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Unresolved old stuff

Cueless billiards

Unresolved – Can't get at the stuff at Ancestry; try using addl. cards.
Extended content

Categories are not my thing but do you think there are enough articles now or will be ever to make this necessary? Other than Finger billiards and possibly Carrom, what else is there?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Crud fits for sure. And if the variant in it is sourceable, I'm sure some military editor will fork it into a separate article eventually. I think at least some variants of bar billiards are played with hands and some bagatelle split-offs probably were, too (Shamos goes into loads of them, but I get them all mixed up, mostly because they have foreign names). And there's bocce billiards, article I've not written yet. Very fun game. Kept my sister and I busy for 3 hours once. Her husband (Air Force doctor) actually plays crud on a regular basis; maybe there's a connection She beat me several times, so it must be from crud-playing. Hand pool might be its own article eventually. Anyway, I guess it depends upon your "categorization politics". Mine are pretty liberal - I like to put stuff into a logical category as long as there are multiple items for it (there'll be two as soon as you're done with f.b., since we have crud), and especially if there are multiple parent categories (that will be the case here), and especially especially if the split parallels the category structure of another related category branch (I can't think of a parallel here, so this criterion of mine is not a check mark in this case), and so on. A bunch of factors really. I kind of wallow in that stuff. Not sure why I dig the category space so much. Less psychodrama, I guess. >;-) In my entire time here, I can only think of maybe one categorization decision I've made that got nuked at CfD. And I'm a pretty aggressive categorizer, too; I totally overhauled Category:Pinball just for the heck of it and will probably do the same to Category:Darts soon.
PS: I'm not wedded to the "cueless billiards" name idea; it just seemed more concise than "cueless developments from cue sports" or whatever.— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 11:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
I have no "categorization politics". It's not an area that I think about a lot or has ever interested me so it's good there are people like you. If there is to be a category on this, "cueless billiards" seems fine to me. By the way, just posted Yank Adams as an adjunct to the finger billiards article I started.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Cool; I'd never even heard of him. This one looks like a good DYK; just the fact that there was Finger Billiards World Championship contention is funky enough, probably. You still citing that old version of Shamos? You really oughta get the 1999 version; it can be had from Amazon for cheap and has a bunch of updates. I actually put my old version in the recycle bin as not worth saving. Heh. PS: You seen Stein & Rubino 3rd ed.? I got one for the xmas before the one that just passed, from what was then a really good girlfriend. >;-) It's a-verra, verra nahce. Over 100 new pages, I think (mostly illustrations). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 13:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
If I happen to come across it in a used book store I might pick it up. There's nothing wrong with citing the older edition (as I've said to you before). I had not heard of Adams before yesterday either. Yank is apparently not his real name, though I'm not sure what it is yet. Not sure there will be enough on him to make a DYK (though don't count it out). Of course, since I didn't userspace it, I have 4½ days to see. Unfortunately, I don't have access to ancestry.com and have never found any free database nearly as useful for finding newspaper articles (and census, birth certificates, and reams of primary source material). I tried to sign up for a free trial again which worked once before, but they got smart and are logging those who signed up previously. I just looked; the new Stein and Rubino is about $280. I'll work from the 2nd edition:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Hmm... I haven't tried Ancestry in a while. They're probably logging IP addresses. That would definitely affect me, since mine doesn't change except once every few years. I guess that's what libraries and stuff are for. S&R: Should be available cheaper. Mine came with the Blue Book of Pool Cues too for under $200 total. Here it is for $160, plus I think the shipping was $25. Stein gives his e-mail address as that page. If you ask him he might give you the 2-book deal too, or direct you to where ever that is. Shamos: Not saying its an unreliable source (although the newer version actually corrected some entries), it's just cool because it has more stuff in it. :-) DYK: Hey, you could speedily delete your own article, sandbox it and come back. Heh. Seriously, I'll see if I can get into Ancestry again and look for stuff on him. I want to look for William Hoskins stuff anyway so I can finish that half of the Spinks/Hoskins story, which has sat in draft form for over a year. I get sidetracked... — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 14:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
It's not IPs they're logging, it's your credit card. You have to give them one in order to get the trial so that they can automatically charge you if you miss the cancellation deadline. Regarding the Blue Book, of all these books, that's the one that get's stale, that is, if you use it for actual quotes, which I do all the time, both for answer to questions and for selling, buying, etc. Yeah I start procrastinating too. I did all that work on Mingaud and now I can't get myself to go back. I also did reams of research on Hurricane Tony Ellin (thugh I found so little; I really felt bad when he died; I met him a few times, seemed like a really great guy), Masako Katsura and others but still haven't moved on them.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Ah, the credit card. I'll have to see if the PayPal plugin has been updated to work with the new Firefox. If so, that's our solution - it generates a new valid card number every time you use it (they always feed from your single PayPal account). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 18:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
PayPal Plugin ist kaput. Some banks now issue credit card accounts that make use of virtual card numbers, but mine's not one of them. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 19:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for trying. It was worth a shot. I signed up for a newspaperarchive.com three month trial. As far as newspaper results go it seems quite good so far, and the search interface is many orders of magnitude better than ancestry's, but it has none of the genealogical records that ancestry provides. With ancestry I could probably find census info on Yank as well as death information (as well as for Masako Katsura, which I've been working on it for a few days; she could actually be alive, though she'd be 96).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Sad...

How well forgotten some very well known people are. The more I read about Yank Adams, the more I realize he was world famous. Yet, he's almost completely unknown today and barely mentioned even in modern billiard texts.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Reading stuff from that era, it's also amazing how important billiards (in the three-ball sense) was back then, with sometimes multiple-page stories in newspapers about each turn in a long match, and so on. It's like snooker is today in the UK. PS: I saw that you found evidence of a billiards stage comedy there. I'd never heard of it! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 15:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Jackpot. Portrait, diagrams, sample shot descriptions and more (that will also lend itself to the finger billiards article).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Nice find! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 06:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)


Look at the main page

Unresolved – Katsura News added (with new TFA section) to WP:CUE; need to see if I can add anything useful to Mingaud article.
Extended content

Look at the main page --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Since you don't appear to have seen this near to the time I left it, it might be a little cryptic without explanation. Masako Katsura was today's featured article on January 31, 2011.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:26, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Supah-dupah! That kicks. WP:CUE's (and your?) first TFA, yes?! And yeah I have been away a lot lately. Long story. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 01:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, my first, though I have another in the works (not billiards related). I think François Mingaud could be a candidate in the near future. I really wanted to work it up to near FA level before posting it but another user created it recently, not realizing my draft existed, and once they did realize, copied some of my content without proper copyright attribution and posted to DYK. I have done a history merge though the newer, far less developed content is what's seen in the article now. I'm going to merge the old with the new soon. Glad to see your back.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
My front and sides are visible too. ;-) Anyway, glad you beat me to Mingaud. I'd been thinking of doing that one myself, but it seemed a bit daunting. I may have some tidbits for it. Lemme know when your merged version goes up, and I'll see what I have that might not already be in there. Probably not earthshaking, just a few things I found in 1800s-1910s books. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 16:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Some more notes on Crystalate

Unresolved – New sources/material worked into article, but unanswered questions remain.
Extended content

Some more notes: they bought Royal Worcester in 1983 and sold it the next year, keeping some of the electronics part.; info about making records:; the chair in 1989 was Lord Jenkin of Roding:; "In 1880, crystalate balls made of nitrocellulose, camphor, and alcohol began to appear. In 1926, they were made obligatory by the Billiards Association and Control Council, the London-based governing body." Amazing Facts: The Indispensable Collection of True Life Facts and Feats. Richard B. Manchester - 1991; a website about crystalate and other materials used for billiard balls:. Fences&Windows 23:37, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll have to have a look at this stuff in more detail. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 15:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
I've worked most of it in. Fences&Windows 16:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
Cool! From what I can tell, entirely different parties held the trademark in different markets. I can't find a link between Crystalate Mfg. Co. Ltd. (mostly records, though billiard balls early on) and the main billiard ball mfr. in the UK, who later came up with "Super Crystalate". I'm not sure the term was even used in the U.S. at all, despite the formulation having been originally patented there. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 21:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:SAL

Unresolved – Not done yet, last I looked.
Extended content

No one has actually objected to the idea that it's really pointless for WP:SAL to contain any style information at all, other than in summary form and citing MOS:LIST, which is where all of WP:SAL's style advice should go, and SAL page should move back to WP:Stand-alone lists with a content guideline tag. Everyone who's commented for 7 months or so has been in favor of it. I'd say we have consensus to start doing it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll take a look at the page shortly. Thanks for the nudge. SilkTork 23:19, 2 March 2012 (UTC)


Your free 1-year HighBeam Research account is ready

Unresolved – Needs to be renewed, if I come back.
Extended content

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Thanks for helping make Misplaced Pages better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi 04:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Your Credo Reference account is approved

Unresolved – Needs to be renewed, if I come back.
Extended content

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Thanks for helping make Misplaced Pages better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi 17:22, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Yay! — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:50, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Circa

Unresolved – Need to file the RfC.
Extended content

This edit explains how to write "ca.", which is still discouraged at ], WP:YEAR, WP:SMOS#Abbreviations, and maybe MOS:DOB, and after you must have read my complaint and ordeal at WT:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Circa. Either allow "ca." or don't allow "ca.", I don't care which, but do it consistently. Art LaPella (talk) 15:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a good WP:RFC. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:52, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
It's been hard to get opinions on circa in the past. Anyway, can I undo that edit, until when and if someone wants to edit the other guidelines to match? If we leave it there indefinitely, nobody will notice except me. Art LaPella (talk) 20:17, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't care; this will have to be dealt with in an RfC anyway. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 20:44, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Done (now I don't need to wonder if the RfC will ever be acted on :) ) Art LaPella (talk) 21:08, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

You post at Misplaced Pages talk:FAQ/Copyright

Unresolved – Need to fix William A. Spinks, etc., with proper balkline stats, now that we know how to interpret them.
Extended content

That page looks like a hinterland (you go back two users in the history and you're in August). Are you familiar with WP:MCQ? By the way, did you see my response on the balkline averages?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:54, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I did a bunch of archiving yesterday. This page was HUGE. It'll get there again. I'd forgotten MCQ existed. Can you please add it to the DAB hatnote at top of and "See also" at bottom of WP:COPYRIGHT? Its conspicuous absence is precisely why I ened up at Misplaced Pages talk:FAQ/Copyright! Haven't seen your balkline response yet; will go look. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 21:34, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Hee Haw

Unresolved – Still need to propose some standards on animal breed article naming and disambiguation.
Extended content

Yeah, we did get along on Donkeys. And probably will get along on some other stuff again later. Best way to handle WP is to take it issue by issue and then let bygones be bygones. I'm finding some interesting debates over things like the line between a subspecies, a landrace and a breed. Just almost saw someone else's GA derailed over a "breed versus species" debate that was completely bogus, we just removed the word "adapt" and life would have been fine. I'd actually be interested in seeing actual scholarly articles that discuss these differences, particularly the landrace/breed issue in general, but in livestock in particular, and particularly as applied to truly feral/landrace populations (if, in livestock, there is such a thing, people inevitably will do a bit of culling, sorting and other interference these days). I'm willing to stick to my guns on the WPEQ naming issue, but AGF in all respects. Truce? Montanabw 22:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Truce, certainly. I'm not here to pick fights, just improve the consistency for readers and editors. I don't think there will be any scholarly articles on differences between landrace and breed, because there's nothing really to write about. Landrace has clear definitions in zoology and botany, and breed not only doesn't qualify, it is only established as true in any given case by reliable sources. Basically, no one anywhere is claiming "This is the Foobabaz horse, and it is a new landrace!" That wouldn't make sense. What is happening is people naming and declaring new alleged breeds on an entirely self-interested, profit-motive basis, with no evidence anyone other than the proponent and a few other experimental breeders consider it a breed. WP is full of should-be-AfD'd articles of this sort, like the cat one I successfully prod'ed last week. Asking for a reliable source that something is a landrace rather than a breed is backwards; landrace status is the default, not a special condition. It's a bit like asking for a scholarly piece on whether pig Latin is a real language or not; no one's going to write a journal paper about that because "language" (and related terms like "dialect", "language family", "creole" in the linguistic sense, etc.) have clear definitions in linguistics, while pig Latin, an entirely artificial, arbitrary, intentionally-managed form of communication (like an entirely artificial, arbitrary, intentionally managed form of domesticated animal) does not qualify. :-) The "what is a breed" question, which is also not about horses any more than cats or cavies or ferrets, is going to be a separate issue to resolve from the naming issue. Looking over what we collaboratively did with donkeys – and the naming form that took, i.e. Poitou donkey not Poitou (donkey), I think I'm going to end up on your side of that one. It needs to be discussed more broadly in an RFC, because most projects use the parenthetical form, because this is what WT:AT is most readily interpretable as requiring. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
I hate the drama of an RfC, particularly when we can just look at how much can be naturally disambiguated, but if you think it's an actual issue, I guess ping me when it goes up. As for landcraces, it may be true ("clear definitions") but you would be doing God's (or someone's) own good work if you were to improve landrace which has few references, fewer good ones, and is generally not a lot of help to those of us trying to sort out WTF a "landrace" is... (smiles). As for breed, that is were we disagree: At what point do we really have a "breed" as opposed to a "landrace?" Fixed traits, human-selected? At what degree, at which point? How many generations? I don't even know if there IS such a thing as a universal definition of what a "breed" is: seriously: or breed or . I think you and I agree that the Palomino horse can never be a "breed" because it is impossible for the color to breed true (per an earlier discussion) so we have one limit. But while I happen agree to a significant extent with your underlying premise that when Randy from Boise breeds two animals and says he has created a new breed and this is a problem, (I think it's a BIG problem in the worst cases) but if we want to get really fussy, I suppose that the aficionados of the Arabian horse who claim the breed is pure from the dawn of time are actually arguing it is a landrace, wouldn't you say? And what DO we do with the multi-generational stuff that's in limbo land? Montanabw 00:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm not really certain what the answers are to any of those questions, another reason (besides your "STOP!" demands :-) that I backed away rapidly from moving any more horse articles around. But it's something that is going to have to be looked into. I agree that the Landrace article here is poor. For one thing, it needs to split Natural breed out into its own article (a natural breed is a selectively-bred formal breed the purpose of which is to refine and "lock-in" the most definitive qualities of a local landrace). This in turn isn't actually the same thing as a traditional breed, though the concepts are related. Basically, three breeding concepts are squished into one article. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:52, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
Side comment: I tend to support one good overview article over three poor content forks, just thinking aloud... Montanabw 23:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
Sure; the point is that the concepts have to be separately, clearly treated, because they are not synonymous at all. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 02:07, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Given that the article isn't well-sourced yet, I think that you might want to add something about that to landrace now, just to give whomever does article improvement on it later (maybe you, I think this is up your alley!) has the "ping" to do so. Montanabw 21:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Aye, it's on my to-do list. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 22:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Although I have been an evolutionary biologist for decades, I only noticed the term "landrace" within the past year or two (in reference to corn), because I work with wildland plants. But I immediately knew what it was, from context. I'm much less certain about breeds, beyond that I am emphatic that they are human constructs. Montanabw and I have discussed my horse off-wiki, and from what I can tell, breeders are selecting for specific attributes (many people claim to have seen a horse "just like him"), but afaik there is no breed "Idaho stock horse". Artificially-selected lineages can exist without anyone calling them "breeds"; I'm not sure they would even be "natural breeds", and such things are common even within established breeds (Montanabw could probably explain to us the difference between Polish and Egyptian Arabians).
The good thing about breeds wrt Misplaced Pages is that we can use WP:RS and WP:NOTABLE to decide what to cover. Landraces are a different issue: if no one has ever called a specific, distinctive, isolated mustang herd a landrace, is it OR for Misplaced Pages to do so?--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:21, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
I have been reluctant to use landrace much out of a concern that the concept is a bit OR, as I hadn't heard of it before wikipedia either (but I'm more a historian than an evolutionary biologist, so what do I know?): Curtis, any idea where this did come from? It's a useful concept, but I am kind of wondering where the lines are between selective breeding and a "natural" breed -- of anything. And speaking of isolated Mustang herds, we have things like Kiger Mustang, which is kind of interesting. I think that at least some of SMc's passion comes from the nuttiness seen in a lot of the dog and cat breeders these days, am I right? I mean, Chiweenies? Montanabw 23:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
The first use of the word that I saw referred to different landraces of corn growing in different elevations and exposures in indigenous Maya areas of modern Mexico. I haven't tracked down the references for the use of the word, but the concept seems extremely useful. My sense is that landraces form as much through natural selective processes of cultivation or captivity as through human selection, so that if the "garbage wolf" hypothesis for dog domestication is true, garbage wolves would have been a landrace (or more likely several, in different areas). One could even push the definition and say that MRSA is a landrace. But I don't have enough knowledge of the reliable sources to know how all this would fit into Misplaced Pages.--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Landraces form, primarily and quickly, through mostly natural selection, long after domestication. E.g. the St Johns water dog and Maine Coon cat are both North American landraces that postdate European arrival on the continent. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I see some potential for some great research on this and a real improvement to the articles in question. Montanabw 21:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Yep. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)



