User talk:JBW

If I left you a message on your talk page: please answer on your talk page, and drop me a brief note here to let me know you have done so. (You may do this by posting {{Talkback|your username}} on this page, or by writing your own note.) (I make only limited use of watchlisting, because I have found otherwise I am unable to keep it under control, and soon build up such a huge watchlist that it is unworkable.) If you leave me a message here: I will answer here, unless you request otherwise, or I think there are particular reasons to do otherwise, and usually I will notify you on your talk page. Please add new sections to the bottom of this page, and new messages to the bottoms of their sections. New messages at the top of the page may be overlooked. Clicking here will open a new section at the bottom of the page for a new message. After a section has not been edited for a week it is automatically moved to the latest archive. Links to those archives are given below. However, I reserve the right to delete vandalism, trolling or other unconstructive edits without archiving them.

Deutsche Standard

New sources will be added within 2 weeks, as i did not have due to the new job.

Block on User:Viewfinder

Regarding this block. Sorry to dig up ancient history but I was on a wikibreak myself for several months when this all went down. Viewfinder is a well respected and extremely valuable editor on Wikipedia. He has knowledge and access to large amounts of data that come in very handy for mountain related articles which often suffer from lack of reliable sourcing. We are very lucky to have him aboard. Regardless of whether you may or may not have had good reason to issue the block, I believe he deserved to be treated better than he was. He has indicated that he is still a little miffed.

This particular comment is most concerning. I hope you are not editing too many articles with that kind of attitude in mind. Try adding or subtracting a little over 1% of Mount Everest's elevation in the article, or to Usain Bolt's world record 100 m time for example and see how far you get. A difference of 61 meters is huge with any mountains elevation and I would hope all editors would feel it would be worth discussing and yes arguing over such a difference.

Thanks for your time and when you get back I will be sending you my address so you may kindly send me 1.1% of whatever is in your bank account. --RacerX¹¹ Talk to me^{Stalk me} 12:57, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

@Racerx11: He was blocked for edit warring, not disruptive editing. Clear enough that there is no need to assess how important or knowledgeable the editor is, especially when you are questioning about the block. I believe that it is not productive to talk about the things that happened long ago, and they cannot be undone. Happy editing. OccultZone (Talk) 04:26, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

With all due respect OccultZone I did not break 3RR, unlike two other editors at Mount Damavand, one of them an experienced editor who knew perfectly well what he was doing. I am not going to contest the issue further but I would like to inform admin that I still feel bad and upset about it. Viewfinder (talk) 11:47, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

@Viewfinder: I addressed the issue because admin won't be here till May 30th. I feel like I should offer you advice that feeling bad about something has no special impact, it is incomplete, you also have to regret. You won't learn from the mistakes you make unless you regret them. OccultZone (Talk) 12:18, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

I regret not handling the case better but I don't regret vigorously contesting it. Damavand was measured in 2007 by an experienced and reliable GPS surveyor who writes "all references to Damavand 5671 should be changed, this is absolutely wrong". His evidence was accepted by his peers. The US government sources cited by the Persian editors are outdated and ultimately rooted in what was no more than a rough estimate. One of them, while insisting 5671 is correct, goes on to claim to have measured Damavand and obtained GPS readings of 5630-5645 with an error margin of +/-15. Viewfinder (talk) 14:22, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Who said that your block had to do something with the quality of content? It had to do with WP:EW. No matter, even if you have touched the same content 3 times during the edit dispute with other editor, it is considered as edit war. OccultZone (Talk) 15:33, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

@User:OccultZone. Viewfinder made exactly 5 edits during the dispute:

One revert on January 5

One revert on February 9

Three reverts on [1], [2], [3] on February 12.

Your words:

"No matter, even if you have touched the same content 3 times during the edit dispute with other editor, it is considered as edit war."

Sorry but I have never heard that verbage before. WP:3RR states "...more than three reverts on a single page—whether involving the same or different material—within a 24-hour period." This is boldly highlighted within the policy and it is the rule of thumb thrown out into the community for users to follow; and quite frankly your statement sounds like something spuriously made up to cover for a mistake.

Viewfinder did not 'game the system' or wait until just after the 24 hours to make a fourth revert. He simply reverted 3 times and stopped per the policy. You are putting a rule out there, a user abides by it, and then you pull the rug out from under him, tell him he should have known better and hit him with a block to teach him a lesson.

