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Revision as of 22:49, 16 November 2007

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User:Thatcher131/Piggybank

Your comments at WP:RFAR

I notice you have made accusations concerning my "behavior" at the new arbitration case against User:Eyrian. I also notice you involved yourself in the case beforehand, by repeating the discredited contentious edits of Burntsauce, Neil, and JohnEMcClure, and engaging me in a disagreement over the subject, prior to making your point at WP:RFAR. I am growing weary of being targeted by deletionist administrators, for my very small part in upholding the integrity of Misplaced Pages. Kindly retract your comments about me. I do not wish to have to defend myself before the Arbitration committee in case that is not about me.Wikidemo 22:22, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that you in fact may be part of the problem, which I why I asked that any review of Eryian's socks include a review of the entire situation. I reviewed the complaint at the noticeboard and found that JohnEMcClure's edits were largely edits I would agree with. I don't like trivia and pop cultural reference sections. a) it is impossible to be comprehensive, b) it is almost impossible (and rarely done) to establish cultural significance. The example I just thought of is Milton's Lucifer in Paradise Lost, which was a significant re-imagining of the character that has had a major cultural impact of its own. You make a good case for Eris and the Discordian religion; no such argument can be made for Billy and Mandy, or even the Xena character Eris, which are used only as cultural fossils. I took a brief look at Pan (mythology). Would you say that Machen's The Great God Pan (which was a major influence on HP Lovecraft, among others) has the same importance as an episode of "Duck Tales"?

Getting back to the issue at hand, I am curious why you reverted JohnEMcClure's edits to Eris (mythology) but did not revert mine, and instead added sources and re-added one reference with cultural significance. Is it because you agree my edit had merit? If so, then why revert when Burtsauce made the same edit? Or do you still disagree with the entire removal, and only tolerate it because I am obviously not a sockpuppet of any of the previous editors you were involved with? Instead you label me a "deletionist administrator" and state that you are "upholding the integrity of Misplaced Pages." I shall not dismiss you with a similar epithet; I am willing to accept that we each are trying to "uphold the integrity of Misplaced Pages" but that we have different ideas about how to do so. If we can work together to forge a compromise, as we appear to on Eris, that is a good thing. If we can not find a compromise, then we should involve additional editors through a content RFC or third opinion.

The Arbitration Committee will decide the scope of any case it hears. Thatcher131 23:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