Kinda old stuff to sort through (mostly barnstars I didn't move to my /Barnstars page yet)

Chapeau

... for this one! Cheers - DVdm (talk) 20:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I actually like hats. :-) Your readability tweak was a good idea. I was a little concerned about it myself, but I'm not a cards editor, so I wasn't sure if there was a typical way of making hands more legible. (Also not sure if people conventionally use the card symbols that are available in Unicode, etc.). I do edit a lot of games articles, but almost exclusively in cue sports and related. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 12:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
I specially like hats when there's a set of dice under them :-)
Perhaps you don't know, but overhere we use the name chapeau for the cup and, by extension, for the game itself. As you can see here—als je Nederlands een beetje in orde is—, we play an entirely different game with it, a game where one can practice the fine art of subtle bluffing, downright lying, assessing oponents' behaviour, and accurately estimating probabilities. We also play the "Mexican" variant, which is even subtler. Check it out and cheers! - DVdm (talk) 18:26, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
I didn't know that, about the chapeau. I thought you were awarding me a virtual hat. :-) . I am familiar with the bluff game (possibly the Mexican version, since I learned it in California), but have always played that one with regular dice. Anyway, if you like what I did in the English version, certainly feel free to "port" it to the Netherlands Misplaced Pages. I may be able to work through the Dutch enough to add something about the other variants to the English article here, since it is rather paltry. Heh. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 04:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Actually, it was meant as a virtual hat award as well - I had seen a hat on your user page :-)

Porting from there to here could be a bit problematic, as there's not many sources around, alas. - DVdm (talk) 17:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll have to dig through my game encyclopedias and stuff. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 17:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Ok, if you find something, please let know. I'd be glad to work on it together. Cheers and happy digging. - DVdm (talk) 20:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar comment

You have new message/s Hello. You have a new message at Djathinkimacowboy's talk page.

Don't delete this! -

The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
For behaving in a genteel fashion, as if nothing were the matter, and for gallantry. --Djathinkimacowboy 03:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Sankyu beddy mush! Hardly necessary for me just behaving properly. Heh. But I appreciate it anyway. I left you a note at your page about that Guidance rename idea. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 04:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Shou ist werie velcum. I think the 'Guidance' name and the way you simplified it into a short statement is very good! And people should give out more barnstars. They are very merited and it isn't as if they cost us anything.--Djathinkimacowboy 10:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Cheers!

A beer on me!
for all of the thoughtful posts through the extended discussion at MOSCAPS. I've appreciated it. JHunterJ (talk) 13:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank ya verra much! I was thirsty. >;-) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Barnstar Creator's Barnstar
Thank you for your submission of the Instructor's Barnstar. It's now on the main barnstar list. Pine 15:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Keen beans! Thanks.

A barnstar for you!

The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
This comes as a recognition of your kindness in developing the Firefox Cite4wiki add-on. It has been helpful and a great resource. I was also happy to learn you contribute to Mozilla which I do as well :) ₫ӓ₩₳ Talk to Me. Email Me. 18:28, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, though some others deserve more credit than I do, especially Jehochman (talk · contribs) for the original concept, and Unit 5 (talk · contribs) for the bulk of the code still used in this version. I mostly just added the ability to customize the output for specific sites, and fixed some consistency issues, as well as set up the WP:Cite4Wiki page for it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 21:01, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

The Socratic Barnstar
In recognition of your general fine work around the 'pedia, and the staunchness and standard of argumentation on style issues. And if for nothing else, I think you deserve it for this comment  Ohconfucius  02:07, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
<bow> — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 07:59, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Special Barnstar
It's a bit delayed, but for your rather accurate edit summary here. Keep up the good work on various breed articles! TKK 18:06, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Why, thank ya verra much!  :-) — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:34, 25 February 2013 (UTC)



Editorial resignation and some of what lead up to it

One of the reasons gardens are walled

Looking at Montanabw's reaction, I think sometimes you fail to look through the eyes of the editors in a narrow field, and end up with enemies instead of friends. I actually left off editing horse articles years ago because of the controversies, and the hammering out of consensus in that project has been decidedly non-trivial. It's important to remember that a local optimum is always optimal, locally, and that getting to a global optimum can involve considerable work, work that many editors thought they had already done. To me, the best way to start out is always "Here are some more general issues I perceive; I see that you do things differently. How can I help you deal with your problems in a way that will meet my goals?" In the case of the bird folks, this probably wouldn't have worked, but I think It's always a good place to start.--Curtis Clark (talk) 18:13, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree in the abstract, but I've never been good at that sort of politics. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
PS: This may sound like a "my logic is bigger than your logic" nit-pick, but I consider it a serious issue: A major and worsening problem on WP, especially as the generalist editorship continues to decline in numbers and activity levels, is that wikiprojects are becoming increasingly balkanized into stand-offish blocs. Despite several ARBCOM decisions against projects bucking consensus and making up their own conflicting rules, and despite a comparatively recent but clear policy against it, at WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, they continue to do it anyway, with increased feelings of righteousness. Per WP:OWN, no topic or field on WP is a walled garden, but some projects do not appear to believe this. I don't know what the solution is, but I have serious misgivings about what WP is going to be like 5 years from now in this regard if something doesn't change. One idea I've had, inspired a bit by the undoing of WP:Esperanza and a CfD several years ago that move all the wikiproject "members" categories to read "participants", is to propose that we abandon the term "wikiproject" entirely, and use something more verbal, that doesn't sound like a club, or worse yet a militia, one can join. Maybe "wikiwork" or something like that: WikiWork Botany, WikiWork Cats, etc. PS: My Granny's garden wasn't walled, but sprawled all the way to the mailbox at the sidewalk. :-) — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 11:22, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
Some are more interested in methods, others in results.
Certainly, WP:OWN is a problem; otherwise it wouldn't have a shortcut. Randy in Boise is also a problem, and editors' reactions to that often appear from the outside to be WP:OWN. And over time they can turn into WP:OWN, when an editor starts to believe that's the only way to counter the Randys.
One approach is to wade in with policies, guidelines, and sanctions, whip up support from editors who have an abstract interest, and make life so miserable for the Randys and the "owners" that they leave Misplaced Pages. In my experience, the most knowledgeable editors are the first to leave (I almost wrote "best editors", but one solution to expert retention is to not care, and only retain compliant editors).
It seems that a lot of the pushback you are going to get at WP:EQUINE is over WP:COMMONNAME issues. You only meant to sweep the floor, but you knocked over a chess game. The word that immediately comes to mind is "inefficient".
My most memorable walled garden was the atrium in the house of Maurice K. Temerlin in Norman, Oklahoma, filled with lush greenery. My first thought was that it provided a safe place for Lucy, but as far as I could tell, they only let her into it under supervision.--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
You're right that my cleanup efforts have not been efficient when it comes to horses. (They have been in other areas, including donkeys, with direct cooperation from Montanabw, curiously enough, and in domestic cats, among others.) It is difficult to predict what projects will find article naming and categorization cleanup controversial, and on what points.

I understand the WP:RANDY problem, but I'm not part of it; WP:Manual of Style/organisms could not have been written by a Randy. One problem to me is that too many alleged experts treat everyone who disagrees with them about anything as a Randy, often very insultingly so. And by no means is every editor who claims expertise actually an expert; many, especially in biology projects, are simply fanciers, and others may have studied zoology or botany as an undergraduate, but that's it. I have a degree in cultural anthropology, but would never call myself an expert in that field. Large numbers of, e.g., WP:BIRDS editors don't even have that level of qualification, but will fight to the death to get their way on capitalization (and on a faulty basis – they continually claim that the fact that bird field guides capitalize common names means that the mainstream publishing world is honoring the IOU's convention, when in reality all field guides on everything have always capitalized this way, as ease-of-rapid-scanning emphasis, since at least the 1800s, long before IOU even existed; it's a coincidence, and they know this but pretend this fact was never raised.

Another related issue is that WP:Competence is required – not just competence in a particular field, but online community competence to work collaboratively toward consensus. Not all academics have this, and many are extremely competitive and debatory. Sometimes the only thing to do is not care if this sort leave the project (or even be happy that they've gone). The vast majority of expert editors are a boon to the project, but being such an expert is not a "Get Out of Jail Free" card in Wiki-opoly. As one example, several years ago, one alleged (and probable) expert on albinism was extremely disruptive at the page that is now Albinism in humans. He considered himself to be a reliable source, and basically refused to do the leg-work to provide source citations for the material he wanted to add, nor to show that material he wanted to remove was obsolete or otherwise wrong. I bent over backwards to try to get him to understand WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR, but he just would not listen. Myself and others kept having to prevent him from making the well-source if imperfect article a mostly unsourced mess, and he eventually left the project is "disgust" at other editors' "stupidity", much to a lot of people's relief. The article today is very well sourced and stable (aside from frequent "ALBINOESES LOOK STOOPID" vandalism). The disruptive expert's absence was a boon. I feel the same way about WP:DIVA expert editors who threaten wiki-retirement, WP boycotts, editing strikes, mass editorial walkouts and other WP:POINTy nonsense. We all know that in reality academics have zero problem adapting to in-house style guides of whatever venue they're writing for. Pretending that doing it on WP is onerous is a abuse of WP as massively-multiplayer online debate game. We really need an "intro to Misplaced Pages for academic and professional experts" guide, to help prevent incoming specialists from falling into such pitfall patterns (not to mention the one identified at WP:SSF). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:45, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to let you know that I did read this, started an unproductive reply, and then decided I needed to think about it a while.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:40, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Apteva and friends

Resolved – Moot; Apteva has been topic banned, as I predicted.

Evidently, you are of the opinion that the point for any sort of compromise here has long been passed; I am not so sure that I disagree with you any longer. Still, would it be possible at all to give the four users who you've suggested be banned a chance to voluntarily abstain themselves from the dash dispute? I understand you're not sold on Apteva's willingness to do so; I actually think he's sincere. At the very least, could it be tried with Enric Naval and LittleBenW? dci | TALK 20:41, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Sure, with regad to Enric Naval and Wikid77, but I would like to see the latter at least administratively warned. I already struck Enric Naval out because he publicly disavowed Apteva's position and behavior . As I said plainly, I think he stills suffers from some of the consensus confusions and attitudinal "I'm gonna prove you wrong!" WP:WINNING viewpoints, but maybe that will wear off. Yes, there is no more room for compromise with Apteva. He's simply playing with us now, making sport of the whole situation and continuing to make his point, wiki-suicidally, while saying he's dropped the matter and won't raise it again out of the other side of his mouth. He is provably already not being genuine, and the AN hasn't even closed yet! It's downright pathological. Those of use who have been dealing with him for longer have already seen this act before. LittleBenW is in the same boat. He got topic banned for doing exactly the same thing but with regard to diacritics only a week or two ago. I'm if he gets topic banned on this, he'll probably just pick capital letters, or semicolons, or italics or whatever, to start more psychodrama about and continue doing this until he just gets banned. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:30, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, I guess all I have left to say is that I sympathize to an extent with you and those others frustrated by Apteva's party. The fact that there is such a "party" in itself is problematic. But, as I've said before, I'm just not comfortable slapping him down with a topic ban when I still think voluntary, self-instigated change can happen. At any rate, I am finished with this discussion unless it boils over into some other forum; it's best now to let a consensus be determined sans any more long comments, proposals, and subsections. dci | TALK 23:40, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Unless he's lying, they'll amount to the same thing. If he's topic banned voluntarily or involuntarily it still amounts to "Apteva will stop beating this dead horse and go do something constructive". The only reason, really, to oppose the involuntary ban is if he intends to ditch the voluntary one (even stigma isn't a reason - the stigma is already there, from being RFC/U'd and WP:AN'd with landslides against him in both cases). Honestly, I kind of think you should not get involved in AN and AN/I discussions if you are that uncomfortable with topic-bans, since they are a standard sanction agreed upon there. It's a heat/kitchen thing, if you see what I mean, or "if you don't like beef, don't bite the burger". — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:19, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Regarding topic bans/voluntary abstention, I really have no issue with topic bans or sanctions in general. In most cases that they're given out, they are the only reasonable alternative given the sanctioned editor's disruptive or unhelpful behavior. However, I think that even late into disputes, voluntary resolutions are better than topic bans, etc. In Apteva's case, I'm also a bit uncomfortable with the intensity of some of the opposition to his "party", which strikes me as the development of a battleground. Also, I don't share the skepticism that he's automatically going to go against the terms of a voluntary abstention. There's other reasons, of course, but that's the gist of my opposition to a topic ban when other solutions are possible. dci | TALK 00:31, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
The only way you could come to this conclusion about Apteva, I feel, is lack of direct experience of his nearly year-long campaign of canvassing and tendentious, verbal aggression, but I'm disinclined to try to convince you any further. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 06:34, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Heroic Barnstar

The Original Barnstar
For your recent work at WP:MOS: A model of unflagging effort, precise analysis, institutionally broad and historically deep vision, clear articulation, and civil expression under great pressure. Unforgettable. DocKino (talk) 06:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I do my best. At this point I'm being attacked on multiple pages in a concerted effort of harassment, and suspect that their goal is to get me to simply quit the project. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:17, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


Arbitration enforcement warning: Manual of Style and article titles policy

Update: For the record, since the details are collecting here, User:Noetica and User:Neotarf have already resigned editing Misplaced Pages over User:Sandstein's false accusations; I regret having criticized Noetica for taking that stance, as I now find myself contemplating it seriously as well. The fourth recipient, User:Ohconfucius, has not indicated any plans to respond as of this writing, but also believes the warning to be a blatant mistake. I have notified all three other recipients and Sandstein of the discussion here in hopes of centralizing it. The "you can now be blocked without further notice by anyone with a hare up their butt" warning we received was based on misinterpretations and missing facts and background information, was unjust, and is invalid. I'm not going to stand for being treated like a wikicriminal this way. I've devoted unbelievable amounts of productive, intelligent and good-faith time and effort to this project, and I'll be damned if I'll be lynched for it. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:58, 3 February 2013 (UTC) File:Yes 
The Arbitration Committee has permitted administrators to impose discretionary sanctions (information on which is at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions) on any editor who is active on pages broadly related to the English Misplaced Pages Manual of Style and article titles policy. Discretionary sanctions can be used against an editor who repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, satisfy any standard of behavior, or follow any normal editorial process. If you continue to misconduct yourself on pages relating to this topic, you may be placed under sanctions, which can include blocks, a revert limitation, or an article ban. The Committee's full decision can be read at the "Final decision" section of the decision page.

