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User talk:JohnWBarber

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Welcome!

Hello, JohnWBarber, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! RJFJR (talk) 04:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Norwalk Wiki

Greetings, great work on Norwalk related stuff. I recently created the Norwalk Wiki for everything that would not otherwise be notable enough for Misplaced Pages. Its brand new, so we need to get the word out about it. I invite your correspondence. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 22:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

List of Sea Captains

Hi, I'm cooking a list of Irish people with maritime connections - regards - ClemMcGann (talk) 01:20, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Your request

Done. Steve Smith (talk) 18:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks. I do believe that there is serious canvassing-like issues here. Too many strange things happening by the same people. See my comments on Kevin's page. I forsee AN/I or arbcom sooner than later... But I will keep a lid on it if and until that happens. Hobit (talk) 03:01, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Hummm the translation line is also pretty in-you-face. I agree with exactly what you said, but I think we should both walk away for a bit. Best of luck to you. Hobit (talk) 03:14, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Unblock request

{{" is disruptive -- a blockable offense -- only applies if what I was doing either was uncivil (or worse) or if I made it much more difficult for the discussion at the Shankbone AfD or DRV to continue. In fact, my comments in both discussions were focused on the things that WP:TALK and WP:DELETE and the instructions on WP:DRV tell us we are supposed to be doing in discussions -- talking about policy and facts and (at DRV) whether or not the closing admin acted within policy and procedure. Either I have the right to a clean start or I don't. Versageek doesn't like the idea that I spoke at the AfD while people didn't know my prior conflict with Shankbone, and in a vague, abstract way there could be something wrong with that, although it isn't wrong in the letter or spirit of SOCK or any other policy. The problem he points to simply wasn't simultaneous with the Noroton account, which I'd stopped using by Oct. 5. Although Versageek didn't bring this up, I will: My using CountryDoctor and Reconsideration and JohnWBarber together could be interpreted as a violation of WP:SOCK, particularly the way that policy is now written. I've said elsewhere on my talk page that when I started using these alternate accounts, they were discouraged but not prohibited by SOCK policy, the language of which focused more on abusive use of alternate accounts (for instance, the lead then stated, While many reasons for using alternative accounts are acceptable, a number of uses for them are explicitly forbidden. ; from "Avoiding scrutiny" subsection: Alternative accounts should not be used to edit in ways that would be considered improper if done by a single account. it is a violation of this policy to create alternative accounts in order to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions. -- No one would have had a legitimate interest to make comparisons between any of my new accounts, ever, or between any of them and Noroton while I was using that account). It wasn't even prohibited for Reconsideration to comment in an RfC for a change in style policy at the time that account did so. Both the Reconsideration and JohnWBarber accounts participated in AfDs, which goes against policy as currently written. My bad, and I wouldn't do that again -- but let's not pretend that any harm was done. Anyone who scrutinizes the edits of Reconsideration would gain no insight into JohnWBarber or vice versa. Versageek is concerned about scrutiny involving the Noroton account, but once that account finally wound down its editing and resigned, it stopped being subject to WP:SOCK. The "scrutiny" that socking improperly avoids is supposed to be "justified scrutiny" (in the words of older versions of WP:SOCK) -- scrutiny of misbehavior of various sorts. Unjustified scrutiny -- scrutiny in order to continually bring up past actions of an editor even though doing so only clouds the issue -- is what CLEANSTART is supposed to help an editor avoid. The purpose of using separate accounts was originally to avoid having editors who were antagonistic to me start stalking me in areas separate from politics, and I used separate accounts to prevent the kind of unjustified scrutiny that would lead to those antagonistic editors following me. After a while, I became unconcerned about that, but it was why I did it and initially it was not a violation of policy to do it for that reason. I also found I became more annoyed when I logged in as Noroton than when I logged into the other accounts. I'd been planning on unifying the accounts eventually, but I'd hoped to do it silently. Since I knew I wasn't being disruptive with any of the accounts and was never deceptive, it was never a priority for me to unify them (and until recently, I didn't know how easily I could combine the long watchlists). If any admin had simply emailed me and told me I seemed to be violating WP:SOCK, I'd have looked into it and shuttered all but one account. I'll probably -- again-- exercise my right to WP:CLEANSTART at some future point. Since I didn't edit disruptively at all with JohnWBarber, at the DRV or anywhere else, there is no reason for anything other than dropping the block entirely, immediately. If a checkuser willing to work with me briefly will email me, I have a privacy concern related to this that a checkuser can handle, or I can contact one when I no longer have the block. At this point, I'd prefer simply to have the JohnWBarber account.