Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:52, 18 October 2010

Welcome to Jehochman's Talk Page Please feel free to put your feet on the coffee table, and speak candidly. Or for more better relaxation, stretch yourself luxuriously on the chaise longue in Bishzilla's Victorian parlour and mumble incoherently.

User talk:Jehochman/Archive index

Thanks.

In case you are interested, I've became involved in actual research, as well as in helping edit a paper that was just published under peer review, probably the most significant such publication in, oh, twenty years.... http:lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEstatusofcoa.pdf ... I'm credited just before the bibliography, which I think is totally cool. In any case, I'm COI now, and have been conducting myself according to COI guidelines. Rigorously. But that didn't stop JzG from getting a community ban for Pcarbonn, on almost exactly the same arguments, misrepresenting what Pcarbonn had done, not pointing out that all the edits had been suggestions in Talk (and probably proper ones!).... Anyway, if JzG pushes this, he could end up being troutslapped, it's blatantly obvious, and by pushing it, he is ignoring advice that arbitrators and others gave him. His POV is based on what a friend of his told him years ago. Science has moved on. Cold fusion hasn't yet been accepted by "mainstream scientists," just by panels of experts and peer reviewers, over the last six years.... I couldn't put POV nonsense in the article if I wanted to, which I don't. And because disruption was starting to appear over (yes, sometimes long) informational posts (about the article!) on Talk:Cold fusion, I stopped that. JzG responded today because I went to meta to undo the mess he made a year ago. We'll see how that goes, but I was always successful getting pages whitelisted on Misplaced Pages. It's just less work for others if I go to meta, so I did. They notified JzG, so he came unglued. --Abd (talk) 22:56, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion at AN, Jehochman, about abstaining from working on the topic of Cold fusion. I've been following WP:COI, I believe. The suggestion made by Smokey Joe that I have something to gain here is parochial, it's a common assumption made about editors who are thought to be "fringe." As you can see if you look at the link I provided above, I just got mentioned as an editor at a journal that Einstein used to publish in, in the deepest peer-reviewed secondary source review of the field in about twenty years. I'm respected by scientists in the field, I've met a number of them and have been invited to meet more. A kind Misplaced Pages editor, a scientist, provided me with substantial funding for my research, and has offered to fund my travel to conferences. I'm doing exciting, cutting-edge work, it turns out. I'm pretty sure that I'll end up being published under peer review myself, and there is more.

Compared to all this, Misplaced Pages means about nothing to me. I was just trying to be helpful. If the community, and this includes you, wants me to help, following COI guidelines, fine. If not, fine. It's only one more leak in what might be a sinking ship.

I wrote in RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley that Misplaced Pages, if it wants quality science content in matters where some controversy has arisen, needs to protect experts. I advised that anyone declaring expertise be considered COI! And then protected, guided to follow civility guidelines, refactored when needed, if they write too much, etc. Think about it. Experts famously get in trouble by revert warring with Randy from Boise, or arguing with him. The job of the expert should be to explain the subject, provide sources for verification, and review the existing article, well enough so that Randy, if he's sincere, will actually understand the topic, and I've seen this work, when done properly. But like much of what I suggested, it was rejected as ridiculous, probably because editors were accustomed to thinking of WP:COI as some kind of blameworthy thing, an accusation. It's just a reality: experts are almost always attached to their topic. It's hard to become an expert if you aren't!

Were I to follow your suggestion, I'd simply stop editing Misplaced Pages, other than odd stuff I notice from time to time, which is what I'd already done, until the cold fusion ban expired. If that's what you want, tell me, I respect your judgment. I'll tell you this, though: no expert, familiar with the field, would think that our article was anything other than silly and very out-of-date, compared to what has been published in sources we most respect, over the last five years. And everyone who has been expert on this topic has been banned, two of them courtesy of JzG. The few editors willing to work to add positive material mostly don't understand it, or, if they do, they don't understand Misplaced Pages guidelines or don't agree with them. I understand both and agree with them as well. --Abd (talk) 01:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Basically, I'm out of here, unless I'm asked to return. There is no support for expert advice; if it contradicts the opinions of the virulent anti-fringe faction, they will act to exclude it, not just from the article, but from Talk as well. And there is no protection, and the most blatant, practically rabid, attacks on a "fringe" editor are tolerated and even encouraged, and the Climate Change arbitration is likely to only scratch the surface, a minor shift. ArbComm doesn't get it and is, effectively, part of the problem. On a good day, the ArbComm clock is right twice. I've concluded that Misplaced Pages is indeed hopeless, unless some major shift occurs, so I'm not wasting my time any more. I thought I'd give it a shot. It's not better than it was, it's worse. Quite a bit worse. The editors who, once upon a time, would negotiate balance, are almost all gone. Those left don't seem to understand fundamental policy, and that is the fault of the founders, who never really explained it. "Instruction creep," they called it. (In fact, there was never really consensus on much of this, just sets of shallow compromises, unstable and deliberately made vague so as to retain maximum power for those with buttons. Not surprising, J. This is what organizations do, when structure to prevent it is not put in place at the beginning, it's like clockwork.) Thanks for your help and support in the past. As to the present, too little, too late, I'm afraid. I was thinking of asking for a mentor, but ... it's just not worth the effort. Bye. --Abd (talk) 14:22, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

By the way, it's not that I ran into opposition. That could be expected. It is that the opposition was so blatantly POV, so blatantly offensive, as I could show -- and you know I know how to do that --, but there was no adequate support. I got WP:RSN approval of that paper I helped with as "reliable source," in spite of attempts to shoot it down, but that means nothing if there is no editor watching Cold fusion who will help. I proposed sourced edits, ones that had consensus once upon a time, over a year ago, and that were reverted out by an abusive admin action under protection, as found by ArbComm, and ... nothing but complaints about me, personal attacks, no action on the article. What's been done at cold fusion is to block and ban a POV, anyone expert on the topic will be attacked, if they are persistent and know guidelines and policy. Cranks are ignored, for the most part, if they stay away from the article. There is an appearance of "consensus" at the article because one side has been decimated by bans and blocks, and the other side is supported and encouraged. --Abd (talk) 14:31, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Rollback

Jehochman, Thanks for the link to the information about the rollback function. It's not a tool that I could ever see myself needing since I tend to go in for direct amendments where appropriate. But I got interested in the mechanics of it, because I have noticed over the years how some people seem to be able to revert a whole series of edits in one go, whereas I have never been able to figure out how that is done. I then began to suspect that this feature is linked to the rollback function.