Please familiarise yourself with the information page at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, with the appropriate sections of Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Procedures, and with the case decision page before making any further edits to the pages in question. This notice is given by an uninvolved administrator and will be logged on the case decision, pursuant to the conditions of the Arbitration Committee's discretionary sanctions system.

This warning is made as a result of the arbitration enforcement request made on 27 January 2013 concerning Noetica. Please take care, in future disputes concerning the issues mentioned above, not to misuse the arbitration enforcement noticeboard (or other fora) to cast aspersions against others or to otherwise continue personalizing stylistic disagreements, as directed by the Arbitration Committee's reminder. Regards,  Sandstein  21:19, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I dispute the applicability of your warning and the accuracy of your characterization of my edit at the cited discussion, and your interpretation of the discussion itself, as well as the ArbCom discretionary sanctions you are misapplying.

Here's the text of my comment at that AN AE filing, in full:

Comment by SMcCandlish

  • I, too, find it disconcerting that SarekOfVulcan does not seem to understand that WP:INVOLVED applies to admins in particular, not random editors, that he seems unclear that his statements and actions in this matter are not comparable to Noetica's, and that he's been so heavily involved administratively in something he's also been so heavily involved in as a stakeholding editor. Anyway, this request for enforcement by Apteva is a WP:POINTy farce. PS: I agree with the criticism that Noetica's "if you sanction me, I quit" smacks of WP:DIVA. That said, of all the "wiki-sins" one could commit in this extended brouhaha, that seems to be the least of all. I take it as a simple expression of frustration, and of bewilderment that Apteva has been permitted to carry on so disruptively for so long. His (and Wikid77's & LittleBenW's WP:TAGTEAM) tendentious-to-death-and-beyond nonsense makes me want to quit, too, sometimes. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 09:09, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
You mischaracterized these comments of mine at WP:AN WP:AE as "serv no useful purpose with regard to deciding whether the reported edits are sanctionable, and...also mainly concerned with casting aspersions on others, further personalizing the underlying dispute(s)." There are several issues to address with regard to your warning and your expressed reasoning behind it. In summary, they are that you have clearly misinterpreted all of the following:
  • My post (it did address the issue at hand, was not a misuse of WP:AN, and was not a personalization of any dispute)
  • The nature of the AN AE filing in question (it was Apteva lashing out to be vengeful, and had little-to-zero merit of any kind)
  • The nature of the debate at AN AE and AN (it's about forumshopping, tendentious disruption, soapbox advocacy and refusal to get the point, not about style)
  • WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation#All parties reminded (WP:ARBATC) itself (it's about pointless, angsty argumentation over style matters, not factual reportage of problem editors to WP:AN for action to restrain their abuses, successfully and on the merits), which you have here misapplied (I have not in fact violated the provisions of that arb sanction, broad and discretionary though they may be).
In more detail, I have to note all of the following problems with your warning:
  1. Misconstruing the nature of the AN AE filing: You seem to be missing the fact, as noted by the majority of respondents to that bogus AN AE report, that it was simply filed in retaliation as a WP:POINT against Noetica by Apteva, just for Noetica having dared to file an entirely legitimate AN report against Apteva (one which successfully resulted in a block against Apteva, I might remind you, with the overwhelming majority of respondents supporting a block, and a majority also supporting blocks of Wikid77 and LittleBenW, though those were not enacted). Apteva's AN AE counter-filing was simply lashing out at Noetica. Very few respondents to it found any merit of any kind in it, and even those that did found them insufficient to take admin action.
  2. Misunderstanding and mischaracterizing my statements: There is nothing disruptive, incivil, attacking or otherwise a "misuse" of WP:AN WP:AE about either of the following:
    1. I observed a demonstrably inappropriate admin response to an AN AE filing: I noted that an admin on the admin noticeboard WP:AE who has involved himself in that AN AE filing had both a clear conflict of interest in the filing and its background issues, and also did not appear to understand the difference in applicability between admins and non-admins of an important guideline, but was attempting to hold the subject of the AN AE filing accountable for not adhering to an admin-only rule. It was a salient and entirely appropriate comment about the process the AN AE filing was undergoing, and had nothing to do with style disputes.
    2. I expressed a belief that an AN AE filing was frivolous or vexatious, and on what basis: I reminded AN AE watchers that Apteva is being AN-reported for disruption, of such a magnitude that many editors are frustrated to the point of leaving, and suggested that Apteva is just filing counter-reports at AN AE to be vindictive. The consensus was in favor of sanctions against Apteva already (note also that I had already demonstrated in the original AN report, with piles of diffs and beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Apteva was tendentious, forum-shopping, tag-teaming, and disruptive on this issue). Labeling Apteva's constantly spewing firehose of noise on this topic "farcical" and "disruptive", when one can and already has proven it and consensus already agrees, is not "personalizing the debate", it's short-circuiting yet another Apteva attempt to ask the other parent by abusing WP:AN WP:AE as a point-making platform.
  4. Discounting my statements as irrelevant to the AN filing when they were clearly on-point: My comments did in fact serve a "useful purpose with regard to deciding whether the reported edits are sanctionable" (namely pointing out that they are not, and that the process being applied had COI and other problems). Noting which parties are doing what in a dispute is not "personalizing stylistic disagreements" at all. AE, AN and AN/I cannot function when parties are not identified.
  5. Confusing the MOS/AT style debate with the AE & AN behavior debate: Neither of the related AN AN & AE filings (Noetica vs. Apteva and vice versa) have anything to do with style intrinsically, but only user behavior; the background debate could just as easily have been about whether the Van cat is a breed or a landrace, or what George Balabushka's real name was. More to the point, Apteva could turn out to be correct about the style matters he editwars and forumshops over incessantly, but this would still not excuse his pattern of grossly abusive and disruptive behavior, which is what he was taken to WP:AN about; the ends do no justify the means. Apteva's counterclaim against Noetica, which consensus did not support, was also about alleged behavior, not style.
  6. Misidentifying me as the source of the problem: It's ironic to be labeled (publicly on WP:AN WP:AE, not on my user talk page) as "battlegrounding" by you when myself, Noetica and various other parties successfully reined in Apteva's actual battlegrounding, in the related AN report immediately precding the AE one you're castigating me about for no reason. It's as if you did not even read the original AN case, but only the AE one against Noetica.
  7. Misapplying the ArbCom style-debate sanctions simply to protect a fellow admin from criticism: I have to wonder how much the fact that I criticized an admin's judgement in my quoted post, above, weighed in your decision to issue this inappropriate warning to me. I have to think that it is the principal reason you did so, and will show why. My comments about Apteva's editing pattern were directly relevant to both of the AN & AE filings, and already proven with evidence. My comments about Noetica were that while I agreed that his response to the bogus AN AE case wasn't helpful, it was easy to see that it was just the product of frustration and not serious; this isn't any kind of actual criticism, but a request for forgiveness. My mention of Wikid77 and LittleBenW is supported by already-cited proof of tag-teaming, which a consensus of respondents in the original AN subsection about it found compelling. That leaves only my comments about admin SarekOfVulcan for you to use as the basis for this warning! The problem here, though, is that nothing I said with regard to SofV's clear conflict of interest in the outcome of the AN AE filing or his attempt to apply admin rules to the non-admin subject of the AN AE filing have anything at all to do with style, the MoS, or the ArbCom case you are citing as justification for warning and thereby threatening me with a block. My comments with regard to SofV were 100% about, and about nothing but, WP:AN WP:AE process as it applied to that particular filing at AN AE!
  8. Effectively censoring my legitimate participation by misapplying rules and process to make a threat under color of admin authority: This may not matter to you, and it might not have been your intent, but I now feel palpably and unmistakeably threatened by you with a punitive but illegitimate and undeserved block, should I ever participate in any WP:AE, WP:AN, WP:AN/I or similar noticeboard discussion, in which any MOS-related issue happens to be involved, and in which I necessarily identify any other editor; and similarly threatened should I ever criticize another admin's judgement in such a forum. Only one other party at AN AE suggested you make this sort of ArbCom-related warning, against me or anyone else who commented there, and did not provide reasons, just a "me too", so your action to do so is essentially unilateral and does not represent any kind of consensus at WP:AN WP:AE to do so. I.e., you are directly chilling my expression and participation in basic WP procedure, in an entirely out-of-process way, without consensus to do so, and based on nothing but a string of misinterpretations of everything from ArbCom sanctions to the messages and debate at issue, with the result if not the outright goal of hampering my ability to continue doing some of what I do best here, which is help prevent random pet peeves of fanatical editwarriors from getting enshrined in, and/or threatening the stability of, our Manual of Style.
Feel free to explain your rationale, clarify what your threat really means, or better yet just rescind it.
— SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 05:43, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Hi. I maintain the warning. While I can't reply to all of the above because of its length, here's my comment about the gist of your remarks:
I am not sure why you talk at length about some WP:AN filing. I have not participated in, or even read, any AN thread related to this matter. My warning relates to your comment at WP:AE which you reproduced above.
WP:AE is not a general purpose dispute resolution noticeboard. Its purpose is not to resolve any ongoing, underlying disputes. That is the province of the normal dispute resolution process. AE is there for one purpose only: to help admins decide whether the specific edits that have been reported warrant an enforcement response. This means that allegations about misconduct by people not party to the request at issue (as subject or, at most, as filer) are unhelpful to begin with. For instance, the AE request did not concern the conduct of SarekOfVulcan. Therefore, criticizing that editor's conduct in the AE thread serves no useful purpose at all. If you have a problem with it, you should discuss it directly with SarekOfVulcan, or in an appropriate discussion forum, or file a separate AE request if you believe that SarekOfVulcan's conduct is so problematic as to warrant enforcement action.
Particularly, the Arbitration Committee's reminder I linked to above reads: "All parties are reminded to avoid personalizing disputes concerning the Manual of Style, the article titles policy ('WP:TITLE'), and similar policy and guideline pages, and to work collegially towards a workable consensus". In light of this, it is especially unhelpful, as you did, to make the following comments: "... Apteva has been permitted to carry on so disruptively for so long. His (and Wikid77's & LittleBenW's WP:TAGTEAM) tendentious-to-death-and-beyond nonsense ...". These are just broad allegations of severe personal misconduct on the part of several editors, two of which are in no way concerned by the AE request at issue. These allegations are unsupported by any useful evidence. They would have been inappropriate in any forum, not just AE. That's because you don't resolve disagreements by flinging broad accusations at one another in community fora. You resolve disagreements by working through the dispute resolution process in direct contact with the editors involved, focusing on the substantial disagreements (about hyphens and dashes, for instance) rather than on any personal conflicts emerging from them. That's what the Committee's reminder is about, and what I ask you to keep in mind in the future.
I would like to emphasize that I have no opinion about, and frankly at this time no interest in, whether the various people you criticized have in fact engaged in any misconduct. They may well have, and if so, that should be addressed in proper form (i.e., with evidence, no broad allegations!) through the dispute resolution process. But as I said their conduct is not within the scope of an AE request that is not about them. Whether any of these people are administrators is of course immaterial with regard to the dispute resolution or AE process, except in that I personally expect administrators to adhere to a higher standard of conduct than other editors.  Sandstein  08:27, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Re: AN vs. AE – You're correct; I had forgotten that Apteva vs. Noetica was at AE, here (which will eventually be archived either here or here while the original Noetica vs. Apteva report was at AN here. Either you already knew what filings I was really referring to, or you did not know of the Noetica vs. Apteva filing at AN, and that missing information badly affected your understanding of the Apteva vs. Noetica filing at AE. There is also the related SarekOfVulcan vs. Apteva AE filing here, but it isn't crucial to what's being discussed here, other than it further demonstrates that I am not making broad, unsubstantiated accusations against Apteva, but summarizing facts about Apteva's behavior that consensus has already arrived at, at both AE and AN.

Re: more substantive matters – The fact that you're refusing to even address most of what I wrote probably explains why your response misses the point in several crucial ways. It's also symptomatic of your involvement more generally. In particular, "I have not participated in, or even read, any AN thread related to this matter", is the entire problem – you've actually missed the majority of the discussion, and have consequently misinterpreted just about everything about it.