I will wait until Mr. Watson returns before getting into my other complaints. I bought this up now because as explained, it was the first I heard of it. Your may think bringing something up from a couple months ago is unproductive, but if Mr. Watson believes he handled this situation well, or if he still thinks arguing over 61 meters is a waste of time, then we will continue those discussions. --RacerX¹¹ Talk to me^{Stalk me} 06:10, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

@Racerx11: You mean verbiage? I am sure that even if that is not specifically stated on the guideline page, still it applies. For more learning you may want to check another case and decline reason. OccultZone (Talk) 06:33, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks yes, verbiage. Sorry there are several typos in my above post.

But you said, "He was blocked for edit warring, not disruptive editing. Clear enough that there is no need to assess how important or knowledgeable the editor is..." If 3 reverts in one day is "clear enough" to ignore all other circumstances, then why doesn't the policy state that?

In the link your provided, I wonder why Mr. Watson is "astonished" by the large number of users who believe they are allowed 3 reverts per 24 hours, since that is precisely what the policy states. If 3 reverts per 24 hours = block; or if you don't want editors reverting 3 times per day, then the policy should state that. The situation reminds of what we call in my line work, an "error trap". A poorly designed or confusing environment which tends to lead to human error. --RacerX¹¹ Talk to me^{Stalk me} 07:01, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh and I guess I misused the word "verbiage". I do suffer from a touch of illiteracy which embarrasses me on occasion RacerX¹¹ Talk to me^{Stalk me} 07:41, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I have already said that I should have handled the case better. But, unlike another experienced editor who knew perfectly well what he was doing, I did not breach 3RR. Yet JBW - an editor who made an ill informed and provocative remark about a 1% error in a mountain height - blocked me and not him. Not only I am deeply upset about that, but time is not healing that sentiment. A block remains on a user's block log, to the detriment of his reputation, for ever. Viewfinder (talk) 09:49, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

It never ceases to surprise me how many editors manage to read the edit warring policy as saying that it is acceptable to edit war as long as you don't break the so-called "three revert rule". The policy clearly and unambiguously states that that is not so. The block was for edit warring, not for breaking the "three revert rule".

The case came to my attention because Viewfinder made a report on the case at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. That shows unambiguously that he/she was (a) aware that the case was an edit war, and (b) aware that edit warring is against policy. He/she could therefore not reasonably object to being blocked for taking part in the edit war. It may be that he/she was under the mistaken impression that there was a rule that the first person to make four reverts gets blocked, and the other party to the edit war doesn't, so that the second person to start reverting effectively "wins" the edit war, but if so he/she was mistaken, and what is more, if there were such a rule enabling the second person who starts reverting to "win", then it would be a grossly unreasonable rule.

It is difficult to know what to say about the fact that an editor can be "deeply upset" about a 48 hour block, and still be so several months later. However, I do suggest that Viewfinder may like to think carefully about that.

As OccultZone has already pointed out, how "important or knowledgeable the editor is" is irrelevant, as is whether the edits were "right" or not: the block was for edit warring, and neither being "right" nor being a constructive and useful editor justifies edit warring. Indeed, if I had taken into consideration assessments of how right or wrong the editor was, I would have been abusing my administrative position, as I would have been using that position to further my own view of what the article should say.

I'm afraid I have to disappoint Racerx11 when he/she says "I hope you are not editing too many articles with that kind of attitude in mind". I have indeed for years edited with the attitude that if someone else is stubborn enough to persist in repeatedly trying to impose their own view on some trivial aspect of an article, it is very often better to move on and do other things, rather than to waste my time on quarrelling over it, even if I am convinced they are wrong. There are millions of articles on Wikipedia, and if I spend time successfully making 50 improvements to articles, rather than spending the same amount of time battling to make one very small improvement to one article, I think I have spent my time more productively. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:05, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