Anyway, it was this recent revert here which has interested me in particular . I don't intend to re-revert because I am not overly concerned about the content issue as such. I was merely doing some tidy up edits such as improving the grammar with conjunctions etc. and I also did a bit of rewording of the content. However, I was a bit taken back to discover that all my edits had been reverted in one fell swoop on the grounds that I hadn't first discussed the edits on the talk page. Maybe I have got it wrong, but it did appear in my view to be an abuse of the rollback tool. If I am wrong, I'd like to know how to revert more than one edit at a time without the rollback tool. Certainly it's news to me that one has to discuss changes on a talk pages before making them. I read that wikipedia encourages bold editing. There could be an ownership problem at that page but I'm not going to get involved if that is so. I would however be interested to know why such an uncontroversial subject like Mozart has been semi-protected for such a long period of time. I can't think why 'Mozart' in particular should be singled out for a sustained campaign of vanadalism. Maybe I'll take a look through the history and see what kind of vandalism it is.

Anyway, I'll leave the matter to your own discretion. Thanks once again for your help. David Tombe (talk) 16:49, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

This diff is not a rollback; it's a standard revert. You can tell because there's a custom edit summary diverting conversation to the talk page. This is a perfectly acceptable use of boldly edit, revert, discuss. One does not need to discuss changes before editing, but if somebody dislikes changes they are free to revert and suggest discussion. At that point, discussion is mandatory, or else you risk starting an edit war. Jehochman 19:51, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Jehochman, I see. So I edited. He reverted a group of edits in one single action. But he didn't suggest discussion, and instead issued a rebuke for the fact that discussion hadn't already taken place in advance. So his actions didn't precisely fall into the sequence of (1) boldly edit, (2) revert, (3) discuss. His actions fell into the sequence (1) boldly edit, (2) revert and rebuke, (3) walk away.

Anyway, what I would like to know now is how do I revert a series of edits all in one go, without having the rollback facility. I have never been able to figure out how to do that. I can go to the history page and click on an 'undo' for any given edit, and it will work providing that subsequent edits have not built up to the extent that it can't be done. But how would I remove seven edits by another editor all in one swoop? It sounds like there must be a simple method for doing this. What am I missing on the history page? David Tombe (talk) 21:42, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hi David. Go to history and click on any two little circles of the revisions of your choice. Then click compare revisions. You will see two revisions: The old (on the left) and the more recent (on the right). Then click on the left (the old version) and open it in edit mode. Following that, save the old version. That sets back the edits to the old version. Dr.K.  21:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) WP:Twinkle can also "rollback" multiple edits from the same user without using the formal rollback option. If there are multiple edits from the same person below the edit you choose to rollback, Twinkle will ask you if you want to rollback that edit or all of them. If you don't use IE as your browser, look into Twinkle not for that (or not just for that), but for the other things it does. Ravensfire (talk) 00:10, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Revert and comment

Re. : I see no block evasion - the main account is not blocked, and the user is not banned. He should stick to one account, but since the PG account has been lost, he needs to pick one to participate. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:15, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• User said their main account was blocked, For your information I have done that and when my main account is unblocked I will continue editing happily. Are you sure this is Polargeo and not an imposter? What happened to User:Olap the Ogre, which I thought was the replacement account? (It seems to be blocked. ) I've exchanged email with the user and suggested what they should do. Some sort of shenanigans is going on here, and ArbCom will have to sort it out. Meanwhile, any time a user admits to socking/block evasion, I will block them. Jehochman 12:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages NYC Meetup Sat Oct 16

New York City Meetup Next: Saturday October 16th, Jefferson Market Library in Lower Manhattan Last: 05/22/2010 This box: view • talk • edit

In the afternoon, we will hold a session dedicated to meta:Wikimedia New York City activities, review the recent Wiki-Conference NYC 2010, plan for the next stages of projects like Misplaced Pages Ambassador Program and Misplaced Pages Academy, and hold salon-style group discussions on Misplaced Pages and the other Wikimedia projects (see the May meeting's minutes).

In the evening, we'll share dinner and chat at a local restaurant, and generally enjoy ourselves and kick back.

You can add or remove your name from the New York City Meetups invite list at Misplaced Pages:Meetup/NYC/Invite list.

To keep up-to-date on local events, you can also join our mailing list.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 16:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Reply to post on Admins noticeboard

Hi Jehochman, i have replied to your post on the Admins noticeboard in this section here with the difs of posts i made on the talk page before readding the neutrality tag. Thanks BritishWatcher (talk) 11:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that thread has grown beyond its usefulness. I responded to your concern, but I suggest not adding further length to the discussion. Happy editing, Jehochman 14:42, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Notification

Please see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment#Request_to_amend_prior_case:_Koavf. This request was initiated by Koavf, but as far as his contributions show, he didn't notify any user...so I'm notifying you because you participated in the discussion that led to the community sanction. Cheers, Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)