Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:25, 7 December 2005

Archives: Archive1

Thanks

Just a word of thanks for your support on my RfA - I don't know if I'm Wikipedian of the year but it sure feels like I've been the Wikipedian of the week ! Thanks again, much appreciated. Ramallite 03:57, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Recusal

No basis exists for my recusal in the Zephram Stark case. I will not go to mediation, nor will I recuse myself if you bring an arbitration case, see Misplaced Pages:Wikilawyering Fred Bauder 13:55, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment: the above project page was created by the arbitrator the day before your exchange; I'm unsure what this means, if anything, regarding your concerns. E Pluribus Anthony 16:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi there! Understood. I sometimes monitor user communications on Wp, and was intrigued by this. (Yes: though, I do have a life. :)) I merely pointed this out to you since it could be perceived by a neutral third-party as (1) an attempt to develop good Wp policy, and/or (2) a collateral, perhaps abusive and biased, attempt by an upper echelon to use one's position to sequester user commentary, particularly given this user's soon-to-be departure from the ArbComm. I hope this helps. E Pluribus Anthony 16:38, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Here is the proposal we are currently voting on which will probably pass:

Focus of dispute

1.3) Zephram Stark engaged in tendentious (exhibiting a strong POV) and disruptive editing with respect to the article terrorism over an extended period of time, see Talk:Terrorism/Archive_6#NPOV_solutions and Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Zephram_Stark/Evidence#ZS.27s_changes_to_Terrorism.

Syria, History of Syria, Syrian occupation of Lebanon

I think you've dealt with this user before. His name is John MCW and he keeps adding right-wing propaganda into these articles. Even though he's being opposed by three editors, he will not stop reverting it seems. Your input would be appreciated. Yuber 01:36, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration candidate question

It was a perfectly appropriate question as I see trollish behavior as the number one problem impeding building the encyclopedia. There are a handful of editors (i.e. trolls) who focus on other editors (harrassing them) rather than on article contents . This kind of disruptive behavior only serves to chase away good editors and I would like to see the arbitration committee take stronger measures in dealing with the disruptive few who insist on behaving this way. --MPerel 05:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

No, personal attacks are never appropriate, and I’m very disappointed in your tactics which reveal that you apparently believe it’s ok if you harbor enough hate toward the person. Btw, I don’t believe the ranting and spamming of a candidate’s page you and FW are engaging in will gain the effect you’re hoping for. (See zeq’s attempt to negatively affect Ramallite’s RFA, for example). Also, no one expects a candidate to answer "would you like to rebut my character assassination of you?" which is easily recognized as merely an invitation to feed the trolls. --MPerel 18:55, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

The arbcom nomination pages

I haven't laughed so much for a long time. The process has clearly totally broken - and the behaviour of "the usual suspects" here illustrates this so well that it's now degenerated into farce. Unbehagen 14:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

question

Marsden, did you watch the HBO series called "Rome". It was pretty good, actually. Anyway, there was this one episode where a main character, "Lucious Varinas", was running for office. It turns out that Ceasar wanted Varinas to win. So, Varinas is giving this speech to the public, and there is some guy in the audience who says Ceasar is a menace and Varinas is a traitor for supporting him. Ceasar sent some of his men to stand in the audience during the speech, and when this guy starts criticizing Ceasar, these guys quietly form a circle around him, and then snatch him out of the crowd. I was wondering if there is a term for these sorts of brute-squad characters. A "shill" is usually a person who pretends to be a customer saying how great the product is, but they're really paid by the merchant. Casino's use them a lot, paying some people to gamble so the place looks busy. Little old ladies make great shills because if people think gambling is safe for "grandma", then it must be safe for them. The problem is that "shill" isn't exactly the right term for brute squad tactics to suppress criticism. I was just wondering if you happened to know a vocabulary term to describe the behaviour. Shoot me an email. FuelWagon 18:56, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

self-hating

I would hate to see anybody blocked. Can you draw more people into the conversation? If you check the Jew/Judaism and related articles you will see a number of people pretty knowledgable on Jewish topics who may provide constructive ideas about how to apporach this, and keep it from descending into a conflict between two editors. This has worked in the past and I really urge you to consider trying it. In the meantime, I will do what I can. I may not simply delete whatever he added, but at least I will try to reword it in a more NPOV way or something. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, take a look at what I did. IF Apeloverage ignores my advice and just reverts my edit, and you feel strongly about this, my suggestion to you is that before starting a revert war you go to the "Request for Comment" page and try to get others to join in the discussion on this matter. The ideal (granted, often not achieved) is for reasonable people to engage in a well-informed discussion leading to something like consensus. Let's at least give it a shot. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:36, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, concerning the other matter. And please take this as constructive and well-intentioned, good-faith advice. Jayjg is pretty well-respected by many editors. This of course doe not mean that he is immune from criticism. But whatever issues you have, I urge you to be as careful in providing evidence the interpretation of which is beyond doubt, and/or raise questions, in as dispassionate, respectful, and reasonable tone as possible (which I am well aware you are capable of). And never violate the 3-revert-rule. I am no angel myself and have been blocked a couple of times for violating rules and loosing my cool. I just would hate to see the same thing happen to you, Slrubenstein | Talk 20:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Blocked for 24 hours

Oppose Jayjg's Candidacy for ArbCom

(This section was modified without my consent by User:SlimVirgin)

Candidate Jayjg in the December 2005 ArbCom election promotes partisan, minority views as being NPOV. He is aided in this by a small but energetic group of other editors.

