User talk:Rd232/archive8

Rfc: Nyttend

A proposed closing statement has been posted here. Please could you confirm whether you support or oppose this summary. Thanks. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:25, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Please don’t badger and bait editors

Please leave me alone. First, you hid my comments, here on Epeefleche’s talk page, behind {disruption} tags. Then you posted this notice on my talk page that I was blocked from there. I deleted that notice (∆ here) with the edit comment “well, that’s your opinion”. Note that Wikipedia’s rules are clear that I may control what is on that talk page. Nevertheless, for some reason, you saw fit to come back and repost (∆ here) what I had deleted along with this threat: If you choose to ignore it, I will block you.” Note that your first message was to tell me that I had been blocked from editing there. Accordingly, it is impossible for me to “ignore it.” Your coming back to do as you did carries the appearance of baiting and badgering. I’ve made my points there; I’m done there; and I couldn’t even edit there is I wanted to (which I don’t). Please leave me alone. Greg L (talk) 23:01, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if it felt that way to you, but these were administrative actions to deal with your disruptive comments, and to clarify the nature of the page ban when it seemed from your edit summary you might not have understood. Rd232 ^talk 01:16, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Naxals

Hi. Could you have a look at Talk:Naxalite#Merge. Both articles are in a terrible shape, and I'm interesting in doing a complete rewrite of a single article on the Naxalite movement with reliance on academia as references. However, the merger discussion should be settled first, at the moment it's stale. --Soman (talk) 01:07, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll comment there. Rd232 ^talk 01:11, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, --Soman (talk) 03:21, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

ANI on your "productive editor"

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

OK. Responded at ANI. Rd232 ^talk 12:26, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

YMs talk page

I have reverted your BOLD refactoring of YMs talk page. Waving around an "I am an admin" stick does not give you the right to unilaterally refactor the talk page of a Wikipedian in good standing (as YM remains at this stage). Coming from someone actively pursuing a ArbCom case against him, it smacks of petty vindictiveness. Quite frankly, claiming some authority to take this action when you are clearly an involved party is completely out out order. Please desist from such action in the future. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 13:11, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

i) in rare circumstances like these, it not only gives me the right, but it gives me the responsibility. ii) I'm not an involved party, as you can see from the RfAr and RFC. iii) you have recreated a problem which I had solved. iv) You are one of a number of editors from YM's topic area; the number of these popping up with an apparent unwillingness to countenance any criticism of him whatsoever is increasingly conspicuous. Rd232 ^talk 13:22, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Also just noticed this, in WP:User pages, re handling inappropriate content: " In some cases a more experienced editor may make non-trivial edits to another user's user space, in which case that editor should leave a note explaining why this was done." The guideline section which includes that is basically a specific application of how we generally do things;, I didn't realise it was written down for this type of case. Rd232 ^talk 11:41, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

You are most certainly an involved editor and your seemingly wilful blindness in not seeing that calls your judgement as an administrator into question. You are seeking his de-sysopping - it is therefore impossible for you try and maintain you do not have an interest in this matter. Your comment at your (inadvertently) humorous Wikiquette complaint about Bidgee where you argued that Johnuniq was an involved party because of his mere endorsement of someone elses view "Thanks for your comments, but given your endorsement of Nick-D's view (supportive of YellowMonkey) at that RFC, it's not the uninvolved input I was looking for" but rather hypocritically it seem you don't hold yourself to the same standard. Oh, and 'You are one of a number of editors from YM's topic area; the number of these popping up with an apparent unwillingness to countenance any criticism of him whatsoever is increasingly conspicuous." is a gross failure to assume good faith and in my case it is simply untrue if you actually read my comments at the RfAr. Again, and much like your claims of edit warring, you hold others to standards that you conspicuously fail to hold yourself. Finally this statement "it not only gives me the right, but it gives me the responsibility" is one of the scariest and most arrogant statements I have heard from an administrator on this website. Ironically, claiming some higher responsibility allows to you to break the rules that you wish to hold others to is what you claim to abhor in YM. Regards, Mattinbgn (talk) 22:49, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Well I'm off to bed now, but I will observe right now that you've singularly failed to note, immediately above your comment, a reference to policy backing my action, and claiming that undoing an action once with an explanation is edit warring is bizarre. Rd232 ^talk 23:44, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Laundry list of issues with your comments [couldn't sleep, as per usual]:

1. I'm not seeking his desysopping (vaguely implies I have some personal interest, but never mind - I don't BTW), I've said that the actions described on the face of it suggest desysopping is necessary. I've several times said explicitly that I'm open to YM having excellent responses to clarify/explain the actions. That hasn't been forthcoming (not even from his supporters - though they've expended much effort attacking critics and attempting to close down discussion, detailed response to the actions described has mostly been lacking). I initially sought a wider RFCU to enable better discussion, but things got messy enough that it seemed an RfAr was unavoidable - but whether desysopping is an outcome of that isn't up to me, and if YM can explain himself well enough to avoid it, that's fine by me.
2. Even if I were seeking his desysopping (firmly deciding that no possible explanation can provide sufficient justification for the disputed actions), I wasn't involved in the underlying dispute. I'm not sure you're understanding the concept of "involved" here.
3. Johnuniq endorsed a view at the RFCU I sharply agreed with, a view strongly and vociferously shared by the editor I had that disagreement with at that very RFCU. That's at least vaguely involved, in the context of discussing Bidgee's conduct at and relating to that RFCU. And I wanted to make clear that I was hoping for more input from others.
4. "rather hypocritically it seem you don't hold yourself to the same standard." - WP:NPA.
5. "'You are one of a number of editors from YM's topic area; the number of these popping up with an apparent unwillingness to countenance any criticism of him whatsoever is increasingly conspicuous." is a gross failure to assume good faith and in my case it is simply untrue if you actually read my comments at the RfAr." - My comment involves no failure to AGF, you seem to have missed the significance of the semi-colon. This could have been worded more clearly; what I mean is that there are a number of editors who are something resembling wikifriends of YM's whose vociferous response to the criticisms has been at least as much emotional as objective. Your most recent comment is a case in point, it is clearly written with an excess of emotion. We've all been there, it happens, but it's not helpful.
6. " Again, and much like your claims of edit warring, you hold others to standards that you conspicuously fail to hold yourself." - WP:NPA. And on the edit warring, once again, comes not from me but from others. I made a constructive action backed by policy and common sense (see previous reply above), which you then undid with the aggressive edit summary "What gives you the right to edit the talk page of a wikipedian in good standing without permission?" Apart from being as ignorant of the policy as I was at the time, it was either rude to undo an administrative action without prior discussion or pressing need to, or a failure of WP:AGF in refusing to see it as an administrative action because of alleged involvement. I undid your action with an explanation, and when this was undone, I pursued dispute resolution at ANI. If on reflection you continue to contend that this was edit warring, well then the politest thing I can say to you is to please stay the hell away from WP:AN3.
7. "it not only gives me the right, but it gives me the responsibility." - if you have issues with that statement, you shouldn't be an administrator. The essence of adminship is taking on the responsibility to solve problems as they arise (within the bounds of policy of course, noting that WP:IAR is policy). Also you clipped my qualifier "in rare circumstances like these..." which does affect the meaning of the statement a teeny bit - my original remark was phrased specific to a context. But the validity of the sentiment isn't limited to that (as the existence of IAR proves).

Finally, you should reflect here that on the issue of the subpaging of the photo poll I followed the letter of policy, whilst you apparently assumed bad faith and undid it without discussing the issue with me. The result was that a small problem which had been taken care of (and could be discussed further with YM if he had issues with it on his return) was blown up into a quite unnecessary drama, and incidentally prolonged exposure at ANI of YM's inappropriate use of his talk page, which given his absence is particularly unfortunate. Indeed, it was precisely YM's absence in combination with the ANI thread being started which led me to act in order to minimise drama, there being more than enough relating to him and his actions already. By undoing that action, you prolonged the drama and engendered further criticism of YM, which since he isn't around to defend himself is particularly unfortunate. Rd232 ^talk 00:43, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

1. Distinction without a difference. When it comes to YM you are involved and a prudent administrator would know this.

2. Again, the underlying dispute is not the issue. You are seeking action against YM at RfAr - when it comes to him, you are now involved. If I call for deletion of an article in an AfD I am now involved, even if I did not initiate the discussion. It seems wise to apply the same principle here.

3. Again, I fail to see how Johnuniq's "vague" involvement is somehow an issue and your campaign (I am not sure how else to describe it) against YM in multiple fora allows you to retain your independence. Your attempts to draw a distinction are unconvincing and come across as special pleading.

4. Hypocrisy appears to be the most plausible explanation for your actions. There may be another, I am not sure - but your explanations to date haven't revealed one as yet. Ignorance would be another explanation, but you do not appear to be ignorant

5. Don't hide behind weasel words - that comment (semi colon or not!) was unambiguously directed at me (not some vague group of others). I take it you have gone back and looked at my RfAr contributions or else you would have stood four-square behind your claim rather than try and claim they applied to someone else. My position, as is clear in my comments there, is that YM may in some cases have acted unwisely but some understanding would lead to a better result all round than maintaining the witch hunt (am I still allowed to use that term?) that this whole drama has descended to. My primary concern is to see YM stay with the project, using his tools in a manner consistent with sitewide consensus. Your assumption that I am a blind defender of YM was a bad faith one, no matter how you try and spin it. Your refrain of accusing others of assuming bad faith would have more weight if you weren't so guilty of the same offence yourself.

6. Your claim that I created the drama on YMs talk page is rather ambitious given your contribution and initial provocation. You chose to be BOLD and refactor YMs talk page, this was REVERTed by Pdfpdf. A wiser person would have considered to DISCUSS here, but you felt the need to claim some special admin power and reverted again. At this stage you are already edit warring. I reverted you once more and asked you a question (it didn't seem aggressive when I wrote it, merely straight forward), followed by an explanation of why I did so on your talk page above - with a polite request to desist. I then walked away from the discussion, lest I find myself dragged into your edit war. You then for the third time refactored YMs talk page. From all this, somehow I am the edit warrior and you are the voice of reason? The amazing thing about all this is that your initial refactoring, which was the cause of all this drama, was entirely unneccesary and provocative. The edit war showed that YMs supposedly unworkable talk page (note: I don't like it either, on mainly aesthetic grounds) was easily able to handle multiple, frequent edits from a large range of people in a short time. A more cynical person than I would wonder if the whole purpose of your refactoring was to provoke a reaction and then point to that as evidence of the unreasonableness of YMs defenders. For my part however, I am sure your actions, while in my opinion misguided, were in line with you thought were the best interests of the encyclopedia.

6. My experience has been that people claiming all sorts of "responsibilities" to take all sorts of actions suffer from an inflated sense of self-importance. However, I am sure you are different. For my part, the only responsibilities I claim to have are; 1) not to act in a manner harmful to the encyclopedia and 2) to do what I can within reason to improve the encyclopedia. I certainly do not claim to have some responsibility to act every time I see what I consider a problem, especially where my contribution is more likely to provoke drama rather than resolve it.

I have no interest in maintaining this discussion any further as I do not think there is any reasonable common ground to be found. You appear to be utterly convinced of your own infallibility and let's just say I have come to my own opinion about your actions regarding YM. There is a class of editor here at Wikipedia whose priority appears to be to look for episodes of Wiki-drama and then make themselves a part of it. They move comfortably around the various dispute resolution fora, spout acronyms every second line and generally hold themselves out as psuedo-lawyers in a psuedo-court. I am not one of these people, so be assured I will stay away from AN3. For my part, Wiki drama has never interested me - I am much happier avoiding places like ANI, RfC/U and RfAr and I hope soon to be able to go back to doing so once again. I would much prefer to contribute content (ins't that why we are all here?) and perform the odd admin action when required. Regards, Mattinbgn (talk) 03:39, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

You are correct that I reverted the removal of the subpaging twice (once when Pdfpdf undid it, once when you undid it), not once (as I thought). Everything else you say is a house of cards built on an assumption of bad faith and quite a number of instances of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT (eg the claim was never that YM's page was "unworkable" for all editors - pay attention FFS). For example, I haven't gone back to look at your RfAr comments, and the semi-colon served a specific purpose at the time it was written, and wasn't somehow interpolated later. I refer you to the policy I've already mentioned on handling inappropriate content on userpages, and to the ANI which has a strong consensus that subpaging is the right thing to do. For the rest, if you're not willing to AGF and listen to what I say and look at the evidence and policy supporting it, then you're right, this discussion is a waste of time. Rd232 ^talk 11:22, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Yet more explanation here (further down within section "Get rid of your talkheader"). Rd232 ^talk 17:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Note of reply

Hello, Rd232. You have new messages at Redthoreau's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

edit notice template changes

hi :) good to see you around. Changes like this are really nice in the standardization scheme of things. Might you wish to consider improving one issue in these templates? One line that comes up in your templates, namely, "consider discussing any substantive changes first on the talk page", does not link to the policy's talk page; rather, it takes the user to Wikipedia:Talk. It'll be good if you could correct the same. Kind regards. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 18:31, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks, good point, done. Rd232 ^talk 22:29, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Talk:James_G._Lindsay

Hi Rd232, I understand that you're semi retired, but I'll really appreciate your opinion about my new suggestions. Nik Sage (talk) 11:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Personal peeve

Hey, Rd. Could you try to always use the section header in your edit summary, so we're not left wondering which issue on AN/I you're "c"ommenting on? Thanks. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:01, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I'll try and remember. I wish I could section edit ANI, but it just doesn't work. Rd232 ^talk 18:04, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Weird, works fine for me. (Assuming we're talking about the same thing...) Thanks!--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:07, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Works fine for me most of the time, but on large pages (most consistently, ANI) clicking the section's Edit button just doesn't do anything. I use Chrome for editing; Firefox is better in this respect AFAIR but it's horrifically slow at editing large pages. For me, anyway. Rd232 ^talk 18:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Bender235 again

Since you were the one who closed this thread, would you mind looking at [1]? — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:02, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Another one appeared on my watchlist last night: [2]. Is there something about the holiday season that makes people want to change reference formatting?

