User talk:JzG/Archive 24 - Misplaced Pages

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Archives
Archive Archive 2: The Sequel Archive 3: Return of the Archive Archive 4: The Revenge - This Time It's Personal Archive 5, Jan 2006 (general archive) Archive 6, Feb 2006 (general archive) Archive 7, Mar 2006 (general archive) Archive 8, Apr 2006 (general archive) Archive 9, May 2006 (general archive) Archive 10, June-ish 2006 (general archive) /Archive-Aug, August 2006 /Archive-Sep, September 2006 /Archive-Oct-2006 /Archive-Nov-2006 Archive of discussions pertaining to Jason Gastrich Archive of discussions pertaining to personal rapid transit Archive of discussions pertaining to adminship and requests archiving policy privacy policy

Vista Ridge Mall on deletion review

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Vista Ridge Mall. Since you closed the deletion discussion for (or speedy-deleted) this article, your reasons on how or why you did so will be greatly appreciated in the above review.

Page on an Arizona shopping mall deleted without warning

Metrocenter Mall on deletion review

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Metrocenter Mall. Since you closed the deletion discussion for (or speedy-deleted) this article, your reasons on how or why you did so will be greatly appreciated in the above review.

The Mall at Steamtown

On November 23, you deleted the page for The Mall at Steamtown. As it appeared initially, it was definitely sounded like an advertisement, but I performed extensive rewrites to bring it back to NPOV, and I believe that I did so successfully. I respectfully disagree that it qualified under G11.Brad E. Williams 21:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I've just found the deletion review, so I'll add a note there to see if it can be reinstated. Brad E. Williams 21:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

User talk:Together 4 ever

They're at it again. Fan-1967 15:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Chatting

Looks like we've got a group of 10-12 year-old girls using their talk pages as a chat site. Baby-girl015 (talk · contribs), Beccaboo 06 (talk · contribs), Natigurl 06 (talk · contribs), Cutie Pie06 (talk · contribs). Any ideas? Fan-1967 19:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

What you did seems about right to me. See if they continue. Guy (Help!) 23:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Getting worse. They're leaving invitations to chat not only on other User Talk pages, but article Talk pages, Fan-1967 17:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

One of them appears to have created the following:

Taking to ANI. Guy (Help!) 19:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Please help

This is with regard to the Notable attacks by LTTE deletion review. Proto is saying that everything I am saying is not true. I dont have an admins rights so I cannot even retrieve the pages to make a statistical analysis. If you could please go through pages and offer an opinion.Dutugemunu 13:53, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Guy, also is the AFD itself accessible to normal users. I tried searching but couldnt find it 220.236.183.59 14:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Notable attacks attributed to the LTTE

Hi. For your information, and further to the DRV discussion, I've restored Notable attacks attributed to the LTTE. Proto::type 14:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Fairy nuff. I have no opinion, really, I was just being helpful :-) Guy (Help!) 19:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Just zis Thanks, yano?

I wasn't going to send thank-you cards, but the emotional impact of hitting WP:100 (and doing so unanimously!) changed my mind. So I appreciate your confidence in me at RFA (and clichéd confusion), and hope you'll let me know if I can do anything for you in the future. Cheers! -- nae'blis 23:34, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Personal Rapid Transit - link deletion

Hello,

I added a link to my PPT project (www.pptproject.com) on this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/Personal_rapid_transit

But you deleted it. May I ask why? This is a sincere effort on my part at contributing to a solution. I don't have any ads of any kind. To the contrary, I've contributed a great deal of my time to this project, not to mention the hosting and domain name fees. I would be very appreciative if you could restore the link, or at least let me know why you don't feel it's appropriate.