You may believe popular culture sections should be blanked on sight, but that is a minority position that goes against the various guidelines. ArbCom did not endorse the guidelines but it did clearly say this is a content question, for which administrative tools and disruptive editing are inappropriate. Alkivar is de-sysopped for using his tools here, and Burntsauce is banned for following in JB196's footsteps. I don't think they are ready to use ArbCom's powers to do something they just said administrators and users should not do. Let's get one thing straight here. I am not promoting trivia. I do not make these kinds of lists, and source the content I personally contribute. If I were to rewrite the Eris article I would have done exactly what I did - eliminate much of the content, sourced or not, as irrelevant, and sourced what remained. Frankly, the rest of the article needs that too, not just the popular culture section. However, I was not in the arbcom action either to champion trivia or to edit it out of articles. In the Alkivar case I saw 168 disruptive, out of process content deletions and administrative misbehavior. I was alerted by all the disruption and commotion, beginning with an AN/I report. The truth turned out far worse than expected, a long history of sockpuppets and extensive administrative abuse. In the Eyrian case the participants to the Alkivar arbitration had noticed a new sockpuppet, JohnEMcClure, copycatting BurntSauce's disruption. There too the truth was far worse underneath the surface - an administrator was trolling the parties to the case using a sock puppet. Do not let your position on the content blind you to the misbehavior at hand. The good faith dispute is one over content. This misbehavior involves bullying other users, misusing administrative tools, creating sockpuppets, and disrupting the project to make a point. Do not let your position on the content turn you into an apologist for your side's misbehavior. However much you support their content wishes they are misbehaving; however much you disagree with the others, they are not misbehaving for insisting on consensus and following guidelines. The solution to this is exactly what the guideline says. If you see a messy article fix it - find sources, integrate relevant content, and delete what's irrelevant. If you don't have the time or inclination, you can add a trivia or other maintenance tag. The thing not to do is to delete entire sections and leave it for other editors to do the real work. I could have simply reverted your edits - I do not have to do the bidding of a contentious editor simply to revert the edit as contentious. But I had some time, Eris is an interesting subject, and unlike the others you seemed to be operating in good faith on a one-time edit. However, now that you brought it up, just what were you doing picking up where Alkivar, Neil, and Burntsauce left off, immediately before participating in an arbitration case on the subject? Were you trying to provoke something too? Wikidemo 00:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not prepared to classify Eyrian's edits as trolling, rather than as an attempt to step into a disruptive area. A more thorough examination is needed. I do wonder why he did not use his main account, and I also wonder how you and others would have reacted if he had. I make no statement on the allegations regarding Alkivar and Burntsauce, which I have not studied and which refer to secret evidence that I do not have access to. I do not believe that trivia and pop culture sections should be blanked, but I believe they should be periodically reviewed for real importance and judiciously pruned. As an example, I have removed a number of references from Pan (mythology) on the grounds that if the supposed reference is not important enough for an article, then its mention in the Pan article is not justified as "notable" as described in that article. I am not sure why you believe that the appropriate option is to revert all or nothing. If I believe that an entire section is unencyclopedic and I blank it, I rather expect you to show in each case why an item is encyclopedic. That certainly falls within the expectation that content must be referenced by the person who adds it. It is not my burden to prove that a mention of Pan in Fairly Oddparents is unencyclopedic, rather it is your burden to prove that it is. Of course, this argument is a straw man on both sides; I will not blank entire sections, because I believe in using careful judgement, and you have not argued for the inclusion of Fairly Oddparents or Billy and Mandy. However, your approach of reverting the entire removal, rather than using selective judgement, is just as wrong as the approach of blanking entire sections rather than using selective judgement. Thatcher131 00:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I see that you are working on the Pan (mythology) article, and generally agree with your choices. What I would do is to keep references that are serious commentaries, legacies, and expansions of the classic myth, and shed light onto the myth and how it affects things. That tends to mean a preference for more serious, notable, and successful or critically acclaimed works - Pan's Labyrinth, for example (though that is not Pan). That means deleting the more throw-away postmodern or cheap Family Guy style, computer game, and sitcom joke instances. Where I don't know a book or film I would follow the links quickly to see just how serious it might be and use some judgment, erring on the side of deference to what might look like a serious edit. Of course that is just a content preference on my part about what makes a good article - others might favor a more more, or less, restrictive standard. I would divide up into sections that made sense, turn into prose, and if necessary leave or create a "popular culture", "contemporary culture", "literature" or similar section that best described why these things are relevant to the myth. And then sourcing, if you have time. Otherwise a trivia tag on the whole thing or better yet a fact tag on each fact that could possibly be questioned. I'm not trying to be pedantic here - you're clearly an experienced editor; just letting you know what my philosophy is. Wikidemo 00:34, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I generally agree. What I think is most interesting are references that keep a topic alive, add to its importance, or have independent relevance. Pan as a videogame character is nothing more than a sterile cultural reference; we can not list them all and should list very few if any. The Great God Pan is a significant expansion and continuation of the myth and has independent relevance and importance. (Pan's Labyrinth is acceptable as a useful clarification.) As I noted above, I am concerned that unblanking an entire section without thought is potentially as much a problem as blanking an entire section without thought, and I think a more balanced approach is needed on both sides of the issue. Thatcher131 00:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