  • Discussion about process that relates to discussion about content is not itself discussion about content. Your warning fails to make this distinction and this is the main reason, among several, why the warning is inappropriate and invalid. You're confusing posting at ARBATC about user behaviors relating to WP process including ARBATC, which is what I did – it's a meta thread, and a use–mention distinction – with posting about opinions on style and titling matters themselves in ways that trigger the sanctions contemplated by ARBATC, which I did not do, at either AE or AN. Frankly, trying to stretch ARBATC's sanctions to cover posts about ARBATC and how it should be enforced, not just the content & presentation disputes ARBATC is intended to moderate, both makes a mockery of what WP:AE is for and how it works, and in my view constitutes a form of wikilawyering to warp the intent and meaning of ARBATC to simply shut up people you just don't want to listen to. If that was not your intent, then please consider, seriously, that this is precisely what it looks like.
  • WP:ARBATC sanctions are simply not applicable to my post. (Nor to those of most if not all of the others you just issued the same warning to for what they said at ARBATC). It was not about any style or article titles matter, and thus is not subject to those sanctions, even when broadly construed. It was about the disruptive editing behavior patterns of Apteva a.k.a. Delph234 (the community agrees, at both this earlier AE filing and the original AN filing, that this happened, and blocked both of this users accounts, for sockpuppetry in energy articles as well as his style-related editwarring), including his filing a ridiculous AE request just to get back at Noetica for criticizing him). I also mentioned the Wikid77 & LittleBenW tag-teaming for a specific reason, detailed below (the community also agrees that this abusive editing happened, after I and other presented lots of evidence, and there was a consensus to block both users for it all here, in a subsection of the AN filing, though this got lost in the shuffle and those additional topic bans didn't actually get implemented). That the original disputations, weeks and month ago, involving these editors and landing them at AN in the first place had something to do with article titles and the manual of style is completely irrelevant; it could have been over biographical sources or cat breeds. Stylistic/titling disagreements have nothing whatsoever to do with the behavioral issues being addressed at AN and then at AE, by me and others. My post also raised concerns about inappropriate admin involvement against Noetica by SarekOfVulcan (conflict of interest, and misapplication of admin rules as restricting non-admins). Also not a style/titles matter. (Cf. your own comment: "I personally expect administrators to adhere to a higher standard of conduct than other editors." So why bash me for doing the same thing?)
  • Naming names for the sake of accuracy and truth is often necessary, to avoid false blame, not "inappropriate". Just for the record, I mentioned Wikid77 and LittleBenW by name simply for accuracy; to suggested that Apteva was acting alone and being solely responsible for the disruptiveness would be an unfair misstatement of fact (as well as an aggrandizement of disruptive behavior, as if Apteva is some kind of disruption badass, which WP:DENY strongly discourages for good reason). I do not feel I need to be threatened by you simply for not wrongly blaming Apteva for everything!
  • No one said AE is a general-purpose dispute resolution noticeboard, and none of us except Apteva were attempting to use it as one; you're advancing a straw man argument. My post stated my position that Apteva was filing a nonsense, frivolous AE request, that SarekOfVulcan was out of line, and that Noetica could be forgiven for overreacting a bit because Apteva (with Wikid77 and LittleBenW) has been frustrating him and many other MOS/AT regulars, including me, to the point of breaking. This is not personal attack, it simply summarizes exactly what the community has said in its consensus findings at AN and the earlier Apteva AE, and is not an ARBATC matter, as it isn't raising any style or titling arguments of any kind.
  • I emphatically did not make "broad allegations of severe personal misconduct"; I made summary reference at AE to very specific and well-proven facts of severe personal misconduct, supported by solid evidence and by community consensus at the AN loci already linked to. You are warning (and thereby block-threatening) me simply because you are unfamiliar with the overall debate and the evidence and remedies already arrived at in AN. You've reacted, without full knowledge and information, to what you saw at AE, as if it existed in a vacuum. At any rate, you say "with evidence, no broad allegations!", and I had already provided it, in spades. But you hadn't see it, and more importantly made the baldfaced assumption that I was randomly and broadly casting aspersions, just to be an ass or something, instead of doing homework to find out if I was. I'm a very long-term, productive, rationalist editor here, and think I deserve enough credit and benefit of the doubt to not be assumed-by-default to be a rampaging nutter. I was in fact referring to proven, settled matters for which warnings, topic bans and now blocks had already been issued (I think the blocks may have come after my post; I misremember). Your statement that "hese allegations are unsupported by any useful evidence" is factually incorrect; you simply were not aware of the evidence and didn't bother to look or ask for it, but obviously should have.
  • Your expectation of "working through the dispute resolution process in direct contact with the editors involved" already happened (at AN, at RFC/U, and in many other fora), apparently without you knowing about any of it. NB: There actually is no substantive style question at issue (consensus did not change on dashes and hyphens in response to Atpeva et al. forumshopping it to the ends of the earth); by the time this went to AN and thence to AE all that was at issue any longer was editing behavior pattern issues. Resurrecting and "focusing on the substantial disagreements (about hyphens and dashes, for instance)", as you suggest, would have been a massive step backwards! It's as if you said "Argh, not these damned style people again; let's just issue ARBATC warnings and shut them all up!", but the Apteva-related issues moved past style matters into addressing abusive and disruptive behavior patterns, several weeks ago (arguably months ago, actually).
Again, I ask that you realize that you have misinterpreted my and some others' posts, the AE/AN filings themselves, the situation and its history more broadly, and the applicability of the ARBATC sanctions. Please, just rescind this bogus, overreactive warning. It is based entirely on nothing but those misinterpretations and your clear assumption of bad faith on my part. I've already proven I was not acting in bad faith. As it stands, you've issued a "you can be blocked without further notice" warning against me for something I clearly did not actually do. The result is that basically anyone with admin bits can block me willy-nilly for engaging in virtually any MOS or AT thread (or RM, or AN/ANI/AE, or other discussion that mentions any style or title matter), if it even slightly irritates anyone for any reason, because "I've already been warned". It's an error, it's unjust, and it's having the direct effect of topic-banning me from both MOS and AT without there actually being a community consensus that I should be topic banned, since I'll hardly dare to discuss anything in such forums if I'm instantly subject to blocking by anyone with a hare up their butt about some style nitpick, or having some kind of personal bone to pick with me, which is actually a quite large stockpile of PoV-pushing editors (several of them admins who got the bits back when RfA was a cakewalk). You've handed every PoV-pusher on the system a gag to use on me, and you're directly censoring my participation (it's called the "chilling effect"), without good cause.
— SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:16, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I regret that you feel that way, and let me assure you that I do not assume that you are acting in bad faith or with deleterious intent - rather, the contrary. However, the length and intensity of your arguments in this thread alone indicate that the Arbitration Committee's reminder to step back from the personal side of the disputes surrounding WP:MOS does apply to the situation you find yourself in, and that the warning is therefore appropriate. My advice is to either withdraw from these personal conflicts and focus on the discussion about the substance of the dispute, to the extent such a discussion may still be ongoing, or alternatively to pursue the formal dispute resolution process (such as WP:RFC/U, community topic ban requests, or arbitration enforcement requests) with respect to the editors you believe are severely misbehaving. What you should however not do – and this is what my warning was about – is just to vent your anger in whatever forum a related issue may be discussed in, no matter how justified that anger is (and I recognize that it may well be). Such venting has no chance of promoting the successful resolution of interpersonal conflicts; rather, it tends to inflame them further.
With this, I believe I have adequately explained the reasons for my warning. Of course, if you do believe the warning materially affects your ability to participate in topic-related discussions, which I do not think is the case, you are free to appeal it to the Arbitration Committee, although I do not consider it likely that they will act on such an appeal.  Sandstein  13:20, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
You have not "adequately explained" anything other than that you feel righteous.
For one thing, your assuming and asserting that I was making "broad allegations...with evidence", when a few minutes of looking would have shown that I was in fact referring to specific, proven facts of Apteva-and-crew's dirsuptive editing, for which consensus had already arrived at remedies at WP:AN, is, yes, a blatant assumption of my bad faith by you. Denying that violates basic logic. Your continuing to defend a warning/threat the entire basis of which is your now disproven claim of me making of broad allegations without evidence, simply defies all reason and is not tenable.
In my view you are simply so unwilling to admit that you have made an obvious and undeniable error – in a near vacuum of salient facts and information – that you'll happily see anywhere from one to four productive editors quit the project. I repeat that you simply do not properly understand the context of the posts in question, and here you are essentially refusing to contemplate even attempting to do so. There is no content/style dispute at issue, at all. Apteva tried to make one, and failed to change consensus (again and again and again and again, for months, in every forum he could raise his pet peeve in) The AN case, which you evidently still have not bothered to read even though it is crucial to understanding what is happening, was not about style or titles, it was about disruptive user behavior patterns, as was the RFC/U about Apteva that preceded it (more homework you have not read). Apteva then ran to AE to try to disrupt it and "ask yet another parent", and me and a few others said "no, this is more noise – this user has a long history of making trouble like this and refusing to get the point; don't listen", and we have a consensus to topic ban and block him at WP:AN to prove it. Yet you've turned like a rabid wolf on those of us who have not just tried, but succeeded with community consensus in reining in a grossly disruptive editor (actually a three-editor tag-team). You're like a judge who would hang the cops who caught a murderer instead of punishing the killer, just because you don't like something they said. Apteva was topic-banned and blocked for the very disruption you say I'm being a bad-actor for mentioning as a reason to disregard his attempt at WP:GAMING AE! Do you not understand how off-kilter your position looks?
How many editors have to quit before you'll actually do an hour of background reading and reconsider what you're doing? At this point, you appear to be willfully refusing to find out the facts and see whether your decision makes sense in light of them. You are not the Pope and there is no presumption, even among those who look up to you, that you are magically infallible. You need to learn this, quickly, before you do any more damage. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 13:43, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
PS: Whatever your strengths as an editor and an admin, your lack of knowledge of this extended RFCU/AN/AE case, which is only related to ARBATC in the very tenuous way in that that now-blocked disruptor at the center of it all liked to pick fights about hyphens, compounded by your abject refusal to get up to speed on it and reconsider, means that your are simply not competent to have made such an AE decision in this case, should undo it, and should recuse yourself from further involvement in this one unless and until you do get up to speed on it. I would say the same thing to you even if you were an Arbitrator. Even if you were Jimbo. You cannot make rational decisions that affect other people without possessing enough facts to understand what is actually going on. Refusing to obtain them means you are asserting an actual right to make irrational and bad decisions that harm other people. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:04, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Personalizing disputes

Resolved – Noted, and responded to at WP:AE, where SarekOfVulcan lost his harassing, frivolous case, shortly before being rebuked and nearly desysoped by ArbCom for similar abuses, then resigning adminship under a cloud.

This will be showing up on WP:AE shortly.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:54, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Fine by me. All you're doing is demonstrating that you have some kind of personal vendetta against me and are engaging in a tag-team harassment effort. I have a right like any other editor in good standing to raise problems with a candidate's behavior patterns at RFA; the fact that those patterns – as evidenced by not one but two anti-MOS introductory rants by the candidate! – involve MOS in disturbing ways does not magically mean that WP:ARBATC can be used to censor RFA. Such an idea is illogical, since RfAs are named and are about reviewing the personal behavior of candidate, and thus are already personalized, by definition; raising issues about behavior of the candidate is not "personalizing". — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 17:51, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Clarification request: Discretionary sanctions appeals procedure

{{Unesolved|1=Noted, and responded to at , but ARCA (i.e. Arbcom) dropped the ball and failed to resolve the matter. WP:RFARB seems the only option.].}} Hi. I would like to inform you that a clarification request to the Arbitration Committee that may affect you is open at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Clarification request: Discretionary sanctions appeals procedure.  Sandstein  21:32, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 03:33, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
WP:ARCA did jack about this. Just dropped the ball entirely. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 16:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Some Wiki-love for you

The Purple Barnstar
You've been putting up with a lot of crap from other quarters; just want to let you know that people out there do, in fact, manage to appreciate your work. illegitimi non carborundum! VanIsaacWS Vex 04:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. That means a lot right now, actually. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 11:42, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Clarification request

Resolved – Just a chat.

I don't think you'll get the arbs engaging with this if you don't give them diffs to look at. I agree that Sandstein should by no means have closed the AE. Bishonen | talk 13:33, 24 February 2013 (UTC).

Meh. The way this is going, I'll probably have to file a real RFARB. I've been avoiding it because it's a time-consumptive, stressy, excessively legalistic pain, but this back-and-forth-to-AE stuff is too, at this point. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 13:39, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

You're not the only one. AE is very trendy these days. —Neotarf (talk) 14:53, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Re: proposed closure

Stale – Moot point now.

Whether Sandstein's actions have been entirely righteous with regard to me is still an open question - perhaps so, but it's not my job to pass judgement on Sandstein, and unless and until he is censured by the community he is still an admin in good standing who is entitled to have his views taken into consideration at AE. Gatoclass (talk) 11:53, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

You're clearly taking them into consideration (too much consideration, according to more respondents to his participation than just me); there's no need to mention him in the closing statement, which would be kind of unusual anyway. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 21:48, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Do you still feel this way after Sandstein just personally attacked me and assumed bad faith on two different levels, in a way that itself violates ARBATC (as I detail here)? — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 22:33, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
It is difficult to know the wise course of action here. Ordinarily, I would say to take it to the person's talk page. But the last person who brought WP:NPA concerns to Sandstein's talk page got slapped with sanctions. Looks like that talk page is now classified. —Neotarf (talk) 02:39, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
I've already tried discussing things with Sandstein on his talk page. If issues with him continue, I'll just take the matter to RFAR. I have zero remaining patience for this. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 09:39, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Result of AE request

Resolved – Gameability issue supposedly settled. I remain skeptical.

In accordance with this request at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement, your editing is hereby subject to the following restrictions and recommendations with regard to pages or discussions related to WP:MOS:

  • You are prohibited from making bad faith assumptions about any editor or identifiable group of editors. Failure to abide by this restriction is likely to result in the imposition of further sanctions at WP:AE;
  • You are strongly advised to avoid commenting on contributor and to confine your comments to content; in particular, you should avoid making personal attacks or engaging in incivility. Failure to achieve a requisite standard of discourse may result in further sanctions being imposed at WP:AE;
  • You are encouraged to keep your statements to a reasonable length. Excessively long responses on talk pages may discourage the participation of other users.

