Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:34, 21 February 2014

Archives

1, 2

This page has archives. Sections older than 20 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.

This Month in Education: January 2014

A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	For your work at User:Kevin_Gorman/Wiki-PR. Bearian (talk) 01:29, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you... I hoped that resurrecting a few pieces of their past work would help counter some of Wiki-PR's recent public rhetoric. It's worth noting that I didn't pick out the worst seven pieces I could find, and also only resurrected pieces that could 100% be linked to them. I did offered to French via email that I would be happy to add any pieces of work they had done that were of substantially higher quality than the ones I had already resurrrected; he didn't reply. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:42, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thanks for answering my "conflict of interest" question. Jessica0Peace (talk) 01:54, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hi Jessica0Peace - thanks to you for starting to edit Misplaced Pages :) please feel free to stop by my talk page if you have any followup questions about anything or need any help with anything. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:43, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Recent Edits

Hi! You recently helped edit Michele Colucci, an article I wrote, and I would appreciate if you would please consider contributing to the ongoing discussion about possible deletion of this article. Thank you. --Vindeniträden (talk) 21:45, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Please see

User:Smallbones/Questions on FTC rules Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:43, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for the invitation Smallbones, but I'm going to hold off signing for now due to an interesting series of in-progress events. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 17:19, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Libyan Civil War

Hey, you protected this page as a result of IP disruption after this AN discussion; one of the IPs went back to the page after the protection ended and continued their previous crusade, and the other notified me of it on my talk page today. What do you suggest is the best course of action? Thanks, ₆ansh₆ 20:33, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

• I'll reprotect it if they return again, but the edit you reverted was ~10 days old and they haven't come back yet. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:36, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Sounds good. I haven't been watching the page, and the other IP just noticed it, so we'll see if the first IP comes back and does it again. I'll let you know. Thanks, ₆ansh₆ 20:43, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
    • The IP is back: see - I don't appreciate my good-faith edits being called "possible vandalism", but whatever. Do you think a formal RfC or something of the sort would help there? ₆ansh₆ 20:24, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
    • Both IPs are also back at it on National Transitional Council... ₆ansh₆ 20:33, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ansh - for now, I've thrown semiprotection on both pages because I agree that the IP edits are disruptive. I will review the length and other action necessary later tonight, as I'm in a bit of a rush atm. I'll try to provide advice about how to move forward as I can, but it is likely going to be faster if you ask another admin - unfortunately, I have a >60 hour week this week. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:16, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Alright, no problem. Take it easy! Thanks, ₆ansh₆ 21:23, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

User talk:KajMetz

Hi, Kevin, I just unblocked KajMetz based on their unblock request. I normally don't unblock without first consulting with the blocking admin, but you said at AN3 that you were off to bed and gave permission to any admin to act as they wished. Hopefully, you had a good rest. Regards.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:39, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

• No worries, looks good to me; thanks for handling it. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you

Someone needs to take a stand against what vested contributors are doing to our community.

		The Admin's Barnstar
		For an uncommonly, and very justifiably, brave start to your career. Pakaran 00:24, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Have another one...

		The Resilient Barnstar
		For calmly and coolly dealing with a deluge of abuse, personal attacks and harassment that resulted from a good-faith effort to enforce Misplaced Pages policies. You handled this ugly mess far better than most users would. Robofish (talk) 00:46, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of Integrity
		For recognising that actions on-wiki have implications off-wiki too. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:15, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

	The Resilient Barnstar
	For believing in the importance of human dignity and being willing to defend that belief. Kaldari (talk) 03:51, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of Integrity
		For standing by your values in the face of calls to step down as a brand-new administrator. Jackmcbarn (talk) 04:17, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Elisabeth Camp

Probably I'm missing something, but she seems to have significantly less of a publishing record than most academics who would pass WP:PROF. Based on AfDs, Associate Professors even at places like Berkeley are often not accepted here , & I usually avoid working on their articles unless there is something special. DGG ( talk ) 00:19, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hi DGG: it's one of my pieces that is still in progress; I have a good number of severely paywalled RS'es talking about her. Once some of the current situation calms down a little bit, I'll update the article and drop you a note to see what you think about it. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:49, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hi DGG: just to ensure you I haven't forgotten, this is still on my radar. Unfortunately, some of the sources I need to write the article a bit more I'll only be able to access on Monday. To give you some idea of why I wrote an article about her on the first place: Quite a bit has been written about Camp's work, definitely more than enough to pass WP:AUTHOR. Brian Leiter, who runs a very well respected philosophy blog (not dissimilar in stature to Groklaw or The Volokh Conspiracy,) singled out her move to Rutgers as solidifying Rutgers' standing as the #2 philosophy department in the US. Her organizational work has also been written about quite a bit.

