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Revision as of 18:18, 16 May 2006

Pings

This is kind of embarassing, but I have to come clean: I thought you were a jerk, once. I said a mean thing, I was kind of clueless... sorry. I think you're pretty cool now. ~MDD4696 04:18, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:User Christian and WP:POINT

Against my better judgement, I'd like to respond to the comments you made at WP:DRV/U#Template:User Christian. Although you maintain a civil tone throughout, your remarks here seem to me to do the exact opposite of what you were intending: instead of showing that your actions on Template:User Christian were not a violation of WP:POINT, they demonstrate the point you were trying to make and in so doing show that you were violating WP:POINT.

I don't want to assume bad faith of you, but I honestly can't see the edits you and Cyde made as anything other than a humorous attempt to show by extreme example the problems with having userboxes in template space — sort of a Wikipedian version of "A Modest Proposal". You chose a widely used userbox and turned it into a footnoted essay with the stated purpose of making it NPOV. You are clearly an intelligent individual. I cannot conceive that when you made this series of changes, you were unaware that many users are sensitive to changes in userbox templates. Therefore, I must conclude that you either did not care what users who had this template on their userpages thought (a possibly defensible position, albeit a slightly callous one) or you deliberately wanted to provoke them (an undefensible position). Some of your comments on Template talk:User Christian seem to support the former; the fact that you began this project of transforming userboxes with Template:User Christian to me suggests the latter, since it is beyond cliché that religion is a topic about which people have strong opinions (consider the old saw about not discussing religion or politics at the dinner table). Again, since you are not an idiot I must conclude that your reasons for choosing this template were satirical.

I don't doubt that you are motivated, at least in part, by a genuine concern for NPOV and for the good of the encyclopedia. However, I cannot conceive of a process that resulted in this as having an intention that was anything but satirical. I haven't noticed you disagreeing with Tony Sidaway's characterization of your edits as a "joke". It was a joke, and I just wish you'd have the decency to admit it instead of continuing this charade.

Cyde has apologized for the disruption he caused, and has implicitly admitted that on his part, at least, the entire affair was an attempt to cause the userbox to be moved out of template space — a goal I have no problem with, by the way. (I don't really care whether these userboxes remain in template space or not — I got rid of my opinion userboxes quite some time ago, and think that a widespread subst'ing campaign would probably be the best option for the userbox debate at this point.) I just think that the way you tried to make the point about userboxes was needlessly disruptive, and a classic example of WP:POINT. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:36, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I am not Cyde. I can not speak for his actions. You continue to confuse my actions with his, and assign intentions to me that I simply do not have. I spent a considerable amount of time explaining my position to you, and you've failed to accept that I was honestly attempting an improvement from an NPOV perspective and was more than willing to compromise, but I was unable because people responded with incivility, intolerance, and with incorrect accusations.

After the time I spent explaining to what I did (which does not include adding the silly rotating cross which you're effectively accusing me of above) I am shocked and upset that you continue to accuse me of participating in some joke with your reference to Tony's edit summary, which I never actually read and which I wouldn't have had any cause to respond to Tony on-wiki about because I usually talk to Tony off-wiki. I feel I'm owed an apology from you for that accusation.

I don't know what you're trying to accomplish here, I've already explained myself in detail as cited above. I don't understand why you persist in accusing me of violating WP:POINT. I thought my proposed edit was a good change, and while I wasn't surprised to see it mindlessly reverted (it's a userbox people will do that), I did honestly expect there would be discussion and compromise and that we'd end up with something better that everyone could agree on. I didn't expect harassing emails, your complete unwillingness to simply accept my explanation, or this novella you've posted to this talk page. I'm sorry for you that it's so hard for you understand that my actions were guileless.

I am going to remove any further posts on my talk page regarding this matter. I have other projects to work on, and these continued messages are upsetting me and disrupting me.--Gmaxwell 13:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

That's a bit of a mixed message: asking for an apology, and saying that you'll remove any further posts on the subject. Ah, well. I can't see why I should be expected to know that you talk to Tony Sidaway off-wiki, but if you're just going to persist in this obstinacy there's no point in my continuing to try to discuss it with you. The point of the "novella" above was to explain why I interpreted your actions as a WP:POINT violation — an effort to engage you in honest dialogue. That's what I was trying to accomplish. However, it seems you're not interested — you seem to be either trying to maintain plausible deniability or you are less intelligent than you appear.

For the record, I haven't sent you any emails (harassing or otherwise), and I don't appreciate you associating me with anyone who might have done so. I'm not sure whether I should just let this go or whether to file an RfC about your conduct in this matter — I'll try to see what the general feeling of others is. I just wanted to help you recognize that this was an unacceptable way of going about things, and hoped for an apology. It seems I've failed in both endeavors. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:18, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Explanation of controversy

Regarding your question about why the image mentioned above is blasphemous, I replied at the deletion page underneath your question. Personally, I also support the removal of all religious and political userboxes, but making such content as the rotating crucifix is a bad way to express such a sentiment. Cheers, Brisvegas 12:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I did not add the rotating crux. I did not intentionally restore the rotating crux. No one actually removed the the thing (other than by making a revert to the previous days changes and thereby removing a good half hour of my work). I thought it was silly, but I saw no reason that it should be removed without explanation... and no one was bothering to explain, they were just insisting that the template could not be changed, which was patently untrue. Thank you for your explanation on the ifd page however, I'd missed the fact that what people were upset about was that it was upside down in one stage. --Gmaxwell 13:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

A warning

This is coming in a bit late, but it needs to be said: Although there seems to be wide spread misunderstanding about what wp:point actually says, there's no question that you've disrupted wikipedia. Thinking back to fox-hunting and similar antics, if you do anything even remotely like this again you will be blocked. I'd start with a week. - brenneman 09:10, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I find your message highly offensive. Take your reactionary accusations elsewhere. If you'd like to provide criticism take the time to say something informed. I'm not frightened by your pitchforks. --Gmaxwell 13:30, 16 May 2006 (UTC)