You may appeal this sanction using the process describedat Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Appeal. I recommend that you use the arbitration enforcement appeals template if you wish to submit an appeal. If you appeal this sanction, you remain bound by it until you are notified by an uninvolved administrator that the appeal has been successful. You are free to contact me on my talk page if anything of the above is unclear to you. Gatoclass (talk) 06:41, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

This version of the editing restrictions notice contradicts the "official" one at AE – it's missing the "With regard to pages or discussions related to WP:MOS..." scope limitation. As written over-broadly here, it appears to be wrongly implying that i have a general and wide-ranging CIVIL/AGF/NPA problem in all my editing here, regardless of topic or context, which was not even alleged in the AE request much less determined to be the case. As for the restriction details, it's against policy to make bad faith assumptions, personal attacks or incivil comments, anyway, so fine. I've already stated (I think three times) at that AE that I got the point. That said, it's unclear to me how this restriction is not going to be ridiculously gameable to prevent me from ever raising any dispute with anyone if a style matter is even tangentially involved, since if I need to take someone to AN/ANI/AE/whatever, for some kind of pattern of policy violation, be it tendentious editing or POV pushing or personal attacks, doing so will pretty much automatically be something that the other party can claim equates to me assuming bad faith about them. Please clarify. As a tertiary matter, I'm rather disappointed that you (nor anyone else) took notice of Sandstein's own AGF/NPA issue in his parting shots at that AE. There are various people who feel that ARBCOM/AE is increasingly being misused to do little but back up other admins and shield them from criticism and restraints while they do whatever they like and drive away productive editors they don't like or agree with. This doesn't exactly help dispel that concern. It's one I think is a bit exaggerated, but I can't even really count the number of times I've heard something like that expressed publicly and privately. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:12, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, but I think you have misread the above remedy, it clearly states at the top with regard to pages or discussions related to WP:MOS. Gatoclass (talk) 10:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Right! I misread it. I still seek clarification on how this is not supposed to be gameable to lock me out of dispute resolution. I'm about to test that, by taking LittleBenW back to ANI. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:55, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, sorry, I was about to get to that. The above restrictions/advisements are not intended to apply to dispute resolution venues or other venues dedicated to discussion of user conduct, for obvious reasons, although of course all the normal behavioural policies will apply. Gatoclass (talk) 11:26, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
The problem with that is that the same is supposed to be true of the ARBATC restrictions and discretionary sanctions everyone is under, using very similar scope wording, yet Sandstein's accusation/threat/warning to me and 3 others under ARBATC was for comments made at AE in the Apteva vs. Noetica request, in trying to show that Apteva's request was vexatious and frivolous. If people think that AE posts are fair game when Sandstein issues such restrictions (and have aggressively pursued me twice over upon the basis of that assumption), by what eldritch magick will they not make such assumptions regarding the restrictions you've brought? The bogusness of applying such restrictions to dispute resolution forums is one of 2 main reasons I intend to appeal Sandstein's accusation (the other being that I've already proven it false and he simply refuses to retract it for reasons that seem patently obvious to me, but which I cannot now even express questions about except in the privacy of my own skull, thanks to your new restrictions). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 11:40, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
As I said, all the normal behavioural policies will apply. That is presumably how you got a warning from Sandstein in the first place. Dispute resolution is a venue for the airing of legitimate issues, but you don't have carte blanche on such pages to say anything you please about other users; any accusations you make must always be proportionate, and supported by credible evidence. So long as you do that, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. Gatoclass (talk) 12:18, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Followup discussion

"That is presumably how you got a warning from Sandstein in the first place." Did you really miss this? In that case, weren't my comments about Sandstein's atrocious behaviour inexplicable to you? Shouldn't that have caused some cognitive dissonance and prompted you to do further research or ask some questions? Hans Adler 12:40, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, but if your point is that Sandstein's warning was illegitimate because it was only made in relation to conduct at an AE request, then I think you are mistaken, because there is plenty of precedent for taking action under discretionary sanctions for user conduct at AE and even at AN/I, indeed it's probably fair to say that a substantial number of discretionary sanctions have been laid at AE for problematic user conduct at such venues. Gatoclass (talk) 12:57, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
My point was that Sandstein gave a highly controversial warning. If you look at the clarification request, you will see that arbitrators are essentially divided between those who believe that sanctions warnings are no big deal and require no infractions, and those who believe they are a big deal and can only be given after someone has broken the sanction. Sandstein's template claimed that the sanction had been broken, though it had not, and it's clear from Sandstein's behaviour that he was perfectly happy with making that accusation even though in fact he admitted that he hadn't even checked whether it had been broken. As is always the case except in case of obvious error, he was responsible for what the template said. As always when Sandstein makes a mistake, he showed himself completely unreasonable, bossy and utterly vindictive. As usual in these situations, Sandstein is hiding behind the principle that uninvolved admins don't become involved through administrative action. This principle has a valid purpose, but that purpose is not to grant immunity for power trips by toxic admins so long as they start with an 'uninvolved' admin action.
This disagreement among arbitrators about the meaning and function of sanctions warnings has been blocking the appeal of these warnings for weeks. The discussion simply petered out, or the warnings would long have been either successfully appealed or clarified as ultimately meaningless.
In what must be explained by psychological projection, Sandstein even had the gall to accuse his victim of " being able to react positively to advice about his conduct" and of "behavioral problems have to do with reacting to disagreement and a sense of ownership generally", after Sandstein's own sense of ownership of his poor admin decisions and his inability to correct his behaviour has contributed significantly to the current escalation.
There are several levels of hypocrisy here on Sandstein's side, and you are essentially enabling him. There is no chance that any intelligent editor will actually take a lesson on minor behavioural problems so long as they are tainted by the association with Sandstein's vindictiveness. Hans Adler 13:31, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
I didn't look closely at Sandstein's original warning, I still haven't done so, it's not my job to investigate every charge made by users against some administrator or another, we have an AE appeals process or RFC/U or ARBCOM for that. However, I note that Sandstein's warnings were endorsed by both Cailil and KillerChihuahua, are they both "toxic", "vindictive" administrators too?
I am a volunteer here and I help out when and where I'm inclined to do so. In this case, I saw a proposed ban I did not agree with at AE since I had already looked at the evidence and come to a different conclusion, I argued for a more lenient response and got some support for it, I then proposed a remedy which attempted to accommodate the range of views expressed by the participating uninvolved admins, that remedy was given assent and I implemented it. Maybe I could have done a better job, but then maybe if I hadn't spoken up at all, SMcCandlish would be sitting out a year-long ban right now.
You are entitled to your view of Sandstein but you are not entitled to demand that I share it, or that I personally conduct an investigation of Sandstein's actions on your behalf. Again, if you think Sandstein is incompetent or "vindictive", it's up to you to persuade the community or ARBCOM of that view, if you are unable to do that, that is your problem not mine, so please take responsibility for it and don't try to shift the blame onto someone else. Gatoclass (talk) 14:53, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
And not on my talk page. Heh. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 15:38, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Nothing like a little obedience to authority figures. —Neotarf (talk) 16:10, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
(ec) I tend to reserve the words "toxic" and "vindictive" for Sandstein, who consistently exhibits this kind of behaviour. The problem is that not everybody is aware of it.
It's blatantly obvious that you didn't look closely at Sandstein's warning. In fact, you made a speculation on it that was obviously false. The main problem with Sandstein's warnings was that he sort of sanctioned four users based on his speculations that the accusations they made at AE were unfounded, when they were in fact based on diffs that had previously been presented at ANI. Now you are handing out another warning based on your speculations of the background.
If you haven't got the time to make the research that is required before admin actions of this nature, then that's perfectly fine. So long as you don't take these actions anyway, based on speculation. That's at least a borderline abuse of your admin privileges even when you are lucky. But it turns out Sandstein's speculation was wrong, and your speculation that Sandstein's speculation was right and that he has been acting impartially is also wrong. You have no business shifting admin consensus in a particular direction and then implementing it if you don't even understand what it's about. That's not helpful volunteer action, it's a selfish hobby.
"but then maybe if I hadn't spoken up at all, SMcCandlish would be sitting out a year-long ban right now" -- WTF? The only scenario under which this is even remotely plausible is if Sandstein had stayed completely unopposed in the admin section and felt he could get away with that. It would not have been the worst outcome. SMcCandlish would have something to appeal against that Arbcom would not have ignored due to their unrelated confusion, and reading between the lines of some arbitrator comments, I expect that the Sandstein problem would have been solved once and for all in the process.
Re your last paragraph: It's not primarily about me and Sandstein. SMcCandlish is entitled that you know why you hand out a warning, and you have made it clear that you don't. Basically you acted as a moderated proxy of Sandstein. You must take responsibility of your admin actions and you must be able to defend them. Once you come up with obviously incorrect speculations in your defence, there is something wrong. And who said I am unable to convince Arbcom or the community that Sandstein is vindictive? Last time I tried, his victim was Ludwigs2, the prototypical mobbing victim. This time he has chosen his victims less wisely, but now Arbcom's confusion about the role of sanctions warnings took out the steam. We have yet to see what happens when the focus is on Sandstein, and Sandstein alone. I have not filed WP:Requests for comment/Sandstein yet. Hans Adler 16:18, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
  • @Hans Adler, I have to take exception to your statement that "There is no chance that any intelligent editor will actually take a lesson on minor behavioural problems so long as they are tainted by the association with Sandstein's vindictiveness." This implies that while I'm intelligent (thanks) that I can't or won't agree to abide by Gatoclass's restrictions (which are actually just rewordings of existing policy anyway, not really restrictions), just because he took Sandstein's side. That's certainly not my position! My stance has been that the AE request was vexatious, unclean-handed, frivolous crap, and in point of fact not one single claim that any particular statement of mine was an AGF, NPA or CIVIL policy violation was sustained, there was just a general, vague and over-broad sense that I'd been combative and wordy, which I conceded anyway as a show of good faith and to get the pillorying over with. I don't particularly mind a "restriction" to abide by the same policies everyone else has to.

    That said, I have no particular disagreement with your characterization of Sandstein's actions, nor why they've been wrongheaded, nor with your underlying analysis of the problem of Gatoclass essentially rewarding Sandstein for bad action, though I ask again that you not use my talk page to "get into it" in such a combative way. I, too, would like Gatoclass to understand that he is unnecessarily and inappropriately encouraging and rewarding unhelpful, destructive behavior by Sandstein, but that's not going to come about by berating him. What I would suggest is that you begin preparing an RFARB case against Sandstein (and other relevant parties if necessary) and keep me and other obviously affected editors in the loop. The RFC/U route is a waste of time, since nothing in it is binding. I will be glad to participate in an RFARB, as a party with a relevant grievance (several, actually) if it's prepared properly, with a factual and policy basis, not a ranting one, but I just don't have the energy to write it up myself, only jump in. I've just been through almost an entire month of coordinated attacks against me and other MOS regulars. One of the numerous "projections" as you put it, or WP:BOOMERANG effects, here that applies far more to my detractors/accusers/prosecutors/hounds than to me is the "your editing behavior makes for a hostile environment that drives away productive editors and discourages participation" rap. I have about as much enthusiasm for WIkipedia right now as I have for beating myself in the head with a hammer, and Sandstein and a few others are personally responsible for that on one level (Gatoclass will be happy to know I of course recognize my own culpability as well, in being tumid and intemperate). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:22, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

  • @Gatoclass: I'm not sure you want to ask a question like that about perceptions of Cailil and KillerChihuahua in particular, quite frankly. My talk page is not a DR forum except with regard to me personally, and I don't have an issue with either of them at present that rises to that level. I know of several who feel they do and who have been discussing doing something about it, however; it's almost oddly coincidental that they've come up here. But anyway, fishing for commentary about them on my talk page is kind of weird. For my part, I have concerns with several of Cailil's statements in both recent relevant AEs, but as they did not seem to have had any noted effect on the outcomes, I have no real issue to pursue. Hans Adler, through the heat, has some valid points, I feel. Your "I didn't look closely at Sandstein's original warning" admission very closely mirrors Sandstein's admission that he did not actually bother to read the Apteva AN case before he issued his accusations/"warnings" or even before refusing to retract them after I proved them false. It's extremely troubling that admins feel entitled, empowered to issue serious, restrictive remedies that supposedly represent proper and deemed-necessary "last resort" action, made only with full understanding of the relevant facts and context, when they explicitly state they they've simply neglected to do the homework at all. He's also right that the idea that I'd be sitting out a year-long ban is nonsense. Not even Cailil supported that idea. No one did, and Adler is correct that I would have an easy appeal if things had gone that ridiculous route. Countervailingly, you are correct that "if you think Sandstein is incompetent or 'vindictive', it's up to you to persuade the community or ARBCOM of that view", and I encourage Adler start that ball rolling since he's clearly got the energy to do it (the ball will grow rapidly, I assure you). PS: No one needs yet another "I"m a volunteer..." statement. We're all volunteers, and we all know that. It's like beginning a letter to your legislator/parliamentarian with "I'm a taxpayer...". The fact that you like to remind people of it doesn't somehow make your time or energy more valuable anyone else's, it just wastes more of it for everyone. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:22, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
I haven't got endless time to spend on this debate so hopefully I can make this post my last on this topic. I doubt I am going to change any minds here anyway. However, I feel obliged to at least try to set the record straight on one or two issues.
Firstly, with regard to Sandstein's previous warning: I did not look closely at it because it was virtually irrelevant to the case in hand. The question of whether or not Sandstein's previous warning was justified is entirely separate from the question of whether or not SMcCandlish's recent conduct on MOS-related pages has been problematic. Sandstein's warning was also irrelevant because SMcCandlish had already been notified that standard discretionary sanctions now applied in the topic area in the original case back in March last year, a case which specifically reminded editors to avoid personalizing disputes and to work collegially with others. In short, the requirement for a notification had already been fulfilled and there was no need for further warnings. Indeed, the recommended model at AE is not for applying repeated warnings but for escalating sanctions, while SMcCandlish has now in effect walked away with three warnings in a row (whether or not one considers the second to be justified).
Secondly, I did not take "Sandstein's side" in the case. "Sandstein's side" was to apply a year-long topic ban, a proposal which I opposed. I took the lead in getting the remedy reduced to little more than an advisement, which is the mildest possible outcome short of outright dismissal of a request. And I must emphasize that dismissal was not an option in this case. Almost every contributor to the request, including not only all the uninvolved admins but also virtually all those who spoke up in support of your contributions, acknowledged a problem SMCCandlish with your approach to talk pages, namely your tendency to personalize disputes, or if you prefer, comment on contributor. So the only question was whether another warning/advisement would be justified or whether we should proceed to immediate sanctions. I argued for and succeeded in achieving consensus for the former, against the recommendation of Sandstein which was for a long topic ban.
If I have any regrets regarding this case, it is the fact that my closing statement has apparently led to the misperception that I was somehow following Sandstein's lead or adopting his recommendations. As noted above, this is clearly not the case. I mentioned Sandstein in my closing remarks because I felt his last comment summarized the issues most succinctly. Let me be clear about this, the remedy I formulated was not based on what Sandstein alone thought appropriate, but on my own judgement about the matter, coupled with my interpretation of the consensus view emerging from the admins' discussion. I then proposed a remedy which received assent from the other admins. So yes, I do take responsibility for my administrative actions here. I'm sorry that those actions have not received the unqualified approval of every interested party, but unfortunately it's not always possible to please everyone. Gatoclass (talk) 06:42, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
I know you were not following Sandstein's lead, and that's a good thing. I wasn't trying to imply you weren't using your own judgement. What furrowed my brow was your seeming to pat him on the back for a good job, when he was in fact clearly overreacting and overreaching. But, no big deal I guess. As for the rest: Mostly fair enough, but not everyone at all agreed on what the alleged problem(s) with my talk page edits were, and some explicitly recognized what I'd been saying the whole time, that I was going out of my way to no longer personalize, but address only anonymized patterns of disruption. Of those who were critical, they were all over the map, from "he's too wordy" to "he makes me feel unwelcome" to "he makes me feel like he's lumping me in with some kind of faceless group" to "he seems too sure he is right". Few of them were even vaguely related criticisms. Some, including admins, were mix-and-matching relevant criticism of my MOS edits with nit-picking about my AE responses being too long or too irritable or whatever (despite the fact that we know full well that AE's format itself is what leads to a "wall of text" problem there; there's a whole ArbCom talk page proposal about fixing this, and every single participant there agrees it's a problem). The fact that I'm a outspoken, debatory personality automatically means I'm going to rub some people the wrong way. Have all my life. I get more things done and get things done faster as a result of my approach, however. It also made me a fantastic political activist back when that was my profession. But some people don't like me and wish I were quieter or would go away completely, or only use my "debate voice" when I'm on their side. The fact that most of the respondents were debate opponents of mine and did not present a consistent, much less actually policy-based rationale for censuring me, but various vague dissatisfactions, was both predictable and important. The fact that the uninvolved admins (the only ones who really should have been commenting there, judging from the aforementioned ArtCom thread that Sandstein's perceptively started – see, I can praise him, too – about reforming AE posting rules) did not come to a conclusion to escalate was also predicable and important. The overall nature of the thing was "hmm, something's wrong, and we need to do/say something", but what either of those "somethings" were differed widely between respondents. The negative effect of not looking into Sandstein's original "warning" (accusation) is that you don't seem to be perceiving the pattern at play on the larger canvas. Anyway, the actual result of this AE request (yes, thanks to you being more reasonable and uninvolved than Sandstein was) is essentially an admonition to work more collegially with an inherent warning that failure to do so will surely lead to sanctions, and I can live with that, and repeatedly acknowledged that I need to do so myself. Peace? — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:42, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
A little of that would not be unwelcome after the last few days. Gatoclass (talk) 11:26, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
It shall be so! — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 02:41, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Clarification request: Discretionary sanctions appeals procedure

Unresolved – Gatoclass's promise to deal with this "very shortly" came to nothin, and is part of why I'm leaving.