Thanks for restarting the thread about changing the formatting of the bare <references> tag, I felt as if I should try to let other people express their opinions, so that it wouldn't appear as if I was trying to bias the outcome. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Hide AWB

Hi. Do you still need this? I could probably knock it out, if I understand exactly how to filter. Like, just remove all edits that have a summary ending with "using AWB"? //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 22:45, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes please! I'm not sure if that would cover all AWB edits but it would be most of them. If feasible, please make it possible to both hide those edits and to only show those edits. Rd232 ^talk 08:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

AN/I Notification

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.--Korruski^Talk 12:06, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

User page of a renamed banned user

I have taken the liberty of re-deleting the userpage of a banned user who was subsequently renamed. The former user has stated that the account name is his real name, and the rename still links readily to it. I find that the existence of such pages interferes with the process of banned users separating themselves from Wikipedia, and generally does not serve a useful purpose, as administrators can find the information they need in the page history, and the matter is not otherwise of general public interest. If the ex-user resumes socking, then we might consider reinstating the page, but not otherwise.

I hope you will not have an issue with this, but if you think it is a problem, please let me know. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Not your call. What you're doing is enabling someone that's abused multiple editors, both here and off site. I'll be bringing up your action by fiat elsewhere if it's not reversed.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:31, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Back to the ANI thread then. Rd232 ^talk 13:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Re erroneous attribution on ani

Hi, just wanted to reiterate my regret for having stated as fact something that I didn't double check. I checked through some of the reverts and simply assumed that you were mirroring CBM. Mea culpa. un☯mi 17:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, no worries, thanks for the note. It happens. :) Rd232 ^talk 17:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Need clarification

Please help me draw the line between "normal changes" and "mass changes", since that is obviously the critical issue. I just checked my contributitons log: within the past 4 days, I made about 500 edits, of which a total of 8 were similar to this. Obviously that was too much. So how much is just right? —bender235 (talk) 22:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

On the one hand, I appreciate you asking, and on the other hand, you do seem to keep coming up with different forms of the same questions, seemingly hoping for a different answer. It comes back to MOS/stability: "The Arbitration Committee has ruled that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style". In sum, I advise you to (i) stick to the edit restriction I had proposed ("User:Bender235 may not change reference styles in articles he has not either created or made substantial content changes to.") which is merely current practice, as reiterated in the ANI discussion and reinforced by the guideline just quoted; (ii) for articles you haven't edited or substantially contributed content to, you can propose the change on the talk page (iii) pursue a global style consensus, eg of the form "References sections with more than 20 references should be formatted like ... unless local consensus prefers otherwise". Something in that vein would enable a presumption in favour of multiple columns so that a bot or AWB could implement it systematically, with reversion if editors don't want it. Rd232 ^talk 00:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

to (i): that means it is not about "normal" or "mass changes", but a total prohibition to change anything on an article I haven't previously changed something. Is that correct?

to (ii): I certainly contributed to the article abc conjecture much more than to Riemann hypothesis, but still I will never arrogate to myself the right to deny someone to change the article, even someone who hasn't contributed to the article before. It would just turn Wikipedia's principles upside down. So whether I made "substantial contribution" to one article is first of all subjective, but also completely meaningless to me, which means I have forfeited the right to edit any article.

to (iii): Where is the best place to pursue global consensus, if that's what it takes? WP:CITE? WP:VPR? —bender235 (talk) 01:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

to (i) anything stylistic, yes. (It ought to be unnecessary to point out that this doesn't apply to fixing references or ensuring stylistic consistency within an article, but...)

to (ii) well "substantial" is slightly subjective, but that doesn't mean it's meaningless. If you're a substantial content contributor you can try and make style changes per BRD, and see if others agree.

to (iii) Good question. I can't see anywhere better, so I'd go for VPR, with some initial discussion first (for one thing, someone may point out a better venue), and then, if it's justified, an RFC tag and listing on WP:CENT. Rd232 ^talk 01:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

(i) Well, I always pointed out that "colwidth" is more than a stylistic change. It is part of making Wikipedia more accessible, because on smaller devices there is not enough screen space to display 2/3 columns, which is why I replace {{Reflist|2}} and {{Reflist|3}} with {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}. Well, I used to.

(ii) Like I said, in my opinion, just because I contributed to a particular article more than somebody else, I do not arrogate to myself the right determine the article style more than he/she does. WP:OWN has that nice definition of ownership behavior: "An editor disputes minor edits concerning layout, image use, and wording in a particular article daily. The editor might claim the right, whether openly or implicitly, to review any changes before they can be added to the article." That kind of behavior is rightfully discouraged.

(iii) I think about adding a poll on WP:VPR. —bender235 (talk) 01:55, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think any more 1:1 discussion is going to be helpful at this point, but I'd interested in a wider discussion (not "poll" - WP:NOTAVOTE - though you probably didn't mean that literally). Rd232 ^talk 02:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Did it. —bender235 (talk) 02:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Retirement Template

Just a question, why was the animated retirement template removed from the WP:WIKIBREAK page? Not that I ever plan to retire, :), but it had been on there for awhile, and the edit summary of um, no didn't really say much. Again, just asking for clarification. Thanks! I'm Flightx52 and I approve this message 17:38, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Automated animation is generally a bad, bad idea anyway, and animation in a retirement template is a terrible idea. I wouldn't bother to WP:TFD the template necessarily, but at least not promote it at that page! Rd232 ^talk 17:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Why is animation a bad idea? Perhaps explaining to me would be helpful... I'm Flightx52 and I approve this message 20:18, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I thought it was obvious. Purpose-less animation like this is just not done in web design any more, it's tacky and annoying. And to have it in a retirement template is a bit like turning the speakers up to max in your apartment and then going on holiday... It's not a big deal, I just didn't want to encourage people to use it - plus the annoyance factor on the wikibreak help page is even higher than when the template's actually used. Rd232 ^talk 22:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for what?

You wrote on my talkpage: "I was specifically asking you to withdraw and/or apologise for the comments you made at Talk:CounterPunch."

Apologies for what? Stating the fact that you're left-wing? Fellytone (talk) 19:07, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm starting to get the impression that you think I did something to you in a past (wiki?)life. It's certainly rare for a user you've never encountered to exhibit such behaviour without obvious cause. Anyway, to answer your question, diff for my comment at the article talk page. Rd232 ^talk 22:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Well you are a leftist. And there's nothing wrong with that: we don't live in a society like Iran or Russia where people with right-wing ideas getting assassinated or imprisoned. I also don't find anything wrong with telling the truth and calling you out as a leftist; that is unless you find that there's something wrong with someone telling the truth.Fellytone (talk) 04:14, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Well you can sod off my talk page, mate, if you've got nothing constructive to say: come back when you're willing to apologise for what you actually said. I was quite clear about that in my initial statement on the article talk page, by virtue of quoting you. And I have to add that I do not accept "leftist" as a label either. Rd232 ^talk 08:53, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

What for, my comment was "leftist like you et al" is the just the reflection of the truth that you are a leftist there's nothing wrong with that. And I'm not going to apologize for saying the truth, that is unless you find that there's nothing wrong with telling a lie.

"Well you can sod off my talk page" Will do and thank god you're telling me to: afterall you know the old saying: never argue with idiots - they drag you down to their level and then they beat you with their experience. Though it does leave me wondering: with a condescending attitude like that, maybe that's why you're having a hard time figuring out why you eat your dinners alone.Fellytone (talk) 22:14, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Pretty sure (a) I told you to sod off unless you were willing to go back and read what I actually asked you to apologise for, which clearly you're not (b) you still have dinner with your mum, whilst I have dinner with my wife. Get lost. Rd232 ^talk 00:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Editing restriction

I have just been reviewing the AN that gave rise to the above. I was under the impression that you had actually read at least some of the relevant material, and come up with an independent editing restriction. On re-reading it appears that i was mistaken and you simply applied the restriction proposed by Xeno and amended by others. Given that, this is hardly a community imposed editing restriction, it is merely the rubber stamping of what was proposed by one side in a dispute. Am I correct in this? Rich Farmbrough, 23:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC).

Um, that seems muddled. If I had come up with an "independent" editing restriction (defining "independent" how?), then it wouldn't have had community support. So, yes, I looked at the discussions and weighed the consensus (WP:NOTAVOTE) and declared a consensus for the restrictions as implemented - restrictions which didn't seem unduly onerous.

On a related matter, to be honest, I was a bit disappointed at how the AN discussion went after your helpful clarification on 9 December; it seemed on the verge of getting somewhere and didn't, partly because you didn't provide further input as I asked. Do you have any solution (I suggested a couple in that AN discussion) to this situation that doesn't involve people accepting the current error rates until at some point you manage to sort things so they go down again to where they once were? Rd232 ^talk 01:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I returned to it and it was archived. As far as the latest build is concerned the number of disparaged changes should be virtually nil. Rich Farmbrough, 13:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC).

Well, you could have said something. Did you request Smackbot be unblocked? Rd232 ^talk 13:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Rich Farmbrough, 13:33, 17 December 2010 (UTC).

Nothing seems to have happened though. Funny how **** leaves a message on my page and the bot gets blocked in 3 hours because I haven't responded to the message, even though it's not editing, but it takes so much longer to get an unblock. Rich Farmbrough, 11:51, 20 December 2010 (UTC).

I've left a note [3] with the blocking admin about unblocking. Rd232 ^talk 21:02, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Sub thread

I don't think the editing restrictions are going away anytime soon, they may get more stringent instead though. Rich Farmbroughs reactions to my remarks were supposedly caused by some personal animosity, and normally he reacts friendly and in a helpful manner to such remarks. Right? User talk:Rich Farmbrough#Sladen's concerns gives a different impression. Notice further that he has again started with automated page creation, which again goes wrong and doesn't get checked by the creator, leaving the mess for others. User talk:Rich Farmbrough#Unapproved automated/semi-automated creation of pages gives one example that went badly wrong, but also check e.g. the last one, List of elections in 2014, which starts with an error ("The following elections occurred in the year 2014"), and duplicates one of the few entries (United States * United States Senate elections, 2014 [edit] United States Senate * United States Senate elections, 2014). This also leads to the creation of articles with dubious usefulness, like List of elections in 1590, where a human may decide that a list of 16th century elections is more useful than these 8 very short "lists", where e.g. List of elections in 1549 and List of elections in 1550 are duplicates. Note also that a category can have different inclusion criteria than a list (with related articles also included), so including e.g. Vote-OK in the category for 2005 may or may not be OK, but including it in the List of elections in 2005 is incorrect (and it's just one of a number of such incorrect entries on that page alone). It also has duplicate entries, because some articles are both in a parent and child category. And entries like Template:United States elections, 2005... Basically, this replicates the errors already in the category, with a creator who doesn't check for errors. Automatic page creation may be acceptable and useful when followed by a pmanual check and correction by the creator. Automatic rubbish dumping should not be tolerated though... (note that his usual errors, as indicated by Sladen, continue as well, e.g. [4]). Fram (talk) 08:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Note that he is now even undoing his own improvements in one of the few cases where he made any: improvement and revert (note the edit summary of the second edit...). Fram (talk) 08:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Continued semi-automated edits with an incorrect edit summary, have resulted in the removal of the US presidential elections from the newly created lists (e.g. [5]). Kingpin has asked him to test these things in his userspace, which would be the obvious thing to do. This trial-and-error approach in the mainspace has created problems over and over again (cf. the redirect creation, the unused template creation, the creation of disambiguations for townships). Fram (talk) 10:57, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Worse and worse, now six consecutive violations of his editing restriction in one minute: [6], [7], [8], [9], [10] and [11]. Fram (talk) 11:08, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

No, {{use dmy dates}} is in the AWB redirect list. Rd232 ^talk 13:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Um, have you reread the editing restriction lately? "[...]with the understanding that bypassing template redirects will only be done when there is a substantive edit being done". These are template redirect bypasses without any substantial change, hence a vilation of his editing restriction. The changes I showed made no difference to the article or its categories at all. Fram (talk) 13:31, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, yes, you're right. Rd232 ^talk 13:36, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure you have been to cafe press and had it made into a mouse mat. Rich Farmbrough, 13:35, 17 December 2010 (UTC).