Gary Stark gary@pptproject.com

See WP:EL, links to avoid. The word "my" says it all here. Guy (Help!) 09:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Guy, I'm fine with leaving out the work "my". Is that sufficient to restore the link? If you take a look at the actual website (www.pptproject.com), you will see that it's a completely serious proposal and NOT about self promotion.

gary

See WP:EL, links to avoid - links to sites you own or control. Also links to commercial sites. Also promotional links. This is simply not appropriate, sorry. Guy (Help!) 13:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Guy, I added the link under "External Links", "Proposals". And if you took a look at my site, you must realize that it's not at all about Spam as you suggested when you deleted it. So what possibly reason is there not to include it? And I'm not asking you to site some arbitrary rules somewhere. I'm asking for your personal opinion. All of the other links in this section point to personal or commercial sites. I don't see the difference. Finally, if you still think it doesn't belong in this section, where do you think it belongs? -- gary

It's a link to your site, and it has not been identified as a significant proposal by any external authority that I can see. Guy (Help!) 16:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that:

1) since no "external authority" has blessed the concept, you are censoring it? So there's no room on Misplaced Pages for personal innovation? How do you think new ideas come into being in the first place?

2) Yes, it's 'my' site. So if someone else were to add the link, it's OK?

I think if you look closer at the "approved" links, they are not that much different. And the very fact that your initial deletion was based on your labeling of my site as "spam" is not being addressed in this discussion. Or do you still see my site as spam? Guy, I feel that this is really unfair and would ask that you please reconsider.

gary

The fact that It's yours means that you should not be lobbying for its inclusion in the first place. The fact that it has no obvious authority and no obvious support from any authority means that, per WP:EL, it should not be included anyway. Allegations of censorship are entirely inappropriate. Note that external links are there to provide reliabel sources for the content of the article and to include a level of detail which would be considered excessive within the article itself - they are not there to promote or endorse a site or concept. Spam has a particular meaning on Misplaced Pages, discussed at WP:SPAM: links included to publicise the site or its contents are considered spam. Guy (Help!) 18:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

So the difference between my proposal and the approved proposals is that they are recognized by some third party "authority", but mine isn't. Can you be more specific? Who is this entity or group? How does a new concept get the blessing of this authority?

Yes, I agree that I'm the one who added the link and I am the creator of the website. So if I can find anyone else willing to post the link besides myself, is this then allowed? Or do you also have an approved list of posters? Or is there some sort of "lobbying" process as you referred to it?

The bottom line is that I see no way for new concepts to be recognized by Misplaced Pages as you have outlined the process. Sort of a "good old boys" club. Presumably you have a personal interest in PRT concepts. Mine is unique in that it doesn't build an alternate road system, but instead recycles our existing road infrastructure. So if anything I believe the concept deserves discussion for it's unique approach. So maybe I should instead be inserting this aspect of the concept into the main body of the article...?

gary

You added links to your own site promoting your own idea, there is no evidence that your idea is considered notable by independent authorities. The way to get it included is to suggest it on Talk with evidence of support from independent authorities. Arguing here is not going to achieve anything beyond pissing me off. Guy (Help!) 20:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Guy, I took your advise and posted my objection on the talk page: ]

gary

Link to list(s) of HL mods afd discussion

The link to the AfD is wrong, see my comment at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2006 November 29#Lists of Half-Life mods. --Pizzahut2 22:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

{{sofixit}}. You posted a double redlink, so I fixed that. Guy (Help!) 22:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not the one who opened the deletion review. --Pizzahut2 22:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Whatever. You could still have fixed it. Guy (Help!) 23:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Perimeter Mall on deletion review

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Perimeter Mall. Since you closed the deletion discussion for (or speedy-deleted) this article, your reasons on how or why you did so will be greatly appreciated in the above review. --GGreeneVa 00:12, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Gregor Samsa (band)

This:

"Despite the name they will never metamorphose into the Beetles... Guy (Help!) 14:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)"

is the GREATEST. COMMENT. EVER. :) Thanks for the laugh out loud moment, Xoloz 16:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

lolling here as well. Syrthiss 16:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Money in Harry Potter

Someone reverted your edit as an IP. I've reverted it back. Will 16:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Guy (Help!) 16:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi guy! I hats off to do this.

