Misplaced Pages

I'll take your word for it. If you don't feel it was un-civil then I will assume you were making that comment in good faith. -MegamanZero|Talk 21:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the refactor

I just wanted to say I'm sorry about refactoring the TFD on userboxes. I should have waited longer for objections before jumping in and making the change. For what it's worth, after reading Interiot's response I definitely won't do this again (though it makes me wonder why people on AFD do it when it's discouraged so much in the guide to deletion). —Locke Cole • t • c 10:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I absolutely understand why you did it, in the early days I myself was tempted to do so because it seemed to me to make things better. I learned. :) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

More Kudos

Thanks for your efforts on the userbox affair. It's not surprising the way things went given the fact that a TfD notice was included on every affected userbox - effectively a call to arms for userbox supporters, which is what you were trying to stop in the first place! It might be worth trying again in the future if the voting reforms are ever worked out. I have awared you the Supernova of Common Sense for your efforts. Qarnos 14:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! You were most considerate in choosing a pretty supernova instead of one of those horrible bits of cast iron. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tony, I'm back!

Hi Tony,

It's been ages since I last logged into my Misplaced Pages account. Hope you've been doing well all this time. I wanted to quickly ask you to unlock my userpage, so that I would make some changes/updates there.

As to the reasons of my long absence, it's pretty much simple: I simply realized that Misplaced Pages cannot be a reliable source of information as long as there is no clear and strict mechanisms to prevent vandalism and anon user editing.

In July I had lots of work and realized that I won't be able to edit WP as much as earlier. And then, after several weeks, I realized that I am no more a fan of Misplaced Pages as before.

Nevertheless, today I logged into my account and checked some pages and saw some vandal (most probably that Baku ibne/Osmanoglou vandal) messages alleging that I'm dead, that I'm a "spy" etc etc. (?!) Here are the diff links of some of such postings which I found (maybe there are more: in Caucasus talkpage, in Safavids talkpage (identical), in Nagorno-KArabakh archived talkpage (identical), in Azerbaijan talkpage (identical). I was even more surprised that no editor deleted this nonsense.

I decided to resume my activities in Misplaced Pages. But from now on, I am not going to waste my time by engaging into disputes with either Armenian or Kurdish/Persian or any other (sock-)users. I will simply create new entries and make edits, and if some editor introduces POV or vandalizes, so let be it. I'm not going to bother. However, if other decent editors would need my feedback and comments on any issue, I will gladly help as much as I can. This is going to be my new strategy of activities in Misplaced Pages from now on. Bests, --Tabib 07:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Curtis Malinowski

_ _ Hi, Tony. Yeah, this is one reason i don't often execute speedies unless i've just nom'ed one, which makes me feel a need to make up for adding to the burden: we talk abt "claiming notability" as if that were a yes/no, but gosh, claiming it is not much more objective than is being it, which we debate at length on AfD.
_ _ CT just extradited back from NYC a woman w/ many clients, who was taking up to at least $20K a head from people (and accepting jewelry from others w/o sufficient cash) for her unfulfilled promises to do immigration paperwork. CT is also progressing on charging the ring of motor-vehicles employees in Bridgeport who were getting similar figures for providing drivers licenses to ineligibles; they were clearing enough that one of them had hired a storage locker for her 500 pairs of new shoes. -- That's in addition to the governor and two of the mayors of the state's largest 3 cities, who've gone to prison in the last 1-3 yrs behind influence-peddling investigations. (I say "behind ... investigations" bcz the federal wiretaps turned up the Repub. mayor's phone calls to a prostitute, extorting sex with her pre-pubescent daughter, and they kind of forgot about the monetary corruption.) But are the garden-variety scammers and corrupt individual officials notable in a world with the savings-&-loan and Enron scandals? (Not to be so PoV as to mention the apparently legal scam of defunding pensions. Oops, i mentioned it.) I'm inclined to see the fraud rings and influence peddlers as "gyps that pass in the night", by which i mean three-day-wonder stories, and CM as a small-time example of the genre.
_ _ I'm not sure if your focus in writing is to influence my A7 criteria or to promote his having an article. As to the former, i'm not convinced but i'm swayed somewhat by your view: i respect this opinion, especially in light of your others that i recall seeing, and it will no doubt affect my own future decisions on nom'g or exec't'g speedies. As to the latter focus, keep in mind this was a speedy, and IMO as such it bears roughly zero precedential weight against other articles on the same topic, i.e. in this case the same person. If your concern is great enough, IMO you'd make a better author of a replacement than the original author was. If i'm mistaken in thinking you wielded a mop and assuming you still do, i'd be glad to retrieve onto a talk page, as resources, as much as you think helpful of the deleted material.
--Jerzy•t 17:59, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom vote

Up until a week ago or so you were unquestionably at the top of the list of people I wanted to vote for in the ArbCom elections. I've watched you for a long time doing largely thankless work in unprotecting and undeleting pages, checking blocks and holding other admins accountable. I think you're doing an excellent job under difficult circumstances.

I must admit that I don't quite get where you're going with this userbox thing but I'm going to go by my long term judgment of you rather than making my decision based on the recent uproar :)

So I'm definitely voting for you and I wish you the best of luck in the elections! --Haukur 11:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh the userbox thing is part of the package. I'll always try my best to act in the interests of Misplaced Pages. If you want to see where this fits in with the current arbitration committee, you might look at the response by arbitrators to an arbitration request that was filed against me and Snowspinner by User:Radiant! recently. Not everybody views the bureaucracy as being that important; indeed many of us see it as something to be ruthlessly smashed and trampled wherever it is necessary to do so. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with sidelining bureaucracy to get things done, the problem is that you didn't actually get anything done :) We have more userboxes than ever and people are more defensive of them than ever. If userboxes are a problem — and your argument that they are seems valid to me — then that problem has become worse and not better. - Haukur 14:27, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

First I had to alter perceptions. Before I deleted them, Kelly Martin's actions were seen by some people as the actions of a rogue administrator, and there was an RfC that turned into a lynch mob. My actions and those of Ambi and Snowspinner have placed the proponents of religion- and belief-based userboxes on the defensive and brought more minds to focus on this, as well as the fair use issue, which is far from trivial. Yes, a lot of people reacted defensively, but if something needs to be done then it is far more likely to be done--it doesn't matter how many people want their userboxes, those that are shown to be damaging to Misplaced Pages will be deleted (see Jimbo's statement of opinion on this). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... perhaps. But "shown to be damaging" to whose satisfaction? If those who see the damage are in a minority then I don't think they will get anywhere until they can convince the rest. Well, most of the rest, anyhow :) - Haukur 15:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

To whose satisfaction? Oh, a word in Jimmy Wales' ear should be enough if clear damage can be shown. I'd act before that, of course, and leave him and arbcom to pick up the pieces. It's not quite Dirty Harry, but there's some of that "do ya feel lucky, punk?" ethic about the whole thing. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:59, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I can accept that Jimbo's views count for a lot and that he can dictate rules and issue decrees. But it's still really frustrating when he decides something which goes against community consensus - like the voting system we're going to start using in a few hours.

Anyway, I think I've now got a pretty good idea on where you stand in all this so thanks for taking the time to chat :) - Haukur 20:08, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The community exists to produce an encyclopedia, and has no function beyond that. It cannot dictate to the owner. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales exists to produce an encyclopedia, and has no function beyond that. Does that sound reasonable to you? :) Hopefully not. Likewise we must realize that the community consists of people who have all sorts of reasons for existing. Keeping those people happy by providing them with a nice and friendly environment will help produce an encyclopedia. - Haukur 21:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well it's not a very nice environment if it encourages factionalism, which is why I took the trouble of deleting some 70 or 80 templates that had the effect of turning Misplaced Pages into a population of users indexed by factional allegiance earlier this week. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I understand your reasoning and it's valid. People like to belong to groups and some good editors, like User:Angr, have argued that the userbox groups make a more friendly environment. Others, like you, have put forward good arguments for why they may contribute to a divided and hostile environment. But the point is that it is completely valid to debate the matter from the point of view of what makes for a good community. We can then define a good community as one which is effective in writing an encyclopedia. That would be a useful definition.

And in case there was any doubt I'm certainly all for writing an encyclopedia :) The edit I made before this one was to create a new article. Most of my user space edits are related to book-keeping in a personal missing articles project. I haven't seen any need to put userboxes on my user page, factional or otherwise. But so far it seems to me that trying to stop people from declaring their allegiance to Benedict XVI with a funny little box will either be futile or more damaging to the project than allowing them to use it. - Haukur 21:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Declaring allegiance is not a big deal. Creating categories separating Wikipedians by allegiance (which is what the userboxes in question do) is a very big deal. That's what's divisive. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm puzzled...

by this. I thought you were against redirects of this nature? - brenneman 12:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely not. The redirect is from Misplaced Pages space and is an appropriate use of that space. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Brrr... that sure wasn't obvious. Thanks for that. - brenneman 12:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

You'd have to have seen the deletion log in which I gave my reasons for deleting the original redirects, which were in article space. We do tolerate article-space shortcuts for policy pages, but I'm not happy about extending this tolerance to individual RfCs. The avoidance of typing the word "Misplaced Pages" isn't a good enough reason; this is an encyclopedia and we do expect people to occasionally type quite long words. :) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Can't we just say that pages starting with "WP:" belong to the project namespace by policy fiat, even though it contradicts what the mediawiki installation says? No vaid article could ever begin like that and it would make this overfine nuance go away... --- Charles Stewart 01:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Until the WP pages are moved out of article space (which I'm sure you're aware isn't actually difficult to do if you know which file to tweak and which SQL update statements to execute), regrettably we cannot make such a fiat. The WP redirects have no good reason for existence, and if people are starting to make redirects to such ephemera as requests for comment I think it's appropriate to draw the line there. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:38, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why not. From the software POV, the whole point about namespaces is to influence what happens with m:Message substitution, but that doesn't arise with redirects. If we simply said that for the purposes of policy, that we count pages in the article space that begin "WP:" and are redirects to pages in the project space as being project pages, what could be the problem? For the sake of tidiness we can fix the software to handle multiple prefixes as being the same namespace, but there are several ways to do that and the mediawiki gnomes can take their time of deciding which is the neatest. --- Charles Stewart 05:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

You're probably right. I seem to recall seeing RFC stuff, and rather ugly it was too, on google and it seemed to be related to the existence of article-space redirects. A minor point, perhaps, in the scheme of things, but as wikipedia space becomes more cluttered with trivial and minor gripes and trolls I do feel protective toward the brand. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah

About the edit I complained about (up there). It appeares to me to both innaccurately summarise the proceedings in a manner slanted heavily in favour of critisicim, and to have a sniff of crowing. The second I'll be accused of failing to assume good faith for even mentioning, but that's still how it is. You make it hard to mind my own business with edits like that. - brenneman 12:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I could have been more complete; actually I only summarised some of the findings of fact in the case, and with (to be scrupulously picky) a slight slant towards findings against Snowspinner. The sole purpose of this was to refute a couple of claims that in my view were somewhat dismissive, claiming as they did that the findings of fact in the case were "trivial". If I could have done it without actually mentioning the findings of fact, I would have, but I'm not a magician. I wasn't crowing, rather I was trying to refute what seemed to me to be an attempt to write off the case--something that was somewhat at odds with the arbitrators' decision to take the case and with their final decision. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I'm well and truly over it, just thought that I'd answer the question while I was here. Thanks. - brenneman 13:22, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe, above, you actually meant "attempt to refute." I agree with you that the arbitrators final decision, and the fact that they thoroughly rebuffed your attempts to frame the case in terms of policy, should not be written off. Regards, Nandesuka 14:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with this interpretation. If Aaron will forgive me for once again making reference to the proposed decision in this nearly-closed case:

Aaron Brenneman is admonished to be respectful of consensus in creating and altering Misplaced Pages policy. While boldness in editing is valuable on Misplaced Pages, it is no use to Misplaced Pages to have written policies that create dissent.