Doubtful, but perhaps if you had we'd have had less problems... Rd232 ^talk 13:36, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Rich_Farmbrough/blog#26_October_Uh.._we_didn.27t_think_this_one_though. Rich Farmbrough, 13:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC).

If that is what you believe your editing restriction boils down to, you have violated it many more times than noted so far. No one has said that you are "not allowed to date a maintenance tag", "to tag stubs as unreferenced", "to correct or update a url"... If things are unclear, ask for a clarification. Willfully violating those things that have been explicitly listed at the restriction though, even though you have been blocked for the exact same kind of edits before, is hardly caused by being confused or uncertain. Fram (talk) 13:47, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Still the same problems (not with SmackBot, that one seems to run allright now). Among his AWB edits pop up quite regularly violations of his editing restriction, like [12][13][14] and [15]. And his (semi?-)automated category creation gives us things like Category:Richard Bishop (guitarist) albums, where Category:Richard Bishop albums would have been the "human" (and WP:MOSCAT compliant) solution. He has tried editing with a separate account, but after the first 14 edits ([16]) were all seriously wrong and that account got temporarily blocked, he stopped this as well. I just don't get why he continues with this, but nothing seems to change... 08:18, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest (i) amending the Mass Article Creation part of WP:BOTPOL to cover categories (see discussion there) and (ii) proposing at AN an amendment to Rich's editing restrictions banning AWB use on his main account. Beyond that, I'm on sabbatical, and this sort of seemingly unresolvable nonsense is one reason to be glad I am. Rd232 ^talk 13:02, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

FYI

Bender235 seems to be back to changing colwidths for no good reason. I don't care much one way or the other, but I did remind him that he had been told to stop it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually I did it for a reason. I did exactly what I was told, testing the consensus before implementing any change. So I asked here, got a positive response by one of the main contributors, and was actually asked to implement colwidth on "atleast the GA/FA/FLs of WP:MADONNA?" Which is what I did, and why Wikihound Baseball Bugs is barking. No offense. —bender235 (talk) 17:27, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

If the other editors don't care, then I don't care. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Template:Blocked user

I reverted your change to the above template. Please discuss such changes before making them to such a highly visible template. Thanks, Tiptoety ^talk 02:45, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Hugo Chavez

Hey, thanks for the heads up. I'm primarily adding information from Bart Jones's book Hugo!, the principal English-langauge biography of the president, which I'm surprised has not been included in the sub-articles.(Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC))

Report an error

MediaWiki_talk:Common.js/Archive_18#WikiBugs. Has this died through inertia? Fences&Windows 20:59, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Guess so. Ask TheDJ, who was working on it. Rd232 ^talk 21:49, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Louisa Bertman

What are your views on this one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Louisa_Bertman

Thanks.

Logical Cowboy (talk) 13:35, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Hm, I was trying to figure out why you asked me that. Louisa Bertman I have no opinion on, but Jonathan Bertman is obviously related to HealthAccessRI. Both Jonathan Bertman and AfraidToAsk.com were created by User:Infomed. AFD'd both of those. Rd232 ^talk 02:59, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I just asked you because you seemed interested in AfDs, and this one needed some more feedback. Logical Cowboy (talk) 03:04, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

OK. No, I don't generally comment on AFDs unless I come across ones on topics that interest me. Rd232 ^talk 03:15, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, you might have a view on this one, but if not, no worries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2010_December_27

Logical Cowboy (talk) 01:50, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Vintagekits

You have behave in a disgraceful way, failing to do any research at all.  Giacomo  11:24, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Vintagekits/terms + ridiculous unblock request = why are we even talking about this? Only a serious unblock request merits serious discussion. Rd232 ^talk 11:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Haruspex101

Hello Rd232, I am Haruspex101 (using unregistered IP) who has been in frozen isolation since 23 July 2009. I made some Wikipedia contributions for a brief period from 4 July 2009 to my indefinite blocking by former admin VirtualSteve on 23 July 2009, in relation to some unpleasant experiences with YellowMonkey at the Roland Perry page. I have not made any Wikipedia posts before or after this time, until now. I have followed the paid-editing and unsourced BLP debates. I have read Andrew Lih's book on the Wikipedia Revolution. And now I would welcome the opportunity to make some Outside Comments at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/YellowMonkey for the consideration of the community, which I believe will have a broader significance for the policing of privileged users and the exposure to defamation for contributors to Wikipedia. 114.75.178.59 (talk) 14:41, 27 December 2010 (UTC) David C. Barrow aka Haruspex101, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA.

Mm, well it was long enough ago that you could try asking for an unblock (WP:BASC as your talkpage is locked). In terms of commenting on the YellowMonkey RfC, that's not really advisable right now, in his absence, and if the issues are really broader than maybe it would be better anyway to make comments or suggestions elsewhere. Rd232 ^talk 15:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

barnstar

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		Thank you for your understanding! Mbz1 (talk) 21:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Best of luck with making Wikipedia a better and more productive place for all. Rd232 ^talk 10:36, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

{{Namewarning}}

		The Original Barnstar
		Great idea for helping to improve our relations with the general public. Nyttend (talk) 01:20, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. As Gavia immer said at VPR, it's the sort of thing we should have had already. I wanted to add it to standard templates like {{banned user}}, but that's not got so much support, so I guess it's standalone use - which needs promoting in appropriate places then. Block/ban policy pages perhaps would be a start. Rd232 ^talk 10:40, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Voting_systems#Merge

as an admin consensus cant wait forever on that page. you have supprot now..(Lihaas (talk) 05:41, 29 December 2010 (UTC)).

There's too many participants in the project to apply a normal timescale. It's more like 3-6 months, unless you want to push the issue to prominence via RFC and/or notifying them all. Rd232 ^talk 08:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

good idea, you want to post there and ask for more opninions?Lihaas (talk) 05:41, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not in any hurry, but if you want to move things along, feel free. Rd232 ^talk 21:37, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

An admin should know better

I don't like the way you addressed me. Show a little respect and assume good faith. Jehochman ^Talk 21:04, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:AAGF. And an admin of your experience should know better - it's not like you're fresh off the boat. Rd232 ^talk 21:36, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:AAAGF. I don't get involved in page moves. I don't ever remember doing a disputed move before, and will be smarter next time. This place is huge with many unexplored nooks and crannies. Jehochman ^Talk 21:41, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Bottom line, if you have issues like that, you should consider other forms of dispute resolution, most obviously WP:RFC/U or possibly WP:AE since the topic is subject to arbitration - and not head to ANI. regards, Rd232 ^talk 21:44, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Were you looking for WP:AAAAGF? Jehochman ^Talk 21:48, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Have you been in WP for 6 months now? Have most of your contributions been on notice boards and user talk? I am worried you are missing the true spirit of wp. perhaps you should focus your efforts on adding content, and less on disputes. Darkstar1st (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, my time is restricted, and many disputes find me. Having been here for five, nearly six, years, a lot of users come to me with problems, and I feel obligated to try to help them. Jehochman ^Talk 16:50, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

VK offer

Hi, seems pretty clear to me the offer he has made, I don't see a clear need for him to specifically place another template, do you think there is enough of a statement to open another ANI thread? Off2riorob (talk) 18:37, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

The thought crossed my mind, but I suspect his chances will be slightly higher if he restates everything clearly as part of a new unblock request. Rd232 ^talk 19:14, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes your right, seems like it could be another case where the WP:OFFER didn't work out. Off2riorob (talk) 16:30, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Talk page concerning CounterPunch

As per your comments (in bold)

By reverting the same text as soon as your block expires, you are continuing the same WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour.

How am I engaging in WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour? Where is the evidence I am doing that?

You are also reinserting WP:BLP violations which completely unbalance the article.

The article is not about a living person, so that is not even the right Wikipedia guideline you are citing. And how do my edits unbalance the article?

"I'd also like to know if this is you."

No that is not me.

"Finally, this basically needs more discussion; if you're not willing to accept the talk page consensus, use dispute resolution like an WP:RFC or a noticeboard."

Where's the consensus on the talk page? Where are the answers to the questions I've been asking Bali ultimate or you? Your contributions on the talkpage have been practically non-existent. Fellytone (talk) 23:36, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

1. evidence? reverting the same text as soon as your block expires.
2. WP:BLP applies to any content about living persons, not just to biographies. Read the policy.
3. It is painfully obvious how they unbalance the article. If you really cannot see it, you may fail WP:COMPETENCE.
4. OK.
5. In the absence of consensus, this sort of BLP content should stay out. This encourages genuine consensus-seeking through dispute resolution, and discourages edit-warring. Though I would say between the edit history and the talk page there is a consensus against inclusion of your content.
6. I've declined to engage further on the talk page because you declined to withdraw, never mind apologise for, your unpleasant mischaracterisation-in-one-breath of me and CounterPunch. Doing so now would be a start.

Rd232 ^talk 23:47, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

1 You haven't answered my question. Where's the evidence I am continuing to engage in WP:Battleground behaviour?

2 "WP:BLP applies to any content about living persons, not just to biographies." Right. So which is why it doesn't apply to CounterPunch because it's a MAGAZINE.

3 So what if my edits unbalance the article? If you feel that it's unbalanced then add quotes of praise for the magazine.

4 There's nothing wrong with putting BLP content out of articles in the absence of consensus, although in this case what we're dealing with isn't a BLP issue. I'd also say just as much as there consensus for the inclusion of my content, there is no consensus of exclusion of my content either.

5 No i am not going to apologize for calling you something true. Which is why I'll be posting this on my talkpage if you want to respond. Although I should let you know it doesn't matter whether you do or not. Fellytone (talk) 01:06, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

1. I did; you're not listening.
2. but the content was about contributors to counterpunch (LPs, hence BLP applies)
3. vague praise is not what WP is about, and it wouldn't balance specific and severe unrefuted accusations anyway
4. no
5. it isn't true.

Rd232 ^talk 01:22, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

1) You're not reading properly. I've asked you what evidence there is I am continuing to engage in WP:Battleground behaviour.

2) No only some of the content is, the majority of the criticism is about the stuff that the contributors of counterpunch write.

3)What? Who is making these vague praises, have you looked at the some websites fences&Windows have put up, the praise for CounterPunch is substantive. Again, just another excuse for censorship.

5) What isn't true?Fellytone (talk) 01:31, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

• Rd232, please don't try to act as an admin on an article you are involved it. Fellytone is in a good faith content dispute with you, so warning them about BATTLEGROUND behaviour is quite inappropriate. Fences&Windows 03:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

eh? what gave you the impression I was waving my admin hat? Rd232 ^talk 06:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Umm...

Looking at your 2nd, 3rd and 5-8th posts here, in reading order as I view it just now (back and forth between you and MF): "Oppose. Fails criterion #4 (ability to communicate). I had some problems understanding the OP myself, which I resolved separately, so clarity may have been an issue. "Constructively" is not satisfied, as the candidate offers nothing to clarify, resolve or otherwise advance the situation. "Courteusly" has not been definitively met as there is evident sniping, a courteous response would have been to seek to resolve the concerns of the questioner. Avoidance of unnecessary escalation was not the initial object (see "courteous response" above), although the possibly barbed apology at the end mitigates this concern somewhat."

I was going to post to Malleus about this, I (sort-of) owe them a comment on general stuff, but really, we're discussing what is expected of an admin and you two are shooting each other with pellet guns. You're my first stop then - how can you particpate in improving the RFA atmosphere when you're also participating in the negative actions that make it such a toxic place? Please don't tell me it's someone else's fault.