|This is a shorter version of my original unblock request at User talk:Noroton. I'm posting it here because that may make it easier for an admin to unblock this account, the one I want unblocked. 24 hours after blocking, Versageek finally offered an explanation: Using an alternate account for aggressive debates IS disruptive, and being disruptive with an alternate account IS abusive - even if you've recently marked your main account 'retired'. Versageek has simply contradicted what all editors are told is policy at the WP:CLEANSTART part of WP:SOCK. If you decide to make a fresh start, and do not wish to be connected to a previous account, you can simply discontinue using the old account(s), and create a new one that becomes the only account you use. This is permitted only if there are no bans or blocks in place against your old account, and so long as no active deception is involved, particularly on pages that the old account used to edit. Let's not contradict the clear language of the policy, particularly when the blocking editor doesn't think there was a bad intent (Versageek says of me I don't think it was User:Noroton's intention to be abusive - he just stumbled into that trap). The idea that "aggressive debat" is disruptive -- a blockable offense -- only applies if what I was doing either was uncivil (or worse) or if I made it much more difficult for the discussion at the Shankbone AfD or DRV to continue. In fact, my comments in both discussions were focused on the things that WP:TALK and WP:DELETE and the instructions on WP:DRV tell us we are supposed to be doing in discussions -- talking about policy and facts and (at DRV) whether or not the closing admin acted within policy and procedure. Either I have the right to a clean start or I don't. Versageek doesn't like the idea that I spoke at the AfD while people didn't know my prior conflict with Shankbone, and in a vague, abstract way there could be something wrong with that, although it isn't wrong in the letter or spirit of SOCK or any other policy. The problem he points to simply wasn't simultaneous with the Noroton account, which I'd stopped using by Oct. 5. Although Versageek didn't bring this up, I will: My using CountryDoctor and Reconsideration and JohnWBarber together could be interpreted as a violation of WP:SOCK, particularly the way that policy is now written. I've said elsewhere on my talk page that when I started using these alternate accounts, they were discouraged but not prohibited by SOCK policy, the language of which focused more on abusive use of alternate accounts (for instance, the lead then stated, While many reasons for using alternative accounts are acceptable, a number of uses for them are explicitly forbidden. ; from "Avoiding scrutiny" subsection: Alternative accounts should not be used to edit in ways that would be considered improper if done by a single account. it is a violation of this policy to create alternative accounts in order to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions. -- No one would have had a legitimate interest to make comparisons between any of my new accounts, ever, or between any of them and Noroton while I was using that account). It wasn't even prohibited for Reconsideration to comment in an RfC for a change in style policy at the time that account did so. Both the Reconsideration and JohnWBarber accounts participated in AfDs, which goes against policy as currently written. My bad, and I wouldn't do that again -- but let's not pretend that any harm was done. Anyone who scrutinizes the edits of Reconsideration would gain no insight into JohnWBarber or vice versa. Versageek is concerned about scrutiny involving the Noroton account, but once that account finally wound down its editing and resigned, it stopped being subject to WP:SOCK. The "scrutiny" that socking improperly avoids is supposed to be "justified scrutiny" (in the words of older versions of WP:SOCK) -- scrutiny of misbehavior of various sorts. Unjustified scrutiny -- scrutiny in order to continually bring up past actions of an editor even though doing so only clouds the issue -- is what CLEANSTART is supposed to help an editor avoid. The purpose of using separate accounts was originally to avoid having editors who were antagonistic to me start stalking me in areas separate from politics, and I used separate accounts to prevent the kind of unjustified scrutiny that would lead to those antagonistic editors following me. After a while, I became unconcerned about that, but it was why I did it and initially it was not a violation of policy to do it for that reason. I also found I became more annoyed when I logged in as Noroton than when I logged into the other accounts. I'd been planning on unifying the accounts eventually, but I'd hoped to do it silently. Since I knew I wasn't being disruptive with any of the accounts and was never deceptive, it was never a priority for me to unify them (and until recently, I didn't know how easily I could combine the long watchlists). If any admin had simply emailed me and told me I seemed to be violating WP:SOCK, I'd have looked into it and shuttered all but one account. I'll probably -- again-- exercise my right to WP:CLEANSTART at some future point. Since I didn't edit disruptively at all with JohnWBarber, at the DRV or anywhere else, there is no reason for anything other than dropping the block entirely, immediately. If a checkuser willing to work with me briefly will email me, I have a privacy concern related to this that a checkuser can handle, or I can contact one when I no longer have the block. At this point, I'd prefer simply to have the JohnWBarber account.]]}}