There is also a factual finding (number 6 in the list) of Aaron's use of inflammatory language in his descriptions of the case (eg: "foaming at the mouth"), and of his dismissal (number 4 in the list) of Snowpinner's argument by saying, in effect that only sock puppets agreed with it .

I got the policy affirmations that I was after and the committee took a very high proportion of the proposed decision verbatim from my drafting. I'm very pleased that the committee re-affirmed the primacy of the encyclopedia over the community (principle 7) and an affirmation for the first time that well stated opinions of new users must not be dismissed without good reason (principle 6)

It would have been even better if we could have had a statement on user talk page spamming, but events (in the form of the userbox situation and the Catholic Alliance MD) have overtaken us and I'm happy that campaigning of that kind will have a far higher, and less reputable, profile for the foreseeable future. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

We'll simply have to agree to disagree on this — the committee took only a miniscule percentage of your proposed findings of fact and requested remedies, if one counts those findings of fact that you withdrew when it became clear that your requests, unreasonable on their face as they were, did not merit serious consideration. In any event, as I said on the talk page, it is a happy outcome for Aaron, for you, and for Misplaced Pages that most of your requests were dismissed or withdrawn, since they would have grossly hurt the project. Nandesuka 15:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy to differ with you on this, by reference to the facts. Looking at the workshop, I currently see six proposed findings of fact drafted by me: 1.2 "Aaron Brenneman edits deletion policy", 3.3 "Webcomics community opinion", 5.1 "Dragonfiend and Aaron Brenneman discuss the deletion of some webcomics articles", 7.2 "Dismissal of AfD results", 9 "Bad faith", and 21 "Aaron Brenneman holds a straw poll". 1.2 became, with some evidence added by arbitrators, proposed finding of fact 1, "Aaron Brenneman's edits to deletion policy." 3.3, shorn of some incidental detail of Eric Burns' career, became proposed finding of fact 2, "Outside opinion on Misplaced Pages's handling of webcomics". Similarly 5.1 became the basis for the various versions of proposed finding of fact 3, 7.2 is copied almost word-for-word to proposed finding of fact 4.

Of the 6 that are in the current copy of the workshop, only 2 make no appearance in the proposed decision and all four of those that do have substantial support from the arbitrators. In addition, substantial modifications that I made to Snowspinner's workshop proposal 14 "Biting the newbies" by merging from my workshop proposal 6, have found their way directly into proposed finding of fact 6, "Aaron Brenneman's warnings to new users".

Of those workshop proposals on fact that I withdraw, 2 "Assumptions of bad faith by Aaron Brenneman and Dragonfiend", was handled better in subsequent proposals by myself and Snowspinner that made it into the final decision, my workshop proposal 4 "Eric Burns" was merged into 3.2 and is now the first part of proposed finding of fact 2, my 6 was merged into 14 which is now, as previously noted, substantially proposed finding of fact 6. Workshop proposal on fact number 8, "Snowspinner" was withdrawn but the material was merged into 7 and appears in proposed finding of fact 4.

Now it's possible that I may have missed some "unreasonable" workshop proposal on finding of fact, but a due diligence search by me turns none up. The near-unanimity by the active members on this case convinces me that this was an exemplary workshop in which I played an honest role and contributed greatly to Misplaced Pages by reducing the clerical burden on the committee. Of the eight proposed findings of fact adopted by arbitrators, I contributed all or most of the content to five of them. Without crowing, I can say that this is a remarkably high percentage.

On the proposed remedies, one of the two was originated by me, the other proposed by Snowspinner and adopted as extended (to include myself) by me. Although I had told Aaron that I sought and expected a "waggy finger" for Aaron on this, I also considered and proposed the merits of other remedies. In the sense that these were all alternatives to the one that was selected, it can be said that the others were not selected by the committee, but as they were mutually exclusive proposals you could have said that anyway, no matter which one had been selected. One remedy that I made involving censuring myself for over-eager factoring was summarily removed by an arbitrator.

You say "it is a happy outcome for Aaron, for you, and for Misplaced Pages that most of your requests were dismissed or withdrawn, since they would have grossly hurt the project." This is clearly factually incorrect. Where they were withdrawn the material was merged, and adoption of four out of six (and the additional material that made its way into proposed finding of fact number 4) is hardly dismissal. I agree that it's a very happy outcome for Misplaced Pages. I expect that you'll continue to take your own view on the matter, but having performed this exhaustive analysis for my own entertainment I'm happy to say that it is without merit on the facts of the case. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I do encourage anyone who is interested in this tempest in a teapot to visit the workshop page to decide for themselves whether Tony's version of the story is correct. For now, I'll just note that just looking at the remedies supported by Tony that Arbcom didn't adopt, we find: "Aaron Brenneman admonished to seek consensus on policy", "Aaron Brenneman banned from editing Misplaced Pages policy", "Aaron Brenneman banned from editing deletion-related Misplaced Pages policy", "Aaron Brenneman on probation", "Dragonfiend not to make webcomics nominations", "Aaron Brenneman to Assume Good faith", "Aaron Brenneman advised to avoid altering deletion debates", and "A Note to the Community." Similar observations could be made about the findings of fact. It is left as the exercise to the reader to decide exactly how due was Tony's diligence in summarizing the issues here. Nandesuka 17:08, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Nandesuka, enough playing to the gallery. This is a personal talk page, so address your comments to me. I have addressed all of the above in my analysis. Also I notice a little sloppiness creeping in. First you were talking about proposals that I originated, and now you extend that to include several proposals that I did not originate but did respond favorably to, and even some (Dragonfiend not to make webcomics nominations and A Note to the Community) which I unequivocally opposed. And, most alarmingly, one "Aaron Brenneman admonished to seek consensus on policy", which was adopted by the committee and was drafted by me.

I notice that my opposition to "A Note to the community" was expressed in wording that I find most poignant and apt: "Let the message to the community be embodied by a strong finding on consensus and policy-formation, which I believe to be at the heart of this case." Which of course is what they did in telling Aaron in words drafted by me: " to be respectful of consensus in creating and altering Misplaced Pages policy. While boldness in editing is valuable on Misplaced Pages, it is no use to Misplaced Pages to have written policies that create dissent.".

You're welcome to your opinion, but I observe only that you don't seem to be able to support it with verifiable fact. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbcom vote

I'm pretty sure that was the system I put in place. If you mean that the questions should appear on the vote page rather than linked to then I wanted to avoid that due to technical issues. I'm expecting a lot of votes. I want to do what I can to keep the pages as small as posible.Geni 17:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

No problems. I don't mind where it all goes as long as we don't end up with confusion of how, when and where to vote, and I assume you're taking care of that. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:08, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought I had. Which part of the instructions need carifying?.Geni 17:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Probably none. I probably wasn't paying attention and managed to get into a muddle. I have full confidence in your abilities, thanks for your hard work, --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

You are not the only person to have been confused. I've updated it to reflect the current setup. What do you think?Geni 18:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

WRT Everyking I can't see anything too bad. Yes it's a bit of a pile on but that is to be expected in this election. In theory it think it is User:Nightstallion's job to dealing with any problems now the vote has started. It don't want to get involved in the running of the vote unless no one else can be found.Geni 01:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I looked at the election setup and you've done a brilliant job. There are provisions for uninvolved parties to remove lengthy comments, which is all I wanted to see. I've gone through a lot of the pages voting and (although it's madly early) have no problems with any conduct I have seen so far. A good start. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:38, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Lynch mobs

Referring to those who disagree with you as a "lynch mob" is a bit rude, and definitely unhelpful. I see you've done it a number of times. Any chance I could convince you to express your opinions with less inflammatory language? Friday (talk) 19:44, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

By sheer coincidence I had a similar thought myself a few minutes ago. I've refactored my comment on Misplaced Pages:RFC/KM and improved it into the bargain by restoring focus to the encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome

If your message on my Talk Page was a thank you for my vote, you are welcome. I am sorry but I do not really get what you meant. But anyway, best of luck with the rest of the elections. Batmanand 08:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom - Nandesuka

Out of curiosity, and please do not feel it is rude not to answer, why did you oppose Nandesuka's ArbCom candidacy? --- Charles Stewart 08:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

A series of intentional personal attacks for which he has expressed neither acknowledgement nor remorse . --08:32, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, having looked at his candidacy statement, there's no way I could have supported him. He entered late, skipping any chance for most people to question him, and fielded a couple of tame questions that revealed that he was running on a populist ticket, based on the extraordinary conclusion that arbcom showed timidity in rejecting the "wheel war" case. This would be the one where two of the three arbitrators who had rejected were Fred Bauder and JamesF, both up for re-election and with plenty to lose from making a decision that fails to play to the populists. What, are they supposed to be afraid of little old me? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've asked him what value he thinks hearing the case would serve. --- Charles Stewart 09:52, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Did he respond yet? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Withdrawal

You got a lot of support. Keep up the good work even if it won't be within the committee! :) - Haukur 08:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:32, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a Misplaced Pages insider and am a sporadic editor so I may be missing something here. You seem like a very strong candidate. Perhaps there are more "Wikipolitics" than an occasional dabbling editor can see. I echo the keep up the good work sentiment. Crunch 13:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, least I got a chance to chime in

Sorry to see you withdraw. For the record, there is substantial opposition to a number of candidates and Jimbo may change his mind again anyway.--MONGO 08:51, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

From what I can see, at present we've got some pretty good candidates in the top 10 or so of the running, and these all have thumping great endorsement votes. There are one or two unsuitable candidates in the second ten, particularly among late entries who have leapt on some bandwagon or other. I don't see any reason why Jimbo would want to change his mind, and I don't see any pressing reason to veto any of the top 8 at present, who are (subject to settling):

1. Mindspillage
2. SimonP
3. Filiocht
4. Charles Matthews
5. Dmcdevit
6. Morven
7. James F.
8. Fred Bauder

I opposed one of these, Morven, because of a weak candidate statement but on reading his answers to questions I've decided to switch to support. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony, how did you calculate that these are the top eight so far? Morven, for example, has only 37 supports and JamesF, 69. There are others with more, I believe, as well as more supports than opposes. SlimVirgin 11:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

The calculation is done on percentages of those voting who voted support. So on this calculation, even though mindspillage at one point had 130 support votes to 65 for SimonP, SimonP had the edge because as a proportion of total votes case for or against him, he had the higher percentage.