With all due respect, and I appreciate you adressing an old issue, I think it would be better if you paid attention to the red flags that should be going off in your head, that something is wrong with the rule itself or the way you are enforcing it, rather than being amazed by the astonishing number of editors that are confused by it. It is an "error trap". What is your interpretation of the purpose of the 3 revert rule? It is tripping people up and setting them up for failure. RacerX¹¹ Talk to me^{Stalk me} 14:35, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I fully understand what you mean. Although the policy quite clearly states that edit warring is not synonymous with the three revert rule if you read it carefully, the fact that so many people manage to misread it certainly means that there is something wrong with the way it is expressed. A considerable time ago I successfully proposed a change to the wording of the policy to put greater emphasis on the fact that edit warring is not restricted to three revert rule breaches, with the hope of reducing the number of people who misread what it says, but the change has had little impact on that. For some time I have been thinking about proposing a much more drastic change to the policy, to make it clearer, and to remove any risk of the same misreading. However, the kind of change I have in mind would require considerable care, and would no doubt involve a good deal of discussion, and I am still at the stage of thinking out how best to do it.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning that there are numerous reasons why taking the edit warring policy to simply apply the three revert rule would not be helpful. It would make the policy unreasonably rigid, without ability to take account of circumstances. For example, it is reasonable to allow leeway to a new editor who is likely to be unaware of the policy; as I said above, it would give an automatic advantage to the second editor to start reverting; it would play into the hands of editors who try to game the system by waiting 24 hours and one minute (that happens all the time, with many editors even openly stating that is what they are doing); it would mean that a disruptive editor who keeps coming back every few days or weeks and repeating the same edit over a period of months or years would get away with it (that too happens reasonably frequently, though less often than the wait-just-over-24-hours trick); and so on and so on... The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 16:24, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Good to hear you are considering changes to that rule. Less emphasis on the 3 revert rule would be a good idea. Maybe removing the pink box highlighting the rule would be a good start, and not so drastic of a change. It seems your understanding of the policy exceeds what would be reasonably expected for typical editor to gather from that page. I would say that your explanation in your first post would make more sense to an editor who, after reading the policy, remembers better the language outside of that pink box, rather than what is inside it.

You wouldn't appreciate being changed a late fee for paying a bill on the day it was due, or getting a speeding ticket for going exactly the posted speed limit. I expect I would feel similarly if I were in Viewfinder's shoes.

If/when you do make an effort to make more drastic changes to the policy, give me a heads up if you remember, so I can add my two cents to the discussion.

To address some other issues: I guess I am not so much disappointed in the way you choose to handle controversial edits, but rather accept it as but one choice of editing styles. I ask that you similarly accept that many editors choose to firmly defend their positions and debate with others over topics that may appear trivial to others. There are benefits to those discussions and to that style of editing, and sometimes they are quite necessary. For the record, I believe a difference of 61 meters for a mountain's elevation as far from being trivial. I feel the comment you left about arguing over 1% of a mountains height was uncalled for and the overall tone the entire post was harsh. I was compelled mostly by that comment alone to post here in the first place. VF did not deserve that imo.

Funny you mention the slow edit warring that sometimes takes place over weeks or months. I vaguely recall thinking to myself on more than one occasion, "I could let the change stand and come back a few months later and sneak my version back in after the user has moved on or lost interest". Only problem is, after a couple months, I have either forgot about the whole thing myself or can't remember what page or even what the issue was about. I ask you: Is that a good thing or a bad thing, that I never followed up on what I believed was right? --RacerX¹¹ Talk to me^{Stalk me} 23:38, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

You say you feel a comment I left was "uncalled for and the overall tone the entire post was harsh". I am sorry that I expressed myself in a way that came over that way, which was certainly not my intention. What I was trying to convey was that when there are disagreements, rather than edit warring, it's better to discuss the disagreement, and also that it is worth first considering whether the issue is important enough to be worth pursuing or not. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 07:56, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

The dispute was at Mount Damavand and with respect, I think that Racerx11 and I, who take a specific interest in topographic issues, both know more about the importance of the disputed issue than you do. The claim that Damavand is 5610 metres high, not 5671, had stood for almost a decade and had therefore become established. It was User:Farhoudk who made the challenging edit. When I reverted him, the onus was surely on him to apply WP:BRD and go for dispute resolution before continuing to enforce his change. You say that 3RR gave me an advantage over him which I was playing on, but I don't think that was an entirely unfair advantage. Blocking neither of us and telling us to pursue dispute resolution instead would have been reasonable, but blocking me alone was a mockery of 3RR. Farhoudk was just as aware as me that he was edit warring. I have pointed out in the article infobox that the height is disputed and linked it to a modern GPS report which disproves 5671, I can accept that for now, but in the long run I am still determined to eradicate 5671. Persians, including Farhoud, have made and published their own GPS measurements and these too disprove 5671. Viewfinder (talk) 11:01, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