It's been a fairly productive discussion and we do need more eyeballs and voices, you're making good points - but let's live up to the standards we're espousing. </rant> Franamax (talk) 00:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

eh, I passed when standards were much laxer, what do you expect... :P more seriously, I don't react well to accusations of bad faith; it's a flaw, I shouldn't advertise it but there you are. Also, RL events are doing things to my sleep cycle you wouldn't believe... Rd232 ^talk 01:17, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Heh, in another year or three I'll be able to start cracking those lines too. The one I've been polishing up is "when I passed, the rule was that if they didn't specifically ask about it at your RFA, you could do whatever you wanted". ;) Hoping the sleep-cycle variations are for the various good reasons, sympathy if they're for the many other bad reasons. Franamax (talk) 03:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

A most excellent reason. Hard work, but worth it :) Rd232 ^talk 07:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Venezuela Crisis of 1895

Hello, I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know I am glad to be reviewing the article Venezuela Crisis of 1895 you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Best Regards, Lord Roem (talk) 05:23, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I have posted a section-by-section review of the article. If fixes are made, it will become viable for promotion. Cheers, Lord Roem (talk) 21:57, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Kudpung/RfA criteria

Hi Rd232. Thanks for your comments on the RfA thread. Some sections of my sub page - which I never originally intended to to make public until recently - are more of a collections of my personal thoughts than anything else, while others are based on fact. I am genuinely interested in improving the RfA system (see the absolute fiasco one current RfA has become inspite of all the discussions) and I would sincerely welcome your input regarding the flaws. The page has a talk page, if you have a moment please feel free to start it and comment there. Thanks in advance for your valued feedback. Regards, --Kudpung (talk) 06:11, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Grundle2600 sock

Mind to take care of this one too? Thanks, TMCk (talk) 20:31, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

whacked. Rd232 ^talk 21:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Kvetch

Hi. I started a page at Kvetch and collected some discussions on its talk page that you may be interested in. There's quite a bit of work to be done before this can go live, but I think it's an important and much-needed feature. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought we were nearly there with the WikiBugs feature, User:TheDJ was doing it and then it needed more testing or something? Rd232 ^talk 22:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I glanced at the code and it doesn't seem to be in very good shape. If it's going to be rewritten (at a minimum to use the API), I think it makes sense to fix some of the other issues as well. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:37, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, well good luck, it's worth doing. Rd232 ^talk 22:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt

Well here we are: an allegedly semi-retired wikipedian reviewing an article for an allegedly sabbatical-taking wikipedian! Please see Talk:2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt/GA1. Cheers, hamiltonstone (talk) 01:45, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Venezuela Crisis of 1895

The article Venezuela Crisis of 1895 you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Venezuela Crisis of 1895 for eventual comments about the article. Well done! Regards, Lord Roem (talk) 20:20, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Concerns about your actions

I find it exceptionally improbably that you would be the one to prematurely and improperly shut down the ANI thread I started, and now you turn up to attempt to delete a proposal before it's even had a chance to be discussed by the wider community. This looks really bad. Do you have any other examples of proposals that were deleted prior to discussion? Jehochman ^Talk 15:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The ANI thread was quite properly shut down, and the new board has no basis in policy, and should have been discussed before creation. And I'm not aware of WP:MFD not being part of the community. Frankly, I'm not far off considering some kind of sanction against you and SlimVirgin for harassment of Carolmooredc. Rd232 ^talk 17:49, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Listen, if you see harassment, do something about it. Don't cast aspersions, like you've just done. Either strike your personal attacks, or back them up with evidence. Keep in mind that Carolmooredc just filed a WP:WQA against me alleging harassment, and it went nowhere. She's quite combative and just got herself reported at WP:ANI for harassing Kenilworth Terrace. You might want to take a deeper look into this situation before you jump to conclusions. As for me and Slim, we occasionally agree, occasionally disagree, but are not coordinating our activities in any way whatsoever. If you think we're working together to harass Carolmooredc, you're seeing things that don't exist. As for the new board, it's a proposal. You are trying to delete the proposal while it is under discussion. That's one of the daffiest things I've seen in a while. Let the proposal be discussed. Maybe something good will come of it. Why the assumptions of bad faith and the rush to stifle discussion? Jehochman ^Talk 21:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Apologies, I hadn't decided that what happened amounted to harassment; the doubt about that was folded into the doubt expressed about doing anything, so it wasn't clear. As for the daffyness... the proposal is being discussed, on both the relevant talk page and at the MFD. Something wrong with those venues? Well I'd have preferred WP:VPR... Rd232 ^talk 04:23, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

You'll probably see it anyway, but you might find my remark at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/dispute_resolution#Problems_with_RFC.2FU interesting. Compare such a board with the advocacy one, and see how much of your justification applies to that suggestion but not the advocacy board, eg as a step before rfcu. Rd232 ^talk 18:15, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Rd, I've come to appreciate a good deal of the fine work you do on Wiki, but this is reminiscent of the time you added a BLP violation to Manuel Rosales (one that still exists today, IMO). It seems that you have the ability to exercise good judgment, at times I'm impressed by your good work, but that ability may be compromised when your own POV interferes. You have a clear interest in letting the advocacy at Hugo Chavez continue, so I don't find your MFD of this board to be among your better judgments. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:23, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, that "BLP violation" which is so egregious that you're happy to leave it there. The rest I won't dignify with a response beyond noting Wikipedia:Requests for comment/dispute resolution. (Though I guess I should say thanks for the compliment buried in there.) Rd232 ^talk 17:49, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Radical Right

seems to be a new repository for material we long ago deleted from Fascism, and is being used recursively to assert that the groups nemed were "radical right" just as the old "fascism" link was used to label them "fascist." Might you take a gander thereon? Thanks. Collect (talk) 12:50, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but if my sabbatical means anything at all, it at least means not taking on new things like that. Try some form of content WP:DR perhaps. Rd232 ^talk 15:55, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

In the case at hand, one of the Fascism editors seems to have made his own article to contain a lot of coatrack (apparently saying the Federalists were "radical right" :) etc.) and I recall you as a dispassionate editor on Fascism helping to reduce coatracking and SYNTH over there. Thanks! Collect (talk) 16:08, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, well, sorry. If/when I decide to end my sabbatical, I'll try and remember to pop back and see how it's going. Probably more a case of years than months for that though. Rd232 ^talk 16:16, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Might you kindly prick the ear of another then? I want someone about whom no claim of bias will be made. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:33, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Ha, well that's a tough ask! Try WP:MEDCAB maybe. Rd232 ^talk 23:16, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

MEDCAB, IMHO, rarely gets anywhere when dealing with people who assert The Times is "right wing" and therefore not really reliable per WP:RS :). The article seems to try connecting Federalists to "radical right" of all things, as well as all the "fascist" stuff we dealt with before. Collect (talk) 00:44, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

This is just a case of three editors with a history who have decided that they do not like the article, despite its accurate reflection of the sources.

• Collect (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Darkstar1st (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Martintg (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The other editor who has made significant contributions to the article, and considers it to be well-sourced and neutral, is User:Rjensen, who is a professor of American history and an administrator on Conservapedia.

Now that Collect has canvassed for your opinion, could you please read through the article and the talk page and advise Collect whether or not you agree with him.

TFD (talk) 22:57, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

No doubt the topic of the "Radical Right" is notable and there is nothing to dislike if the article remained on topic, but this article created and expanded by TFD, is a mess of contradictory claims given undue weight. When assertions that are being made are not found in references being cited, one has to wonder if the other more controversial assertions, all sourced to the same single book that is unavailable, are also present in that cited source. I brought up an issue long ago on talk[17] but it was ignored by the article owners. Only when I recently slap an inline tag[18] does anything actually get done[19]. And now TFD complains here. If he and Rjensen were to take on board the real concerns rather that attack good faithed editors, some progress could be made. --Martin (talk) 00:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Um, as I already said, I'm not getting involved, so please sort this out yourselves in the usual ways. Rd232 ^talk 00:54, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi

Why did you just close an ANI about unacceptable behaviour and claim it was about content disputes? Passionless -Talk 21:32, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

You didn't demonstrate any unacceptable behaviour (behaviour against policy or editing restriction); or indeed make an actual request for admin action. And in particular, when directly asked where the evidence was of the prior consensus supposedly violated, you ignored the request. Rd232 ^talk 21:36, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I ignored the request because I was sleeping-as seen by the large gap in my editing times, I replied quickly when I awoke, than went to eat before returning to finish... and the RFC you spoke of is unrelated to the discussion in which wikifan was uncooperative. One is wikifan trying to change the entire article, the other is about trying to further define the article. Passionless -Talk 21:42, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

And the consensus was a long informal discussion which ended with a page move, Wikifan showed up a week later as an objecter to our previous move, after pages of discussion I gave up talking with him after 5 days, though he would not stop so I brought it to ANI. The first 12 sections are most relevant to the consensus Passionless -Talk 21:51, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The issue covers multiple articles, so a mere discussion about moving a single page doesn't settle it. Start an RFC to cover the wider topic, or possibly use other WP:DR. Rd232 ^talk 22:30, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you actually believe I'm trying to change the entire article when I've only made a single, minor edit? I think it is important to determine whether there is any merit in Passion's accusations. I wouldn't like to see this incident be used as evidence in a future ANI. Wikifan12345 (talk) 07:38, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

As the thread closure indicates, the thread isn't evidence of anything. The accusations are unsubstantiated, and I'm trying to say that they should be put aside and the issue should be handled via content dispute resolution. However if you want to reopen the thread yourself, I won't stop you. Rd232 ^talk 12:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

Just a quick note of appreciation for your comprehensive analysis and for helping keep the dialogue civil and productive in the recent debate over the advocacy noticeboard flap. That was a lot of work for you, and I'm very grateful that you were willing to undertake it, as I am, more generally, for your extraordinary contributions to Wikipedia overall. I was very close to writing a similar note for the analysis you provided at ANI some months back re a conflict over whether we should have an article about a certain hedge fund manager who was alleged to have engaged in an incestuous relationship with his daughter. You noticed some important issues that hadn't occured to me at all; a valuable service for so sensitive an issue. No reply necessary; I know you have a great deal on your plate, and that you're on sabbatical, anyway. Thanks so much,  – OhioStandard (talk) 03:09, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - that's very kind, and much appreciated. Rd232 ^talk 00:36, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks re FEED

Thank-you for your ANI post regarding Requests for feedback. I'm sometimes very active there, but sometimes the sheer volume of marginal market gets discouraging. I think we need a more comprehensive approach neglecting those who are interested in becoming new editors, and who actually ask for help, must be discouraging. I fear we are neglecting the new generation of editors. I've tried a couple things that have gone nowhere. My current thinking is to try to get a large number of editors who would commit to some modest level of involvement—e.g. I promise to review at least one submission a week—but I haven't fleshed the idea out.--SPhilbrickT 17:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I was actually wondering idly if the approach of the Comment Request Service couldn't be used to allow people to remind themselves to contribute to various tasks (eg if a bot sees that someone who says they'd contribute to FEED weekly hasn't done so for 7 separate login days, it drops a reminder). Because you tend to get people heavily involved in something or not at all, so things like FEED often rely heavily on a few people (like you, in that case). We need to try to spread the workload better. Rd232 ^talk 00:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Just wanted to say thanks... for everything

	Valued Contributor Award
	You have been identified as a valued contributor and your efforts are appreciated. We are honored to present you with the Valued Contributor Award and we thank you for donating your time, expertise and effort to Wikipedia. Keep up the good work. Thanks. (more details)

Hydroxonium (H₃O⁺) 11:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

thanks! :) Rd232 ^talk 16:56, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Template:Nicecode

I think this template can be safely deleted by now. — Edokter (talk) — 14:53, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

 Done. Rd232 ^talk 16:56, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Ok ive enabled my email, feel free to send me a copy of that article any time. Thanks in advance.Bonewah (talk) 22:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok ive had a chance to read that source and i would not call it a reliable source, at least not in this context. The reasons I say this are many, but ill stick to the big ones. Every page of the article contains gross inaccuracies and outright falsehoods that indicate a lack of any fact checking. Most of the statements in the article are opinions stated as if they were facts, most importantly, the material we are citing in the article. The article declares that twelve philanthropists acting in a "well orchestrated, coordinated program" set to "overturn a century of progressive policy" How do we know this to be true? Because the author declares it to be so. He offers no rationale as to why these wealthy donors are more important than other wealthy individuals, and the only source he cites looks like it might be another editorial (Sally Covington's 'How conservative philanthropies and think tanks transform US policy', which I would very much like to see if you have access to it). Similarly, the portion we cite "12 American foundations that have had a key influence on US public policy since the 1960" is not proven in any way by the article, the author does not explain how he determined that these foundations had more or less influence than any other, nor does he provide a rationale as to he measured this influence, other than rattling off a few anecdotes. Most importantly, like most of the rest of the article, he cites no sources whatsoever.

