am trying to avoid that. this is WP:DEADHORSE territory. Guy (Help!) 10:21, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@JzG: Seems to me that I arrived in the middle of a battle between two sides. I personally think the theory itself is idiotic. But, I do hope you do realize that the amount of effort everybody seems to put into twisting every word even in remotely-related articles like the Swan guy is sure to make even skeptics of the theory at least have questions about it.

All I did is try to bring out some actual preciseness in the wording used on Wikipedia. To me seems that sources say it is false, but that there is a certain amount of effort to push the post past that, and say that everybody, individually, debunked the theory. If sources say "X says Y is false", but wikipedia says "X debunked Y", or "X criticized Y", plenty of people will wonder if there is an agenda and if there is an actual bias around here. I personally believe preciseness around controversial topics is best defense against wild claims and crazy people. But if you guys want to feed those crazies then have fun with it. Nergaal (talk) 10:39, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining, but I think you're missing the point. Not one reliable independent source presents this conspiracy theory as anything other than bogus. I edit a lot in articles around quackery, this is a technique absolutely beloved of the supplements, complementary and alternative medicine (SCAM) industry. SCAM vendors will put out a blatantly bogus claim, it will be debunked by three or four sources, and the SCAM proponents will then try to contextualise this as minority pushback against a perfectly valid view. WP:NPOV allows (and indeed requires) that we treat this conspiracy theory as the nonsense it clearly is. And to be clear I don't mind chatting about it here or at ANI, but the closer we get to article space the more of a problem this becomes, due to the BLP issue with Podesta. Do you see my point? Guy (Help!) 10:54, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@JzG: I am not arguing about defending quackeries, what I am saying wikipedia should do as little "interpretation" of the sources as possible. IMO if there is any synthesis, it should be after we present the sources exactly the way they say it. Right nowUntil a couple of hours ago the intro to pizzagate says/implies that Fox debunked the story, but I honestly cannot see any direct/primary source saying that. Similarly down the text, the article states that some sources criticized the theory, when in fact (to me) they just reported it to be false without any clear analysis. I genuinely think the article should stay away from saying "pizzagate is a false theory" and just report the facts that "all major sources claim the theory to be false"; or "multiple major sources have debunked it". Anything else seems NPOV and falls dangerously close to agenda-pushing. Nergaal (talk) 12:19, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Just to clarify my point: with SCAM and autism vaccines you can find scientific reports and even famous retractions. The equivalent with pizzagate would be the original authors to come and retract the claim/story, or have impartial outlets disprove it. I would not compare the level of reliability of current news sources that are unabashedly partial to the scientific process of peer review. Maybe even the latter is not fully objective, but it is at least declaredly impartial. If a (news) source is openly partial, it can't be assigned much weight. Nergaal (talk) 12:39, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Quackery was an example, a parallel area where I suspected we might agree. The issue is not SCAM, the issue is the way SCAMmers promote bullshit, whihc is identical tot he way fake stories propagated during the elections, specifically including this one.

No SCAM proponent ever withdraws their papers just because they are proven wrong. In fact, even being refuted and retracted won't stop them from being promoted (as with Wakefield's fraudulent MMR-autism paper).

The original authors of the pizzagate conspiracy theory are unlikely to come forward and admit it was a hoax, and we don't need them to. Hitchens' razor: that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. There is no evidence of child abuse, the police have said this. There is no credible source supporting the claims of pizzagate. All credible sources say it's false. Not probably false, but absolutely false, as in complete invention with no supporting evidence whatsoever. There is no reason why we would even consider weakening that conclusion, because it is robust. Guy (Help!) 14:25, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Up to a point, I agree with you 100%. But what I don't understand why do policing. We are not police, we are not an advertisement media. We present objective facts without personal bias. Or at least personally that is what an encyclopedia should be. If all sources say it is fake, then say exactly that: all (credible) sources say it is fake. If There is no credible source supporting the claims of pizzagate then state that and give a put a reliable source to it. If All credible sources say it's false then state that. If absolutely false, as in complete invention with no supporting evidence whatsoever then say that and put the police report (or whatever agency does it, not a media source that half of the public "doesn't trust"). What I don't understand is why say instead "falsely claimed that John Podesta's emails [...] contain coded messages referring to human trafficking". Did a police investigator say that the "coded message" is not-existent/false/unsubstantiated? A coded message is, technically, hard to disprove. Unless there is an authoritative source stating that, isn't that NPOV to put it? The strongest conclusion is not the one that most clearly makes the guy innocent, but the one which is best supported by the provided facts/references. Otherwise it is indistinguishable from an entity trying to push an agenda based on personal feelings/opinions. Nergaal (talk) 15:57, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions

