Misplaced Pages

As a very rusty law graduate - and an argumentative old sod, I assure you I'm well capable of out doing the wonks in wonkery. ;) --Doc 20:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

If you have no position, why did you undelete the page? --Tony Sidaway 20:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Because it is very likely that some defenders of the page have not yet had sufficient notice or time to comment. I am preserving for the as-yet-unspoken at least a little window of time in which they might comment. Generally, this is the reason all debates have fixed time-durations of some kind: so the first guy who comes along to "vote" doesn't declare a unanimity of one and close the thing. Opportunity to be heard is key, yes?

Besides, although I have no opinion, I have an honest self-interest in debate continuing for a bit. I'm waiting for an answer from Lar. :) Xoloz 21:04, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

The key is surely getting rubbish like this off the encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway 21:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

No hassle. I made an honest attempt to kill this silly thing; my conscience is clean. --Tony Sidaway 20:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Has your conscience ever been otherwise? ;) Xoloz 20:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Image deletion

Would you mind expanding on this, please? All fair use images are copyright infringements (presumably). pfctdayelise 01:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The image is a Getty property and concerns an ongoing news event. In my opinion it exposed Misplaced Pages for copyright infringement that clearly could reduce Getty's income from the image. While it may be possible at some time in the future to use an image like that somewhere on Misplaced Pages, at the time of deletion the image's potential for use had not been adequately justified. --Tony Sidaway 02:16, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Tony. Nandesuka 02:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Thankyou for explaining that. That makes sense and I have no issue with that. However it's not at all what is expressed in the deletion log, or what was expressed to me on the image page (by others) before it was deleted. And it's frankly not an obvious or set in stone part of WP policy. A note to let me know might have been nice. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:38, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Protection on Pseudoreligion

Tony,

I noticed that you added a semi-protect on Pseudoreligion due to some edit-warring going on, and possible sockpuppetry. The principal user involved, whom I understand you've dealt with in the past, user:LaszloWalrus appears to be continuing an edit-war campaign for which he's previously been blocked: removing sourced references to Objectivism. In this article, as well as on the article's Talk page a number of citations were provided for this individual. He continues to remove the references, often numerous times a day, even after being warned multiple times on his talk page to stop. Please take a look to see what you feel is appropriate. I will refrain from reverting his latest content deletion. Thx, --Leflyman 03:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I may be too involved on this matter--I've really only been addressing what seem to be ban violations by another user on LaszloWalrus' request. I'm also aware that he himself has been prone to tendentious editing and I've blocked him in the past. However I'd rather you took this to WP:ANI and ask another administrator to review this. I think this would be fairer to all. --Tony Sidaway 12:03, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Understood; thank you. --Leflyman 15:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Juro

All the staff were done in the past. Annoying POV pusher , clearly with a hate/angster against hungarians (see the few previous links, i put in). He even had block(s) for this. How/where can I ask for a third view comment? Or ask for banning him from editing articles related to Hungary and Hungarians? The wikipedia's arbitration pages are better then tha maze was in Crete. :S Can't find anything. --VinceB 11:54, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Try making an edit on Misplaced Pages:Third Opinion, or else ask for mediation. You should in early stages be trying to see if you can persuade the user to stop pushing points of view into articles.

If there are at least two editors who have tried, and failed, to resolve the dispute with this user, then try going to Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct.

If all other avenues fail, or seem very likely to fail, come back to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration and read the instructions on how to apply for arbitration.

If the user is engaged in persistent edit warring, and the problem is rather urgent, make an edit on Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (WP:ANI for short) and an administrator will take a look and take action if necessary. --Tony Sidaway 12:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but it lasts since he regged in. All you mentioned above were all done, since 2003, a ots of times by a lot of users. Guess, the time for an arbitration is here for more than 2 yrs now. Will you help me? I don't know how to do this.--VinceB 12:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'll reformat your application. --Tony Sidaway 12:48, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi. As an editor active in the same area as Juro, I feel that I can (and should) provide some evidence against VinceB's claims. Since you filed the RfA for him/her, could you advise me please where I should write my comment to this case? Thanks in advance. Tankred 15:29, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, you're welcome to make a new section on that application called something like "Statement by User:Tankred" and add your own signed comments. Keep it brief and to the point; arbitrators don't like to read long submissions. --Tony Sidaway 15:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I doubt VinceB used other means how to resolve his personal dispute with Juro (and btw, I failed to find any particular talk page, where the alleged dispute occurred). As far as I know, Juro has never been mentioned at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct. Unfortunately, I was not able to find the archived cases of Misplaced Pages:Third Opinion, but I do not remember anyone officially asking for the third opinion in this case. I believe that VinceB's request is unnecessary and it would be nice if he provided any evidence that (1) he/she has a dispute with Juro and (2) he/she used other means of dispute resolution before filing his/her request. Tankred 15:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it seems unlikely to be accepted (though I don't make such decisions). If it's rejected, likely the arbitrators will recommend a course of action such as mediation or RfC. --Tony Sidaway 18:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Removal of complaint from Jimbo's talk page