Anyway, for these reasons, i believe we should remove this citation and the statement to which it is attached. I would very much like to inspect Sally Covington's 'Moving A Public Policy Agenda: The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations' which is currently cite #30 and the afore mentioned 'How conservative philanthropies and think tanks transform US policy' also by Covington. If you have access to them, would you be willing to email them to me? Thanks in advance. Bonewah (talk) 22:51, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

The article on this issue seems to rely on the report by Covington, which I don't have access to (I don't think it's online). If it's good enough for this author to use in this way in a peer reviewed article, then it's good enough for us. And whilst it would be better to have direct access to it, Wikipedia is a tertiary source and it's fine for us to rely on this article's summary of Covington. Rd232 ^talk 01:51, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Im not willing to endorse a source until ive read it, so ill see if its at the public library where I am. In the mean time, i sincerely dont believe that the Public Land & Resources Law Review article is a reliable source for at least the reasons stated above. It is at best editorial, and not suitable as a source. Ill hold of on judging the Covington stuff until ive at least read it. Bonewah (talk) 02:01, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Well if you like you're free to see how that goes down at WP:RSN. Rd232 ^talk 02:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I suppose. I assume from all this that you think this is a reliable source? Bonewah (talk) 03:16, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

obviously. Rd232 ^talk 07:52, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

The reason I ask is because at this point in the conversation you would normally be staking out a counter position (like "I feel that the Public Land & Resources Law Review article is a reliable source for X, Y and Z reasons") or attempting to refute my position ("Bonewah is incorrect in his assessment of the PL & RLR article for the following reasons....") or both. I know i *can* take this to RSN if i choose to, but I think we have a responsibility to at least try and work it out on our own through the usual collaborative process before we head to a noticeboard. However, in order for this to happen I need you to at least respond to my points, and possibly raise your own on this subject. Bonewah (talk) 22:08, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

"The article on this issue seems to rely on the report by Covington, which I don't have access to (I don't think it's online). If it's good enough for this author to use in this way in a peer reviewed article, then it's good enough for us." A peer reviewed academic article is a prima facie a reliable source. Rd232 ^talk 05:59, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

My issue here is not with Covington, ill judge that source when ive read it. My issue is with the Public Land & Resources Law Review due to the fact that we are citing it as a source. As i said above, i dont believe that the PL & RLR article in question is a reliable source for the reasons stated above and you have not argued to the contrary. You cant simply state that it is a peer reviewed academic article you have to actually make the case that it is so. Its not a reliable source just because it comes from an impressive sounding journal, you have to show that it actually meets the criteria listed in wp:rs. Again, due to the fact that it is loaded with editorial commentary and devoid of scholarship, i think i can safely make the claim that it is an editorial. If you want to argue to the contrary, do it, but that takes more than simply saying that it is so.

We can solve this issue, at least temporarily. If the PL & RLR article "cites" Covington as the source for its claims, then we should cite Covington as our source for the very same claims (at least until ive had a chance to evaluate Covinton). Whats the value of citing PL & RLR, reliable or not, if we can just cite whatever he cites? Bonewah (talk) 18:08, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

We're going round in circles here. It's a peer reviewed academic article, and I already said that if such a source cites another source, yes it's better to have direct access to it, but it's OK to use indirectly. Please don't add another circle to this loop: go to RSN if you won't accept my position. Rd232 ^talk 19:07, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

What position? The only thing you have done is declare that this is a reliable source, you have not offered one shread of evidence to back that up, no arguments as to why I should change my mind, nothing at all beyond your declaration that this source is 'peer reviewed'. If weve gotten nowhere it is because you have not even tried to work with me collaboratively. Bonewah (talk) 22:13, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The position would be that this is a peer reviewed academic source, and as such a reliable source. Rd232 ^talk 00:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Moulton

Here again. It may make sense to semiprotect Roger's page until Moulton wanders off again. JoshuaZ (talk) 05:43, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I see you're replying to Moulton (signing as a Wikiuniversity editor Caprice) at BLPN, shouldn't his posts just be deleted? Dougweller (talk) 10:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't sure that it was him, and even if it is there are others involved with the issue who would also see the exchange. The comment was aimed at encouraging dispute resolution, which seemingly is needed. Rd232 ^talk 10:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, I agree that what's needed is a functional process of dispute resolution. Perhaps you could facilitate that. See below. —Moulton 18:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

It's him, not a secret, see [20] and above that the discussion that includes ".) Caprice is a "role account," in a way, designed from the beginning to be blocked, see User:Caprice, and it would be better if Moulton is unblocked, as Moulton, his major on-line persona. Or, it would be even better, if he registers an account here for Barry Kort, and the Moulton and Caprice pages point to Kort. His academic work is published under Kort, and it is his academic work here that could be most valuable. Maybe there is room, as well, for Clown Socks, so to speak. Mmmm". Should I point this out there if you want it left? I'm not happy about letting a banned user, who has been vandalising ANI and making threats to continue, post. Dougweller (talk) 10:52, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• My identity has never been a secret. Caprice is a character who re-enacts a classical scapegoat drama, for classical educational purposes. —Moulton 18:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Um, well, whatever you think is best. Rd232 ^talk 13:12, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• What I think is best is to employ best ethical practices. —Moulton 18:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Best Ethical Practices

From AN/I...

Comment: I don't really understand how this issue has gone round in circles quite so much. It seems fairly obvious from skimming the article and discussion that Berlinski has worked with ID people and made many of the same arguments against evolution, but because of his personal beliefs doesn't (publicly... we can't get inside his head) support the ID conclusion that if current evolutionary theory is flawed, there must be an intelligent designer. And on one seemingly isolated occasion, Berlinski also made some criticisms of ID. End of? Rd232 ^talk 02:31, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• The issue goes round because the editors of IDCab have systematically concocted haphazard theories of mind regarding more than a dozen academics who have commented on the issues raised by the political debate between the science educators and the school boards. Berlinski's criticism of Darwin's model is merely a technical one. He's a mathematician, and he's appalled that there isn't more mathematics in the theory. The problem is that the mathematics is arcane, involving stochastic processes and metrics that cannot reasonably be taught without a graduate level introduction to mathematical modeling. Berlinski is like a math teacher who complains when a student constructs a sloppy proof of a theorem. The question isn't whether the theorem is true; the question is whether the proof is correct. Berlinski complains that the textbooks for evolution rely on evidence that isn't probative of the thesis to be proven. He insists that science be taught with more rigor. Otherwise you have people claiming to prove all sorts of nonsense with sloppy methodology. You see that same sloppy methodology in the way IDCab goes about concocting their haphazard flights of fancy about what this or that academic believes. Publishing haphazard theories of mind about BLP subjects whom one has never met is simply not a viable practice for an authoritative encyclopedia. Wikipedia does itself a disservice by permitting the allied editors of IDCab to continue to concoct meritless claims about the beliefs of controversial figures like David Berlinski. —Caprice 06:38, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• • If the content issues apply to a number of similar pages, you (or someone who agrees) could try an WP:RFC (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/some NPOV title). For the claims of cabalism - random outing and other harassment of editors is not a solution; only something like an Arbcom case will achieve anything (compare the EEML case). At any rate, the content issues must be kept separate from the alleged behavioural mis-steps of both sides, or it will just go on and on. Rd232 ^talk 10:06, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• We could try that route again. The last time around (about three years ago), ArbCom was too timid to touch the case. They bounced it back to the community, which was hopelessly divided. The problems fester, having never been resolved. The main method of defense by the allied editors of IDCab is to find some obscure misstep by the opposition and then use that as an excuse to block, ban, and balete them. You will be amused to discover the cause of action which User:KillerChihuahua posted as her specious reason for blocking me. Her official reason was her ridiculous theory of mind that I had "no interest in writing an encyclopedia." She bypassed community review and acted on her on, with support from her allied editor, User:FeloniousMonk. How do the allied editors of IDCab have the power to unilaterally impose an unjust ban, bypassing community review? —Moulton 18:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

The current version has removed a lot of the problems the article had a week or so ago and appears more balanced. Though it would be useful to add his disavowal of ID

For the record: I do not believe that theories of intelligent design explain those features of living systems that Darwin's theory of evolution fails to explain. And vice-versa. I wrote "The Deniable Darwin" and "Has Darwin Met His Match?" to say why. For the record: I do not believe that theories of intelligent design explain those features of living systems that Darwin's theory of evolution fails to explain

The only significant issue I have with the lede is an IDM think-tank probably doesn't. John lilburne (talk) 11:39, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Note that the IP signing with his Wikiversity address 'Caprice' is banned user Moulton. Dougweller (talk) 11:57, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the points made by Caprice/Moulton. We should not be attributing ID views to Berlinski just because of who he sometimes associates with. Imagine the reverse. An article about a Christian evolutionist would not talk about how he associates with atheists and makes arguments for evolution that are also made by atheists, thereby insinuating that he is some sort of closet atheist. As Rd232 and Caprice said in different ways, we cannot get inside Berlinski's head. I see no good reason for the Belinski article to even mention ID. There are plenty of other articles that argue that ID is some sort of neo-creationist conspiracy. Roger (talk) 16:23, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Let's discuss how to implement your proposal, for organizing the review you have in mind. You may be aware that there have been numerous attempts in the past to address these issues, with mixed results. Most of the time, the processes become hopelessly bogged down and stall out. There was one case, which Charles Ainsworth brought before ArbCom which resulted in a unanimous verdict to strip User:FeloniousMonk of his Admin bits, for egregious abuse of power which included a long-standing pattern of making "meritless accusations against others." It's not terribly important that I was one of his many victims. He's gone now, but the remnants of IDCab are still reprising his bullying tactics. I'd prefer to discuss the issues with you here, but if the allied editors of IDCab continue to disrupt the process and balete my comments, we can conduct business on Wikiversity. What is your preference? —Moulton 18:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Help:Userspace draft

Hi. As the creator of Help:Userspace draft, I thought you might be interested to see Help talk:Userspace draft#Special:Mypage/ prefix. --trevj (talk) 20:54, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. Great stuff - shame it took so long for someone to notice that new parameter! I've implemented it, and used it for the Article Wizard too. Rd232 ^talk 21:30, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Build number

Thanks for spotting that. I have fixed it. Two points

1. I don't follow AN/I or the other talking shops very much, far better to use my talk page.
2. The build number has brought complaints - an illustration that anything done on WP will find someone opposed - in this case from an experienced and respected editor and community member.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 20:21, 19 February 2011 (UTC).

OK. Trying to figure out why someone might oppose including it... Rd232 ^talk 20:33, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Search results message

The MediaWiki message as discussed in Wikipedia:MediaWiki_messages/Archive_4#search_page, is now available. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Is it? MediaWiki:Searchmenu-new-nocreate is empty both on en.wp and on mediawiki. Is it a different name? (And when does it display?) Rd232 ^talk 02:11, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Editnotice categories

Category:Pages with editnotice British English editnotice has to be one of the worst named categories ever, desperately trying to fit in with some strange naming scheme! Perhaps we can rename some of these categories. Anyway, perhaps you would like to comment on a discussion I've started on Template talk:English variant notice? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:50, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank You!

		The Featured Sound Main Page Proposal Voter Barnstar
		I was truly humbled by the overwhelming community support for the recent proposal to place featured sounds on the main page. The proposal closed on Tuesday with 57 people in support and only 2 in opposition. It should take a few weeks for everything to get coded and tested, and once that is done the community will be presented with a mock up to assess on aesthetic appeal. Finally, I invite all of you to participate in the featured sounds process itself. Whether you're a performer, an uploader, or just come across a sound file you find top quality, and that meets the featured sound criteria, you can nominate it at Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates. Featured sounds is also looking for people to help assess candidates (also at Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates.) Thanks again for such a strong showing of support, and I hope to see you at featured sounds in the future. Sven Manguard Wha? Adam Cuerden (talk) (X! · talk)

Did I get this right?