All in all, I wrote about her because I think she's an interesting person who definitely meets WP:AUTHOR, I would strongly argue meets WP:ACADEMIC, and certainly meets the GNG - she certainly stands out over most academics. (It's also worth noting that Rutgers has a much stronger philosophy department than we do at Berkeley - Rutgers is typically ranked #2 in the US by the Philosophical Gourmet Report, which is the most widely accepted ranking of philo departments in the English speaking world, whereas Berkeley is normally ranked around #17. That said, I'll add in more sources as I can (and once I've finished my first round of making bios that are close to being stubs, I intend to go over them again, and add significantly more information about their work.) I'm also hoping to get some USEP classes involved in the near future to help build out some of the conceptual articles that will allow for the bios I'm writing to more easily explain the work of the philosophers I'm writing about (right now, we're missing almost all conceptual articles in the fields a lot of the people I am writing about are active in.) Best, Kevin Gorman (talk)

• This is on my to-do list for this week. Since I initially posted the article, two RS'es dealing with her have popped up in the popular press, and there's 7-8 paywalled articles I'll be working off as well. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:27, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Do something that you enjoy....

.... is great advice, given to me several years ago. Misplaced Pages is about contributing your own time, free of charge (for most of us), to better the collection of human knowledge that's freely available. Becoming an admin is a good thing mostly, it means once you've had enough experience, you can help reduce the ever-increasing tide of detritus (alternatively, it opens you up to a tirade of insults, false accusations etc). It also makes you feel that you are better enabled to wade into situations. Most often, that wading will end up with you up to (if not over) your neck. There's an inherent inertia (or forcefield, or something) in Misplaced Pages in certain corners, and there are dark and dusty and cobwebby cubbyholes where you are probably best advised to avoid, a bit like a "dark Misplaced Pages", where all the normal pillars are ignored.

I see you're through the maelstrom, and hopefully that means you can return to doing (a) what you found interesting and enjoyable about Misplaced Pages and (b) things to benefit the encyclopaedia. Getting involved in certain patches around here is inevitably going to end in disaster, and sadly you picked one of those. My advice is harmless, really, but I do get tired of some editors spewing bile, threatening retirement time after time after time after time after time......., diva-esque, while their defensive minions rush around screeching. To reiterate, do something you enjoy. Best wishes. Feel free to delete, of course. Just some ramblings. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, TRM... one of the kind of funny things about this week has been that I've actually spent a huge portion of it doing fun, enjoyable work that is going to result in quite a bit of benefit to the encyclopedia. One of the reasons that many of my replies have been delayed on issues this week on-wiki is that I've been spending large chunks of time in meetings with GLAM's about content donations, as well as training upper division undergrads in preparation for having them write significant missing articles about environmental justice issues :) I find it a bit amazing that we don't even have an article about climate resilience, and soon we shall. Best wishes, Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:43, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

This Month in Education: February 2014

WP:AIV

I responded to your block notice in diff; this is more an conflict dispute than vandalism. Cheers, Deville (Talk) 01:55, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Responded to you there... but repeatedly blanking content that belongs there both according to literally every source you can find on the subject and common sense isn't a content dispute. It's vandalism. I can go make an ANEW report as necessary since it'll pull a block either place, but it seems a bit silly to send an obvious case that can fit in to two boards from one board to another. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:02, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

For future reference, there are discretionary sanctions on the Ayn Rand topic areas from Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ayn Rand that can be used. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:42, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I went beyond the report at WP:AIV and did a preliminary look into the edit war. Admittedly, I have very little knowledge about the subject which may have serendipitously assisted in terms of uninvolved. What was clear to me was that there were seemingly legitimate grounds that this person should be included on that list as there was a reliable source, the article was a GA, and that there were plenty of supplementary articles like Objectivism (Ayn Rand) that supported the claim she was a female philosopher. My block was already in place when I saw Mark Arsten's link about the ArbCom case. As such I blocked under the grounds of disruptive editing. Blanking can be a grey area and I think at this point we should all move on give the net result was (hopefully) agreeable to all reviewing parties. Mkdw 07:52, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for February 17