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/arbcom?

It's also complicated somewhat by the fact that the software doing the calculation is fallible and subject to lag. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Tony. Interesting. I hope the candidates won't be picked that way, though, because it would seem odd to prioritize someone with 36 votes over someone with 125 just because they had fewer people opposing percentage-wise. SlimVirgin 20:18, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the method is, but I have to admit that I assumed that the method I described would be used. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to see you withdraw myself, even if I did oppose :) - I thought you could "win it" as they say, and I do admire some of the work you do here like afds and catching invalid speedies. I do agree that those are good candidates too, although I opposed half of them and supported Fred and Dmcdevit whom I hope make it in.WhiteNight 10:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to say your withdrawal is gracious and does you credit. I abstained on your nom - because although you have the patience of a saint with newbies and problem users (barnstar pending), OTOH you don't cope well with editors with whom you disagree with on policy issues. Tony you are a maverick, and we need mavericks (even if they can be a pain in the ass), but IMO the judicial bench isn't the best place for them. Keep up your good work. You are my benchmark - every time I go to speedy, I think ‘would Tony quibble this’ and, ‘if in doubt, I don’t delete’. --Doc 11:16, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tony. I would like to say that I opposed your Arbcom candidacy because I disagree with you on the scope of IAR. With regards to Misplaced Pages in general, I think you are a good person to have on board. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, the voting started shaping up amazingly fast. I'd planned few votes, but I'm sorry I didn't get there in time to add my support. Demi /_C 18:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well it would have been welcome. I don't mind sitting it out, though. I think it unlikely that my overall vote would have shifted more than three or four percentage points from where it was when I quit. On the talk page I've indicated that I'm prepared to do arbitration duty if required and as I'm probably one of the better qualified candidates this could conceivably come to pass, but this doesn't require me to sit around biting my fingernails for two weeks over it. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:19, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm very sorry I didn't get to record my support before you withdrew. I selfishly hope that next time, you will consider the value of letting the process play out so I may comment on your finer qualities. Unfocused 20:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I really appreciate it. But if I hadn't withdrawn some time back I would not be the calm, cool collected, fun-loving individual I am right now. Despite some pretty tense dealings (everybody seems to be pretty spooked at the moment) I'm relaxed and happy. Now wouldn't you rather have me like that than hunched over the keyboard, my fingernails ruined, my listless eyes anxiously scanning the same page over and over? Nah, I hit the level pretty early and there was no point in continuing. I'm mentally adding all these votes to my tally but of course not many people are dropping by to say "you suck, I wish you had kept your nomination open so I could have voted against you." And believe me, such people exist. I've seen quite a few "Strongest Possible Oppose" votes and the like. ;) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:09, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony, there may be a possible bug...sometimes your talk link is blue lined and others it is black, provding no link to your talk page...kind of on a different line of discussion...maybe it's my system?--MONGO 21:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Your request

I've responded you your request on my talk page for examples by providing three. Please do respond there, as I am not watching this page. - brenneman 19:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

For deleting {{user against scientology}}.--Sean|Black 22:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

As a user who is vehemently against Scientology, I agree with you that this userbox has no place on Misplaced Pages. --Stormie 22:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I hope it'll stick. In the current climate it's a calculated risk, but I think it had to be done for the sake of the encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Holy crap

Look at this. "Deserve diparegment'"? Jesus.--Sean|Black 01:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Apologist's destruction

Hey Tony Sidaway, I was curious, there are certain people on certain articles who add absolutly nothing to the articles, instead they "nit-pick" the articles, deleting certain portions until there is a skeleton of the former article. I have no respect for these people who choose to destroy to get their own narrow POV across instead of create. Arbitration, as we have seen with WSI is a joke, is there any other option that you know of?

In addition, have you ever tried to find out if someone is a sock puppet before? Is it a difficult task, will they check any name you give them, or do you have to offer some proof?Travb 01:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Given the Foundation privacy policies, you would need to have a good reason for suspicion. Rob Church 01:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Rob for your response. Travb 21:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom

Sad to note your withdrawal. Great loss to ArbCom. Token vote after-the-fact below.

Support

1. Rob Church 01:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
2. SchmuckyTheCat 11:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC) same here.
3. Travb 21:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC) Wow, I am disappointed, please take it back...

Regards. Rob Church 01:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

your vote on my arbcom nomination

Hi Tony, I saw you voted oppose but didn't give a reason. I respect your right to vote the way you feel is right but I just wanted to let you know that due to the concern by many editors that I did not clearly define my positions I have expanded on my replies to questions already given as well as adding more info into my candidacy statement and answered some new questions. I would be grateful if you could re-read my questions page. If you have any additional questions or inquiries please add them to that page or ask me on my talk page and I will answer them as soon as I possibly can. Jtkiefer ---- 02:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I felt that, although you're one of our best people, you didn't have the right temperament for the arbitration committee. I'm sorry I can't pin it down closer than that. If it's any consolation, many opposers of my application said the same about me, and I have no reason to doubt that their assessments were made in good faith. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

user against scientology

Are you aware that there is a current tfd to delete this template? Why did you delete this before the tfd was concluded?--God of War 05:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was aware that it was languishing on that discussion page rather than being deleted. I deleted it because attack templates have no place on Misplaced Pages. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought this was WIKI-pedia where such decisions are based on consensus. I haven't carefully counted the Keeps and Deletes but I can see that there isn't anywhere near a consensus that completely supports your interpertation of the situation.--God of War 06:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Consensus isn't a matter of counting votes. There is a consensus on Misplaced Pages that attacks are not permitted. The template could have, and in my opinion should have, been deleted when the user against jews template was deleted. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• If you are so sure in your belief that the consensus is against NPA for this box, you should not have to worry that the debate at the tfd would produce any other consensus than the one you want it to. Ergo, you would wait until the tfd has been properly closed because admins like pacify confrontations and deleting this out of process would have the opposite effect.--God of War 06:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't follow. A straw poll is an imperfect and is subject to errors introduced by, for instance, unconscious sampling bias, conscious vote packing, inapproprate framing and so on. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia and does not facilitate attacks on religions; using user space or template space to do so is an inappropriate use of both. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tony, good call on this one. I thought about speedying it myself, and I should have. As you've no doubt noticed, I often disagree with you on whether to just do what's right or wait for the process to do it; I don't think that's going to change anytime soon, but I've come around to your way of thinking more and more lately as I've watched the process at work. -- SCZenz 06:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This is another example of foolishness. Speedy deletion is not meant to be used to edit opinions from user pages. There is no personal attack here. Speedy Deletion is not a Toy. --Dschor 12:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you appreciate that I never delete material lightly, and that the items I deleted were not on user pages but in template space. If editors are merely concerned that deletion of templates may mess up the layout of the user pages, it's easy enough to replace each instance of {{template}} with {{subst:template}}, which dumps a copy of the wiki code from the template into the user page, and also has the benefit of reducing the quite appreciable load on the servers from expanding all those userbox templates each time a user page is displayed. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This would work wonderfully if you would nominate the templates for deletion. This would give users the opportunity to subst: before the template is deleted. That would be the civil way to remove the templates. Try it, you might be surprised how well it works. --Dschor 11:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

An apology

It occurs to me, rather belatedly, that my comment tonight on WP:DRV might be seen as insulting to you. It certainly was not meant as such, and if you saw it that way, I apologize unreservedly. You'll note that, despite being an outspoken proponent of process - process gives the community confidence that administrators are serving consensus, not their own whims - I haven't opposed your deletion. (I'd endorse it if I wasn't doing my utmost to avoid even the appearance of further participation in the Great Userbox Drama.) —Cryptic (talk) 08:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I know we're at opposite ends of the spectrum on one or two issues here, but I found nothing objectionable about your comment. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Apology

I did want to apologize about the things I said about you a while back (I don't know if you even remember, if you don't it is probably better that way :) - one diff ) - I am sorry and it was out of line. It had nothing to do with any of your actions, rather it was a huge personality conflict, which doesn't excuse it at all. I agree with you that I am somewhat poor with people sometimes and probably not interesting at all :). WhiteNight 09:39, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I was vaguely aware that we'd met and I'd subsequently opposed your application to the MC. I didn't get offended by the attempt to resolve the situation on IRC, but I was impatient over that because the approach came late on a Friday night. I felt that we were both being cajoled into discussion by a well meaning third party, and I avoided cooperation so as to avoid making things worse by a brusque conversation. I'm sorry if my rejection offended you. Thanks for being so understanding. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

C6 on templates

{{user Anti-UN}} {{user Anti-ACLU}} {{user GWB}} {{user Fear Bush}} {{user illegal-immigration-0}} {{user No EU}} {{user War on drugs}} {{user No Marxism}} {{user Antipope}} The discussion on the deletion of userbox templates perhaps needs to be taken somewhere central. I've had a bit of stick for deleted or TfDing one or two - and the 'policy on userboxes' seems to me like a stitch up of the project folk. But what would you do with the above ant- templates? --Doc 10:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The opposition to illegal immigration is an attack on a concept, process or activity. The No Marxism one is an attack on a political ideology or school of philosophy. The Antipope one simply asserts the primacy of one's claim to the shoes of the fisherman and and I don't take it seriously. The others are all attacks on organisations and (in the case of GWB) people. I speedied them and I'll take them to DRV. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:26, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey, for once I love your IAR (indeed I'm envious I wasn't bolder).. although perhaps this isn't IAR - we are testing new rules for new situations. --Doc 11:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

When the bureaucracy stalls because votes are being stuffed, then I come into my own. :) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:56, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

You are abusing your administrative tools. None of these templates falls under the criteria you have cited for speedy deletion. Yes, you may have come into your own, but I don't think this is an occasion for pride. You are acting in haste, without justification. Templates intended for use in the user space do not need to adhere to NPOV, and none of these templates violate NPA. Are you feeling bold since withdrawing your ArbCom nomination?? --Dschor 12:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I was also bold while the nomination was live and for the months leading up to it after I announced my candidacy. I take issue with your opinion that I'm abusing my administrator tools. I've deleted fourteen templates and one redirect today, and took every single one to WP:DRV. There is substantial consensus that it is appropriate to delete this kind of template as an attack.