[21] If I'm misrepresenting you here, please correct me. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 09:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

No, that's right, though obviously it wouldn't always be just for/against something, it could be multiple options being argued for. The aim would be for each possible outcome to have a coherent argument supporting it worked out, with all in favour (and maybe even some who disagree but can see good points) working together to create it. Rd232 ^talk 09:48, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes. It may be that an editor can contribute constructively to more than one conflicting argument. Any number of propositions could have one collaborative argument in favor and another against, and I guess propositions would arise from discussion the way they usually do. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:37, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Locked user talk

I had initially planned on adding this to User:Rodhullandemu, as he was the one that locked the page, but it appears he now has been banned himself by you. More specifically, I am speaking about this. This is rather frustrating, as the User:AVM is actively editing, but it impossible to comment on his edits on his talk page. This has apparently been the situation for more than ~8 months. This seems a bit weird to me so I'm forwarding it to you, a MOD, as I presume you're familiar with wiki policies on matters like this (I haven't found anything on WP:PPOL that supports the indefinite locking of the user page, but could have missed something). Other than that, I'm completely uninvolved. 212.10.65.66 (talk) 09:34, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Indefinite full protection here looks a bizarre thing to do, and I've unprotected it now. BTW Rod wasn't banned, he was blocked; they're different though related things. Rd232 ^talk 09:42, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your rapid reply depite being on sabbatical from wiki (I missed that template before adding the earlier comment). 212.10.65.66 (talk) 10:03, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Dispute resolution RfC

I removed the dispute resolution RfC from WP:CENT and added it to the CENT archive. Hope you don't mind. Best regards. - Hydroxonium (H₃O⁺) 05:26, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

GiacomoReturned NPA Restriction

You know, I could continue this shit with you all day, but it's starting to get boring and I have RL business to attend to. That said, I'll take the higher moral ground and back off. Have a good day. Sincerely, FASTILY ^(TALK) 23:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

When a discussion is opened, based on policy, in my extensive experience here, it's better to leave it to run its course. To do otherwise is to be seen to be "descending into the arena", and not particularly neutral. That's entirely outside what we are supposed to be doing here, and although an RFC/RFARB may be better, perceived censorship doesn't help, however persuasively argued; there will always be someone to disagree. Rodhullandemu 23:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

It is obvious that in the highly unlikely event of the proposed sanction being accepted as having consensus, it will be useless except for the purpose of causing further drama. Without providing a more solid footing for civility restrictions, the situation of which this is merely one example will not change. Rd232 ^talk 00:51, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Then the community should put its money where its mouth is, and open an RFC. Rodhullandemu 04:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not referring to an RFC (assuming you mean RFC/U, which is obviously specific to Giano), I'm talking about a policy basis for civility restrictions such that they are actually enforceable. Please read my comments at the ANI thread. Rd232 ^talk 08:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		For working hard on so many articles and policies and keeping your cool, relatively speaking. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:32, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

"relatively speaking"! LOL. :) Thanks. Rd232 ^talk 15:42, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

BLP, ethnicity, gender

Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Include "ethnicity, gender," to match all other guidelines

Trying to remove an end-around of WP:EGRS that's being exploited. You've expressed interest in the past. Already 4 days into the certification poll.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 05:16, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

RfA improvement committee

I'd help draft that first proposal. --Kudpung (talk) 17:27, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Well you'd have my enthusiastic moral support but I can't promise anything more; RL calls again. Though I'd suggest it ought to be a general "improvement committee", with RFA improvement the first area of focus: it would make it more worth the effort. Rd232 ^talk 18:42, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll mull it over. I've started by parsing some of the more pertinent threads from the WT:RfA archives out of the background noise. --Kudpung (talk) 05:19, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

autopatrolled limit on new articles

You mention that you have proposed something similar once before. If you can find the link, I'd be interested in reading it. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 21:32, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Wasn't sure I could find it, but here it is: [22]. Note the origin of the proposal: it came out of an RFC on helping new users... Rd232 ^talk 00:01, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Discrerning edits

Helpful to know, but doubt anyone cares. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flowanda (talk • contribs)

Er, OK. I guess this is something about the personal finance edits? Rd232 ^talk 07:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Autoconformation RfC

A formal Request for Comment has now been started on this topic. Feel free to contribute; best, Ironholds (talk) 19:27, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Autoconfirmation trial

Hi Rd232,

It looks like there is significant, but not overwhelming support for a trial of requiring editors to be autoconfirmed before creating articles. Thinking about the PC debacle, I am very worried that any such trial is going to be another poorly designed disaster. Would you be willing to work with me on outlining a decent test plan, with the idea that it need not be presented unless a trial really is wanted? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Well I'd happy be comment on any ideas of yours, which might stimulate some of my own... with a blank slate, I feel I might be a bit "er... er... yes, we should have a good plan" :) Rd232 ^talk 17:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Have a look at User:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox 3. Feel free to edit it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:45, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• Regarding your comment about driving instructors, where you thinking of the Fist of Fun sketch by any chance?[23] Fences&Windows 20:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
  • No, but I can see why you thought of it. :) Rd232 ^talk 20:48, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Bots for autotagging

Hi! Back on March 1, you suggested using Xenobot Mk V for tagging articles for the newly organized WP:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas. I categorized relevant articles, listed the categories at Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas/Categories, and put in my request but nothing has been happening with that bot in weeks. Is there another bot I could request to tag the articles? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Cheers, -Uyvsdi (talk) 03:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

You could ask the bot operator, User:Xeno, about a timeline for action (bearing in mind the task you're asking of him involves quite a lot of work). Otherwise, if necessary, look at Category:Autoassessment bots and pick another, bearing in mind the activity levels of the relevant bot operator (look at their contributions history). Rd232 ^talk 09:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Mass Categories

I just closed a discussion (on request) that you started on WT:BOTPOL r.e. mass creation of categories. I think your second suggestion has consensus; I implemented #1 because it seemed simple (please check the text and make sure it looks ok :)) but I wasn't sure what was best to do about the second bit. Cheers! --Errant ^(chat!) 08:20, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

New users

I still don't like the autoconfirmed users proposal much, tho it looks like it's drawing a lot of support. I do like your suggestion about Article WizardDankarl (talk) 17:13, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Collaborative views section on article creation RfC

Hey Rd232,

Since you were the one editing it the most I wanted to make sure I left you a note so that you saw what I did. I left a note on the RfC talk page Here and moved the Collaborative views sections from the main page to the talk page (right under the discussion). I know you meant for it to help but reading through it I just think the discussion is far too biased to have on the RfC main page. The support section is far bigger and more detailed then the opposition (which doesn't have most of the arguments) and even the 'responses' section is more a 'responses to the responses' section ;). While it's clear I have a strong opinion in this debate (I think we're making a bad data short term decision that will cut our heads off in both the short and long term ;) ) but please don't take this as aimed at that. I would think the same thing if it was skewed towards the opposition. I left it freely available on the talk page, perhaps if we still want to have it we can develop it there first to be more neutral? James of UR (talk) 06:08, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

responded on the RFC talk page. Rd232 ^talk 13:06, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Re: My comments on the VP

Thanks for moving them, Rd232, I put them where I did because as I looked down the page, I saw "proposal, proposal, proposal" and so on, so I stuck it on the end. It wasn't intended to be a "view" however, it was intended as an alternative to what I see as a bloody stupid idea :) Fish^Barking? 00:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Rd232 ^talk 01:24, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

ESs

Hi Rd232. May I ask you re this edit you made re Edit Summaries (ESs)?

You changed the section name from "Always provide an edit summary" to "Introduction". Some would argue that the former section name was more appropriate. I know that as an admin. you wouldn't change a section name lightly, as of course doing so causes any existing links to that section to (partially) fail. I know there are many links on WP to the old section name.

May I ask how strongly you feel re the section name? If possible, may the same section name be restored somewhere on that page, so that existing links won't fail?

Also, of course, the page is a special page, and there's the system link to the old section name: the wp:FIES shortcut.

Regards, Trafford09 (talk) 10:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I've thought about it and changed it back. (Though WP:FIES isn't a "system link" - you could update that link as easily as anyone - it's not a "MediaWiki" page only admins can edit.) Rd232 ^talk 13:54, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for reconsidering - much obliged. Trafford09 (talk) 13:57, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Humour

		The Barnstar of Good Humor
		But, but, fire so pretty. I had momentary tea-related difficulties while reading your comment. Danger (talk) 13:30, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Sorry about the tea :) Rd232 ^talk 13:54, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Removing comments from Village pump (proposals)

You removed my, and several other users, comments at WP:Village pump (proposals)/Proposal to require autoconfirmed status in order to create articles
I have explained this at Wikipedia_talk:Village_pump_(proposals)/Proposal_to_require_autoconfirmed_status_in_order_to_create_articles#Removal_of_comments_by_me_and_several_other_users Could you please reinstate the comments you removed.
Arjayay (talk) 15:54, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

done, and responded on talk page there. Sorry. Rd232 ^talk

Roger Scruton

Hi Rd, I've opened an RfC to ask for a neutrality check of Roger Scruton, and to ask whether the POV tag should remain. One of the issues continues to be whether the article makes too much of his having been a consultant for a tobacco company, which is an issue you commented on last year at the BLP noticeboard. If you have time to give your views on any of the issues at the RfC, even if only that one, that would be much appreciated. The RfC is here and the section about tobacco is here. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 23:12, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

ANI

I thought it quite pathetic actually that you chose to ignore one of our policies, Wikipedia:Ownership of articles which the article reversion is an extreme violation. I don't care if Giano is the Winter Palace himself, he does not have a right however skilled or knowledgeable to block article development and promotion. I clearly offered to work with him not against him. Clearly your reputation and good standing with this group of editors who stick together at all costs and break every rule on wikipedia to get their own way is more important that fair content promotion and building.11:10, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I deliberately closed the ANI without assigning blame, but clearly that's not good enough for you, so here it is.

1. You're lucky that your ANI didn't boomerang, after seeking out an article of which the major contributor is someone you've just got into a kerfuffle with (the details of which don't interest me, but it seems to reflect rather worse on you).
2. Not only do you get upset about substantial changes to an article being reverted (hello? have you met Wikipedia?) instead of trying to build consensus and if necessary use dispute resolution, but you wikilawyer about WP:OWN and run to ANI? What?
3. Not only that, but you nominate an article you're not the major contributor to for GA without prior discussion? And then get upset when the nomination is removed? GA nom should be discussed first, unless you're just about the sole article author. (Apart from anything else, it's really not fair to burden GA reviewers with issues which a proper pre-nom run though by the article editors would have sorted.)

In sum, the best thing you can do here is walk away, putting the episode out of your mind for a while and do other stuff. Come back a while later (a couple of weeks perhaps) and see what happened to your edit; if necessary, discuss parts of it still unused. If you're still interested in a GA nom, then propose it on talk; if there's support, someone will do it, hopefully after resolving any issues. Rd232 ^talk 13:03, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

21 or 20 ... mea culpa

Thanks for catching the wedding date -- the dang NYT story said "today" which caught me. Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:02, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

mm, I was partly going on the other source titled "...to Marry on Dec 20". And then the 21 Dec story would normally be published the day after. Rd232 ^talk 17:44, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to take part in a pilot study

I am a Wikipedian, who is studying the phenomenon on Wikipedia. I need your help to conduct my research on about understanding "Motivation of Wikipedia contributors." I would like to invite you to a short survey. Please give me your valuable time, which estimates only 5 minutes’’’. cooldenny (talk) 17:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Question re: Autoconfirmed RfC

I'm not sure if you remember this, but I have a great deal of respect for you. There are many people on Wikipedia that I respect and admire, but only a handful that I would trust with my Wiki-life — and you are one of them.

I wanted to get your input before I comment on the Autoconfirmed RfC. My view is more aligned with Ironholds' view, but I have a HUGE amount of respect for you and I may be missing something. The proposal seems like it's filtering out users to reduce the workload at NPP rather than bringing in new users that could eventually help at NPP, which I think is a new negative.

Would you mind taking a few minutes to give me your view? Specifically, I would like to know how you feel this proposal fits within the bigger picture of Wikipedia as a whole as opposed to just the workload at NPP or the "quality" issue of new articles and education of new users. More details will help me better judge the siuation, so perhaps if you explained it as if I were a new user and didn't understand how Wikipedia works.

I am ready to have my mind changed as I am often mistaken about things. You have a great deal of experience here and I value you point of view. Thanks very much. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 07:02, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

well, thanks, that's very kind, and it's impressive that you'd seek out a different opinion like this, especially at this stage of the now-enormously TLDR RFC. I think my view is pretty well covered by the Collaborative view "for" (which I mostly wrote) and I don't think I can much improve on that, though if you have any specific concerns we can tackle those. I'm not quite sure about your question "how you feel this proposal fits within the bigger picture of Wikipedia as a whole as opposed to just the workload at NPP or the "quality" issue of new articles and education of new users." because I'm not sure what else is relevant, beyond the issue of better converting readers into editors (which the Collaborative view already covers - see particularly point 3 of "primary advantages" in that view). Is it getting at the issue of the "anyone can edit" philosophy? If so, I made some remarks on that (somewhere in the RFC...), basically to the effect that (a) "anyone can edit" refers to not filtering contributors by real-world experience, but only by on-wiki contributions (or lack thereof): examples include page protection, vandal blocking, restriction on ability to move pages, pending changes, etc - it's not an absolute "everyone can always edit everything instantly". (b) the restriction is only on page creation, not general editing, and page creation is anyway still possible for non-autoconfirmed users with assistance (see in particular my View). There are obviously implementation issues about AFC quality and manpower, but I feel the status quo is so bad that we should just do it ASAP (and anyway the technical requirements to implement it will, realistically, give us 3-6 months minimum to improve/plan in detail). I think that covers it, and if you want a really short and sweet summary, see my endorsement of Jayron's view (no. 11). cheers, Rd232 ^talk 00:25, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much for giving me your input. I really value your point of view.