From what you say we're probably 90% in agreement on the content, just not the methods. If people are working in good faith to edit articles that they have some desire to improve, then removing inappropriate material is a reasonable edit. That usually stands, but if someone thinks some deleted material is valuable they can restore it and, with the status quo as a baseline, the two parties and others work it out through the normal consensus editing process. That's when both sides behave. But when someone blanks sections of multiple articles at the same time because of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, to disrupt, as a sockpuppet or proxy, a deletionist campaign, to make a WP:POINT, etc., we don't owe them that. The Burntsauce sockpuppet made 168 article deletions with administrators trailing behind him to block users who opposed him. The JohnEMcClure sockpuppet re-blanked four of Burntsauce's deleted sections after people had restored them, in the middle of an ArbCom case on the subject. Eyrian admitted he did it as a test to provoke people by going "over the line" - the very definition of trolling. I want to take a strong stand against disruption on Misplaced Pages, but at the same time I have other things to do. Burntsauce spent all of 90 minutes disrupting 168 articles. For me to clean up all 168 would have taken weeks. Forcing me to do that means he wins; it validates the disruption. A single editor, unconstrained by policy, can force dozens of others to clean up his messes. That's like going to a library, tipping over a bookcase because something is misfiled, and telling everyone they can't put anything back unless it's in the right place. No, we don't work that way. It's best to undo the misbehavior and tell people to do things the right way instead. Wikidemo 01:29, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Hm. Breaching experiments are definitely a no-no. I'm going to look into this a bit further. Thatcher131 01:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration and User:Eyrian

Please can you restore his deleted user/user talk pages for the purposes of the case, if it is accepted??

As it is, I would like to be more involved in Arbitration Committee cases, but am not sure how - is being a commentator in the case a good thing?? Thanks, --Solumeiras 10:23, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Someone will undelete the pages if they are needed for evidence. Ask whoever gets listed as the clerk for the case. As to participation, everyone is welcome to make suggestions, although it would be unwise to call attention to yourself if you happen to be a bigger troublemaker than the people involved in the case. You can add evidence if you have any and make suggestions on the workshop page. Anyone who can do a thorough and fair job of summarizing the evidence into a set of reasonable principles and findings is very helpful to the arbitrators. Too often the workshop is only used as a new forum for warring parties to take shots at one another. Thatcher131 01:37, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

• I think you've made some good ideas, Thatcher131. I don't know when/if I'll be able to participate as I'm on the road a fair bit these days. As it is, edit warring and slanging matches aren't good for anyone, in my opinion. I've also copied your advice to my talk page too (using the {{quote}} template) Thanks, --Solumeiras 10:02, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Cool Hand Luke

What would also help diffuse tensions is for Cool Hand Luke to stop harassing me, including reverting my edits to articles that do not violate policies and guidelines. CHL, who filled in for THF in the ArbCom, and I do not care for each other and he is now harassing me. --David Shankbone 16:12, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Wolfowitz

Yes, the latest issue was on Wolfowitz' BLP. I'm sorry I didn't provide context; I rushed those two noticeboard posts, and I'm always wary of maybe revealing too much given the sensitivity of this conflict. I've had a longstanding issue with DS inserting links to his own Wikinews articles - he's done it perhaps a dozen times - but after our conflict on that arbcom case (THF-DavidShankBone) I let it drop. When he started editing THF's BLP again, that's when I started watching again. ATren 17:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm detaching from this conflict. I'm sick of being attacked ("And now we have the other ArbCom warrior who is also adept at trolling my edits") every time I object to David's edits. I've been civil through all my dealings with him, even when he was raising an unrelated year-old dispute in every discussion. It's clear he will never let this thing go, and it's also clear that nobody is willing to do anything about it. If you have any questions about my involvement with David, feel free to ask. I stand by everything I've every done in that conflict. ATren 17:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Elvis Presley and Onefortyone