It may be that you think that an administrator mustn't ever do anything that you, or a substantial number of other editors, disagree with. This is not a true reflection of the facts. For instance, one administrator duty is the enforcement of the copyright policy, which is very unpopular with users because it involves removing copyright infringements from user space and in general people like to put up pretty pictures to which they do not own the copyright. It may be that you think that an administrator must never delete anything without discussing it first. Again this is wrong. Many thousands of such deletions are made without discussion during an average week.

It will take longer to get agreement on how and when such templates can be used, but a consensus will be reached. I don't think the kind of jokey or informative templates that you favor are in any danger, as long as they don't infringe the copyright laws, but some of the more inflammatory and divisive ones that are around will probably have to be deleted. The attack templates are being deleted first because there is a very strong consensus that attacks have no place on Misplaced Pages. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It would be the choice of a wise admin not to act unilaterally to delete when there is a less contentious option. The templates that you speedied were not personal attacks, and none were violating copyright. You have proven conclusively that you are not the sole judge of what constitutes an attack. It would be appreciated if you would act civil, and allow users to contest deletion before the fact, rather than burying these deletions as speedies. Just a thought. --Dschor 11:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

User GWB

I have speedy undeleted {{User GWB}} as the ongoing TFD shows a strong consensus for keeping this template. Dragons flight 14:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted again. It's a personal attack and it advocates Misplaced Pages vandalism. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This may have been better resolved through editing. I read it as "This user can't stand George W. Bush and wishes they did not have to revert vandalism there", though I'm not sure how to express the idea better while staying pithy. The category, and the link to it, are problematic, too. —Cryptic (talk) 17:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, it still looks like an incitement to vandalism. You know, mentioning on lots of user pages the fact that a certain article is vandalised a lot. Might as well paint a big bulls eye. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• I take it you're going to delete these as well, right?--MoVe! 17:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I might do, but not as attack pages. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:33, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Attack speedies

(copied from User talk:DESiegel) I appreciate, and am taking into consideration, your opinions on some of the speedies. I think you have a good point on, say war on drugs and may change my opinion on this in due course. Meanwhile I'm seeing a strong consensus forming here on attack speedies and would like it to be as wide as possible, so perhaps we can discuss our differences on detail. Your talk page or mine. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:07, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that many of the user boxes you deleted are not reasoanbly described as "attack pages" The ones dealign with teh EU might be called attacks on the EU, but I don't think that is the kind of target that needs protection from "attack". Personal attacks on individuals, sure. Atacks on ethnic or religious groups have a long history of causing rancor and trouble. Expressions of disapproval of political or quasi-political organizations (such as the ACLU, of which I am a member, by the way) I do no think should be deleted at this tiem. Indeed at this particualr time, pendign the clear acceptance of a policy on userboxes in general, I am opposed to delting any userbox except those that are most obviously personal, religious, or ethnic attacks. In particular {{User GWB}} 1)has a large keep consensus on TfD, and 2) seems to me far more an attack on vandals and vandalism than on george Bush -- it makes the point tha the GWB articel is a vandfal target, which is surely true, and that even editors who dislike Bish can and will cleanup such vandalism.

I won't get into a whell war on this -- i won't re-restore any that get deelted again. I do think on this one you would be well advised to apply the WP:CSD narrowly and strictly, considering the contraversy this has stirred up. My general views on this are now at Misplaced Pages:Process is Important. DES 17:17, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Rather than delete Bad EU, I've edited to remove some of the more inflammatory wording. I don't see how anyone could see the GWB template as in any way an attack on vandals--it's clearly not only an attack on George Bush, it's also a sly incitement to vandalism and even gives a link to the article in question. I see no indication that the template shows anything but reluctance to countenance the idea that the article should not be vandalized. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Obviously you read it differently than I do. I read it as a wry acknowledgement that a user is willing to "edit for the enemeny" by cleaning up vandalism on a page about a person s/he dislikes, but wishes this were not needed. See also my comments on Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. DES 17:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I do wish you had not re-delted that template, but i am not going to get into a wheel war by re-undeleting. I have, however, raised the matter at ]. DES 17:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I wouldn't have deleted it if I didn't judge that it needed to be deleted and there was substantial support for doing so as an attack. I do appreciate your different opinion and the strong keep vote in the straw poll on tfd, but the fact that it's an attack outweighs this. The judgement that it's likely to increase vandalism on the article also plays a part. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

You make a very good point

Things like Template:User GWB are just asking for trouble, so what if the vote was falling in favor of keep, that whole voting thing is just asking for trouble anyway, I suggest you speedy delete this page, I mean it's obviously just asking for trouble, while you're at it, you should probably do something about this one, in fact, you don't need any more competition, you should probably speedy this one as well, for the good of the wiki --— Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.188.116.132 (talk • contribs) 17:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I just don't see why we should keep something in the main wiki-template space that has nothing to do with writing an encyclopedia, does not identify wikipedians in a manner helpful to editing, and might cause problems. Problems and discord are unavoidable - and let's not prevent them, where the process helps the project. If folk want to do POV boxes, fine, bu then let them confine it to their userspaces. --Doc 17:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I derive a wry amusement from anon's sarcastic suggestion that I delete WP:AFD. Presumably he is not aware that an administrator did exactly that just over four months ago. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Doc's rationale; why make templates of potentially disruptive userpages when you can simply use the javascript to create them independently in your own namespace..? Works for me.. -MegamanZero|Talk 18:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:User GWB

Someone has recreated this troll template again please redelete, protect, and ban, all in that order--Nn-user 20:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• and delete this nonsesne too, thnx--Nn-user 20:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

While I agree this is borderline in our new formulating policy I think it might make sense just to reword it a bit, such as

would this be a speedy in your view? WhiteNight 20:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It looked like substantially the same wording. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:32, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I see you deleted this yet again. That makes four deletions by you of this template. I belive that re-deletion counts as a reversion under WP:3RR. Please don't delete/undelete war on this. DES 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree on this. A deletion isn't a revert by any stretch of the imagination.

We've now got a version of the template that is neither an attack nor an incitement, but says in plain words what the advocates have been saying all along--that the user abhors vandalism of the George W. Bush article. Unlike the earlier versions, it is not an attack. Unlike the earlier versions, it does not contain links to the vandalised article (which incidentally is one of the most heavily vandalized articles on Misplaced Pages). I'm happy with it and I hope everyone else involves is too. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No EU template

What the hell man ? Who gives you the right to say which political views are deemed "right" and "wrong" ? Saying NO to the EU is a fair and unharmful poltical stance and I dont see what the big problem is ! Why did u delete that template from my page ????? Epf 20:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I haven't ever edited your page. If you put references to items in template space on your page and those items are then deleted, then the appearance of your page will change. If you use subst for templates then the page will not be affected by such deletions. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Aw man, why'd you withdraw?

I was bummed out to see you withdrew before I got a chance to vote for you! The voting just started too... no chance of unwithdrawing is there?

Sorry, no. There are many other things that need to be done. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I second the disappointment. KillerChihuahua 21:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh stop moaning, both of you. Go off and vote for Kelly. :) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

She's dropped out too! What is this world coming too.. Halidecyphon 23:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

3RR

(ugly table removed)

You have been blocked from editing Misplaced Pages for 24 hours for violating the three revert rule by deleting Template:User GWB more than three times within the same 24 hour period (mucho boilerplate removed) Izehar 23:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC

I was blocked twice, actually. And unblocked too. <shrug>.

• Mr. Sidaway, is this true..? Have you really bee blocked..? -MegamanZero|Talk 23:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Not the first time, my dear. You can't bake a cake without smashing some eggs. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The page protection was to stop this new user messing with the TfD tags (check the revision history). Anyhow, maybe I was too involved - I assumed that as I never deleted, nor restored the article, I wasn't involved in that revert war. As for Radiant's alterations to the policy, they will have to be clarified with a consensus poll. If I was wrong, I apologise. Izehar 00:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Cheers. No problems, and I'm sorry if I misread your protection. I do acknowledge that my deletions were excessive, but these are extraordinary circumstances and, although the template clearly isn't vandalism, its status on Misplaced Pages is in my view barely above vandalism. I did go to quite some lengths today to establish a wide consensus to delete this and the majority of some 14 other templates. No problems, anyhow, as you could not have been expected to be aware of this. We're both on the same side and we're both trying to do the best for the encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

If you want my opinion, no userboxes should not be templates. They should exist on the user's userpage (like mine). I'm sure we're all flustered after this, but people have been putting ridiculous things in them; I have to agree with Kelly Martin on that. Anyway, as long as there are no bitter feelings - they just make Misplaced Pages an unpleasent place. Cheers. Izehar 00:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No hassle at all. I'm proud to be on the same team. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:57, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom

I regret your ArbCom cnadidacy was withdrawn; I would have liked to support it. Septentrionalis 23:39, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh believe me you're better off this way. We're going to have a brilliant arbcom team if the first few days' voting is anything to go by, and in addition to that we'll have Snowspinner, Tony Sidaway, Kelly Martin, David Gerard and many other good people out in the wild, making sure that policy works. Arbitrators are too fucking busy to do much of that. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Please refrain from making "point of view" edits to my user page

It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that you are being a dick. Stop vandalizing my user page at once. Opposition to ArbCom candidates is not a personal attack. --Dschor 23:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I made no "point of view" edit to your user page. I did, on the other hand, remove an allegation of Cabal membership from it. And I told you as much on the talk page. Your claim that I vandalized your page is false. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

You made a POV edit to my user page against my express wishes, and removed my personal opinion from my user space. No allegation of Cabal membership was involved. You know better, and I expect that you will learn to be WP:CIVIL before editing my page again. --Dschor

I'm being perfectly civil. You did in your exhortation to vote against Kelly Martin add "Beware of the Cabal" and I've no reason to believe that you intended it as anything other than an allegation of secret collusion against the interests of Misplaced Pages. I told you about this on your own talk page. I also removed a warning from your user page in which you claimed that you had the right to treat edits made to it without your permission as vandalism, because frankly you don't.