This message contains important information about an administrative situation on Wikipedia. It does not imply any misconduct regarding your own contributions to date.

Please carefully read this information:

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you that sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

Apologies, I should have checked to see if anyone had alerted you to these DS, which may well have informed your approach. The articles on Pizzagate are covered. There are also DS around biographies. I saw a DS alert but I see now it was GanmerGate, which is related but separate. Guy (Help!) 10:26, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

March 2017 WikiCup newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. It would have been 5 points, but when a late entrant was permitted to join the contest in February, a promise was made that his inclusion would not result in the exclusion of any other competitor. To achieve this, the six entrants that had the lowest positive score of 4 points have been added to the 64 people who otherwise would have qualified. As a result, some of the groups have nine contestants rather than eight. Our top four scorers in round 1 were:

• Cas Liber, last year's winner, led the field with two featured articles on birds and a total score of 674.
• Iry-Hor, a WikiCup newcomer, came next with a featured article, a good article and a tally of 282 bonus points for a score of 517. All these points came from the article Nyuserre Ini, an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh,
• 1989, another WikiCup newcomer, was in joint third place at 240. 1989 has claimed points for two featured lists and one good article relating to anime and comedy series, all of which were awarded bonus points.
• Peacemaker67 shared third place with five good articles and thirteen good article reviews, mostly on naval vessels. He is also new to the competition.

The largest number of DYKs have been submitted by Vivvt and The C of E, who each claimed for seven, and MBlaze Lightning achieved eight articles at ITN. Carbrera and Peacemaker67 each claimed for five GAs and Krishna Chaitanya Velaga was well out in front for GARs, having reviewed 32. No featured pictures, featured topics or good topics yet, but we have achieved three featured articles and a splendid total of fifty good articles.

So, on to the second round. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article candidate, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 13:52, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

POINTy disruptions on WP:ITN/C

Hi there. I see you have left a similar message to my nomination on WP:ITN/C that Modest Genius labelled and hid as per WP:POINTy. I feel it is disruptive and is disrespectful to my efforts as a Wikipedian, when I had nothing to do with whatever your grievance is at WP:ITN/C. I'd ask you to consider voluntarily removing your comment from my nomination. Thanks! --Natural R_X 23:26, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

March 2017

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates. Your edits appear to be disruptive and have been reverted.

• If you are engaged in an article content dispute with another editor, please discuss the matter with the editor at their talk page, or the article's talk page, and seek consensus with them. Alternatively you can read Wikipedia's dispute resolution page, and ask for independent help at one of the relevant notice boards.
• If you are engaged in any other form of dispute that is not covered on the dispute resolution page, please seek assistance at Wikipedia's Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