Hi Guy! I hope all is well long time no chat. I typically have been doing some projects at university and stuff. I was wondering if you can give me a quick comment on cplot case I'm working on? I left a question for Fred Bauyer but I haven't received quite an answer I understand. I am being extra vigilant in this case because of the it has come upon me. I was request to be an advocate. After analysing the communications from MONGO and Cplot I placed my observations on mongo's talk page. I personally believe, after studying the previous communications with user:MONGO and asking him some questions, that it was done in a spitfull escalation of rage... with a reactionary level of a cheata and hardly no warning if any. Anyway, I was wondering if you've ever heard anything about arbcom giving permission to remove specific url links because they consider it to be vandalism. . Anyway... I think its going to arbitration and I have never done this before. Eik! --CyclePat 20:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Pat! Long time no see.

The sites linked are on the Wikimedia blacklist, for a start, and are also all unlinked because they contain attempts to "out" the real identities of editors who choose not to have their identities revealed, and also attack Misplaced Pages editors and admins by name. Wikitruth, Misplaced Pages Review, Misplaced Pages Watch, Encyclopaedia Dramatica and several other sites are banned as attack sites or sites containing attacks.

This was clarified in the findings of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/MONGO, as well as other places. Fred's edit history shows him unlinking the ED site, after that case.

Any editor linking these sites, and especially linking to pages wihtin these sites which attack other Wikipedians by name, is more than likely to be indefinitely blocked. This is a sensitive issue at present. The very best thing you can do as an advocate in any case involving atemopts to link these sites is to strongly advise the user not to do it. Not to even think about doing it. Tolerance is less than zero.

Cplot is, I think, probably beyond salvation. His edit history contains gross incivility, attacks, apparent legal threats and trolling; his mainspace edits, such as they are, are marked by profound bias, original research, disruption and not much of any merit I can see. He has also used sockpuppets to evade blocks. If taken to ArbCom I owuld anticipate a speedy endorsement of his indefinite block.

Does this answer your questions? Guy (Help!) 23:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Guy! Yup! It's pretty clear. Well actually the entire situation isn't pretty clear for me because I've got to remain creative in advocating the defensive rights of cplot. But your explanation is helpfull, specially when you've got quite a few contradictory ideas. I think I, may need to start an arbcom. It just feels like everyone is picking on cplot. Seriously, we've had more stressful times arguing about article content. In this case it felt, (though I'm from the outside), like one strike... you're out! hum... anyway! I'm still got a couple idea in my mind which I'm going to have to think about. (Encyclopedia Dramatica can't be linked too... urls even to the main page can be removed from anywhere... humm.... what about if there was an article on that... anyway indeed contreversial and I really think we have some work to do if that's the case. Update WP:VAND, (because that would be considered vandlism)... OH boy! Is anyone planing to appeal the arbcom decision? It seems to directly contradict wikirules for WP:VAND) Anyway... wishing you a Merry Christmas Early! Best wishes and thank you again for the help. --CyclePat 06:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It's more about disruption than vandalism, I think, and also harassment. There is no article on ED and there is unlikely to be one any time soon, we had a long and bitter debate about that and that was part of the problem for MONGO, the drama queens were not happy about it. Guy (Help!) 07:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Deletion

I am generally for including and keeping most everything including the historical disputes between editors. But this deletions was perfectly on the mark. Just stopped by to say Kudos for such a clear eyesight on the most essential part of that mess. --Irpen 09:39, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't see the need to feed the troll in this case, he should take it to WP:DR if he's really that intent (but will almost certainly be wasting his time). Guy (Help!) 09:55, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Roland Piquepaille

I left a comment on the talk page asking that it be unWP:SALTed, but was told to take this to deletion review. Since you were the protecting admin, I figured it'd be quicker to ask you to unprotect it and take off the notice directly before I take it there. There's no reason to protect it as deleted, all the vandalism was over almost a year and a half ago. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:21, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

No objection in principle, but do you have proposed content to drop in? Or some other reason? It was a redirect to Slashdot for a while, but that was deleted by request. The deletion log looks like this:

22:55, September 30, 2006 JzG (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Roland Piquepaille" (empty)
07:48, July 5, 2005 Moncrief (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Roland Piquepaille" (content was: '{{db|vanity nonsense}}Roland Piquepaille is a fellow who makes a lot of money on ads by getting his crappy stories linked constantly on Slashdot.')
16:24, February 11, 2005 Fredrik (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Roland Piquepaille" (rant about censoring)
15:28, February 11, 2005 Jni (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Roland Piquepaille" (content was: 'this article got deleted')
20:33, February 10, 2005 Christopher Mahan (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Roland Piquepaille" (Copy and paste job from a slashdot rant.)
06:13, January 21, 2005 SimonP (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Roland Piquepaille" (listed on VfD, votes 5-1 in favour of deletion)