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Misplaced Pages appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Peg O'Connor, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Douglas Lewis (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:00, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Request for arbitration

I have requested a case for arbitration which involves you.  Giano  21:05, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• There's something kind of funny about filing an arbcom request that includes a complaint that I refer to people by previous usernames while at the same time failing to spell my name correctly. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:49, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Did you know the admirable simplicity of Giano's user page: one castle and one category? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:23, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Gerda, but it's sometimes unimportant what people think - this is one such time. Kevin must find his amusement where he can. The important thing is achieve some rebalance to Eric's reputation.  Giano  12:18, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Giano, I just noticed that Kevin made a mistake that I had made before (telling you that you misspelled a name), - we should keep learning, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:30, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Don't worry Gerda; I can even spell my own name wrong - if it's not in spell checker it can come out in 50 different ways.  Giano  15:54, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Intended point taken Gerda, I hadn't noticed the cat before. I hadn't intended anything particularly malicious from commenting on his misspelling of his name, I just legitimately found it a bit amusing, especially given that I tend to refer to Eric by his former username out of completely innocuous reasons (mainly, if I refer to someone just as "Eric" in a conversation with people who are active on Wikimedia projects outside of ENWP, people tend to think of a number of people before they think of Eric Corbett. (AFAIK, Eric's never asked anyone not to refer to him as Malleus; I'd certainly avoid doing so if he'd asked me to do so, or if I had ever noticed him asking anyone else not to do so.) 22:42, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I like simplicity, and I admire the castle, missing its builder. As far as I know, Eric talked to me first about using his real name, did you know? Quote: "I think a little more openness might go a long way." --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:55, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Why not just go and apologize to Eric/Malleus? That wouldn't hurt anyone.--MONGO 20:36, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

• That is the smartest thing I've heard all day. Sometimes, a simple apology is enough. If it isn't enough, it was still due. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 16:31, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• @MONGO, Kevin already explained why not in detail here: I am not going to apologize to Eric for several reasons. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 01:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
• As a bit of additional explanation: I don't believe that insincere apologies are respectful, and I think that even Eric would agree with me on that point. I certainly feel sorry about the situation as a whole, but I have a hard time feeling sincerely sorry for a comment I made based off of flawed information to someone whose first response asking him to lay off his participation in a thread was to undo my IAR hatting, whose second response was "What are you, an idiot? How can I be under a BLP sanction for commenting on someone who's dead?", and whose subsequent responses went down from there, culminating in him ragequitting. I'm sure it would satisfy some number of people if I went and posted a mea culpa on his talk page directed explicitly at him, but I don't think it would satisfy him, and I don't think it would be terribly respectful to do so. I made a general life rule some time ago to only apology in situations where I can do so sincerely. If his responses had gone down a different pathway, I'd likely have apologized to him directly some time ago. As it is: I don't feel sincerely sorry for offending Eric, and don't think an apology would carry meaning. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
  • What kind of response do you think was likely after you dropped the largest and most pointy warning box possible (you have violated BLP ... enforced by block ... this is your only warning ... made pursuant to the requirements of this Arbitration remedy) diff? You failed to discuss anything without including threats of blocks (hint: that's not a discussion). No one cares if you offended Eric—it is the underlying issue that should be addressed, namely the correctness of your initial assessment (there was a BLP violation, and there was gravedancing, and Eric lacked common decency). I have said more in response to a suggestion at my talk). Johnuniq (talk) 02:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
  • You are rationalizing. You made some significant errors in judgement here, and your mistakes are by far a larger problem than his. Eric's mistakes are moot when it comes to your own culpability, they don't justify your mistakes. If anything, you have shot yourself in the foot and guaranteed that no one can even approach him about his mistakes as you won't properly rectify the issue. As an admin, you are held to a higher standard, one you accepted when you got the bit. We all make mistakes, but we admin don't have the luxury of casually walking away from ours. You left the job half done at Arb, although I'm glad you at least started it. If you are not capable of rising above your personal opinions of an editor (Eric or anyone else), and accept responsibility for obvious mistakes without comparing to theirs, then you should do some soul searching as to whether or not adminship is right for you. As an aside, your actions make life more difficult for all admin, and reinforce all the negative stereotypes we endure. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 02:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Ayup

