Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by NinaGreen (talk | contribs) at 23:30, 29 December 2010 (→my support). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Welcome

Hello, Nina (otherwise 205.250.205.73), this is just to welcome you on your new user page. Once again, if you need help, please go to the new contributors' help page, the help pages, the village pump or ask me on my talk page. Here are those links again:

• The Five Pillars of Misplaced Pages
• How to edit a page
• Editing tutorial
• Picture tutorial
• Suggestions on writing an article
• Naming conventions
• Manual of Style

Again, welcome! Moonraker2 (talk) 02:44, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:RS/N notification

I have posted a request for opinions about Brief Chronicles here. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:13, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Libellous remarks

I'd advise you to stop your Personal attacks on me. I will not accept your misplaced allegations of libel regarding my post on the WP:RSN#Brief Chronicles. I will neither accept your unintelligible misrepresentation of my post at the noticeboard. In case you do not withdraw your false statements about me, I will consider seeking help at WP:ANI. Buchraeumer (talk) 20:26, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Tendentious editing

• Cross-posted on User talk:NinaGreen and Talk:Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

It's time for all of you to let go of the notion that your disagreements can be dealt with in arbitration. Arbitration is not a Supreme Court of Everything on Misplaced Pages; it's a rather specialised board exclusively for dealing with conflicts involving conduct. If you consider that the members of the Arbitration Committee are volunteers just like yourselves, I think you'll realise why; there is no way they would have time to deal with all the conflicts involving content, for example. Nor does the ArbCom create policy; they don't have time for that either. Please note the significant fact that most requests for Arbitration are turned down cold; either because they're requests about content, or because they're requests for policy-making, or because the conflict isn't deemed to be ripe for arbitration (which is supposed to be the last stage of dispute resolution, after all other avenues have been tried). All three turn-down reasons would come into play if any of you requested arbitration of the basic conflict on this talkpage. As I think Tom and Paul have pointed out, the best places for resolving it are outlined at the top of the Reliable Sources noticeboard. Considering how embattled the positions have become, I would suggest, amongst the wide range of possibilities, that you invite outside comment via WP:RFC. But there are plenty of other good ideas at WP:RSN.

There is in fact a conduct issue here, though hardly one that is ripe for arbitration, and that is the repetitiveness of NinaGreen's posting. Nina, you seem to be trying to wear down opposition by saying the same thing over and over. That's not a legitimate talkpage debating style; it's tendentious editing, which is not allowed on Misplaced Pages. By way of example, I did a search on the word "arbitration" (which as I said has no business here even once), and, from the section "Verifiability and Meaningful Peer Review" alone, garnered this collection:

1. "Please refer me to the Misplaced Pages arbitration case which made that determination."
2. "If you want to argue with Shapiro, you can ask Misplaced Pages to arbitrate the issue."
3. "If you want to turn your personal opinion into Misplaced Pages policy, you need to take the matter to arbitration. That's the only way you can turn your own personal opinion into Misplaced Pages policy."
4. "If you and Tom want a determination from Misplaced Pages that the authorship controversy must be presented on Misplaced Pages as a fringe theory, you need to take the matter to arbitration to obtain a formal determination to that effect."
5. "If you and Tom wish to hold the personal view that the authorship controversy is a fringe theory, you have the right to do so, but your personal view is not Misplaced Pages policy, and you cannot turn your personal view into Misplaced Pages policy without taking the matter to arbitration."
6. "You and Tom are entitled to hold the view that the authorship controversy is a fringe theory, but you can't turn your personal views into Misplaced Pages policy without taking the matter to arbitration."
7. "Tom and Paul, it's you who are making the assertion that Misplaced Pages must treat the authorship controversy as a fringe theory, not me. It's therefore your obligation to take it to arbitration if you want to make it Misplaced Pages policy. You've been making the assertion that the authorship controversy is a fringe theory everywhere on Misplaced Pages where you could find a forum, but so far it's merely your own personal opinion, albeit repeated endlessly . If you want to make it Misplaced Pages policy, take it to arbitration. If you were as sure of the outcome as you've claimed to be in every one of the countless assertions you've made, you'd be off to arbitration in a flash."
8. "I'm interested in knowing how you would explain to a Misplaced Pages arbitration board that in your view its only a 'proposition' that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the Shakespeare canon."
9. "No-one goes to arbitration when the status quo is in their favour." (What... ? Nina, have you even looked at the page for requesting arbitration ? Here it is.)
10. "The only way to make it Misplaced Pages policy is for you and Paul and Nishidani to take it to arbitration and obtain a ruling."
11. "And you and Paul and Nishidani are not following Misplaced Pages rules if you are merely 'deeming' something to be so, and then claiming that what you 'deem' to be so is now Misplaced Pages policy, and everyone else must abide by what you have 'deemed' to be so. There is a process on Misplaced Pages by which what you 'deem' to be so can be turned into Misplaced Pages policy. It's called arbitration."