as I stated on my talk page - who are you to be removing content from people's talk pages? Furthermore resolving the normal way doesn't function with one of the users being an administrator abusing their power and the other a mindless zealot Lordkazan 13:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you'll get very far on Misplaced Pages with that attitude. --Tony Sidaway 13:42, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony,

I think you may have misplaced this, of course, I could be wrong. Best, Yanksox 15:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --Tony Sidaway 22:49, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you still want this?

As in, this? I'm just doing a bit of cleanup over there and thought this was a bit strange (or at least strange to have as a template) :). --SB_Johnny | 22:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

It's linked from my userspace. Feel free to move the template to a user subpage; when I wrote it there were good technical reasons to place transcluded pages in template space, but those reasons are long gone. --Tony Sidaway 22:48, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, will do. We've got a billion templates left over from the now-no-longer-on-wikibooks video game guides, so I'm going on a bit of a deletion spree. --SB_Johnny||_books 22:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Your blocks

Hi, I decided to write this after I saw your block of User:Ghirlandajo. You may remember me as one of the editors who protested your illogical and eventually overturned page block of User:Karl Meier. At that time I was concerned with your reaction to my protests (i.e. that I was being "overly legalistic",) but since the block was overturned after ArbCom explained to you what Probation is, I decided to let it go. But now you have executed an unwarranted and egregious block of a prolific contributor. What's more, in your attempt to justify the block you severly twisted the language of Misplaced Pages. To characterize Ghirlandajo's comments as "grossly incivil" is to render those terms meaningless. In a horrifically ironic twist, the comments you were referring to were complaints about the block-prone nature of some admins. To block an editor for that is Orwellian in the truest sense of the word.

You may say that your block was in response to his reaction to your "polite" "cool it down" request. Again, this is a complete misrepresentation of the events. Falsely accusing someone of gross incivility is the opposite of polite. You have said his response was defiant, which it most certainly was. If an admin had "warned" me to stop critizing other admins I would have also reacted with defiance. But the response was certainly not inflammatory, and without a doubt not blockworthy. On the other hand, a 3 hour block is nothing but inflammatory. Since blocks are meant to be preventative I wonder what you were attempting to prevent. If your goal was to get Ghiraldando to stop complaining about eager-to-block admins, do you think this was a good solution?

I am telling you all of this because I feel I must, as your actions have crossed a line. I'm sure nothing will come of this minor dispute, but I want you to know that I will be watching who you block very carefully, and I will not hesitate to call you on blocks I feel are unwarranted. You have stated that you didnt think this block would be harmful. In the future, try to think whether a block will be helpful. Thank you, and feel free to contact me on my talk page for further discussion if you wish. --Nscheffey 01:08, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I didn't block Karl Meier. This fellow Ghirlandajo doesn't get a free pass for being grossly uncivil to other editors, compounding it by repeating the incivility to someone with whom he has a disagreement, and making numerous false accusations.

A three-hour block gave Ghirlandajo the opportunity to recognise that he had gone far beyond what is acceptable discourse on Misplaced Pages. He did not take it. --Tony Sidaway 01:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, it wasn't an illogical block, it was an illogical ban, sorry for the incorrect terminology. As for the rest of your comment, your continued use of incorrect characterizations ("grossly uncivil", "numerous false accusations", "far beyond what is acceptable discourse") demonstrates that you have not considered any of my arguments. This inability to admit fallibility is yet another concern.--Nscheffey 01:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

For more on the ban, see comments by different arbitrators on WP:RFAR. On the subject of fallibility, see my own comments and responses on that same thread, started by me.