Now if it's a web host you're after, I can recommend schtuff.com, which provides up to three different spaces with each of its free accounts. You can add pages using a wiki syntax very similar to that used here, the pages can also be organised as blog entries, and there is provision for pictures. You can decide, on a page-by-page basis or by the use of categories, whether to let others edit, or to allow only invited friends to edit, or to leave the pages closed to editing by anyone except yourself. You can also, if you wish, make pages visible only to yourself and invited friends. Although of course I wish that you would not engage in personal attacks on your fellow editors, you may do so to your heart's content--off wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Editing a user page against the wishes of the user to the detriment of the page is not civil. I state "Beware the cabal" as a general notice that some admins "love" the cabal, and one should be aware of this. I do have the right to presume vandalism if the edit is vandalism. Your edit was vandalism. I have plenty of web space outside wikipedia, but I have the same right to a user page that every other wikipedian has. You would be wise to leave my page alone unless you have something productive to add. --Dschor 12:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you quite understand the deal with user pages. You don't have a right to a user page. If you use it to attack people, as you did, you may find the attacks removed. If you falsely claim that certain kinds of edit are vandalism, then that false claim will be removed. I don't think you're in a position to lecture anyone about civility when you have such attacks and threats on your user page. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Commentary on Templates

Tony, I find your methods on this issue to be disgusting. You claim that there is a strong consensus supporting your deletion of "attack" templates. If that's true you should have no problem writing up a policy that most everyone can agree on defining what attack templates are and when they should be speedied. Instead of prosposing such a policy and submitting it to the community at large for approval, you just decided to start enforcing your view of how things should be done. When I undeleted {{User GWB}} I had assumed it was deleted because you didn't appreciate the wealth of feelings for keeping it, and instead I find that you just didn't care. Your reasons for deleting it do have merit, but they are still just your reasons until you take the time to build and document a consensus supporting them.

I am not above believing that a larger consensus could be formed which would include deleting User GWB and things like it. I have myself contravened the result of "votes" when it went against established Misplaced Pages policy, but never would I have dreamt of doing so without having very strong ground to stand on. In this case you just don't have that. What you have is a CSD that doesn't technically apply to templates (though perhaps in some form it should) and NPA which historically has only applied to other editors and certainly has never applied to organization like the EU. Rather than fixing the limitations with policy, you decided to act unilaterally in a way you certainly should have known would be disputed (and if you didn't know, you certainly didn't need to delete User GWB five times to find out). The wheel war you have provoked is one of the most absurd things I can recall in recent memory and you must realize that it reflects a profound failure to convince even other admins that your actions are justified and appropriate. Could you please stop messing with templates and take the time to lay before the community a clear policy proposal rather than abusing the policies we do have to try and justify actions that quite clearly are not uniformly accepted as appropriate. Dragons flight 00:39, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

If you're looking for my policy drafting, please go to the talk page of WP:CSD where you will find that there is an embryonic policy already waiting.

Policy isn't what is written down, it's what works. We're looking for what works. We don't find that by sitting around all day waiting for an idea, we actually have to test things out. That's where I come in. Think of me as a crash test dummy if it helps. It doesn't hurt, I assure you, and the speedies are all reversible. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No, policy is what we agree makes sense. We have yet to agree. You are like a cop who one day decided the law is not a sufficient deterent so he'll take matters into his own hands. It is not okay for you to be "testing out" undiscussed policy changes. That way leads to anarchy and disruption on a grand scale. You have been disrupting Misplaced Pages to advance your point, rather than actually trying to present and argue your point. You say that taking unilateral action "doesn't hurt" simply because it is all reversible, but I must strongly disagree. Would you say that if I blocked people I didn't like "it doesn't hurt" because someone else can reverse it? How about if I delete your user page? That's reversible too. These things foster animosity within the community and make us look as if we don't even adhere to our own agreed upon standards of behavior. Dragons flight 12:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Well now policy seems to be that extreme attacks get speedied and medium ones are fixed to not be attacks, and mild attacks are tolerated. On blocks, I don't claim (nor does anyone on Misplaced Pages that I know) that blocks are reversible. But I'm not blocking anyone. Please feel free to delete my user page, I honestly cannot imagine getting at all worked up about it. It's only some stuff to say roughly who I am. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This logic somewhat breaks down when you revert resoration of the "speedies" (which is to imply they were somehow speediable), and moreso still when you do it more than three times, no? Given how conscientiously you began your admining career -- or at least gave that appearance, unless my memory is just playing tricks -- I find your current deletion-spree, and what's worse, the IMO weak rationalisations of it, personally very disappointing. Remember halycon days of the admin log? Alai 05:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

thing

I'm not aware of any loss of conscientiousness. I assure you that if you check the relevant discussion forums you will find on my part a continuous process of consultation and refinement of an ongoing strategy for dealing with a novel problem in several relevant forums, and a considerable consensus to delete building up all yesterday. Just check my edit log. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

π ⇒ 3

I don't know how close that was to WP:POINT, but it was a great observation nonetheless.  :) --Interiot 01:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, editing a template that is only intended to be displayed on user pages, and advocates lawbreaking, to say something that is inoffensive and not illegal, isn't disruption. I hope my point was seen by many and made them alll laugh as much as I did. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Re:Template:User allow fairuse

Please stop making test edits to Misplaced Pages. It is considered vandalism, which, under Misplaced Pages policy, can lead to being blocked from editing. If you would like to experiment again, please use your sandbox. karmafist 04:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Please be assured that I never, ever vandalize Misplaced Pages. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Your comment on my talk page

Perhaps you can explain how it's illegal then (nobody on your side has yet, other than slinging baseless WP:NLTs), in particular citing legal precedent and/or parts of US Code(most of the servers are in the US) justifying your reasoning. karmafist 04:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not in the US. When I, living in London. look at a Misplaced Pages user page containing a copyright infringement, WikiMedia becomes liable for a tort under UK law. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony!

(Various bits of silliness removed) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:01, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tony, you don't know me... Sorry for butting in...I was just looking at your cool tool. Wow it's amazing. I'm scanning all the great work you do here -- very much more than I could ever do, and believe me I appreciate it. Anyway, I had a thought: I bet when you develop software you apply a lot of strict problem-definition and analysis and testing and stuff. You know,like if I change this object what effect will it have on overall performance, that sort of thing. I was thinking of that because (IMO) you have to apply the same kind of rigor to systems that involve people... I was wondering what you thought of that idea, is all... Cheers, Herostratus 08:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. If it helps, think of the technique I've adopted here as an extreme programming strategy with lots of quick iterations and plenty of unit tests. Analysis emerges from interaction with the developing product. Basically I throw a lot of pretty obvious speedies into DRV and see which ones take (most of them). Several iterations later we have substantial agreement on an approach. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I too am pro-agile, and have thought about applying XP to Misplaced Pages (I even rambled about this concept a while back at User:Friday/XW). However I don't see that this is what you're doing. Feedback and respect are two key values in XP. Wheel warring indicates you're disregarding feedback, and your tendency to dismiss criticism as "ridiculous" shows a lack of respect for other editors. I'm a supporter of being bold and IAR, but I think that the bolder one is, the more sensitive to feedback one must be. I think your unit test light is turning red more often than you realize. Friday (talk) 16:25, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

You could be right, but I'm seeing some useful responses here, and the feedback has been incredibly civil. I've seen theoretical suggestions that what happened yesterday may have been damaging, but no evidence to suggest that it has been.

Now for some reason somebody thought up this software development analogy, but I don't think people are programmable in the same way, so it's incomplete. A lot of people have very strong opinions on this subject, but what makes the project work is our ability to arrive at agreements such as the one we have today. Of about 15 attack templates of various hues, only 3 or 4, the milder, jokier ones still stand as they originally stood yesterday. About 8 have been recreated without any significant attack. The two worst don't exist at all any more. Misplaced Pages has moved forward and we're all reasonably clear in our minds about what a good user template looks like, how to fix a bad one, and when a template is irretrievably bad. I've no doubt that this process will be repeated in the future, minus the wheel warring, many times, and eventually there may be a speedy criterion if we can pin down what it is that makes an attack particularly bad. That's how Misplaced Pages works. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Um. A couple comments?
  • Hunh, never heard of XP. Is it recommended to be used on a mission critical app running on a machine which must be live 24/7 and is exremely complex? 'Cause, I don't know actually, maybe in that case they still use the old (and annoyingly slow, I'm sure) way of testing changes by module on an off-line machine first? (You see the analogy I'm making.)
  • It's readily apparent that you are very smart, and I bet you already know that. I bet you're an ace programmer and probably very good at very many other important things. But nobody is good at everything. There's no shame in that, at all. Hell you should see the things I suck at. So... leaving aside any personal egos and just considering it as an abstract case... Is it possible, just possible, that someone who can make the statement "I don't think people are programmable in the same way " might not be the very best person to be poking around in the social and organizational machinery?
  • I dispute -- not deny, but certainly dispute -- your statement that your approach has been successful overall. Unintended consequences multiply with system complexity and can be hard to spot early. I've seen at least one valuable editor basically resign over the Kelly Martin thing. I'd be surprised if there haven't been several more I didn't see. Have you quantified that into your calculations. Here's the thing: I don't know what effects all this is going to have. Neither do you. I know that I don't know it. Do you?
  • If -- I'm just saying IF -- you should come to the conclusion that maybe you were a tad hasty, I would be the first to congratulate you on admitting it, I know that's hard to do and that Old Man Ego can be a real bear sometimes!

Respectfully, Herostratus 18:36, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, you're being a little unfair here. When I say that I don't think humans are programmable in the same way as computers I mean just that--that one cannot use programming methodologies on real life, complex situations, and it would be stupid to try. Humans have feelings. However Misplaced Pages provides us with a basic toolkit for getting along. It cannot cover every eventuality and it doesn't pretend to. Now I suppose you're suggesting that in doing what I did rather than just sitting around talking about what to do, I took a risk. Yes, but even in just sitting around talking there is a risk. The system is complex and behavior is neither predictable nor reproducible. But as an editor of Misplaced Pages I am not expected to just sit around and hope things work out. I'm supposed to find a solution to the problems that I perceive, and for urgent problems I tend to choose urgent solutions.

If I misstepped and just pissed people off for no good reason, then I'd end up having to scale back and stop taking what would be unjustified risks. But as it happens I don't encounter problems because the guidelines and policies allow me to fail gracefully and I confine my more controversial actions to short bursts after which I take stock (as we're doing now).

On people leaving over the userbox affair: honestly this strikes me as a very oversensitive action. We shouldn't seek to chase people off but if there are people who are unduly affected by quite normal Misplaced Pages events such as deletions of unwanted material then its inevitable that we will have unexpected departures, just as some editors leave over the presence of pictures of human genitalia in some articles on anatomy and the arts. The process of producing an encyclopedia can be stressful and those who aren't capable of taking this in their stride should perhaps find a gentler community which is not dedicated to an overriding purpose.