To address claim number 11; no, it's not called arbitration, and there are no "Misplaced Pages rules" that have any relevance to the personal attacks and the wikilawyering quoted above. Nina, you are making up these notions of Misplaced Pages policy out of whole cloth. I realise you're a new user, but please make a start on reading the basic policies in good faith, and on listening to more experienced colleagues. Eleven out of the eleven comments above are in error, and haughty and sarcastic with it. The sheer repetition is what troubles me the most. Please read WP:Gaming the system. The nutshell version goes like this:

"Playing games with policies and guidelines in order to avoid the spirit of communal consensus, or thwart the intent and spirit of policy, is strictly forbidden"

Don't do that. Don't play the IDIDNTHEARTHAT game. Only post on this talkpage when you have something to say that is not a copy of what you've said before, in either wording or substance. If I don't see any improvement in this respect, I'm sorry to say you may eventually face a block.

Tom, I see you discussing arbitrating the conflict also: "She won't start an arbitration because she knows what will happen". (BTW the "she" is rather rude, IMO.) No, I don't think Nina does know that, or even that you do, and I'm trying to explain it as gently as possible to you both. Nothing very alarming would happen; it would merely be useless, and a waste of time and energy, as the case would be briskly ruled unsuitable for arbitration. We all need to aim for not wasting time, our own or other people's. Nina, please reconsider your bad-faith debating style. The other editors are obviously hoping for you to change your approach and become an asset to the article. So am I, as you have a lot of valuable expertise. Bishonen | talk 20:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC). P.S. On the principle of not wasting time, I won't be re-posting or rewording any of the above unless I see good reason to.

Despite it all the endless back-and-forth . . .

. . . I think your input will make for a more robust and more neutral article, and that is my hope. Oxfordians have made some valuable contributions to Shakespeare studies, one of them bringing a different perspective that causes (or should cause, if they'd pay attention) mainstream scholars to question their assumptions. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:19, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Voluntary ban on excessive posting

Hi, Nina. Did you notice me addressing you about repeating yourself excessively on Talk:Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford in my previous post here, just above Tom's? (Further comments and your replies are on Talk:Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford). That applies in spades to Talk:Shakespeare authorship question. Both the repetitiousness and the generally large volume of your posting is making that page hard to read. Of course I'm not saying it's all your fault that SAQ talk is a mess. (The newest contributor to the page has a lot of trouble both with signing and with posting in the right place, as I expect you've noticed.) However, sheer length and number of posts is certainly part of the problem, as is soapboxing (please click on that link, if you click on nothing else). I've noticed several editors reminding you that talkpages are WP:NOTAFORUM; one person pointed out that you posted 21 times on SAQ talk yesterday. See WP:TALK, where the following points are of special relevance to the situation on Talk:Shakespeare authorship question:

"The purpose of a Misplaced Pages talk page ... is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject." And further: "Article talk pages should be used to discuss ways to improve an article; not to criticize, pick apart, or vent about the current status of an article or its subject."

I frankly haven't seen you pay any heed to your co-editors on this issue, nor to me. It tends to be a point you ignore when/if you post replies. I've got something to suggest, which I think would be good for the page and also good for you, as being time-saving and making people more likely to pay close attention to what you write. Would you consider holding to a voluntary limitation of at most 5 posts, and altogether 600 words, per 24 hours? Conciseness and focus are good, helpful things. Please respond. Bishonen | talk 23:38, 28 December 2010 (UTC).

If I may say so, Bishonen, that suggestion doesn't seem to be based on any policy. There is no offence in having a lot to say, which is just as well from your own point of view. If Nina were to agree to a self-imposed limit of any kind, how long would you wish it to stay in place and what would you ask for next? Moonraker2 (talk) 00:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Not sure, but it would be quite tempting to ask you next to limit yourself to addressing stuff you know something about, Moonraker2. Bishonen | talk 01:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC).

This appears to suggest that I should say nothing because I do not understand the issues in question. I know enough about freedom of speech to know that people cannot be asked to be silent because someone objects to the quantity of what they say: the notion is an absurdity. Even if I were completely without understanding, which I am not, I should also still have the right to express an opinion. Moonraker2 (talk) 22:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

The policy is WP:Admin. Those entrusted with the tools are expected to use their abilities to facilitate the improvement of the encyclopedia - as long as the methods are within policy there does not need to be a precise definition of how this is done. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:09, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I do not agree that WP:Admin can be stretched so far. If it could, then it would give an almost unlimited discretion, which would be very undesirable. Moonraker2 (talk) 22:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

NinaGreen started editing one month ago (28 November 2010). Their contributions since then are listed below for background:

The quantity of talk page posts may be acceptable if something constructive and new were added. However, that is not happening. Bishonen's suggestion is unusual, but something needs to happen. Johnuniq (talk) 01:42, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I posted this earlier to Bishonen's talk page, but I gather it's better to post it here on my own Talk page. Here's what I said:

Bishonen, I'm not sure how to respond to a message on my Talk page, so I hope this is the way to do it.

