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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by GoneAwayNowAndRetired (talk | contribs) at 19:15, 21 January 2009 (→Rootology*: very long and very overdue reply -- I really had been thinking about it all this time). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Rootology*

Rootology (talk · contribs) I'm six odd months back now (holy crap, has it been that long? Where the hell did 2008 go?) and, well, how am I doing? What needs work? Whats doing right? rootology (C)(T) 16:11, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

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Questions

1. Of your contributions to Misplaced Pages, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?

   I'm particularly proud of The Greencards which I began in 2006, and dove right back into upon returning. 200 edits later, it's (hopefully) going to get through it's third FAC now, and I'll be pushing this next for FAC, followed by this, which I'll be doing with Jmabel, and my eye on a couple others after that for FA, and actually have gotten a couple requests to get other things up there. I'm a terrible copyeditor, though, and you can see that I routinely misuse or abuse the English language. So, I will shamelessly beg, borrow, cheat, steal, offer to trade, and cry for copyediting help! I'd love to help out on reviewing FAs or GAs, but again, that copyediting thing is my Achille's heel. I'm particularly proud of getting The Paperboys to GA, since some of the sources were... challenging to find in order to build it. They were for many years relatively "underground" in the sourcing sense of the word.

   I like to think after being around since 2005 and for ages in the outside peanut gallery that I have a clue on policy discussion and meta-type things, and I hope it shows most of the time.

   Along the way, I became on administrator on Wikimedia Commons which I'm extremely proud of. I tend to focus in and specialize on flickr and copyvio issues related to that. I had applied for OTRS to help on these, as I'm (I hope) knowledgeable on copyright matters related to media and wanted to help on the perpetually backlogged Commons permissions queues. Maybe next time. rootology (C)(T) 16:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

   I'm unfortunately tied into a (now thankfully superceded) rather troublesome and infamous RFAR here way, way back in 2006. Relative ancient history, now. I saw things weren't going to what I perceived as fair or right, so I made sure I was blocked afterwards in a stupid protest of trying to be as outrageous as possible with my final 2006 edits (it's all in my contribs, and all ancient). I've since apologize at length for slamming the doors pretty hard in the summer of 2006, but as of yet the two people who I slammed the door haven't yet acknowledged that, which I wasn't expecting. Again, all ancient history to me.

   After Sarah Palin was selected as John McCain's VP running mate, I, like about 99% of Misplaced Pages all at once began working on her article. That has now turned into another RFAR due to some pretty wild wheel warring, that I had nothing to do with. I laid out a bunch of evidence here and proposals here that were well-received. I don't really have any other real conflicts on here. rootology (C)(T) 16:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment I see huge disconnect (or development) between the personalities behind the account pre and post block. I think a common feature in both incarnations is that you are very much you own man and are very idealistic; it would seem that after some (admitally severe noob errors), you have grown into and adopted well to the social norms here, and although you remain a vocal critic, you are now a valued member of the community. How do you think you have developed in reaching this stage, or is it a matter of being socialised into a very specific but necessary set of group norms, that to most would seem, at first, 'odd'? (eg if you lived by "CIV" or "ASGF" in RL you would not get very far).

Following, are you generally willing to afford such second chances to other (current, former, or inbetween ;)) banned editors? Ceoil (talk) 23:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for taking so long to reply to this. I’d been thinking on and off about the questions since you’d asked, since it was such an expansive question, even (as I read it) more than the typical good questions you’d find on an RFA. At first I was sort of stumped myself, since I was admittedly more than a little bitter after my initial experiences turned out so sour from trying to be what seemed, at the time, as “stand up”. I basically stopped caring at all about the site after leaving at the time for good after Jimmy Wales and Fred Bauder (the latter being the Arbiter who banned me, and that I slagged especially hard afterwards to get a last punch in, back in 2006) very, very graciously let me wander away with a very nice Right To Vanish.

Little things kept bugging me as I read WP, and then began reading Misplaced Pages Review. I don’t agree with how Daniel Brandt does his Hivemind approach to force change, and I vocally and endlessly disagreed on Misplaced Pages Review with some of the more crazed regulars there while I participated on WR. I quit WR completely in the first week of December 2008, as I just wasn’t getting anything, let alone enjoyment out of it—my password is hashed, my email set to something random. I eventually fired up Wikiabuse.com (now expired, gone, and the MediaWiki DBs long gone, before a 20th person asks me for a MySQL dump file). It was meant to be a moral version with no outing of how to do something like Hivemind, WR, or even our user RFCs here the “right way”. No outing, no slagging, no flaming. Just a chronological listing and permanent records of internal en.wp policy violations by en.wp administrators, and similar things for WMF level people. Obviously, for those that read the site during it’s very, very brief seven week lifespan, know it was a total failure as it become a free-for-all war. I spent probably 85% of my time purging and oversighting all sorts of nasty crap, 10% of my time banning Jon Awbrey, and 5% arguing with a certain person which I will not name here, who wouldn’t leave me alone even on an external site (but now very graciously leaves me alone, thanks to the AC intervening).