Your request to be unblocked has been granted for the following reason(s):

see ramarks below

Request handled by: Beeblebrox (talk) 22:32, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Unblocking administrator: Please check for active autoblocks on this user after accepting the unblock request.

  • This one, User:Noroton, User:CountryDoctor, and two others. I can give information on those two by email to a checkuser. I have good reason to keep them private, and the checkuser should be able to confirm that there are reasons to keep them private and that they were both harmless in any practical sense, but I won't say any more about it and won't use them again (the checkuser can help me close them quietly). Can I email while blocked? Is there a checkuser who would look into it? -- JohnWBarber (talk) 20:31, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

As a matter of interest, the original blocking admin is also a checkuser. However, if you'd be happier discussing it with me, I'm also available. As an oversighter, I'm bound to confidentiality re. privacy issues - Alison 21:33, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm here too if needed; you should have access to the email user function. And yes, I am male. ;-) Hersfold 21:56, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks all. I trust and respect you, Allison, and I appreciate the offer, but I'll email Hersfold on this one. I'll need about an hour (making dinner). JohnWBarber (talk) 21:59, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Sent. JohnWBarber (talk) 00:16, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Update

I thought about it, and I don't really have privacy concerns about these accounts. These are the accounts: User:Picabu, User:Amg37 on Commons, which I used inadvertently to participate innocuously in an AfD (the short WP contributions page will show it). Also, User:Reconsideration2 is publicly linked with User:Reconsideration at the top of each user page. I used R2 for public computer terminals. I really am sick of all this. I did nothing worth blocking, what I did was either within policy when I did it or was obviously a minor violation of policy, wasn't done to harm either Misplaced Pages or any editor, did not in fact harm either and was never worth more than a message either asking me if I was doing something wrong or telling me to stop doing it. If I've missed a single thing in this explanation, just ask.

I started the Picabu account at a time when I thought I might be able to deny that I lived where my "Noroton" user name indicated I live, but I no longer care who knows about that. The Picabu account was for taking pictures, which are all (or almost all) from the area where I live. This is the list of all the contributions from the Picabu account: This is the last of three links to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard when I asked for advice. I did want to avoid scrutiny of that request, but not of my own conduct -- it was a sensitive BLP matter and I didn't want some of the editors on the Obama page to post it without reliable sourcing (they later did and were reverted; later on, reliable sources reported it and I posted it myself). Before anyone responded, I crossed out the request. Last edit: No harm was done. This was the state of the WP:SOCK page on that date:

I started Amg37 when I started this account and Reconsideration and for the same reasons. It was used for uploading pictures from elsewhere on the Internet. That account voted in an Afd here: That was on March 29. I voted "delete" along with four other people. There were no Keeps. That's the only edit I saw in the Misplaced Pages contributions, but here's the contributions page: This is the version of the WP:SOCK page on that day -- it doesn't actually prohibit using an alternate account in a deletion discussion: As I say below, it's been clearly prohibited by WP:SOCK to do this as of Oct. 3. JohnWBarber (talk) 17:01, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

For future reference

This is the diff where WP:SOCK first forbid alternate accounts from editing deletion debates. It occurred October 3 So any AfD edits by socks before that date, 27 days ago, were not forbidden by WP:SOCK (bold italics added):

    • Old language:
Sock puppets might be used to give the impression of more support for a viewpoint than actually exists. Though typically it is the weight of arguments that wins the day, having multiple sock puppets participate, whether arguing with each other or else supporting a common cause, can still cause considerable confusion, and is therefore prohibited. This includes voting multiple times in any election, using more than one account in discussions such as deletion debates, Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship, or on talk pages, or engaging with two or more accounts in an edit war.
In addition to double-voting, sock puppets might be used for the purpose of deception, distraction, or to create the illusion of broader support for a position than actually exists.
    • New language that replaced it:
Creating an illusion of support
Alternate accounts must not used to give the impression of more support for a viewpoint than actually exists.
Editing project space
Alternate accounts should not edit policies, guidelines, or their talk pages; comment in Arbitration proceedings; or vote in requests for adminship, deletion debates, or elections.