I stand by my characterizations of Ghirlandajo's unacceptable conduct and believe that, if User:Cowman109's application for arbitration is accepted, they will be confirmed by the arbitration committee and he will be prevented from continuing to damage the atmosphere of Misplaced Pages further by such conduct. --Tony Sidaway 01:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Upon rereading of my own comments I realized they may appear overly confrontational. Please don't misunderstand me, I have nothing against you as a person and I'm sure you are an invaluable asset to the encyclopedia. It's just that I have seen a lot of what I consider unjustifiable blocks lately, and not a lot of opposition, and I felt I needed to say something. Although I continue to strongly disagree with you about the nature of Ghirla's comments and the ensuing block, I appreciate your reply. --Nscheffey 02:07, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Road trip

Hello Tony :-) Letting you know that I will be out of town through Sunday. Tried to help clear some cases before I left. Will be on the road all Wednesday so not likely to check in. After that I will check in at least once daily and will close or open cases if needed. Have you seen any problems with my clerking? If so, please let me know. Take care, FloNight 02:33, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

You're doing a great job. Have a safe trip. --Tony Sidaway 02:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Chaldeans

Hi, you might wanna look at this Chaldean's. They try to get by it, but this is the real page; Chaldean. Chaldean 04:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

"Chat room buddies"

Replying here as I didn't see that it was relevant to Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for adminship. Not sure why anyone would find this offensive or ugly or whatever. Chat rooms are everywhere. People talk to their buddies in them quite frequently. I see nothing offensive about this. I think you're overly sensitive to things being "ugly". Friday (talk) 15:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Where is the chatroom? When does Carnildo visit it? These are simple enough questions. If there isn't such a chatroom (and I'm not aware of one) then what you were doing sounds like a very, very ugly thing indeed. Maybe there's an innocent explanation. What is the chatroom called? --Tony Sidaway 15:25, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Now you're just being silly. I don't see that the project is helped by us sniping at each other, so I see no useful purpose to continuing along these lines. Friday (talk) 15:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I was about to ask you to please remove the baseless slur. --Tony Sidaway 15:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Cool Cat/Ex-CVU

I do not take this lightly. There was no personal attacks involved. You lost what you had left of my trust in you, if that matters at all to you... You prosecuted me during the Moby Dick thing and I cant forget that and now this, deletion campaign against the CVU, and other things too.

You are no longer my mentor, I have to trust my mentor and I no longer trust you.

--Cat out 18:07, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

It was obvious who you were referring to. I'm sorry that I lost your trust but No personal attacks is important and if I didn't do it somebody else (and I know who that somebody is) would have done so. --Tony Sidaway 18:12, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

So saying that essjay banned me is a personal attack (I was actualy nice enough not to mention nicks)? Why are you the one always advocating all actions against me? You might as well indef block me. I pitty myself for all the support I gave to essjay not just my support vote to him on CVU but also my support vote to his burocratship and et al. --Cat out 18:15, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Please cool it

Tony, I respectfully ask you to cool it off. Your self-righteous, dismissive and defiant attitude to people who disagree with your actions harms not only your opponents. It harms you as well, and, most importantly, it harms an entire Misplaced Pages because you are one of the most visible admins here doing much of the dirty work. You and 10 other admins do about 90% of admin work overall and we are all indebted to you for that. People who do more tend to make more mistakes as the only way not to make any is to do nothing, clearly not the case for you.

Disagreement with your actions does not mean a personal attack, as you tend to perceive it. Neither such disagreements question your integrity while your reactions suggest you see it as such.

What worked for me best was when I saw something that angered me a lot, I gave it a little time before reacting rather than responding at once. This is an old advise but an easy to forget one.

In no way it is my intention to tell you what to do. Largely thanks to your regning on trolls Misplaced Pages is the place where people can actually write article together, which is our main job. Please just take my suggestion under advisement as no response, defiant or not, is necessary. OTOH, if you feel like this warrants a discussion, fine with me either way. I will be around, while not 24/7.

Regards, --Irpen 23:19, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I'm really sorry if my comments sound dismissive, That's absolutely not the impression I want to give. I certainly don't regard disagreement as a personal attack. Personal attack I regard as a personal attack, and that alone.