The request is archived; however, an arbitrator is planning on offering an arbitrator motion "very shortly".

For the Arbitration Committee,
- Penwhale | 14:32, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I've been eager to resolve this for a month now. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:50, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
"Very shortly" has turned into "apparently never". ArbCom's dismal failure to clean up its own stinking mess, which is causing editors to resign in disgust, is among the reasons I'm, well, resigning in disgust. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 16:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement topic ban: Manual of Style

Unresolved – I ran out of time to bother appealing Sandstein's abuses at AE, since I actually have a life. I will instead take it up at RFARB if anything like it ever happens again. Or just quit; I have better things to do than suffer childish harassment in exchange for the time I've devoted rather thanklessly to this project.

The following sanction now applies to you (in accordance with the procedure described at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions):

You are topic-banned (per WP:TBAN) for one month from everything related to the Manual of Style and its components, except for references to the MOS that may be necessary to explain any articlespace edits you make. For the avoidance of doubt, the ban also prohibits you from engaging in disputes with other editors, or requesting sanctions against them, for reasons related to disputes about the MOS, except as outlined in WP:BAN#Exceptions to limited bans.

You have been sanctioned for continued battleground-like conduct in disputes about the manual of style, as manifested notably in the recent arbitration enforcement requests of 24 February 2013 and 27 January 2013, and in your frivolous and vexatious request of 7 March 2013.

This sanction is imposed in my capacity as an uninvolved administrator under the authority of the Arbitration Committee's decision at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation#Final decision. This sanction has been recorded on the log of sanctions for that decision. If the sanction includes a topic ban, please read the banning policy to ensure you understand what this means. If you do not comply with this sanction, you may be blocked for an extended period, by way of enforcement of this sanction—and you may also be made subject to further sanctions.

You may appeal this sanction using the process described at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Appeal. I recommend that you use the arbitration enforcement appeals template if you wish to submit an appeal. If you appeal this sanction, you remain bound by it until you are notified by an uninvolved administrator that the appeal has been successful. You are free to contact me on my talk page if anything of the above is unclear to you.  Sandstein  18:07, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I will be appealing that, though I may shoehorn it into a larger ArbCom case against you. In the interim, I refuse to edit Misplaced Pages for any other purpose until this is resolved, in protest of your grossly hypocritical personal involvement against me, which borders on harassment. Take a few minutes to see how many edits I've made on average per month over the last 7 years and ask yourself if your "find some way to personally stick it to SMcCandlish, no matter the cost" campaign, which has been ongoing for around two months now and already reduced my useful, non-process contributions to a trickle by sucking up all my volunteer time, is really worth it. You, personally, Sandstein, are costing this project my productive involvement, just as you have also driven off User:Noetica permanently, and User:Neotarf, possibly permanently. I hope you're proud of yourself. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 22:58, 12 March 2013 (UTC) Neotarf seems to have returned, but with a much-reduced activity level. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 01:03, 14 March 2013 (UTC) No, Neotarf is no longer interested in WP, except for the matter that lead to that retirement. —Neotarf (talk) 10:11, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Stanton, please don't start an ARBCOM case against Sandstein. Though I understand your sense of frustration, I have a lot more experience of dispute resolution processes than you do and I don't think it's a good idea. Assuming the case was even accepted, which is doubtful IMO, it would just chew up even more of your time and everybody else's and probably only leave you feeling more dissatisfied. I strongly suggest that you put this unfortunate sequence of events behind you and just go back to productive editing. You can appeal the above ruling at AE if you must, but regardless of the outcome, I wouldn't take it any further. Gatoclass (talk) 05:36, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I appreciate your concern (and that you'd express it; I know you're not a huge fan of my wikipersona), but I think its probably too late for a "let's not go there"; Sandstein's forced us there. He is engaging in outright abuse of administrative trust and power, as other admins are telling him and which he refuses to acknowledge, just as he refuses to accept any other criticism or to self-examine his own behavior, patterns and rationales. RFARB is probably inevitable at this point, and frankly the evidence that Sandstein has just run off the rails is mounting too fast to not take action. And I won't be the only one. This has little to do any longer with my own sense of frustration over being harassed by him. While, yes, it was frustrating having to waste my time defending myself against four wikilawyering and system-gaming and possibly also tagteaming processy attacks in two months, with Sandstein in the thick of all four of them and directly responsible for two, this is no longer about me much at all. That wasn't productive, just necessary. However, I consider dealing with unmistakeable admin abuse to be part of my productive editing, just as is dealing with WP:CIVILPOV and other problems endemic to Misplaced Pages that are less obvious than outright vandalism but actually more harmful to the project. PS: Sandstein is all about ensuring that everyone understands that there are ineluctable consequences for patterns of "personalized", disruptive battlegrounding, after all. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 01:03, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
"This sanction is imposed in my capacity as an uninvolved administrator"—I'm blinking. Is it a joke? Tony (talk) 06:53, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, take a look at his talk page. He's actually still under the psychotic delusion that he's just another admin responding to the facts. How this piece of work managed to hoodwink so many on his RfA, I'll never know. VanIsaacWS Vex 09:12, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Looks like SMcCandlish needs still more time to "adjust to the Regime". —Neotarf (talk) 09:57, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, typical Sandstein behaviour, and I really like how he projects his own inability to change based on feedback on other editors. I described his modus operandi 2 1/2 year ago in a long comment here. He doesn't seem to have improved since then. Hans Adler 18:48, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I've had too much to do in real life, like dealing with tax season, to bother preparing an appeal of Sandstein's childish harassment or, any other distracting Misplaced Pages psychodrama. I may simply editorially retire, since I grow weary of devoting time and energy to a project that is increasingly under the control of improperly socialized teenagers, not to mention older but unwiser buffoons who treat the encyclopedia as a power-mongering roleplaying game. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:18, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Courtesy notification

Resolved – Dealt with at Gatoclass's talk page.

Your name has been mentioned here: , and not in a nice way. Perhaps it is an April Fool joke.

Too bad their rules will not allow you to respond to it.

—Neotarf (talk) 13:16, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I've addressed this at User talk:Gatoclass#Borderline personal attack. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 21:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Good, it disturbed my enjoyment of my own retirement as well. The remark was uncivil and unsupportable—and unprofessional. Sometimes even experienced editors can do with a reminder. —Neotarf (talk) 04:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

You quite reasonably objected here to the unnecessary inclusion of remarks directed at you in a post by another editor. So in your response you make exactly the same kind of remarks about me, to which I, equally reasonably, strongly object. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:35, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you were offended, Peter. What exactly is the issue, though? I said that you're a good, not disruptive editor. I observed that you're in a long-term, intractable disagreement with me (and not me alone, nor you alone) over a style issue that you feel as certain and unwavering about as I do. How is that inaccurate? It does take two to argue. And there is no actual doubt as to the fact that your position on that style matter would seem stronger and less opposed if I am increasingly censored, and other MOS regulars take that censorship as a warning to "STFU or else" (which quite a few of them certainly do, and have told me so personally). I was even careful to make it clear that I was not suggesting you were consciously using that fact to make trouble; I simply observed that it's true. Is there something in particular you wanted retracted? — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 11:38, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't describe myself as "offended"; certainly annoyed. The basic issue is that there was no more reason for you to have mentioned my name than there was for Gatoclass to have mentioned yours. I'm not going to get into a detailed dispute about the words you used but in context they were not neutral, factual descriptions (particularly "vested interest"). Just do what Gatoclass failed to do: discuss the issues, not the people involved. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I understand what you mean. To be clear, I mentioned you by name only because you posted, by name, at that AE thread against me which is at issue in Gatoclass's comments; you were thereby the most recent example of what I was talking about with regard to non-disruptive users having complaints. Gatoclass makes a generalized claim that Wikipedians broadly find me intolerable, when in fact I can demonstrate that to date the only complaints at all are mostly from habitual disruptors whom I and others deal with via ANI/AE, and (in a few specific cases like yourself) good-faith editors who simply have long-standing disagreements with me. I did not mean to imply any motive by "vested interest", simply that you are an example of someone invested in the issue, not a random by-stander. Normally I wouldn't bother, but I was, just before that AE case, subjected to further harassment at AE for not specifically naming parties. I'm sure you can see the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position this puts me in. I would certainly prefer to talk about issues, not editors, but Gatoclass, Sandstein, etc., are essentially forcing me to, by either threatening me with direct sanctions if I attempt to generalize, or making broad accusations against me that can only be responded to accurately with specifics. It's an entrapment game, and is a part of why I'm preparing a RFARB. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 16:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
By "consistently good editors like Peter coxhead" I took it to mean someone who engages in legitimate disagreement, rather than someone who is just stirring the pot. No one wants MOS or TITLE to get clogged with disruptive noise, that prevents the kind of discussion needed to air and resolve genuine issues. SMcCandlish has taken some strong leadership in this area, to the benefit of the Project, and has done so without the protection of being an admin. —Neotarf (talk) 06:41, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

S, I am not familiar with the particulars of the long-running dispute with Peter, but I miss your contributions to style issues. I find myself agreeing with you more often than with him; I think of him as part of an anti-MOS camp, though that may be too broad a characterization. I hope you get through the current troubles and get back to helping WP have a consistent and professional style. I don't see what the "tends to alienate" comment was about. Dicklyon (talk) 04:23, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Dicklyon: please don't take the following as specific to me. My shoulders are broad; I am not put off joining in debates by SMcCandlish's or anyone else's comments. I also miss his contributions. But it's very clear to me that other editors have been put off getting involved in discussing and editing the MOS (i.e. are alienated) by some regular MOS editors who have been all too ready to personalize discussions and attribute motives to those who disagree with them. Thus to describe editors as either "pro-MOS" or "anti-MOS" on the basis of disagreements over the content of the MOS is unhelpful (to say the least). SMcCandlish and I agree on many issues (e.g. we would both prefer the MOS to encourage more use of BCE/CE rather than BC/AD, for which sadly there's currently no consensus). We disagree on some issues (e.g. as to whether the MOS should support only a single approach to the case used for the common names of species or endorse more than one approach). This doesn't make either of us "pro" or "anti" the MOS itself.
What I do support is efforts to make discussions on the MOS talk pages more collegial in tone. The fact that some of these efforts seem to me to have been unnecessarily heavy-handed (and indeed uncollegial) doesn't negate the desirability of the original intent. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:33, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Peter, even if your feelings that various editors have been "put off" participating in certain debates by various other editors who are regulars in them (which is probably an accurate description of every single contentious article subject and internal Misplaced Pages process page on the entire system, actually, from Talk:National Rifle Association to Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion), I hope you understand that this is no justification for the bordering-on-conspiratorial multi-editor (and multi-admin) three-month long campaign of harassment against me in particular, and that you realize that this is precisely what has been happening. My pillorying is a trial balloon by the "camp" that Dicklyon alludes to. For the record, I've never considered you among them. I can't say anything further right now or some lurking stalker will surely accuse me of engaging in an MoS-related debate in violation of Sandstein's bogus topic ban. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 21:23, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Update: I stand by what I said even more now, in light of these later remarks by Peter coxhead. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 16:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Courtesy notification

FYI – Just a note.

If anyone is still watching this talk page, I linked to it here. —Neotarf (talk) 16:09, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I did eventually see it. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 16:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

The MOS needs you!

Resolved – Not sure I have anything further to say.

I went away on vacation for some months, came back and noticed a distinct absence from wt:mos, poked around here and saw you were dubiously blocked and not coming back until a month ago, and thought I'd drop you a line.

There's a an exciting discussion about logical quotation going on a wt:mos. Dicklyon even linked an essay of yours. I feel like you would surely have something insightful to say. Don't let the man get you down! If you do decide to stay away, I wish you the best. AgnosticAphid talk 18:21, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, and I appreciate the sentiment, but remain skeptical.
I'm seriously contemplating never editing here again. I don't feel like donating my time to a project where a couple of admins are permitted to incessantly hound me (and whomever else they target for e-assassination, like Noetica), abusing their admin status and abusing Misplaced Pages process in a months-long campaign of harassment, for clearly personally motivated reasons. One has resigned adminship under a cloud, after very, very narrowly escaping being desysopped, but Sandstein continues a rampage of terror at WP:AE, unabated. Even most other admins at AE are clearly afraid of him. After someone just resigned from WP:ARBCOM because of its cronyism and refusal to take actions that might be unpopular in the authoritarian, control-freak atmosphere that has overwhelmed a once-open editing environment, I have little hope that my bothering with the stress and time-sink of an ArbCom case at WP:RFARB would even go anywhere. I certainly don't feel like editing MOS without ArbCom on my side, since the entire point of the harassment is to falsely set up a long-term ban for anyone (but especially any MOS regular) who crosses a certain camp of admins. For example, Sandstein has already made it clear that this is his goal with regard to me in particular, having pushed for me being blocked for an entire year, despite my not having done anything to deserve that. He's not going to get a victim, but a martyr. Misplaced Pages's losing thousands of constructive edits per month by me, and you can lay that directly at Sandstein's feet, because I'm not about to let his false accusations and grossly involved abuses of adminship be forgotten and just go back to editing as if it didn't happen, so he can do it to me again. Meanwhile, I've been doing other things with my life. WP is hardly the only thing worth my time, and the more it's taken over by juvenile crypto-fascists and populated by their enablers, the less worthy it is. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 18:44, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
(de-lurk)
Well, your block record remains clean. :)
I have to say I'm sympathetic, often feeling that I. too, should quit. In the space of the 7 years I've been on Misplaced Pages, I've seen it evolve from a fun collaborative place (not without some hot disagreements about content) to a bureaucracy rife with politics and drama. I tend to stay away from those areas, but occasionally get sucked in and regret the lost hours of my life that resulted. MOS-related stuff is something I try to stay away from, personally. Fortunately Misplaced Pages is so vast that I can usually find something interesting to do on it with my spare time. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
All human endeavors necessarily involve politics to some extent, and politics automatically generate drama. The issue for WP is bureaucracy and its penchant for being abused by PoV-pushing parties with the patience to infiltrate and subvert the system. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 16:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Just for the record: Why I'm not editing any longer (a letter of resignation)

In response to mistaken assumptions or false characterizations of my reasoning (e.g. here), I'm going to explain more carefully why I've almost entirely ceased editing Misplaced Pages.