I have been told by a little bird that <redacted for now> is a certain identifiable academic who has a RW dispute with <redacted for now>, and therefore should not be editing that article <redacted for now>. Do you know anything of this, please? You can email if you prefer to keep real names off teh wikipediaz. Thanks, Guy (Help!) 22:10, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Guy, I'll drop you an email when I can, I'm currently finishing up an email to all parties involved. I am aware of the situation, and think that it will be resolved amicably on both sides. I hope you don't mind, but I redacted the names of both parties as well as some information that would make them identifiable on this talk page for now in hopes that the issue can be resolved quickly. Once I've finished up the email to them, I'll drop you an email with more details. I'd discuss it directly on wiki, but believe that the best chance of not escalating the dispute is to handle it off-wiki. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:15, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this. Best of luck dealing with prickly academic temperaments. Guy (Help!) 00:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Notification of case being declined

Hello. An Arbitration Case Request that you were listed as being an involved party to titled Kevin Gorman—Eric Corbett has been declined and closed. If you would like to read the arbitrators' comments you can do so here.--Rockfang (talk) 05:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Response to your final RFAR post

Kevin, yes, you did say in future you'd take different action, i.e. sending Email to emergency@wikimedia.org or contacting two arbitrators. (Both suggestions from Giano so that you wouldn't act unilaterally; apparently you found them acceptable after receiving same suggestions off-wiki from other editors, including third alternative of protecting the Jimbo Talk page.)

When you wrote "flood of comments I've received, both on and offwiki, from people I respect pointing out a good number of the flaws in my actions" that seemed to imply numerous on-wiki comments, but in those editors you listed, 1) there are no conversations on the matter between you & admin Dennis Brown on your user Talk or his user Talk, 2) ditto re admin Floquenbeam, and 3) the only post by admin Drmies was the one on your user Talk Feb 12, where he basically discouraged you from carrying out your plan of producing "50 diffs" to "prove" that Eric Corbett is the most uncivil editor (so, that doesn't really qualify as "pointing out flaws in my actions" since it was not an action but an intimidation you created at the ANI thread Eric opened against you, and not related to the OP thread on Jimbo's Talk where you proceeded to take actions). So of the five admins you listed that leaves two who you say pointed out flaws in your actions that you took to heart. There are a total of five posts by admin Snowolf on your user Talk, over the days Feb 9 & 10 in which he emplores you to take a step back for reflection, because it was a non-issue, that you were making mistakes, and that you were wrong in your facts and on BLP policy. (Did you take his comments to heart? When? Because on Feb 11 you posted this : "Was the action utterly justifiable? Yes, and I stand by that more strongly than I did when I made it .") So that leaves comments by admin Writ Keeper, who on Feb 11 posted to your user Talk that there was no basis in BLP policy as you were asserting. You appear to have taken that to heart, by striking the text in your templated warning to Eric, but I've never seen you admit your policy interpretation was flawed. At any rate, that is one "person you respected" who have correcting advice on-wiki that you appear to have accepted. (One doesn't constitute "a flood", nor even "some".) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 05:46, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• I didn't suggest I would send an email to emergency or contact two arbitrators. Given the general tenseness around, please make an active effort to not misrepresent what I've said. Frankly, contacting two arbitrators in a similar situation would be a bad idea. Arbs sleep, and relying on two arbs to be awake when a situation needed action wouldn't make much sense. I believe the last thing I pointed out (and these were not suggestions from Giano) were that I'd go ahead and email arbcom (as a whole,) email emergency, and call Philippe directly in a similar situation in the future, and would have done the same if I had known certain things ahead of time.

You may not like it, but a lot of communication takes place off-wiki, and a lot of the time communication taking place off-wiki is both necessary and desirable. Case in point: the section from Guy (an OTRS agent) several up from here where the most reasonable chance of success (and least likely to get us banned for WP:OUTING) involved a discussion off-wiki (where someone managed to post several times suggesting that off-wiki communication with an OTRS agent was inappropriate.)