I notice that you mention things that anger you on Misplaced Pages. I'm sorry if there are things here that anger you. --Tony Sidaway 23:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

At the risk of piling on.. Tony, if you honestly don't intend to come off sounding the way you sound, there are some things you could do to help change it. The best option is to change the way you think. But, forget that- you could also just change the way you talk and nobody but you would know the difference anyway, so one's about as good as the other. By changing the way you talk, what I mean specifically is things like: stop saying "ridiculous" about any opinions that are different from yours. Stop insisting that your way is the only way things could possibly work. Don't call the reasoned opinons of people different from you "the howling of the mob". It's the little things like this that cause people to find you self-righteous and dismissive. Friday (talk) 00:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't say "ridiculous" about opinions that aren't the same as mine. Only ones that appear clearly ridiculous, for instance here, here and here. --Tony Sidaway 00:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid it would not be possible to surgically extract from me my contempt for the howling of the mob. This doesn't mean that I mean ill will to any person who engages in these periodic witch-hunts that I often find myself having to fire-fight, but it does mean I have to confront people with the ugliness of the things they're combining together, as a group, to do.

You couldn't seriously accuse my of being dismissive; I've spent an enormous amount of time and effort explaining my point of view. --Tony Sidaway 00:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I am sorry to see that your reply was such, especially the second part. "I'm sorry if there are things here that anger you." I am also sorry that things get you angry here. I am even more sorry that Misplaced Pages in its current form cannot accomodate many good editors and a whole bunch of prolific authors of dozens of FAs left already (hopefully they are replaced by the newcomers): 172, Latinus, Wiglaf and many more who left either because of trolls or because of the disrespecting attitudes they received from Misplaced Pages's authoritative figures to which you undoubtedly belong. Personally, I can take such attitudes. While I am not putting myself in the same league as those valuable authors, I am not as brittle as them either (perhaps because I am not in the same league).

You say you don't want to leave an impression that your response to constructive criticism is dismissive. Well, I tell you that it is and I am not alone at it . When I already clicked "save page" to leave my last message, I noticed the thread above (#Your blocks) which basically repeated my thoughts very closely. Your response was dismissive there and your very response above is dismissive. You bluntly dismissed my complaints about your attitudes stating that this is not your intention to leave this impression. Your intention matters little. You do leave this impression in most all your actions in the last two days (that's all the time I was watching as I did not interact with you in the past and only knew your name as that of one of the most active and committed admins, which I still think is the case).

I will not repeat any of the things I said lately on this as they are available here. I added emphasis there for convenience if you would be so kind to reread this thread and the responses you got from various people there, all established contributors, all known to be non-trolls, most known to write content and all but a few, questioning both your action and your treatment of criticism. Someone was so kind as citing me verbatim at the new ArbCom which while likely to be dismissed, I have no objection to since it may help us all by the ArbCom shedding the light of its judgement to the real problem that endangers Misplaced Pages now. It used to be trolls being allowed to harm us all unchecked for months due to the admins indecisiveness. This is fixed now. Now it is WP:AN#Hasty blocking by a minority of self-righteous administrators, who do us all a lot of good by 90+% of their blocks being on target but with the loss of the remaining 10% outweighing the benefits not because the number of users that fall under 10% but the quality of those users. I don't know whether you read that post in full but judging by your, again defiant, response to a very related issue you either not read the whole thing or refused to give it a thought. Anyway, I will add my statement to the developing ArbCom case to share my thoughts on it with the community and the ArbCom members. But now I need some WP:TEA --Irpen 00:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
P.S. I sent you a brief note over an email. Nothing big but you will understand why I chose a private method to communicate this small thing

I don't get angry here. My judgement may differ from yours, but I'm pretty much making levelheaded, cool judgements that tend to work and seem to make sense on reflection days and weeks after. I'm sorry if you think otherwise. If by "dismissive" you mean that, when talking to someone else, I sometimes express a different opinion than that expressed by that person, you're right. If I didn't do this we wouldn't be able to distinguish my opinion from yours, would we? --Tony Sidaway 00:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect -- and in general I support what you do -- you don't suffer fools gladly, and you're damn sure about what you know is right; problem is, that can come across as "I'm right so your blather isn't worth listening to." Which, most of the time, it isn't. But I ran into that "dismissiveness" a couple weeks ago, when I squeaked up about that Karl Meier thing. I'm pretty much immune to it -- since I also know I'm right and I also don't suffer fools gladly. But you've decided to take a leadership role in this community, so your tone is more important than you might think it is. I'm not concerned about the reactions of the twits and fools; the quicker they get the point and find a new playground, the better. But the people who are, at worst, slightly misguided, are worth cultivating -- and those are the people who are most likely to be affected by being brushed off by people with more community standing. Feel free to ignore all this and go on exactly as you have been, of course; you're doing great work here, and I certainly appreciate your efforts on Misplaced Pages's behalf. --jpgordon 01:15, 7 September 2006 (UTC)