Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:00, 20 October 2007

I am here for some very limited purposes, because some people have asked me to help in some specific cases. I am prepared to do this. I am not intending to be here much, at present. I have not yet decided whether to start using this account actively again. No, I don't want to talk about any of the foregoing, thanks, the people concerned know who they are and how to get hold of me. This is about some ongoing unresolved issues being discussed on one or more mailing lists, when that debate comes to fruition I will take a view. Guy (Help!) 12:45, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

• Please see User:JzG/Harassment links.

Cypri

We may have another problem related to that issue, and articles that link there. Next time we're both on IRC, remind me, and I'll explain. DS 00:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Have you returned?

Just wondering. OrangeMarlin 01:47, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Pending JzG's answering the question himself, you might be interested in the note he put on the top of this page. Newyorkbrad 03:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Uh huh, I missed the strike through. That's subtle, but good :) So that means he's back. Hopefully, he kicks some butt of various POV-warriors. OrangeMarlin 04:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The text under the large print is also of relevance. Newyorkbrad 04:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

My bad

JZG posted to my talk page, requestioning that I self-revert one of his WR purge deletion. In this case, I see he was correct, since the person who put the link in has since been banned. My reply:

Okay, that's fair. I apologize for that. I didn't see that Farmer Kiss was banned. I've self-reverted on that one.

You made 20+ of these purges-- in the process of cleaning them all up, I shouldn't have undone that one. Your edit summary implied your objection was that the link pointed TO a banned user, not that the edit was added BY a banned user. Big different.

I almost made the a similar mistake when you purged a link from your own talk-page-- I reckon it's your prerogative to delete stuff from your own page achives.

This is the why your mass purges are so bad. Like the boy who cried wolf, it's easy for people to think ALL your deletions were POINT, when in reality, only 18 out of 20 (or so) were. --Alecmconroy 20:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not a purge, mas or otherwise, and you have absolutely no business going round stalking my edits and blind reverting them without any consideration for the stated reasons. This is about two things: removing links and discussions which are likely to inflame already heated debates; and removing offsite grandstanding by banned users. A banned user is banned. It doesn't matter if the person adding a link has the best intentions in the world, the banned user has no right to be heard here or to influence content. It seems that I was applying thought and critical judgement, while you were engaging in a knee-jerk reaction. OK, maybe you were led astray by Dan, who has a tendency to represent any removal of any link to any offsite content as an attempt to enforce BADSITES just so he can point out yet again that he managed to drive everyone away form that proposal. Guy (Help!) 20:23, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Gotta disagree with you there. A wikipedian in good standing may discuss, quote, cite, or link to a banned editor's writings, provided it is done in good faith. When we ban a user, we take away HIS editing privileges-- we do not take away anybody ELSE's privileges to engage in unimpeded good-faith discussions.

Obviously, if somebody else abuses their edit privileges, we have a NEW behavior problem to deal with. And one of the ways somebody could abuse their editing privileges would be to exhibit a systemic pattern of being nothing but a mouthpiece for disruptive criticism, to the point that we think they are just trying to disrupt the encyclopedia, not improve it. But those are going to be rare, and isolated incidents of mentioning, quoting, or linking to the speech of banned users is not sufficient evidence to justify blocking a user or deleting their comments. --Alecmconroy 20:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Posted to User_talk:Alecmconroy

Right. And you'll find that I was in fact being very selective in what I removed and redacted - "mass purge" is simply false, the time between edits and the small numbers compared with the number of links to Misplaced Pages Review, to name one of the sites that has been identified to me, should show you that considerable thought has gone into every single one. ED links were removed by automated means. I am not using automated means, nothing like it. Contrary to Dan Tobias' assertion, this has absolutely nothing to do with badsites, and everything to do with removing offsite grandstanding by banned editors, and generally trying to avoid egregiously inflammatory links and comments in contentious topics. Naturally I look very carefully indeed at any WR link on an article talk page, because WR has pretty close to zero chance of ever being useful as a source in any article, especially on a living individual. My concern is WP:BLP and harassment, experienced by a surprisingly large number of editors, as is becoming apparent to me in various communications. We have a significant buried problem with harassment, and with the conscious or unwitting enablement of harassment by editors. This is one of the small number of things I am working on. Guy (Help!) 20:21, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay-- well, in that case, you might wanna take the time to go into a little more detail in the talk pages-- the brevity requirements of edit summaries make it hard communicate unambiguously. I heard you were going around deleting everything on sheer principle that it linked to WR, and your edit history tended to support that. I apologize again for not looking more closely at that FK one. If there are more substantial objections aside from it just being a link to a BADSITE, ya might have to dive into the actual talk page to explain what the scoop is.

Rememember-- links TO a banned user are okay, provided they're done in good faith. Links BY a banned user, on the other hand-- not so much. hehe.

One last thing you might consider-- you're probably bringing FAR more attention to these links by deleting them than they would ever get by being left alone. --Alecmconroy 20:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I am aware of the dangers, and I am trying to make quiet progress on something I see as important without the usual sort of "LINK REMOVED! BAD EVIL"comments in the talk pages themselves that would draw attention to it. Much more like WP:RBI. Quietly remove content that is likely to impede the important work. Thank you for understanding. Any help and support would be welcome; my aim here is to defuse not to escalate, and defusing does not mean leaving the bomb ticking, I'm afraid. Guy (Help!) 20:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. just be careful. RBI is for vandalism or other OBVIOUSLY bad-faith edits. Start applying it to good-faith wikipedians, and it won't be a "don't feed the trolls" situation, there will be mass calls for your head accusing you of secretly delete content without sufficient discussion. (Well, I guess a few of those mass calls have already gone out, but with more discretion in the future, they may die down. lol). --Alecmconroy 20:46, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

My bad as well, I didn't realize you were removing a inserted BY a banned user; I thought you were just unlinking to a banned user's comments off-site. Milto LOL pia 20:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Was he banned at the time the comment was inserted? And I note that JzG didn't delete the whole comment, just the external link, so there's some degree of selectiveness in this enforcement. I'm not entirely happy with the whole "scorched earth" / unperson / Suppressive Person treatment of banned users, but that's a separate (though related) issue from BADSITES, and I don't plan on getting in any edit wars to reinstate something actually posted by a banned user either. *Dan T.* 21:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. Banned users are banned. The offsite comments were by a banned user, and a banned user posted them. Banned users may not influence content. Now take your holy crusade somewhere else and leave me to get on with trying to make Misplaced Pages a better place. Guy (Help!) 21:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)