Re your proposal. I'm not an unreasonable person, and frankly I have better things to do with my time than post on the SAQ Talk page. But with all due respect, I think you've misidentified the problem. The problem is Tom's stonewalling. I just posted this:

Nishidani, no goalposts are being moved, and no-one is being swept under the carpet, although there's definitely some stonewalling going on on your and Tom's part. As you mention above, I asked that you and Tom whittle the list down so that it didn't include sources more than a decade old and sources who aren't members of the Shakespeare establishment. Tom has stonewalled, and hasn't done anything. You've come up with Peter Milward, but haven't indicated whether that's the sole name left on the list as far as you're concerned. And so far neither of you has even identified the work by Milward which you're citing, nor produced the context of the citation so that it can be confirmed that Milward is endorsing that view and speaking for the Shakespeare establishment. I'm guessing that the quotation is perhaps from the chapter entitled "Catholic Shakespeare" in Milward's unpublished (and unfinished?) online autobiography, Genesis of an Octogenarian, but I have no way of confirming that, or of seeing the quotation in context, because the "Catholic Shakespeare" chapter can't be read online. There's a link to it through the Misplaced Pages article on Peter Milward, but the "Catholic Shakespeare" chapter appears in white type, and I can't find the quotation Tom has cited.NinaGreen (talk) 00:17, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Thus, Tom posts an alleged list of sources which could be cited to support his claim that the current consensus among the Shakespeare establishment is that those who advocate an author other than William Shakespeare of Stratford are a 'lunatic fringe'. It turns out that virtually every single one of the alleged sources couldn't be cited in a Misplaced Pages article as a reliable source representing the current consensus of the Shakespeare establishment because the sources are either way too old to be representative of the current view of the Shakespeare establishment, or the sources aren't part of the Shakespeare establishment (which Tom deliberately disguised by calling them 'academics' in his list). So I ask Tom to whittle down his list to those who actually can be cited as reliable sources in the SAQ article as representing the Shakespeare establishment on that point, and Tom stonewalls and does nothing. It's been that way with every single significant issue I've raised. That's why the discussion has been so prolix. Tom always responds, but in the end, when the point goes against him, he just stonewalls and fades away, and nothing ever gets resolved, and since Tom controls every edit made to the page, no changes are ever made to the article.NinaGreen (talk) 00:32, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Bishonen answered:

Thanks for answering. That's a perfectly good way of doing it; you can either reply on my page, as you did, or your own (below my post, in that case: just ordinary threaded discussion, as I'm doing here). Whichever you prefer. I don't have quite that impression of the recent discussion on the SAQ talkpage, but never mind about that; what I'm asking for is a reply to my question. Will you agree to the voluntary limitation I propose? Or not? Bishonen | talk 01:41, 29 December 2010 (UTC).

Since posting the above to Bishonen's Talk page, I reviewed the History on the Talk page and this statement made by someone on the Talk page, and repeated above by Bishonen, isn't true:

one person pointed out that you posted 21 times on SAQ talk yesterday

I did not post anywhere near 21 times on SAQ yesterday. Not only that, but most of what shows up on the History as individual postings by me are just minor edits I made to the postings. I seem to have trouble catching all my typos and whatnot when I read over my postings before I put them online, and I often go back to a posting several times for minor edits. So the claim about the excessive number of my postings is a red herring. Tom Reedy has posted at least as many times on the SAQ Talk page as I have, and I would be willing to wager that his total word count exceeds mine.NinaGreen (talk) 02:26, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

my support

For whatever it's worth, I just want to tell you here that I am watching carefully every word that is written on the SAQ controversy on WP over the past two months or so, and I have have been completely swept over by all your arguments so far. What prompts me to come here now and try to express my thoughts directly are your latest replies/arguments to both Less Heard and to Tom Reedy on the SAQ talk page. I just wanted to say "Hear, Hear!." I know this is a tremendously difficult uphill battle and I hope you have the strentgth to keep going as you have been doing for the past 2 or 3 weeks. I hope you don't desist on the face of the established barrier or 'firewall' that exists around the entrenched majority position here in WP. And, again for FWIW, I just want you to know that you can count on me with whatever support I am able to provide, in whatever forum you wish to raise your case going forward. Be strong and courageous! warshy 17:44, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, please do stay with us. As I said in the thread above, it is an absurdity for any user to complain that someone else has too much to say, so I hope you will resist going along with any such a notion. Moonraker2 (talk) 22:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks so much to both of you! Very much appreciated!NinaGreen (talk) 23:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)