1. You seem to have failed to grasp two points: (1) you were blocked for edit warring, not for being wrong, so arguing that your edits were justified is missing the point; (2) you were blocked for edit warring, not for breaking the "three revert rule".
2. I did not say that the "three revert rule" gave you an advantage, nor that you were "playing on it". Having pointed out that the edit warring policy is not a simple matter of mechanically applying the "three revert rule", I tried to show that there are good reasons why if we were to have a policy which worked in that way it would cause problems: I said nothing whatever in that context about your edit warring.
3. You suggest "Blocking neither of us and telling us to pursue dispute resolution instead", but you were the one who requested administrative action on the edit war. You can't ask for administrative action as long as the action is taken against the other editor, but dispute resolution if the action is likely to be taken against you.
4. I see no evidence that Farhoud was aware of the edit warring policy until I informed him of it. Once he was told about it, he never edit warred again on the article. You, on the other hand, had previously been blocked for edit warring, and you yourself reported the edit war, so you were clearly aware of the policy.
5. Most of what I have just written constitutes repeating things which have already been said, and which for some reason you seem to be unable to hear. I do not expect to spend any more of my time on this unless some new and significant point is raised. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:27, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

If I were to revert 5670 to 5610, would Farhoud revert it back, assuming you do not get there first? And would he continue to do so until I gave up or got blocked again? Probably. And he was aware that he was in breach of WP policy, see [4]. Perhaps that was not the appropriate way of informing him, but he would certainly have seen my warning. And he was insisting that 5671 was based on laser scan without supplying evidence: when the source of 5671 came to light, it turned out to be a rough estimate by a glacial surveyor in the 1930's. I was blocked in 2006 for a specific breach of 3RR and unblocked on request. Viewfinder (talk) 12:02, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

@Viewfinder: Guess what? I've written 9 articles and made over 3000 other edits in last 36 hours. Patrolled more than 100 pages. While you are still bothering about certain block. I hope you got what I am saying. Thank you. OccultZone (Talk) 13:28, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

And in case you think I am a full time Wikipedia troll with nothing better to do, let me tell you that in the same time I have created thousands more square kilometres of new digital elevation data. I don't do much Wikipedia these days but I still do what I can to doggedly defend its accuracy against nationalist POV pushers who persist in pursuing inflated claims about their national high points that have been disproved by modern measurements. Persia's highest point is lower than Europe's highest point. Thank you for your help. Viewfinder (talk) 18:54, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Lloyd Bancaire

I can't put my finger on it, but I think there is something funny going on with Lloyd Bancaire. You deleted a version for copyright violations then someone created a very-poorly-wiki-markup'd version that may have been copied from a personal backup. It's not the same as the copyvio'd version but it raises eyebrows. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:01, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

@Davidwr: Page is gone again. OccultZone (Talk) 23:17, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment

Hello there, a proposal regarding pre-adminship review has been raised at Village pump by Anna Frodesiak. Your comments here is very much appreciated. Many thanks. Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:47, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

User:Bazaan and User:Uck22

Can a blocked editor continue to use his/her undeclared second account and pretend to be someone else? If not, I can make a very strong checkuser case. Very strong indeed. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 16:24, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Aditya Kabir: Nothing can stop you from doing that. You can open a report anytime you want, don't forget to add your evidence whenever you will file a report on WP:SPI. OccultZone (Talk) 17:27, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

What sock puppetry are you talking about?--Uck22 (talk) 20:42, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)You consistently edit User:Bazaan's page. And you have admitted to at least meat puppetry. Origamite^{\(·_·\)(/·_·)/} 00:39, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

@Origamite: Uck22 is very active since Bazaan got indeffed. OccultZone (Talk) 01:49, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

@Aditya Kabir: @Origamite: @OccultZone: There is a considerable amount of similarity between the editing of the two accounts, but I have seen no one thing that clearly shows sockpuppetry. If anyone thinks they can see reasonable evidence, they should file a report at WP:SPI, and request a checkuser. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:30, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I have already opened a case - Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bazaan. But, it may not have been done very properly. Please let me know what else I could add there. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 11:52, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

You opened it below mine. I have fixed the formatting so that Uck22 doesn't have a double case. Origamite^{\(·_·\)(/·_·)/} 11:54, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

@Origamite: I am not going to edit you post on the SPI, but you have to explain how User:Uck22 kept reverting JamesBWatson on the talk page of Bazaan, and admin needed to protect the page. You can also provide the diffs from Bangladesh' page that would match with any other edit of Bazaan. But don't make it too long. OccultZone (Talk) 12:01, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Reinstate a page