I've stopped editing here because I no longer have much faith in Misplaced Pages as an open editing environment, populated by peers in rational discourse, with encyclopedic goals. Misplaced Pages is now effectively and increasingly under the thumb of agenda-pushing, tin-pot dictatorial politicians abusing adminship as a caste system, as a puerile, venal popularity contest, and even as a means to a censorious and propagandistic end, all to the detriment of Misplaced Pages's mission.

In broad terms, I've not been editing, for much of any reason, since April 2013, and may leave permanently except as a decreasingly trusting reader. I've put Misplaced Pages at arm's length because of "cult of personality"-based, systemic abuses by "entitled" admins, and associated issues of "good ol' boy" cronyism, me-too-ism, and diffuse but stifling fear of challenging these pushy, censorious, charismatic admin "personalities", who have usurped ArbCom's authority and purpose, and turned WP:AE, WP:ANI and related administrative noticeboards into an above-the-law regime of make-it-up-as-you-go-along, arbitrary (in the negative sense), selective, even abusive and vindictive enforcement, with no checks and balances. From this Lord of the Flies-reminiscent kangaroo court, there is no appeal or recourse except to itself at WP:AE, or to a bureaucratic morass at WP:RFARB, where ArbCom generally declines to contradict admins, and not punish bad-acting ones even when the evidence can't be ignored, simply because they have a "badge".

This cancer of self-serving, aggressive, autocratic admins taking over dispute resolution process and perverting it to some kind of Judge Dredd/Dirty Harry bad-wiki-cop fantasy game, is compounded by:

  1. failure of the WP:AE/WP:ANI sub-community of admins to fulfill its role properly, with the result that it is effectively sanctioning, even egging on, the pillorying of productive editors, while encouraging the frivolous, exploitative "career troublemaking" of inveterate PoV-pushers, trolls and nutcases;
  2. failure of arbitrators to fulfill promises to clarify and resolve serious problems in the wording and enforcement of discretionary sanctions;
  3. failure of Jimmy Wales to institute the adminship reforms that he promised (vaguely as to detail, concretely as to timeline) would be in place by the first quarter of this year;
  4. and failure of the community more broadly to do much of anything about the increasing usurpation of the system of agenda-driven "civil PoV-pushers" who are seeking and uncritically gaining and keeping administrator authority, by which Misplaced Pages's coverage, tone and very nature are slowly being warped to reflect particular world-views, and increasingly limit the breadth and depth of the encyclopedia's base of contributors.

This is perhaps not surprising, given that (depending on whose stats and definitions you prefer) en.wikipedia.org is one of the top-3 to top-5 most used websites in the world. Misplaced Pages's latent power on the human stage has staggering potential, but is mostly unguarded, with very few barriers to concerted, planned abuse and subversion. That's the surprising part, and the underlying impetus of my effective resignation as an editor here.

The proximal "straw that broke the camel's back" for me is the fact that two admins (one, SarekOfVulcan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), now resigned under a cloud after narrowly escaping forced-desysoping by ArbCom, the other still active) went on a two-months-long campaign of direct personal harassment of me and abuse of administrative power and processes to hound me, with virtually no response in check from the community – much less from its collective administration in particular, despite that being their "job". The other admin of the pair, Sandstein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who has previously made proven-false accusations against me and refused to retract them, even un-recused himself – after admitting that many others had raised concerns that he was too involved, being party to a still-unresolved discretionary-sanctions dispute with me, and thus agreeing to recuse himself – just so he could get to be the one to personally close a WP:AE case, in a manner that censored me with an unjustified and unjustifiable topic ban for a month, perhaps one of the clearest cases ever of disruptive sanctions. I've thought about pursuing a WP:RFARB case about the matter, and many have encouraged me to do so, a few publicly but (fearing repercussions) most privately. While I think I would win such a case on its merits, and I know of at least 5 others who would join as additional "plaintiffs", I feel I have better things to do with my time. Life is short, and I would rather do something pleasant and meaningful than put up with being conspiratorially attacked by inimical, petty power-brokers in a project that seems to be running off the rails, with no recourse but to engage a witheringly time-consuming and nit-picky, pseudo-legalistic, pretentious and slow-moving bureaucracy that is clearly stacked against non-admins. I also observe that one Arb recently resigned their post for reasons that indicate ArbCom is acting in the interests of its own collective public image, not the interests of the editing community, so I am skeptical that such an RFARB case would be decided on its merits, rather than expediency and authoritarianism. Even a couple of admins who have seemed relatively neutral toward me appear to express similar doubts. All these temporal specifics said, this particular back-breaking straw really is just one problem among many that together indicate serious institutional malaise. Being raked over the coals by an admin tag-team gang just happened to piss me off too much to let it slide.

Conclusion: Until I see at least some marginal progress on these worsening problems, I remain unconvinced that this project is worth any more of my time, since it is being incrementally but inexorably co-opted, while neither its most valuable contributors nor even its founder and chairman seem to care enough to speak up and take action about it. I don't even bother fixing typos any more; "Misplaced Pages doesn't need me", right? I've been in the top few hundred most-active editors for years. I've even spent several thousands of dollars obtaining hard-to-find paper sources for articles that badly need work (not to mention donating money directly to the project), but at this point I may just write my own well-researched pieces about these topics, and publish them elsewhere. This project certainly has no natural right to my continued massive amount of consistently productive labor, nor any entitlement to it even on moral suasion grounds, if it will not defend itself from rotting from the inside out.

— SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 13:27, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

PS: I reserve the right to pop back in from time to time when I'm notified by someone in e-mail of something that actually needs my attention (like frivolous or malicious attempts to undo my work here), or to file or join actions at WP:AE, WP:RFARB, etc. that may help resolve some of the problems that have led to my leaving. Please do not ask for my involvement otherwise. I will not donate any more time to this project until I see that steps are being taken to put it back on the rails. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:49, 29 June 2013 (UTC)



S, don't let them get you down. Whether you take a long break, a short break, or a permanent break, I hope you'll forget those small-minded ones who get you down, and know that many of us here greatly appreciate and value your long-term and thoughtful contributions. Many thanks, and I hope to see you around again eventually. Dicklyon (talk) 04:21, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
Want you back. Tony (talk) 06:02, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
For the record, I regret that you've stopped editing. (I stand by my description of your editing as "aggressive", but apologize for the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" error in describing your ceasing to edit as because of rather than consequent on the actions of an admin.) I have been asking repeatedly for an explanation of how to de-capitalize those English names of plants which are capitalized in sources without arbitrariness and without OR/SYNTH. And there it is: a clear explanation of the difference between "jack" in "jack-in-the-pulpit" and "Brewer" in "Brewer's pine", which is obvious when you see it written down, but which no-one else had ever provided. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:02, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
Glad that was helpful, and I appreciate the apology/clarification re: ergo propter hoc. My disagreement with "aggressive" is that it is synonymous with "attacking", yet there's no ArbCom case, no AE case, not AN case, no ANI case, no RFC/U, etc., ever showing me to be attacking anyone. I realize that my debate style irritates some people. Tough. People own their own emotions. Competency is required. Part of competency is being able to withstand vigorous debate, or one's ability is undermined to effectively work in a collaborative and often adversarial system with a world of differing and often directly conflicting viewpoints. Desire to be a Wikipedian is insufficient to be a good one. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 03:11, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
When an institution loses experienced users like you, it loses its "institutional memory". Sadly, I totally understand what has happened here; it has spurred the retirement banner on my own talk page, and on others'. Let us hope there is still a way forward. Neotarf (talk) 16:35, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Just to let you know

FYI – Got it.

You have been mentioned at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#Just_to_let_you_know. XOttawahitech (talk) 14:41, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Noted. We're in touch; thanks. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:49, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

A pie for you!

FYI – Got it.
Wow, you've gotten way too much bureaucracy and not enough fun here lately. Here's a pie as a reminder that this can also be a friendly place where people appreciate each other. Clearly we need to have more recreational, in-person social gatherings. If you're anywhere near Washington, DC, stop by our Wiknic tomorrow! Djembayz (talk) 14:18, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I appreciate it. I am in the San Francisco Bay Area,though I used to live in DC back in the day. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:49, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Cuegloss2

Resolved – Responded to this frivolous nomination at TfD.

Template:Cuegloss2 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:24, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Cuegloss

Resolved – Responded to this frivolous nomination at TfD.

Template:Cuegloss has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:24, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Problem at the glossary

Resolved – Just a tech problem due to malformed frivolous TfD.

Coming here I was sorry to see your retirement notice. Will read more fully on your reasons. Came here though to tell you the glossary is completely broken right now. Maybe something affecting {{defn}}, not sure. Could sure use your input.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:42, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Well after saving I saw the two posts above and immediately figured the nominator forgot to enclose the TfD template in noinclude tags, and lo and behold... Fixed now.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:55, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's problem

Only occasionally do I run across parts of your massive body of good works, almost always off Misplaced Pages, but I want to say that I hold you in the very highest regard. I agree with you that there is an unhealthy intensification of rivalries on Misplaced Pages that dooms the project. However, I should take a moment to point out that this is inevitable based on a design flaw of the project from the beginning. The problem is that the creation of content and the control of the ensuing bandwidth are entangled. The result is that Misplaced Pages suffers a resource curse: as more and more content has been developed, and more and more bandwidth comes to the content, there is more and more financial and political advantage to be had from controlling it. There is, therefore, no way that the organization could ever have experienced a different fate than to be infiltrated and taken over by external interests with their own agendas. At the moment, it is possible that most of the players are still amateurs - I don't have any way to know - but it is a game of Survivor and the grand prize is enormous.

I know you are highly experienced with political activism, and knowledgeable of the technology: what we need is a way to shatter the control over what content people see when they look it up, back into the hands of the Internet as a whole with nobody in charge. We need the Misplaced Pages content to genuinely be mirrored over hundreds, thousands of sites - not spammers looking for quick traffic to low-grade copies, but a community of editors, just like the community of Misplaced Pages editors, but independent, free from any effort anyone can ever make to become admin over them. There was a project along that line at The Federated Wiki by the originator of the Wiki format, though it had struck me as crude and with too much structuring of the content by the software. There are other Wikis right now all over the Internet. The question is: does anyone have the savvy to marshall these forces into a persuasive alternative to Misplaced Pages that can start to take over for it as it descends into its final throes? Wnt (talk) 01:33, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with your first paragraph, not sure that the second is how I would approach it (short version: just because certain parties will try to control a centralized resource doesn't mean that it must necessarily be decenralized). But, I decline to make this my problem. Too much important shit (both objectively, societally important, and important in my life for personal reasons) is going on in real life for me to concern myself with WP much longer. Not as it stands today. I don't have the energy to try to make a competing/replacement system, and don't see that as necessary or even helpful, compared to fixing the existing one. I've resisted the POV-pusher and authoritarian takeover for years, and it's just not my job any more. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 03:04, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Bye

I'm logging off again. I don't need e-mail notifying me of this party or that saying good or bad things in response to my leaving. If someone tries to destroy something useful I worked extensively on, I wouldn't mind a heads-up, though. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 03:04, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Clarifyref

Resolved – Since I was logged in for a loose end, I responded to this waste of TfD's time.

Template:Clarifyref has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • 06:12, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

DYK RfC

Disregard – I'm not actively editing except to tie up loose ends, resolve the ongoing dispute I've resigned over, or prevent people from undoing my work.
  • As a listed GA participant, you are invited to contribute to a formal Request for Comment on the question of whether Good Articles should be eligible to appear in the Did You Know? slot in future. Please see the proposal on its subpage here, or on the main DYK talk page. To add the discussion to your watchlist, click this link. Thank you in advance. Gilderien Chat|Contributions03:01, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Category:Snooker venues

Resolved – I'm not actively editing except to tie up loose ends, resolve the ongoing dispute I've resigned over, or prevent people from undoing my work. This qualifies as both the first and third of those.

This was a category you created that has recently been deleted. I realize you have retired from active editing, but I have initiated a deletion review at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2013 August 1 if you would care to participate. Betty Logan (talk) 22:11, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Category:Snooker venues

Resolved – Responded at CfD.