JohnWBarber (talk) 04:28, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

  • Try to see the forest through the trees. Hair splitting and wiki-lawyering about whether you actually violated the sockpuppetry policy is not going to move the unblock request forward. In any event, the very first sentence of that policy is: "The default position on Misplaced Pages is that editors who register should edit using one account only." Since you have acknowledged seven accounts so far, we need to identify which ones you intend to keep as alternate accounts and which you are willing to abandon. Please indicate below what your intentions are regarding:
  • User:Noroton
  • User:Picabu
  • User:Reconsideration
  • User:Reconsideration 2
  • User:CountryDoctor
  • User:Amg37
  • User:JohnWBarber

Beeblebrox (talk) 19:43, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

First, I already said, repeatedly, that JohnWBarber is the account I want to keep. See the last lines of the block request. That's why we're on this page instead of User talk:Noroton, where this began (perhaps you weren't aware of that). Second, I didn't deny that I in fact violated the policy, in fact, I've commented at the Noroton talk page on ways that Versageek didn't bring up but where I went wrong. I've been open and honest on this and admitted mistakes. I did violate the policy as it is now written, just in having the accounts. Now look at the policy as it was written when I set up the accounts in early November 2008 and look for the underlying principles, not just the technical language. The spirit of a policy can usually be found in the nut graph and the lead section. The nut graph says The general rule is: one editor, one account. Do not use multiple accounts to create the illusion of greater support for an issue, to mislead others, to artificially stir up controversy, to aid in disruption, or to circumvent a block. Multiple accounts are not for collusion, evasion, disruption, or other misuse. I didn't do any of that, ever. Look at the first line of the lead: A sock puppet is an alternative account used deceptively. Later, it says, If someone uses alternative accounts, it is recommended but not required that s/he provide links between the accounts. I'm not going to say I was wrong not to follow the 2009 language of the policy in 2008 when I actually looked at it before setting up the accounts. You could say that I should have paid attention to the changes in the policy. That's a fair criticism. I'm guilty of not doing that! Is it worth continuing the block for that reason?
I looked into ways I might have violated WP:SOCK because, in fact, I'm concerned about violating the spirit of it with what I did. I concluded that I didn't do any of this to avoid legitimate scrutiny. If I'd continued voting in AfDs with two accounts, I'd have started to avoid the spirit. That I commented on a controversial matter with JohnWBarber instead of Reconsideration is a violation. It wasn't a violation that actually was done to avoid what's in the spirit of WP:SOCK because no practical harm was done or could have been done by using JWB instead of Recon. It was a technical violation done in good faith. (Nothing would be gained by looking at the edits of Reconsideration to gain insight into JWB comments in the Shankbone discussions.) It isn't wikilawyering to say that either. Are technical violations done in good faith worth continuing the block?
I've said I'll stick to one account. Do you have reason not to believe me?

-- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:42, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

As you can see, I have unblocked you. I'd like to clarify a few points though. Even if you did not intend to be deceptive, using multiple accounts is generally frowned upon. I completely understand your concern about the photographs of your neighborhood and not wanting to be personally identified, but the reasons the rest of the accounts were created is still a bit unclear. Many users feel that any undisclosed alternate account is an indication that a user has something to hide. You may not be aware that there have been several recent scandals involving well-established users and multiple accounts, and several administrators have been desysopped as a result, so this is kind of a "hot button" issue right now, which part of the reason I wanted to insure we were on the same page about this before unblocking. The other reason is that I am fairly new to handling these types of requests, and as a result I may have asked you to jump through some hoops that weren't really necessary. I'm sorry if this seemed overly harsh, I was trying to be cautious, but making you repeat yourself was probably not needed. Anyway, I'm glad this is resolved and you can return to editing Misplaced Pages. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:41, 30 October 2009 (UTC)