The point of the site was to basically fill the role of what an oversight, or external police board does—just keep a helpful eye on people, and provide a simple clearing house of already public information. A “good” admin would have essentially a page that says, “Mr. Jones is a WP admin. The end.” Again, it worked out as anything but, and when a certain individual came sniffing around, I pulled the plug totally. Some levels of stress and harassment I absolutely will never need, and wasn’t going to walk down that bottomless rabbit hole he was likely to offer unsolicited. So, I walked, and became basically a gadfly on WR after a while. That’s it. I had it pointed out by several people, that over time, I was getting too mellow in my old age, and was going more and more pro-WP than anti-WP. I was never really anti-WP, except really right after the original MONGO RFAR. I still think all my evidence was conveniently or inconveniently ignored or overlooked (depending on which side of the aisle you’re on). But who cares, at this point. It’s ancient history, to me. I’ve apologized so many times for things I was wrong on, and things I may not have been on, that I can’t keep apologizing more, and I won’t keep doing it by rote now 3+ years later. Life’s too short. My major beef was, back then, the way the site was ran—the old cliques and cabals and petty alliances that today, are all largely gone. Admins were back then functionally bulletproof versus anything, no matter what really happened. That’s all changed. Maybe I played a tiny role in that, on the way out as User:XP, or maybe not. It doesn’t matter to me anymore, and never really did.

One day, I saw on Misplaced Pages Review that the ED article was on DRV again, and would actually go through. I didn’t really care, but I have to admit I was amused a little at how the DRV was going, after all the pointless fighting that swallowed me up. So, I took a chance, and said, “What the hell? I always did enjoy working ‘’on’’ WP. Why not ask?” So I did ask to be unblocked, and lo and behold, after some emails with the May 2008 Arbitration Committee, I was back. My user page has a pretty good listing of what I’ve been up to ever since. A couple of projects I work on when time and the energy are on me (orphaned image clean up, moving images to Commons), and a bunch of possible FACs I’ve got percolating to go with my one current Featured Article and Good Articles. I picked up a successful RFA on Commons along the way. I mostly now help out on the neverending copyright violation image queue there, but I always had less urge to work on image projects in the winter, WP or otherwise. I haven't even taken my cameras out in the past month or longer. I have a feeling I’ll end up always spending more time in the warm months on Commons work, and the rest of the year here. Weird, I suppose, but I’m wired funny like that.

So that gets me to your question, of how’d I get to where I am now. The short answer is I haven’t really changed much. I’m still (largely) who I was in 2005 when I began. People only undergo, I believe, titanic shifts in personality in very short amounts of time if they’re lying, hiding something, or unwell. I simply stopped caring about really petty and stupid things, and that’s it. I let myself get wound up too tightly on some extremely, extremely hot button topics in 2006 (trying to enforce NPOV on 9/11 topics is probably what did me in, as sometimes it felt like ‘’everyone’’ was after me as a result to some degree). Now I don’t. Life as an observer, sticking your hands in only when you really need to is a better way to work here. It’s less stressful, and things work out better. What people see of me since May 2008 to January 2009 is basically what I always was, or would have been from about July 2006 through today if I’d never found the stupid and petty 9/11 wars on this site and let them suck me in.

In short, I mellowed out by not letting things stress me. Which sounds stupid, but I can’t really think of any way to describe it or put it into context. I hope it makes sense. For my being a critic? Maybe, sort of? I always loved WP, and the ideals behind it, and the thought of what it could be and can be. But--back in the day--the way some things were managed and handled were infuriating, as it seemed like a lot of people were hell-bent to drive certain things and aspects of the site into the ground, and no one had any power to stop them. All of that is different now, I hope. It feels better, and better a little all the time.

As for your second question, it would be wildly hypocritical of me to not consider supporting a similar return for other users, be they banned editors, or an admin going for a second (or third) return RFA after being desysopped, which seems to be a higher mountain to climb than coming back from a ban. There’s one specific desysopped editor (who I will not name here) that if he were up for a third RFA, after his first post-deadmin one was unsuccessful, would have my ‘’’Strong support’’’. Why?

People change, even if they can’t put their finger on exactly why or when. rootology (C)(T) 19:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)