You may also have noticed that Floquenbeam was a recused arbitrator in the request, in addition to being an admin - you can guess where I may have had a conversation with her. Many of the people I listed I spoke to both on and off of wiki. You can see an example of this in Snowolf's parting comment: "I have discussed the matter briefly with Kevin and I am satisfied with his assurance that the off-wiki discussion were proper. Amusingly, said discussion came off-wiki :D --Snowolf". (You may also note that Snowolf is a steward, rather than/in addition to an admin, and Writ is a crat in addition to an admin. I'm not suggesting that those statuses mean that their opinions are more significant (well, perhaps for the arb...,) just pointing them out for accuracy.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Huh?! (Do you want me to provide diffs of your posts? Short of that, above you write: I didn't suggest I would send an email to emergency, and then: he last thing I pointed out were that I'd go ahead and email emergency.) Giano suggested you contact arbs or WMF. (So why are you denying that too?) Please keep a straight story. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 07:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC) p.s. Do you want those diffs? p.p.s. I'm not interested in, nor have I ever brought up, issue of on-wiki vs. off-wiki communications. (So please leave those topics with others, not me.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 07:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

You seem to be having some trouble parsing what I'm saying. I'm going to respond to this post because I can see how one clause could be confusing, but will be shutting this section down if you continue to post things that are either misunderstandings of what I've said, or deliberate omissions (since as what Cullen pointed out below, your post directly above, or the first sentence of your first post in this section.) I said "I didn't suggest I would send an email to emergency or contact two arbitrators." and intended that as a complete clause. Saying that I would send an email to emergency does not falsify that clause. Did Giano suggest I contact arbs or WMF? He may have, somewhere. He wasn't the first (by any means,) didn't suggest the contact means I've laid out, and certainly isn't the reason why I will be doing so in the future. I sincerely doubt that he suggested I specifically contact two arbs, because that's bluntly a bad idea, and I have no doubt Giano is intelligent, so if you have a diff, go ahead. Kevin Gorman (talk) 07:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Ihardlythinkso, I was involved in the initial discussion on Jimbo's talk page. On February 11, Kevin and I discussed the matter off-wiki, through Facebook, and I gave him both some general advice and some specific advice that was implicitly critical of some of his conduct. I think that it is unproductive to try to count the number of people who interacted with Kevin about this, and to try to determine whether or not that constituted a "flood" which is an imprecise term in this context. Why not move on and work on improving the encyclopedia instead? Cullen Let's discuss it 06:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@Cullen, you don't get the point ... Kevin has consistently shown obtuse weasel-wordiness in this whole affair. Suggesting there was "a flood" of on-wiki corrections from "people he respects", when there was just one, is another example. (Kevin selected the manipulative and untrue "flood" as manner of excuse and defense -- I didn't -- all I've done is shown there is no veracity to the meaning. So please quit tryng to shame me baselessly.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 06:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

IHTS, please be productive. You have no idea who I talked to, or in what contexts. One of the people I had thought of naming but didn't (because some people have gotten very cranky about off-wiki communication occurring,) just volunteered himself. You have no idea how many people I've spoken with, in what contexts, or what they said. I've named multiple people whose words influenced me, and there are many more I didn't name. After two ANI's without action taken, and an RFAR as well, I think it's reasonable that I request you be productive and truthful here or elsewise go elsewhere. Kevin Gorman (talk) 07:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I am certainly not trying to shame anyone, Ihardlythinkso. I simply reported, accurately, that I was among those who offered some off-wiki criticism to him. The quote in your initial post included "both on and offwiki". Why, then, did you drop "offwiki" from your last comment? What is accomplished by continuing to question Kevin on this? Cullen Let's discuss it 07:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

When you are relying on a quote from Kevin that specifically mentions off-wiki communication, and if you then proceed to criticize the credibility of that quote, then logic and fairness compels you to be "interested" in off-wiki communication, Ihardlythinkso. Cullen Let's discuss it 07:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

That's BS, Cullen. (You can't go around making up stuff and putting same in the mind and mouth of editors, then making them responsible for same. That's manipulative. And worse.) I have no interest in off-wiki communication, and never have. Kevin is the party who implied there was "a flood" of on-wiki corrections from editors he took to heart -- not me. My analysis was about that -- and showed there was only one. (Then you attack me and try and shame me, and I have no idea what valid basis you have for that. The simple fact is that your post here was unnecessary since it was based on a reading mistake that you made -- and I am not accountable for that. So please, kindly, get off my case with the manipulative nonsense.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 07:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Just as a note so the previous two lines make sense: while Cullen was replying to IHTS, I removed a post of IHTS as disingenuous at best, as I had previously stated I would do. Kevin Gorman (talk) 07:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)