I realize you may be busy; I'm new at this complainin' stuff and read of your involvement with 141 in a dispute. I want to flag up his continued disruption to improvements sought by reasonable editors of the Presley article. Can someone like you take a look? 141 is on the verge of driving good people away for good - including me. If we have to take a particular course of action, I worry it will be time consuming. Thank you anyway. Rikstar 13:11, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It is very interesting that user Rikstar has used your first edit concerning the harassing activities of user Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo and his many sockpuppets in order to promote a personal agenda. See . My behavior is certainly not disruptive as I am frequently citing my sources, among them mainstream biographies, university studies and articles by reputed authors. What Rikstar has cited was posted before you were aware of these activities. You also wrote,

Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo reported Onefortyone (talk · contribs) for probation violations at arbitration enforcement. I was curious about the number of single purpose accounts edit-warring with Onefortyone on multiple celebrity accounts, and asked Dmcdevit to look into it. He found the above list of confirmed sockpuppets. All are banned, except Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo who was blocked for a week pending review of the situation. Thatcher131 00:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC) See .

Therefore, you immediately lifted all of my bans because they were wrongly set. See .

There is much evidence that I am still the target of some few Elvis fans, as I was in the past. See this older statement by administrator Redwolf24 who said that Wilkes and Wyss were harassing me, "and I've seen them go out of their way to revert him." The arbcom was of the same opinion. To my mind, it is no coincidence that the same deleting tactics concerning similar topics now continue. The arbcom clearly says that "Onefortyone's editing has substantially improved from that in the earlier arbitration cases. A sampling of edits shows reference to reliable sources without overstating of their content. To a greater extent he allows the reader to draw their own conclusions." See . So why are many of my edits relating to the Elvis Presley article frequently removed by one or two other users? You may also remember my commentaries here. Onefortyone 23:55, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• Onefortyone is on probation and may be banned from articles he disrupts. Rikstar, you can request enforcement at WP:AE. Please include a link to the case and some diffs showing disruptive behavior that you think warrants a ban. Please note that quoting my original block message without also quoting the resolution is somewhat misleading. Also, both of you should be aware that when dealing with a person about whom many credible biographies have been written, deciding which sources to use and how to use them is a matter for editorial judgement. Disagreements should be handled by seeking outside help through the RFC or third opinion process, at least to start. Thatcher131 01:29, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

reply

Thatcher, I was contacted by friend to write a short answer ... I am Tajik and not the other IP who posted the text above ... first of all, you have not explained anything ... I wrote 5 E-Mails to you, asking you for help ... you did not reply any of them ... you simply ignored me ... The Arbitrators endorsed the ban based on your wrong accusation ... an accusation that has been disproved by CheckUser! ... during the ArbCom case, I was in Berlin and I had asked all of your for a short break ... meanwhile, User:Tajik-Professor began to vandalize certain articles, and you took advantage of the case and accused me of having a sockpuppet ... Not even User:E104421, my alleged opponent in the ArbCom believed this nonsense ... various other users, including User:Ali_doostzadeh, User:KP Botany, User:E104421, admin User:Alex Bakharev, etc have told you and others to investigate the case, but it is mainly you who is blocking this ... It is not silly that certain IPs edit articles ... Misplaced Pages is an open encyclopedia ... but it is silly that admins like you abuse their posistion and power in order to get rid of people they do not like ... It is also very interesting that by now, my alleged sockpuppet User:Tajik-Professor has been unbanned and that various vandals from the Azerbaijan-Armenia ArbCom are allowed to come back after 1 year, but I will be still blocked because of your wrong accusation.

I do not understand why you are unable to admit your mistake ... and I do not understand why you do not want to give me a second chance, a chance to explain my case ... I was muzzled by the manipulated ArbCom, and you want to keep me muzzled ... instead, you hide yourself behind this manipulated and illegal ArbCom decision ... You were the one who came up with the wrong accusation, you were the one who manipulated the ArbCom case, and you are the one who has been disproved by CheckUser ... so, actually, it is your duty to re-investigate the case or at least to open another ArbCom case. What are you affraid of, Thatcher?! That you lose your admin rights?! 82.83.134.144 (talk) 22:49, 16 November 2007 (UTC)