Please ensure you are familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and please do not continue to make edits that appear disruptive. Continual disruptive editing may result in loss of editing privileges. Thank you. 331dot (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sure that helps. I agree the horse is dead, but don't template the regulars. GoldenRing (talk) 11:33, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@GoldenRing: I appreciate your advice and was aware of that essay, but the template seemed applicable to me and it said what I wanted to say better than I could. Thank you, though. 331dot (talk) 20:41, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• I would much prefer not to, but if you continue to post pointy comments to most ITN nominations I would consider starting an ANI discussion. I understand that you are disappointed about the result of the 'jewelry' nomination and have legitimate concerns about bias, but the result did not go your way and it's time to move past it. 331dot (talk) 20:41, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
• I'll second this request. This sort of trolling makes people less and less likely to take you seriously, in which case you'll never have any chance of rectifying the pro-UK bias and ITN will forever be dominated by boat races and not-quite-the-oldest jewelry. Please try to keep your ITN/C comments on-topic so as not to confuse people who are trying to gauge consensus in good faith. Thanks. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 22:45, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
• Yeah, c'mon. I'm British, and I thought the jewellery one was weak, and don't get me started on the Boat Race (only 3 weeks till the next one, hurrah!. But making comments like that doesn't get you anywhere, except perhaps a topic ban if you keep doing it. Black Kite (talk) 10:02, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
• Again with this, Nergaal? Come on, please don't let's get the drama boards involved. Dial it back.--WaltCip (talk) 13:33, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
• And again? Seriously? Let it go, for goodness sake. Black Kite (talk) 13:23, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• I'm not trying to get you in trouble, I'm just saying that stuff like this is outside the range of discussion and is purely disrupting the ITN space. UNSC Luke 1021 (talk) 18:00, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. 331dot (talk) 19:20, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Report about edit warring

I have now reported you for edit warring. Dnm (talk) 00:12, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions

Both yourself and Dnm should be made aware of the Race and intelligence discretionary sanctions. Thanks. El_C 04:35, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Your last use of rollback

Undo it or lose your rights, please. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:27, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• And I'm being very lenient considering you used it out of process, twice. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:28, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm losing my patience. You have until 08:40 to undo your edit, with an explanation of how you violated the policy in the edit summary. If it isn't done by then, I will revoke your rollback rights. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:34, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

??? It is 8:35 and I don't have that option. I was on the talk page. Nergaal (talk) 08:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

You've made two edits to the talk page since I warned you. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:37, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I was replying. Nergaal (talk) 08:37, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

If it's not removed, bye bye rollback. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:38, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

What exactly are you talking about? Nergaal (talk) 08:39, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

You mean this: "The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit." Nergaal (talk) 08:39, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Since you clearly have issues understanding our policies, and apparently how to edit at all, I've revoked rollback from your account. Good day. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:41, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Coffee: I was trying to answer to multiple questions, AND read about WP:rollback. Thanks for the wp:AGF. Nergaal (talk) 08:42, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

If you needed to read the policy on the tool you used after you used it, I think I made the entirely right choice. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:43, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Coffee: No, I was reading after I received threats form an involved admin. Nergaal (talk) 08:45, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Coffee: After I received threats from an admin right after I typed wp:CENSOR on a talk page. Nergaal (talk) 08:46, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Involved? Now that's interesting. How am I involved? The fact that I clearly personally support your change? I certainly have never interacted with you before. Please expound. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Involved in the history of the article in question. Pretty much out of the blue I get a threat on my talkpage from a person I have no idea who he is. And a majority of his edits are on related topics. Removing tools like rollback is a way of censorhip and I have been trying to figure out what exactly do you want from me. Nergaal (talk) 08:49, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm guessing you haven't read WP:INVOLVED either. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:51, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Coffee: "This is because involved administrators may have, or may be seen as having, a conflict of interest in disputes they have been a party to or have strong feelings about. Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute." 6 of your most recent edits are on the article. In that time you made threats, I was trying to: 1) reply on the talkpage in question; 2) try to understand based on what policies you are making threats; 3) why are you making threats to me ONLY. Nergaal (talk) 08:57, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Where in the policy, exactly, does it state that I'm not allowed to make edits? — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:58, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Let me rephrase it since we are clearly talking past eachother. You made threats out of the sudden; before replying I was trying to figure out what you want; first thing I see is you making edits on an article while threatening me after I made edits on the same article. @Coffee:. Nergaal (talk) 09:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

In reply to number 3: Because you are the only person misusing their tools. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:59, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

You made threats while I was in the middle of an argument, without actually citing any sort of policy. So I was curious exactly what sort of policy could you be referring to. Nergaal (talk) 09:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