That's a lot of trolling and the history shows some pretty blatant WP:LIVING violations, albeit some time back. DRV would not be necessary, IMO, if we had an unambiguously good article to put in place, but thus far I don't see one and if we don't have a good article to put in place I think salting may still be appropriate due to past abuse. Yes, I know I'm being overcautious :-) If you have some decent content to go in I have no problem at all with removing the salt. Guy (Help!) 10:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

His name gets 375,000 google hits (vs. <1,000 when it got killed on VFD), so I'm sure we can get something on him. I don't have an article to drop in immediately, but it seems much more likely that it'll get a good article rather than vandalism if unprotected to allow it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 11:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

That sounds plausible. I have removed the salt, please create at least a valid stub. Guy (Help!) 12:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:AIV

I'm glad you came ot the same conclusion as me about that vandalism report. You beat me to the removal (for the second time). Viridae 10:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, low-level edit war and likely WP:BLP violation (to say nothing of WP:POINT). The wikilawyering does not help any, either. Guy (Help!) 12:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo Has Spoken? (Re: GNAA DRV)

There are 2 issues here and people seem to be confusing them and assuming there is only one (note that Jimbo's email didn't even cover one of the issues). The 2 issues are: whether or not AFD policy should be followed, whether or not the article should be deleted. I'm pretty sure if another AFD occurs or the current one continues that GNAA will still fail WP:RS and WP:V since mac news blog sites don't seem to count. Thus the real issue here is about process. Process was not properly followed, the AFD was not left up for 5 days. If we let this abuse of process occur uncorrectly it looks poorly upon Misplaced Pages in general. Essentially wikipedia can't even follow its own process. I realize another AFD will be a repeat of the same but at least it will follow the policies laid out. Essentially by not following process you'll make a martyr out of the GNAA and give everyone more reason to deride how wikipedia is managed. Please don't confuse these 2 seperate issues for one issue. Also Jimbo never touched on the first issue so it is diengenious to claim he has "spoken". --TrollHistorian 18:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