A serious shortcoming of Misplaced Pages is that interested minorities can often promote completely biased perspectives as being neutral. Jayjg is among the worst exploiters of this problem. I urge every Wikipedian to oppose his candidacy to the Arbitration Committee for this reason.

It is likely that Misplaced Pages is approaching the end of its usefulness. It is sometimes an effective resource for non-controversial topics, but on controversial matters very little confidence can be placed in its articles. Eventually a new platform will probably arise that uses Misplaced Pages's free-use content where it is useful, but which replaces POV-ed articles with more professionally produced writing.

It would be better, however, if this were not necessary, and getting Jayjg off of the ArbCom would be an important step toward saving Misplaced Pages from the propagandists for the time being.

User:Viriditas has since removed all of the critical questions from Jayjg's page, eliminating even the pretence of open questioning of the candidate.)

Marsden 17:36, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Your question on my age re: ArbCom candidacy

Hi Marsden - this is just to let you know that I've answered your question concerning my Arbitration Committee candidacy. If you want me to expand or clarify anything I've written, please just let me know. Thanks, Talrias (t | e | c) 01:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Re: Your message on my talk page

Thank you for your comments on my talk page. I have now added my proforma ArbCom candidate questions on the Q&A pages of all candidate pages where they did not already appear. I would note, though, that it is up to each candidate to decide whether or not they choose to answer any question. Clearly not answering a question may lose them some support, depending on how other WPians view their failure to answer - but answering questions is not obligatory, jguk 19:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Block

You have been temporarily blocked from editing for disruption and violations of WP:NPA. If you feel this block is unwarranted, you're welcome to e-mail me to discuss it using the link on my user page. SlimVirgin 20:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Text of conversation with SlimVirgin

I received this curious message from you on my Misplaced Pages talk page:

"You have been temporarily blocked from editing for disruption and violations of WP:NPA. If you feel this block is unwarranted, you're welcome to e-mail me to discuss it using the link on my user page. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)"

Yes, in fact, Slim, I think it is unwarranted.

What action of mine in particular do you take such harsh objection to? (Marsden)

You suggested again that Jay is paid to edit Misplaced Pages. That's a very serious allegation that goes way beyond the normal claims of POV pushing, because it implies that he's being fundamentally dishonest to the entire community.

I can't understand what you see as the point of this behavior, and I have to tell you that if it continues you're likely to be blocked indefinitely.

I strongly encourage you to mend fences with Jay and to get to know him a bit. You would actually find that he's a very nice person whose ideas may not be quite what you suppose them to be. (SlimVirgin)

Slim, I hope you would at least agree that as serious as it is to suggest that someone is paid to edit Misplaced Pages, it would be far more serious if someone actually were paid to edit Misplaced Pages.

I don't think anyone can reasonably dispute that the volume and timing of Jay's edits strongly suggest that he edits from work, and that he spends an awful lot of his time at work editing Misplaced Pages. I had frankly expected, prior to his response to jguk's question, that Jay would turn out to be between jobs or between school and a job or retired, but instead it turns out that he works in management.

Given that he does work, and that he spends an immense amount of time editing Misplaced Pages during what would normally be working hours, I think my question was pretty obvious. Further, my question isn't really prejudicial at all: he could simply answer that, no, he does not participate in Misplaced Pages as part of his employment duties. Or, frankly, it could yet turn out (as far as I know) that he is employed by the Misplaced Pages Foundation, and his duties include to participate in Misplaced Pages in order to protect and improve it. Either of these would effectively end speculation on the matter. Your deletion of the question, far more even that Jay obviously ignoring it, leaves me more inclined to think that the facts are pretty close to the worst case I can imagine.

In case you were wondering, no, I would never seek to rat out Jay or anyone else to his employer for spending all his time at work on the internet. Not even if it turned out that his employer was a company that I own a lot of stock in, although I admit I had to think about that for a moment.

I suggest that you unblock me and restore the question. If you don't, I think it would be appropriate for me to file a request for arbitration against you for abusing admin authority. (Marsden)

Marsden, you have a strong tendency to conspiracy theory. A likely explanation is that Jay is self-employed and/or runs his own company. Working in "management" can mean anything.