And it is this, finally that I want to talk about. The Misplaced Pages community is not an end in itself. We don't have an automatic right to put whatever we like on our user pages, and we don't have a right to go around doing stuff that isn't, ultimately, useful to the encyclopedia. Quite a few newer editors, and perhaps a few more experienced ones, perhaps think that the community is an end in itself and that userboxes are a free speech issue. They have to learn that these assumptions are false, but meanwile the task of building the encyclopedia goes on.

Yesterday I deleted some attack userboxes, took the deletions to DRV, and got a good consensus. The damage was limited because only a few templates were affected, and by-and-large the revolt has lost momentum and the attempt at vote-packing of the earlier period were detected early and neutralised. Most users don't even know that it happened. I learned from Kelly's mistakes by being proactive in seeking, and obtaining confirmation for my actions. If someone took this to arbitration request I would expect to be praised for my exemplary handling of this affair. I made mistakes but recovered from them well and took successful steps to limit the damage. And now we have a strategy for handling the worst of the attack templates. Of course I don't know whether this could have been handled better another way. There are no dry runs and no second chances. I can only do my best. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Your actions in speedy deleting a number of userboxes were not massively opposed for one simple reason - "Most users don't even know that it happened". You don't seem to have learned a whole lot from Kelly's mistakes, other than to delete userboxes in small batches, and to do so with speedy deletion so that there is no opportunity for debate. I would expect that a reasonable solution would be to post templates to TfD, rather than speedy them based on your POV. Perhaps I am too sensible. --Dschor 23:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not generally interested in deleting userboxes, only in minimising the damage that some of them do to the community. The attack userboxes have proven pretty easy to neutralize. You claim that there's no opportunity for debate over speedies, but I've gone to great lengths to facilitate such debate. See my gallery of templates that I deleted, showing the state they were in when I deleted them, which is linked from the debate on WP:DRV. There is no question in my mind that the start of a good consensus has been reached on WP:DRV precisely because there was no repetition of the vote packing that occurred earlier. The problem there was that most of the people who turned up to vote were those who, having taken the trouble to put extreme political views, copyright infringements and the like, onto their user pages, could not possibly represent the consensus of Misplaced Pages editors, but rather overweighed the debate with unrealistic aspirations about enabling copyright infringement and divisive political extremism on Misplaced Pages.

You keep using this term "POV". What do you think it means? Do you seriously think that I'm deleting templates that do not conform to my own political sensibilities? Not so. I'd just like to keep Misplaced Pages reasonably free of attacks, factionalism, backbiting and the like. That means that we have to establish that some pretty obvious forms of attack can be deleted. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

This is by far your best attempt so far at justifying your actions. - Haukur 00:50, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Apparently Tony Sidaway is personally responsible for establishing what constitutes an attack, regardless of the sentiments of other editors? You deleted the GWB boxes, which clearly involved no attack whatsoever. Moreover, you speedied the templates, without justification. How do these templates constitute an "obvious form of attack"? I think your best attempt still falls far short of supporting your actions. --Dschor 12:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Well there is quite a lot of agreement that the GWB template, in its original form, was intended to attack George W. Bush. The templates were not "speedied without justification". I deleted fifteen templates and one redirect, and took every single one to deletion review, where they were strongly endorsed. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:01, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• Well, thank you for talking the time to reply so thoroughly. Probably, it would be better in future if you explain what you are doing beforehand, I guess. As for the rest... I do take some of your points, but generally I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Anyway, thanks for all your amazing work on the software side and stuff, it really is appreciated, take care. Herostratus 06:07, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

You know what topic :)

Tony, when you delete first and ask questions later you're taking non-admins out of the loop. Only admins can see deleted material and so only admins can comment intelligently on whether it should be kept deleted. This is, in my opinion, not a good thing. - Haukur 08:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point. I'll do temp undeletes and produce a gallery. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd still prefer slow deletes but at least that's something. Thank you :) - Haukur 09:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Here they are. I also put this link on WP:DRV.

• User:Tony Sidaway/Attack speedies, 2006-01-10

Well the intention was to test speedies of attack templates, not to sit around discussing whether to remove attacks which in my opinion don't belong on Misplaced Pages in the first place. :)

Many of the templates have been restored in some form or other, but for the purpose of this exercise I've gone for the version of each template that I actually speedied. In some cases the attacks have been substantially weakened in the current version of the template,and in the case of User GWB the current version is one I produced myself which does not disparage Bush nor incite vandalism, but expresses opposition to the vandalism of that article in straightforward, unambiguous language (and it looks like it may be stable). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:59, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Userbox deletion

Tony,

Your recent actions regarding the deletion of userboxes is troubling. As someone else has stated, speedying is not something to be taken lightly, especially when not taken in the context of a prior discussion and consensus. I'm most notably talking about the Bush, EU and Scientology templates. Whether they constitute personal attacks is subjective. I personally believe they don't, but I respect that others do.

That is what the ongoing TfDs were there to decide, and none had been decided before you ended up speedying them. In fact, at last count, the User_GWB template faced a clear majority to keep and there was no chance for a discussion beforehand on the EU template. The Scientology template was still a controversial subject, which is usually criteria for keeping in the meantime until a better consensus can be found.

This use of admin powers in Misplaced Pages is causing some major arguments and these kinds of actions risk turning Misplaced Pages into an anarchy. It may also be worth you bearing in mind that these people who "waste Misplaced Pages's resources" on these userboxes are, for the most part, the same people that contribute to make it what it is. Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 12:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The scientology box isn't coming back. It should have been speedied when the anti-Jewish box was speedied.

This is a new policy area and, since there is already a strong consensus on Misplaced Pages that articles that exist solely to disparage their subject can be speedied, it's reasonable to ask why templates should be treated any differently. My actions in deleting the templates mentioned have generate a broad degree support as well as a small amount of criticism. I take both seriously. In my opinion attacks of any kind blacken the reputation of Misplaced Pages from within, cheapening public perception of the finished product, and unnecessarily dividing the community into factions. Speedy deletion of candidates is a good way of testing the degree of support. For most kinds of attack article that I identified, support for speedy deletion seems to be very high indeed. And why should that be so surprising? Attacks have no place on Misplaced Pages. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I see what you mean, but the problem is that there was a great deal of disagreement on whether these templates constituted attacks. Let's take the GWB template as an example. Some saw it as an attack, some didn't. Then someone changed the wording very slightly and a lot of people changed their minds. I personally wouldn't mind one that simply says "This user doesn't support George W. Bush", but still people don't want to have any criticism of politicians, religions, government on user pages. It's a contentious issue and one that won't be solved with unilateral actions like this. I disagree that it's a good way of gauging support for the deletion - you only have to look at the recent mass deletion by Kelly Martin to see what an uproar it causes, even from some who advocate wholesale deletion of the boxes. It turns a civil (if indeed rather heated) discussion into an anarchic fiasco.

As you say, the strong consensus on articles that exist solely to attack a person or group of people is there - I am among them. There isn't, however, a consensus on templates, especially not userboxes that are only suited to use on user pages. Most on Misplaced Pages differentiate greatly between content suitable for a user page and content suitable for an article. I had the GWB box on my user page, but I wouldn't dream of placing it in an article. I've seen a clear consensus that admins should be able to speedy attack articles, but I'm yet to see a majority, let alone a consensus that advocates a policy whereby templates for user pages should be speedied. You claim you have very high support for these kinds of deletions, from pages like this however I see otherwise - more like a split down the middle, which is exactly the problem we are facing. Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 13:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The current wording on the GWB template (which I drafted) is okay with me. If it's okay with everyone else then we've got a solution--which we didn't have yesterday. I daren't say "Mission accomplished" for obvious reasons ;), but I think the bulk of it is over. A lot of the other templates have also been defanged and will be kept because of that, and I'm fine with that. The vast majority of userboxes are completely harmless. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The beauty of consensus, eh? Shows that a slight rewording is preferable to speedying sometimes :) Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 13:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh I don't think you can separate the process from the product. The TfD had a high keep vote but there was a strong endorsement of deletion in DRV. Without speedying the two groups would not have come together and we would have a template that many experienced editors view as unacceptable kept on TfD, and a lot of submerged hard feelings. In the past day or so I've been blocked and unblocked a few times but that was all part of the fun of the thing. You can't bake a cake without beating eggs. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Looking back I'll have to give in there and agree with you :) Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 14:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:User War on drugs

I've reverted due to changes made by you that made it a useless duplication of {{user All Drugs}}. This userbox is for individual users to express concerns on their personal user-pages over the US government's current policy on drugs, which is called, like it or not, the War on Drugs. I don't support the legalization of all drugs. That's just stupid. Stuff like meth is practically pure poison. But throwing people in prison for it is not working. I've let the category off to keep you happy, Tony. -james_anatidae 05:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I see your concerns. I'll leave it as it is, although I do have very, very strong misgivings about use of Misplaced Pages resources in template space for political campaigning. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:46, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Mediation

As my mentor, I am subject to inquire your opinion on this issue: Why is no one commenting on my mediation request? Its odd, because its been there for several weeks now. I tried an inquery on Redwolf's page, but no response. Happen as it might, I believe mediating would be a very good position for me. -MegamanZero|Talk 20:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. Have you thought of emailing him or contacting him on IRC? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:46, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

• I'll try e-mail, but regarding IRC, that's out of the question because I can't get it to work. However, may I ask your opinion on my attempt to gain this position? I mean, I believe I'd be quite competent at it, and seeing the number of issues between users lately, I'm eager to offer my assistance. -MegamanZero|Talk 20:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you have enough experience yet, and I'm concerned about your communication skills. If you can spend some time just being a good editor and getting along with people, then in time you may be ready to perform mediation. It's a rather more highly skilled activity than administration tasks. Sensitivity is essential, and you have to be able to demonstrate firmness without being heavyhanded. Talk to Redwolf, certainly. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