You're only making my reasoning stronger. At this point I don't think anything positive will occur from us having further communication, so if you think I've made a decision outside my administrative discretion I suggest you open an WP:ARBCOM case. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 09:10, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Coffee:

1) you come to my page threatening "Undo it or lose your rights"; no context provided, no policy/rationale cited

2) you continue to make threats "I'm losing my patience. You have until 08:40 to undo your edit, with an explanation of how you violated the policy in the edit summary. If it isn't done by then, I will revoke your rollback rights"

3) without even allowing me time to reply to your threat you go ahead and remove the tool from my account

4) as an admin, you have yet to provide any sort of AGF, especially after I mentioned WP:CENSOR

I think we have a problem. Nergaal (talk) 09:14, 28 March 2017 (UTC) @Coffee: Nergaal (talk) 11:15, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Wow, this is a tempest in a teapot. @Nergaal: WP:ROLLBACK states that you can only use it for obvious vandalism; reverting someone in an edit war is an improper use of it- use an edit summary instead at the minimum, and don't double-revert. Any admin can take away rollbacker rights if it's abused, so Coffee is technically in the clear. @Coffee: that said, jumping on someone's talk page to shout that they must revert their last reversion in the next 13 minutes or have rollbacker rights stripped from them is a frankly absurd way to go about resolving the situation, and doubling down by refusing to explain what you meant before your imposed time limit is up (just because you think it should be obvious) is frankly a terrible way for an admin to behave. I'm not reverting your removal- by the "letter of the law" you're probably clear, but you acted like a jerk and I recommend that if Nergaal wants rollbacker back that he open an ANI thread (not ARBCOM, that's a flippant over-escalation). --PresN 16:34, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I got sloppy with using the rollback function (it's so easy to use :D) but I genuinely appreciate somebody actually understanding my point of view. Thanks! Nergaal (talk) 17:18, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) (ec) I'll wade in here (since I've just yelled at Nergaal for something else, he'll figure out I'm too WP:INVOLVED to block him, and the issue is stale anyway, both of which are to his advantage) and make the following suggestion. The Westminster attack article is far too unstable to do any sort of serious editing against right now as there are far too many eyes on it. At the very least, you really should take a self-imposed 1RR from it or (better still) just give it a wide berth. It's not going to degrade into irrelevance any time soon. Meanwhile, if Coffee is not interesting in returning your rollback privileges, your best bet is to go to WP:ANI (not Arbcom, I think that was a pretty idle threat to be honest, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy) and see if the community will give it back to you. I recommend including something like "I got a bit heated at the Westminster attack article, and I've stopped reverting on it, sorry about that, so could I have my rollback returned please?" Coffee has got to listen and respond to that, otherwise the community will just override him (assuming they want to). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:38, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I seem to get too easily dragged into pointless debates these days. I got hot-headed and getting some coffee spilled all over me was not helpful. Thank you for actually understanding my position. :) Nergaal (talk) 17:20, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I have banged heads with Coffee before, gimme a mo and I will create a thread on the WP:Slough of Despond Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Nergaal and rollback. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• @PresN and Ritchie333: I do not in the slightest accept nor appreciate your complete misrepresentation of what I said in your comments. I stated they can take my actions, as in my actions as an administrator to ArbCom. I never stated they had to do that to get their rollback privileges back (I would simply never say something that stupid; you both saying I did, really makes my head swirl). In fact, I'm pretty sure I never stipulated anything about them retrieving their rights. Please, provide diffs or strike. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 23:12, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
  • @Ritchie333: I messed up your ping. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 23:13, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I think you got the wrong end of the stick, Coffee, I simply meant any suggestion to go to Arbcom is probably misguided, unless all avenues elsewhere have been exhausted and you are otherwise uninvolved (and even then I'd say something like "to be honest, I can't see any other option than Arbcom to resolve this"). There was no need to mention it. Meanwhile, Nergaal, I get the impression you've spent too much time watching Deliverance, specifically the "squeal like a piggy" scene, and mentioning it in the context of admins anywhere is probably not the best of ideas. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:11, 29 March 2017 (UTC)