I'm asking you to reinstate a page and you remove my posts? You should be more professional than that. You made a mistake and just own up to it and fix it. I am being as nice as I can be right now. Koala15 (talk) 15:54, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I am not aware of having made a mistake. I will happily explain my reasons to you, and discuss your concerns, if you like. However, unfortunately I do not have time to do so now, and I shall be unable to edit Wikipedia for about a week. I hope you can manage to wait that long. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 16:10, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Can you give just reinstate White Poeple Party Music. You obviously made a mistake. It was notable page that you deleted cause a blocked user created it. Koala15 (talk) 16:17, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

There are several issues here. I shall try to deal with some of them.

Between the last version from the blocked editor who created the article and the version which I deleted, there were a number of edits. However, the changes were largely concerned with details such as track listing and timings, and adding of references. The speedy deletion criterion involved requires that there have been no "substantial" additions to the article from other editors. I tend to think of the kind of details that were changed here as not substantial, so I deleted the article. However, what "substantial" means is open to various interpretations, and, after Koala15's posts above, I thought again, and decided that it was perfectly possible to regard a large number of changes, each insubstantial in itself, as adding up to substantial editing, so I decided to restore the article. Unfortunately, though, for personal reasons it was very difficult for me to have access to editing Wikipedia for a while, and before I was able to do so Amatulic had already restored it. I still regard my original view as a reasonable interpretation of "substantial", but if someone else expresses a different view which is also reasonable, I am willing to take that in consideration, as well as my own view.

Amatulic restored only the versions of the article from the first time that it was edited by someone other than the editor who created it. However, that was a mistake, as the first version of the article that Amatulic restored contained substantial content by the creator of the article. The earlier versions have to be restored too, for attribution purposes, so I have restored the whole editing history of the article. Restoring an article only from a point somewhere in its history is acceptable only if at that point it was completely rewritten from scratch (apart from a few special situations such as where all edits up to and including the first restored version were by one editor).

Koala15 considers me to have been "unprofessional" because I removed his or her first posts to this page without responding. However, I suggest that he or she may find it helpful to look back at those posts, and consider how "professional" they were. I also suggest that it may be worth considering whether that approach was the one most likely to achieve the result he/she wished for. If the initial approach had been civil, I would have checked the history right away, carefully thought about the issue, and more likely than not restored the article immediately. Even if one thinks someone else has acted unreasonably, and is undeserving of respect, very often the most effective way of getting cooperation is to treat them with respect. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:32, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

And I informed Koala15 at WP:REFUND that his personal concerns about any Wikipedia article do not have priority over how we administrators, as volunteers, choose to spend our valuable time. It's best not to piss off those from whom you want a favor by adopting an attitude of entitlement. That's a sure way to get your request placed at the bottom of my list of things to do on Wikipedia. Civility goes a long way. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:58, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I apologize if i offended you i was just very confused and frustrated at the time. And Amatulic there is no need to get snippy, if you have better things to do off the internet then do it. If an admin makes a mistake i just expect them to fix it in a timely manner. Koala15 (talk) 00:56, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Repaupo and Rileyville Renaming

Some of your recent edits removed state names from articles for Repaupo, New Jersey and Rileyville, Virginia, with edit summaries noting that no disambiguation was needed. This may well be the case, but the relevant guideline at WP:USPLACE specifies a naming convention of "placename, state". As such, I have reverted the Repaupo article back to its previous name and it would appear that the same should be done for Rileyville. Do you have a different interpretation of this policy or is there something that I'm missing? Alansohn (talk) 18:32, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

No, I don't, so I have moved the article back. In all the years I have been editing Wikipedia, as far as I recall I have never had cause to edit US place names, so I had never read that section out of all the innumerable policies, guidelines, MOS pages, etc etc that this project is encumbered with. Thanks for putting me right. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:40, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

This wiki-kitten is there to say "thank you" for your hard admin and wiki-gnoming work. Also, because it is my sincere belief that positive reinforcement is a key to running collective intelligence projects like our 'pedia. Cheers!

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:44, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

089baby rangeblock

Could you please reinstate the rangeblock against 36.37.192.0/20? Within three days of it coming out of effect, 089baby has resumed using an IP from this range, namely 36.37.246.57 (talk · contribs), to evade his block. Thanks in advance. Sir Sputnik (talk) 01:52, 4 June 2014 (UTC)