By the big picture, I mean, how is the Wikipedia experience to a new user? Does Wikipedia encourage or discourage its newest volunteers.

I think a significant percentage of long-term contributors start as "toe-dippers", perhaps even a majority. Toe-dipping being

• correcting a spelling error
• adding a sentence
• or creating an article as a 2 sentence stub (i.e. Apples are red. They grow on trees.)

Creating a stub like that was fine long ago, but not by today's standards.

I started editing as an IP in 2003 and didn't know what I was doing. I think most people were like that. I thought, "hmmm, I'll just write something and see what happens." Anyway, the experience was positive enough that I kept coming back and I slowly learned what to do over a period of months/years. It could be called a natural learning process. I think in recent years, Wikipedia has pushed for a more speedy learning process so that sub-standard material doesn't hang around long. I think that requirement has discouraged our newest volunteers.

This RfC started as a request for more volunteers at NPP, which I think we need. I think we need more volunteers everywhere. The proposal has slowly morphed in to something else - educating new users, improving article quality, filtering out "bad" users. etc.. I think it will be difficult for this proposal to be successful in all those areas.

From a "big picture" point of view, this proposal is a hurdle for new volunteers that want to "volunteer" in a certain way (i.e. make an article). I think the hurdle will restrict the inflow of certain volunteers, which would be harmful to Wikipedia because it needs more volunteers. I think that is why several of the WMF staff were opposed to it.

I guess my argument relies on toe-dippers slowly turning in to long-term contributors. I'll put it like this, I think most people start by saying "I'll give this a try" as opposed to "I want to be a long-term contributor". I think there a many, many more people that are "I'll try Wikipedia" type-users than there are "I'm going to Wikipedia for many years" type-users.

Maybe we should discuss what type of new users there are? There are "bad" new users, people that come to Wikipedia with a goal not in line with our policies, POV pushers, vandals, etc..

How would you categorize "good" new users when they make their very first edit? How do they view their role at Wikpedia when they make their first edit?

Thanks for helping me understand your position. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 03:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely, I think the vast, vast majority of users start as "toe-dippers" rather than anything else. And a few years ago, it was easy enough to write a non-spammy non-self-promoting article, probably as an unacceptably crappy unsourced stub by today's standards, because there were many fewer articles already started. These days, creating an article is just a really bad way to start; for the relatively low proportion that want to, the priority is (a) helping those who are actually trying do something constructive and have a reasonable chance of becoming long-term contributors if made to feel welcomed by the community [meaning genuine support not templates :) ] (b) dissuading spammers and self-promoters from doing that sort of thing, whilst still nudging them towards constructive contributions. Speaking of nudging, one of my ideas a while back was to put a lot more effort into helping readers and newcomers get into the "toe-dipping" easy tasks, by providing a well-designed learning curve of bite-sized chunks of randomly selected cleanup tasks [e.g. Articles A/B/C need copyediting, D/E/F need wikilinking, etc], along with instructions. We've got zillions of articles needing tasks X,Y,Z in the form of a daunting Backlog, I thought we could promote those needs even on the Main Page, packaged up in a form palatable to newcomers. At any rate, that's one area we could do a lot better in - guiding newcomers to Useful Tasks they can do, in a form that's actually digestible for them. Rd232 ^talk 03:21, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Although I've been around for a while, I often feel I don't know what's going on — so I read. I read the policies, guidelines and essays and that gives me general information, but that's not enough. So I will read the talk pages and dig through the talk archives and I find out how the policies are made, but all of this is still general knowledge. So I end up watching people work. This gives me more practical knowledge. It's sort of like on-the-job experience. I watch people work and that's how I learn.

You work, so I watch you. When something needs to be done, you roll up your sleeves and get to work. I watch you and I learn from you. It probably seems like ho-hum, everyday, boring work to you, but you should see it from my side. It's really quite impressive. You will find out what the problems are and get the issues on the table so everybody can see them. Then you solicit input from the greater community and get people talking. Then you offer ideas, get suggestions from people and get them engaged. Then you boil everything down its essence and find solutions to the issues. I really wish you could watch yourself work from my side. Like I said, it's really quite impressive. This is what makes you a great admin.

Your reply to me is a good example. Not only do you have a reply, but you also have some great ideas. You're working again. And your "collaborative view" is another example of how you work. This shows how you get stuff done and it teaches me how to "work" at Wikipedia. I find it far more valuable than reading the poilcies and guidelines. You give me practicle experience that I can put to use to help the project. That is why I gave you this, because I admired your work.

The most impressive thing is when there's an injustice. You get people talking and make sure they understand the other side so that it can be fixed. The Advocacy Noticeboard is a good example. That went on for weeks and spread across many areas of Wikipedia. You handled the situation extremely well and I learned a great deal from watching your work there.

Most people admit we will lose some number of "good" editors if we require autoconfirmation for creating articles. I spent a couple hours reading through the RfC again, reading the original thread at the village pump and going through some of your old work and I'm still confused. I have been following your work for many months and if I were to guess, I would have thought you'd be on the other side of this RfC. This is what's confusing me. It seems out-of-character for you — from my point of view. But that can't be true, so my point of view must be missing something very important. That is why I came by to talk with you.

I am trying to find the piece of the puzzle that will let me say, "losing good editors is ok in this situation" and I just can't seem to find it. Can you help? Thanks. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 09:17, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, again, thanks - very kind. You say you're surprised I'm not on the other side of the debate, but actually, a big thread in my attempts to improve things is making it easier for newcomers to contribute by giving them more assistance (see eg most items under "Some things I'm pleased with" on my user page). For me, the proposal is very much in line with that (if you look at my View, you'll see the emphasis is on enabling non-auto-confirmed users to create articles but only with some degree of assistance). To return to my favourite metaphor for this: "anyone can drive" is a general standard in most countries (Saudi Arabia a notable exception - women aren't allowed to), but (in developed countries at least), the caveat is that you need to gain a licence, and whilst you don't have one you can only drive with assistance (generally, a driving instructor). Now, if you abolished the need for licences for even complete newcomers to drive solo, you might well get more people getting in a car and "driving", but you'd probably get fewer people who actually end up being drivers, because the initial experience will be disastrous and they'll be scared off ("it's too difficult/dangerous"). So to answer your question about "losing good editors is ok in this situation" - well by any reasonable definition of "good editor", I think the proposal should increase the numbers, by ensuring that newcomers [those newcomers who want to start this way - most don't, these days] have a better experience and are helped along the learning curve instead of thrown in the deep end. Of course, there's lots of other things we could do in this area (a much fancier, cleverer, Javascript-based Wizard would be great, together with a genuine WYSIWYG editor), but hey... Rd232 ^talk 11:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this for a couple days and re-reading your position. I agree with essentially everything you've said but I think we come to different conclusions. I agree that creating articles with assistance is a good thing for new users. I think that the difference is "requiring assistance" vs. "offering assistance". I agree that assistance is always a benefit to Wikipedia and the new users. But I think that requiring new users to seek out assistance will discourage some users. I believe that many people feel the users that are discouraged are the ones we don't want, and that is what I disagree with. I think we want all new users and that every new user we discourage is a net loss to Wikipedia as a whole. In your opinion, would this be a valid reason for opposing this RfC? - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 08:26, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, we may just have to agree to differ; but I have a couple of points. (i) "I think we want all new users and that every new user we discourage is a net loss to Wikipedia as a whole." I don't. There are plenty of new users we're better off discouraging. (ii) if you only offer assistance instead of requiring it, then who will choose to reject that offer? Aren't they probably exactly the sort of people we're better off without? (iii) there are practical issues about how to actually allow people to opt out without either making the optout option too hidden and so nearly useless, or too visible so most impatiently go for it in the usual "read the manual? hell no!" sort of way (iv) the main issue is really the quality of the assistance and the range of options to suit different editors and how they are presented. I think a well-developed userspace draft option is very valuable for those who prefer to do their own thing, and they can then either wait til they can move it to mainspace themselves, or they'll have a clear path shown how to request someone to move it for them (and whoever does so should ensure it meets some minimum standards). At the end of the day, if the assistance options are varied and good enough, then I have no problem forcing new users to choose one of them. Rd232 ^talk 00:57, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

"Well, we may just have to agree to differ" I think you may be right. I do want to thank you for taking the time to help me understand the situation better. You've made a lot of good points and helped me get a better perspective of the other side. Like I said, I've learned a great deal from watching your work and I've always agreed with all your decisions. This was the first time I've been on the other side and it's made me re-think my position. I'll take another day or two before I vote and reflect on the points you've made. Thanks again for your help. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 09:16, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Gender neutrality

OK, I'm starting a bit of a campaign here. Please, for the love of all that is holy, will you stop using "gender neutral" psudo-English? "xe" being the most glaring example (as well as being a peice of Wikipedia jargon). The fact is that, regardless of our political sensitivities, English just isn't gender neutral. I realize that creates it's own problems, but those issues are at least well-worn and understood.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 13:58, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

"English just isn't gender neutral". Languages evolve to meet need. Online we don't always know another user's gender, and we can either guess, or use a gender-neutral construction. (The traditional one is "they", which is awkward. I think "xe" makes perfect sense.) Rd232 ^talk 00:28, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, yes, I'm well aware of the reasoning, and (living) languages most certainly do evolve to meet the needs of those who use it. Attempting to force gender neutrality in English is just not a good way to "evolve the language" though. The use of "they" is just as problematic as the use of "xe"... both uses make me want to gouge my eyes out (not literally, of course). I can imagine the likes of William Strunk and E. B. White rolling over in their graves at such artificial constructs! Regardless, if for no other reason then the fact that this is a Wikipedia centric meme, I'm convinced that it's use somehow needs to be dialed back significantly. Here's another thought to consider: is there actually a need to be gender conscious, especially online? Regards,
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Why exactly does your discomfort over "incorrect" grammar trump the discomfort of those who are misgendered in every interaction they have on Wikipedia? (Gender-neutral language is not, by the way, a phenomenon limited to Wikipedia, even if it's the only place that you've personally encountered it.) --Danger (talk) 14:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

So, basically, you don't like because you're not used to it. Fair enough, but it's hardly a convincing argument. And it isn't being "gender conscious", if anything it's being "gender unconscious". Rd232 ^talk 17:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

The thing is that English is not gender neutral by default, so characterizing this issue as "the discomfort of those who are misgendered in every interaction they have" is problematic from the start. People aren't being "misgendered", in my opinion, but others are being overly sensitive. It's a difference in paradigm, User:Danger. If we can't talk to each other with an understanding of the completely different viewpoints that each of us has, then these sorts of discussions aren't going to get very far (which, incidentally, is part of the reason that I'm starting this discussion on user talk pages rather then going straight to the Village Pump or elsewhere).

You're correct, of course, that I don't like it. That's not the reason that it bothers me, however. I'm willing to change, when the need for change is something that I can support. I just can't see attempting to kludge gender neutral pronouns onto English as a reasonable change, however. English has been the way it is, in terms of lacking gender neutral pronouns, for a couple of centuries now. People with much more cachet then us, as anonymous Wikipedia editors, don't seem to want to add gender neutral pronouns to the English language, so why is our attempting to do so a good thing? Since the consensus in the broader world (outside of Wikipedia and a handful of other places, online of off) doesn't seem to support adding gender neutral pronouns... well, what would your reaction be to seeing that sort of dispute occurring on article content?

Anyway, I'm not actually trying to stop anyone from doing anything. The only "incorrect English" is what we collectively say is incorrect, after all. Feel free to use "they" or "xe" if you'd like... but, I'm betting that yourself and others will pause and think about it for a second, now. If that's all that happens, then my "mission" has been accomplished. Regards,
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Given that yours is the dominant paradigm, I'm perfectly aware of it and I imagine that Rd232 is as well. Many have gone out of their way to explain to me why their intentional misgendering of me personally shouldn't bother me, let alone the generic misgendering present in English. This isn't a discussion about article content, it's a way of showing respect for those contributors who are not men/do not use male pronouns. Danger (talk) 21:22, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Just to play a bit of devils advocate here for a second: how do you know that I'm not female? More importantly, does it matter to me if the person on the other side of any user-name here is male or female? Does that affect our contributions in some manner? I assume that you're a woman, but am I supposed to be aware of that for some reason?