May I inquire how I've been "hardhanded" in my communication? -MegamanZero|Talk 21:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying that you have been, especially. But diplomacy is something that must usually be learned. It doesn't come naturally to many of us. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was under the impression I got along fairly well and I am pretty diplomatic concerning other users... Of course, I mean not to demean your statement, but could you elaborate on how I'm not justified in my dealings in the community? If I'm not excersisng civilty, or offending someone, I'd like to know about it, so I can rectify the situation. -MegamanZero|Talk 21:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Really the issue is your language skills. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Elaboration, if you will? I'm utterly baffled. -MegamanZero|Talk 22:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to pin down with detail, and I hesitate to choose particular examples because our use of language is so closely bound to our personality and any examples I gave would almost certainly upset you. It would be as if I were saying that you are a bad person. And you're not. You're a good, decent editor, hard working and with a keen wish to be of service to Misplaced Pages. In the light of that, and because I could well be wrong, I suggest that you contact Redwolf and discuss this with him. I think that the problem here is a small one and will be remedied by experience. You are young and still growing, and the MegamanZero of the coming year will be wiser, more intelligent and more skilled than the MegamanZero of the past year. I just feel that you're not ready yet. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Sidaway, my friend... I selected you as my mentor for a reason-to gain your assistance in learning the ropes in wikipedia, to learn how to communicate between my fellow editors, etc. I've spent hours and then some memorizing policies on wikipedia, and I know have a firm grasp on them (pocessing knowledge regarding policy does not strictly apply to mediating. however). If you can't give me critisism about my actions and justify how you feel I am wrong or unprepared in some way, what's the point? I greatly implore you to share your opinion on why you think I am not ready yet, and I assure you, I won't be offended- after all, if I was so easily offended by critisism, then I wouldn't have considered this posistion. I will contact Redwolf and discuss this issue with him, but as of now I am discussing with you. I understand your reasoning that I will be wiser and more experienced in the future (won't we all?), but I know I am ready to help my fellow wikipedians, and your critisism would be greatly appreciated. I would greatly desire your reasoning concerning your POV.-MegamanZero|Talk 14:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to find examples and present them in a way that will be useful to you. Thanks for being patient, my dear Zero. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I see. -MegamanZero|Talk 18:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Just tell me what's on your mind, Mr. Sidaway. I'll try my hardest to comprehend your thoughts and reasoning; I require no examples and presentation, as I'll take your word for it on whatever you find troubling. -MegamanZero|Talk 19:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry I dragged my feet for so long; I hate to say something that may offend you. Well, let's take as an example your request above. Why did you use the word "comprehend" when the common verb "understand" sounds better? You "greatly implored" me when "beg" and "urge" are shorter and thus more immediate. These are a young person's errors of usage. In other cases I've noticed that you reproduce large blocks of wording that you've noticed me or some other person use, but in a manner that doesn't sound quite right--as if you were copying something you didn't quite understand. Communication is the most important part of mediation. I feel that you won't be ready to mediate until you can master the language and start to have an insight into the nuances of the thought that it represents. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I see. I understand your point- but that's how I communicate. I don't say things to "sound better"; that is just how it is. I'm sorry that you see it that way. On the other hand, I take no offense to your critisism, and I will take it into consideration. Thank you for pointing that out, and I'll (try) to change my habbits. Anything else you wanted to elaborate upon..? I'm open for any and all suggestions. -MegamanZero|Talk 20:30, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but I don't bring these examples up as an example of bad habits that can be unlearned. I think they're an indication that your communications are not yet fully matured. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. You are my mentor, and I accept your commments. I'm simply saying that I think I'm a tad more experinced and competent than you give me credit. All in all, however, I'm glad that it was only my "language" (?) that you found irksome; I was troubled I was in-civil or what-not; I'm relieved that's not the case. I have a strong grip on policy, but as another user pointed out to me, she thought that I "went too much by the book", so to speak. I have since developed somewhat outside that restriction, but I continue to uphold policy quite strictly. Perhaps when I lighten up and "be bold" (as you put it), I'll be ready for administrator. Cheers, -MegamanZero|Talk 22:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom withdrawal, part XXIV

I just want to apologise for the less than careful message of support I attached to my vote of support on your ArbCom election ("bat-shit crazy"): I feel especially bas since it was the second to last before you withdrew. What I should have said was more along the lines of "reckless disgregard for the anger of the mob". With Charles Matthews, yours were the only candidates I supported without the slightest glimmer of doubt. Shame about the timing, really. --- Charles Stewart 19:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I knew what you meant and was very pleased to have your endorsement, particularly in those terms. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I was just thinking to vote for you, but before I could do that you had withdrawn. Please treat this as my faith in you. --Bhadani 13:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. If you want to help to further the aims that I represent, please reconsider your votes for any candidates who did not declare candidacy until a week or so before the election and have not taken the opportunity to expand on their approach to arbitration. I'd hate to end up with single-issue candidates who don't have much substance and are unlikely to stay the course. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom question

Thank you for posting a new question on my page. I just wanted to alert you to the fact that I have answered it. I notice you have already registered your support and hope that the answer doesn't cause you to reconsider (although I think that's unlikely). David | Talk 21:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Disabling section editing

On several occasions you've expressed the opinion that it is not a good idea to use the NOEDITSECTION directive to fight vandalism (by making it so that everyone editing the page sees the warning at the top of the code). Under what circumstances do you think the use of that directive is appropriate? If it's useless, it should be removed from the software completely. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 01:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any good reason to remove it from the software--there may well be instances where making sections editable would not be a good idea. However disabling section editing in a large article just to try to make people see a message that you could just as well place on the talk page seems to me not a good idea, because it makes bona fide edits on the article much more difficult. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Unflagged alteration

Thanks for the note. I genuinely didn't note that the comment had been signed. The guy could have just refactored but he's just stirring the shit because I disagree with him on some issue. It's sad that these days people think the best approach to other editors is to whine to teacher. But when admins block on a whim, this is what happens. Editors expect admins to start blocking on their whims too. Grace Note 02:55, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Now I've read your comment on the noticeboard, I must ask you to retract the personal attack. It's not warranted. I was blocked from removing an image from clitoris by your clique, not banned. Grace Note 02:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. I misremembered. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

re-creating box

Mr. Sidaway, I would like to re-create user fear bush. I feel that it's name is mis-leading which made you believe it was a personal attack, which is not allowed on wikipedia. However, the actual text of the template does not mention bush - it says fear government. While this is a POV, userbox consensus has come out in favor of POV as long as it not extremely offensive. I am going to re-created this template with a less personal name. I am giving you advanced warning so I don't get another ban for re-creating deleted content.--God of War 03:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

It's offensive. It promotes a link between the Bush administration and neo-fascism. If you want to do that kind of thing, go somewhere else. Moreover I strongly dispute the suggestion that there is any consensus the use of template space for the promotion of political points of view is acceptable. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

• That is why I propose to completely eliminate bush from the template. You have no user space policy banning boxes that complain about the government. You can disagree with me, however there is no grounds here for a speedy deletion or banning me. If you don't like it, list it on the tfd page.--God of War 03:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The box was in template space. If you want to say that the adminstration of the US is part of a neofascist conspiracy, feel free to do so on your user page, though I feel that in doing so you would be cheapening your contributions, if any, and would likely lose the respect of many editors. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Latin translation

You are the only person who knows some Latin who is currently available, it would seem. Can you please try to translate the two lines at Anagram#Numerical_anagrams. Note that all of the V's are actually U's. Thanks. — ₀₉₁₈ • 2006-01-13 05:06

They're the same letter in classical latin.

"eXorIens DeLphIn aqVILæ CorDIsqVe LeonIs CongressV gaLLos spe LætItIaqVe refeCIt."

A rough translation: On the conjunction of the eagle and the heart of the lion, the new Dauphin brings hope and happiness to the French. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Shades of the old MONGO?

It's a joke...obviously...but with all that's going on, I see no reason why we can't get ridiculous...WP:POINT on my part! User:MONGO/Sandbox

Oh the old MONGO was angry and I understood that. I could tell that you cared. And you wrote me such lovely emails. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:11, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Semiprotection removed in History of Gibraltar

Is it realistic? Have you take a look at the talk page of History of Gibraltar? It's attacked on a daily basis so that I'm afraid that your statement " Hopefully the vandal has gotten bored and gone away so I've restored full editing to this article" seem too optimistic. Maybe you could talk about this issue with Woohookitty or Dmcdevit. Best regards --Ecemaml 18:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

It's better to just lift semiprotection regularly to see what happens. Nobody is omniscient. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom Question

Hi, answered your question. Hope I covered it. If you want it further clarified, let me know! Thanks! Guapovia 19:33, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It clarified your views. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm curious. What exactly do you mean by 'doesn't understand the encyclopedia'? Do you mean the technology, the cultural interchanges behind the scene, the user interaction, or some other factor that I truly don't understand? (Of course, one vote won't make or break this, but I really would like to understand where I seem to be missing the boat.) Sincerely, Guapovia 09:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

You say: "However, starting a 'witch hunt' to make sure that no Wiki user has any such 'hate badge' would be an extremely bad idea." This is wrong. Anything promoting hatred should of course be deleted on sight. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:30, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it should be. However, diverting resources from our ultimate aim of being the 'sum of all human knowledge' is a waste. Why stoop to their level, showing them that they got the attention they wanted? Guapovia 13:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Why revert vandals? Why stoop to their level by reverting their juvenile edits and thus granting them the attention that they wanted? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:15, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Because vandals mess with the encyclopedia content. Userboxes aren't encyclopedia content - if you're not looking to find out about a user, you're not going to see a userbox. As such, they aren't the main face of Misplaced Pages - the articles are. User pages are simply less of an issue to me, somehow. I was under the impression that the encyclopedia was more of a priority for you, too. Guapovia 22:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Today I deleted the following templates:

• Template:User edit warrior
  • This described the user as an "edit warrior" and said he used editing as a weapon, although at the time I deleted it, it attempted to weasel away the implication of edit warring.

The current version (created by me) says "This user's only connection with edit warring is in the sense that information is at war with ignorance. Edit warring is always wrong", and has been moved to Template:User not edit warrior.

• Template:User exports bad drivers
  • This said that the user "believes stupid, inconsiderate, and/or overly aggressive drivers should be deported to Iran as a war effort" and included an Iranian flag. This was considered by somebody as an improvement on an earlier version that suggested exporting to France.