Alternatively, what you think are his working hours aren't. How can you know those are his working hours when you don't even know which country he's in? Or perhaps he works nights. Or perhaps he's working at the computer anyway and makes edits while he works. The possibilities are endless, and yet you immediately go for the worst-case scenario, not to mention the least likely one.

But regardless, the point is that your question is a personal attack. Practically all your questions have been attacks, and in fact a huge percentage of your posts to people since you arrived at Misplaced Pages have consisted of personal attacks, against a variety of editors, with only 300 edits to the encyclopedia. I don't see the point, Marsden.

Sorry to write to you in such terms, but I hope you understand how frustrating this is to have to deal with. (SlimVirgin)

Actually, I don't have a very strong tendency toward conspiracy theory at all. You may recall that I suggested that even if he is paid to edit Misplaced Pages, he might do so as an employee of Misplaced Pages Foundation. I think it would be very much preferable if people who edit as employees of WF (if any) are identified as such, but I also think that would be a very legitimate (even recommended, if the money were available!) reason for people to edit Misplaced Pages professionally.

But anyway, were any of the scenarios you outline true, I would think that it would be no sweat off of Jay's back to answer my question. And yet instead, you have gone out of your way to see to it that it is not directly obvious that he has even been asked the question, and you have accused me of a personal attack and blocked me.

I wonder if you ever consider how frustrating it has been for me to deal with you, Slim, beginning with my first encounter of you when you joined Jay in a revert war against me. I guess there is no point in further discussion; I'll file the RfA against you ASAP. (Marsden)

Actually, I don't have a very strong tendency toward conspiracy theory at all. You may recall that I suggested that even if he is paid to edit Misplaced Pages, he might do so as an employee of Misplaced Pages Foundation. I think it would be very much preferable if people who edit as employees of WF (if any) are identified as such, but I also think that would be a very legitimate (even recommended, if the money were available!) reason for people to edit Misplaced Pages professionally. (Marsden)

You know the Wikimedia Foundation does not have the money to employ people to edit, so that wasn't the thrust of your question. The last time you suggested this you were saying he worked for Dore Gold. You're in fact implying he is deeply dishonest, and now you're putting on an injured-innocence act as though you don't understand that. (SlimVirgin)

But anyway, were any of the scenarios you outline true, I would think that it would be no sweat off of Jay's back to answer my question. And yet instead, you have gone out of your way to see to it that it is not directly obvious that he has even been asked the question, and you have accused me of a personal attack and blocked me.

I wonder if you ever consider how frustrating it has been for me to deal with you, Slim, beginning with my first encounter of you when you joined Jay in a revert war against me. I guess there is no point in further discussion; I'll file the RfA against you ASAP. (Marsden)

I'm sorry you found it frustrating, but I recall trying to engage you in a discussion about it when you first joined. You answered a couple of points but kept reverting anyway, and then stopped anwering and started being very insulting. You could try stopping all of it. You'd find your experience on Misplaced Pages would improve no end. (SlimVirgin)

At this point we should both save our characterizations of each other for the arbitration process. (Marsden)

1. I believe this refers to my question on Jayjg's ArbCom candidacy questions page.
2. The suggestion that it would be "fundamentally dishonest to the entire community" for an editor to be paid to edit does not seem to have any strong basis in fact. There is, as far as I am aware, no prohibition against paid editors contributing to Misplaced Pages, nor any requirement that paid editors disclose that they are paid for editing. It would only become dishonest if someone paid to edit Misplaced Pages directly denied that he was paid to edit Misplaced Pages. Jayjg, from what I have seen, has studiously avoided any such denial; my question, before SlimVirgin deleted it, pointedly requested either a direct denial or an admission that he was employed to edit Misplaced Pages. In my opinion, this is a something that the Misplaced Pages community would want to know about a candidate for ArbCom, and that reasonably it shoud know.
3. Actually, I have virtually no knowledge whatever of the Misplaced Pages Foundation's finances. I would be surprised if it had any any money to speak of, but I've been surprised before about similar things.
4. This comment refers to an on-and-off conversation that apparently began when either SlimVirgin or Jayjg read a semi-humorous comment I left on another editor's talk page, and then made a point of publicly repeating again and again by way of complaint, as SlimVirgin has done here.
5. I disagree with SlimVirgin's characterization. In fact, I tried to engage SlimVirgin in discussion after she came out of nowhere to give Jayjg a revert assist after he'd run into 3RR trouble.
6. I disagree with SlimVirgin's characterization again. In fact, I wrote up a fairly long synopsis of the conflict brewing between me and Jayjg, mainly for SlimVirgin's benefit; in retrospect, given how tightly wedded Jayjg's and SlimVirgin's edit warring cooperation had been even by that point, writing it was a complete waste of my time.