More on target though, does addressing you (or anyone else) personally with "they" or (cringe) "xe" somehow fix "misgendering" you? I don't understand that line of thinking. How is intentionally ignoring gender better then simply using an established norm?

As it turns out, our own treatment of this subject, primarily at Singular they, is pretty decent. I'll say this much, at least "they" has some support...
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:28, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

"I assume that you're a woman, but am I supposed to be aware of that for some reason?" - <facepalm>. Rd232 ^talk 23:54, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

"facepalm", what? Am I supposed to be aware of your gender (or anyone elses) for some reason? I occasionally use "she" myself, as a nod to the PC crowd, but... I mean, Chicago is neutral on the subject, so...
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:29, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

No, but the whole point of using gender-neutral language (singular they, xe) is that you don't have to know or guess or assume gender. How are you missing this? Hence the facepalm. Rd232 ^talk 01:19, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

But, see, that's part of my own point! :) By forcing "gender neutrality" with these sorts of constructions the gender "issue" is actually highlighted. It's like calling people out with something like: "hey, you person, whom I don't even know what your gender is". It's almost derogatory, actually (although I hesitate to go that far, since in my mind it's not that serious of an issue). It's like... forcing a sort of homogeneous mask on people, or something. I mean... look, the main issue is just that, when I read sentences that use the singular "they" or "xe", their simply awkward and grating. But I think that the reason that my mind continues to rebel against the use of singular they actually has to do with the fact that doing so is... de-humanizing, really.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 03:10, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

All of which is just an extreme form of not being used to it. If you're used to it, you'll happily read "they" or "xe" without gender ever entering your head. Rd232 ^talk 03:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Apparently there's a template for that: {{facepalm}}. Danger (talk) 23:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Nolan, you identify yourself on your userpage. I generally find that to be a big clue. As for your assumption, well, you know what they say about assumptions. If you care to know which pronouns to use for me, you can find that on my userpage. Our respective genders have, arguably, little effect on our contributions, but this is not, as I said, about content. I could address everyone here as "sweetums" and that would not affect my or their contributions. But I also wouldn't be surprised if a significant portion of those addressed that way would be a little annoyed. (Speaking of assumptions, would you address a user called "Taylor2100" as he or she? Would the answer changed if the user edited knitting related pages versus Operation Majestic Titan pages?) Why addressing me as "they" or "xe" fixes the misgendering is obvious: I don't use male pronouns.

At any rate, it's quite possible to avoid referring to anyone with an improper pronoun while keeping your purity of grammar essence intact. Plenty of respectful editors did so at my RfA, and I certainly appreciate their point of view more than those who explicitly refused to do so. I think I've wasted enough space here; many apologies. If you'd like to continue this conversation, either come over to my place or send me an email. Danger (talk) 23:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, I'd forgotten, but I did actually try to create a userbox for indicating gender, precisely for this linguistic issue (note the template's phrasing): {{Genderbox}}. I couldn't quite get it to work and then forgot about it. Rd232 ^talk 01:19, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Have you seen this gallery/ It looks like you've been beaten to the punch on every conceivable pronoun preference. Danger (talk) 01:52, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

No, I didn't see the gallery, though I think I did see a related userbox of some sort, and wanted something neater which related explicitly to the linguistic issue. Oh well. Rd232 ^talk 02:04, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Your user page

This might be neater for your user page than the current userbox set up:

{| style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; width: 242px; border: #99B3FF solid 1px"

|{{User en}}

|-

|{{User de}}

|-

|{{User fr-1}}

|-

|{{User es-2}}

|-

|{{User wikipedia/Administrator}}

|-

|{{User:JohnRussell/wikipedianumedits|40,000}}

|-

|{{Genderbox|m}}

|}

Just a thought,  Roger Davies ^talk 02:54, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

cool, thanks. Rd232 ^talk 10:46, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Help

Could you undo the three edits made by an IP address at List of wars 1800–1899? I want to undo them at the same time, but I don't know how to do that. B-Machine (talk) 15:18, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

done. You can do it by creating a diff (Help:diff) and then clicking undo. Rd232 ^talk 16:34, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Hmm?

Re [24]: I don't get your comment. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Well you accused someone of trolling without obvious cause, made a reference to TPG which is cryptic at best, and then made an unhelpful and somewhat unbecoming remark about dancing on graves. Rd232 ^talk 23:05, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Have you looked at the edit in question? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Every one of the links is a news site. Rd232 ^talk 23:26, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I was less concerned with the links than with the rest of the text. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The whole thing, particularly the last sentence, looks like a "what is the world coming to" sort of sentiment. So NOTFORUM, not spam or trolling or gravedancing. Rd232 ^talk 23:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

William John Parry

Picture. Thanks. FruitMonkey (talk) 22:45, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. I just happened across it at Wikimedia Commons and noticed it was in use on Welsh Wikipedia but not here. Rd232 ^talk 23:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Ministry of the Popular Power for the Public Works and Dwellings

Hi. I object to the deletion of the redirect "Ministry of the Popular Power for the Public Works and Dwellings" - The Venezuelan government actually uses this form in some of its documents. All plausible translations and spellings need to be redirected

WhisperToMe (talk) 09:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

it's a comically shoddy translation. Show me it's in use enough to justify a redirect. Rd232 ^talk 12:18, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The Spanish names say it all

Here's an example: "Ministerio del Poder Popular para las Obras Públicas y Vivienda" -> "Ministry of the Popular Power for the Public Works and Dwellings"

Also it would be in the reader's interest to redirect any names used in official Venezuelan government communications - even if the names in those communications had plausible misspellings, the redirects need to be put in place

If you want to debate the redirect further, I suggest using Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. I really doubt that the outcome would be a delete, but if you want, you are welcome to file one. Because it's now "controversial" I restored the redirect, and it no longer qualifies for G6. The thing to do, if you still wish to dispute it, is to file an rfd and see what happens.

WhisperToMe (talk) 12:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

It should have been clear to a user of your experience that I was asking for a source for the English translation you've given. The "popular power" bit isn't the issue (it's part of the official title for all the ministries, but a bit pointless), it's the incorrect use of "the" (twice) and "dwellings" instead of "housing". It seems to derive from the sort of literal thing Google Translate does, or something. Anyway, redirects are cheap and this is trivial, leave it there if you want, just don't use it in text. Rd232 ^talk 15:33, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I see. In the original article I "cited" the name (See this revision) to the Venezuelan government press release. I did not know that you weren't aware of where the name came from. WhisperToMe (talk) 00:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I did see that - and deleted it because as a source for a pretty obviously terrible translation it was hardly adequate. To prove the point, perhaps: 3 Ghits for the crappy translation vs 350,000 for the correct one. Rd232 ^talk 00:19, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Dear template journeyman

Hi and thanks for the rapid fix of the {{w-screen}} template, er, as you seem to have popped in this weekend and seem to know your stuff, I was wondering if you could have a look at this template {{vague}}. I tried using it in an article the other day and the optional message to be displayed on mouseover bit doesn't work so I assume it's a similar bit of missing code?

For the moment I have replaced it with a but would rather have the text appear on mouseover than in the hard copy of the article.

Here's the test edit that I put in my sandbox.

The man in the moon played upon a ladle.

Is there a template help noticeboard? Thanks again for your time and lowly skills. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 13:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The feature doesn't work in the underlying template; I can see why but I don't know how to fix it. I posted a message at WP:VPT, which is the most likely place for help for this sort of thing. cheers, Rd232 ^talk 17:15, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you kindly, I have added info at The Village Pump. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 20:11, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Question

Do you know what the rules are for adding comments to Archived AfD discussions? Because there is a clear edit war brewing here. Silverseren^C 01:33, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Well fixing links etc is fine. Adding additional comments is unusual, because it's pointless; but as long as it's correctly dated in the signature, I'd class the odd late comment as harmless (as long as it doesn't lead to arguments going on and on). Rd232 ^talk 01:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Wikipedia talk

I'm not sure that deploying a single editnotice for the entire "Wikipedia talk:" namespace is a good idea. While some of the pages in that namespace are indeed used for "discussing improvements" to the associated "Wikipedia:" pages (e.g. policy talk pages), many others are used for discussion of broader topics beyond the actual content of the associated pages (e.g. WikiProject talk pages), or act as centralized discussion points for large groups of pages (e.g. process or group talk pages). The new editnotice may be helpful for pages in the first group; but I think it's likely to confuse editors who encounter it on the other two. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 01:49, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Mmm, yes. Well I've put in some code to stop it appearing on WikiProject pages, or on pages where a specific page editnotice exists (so any remaining pages where it shouldn't appear just need a blank editnotice creating). Do you think that's workable, or are there too many remaining pages affected where it shouldn't appear? Rd232 ^talk 02:18, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The WikiProject pages were the bulk of needed exclusions; the remainder consists mostly of high-profile process pages (e.g. WT:RFA, WT:FAC, etc.) that can probably be handled (or already have been handled) individually. So yes, I think this is workable.

Should the group notice for the page be checked as well, incidentally? Or are those generally not used for talk pages? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 02:24, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I didn't think they were used, but I've stuck in a check for that just in case. Rd232 ^talk 02:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Works for me; thanks for taking care of this! Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 02:32, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the issue. cheers, Rd232 ^talk 02:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Talkback: WP:VPR

Hello, Rd232. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).
Message added 07:32, 10 May 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

— SpikeToronto 07:32, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Edit-summaries

Hi, Rd, I was just wondering if there's any reason you don't use the default section-link edit-summaries and put a description of your own in – it obviously prevents people like me from easily clicking through to the relevant section, but I'm not sure if there's a technical reason for it or not? Best, ╟─TreasuryTag►duumvirate─╢ 14:42, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

It's because I almost always can't section-edit on AN/ANI - I get a Javascript error message. (Works fine elsewhere.) So I put a note so at least people know what section I'm editing. Rd232 ^talk 14:47, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Fair do-s :) ╟─TreasuryTag►Captain-Regent─╢ 14:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Philosophical question

No reason to clog up the main debate with this. I always like to understand where people are coming from, and I don't feel like I really understand the foundations of your stance. Mine's pretty simple: whenever I dig into any significant disruption on Wikipedia, I tend to find a sock involved somewhere. Because of that, I view socking and the inability to enforce blocks as probably the single worst problem facing the project. I sincerely believe that most of our problems with vandalism, BLPs, everything would be substantially reduced if we could eliminate those things. That tends to drive my positions on things: I tend to place a low priority on anonymous editing, I think our policies on refusing to reveal IP addresses and connect them to named accounts are profoundly misguided, think our acceptance of edits from proxy servers is wrong, and I don't place any value at all on retaining the edits of people that evade their blocks. The only reason I oppose removing them automatically is because I understand how difficult it would be to do it correctly, not because I think it would be a bad idea if we could.

I assume that you have some foundational philosophy that makes you place a high priority on retaining the edits of blocked users. I'm curious to know what it is.—Kww(talk) 01:59, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't place any particular value on retaining edits (i.e. live contributions) from blocked users (as eg DGG seems to, as contributions to content). I don't particularly care about that, though reverting harmless improvements by banned users seems of dubious value (cf the practical application of WP:CSD#G5, which is hardly to delete every article created by a banned user). The issue for me is the lack of transparency involved in RevDeleting already-reverted edits, which eg can make it harder to track disruption and generally seem mysterious and arbitrary and thus a little scary to passersby. So I don't think it should be done unless it's necessary; and if it is sometimes necessary (which it may be), then that's a decision best made collaboratively before acting. To pick up the thread title - that is one of my philosophical concerns - minimising trouble by discussing actions before making them, where it is possible and practical to do so. Hence my RD7 draft. Rd232 ^talk 02:10, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Although, having said that, on the broader topic of contributions by banned editors, the very lack of ability you point to of definitively preventing them from contributing makes me think we might as well accept obviously good contributions from them - i.e. apply RBI to the negative behaviours that got them banned, not to any positive ones. At one point I even suggested a way for banned editors to propose edits on their user talk page (for others to potentially pick up and implement), as way to channel their energies constructively and possibly even lead the way to a return as a constructive editor. Rd232 ^talk 02:15, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Question about Venezuelan government ministry

Hi! I found this on the BEA website: http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/venezuela/notadeprensa21agusto2006.es.pdf It seems like the Venezuelan government ministry that was abolished in 2010 used to be called the "Ministerio de Infraestructura" (MINFRA) I wonder what news articles say when it was renamed? WhisperToMe (talk) 13:07, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

• NVM, found that the information's already on the page. I'll set up a redirect, and I'll see if I can start a stub in Spanish about the agency WhisperToMe (talk) 13:21, 11 May 2011 (UTC)