Category:Snooker venues, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Spartaz 06:48, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I love how people are coming out of the woodwork to attack WP:CUE and WP:SNOOKER as soon as they think I'm not looking any longer. Preventing people from throwing away my work is one of the few things I'll log back in for. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 08:52, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

New posts I may not have seen

Bug 6200

MediaWiki 1.22/wmf13 will fix Template:Bug. --  Gadget850 05:50, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Billiard Congress of America

Hey, I know you're not really here anymore and probably won't see this message but I was wondering if you could shed some light on whether Category:Billiard Congress of America should be kept or not. There is a discussion going on over here and I notice you created the category but were not notified it was being put up for deletion. I felt I might notify you since this might be important to you. Take care. LazyBastardGuy 19:42, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

It's still good to post here, since other editors do watch this talk page in order to keep an eye on maintaining contributions in his areas of interest. VanIsaacWS Vex 02:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
Not enough, evidently. I really don't edit here any more. I'm not playing some kind of WP:DIVA game, and just taking a break; I really have resigned other than I'll comment here and there if I think it necessary. I don't touch articles or policy/process/project pages at all any longer, and haven't logged in for a couple of months until now. Other people are going to have to keep an eye on this stuff. I only heard about this latest XfD via e-mail a month after the fact, and I've withdrawn enough I'm not sure I'll bother logging back into to argue any more anti-pool XfDs, even if I'm notified. It's not my "job" these days.
But the articles and categories and templates within the scope of WP:CUE really are, quite obviously, under a programmatic attack campaign of XfDs. This one was deleted on the basis of just a couple of a !votes, using faulty logic and (way more importantly for the immediate future) declaring an active intent to CfD the BCA Hall of Fame category, despite that honor being probably the single greatest North American achievement possible to any pool or billiards player. Its prestige trumps an enormous number of awards in other sports that have categories here. It's simply that cue sports are not as popular as football, hockey and baseball, so categories relating to them are being systematically killed off by people who think that notability is a popularity contest, by people who just don't like pool, snooker and billiards (there's a large camp of people who want to denigrate them as silly games instead of serious sports), people who for personal reasons are undoing as much of my work as they they can get away with, people who do little on WP but engage in obsessively destructive deletion campaigns, and people who mean well but do not know enough about the topic to know why certain articles, categories, etc., exist and should exist. I really love the assertion in that stupid CfD that BCA just couldn't ever have more than one article, when the article is already sectioned and templated in a way that clearly indicates that at least three other articles need to fork off of it, and I was actually in the slow process of writing them when I was hounded off the system by Sandstein and his cronies.
As a matter of policy, by the way, the BCAPL (pool league) section must split off, because there is no longer a legal tie between the Billiard Congress of America and the BCA Pool League (BCAPL), who cannot call themselves the Billiard Congress of America Pool League any more, only use the acronym. We're not allowed to have two unrelated topics covered by the same article. The BCAPL and USAPL (which never was BCA-related in any way) material needs to be in an article about Cue Sports International (CSI), the company that operates both of these leagues. (BCA hired CSI to operate BCA's league, and that didn't go so well, and came to an end, but due to a sneaky contract, CSI retains the right to use BCA's initials in a league, and it's a profitable one so they won't let the name go, and BCA can't really do anything about it. I've had high-level discussions with BCA and ex-BCA people about this. Sourcing an article on that would be challenging, because very little if any detail on this has been published anywhere.)
Anyway, any "successful" XfD like this which wasn't advertised at WT:CUE, WT:SNOOKER and WT:SPORTS for input from people who actually care about it and understand the topic, should be challenged at WP:DRV immediately. I refuse to volunteer my time to work on this encyclopedia unless and until some serious things change for the better here, but I still care that it be accurate, broad and well-structured, as a frequent reader and research user, former donor, and former long-term, top-400 editing contributor. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:55, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Books and Bytes: The Misplaced Pages Library Newsletter

Books and Bytes

Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013

by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

Greetings Misplaced Pages Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Misplaced Pages Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...

New positions: Sign up to be a Misplaced Pages Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Misplaced Pages Librarian

Misplaced Pages Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.

New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??

New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges

News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY

Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions

New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration

Read the full newsletter

Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. --The Interior 21:56, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link fixing one-day contest

I have decided to put on a mini-contest within the November 2013 monthly disambiguation contest, on Saturday, November 23 (UTC). I will personally give a $20 Amazon.com gift card to the disambiguator who fixes the most links on that server-day (see the project page for details on scoring points). Since we are not geared up to do an automated count for that day, at 00:00, 23 November 2013 (UTC) (which is 7:00 PM on November 22, EST), I'll take a screenshot of the project page leaderboard. I will presume that anyone who is not already listed on the leaderboard has precisely nine edits. At 01:00, 24 November 2013 (UTC) (8:00 PM on November 23, EST), I'll take a screenshot of the leaderboard at that time (the extra hour is to give the board time to update), and I will determine from that who our winner is. I will credit links fixed by turning a WP:DABCONCEPT page into an article, but you'll have to let me know me that you did so. Here's to a fun contest. Note that according to the Daily Disambig, we currently have under 256,000 disambiguation links to be fixed. If everyone in the disambiguation link fixers category were to fix 500 links, we would have them all done - so aim high! Cheers! bd2412 T 02:24, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

GAN December 2013 Backlog Drive

Hello! A GAN Backlog Drive will begin in less than 4 days!

In past Backlog Drives, the goal was to reduce the backlog of Good article nominations. In the upcoming drive, another goal will be added - raising as much money as we can for the Wikimedia Foundation. How will this work? Well, its pretty simple. Any user interested in donating can submit a pledge at the Backlog Drive page (linked above). The pledge should mention the amount of money the user is willing to donate per review. For example, if a user pledges 5 cents per review and 100 nominations are reviewed, the total donation amount is $5.00.

At the time this message was sent out, two users have submitted pledges for a total of 8 cents per review. All pledges, no matter how much money, are greatly appreciated. Also, in no way is this saying you must make a pledge.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or leave a message on the Backlog Drive talk page. And remember, there are less than 4 days before the drive starts!--EdwardsBot (talk) 03:10, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

GAN December 2013 Backlog Drive

Hello! Just a friendly reminder that the GAN Backlog Drive has begun and will end on December 31, 2013!

If you know anyone outside of the WikiProject that may be interested, feel free to invite them to the drive!

If you have any questions or want to comment about something regarding the drive, post them here--EdwardsBot (talk) 00:03, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages Library Survey

As a subscriber to one of The Misplaced Pages Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi 15:56, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Notification of change to templates

This is to notify you that the templates Template:IPSite, Template:BDMag, Template:IPMag and Template:PBMag, which all seem to have been created and edited almost exclusively by you, have been modified. In accordance with the deprecation of |month= they now no longer accept the month and year parameters. Use |date= instead. Please note that all articles that transclude these templates have been updated accordingly and now use the date parameter exclusively. Debresser (talk) 05:25, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Great work

The work you did on MOS:ORGANISMS was outstanding. I really hope you come back sometime soon. Spicemix (talk) 15:26, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, but fat chance. The more disruptive parties in that editing space, who are here as a gang to force everyone in the world to do what their specialist journals do, no matter what, at all costs, are half of why I left. MOS:ORGANISMS obviously should be tweaked and labeled a guideline at this point (more like a year ago!), but it's not my job. If someone runs with that, I'll be glad to log back into and voice support for it (and against efforts to derail it), but I can't seriously consider devoting any more real time or energy to this project. I no longer have much faith in its long-term viability except as something that's an unholy chimera of propaganda machine for crafty social-engineering e-politicians, and a juvenile multiplayer game. I don't mean to imply that you must be juvenile or a propagandist to continue here, you just have to have have way more faith and time to gamble with against the propagandists and juveniles than I do.
PS: Someone is already doing violence to MOS:ORGANISMS, e.g. deleting all reference to the term supragenus, which is a real taxonomical term in some fields and was very much included on purpose (cf. journal results from https://www.google.com/#q=%22supragenus%22 ). It's a case probably of someone assuming that because it's not used in their field it doesn't exist or shouldn't exist. I.e., it's PoV-pushing "my specialization is more important than yours" crap, as usual for this crowd. Those edits need to be reverted. So should addition of the link to Birds of the World: Recommended English Names by the usual suspects; the "See also" section there is not for activistic promotion of one particular organization's specialist publications, it's for links to other Misplaced Pages-internal resources. If the BotW thing is important enough to Misplaced Pages to mention in the guideline at all, it should be in the main text of it, in the proper context. That's dubious, because the consensus for over 5 years at WT:MOS has been that WP really doesn't care that most-not-all bird publications prefer to capitalize bird name, it's just not a typographical practice we're all comfortable with forcing on all readers and editors of this general-purpose encyclopedia. The camp that just will not let this go is trying to push that capitalization convention by explicitly linking to it in the guideline draft's "See also" section, as if it had official guideline imprimatur, which it does not and certainly would not after this is a guideline. – SMcCandlish 22:03, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Your two cents requested

Would love to hear your opinion on how your essay (WP:SSF) has been wielded as a hammer or a thought-terminating cliché to compel MOS title capitlisation compliance on composition titles (MOS:CT) despite all the reliable sources indicating otherwise and contributing to WP:IDHT mentality in such debates, see: Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#The curious case of Remember not, Lord, our offences. Please ping me when you respond.--ColonelHenry (talk) 19:14, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

It's not in userspace; if there's something wrong with a point that it raises, anyone can work to resolve that and improve it. The essay does not magically control how other people write and think. If someone is applying the logic in it fallaciously, call them on that fallacy.
Most opposition to that essay (other than to its perhaps long-winded and somewhat aggressive writing style, both of which are things that others might want to moderate with some cleanup editing) comes from people who are advancing a patently SSF argument and engaging in the fallacy of special pleading - somehow their particular little WP-external consistency bugbear must be exempt from the WP-internal reasoning in WP:SSF. But it's not special, and it's not exempt. WP:SSF is not a policy or guideline (though by this point a guideline in more neutral wording can certainly be derived from it and integrated into MOS). It simply a collection of logical arguments. If someone disagrees with them, or with any of them, they're welcome to try a refutation. Every attempt I've seen so far has dismally failed. The "thought-termination" and "I didn't hear that" is happening from the other direction - people have already stopped thinking and arrive with an agenda to force their preconceived way, no matter what, when they attempt to impose here some encyclopedia-irrelevant stylistic quirk from specialist publications that don't do what the rest of the English-writing world does. Here, it does not serve our readers' needs, and they push for it so doggedly just because it's what they're familiar with and they think their specialization trumps other concerns.
Keep in mind I actually am a specialist, of more than one kind, and am intimately familiar with jargon. I also have a degree in anthropology and communication. I didn't arrive at SSF because I'm some uneducated schlub who doesn't understand how jargon works and what purposes it serves. I'm actually deeply steeped in all of that. Because my specializations cross boundaries I have the hardly unique but contextually important perspective of someone who has seen how frequently the stylistic demands of one specialization conflict with those of a different specialty, leading to the obvious conclusion that we cannot pander to specialist style demands here or we inevitably have to play this-speciality-is-more-important-than-that-one favorites, a blatant violation of policy (at WP:NPOV and elsewhere).
Very early in the specific debate you highlight, SchreiberBike got it right:

"I think the question might be: Who do we want to look slightly stupid to? The article and its title could match hundreds of years of usage, or it could match all the other works in Misplaced Pages. No one will have trouble identifying it either way. The people who are familiar with the work in partial caps might see it capitalized in our style and think that must be the way it is done in Misplaced Pages. Alternatively, people seeing the work in Purcell's idiosyncratic style would think there must be something different about this work from all the others in Misplaced Pages. I don't have strong feelings, but generally I favor following Misplaced Pages's style in Misplaced Pages. Many songs, bands, companies, etc. capitalize in odd ways and usually we follow our standard style. SchreiberBike talk 20:21, 20 December 2013 (UTC)"

Furthermore, the number of musicians and musicologists familiar with that composition is a tiny, tiny droplet in a very huge bucket of WP readers. Of those, the number who remember how it was originally capitalized – before English had capitalization standards, mind you – is even smaller. How many actual readers of Misplaced Pages? A few dozen? Of those, how many are so dense they cannot understand that WP, like most major publications, has a style guide that it follows which sometimes conflicts with other style guides and conventions? Probably zero. Also of that same group, how many have never encountered the work capitalized the way WP and nearly everyone else familiar with the English language would capitalize it? Again zero. Basic reasoning, therefore, suggests that the people raising hell about this are doing it for precisely the reasons outlined and skewered at WP:SSF, need to rethink what their priorities are here, and basically need to stop abusing WP as a place to get into geeky, we're-more-special-than-you fights simply for the "joy" of arguing and wasting other people's time. Some of these people are a curse to the entire encyclopedia, and directly inspired other highly critical essays, including WP:DIVA and WP:NOTHERE (I can even tell you the specific individual from one of the biology projects who inspired the former).
As ScheiberBike hints at but didn't spell out, there are other WP reasons to not capitalize that title weirdly against standard English conventions, such as the principle of least astonishment for the largest number of people, and the fact that we do not engage in weird typographic shenanigans to satisfy anyone expectations about what the "official name" of something is, nor to emulate artists' preferred style (e.g. a large number of modern pop song and album titles have "TiTleS CaPiTaLiZeD WeIrD" like that just for kicks, and WP emphatically does not honor those style choices, no matter how many music magazines/sites and other topically-reliable specialist publications do so. Bottom line: If if conflicts with what you'd normally find in a newspaper, another (non-specialist) encyclopedia/dictionary, or other totally generalist work, don't do it here. To the specialist editor raising hell about some typographical quirk here: Get the hell over yourself and your specialty's tiresome "preciousness". It's really quite simple.
The only actual misapplications I've ever seen of WP:SSF are attempting to apply it to cases where specialist style does not actually conflict with normal, everyday English usage, or where the style conflict has nothing to do with specialists. For example, I've seen someone wrongly make an SSF argument against spacing initials in human names (J. R. R. Tolkien vs. J.R.R. Tolkien), on the basis that the unspaced version is actually more common, by a wide margin, even, and wrongly cite this essay in their argument. That's not an SSF concern, both because the spaced-apart style doesn't lead to any sort of cognitive dissonance for typical readers, and because (more pointedly) no one is defending the run-together style on the basis that their oh-so-damned-important specialty demands it that way, against the expectations of the rest of the human race.
At this point, I don't really give a damn other than to clarify my own reasoning in that essay. WP is going to hell in a rocket-powered hand basket. I post occasional requests for corrections on some article talk pages (not under this username), because I need them as a reader, not editor, but that's it. I don't work here any longer (I don't even edit articles to fix typos), and never will until the ArbCom or the community more broadly reigns in the rampant, authoritarian, PoV-pushing admin abuse that is driving Misplaced Pages down the drain.
– SMcCandlish, 21:35, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#Misplaced Pages:NO CONSENSUS and Misplaced Pages:NOCONSENSUS

Because you have edited Misplaced Pages:No consensus, your input is requested in the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#Misplaced Pages:NO CONSENSUS and Misplaced Pages:NOCONSENSUS. Cheers! bd2412 T 14:40, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

March 2014 GAN Backlog Drive

It's that time again! Starting on March 1, there will be another GAN Backlog Drive! There will be several changes compared to previous drives:

  • This drive will introduce a new component to it; a point system. In a nutshell, older nominations are worth more points than newer nominations. The top 3 participants who have the points will be awarded the Golden, Silver, or Bronze Misplaced Pages Puzzle Piece Trophy, respectively.
  • Unlike the December 2013 Backlog Drive, earning an additional barnstar if you reached your goal has been removed.
  • The allowance to have insufficient reviews has been lowered to 2 before being disqualified.
  • An exception to the rule that all reviews must be completed before the deadline has been created.

Also, something that I thought I would share with all of you is that we raised $20.88 (USD) for the WMF in the December 2013 drive. It may not sound like a lot but considering that that was raised just because we reviewed articles, I would say that's pretty good! With that success, pledges can be made for the upcoming drive if you wish.

More info regarding the drive and full descriptions regarding the changes to this drive can be found on the the drive page. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a message on the drive talk page.

I look forward to your participation and hope that because of it, some day the backlog will be gone!

--Dom497

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

GAN March 2014 Backlog Drive

The March 2014 GAN Backlog Drive has begun and will end on April 1, 2014! Sent by Dom497 on behalf of MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:01, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infobox requested

Template:Infobox requested has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page.  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:24, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Discretionary sanction notification

This is to notify you that the arbitration committee authorized discretionary sanctions for article titles and capitalization. 18:03, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

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