The environment in which we edit Misplaced Pages determines the quality of the project. Attacking people of other nations hurts Misplaced Pages. Comparing editing to a weapon of war hurts Misplaced Pages. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I see what you're saying. Thanks for the clarification! Cheers, Guapovia 07:40, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules/temp

Have you any opinions on this draft? It's been discussed at WP:VP and at the IAR talk page. --- Charles Stewart 20:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it's pretty good. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:49, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Mistress Selina Kyle

Hi Tony. You reinstated (at 1:18, 13 Jan 06) the indefinite block of MSK with the comment "Disruptive troll, block was removed against strong support on WP:AN/I". Including both previous discussion and more recent comments after that (WP:ANI#User:Mistress_Selina_Kyle), I'd say the indefinite block does not have sufficient support at this time. I'd ask you to reconsider and suggest an alternative to an indefinite block (some suggestions have been made). Thanks. Rd232 22:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Sharon Tendler/Cindy the Dolphin

Hi, I noticed that you took part in the AFD on Sharon Tendler. Well the article that was previously made before the Sharon Tendler article, which got redirected towards it is now up for deletion. I thought you might like to vote. Afd Cindy the Dolphin. Thanks Englishrose 23:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The Gibraltar articles

You un SP them today with the notation that the vandal has hopefully gotten bored. He hasn't. :) It's blocked user User:Gibraltarian, who hits the talk pages of both articles every single day. Long term alerts on ViP has a long listing on him. He's vowed to "never be silenced", so I doubt he's going away anytime soon. Re SP for now. --Woohookitty 00:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

In fact, G hit the talk page of Disputed status of Gibraltar using the IP of 212.120.225.244 just 2 hours before you unprotected the History of Gibraltar article. Main problem is that not only does he use a dynamic IP but its 8 ranges. I tried a massive range block and got roasted on it, so the only option is SP for now. --Woohookitty 00:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a good case for application of semiprotection. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

RFC/KM

You commented on Kelly Martin's second RfC. it is up for archival. you may vote at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Kelly_Martin#Archiving_this_RfC. CastAStone| 03:50, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Candidate question

I have answered. I'd appreciate if you responded and we could talk about it, but I realize that may be hard to do with 60 people. :-) Dmcdevit·t 05:49, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes and overload

Do you know if e.g. Jamesday has an opinion with respect to server load on the present amount of userboxes, categories thereof, and images thereon? Radiant_>|< 21:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

No. I'm not in regular contact with the core developers--most of my development work is focused on tools rather than the core software. You might like to ask User:Brion Vibber or somebody if there's a problem with template space. Brion isn't a regular but he was editing the past three days or so, or else you could try email or IRC. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:10, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Copied from the DRV page

• The deletion process seems to have been inverted. Now, userboxes are being speedily deleted and then people are left to argue about it afterwards without being able to see the actual template. Speedy deletion is only for cases where it is obvious that the userbox would be soundly defeated at the tfd page. With the level of the debate here I think it is obvious that were these listed at tfd, there would not be an overwhelming majority to delete. Please follow the tfd process from now on. Speedy deletion causes nothing but strife within the wikipedia community. With a transparent tfd process, even the inclusionist will see that process has been followed and will not have as much reason to be upset. Divisive userboxes have a possiblity to be harmful - the userbox wars are destroying the wikipedia community. Please use tfd from now on.--God of War 22:16, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. If I reply, I'll do so on DRV. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

That was some comment. I wish more admins where like that whith cruft pages, like slang lists.Voice of All 07:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

On Templates

Regarding the candidates' question on templates: My feeling is that the desire to 'personalize' one's online identity, the same desire that created smilies, has now created templates. Probably they are harmless ('fun') in most cases, but there exists the potential, as in the swastika example cited, for severe templates to open severe divisions in the 'community.'

But I would ask, as Misplaced Pages seems to be evolving exponentially, will there really be such a thing as the 'Misplaced Pages community' in the future? Or will special interest bands proliferate, so that edit wars will be fought between two (or more) armies of like-minded editors. Armies need uniforms, coats of arms etc. Could templates be the beginning of something like that? That would be my concern.RomaC 16:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Interesting thoughts, nice to see someone who isn't scared to blue sky. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

with the posible exception of schoolwatch every attempt to put together a group to active anything other than short term vandalism has failed. Most people do not want to get involved in draining month long conflicts.Geni 02:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

That's an interesting comparison. I suppose next thing you'll do is say I'm a poacher-turned-gamekeeper! :) But seriously, schoolwatch was about the encyclopedia. Of course it galvanised quite a lot of people into action. But I've come from Usenet where I've seen many long, long feuds, some of them passing on from one generation of Usenet posters to the next (can anyone really remember what was so awful about Stephen Boursy?) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

under most conditions the boloody minded individualism of wikipedians prevents any organised attempt to get them to work together. School watch is the only exception I can think of.11:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Reply to your Martin RFC comment

Hello Mr. Sidaway,

I note you have asked, on 14 Jan., to support my classification that you have indicated you are an "elite" user. I consider the RFC moribund, but I did wish to reply to you. Quite honestly, I would have expected you to stipulate to my classification of you; do you really think you aren't an elite user? Anyway, note that I was flexible in defining my term: words "similar" to "I can do this because I can get away with it" will do. For you, we have:

"Of course IAR is egocentric! You need to be an egomaniac to use it, and a very accomplished one to get away with it. --Tony SidawayTalk 18:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)"

and

"That's why only egomaniacs ever use this method. It's like a tightrope walk. The idiots may try it, but they don't get away with it, so it's a self-correcting mechanism. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)"

and

"A good empirical reason to trust me is that I'm nearly always right. On hypothetical examples, well they're not a lot of use if they're immediately disowned as soon as they're examined and found wanting. For an example to mean anything, surely it would have to make some kind of sense. This didn't. --Tony SidawayTalk 05:23, 25 October 2005 (UTC)"

(italics mine)

There ya go. Note that I just got this from perusing our conversations at your talk archive. Now, I'm not keen to argue this matter (as we have agreed in the past, arguments between us do little good), so I'm content simply to advance the view that the above evidence provides an at least debatable case for an elitist self-classification by you. You asked me to justify the others; I will do so only when asked by them to do so; as I'm a busy fellow, and the RfC is moribund. If you care about being "nearly always right", I trust you've considered that I had supporting evidence in mind when I advanced the categorization for each and all of you. If you wish to discuss this matter further, please contact my talk page, as I do not, and will not, watch yours. Best wishes, Xoloz 02:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

When I challenged this statement, this was the kind of reply I expected. I've said nowhere that I think I'm elite or untouchable. I emphasized the vulnerability of my approach at the time. And now it's several months later and I'm still taking carefully thought out but very bold actions. And I'm still here. I'm not elite and one day I may come a cropper. I only observe that, so far, I seem to be making enough good decisions, and nimbly sidestepping the consequences of any bad decisions, that I'm doing okay. The impression that I'm elite comes solely after the fact. When I start to do something I've no idea whether it will end up in my being arbcommed up to the hilt--indeed I never give such concerns a moment's thought), which may go some way towards explaining my boldness. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Your reply is fair enough. Your own thoughts on your status are exclusively your perogative; as long as you concede that you may give an elitist impression (which concession you seem to give above), I have no qualm with what you've said (except that I'm not sure "nimbly sidestepping the consequences of any bad decisions" is commendable -- I'd rather you accept the consequences of bad choices, as I try to do myself.) In fact, I'd whole-heartedly commend your boldness, if you were quicker to acknowledge mistakes ("I'm nearly always right" certainly gives the impression you might have more than average difficulty recognizing these mistakes), and less stalwart in defending questionable choices to the utmost. You are still here, and I am just barely hanging on, so that is an accomplishment I must admire. Best wishes, Xoloz 03:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Well if I were really as blockheaded and lacking in self-awareness as you seem to thing, I probably wouldn't still be here. At least, I wouldn't be an administrator any longer. Just a thought. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you're "block-headed" at all; without a doubt, of those who use IAR in the manner you do, you are the most sensible in defending yourself, and your intellect is obvious. I do think you're a tad low on self-awareness, since you mentioned it, but nobody's perfect. I'd be more than happy to have a non-adversarial working relationship with you, but several of your choices cross the line from boldness into -- if not quite disruption -- let's just say, unfriendliness. In all frankness, I do think you would not be administrator if you were not long-tenured, although I admit your security here is aided by your admirable habit of playing devil's advocate for the downtrodden on occasion. Best wishes, Xoloz 16:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Mentioned your name

Out of courteousy, I wanted to let you know that I mentioned your name on User talk:Ruy Lopez in regards to a discussion over an arbitration initiated by TDC and other wikipedians. Travb 10:48, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

George W. Bush

I am curious to your removal of SEMI periodically of the afterforementioned article. Could you enlighten me to why..? I'm very curious. --Megamanzero|Talk 04:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

See m:Protected pages considered harmful. Also note (Misplaced Pages:Semi-protection) that: semi-protection:

• is intended to allow good edits to be made even while there would otherwise be a serious vandalism problem on a page.
• Is not intended for pre-emptive protection of articles that might get vandalized.
• Is not intended to prohibit anonymous editing in general, and is thus not a solution to run-of-the-mill vandalism.

We cannot know whether we would have a serious vandalism problem unless we regularly remove semi-protection for the purpose of monitoring the level of vandalism and the level of good edits on the article from non-logged-in editors. The semi-protection will be removed for a period of some hours at least once a week, with the intention that if the background rate of anonymous vandalism should fall to reasonable levels the semi-protection status will be permanently removed (at least until the problem re-arises). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

80.177.165.204 Autoblocked

The IP 80.177.165.204 was autoblocked by your username. The user The Neokid (who uses that IP) has left you an email describing the reason why he should be unblocked (his friend just randomly typed Misplaced Pages in as the username and now both him and the owner, The Neokid, cannot edit).

Thank you. 72.232.4.218 19:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

See my comments on User talk:80.177.165.204 and WP:AN. Sorry I wasn't technically able to do this and I hope someone else will have success. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Talk page

You were going to steal my design. :) --Cool Cat 22:39, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

24SevenOffice

We have an apparent inconsistency. You have undeleted two articles AfDd with apparent bad-faith nom but with 100% consensus delete (on a small poll). It makes sense to me, if we are going to question Sleepyhead's AfD noms, to relist both the above, or even the lot. Or DRV the lot. But not to cherry-pick and unilaterally undelete. Maybe you have a 100% record of excellent judgment, I certainly don't so I would have gone back to the community. Is this to do with your ArbCom Super Powers? I am not disputing that some / all voters in those debates may have been ill-informed (I would have voted Keep on both, I think, judging by their content), I'm just puzzled by the inconsistency. Humour me, I only got sysoped today  :-) - Just zis  Guy, you know? / AfD? 23:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm just ziss guy, you know?

I'm not an arbitrator, and I'm not all-knowing. I just went down the list and randomly chose one article about a company I'd heard of and some more about companies I hadn't heard of. The former, on a little research, proved to be an obvious keeper so I undeleted. Of the latter, one struck me as an obvious keeper: a listed company with a turnover of some Euro 30m. Now I don't know what our guidelines say about this and I don't care, if we're deleting articles about listed companies with significant turnovers then we're being silly buggers. If guidelines are wrong they should be ignored until they're fixed.

The news that these listings were all made to make a point is the icing on the cake, but I don't see that as a problem. I don't mind if you want to go through the formalities of listing them all for deletion again. If anything important gets deleted I'll just rewrite the article in question so it cannot be deleted. And I can. I'm not a methodical worker, I'm just a troubleshooter. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I've posted SuperOffice on DRV to see if we can get a consensus for your actions. It's fine with me if it's undeleted while the discussion is active. I suggest you defend it there, because I had little to say about it. -R. fiend 04:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Blocked

You undeleted that SuperOffice article twice? Come on, you know that unilaterally subverting AFD process in that manner is unacceptable. If a newbie had been recreating deleted articles like that, no one would think twice before blocking. As an admin, I am disappointed that you did this. You have been blocked for 24 hours, however, I have watchlisted this talkpage and I will be willing to reconsider if I see some note requesting it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)