In the words of Tony Sidaway, "fuck process". This has had 17 AfDs in every one of which process failed because WP:ILIKEIT was allowed to override WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. This time, for the first time ever, someone had the guts to call it right before the puppet theatre got properly underway. One day, when the dust has settled, a few editors might sit down and see if they can gather sufficient material from reliable secondary sources to write a neutral article on this group, but that day is not goign to happen any time soon ecause there is too much baggage for anything approaching a rational discussion. As Jimbo points out, with his usual clarity, nothing approaching a reliable source, and there never has been. Why are we even discussing this? We absolutely do not need to waste more of our time discussing an article which is not going to be re-created because Jimbo has endorsed its deletion. Persuade Jimbo first. Guy (Help!) 19:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'll take "Reasons Sidaway isn't an admin anymore" for $200. Regardless of whatever, closing it early helps nothing in this case, especially. It got to 18 AfDs because no one could be bothered to close it properly before. Doing it wrong an 18th time and then doing it wrong again at the DRV does nothing to convince anyone that the right call was made, even if the end result is the same. Was Jimbo endorsing as God-king? If not, does it matter? --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:11, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a reminder that it is now December. I moved your closure to the December page from the November page. GRBerry 19:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh FFS. The DRV was opened in November, the November archive is linked at the top of it. I am a simple fellow and I did the simple and obvious thing: I clicked the link. Guy (Help!) 21:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Guy -- a few things: one, new items go at the top of the DRV log, not the bottom; two, GR is right to remind you to make sure you put the right entry in the right month; three, editorializing in the log is heavily frowned upon; four, closing a DRV in which you are involved is not good, early closures are not good, and overly-charged closures are not good. If you had waited a day, as process would suggest, I would have closed this calmly as "deletion endorsed", and much less heat would have been generated. A "fuck process" attitude in this case is detrimental to Misplaced Pages, and not terribly smart, either, unless you want to extend the drama? Fuck to "fucking process", says I; follow the process and the reward is calmness. Emulate Tony Sidaway, and one makes headaches for all. I frown upon the creation of this headache, and am sorry to see that you done it. Best wishes, Xoloz 20:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted the closure. Jimbo won't die if we let folks talk about this for a few more days; your impassioned remarks in closing are unbecoming of the impartiality expected of a closer. Process (aka fairness) matters. Xoloz 20:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Xoloz, I think that was foolish. We have wasted several orders of magnitude more time on this than it deserved. I did not !vote in the AfD, and frankly the whole thing is a foul, reeking troll-infested sewer creating division where none need exist. In the end I don't give a flying fuck whether we have an article or not as long as it's sourced (I seem to recall closing at least one of the AfDs as a speedy keep), but which admin is going to undelete this in the face of an unequivocal endorsement from Jimbo? The obsession with process is obscuring a fundamental and apparently irresolvable policy violation: lack of credible sources. If there were any, they would have been cited by now. That was Jimbo's point. So I stand by what I said above; we cannot possibly hope to have a reasonable debate about this now, and the existence of the debate is a festering boil of unreason with the WP:ILIKEIT vs. WP:V/WP:RS/WP:NPOV/WP:NOR debate being rehashed all over again, the fires liberally fuelled by trolls - which is precisely what GNAA (a group of self-confessed trolls) wants. It is a waste of time, effort, bandwidth and community angst. Let it die quietly and see if, in a few months time, some editors can't write a proper article citing decent sources. I don't see that closing the debate is more detrimental to calmness than that DRV, I honestly don't. The best way to have calm is to take away the cause of the unrest. But hey, that's what you get for trying to help. Guy (Help!) 21:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

You know I like you, Guy, but I ask to examine the language that you use in this case ("festering boil", etc.) There is nothing wrong with speaking so, except that such intense emotion obviously disqualifies one from rendering final judgment on a matter. You care about this case too much to have closed it, and your obvious attachment (evident in the slightly off-kilter way you closed it) was simply too much for me to ignore.

Jimbo has the power of fiat, but others using that power in his name have caused big problems (Userbox Wars, for example). You are correct that this GNAA matter has wasted a lot of time -- 48 more hours for fairness' sake may save us three weeks of drama. Given your attachment, I am sure you see my detachment and process-concern as foolish -- advocates for a cause often think non-advocates are crazy. The fact of the matter is that, given the present state of the !vote (and the certainty that spammers will be discounted), it is all but certain that GNAA will die this time. Giving GNAA's friends 48 hours more to record their feelings, search for sources, or appeal to Jimbo is a GOOD THING. Fairness now means rapid dispensing of foolish trolls later. "Roughshodding" now would mean giving some confused good people (and a lot of trolls) valid reason for appeal later. Best wishes, Xoloz 04:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The "festering boil" is not about the article, it's about the argument about the article. GNAA are trolls, they thrive on drama, we are letting them get what they want at our expense. I care less than nothing about the article, but I am absolutely convinced that allowing the trolls yet another forum for their manoeuvrings is bad for the project. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I don't see much evidence of that yet. Guy (Help!) 07:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Trolling? Please explain ANI deletion

I see you have deleted this thread on ANI with the summary of 'trolling'. I'd appreciate explanation how this thread constitutes trolling, particullary as it was started by me: do you accuse me of trolling? I think you should recreate the section, it was a valid and civil attempt to ask community for an input whether a case belongs at PAIN or not, and I see no trolling there (other than somewhat offensive posts by User:Ghirla, but then remove his comments, not the entire thread). PS. I'd have also thought that I'd be notified if a thread I started on ANI was removed due to 'vandalism'. As the matter is rather urgent and important, I do hope for your promot reply. Nonetheless since we all make mistakes (perhaps you meant to remove a different thread?) I am raising this issue on your talk page only and per fellow admin courtesy I am not recreating the thread until I hear from you (although I hope we don't loose much community input due to invisibility of the issue). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 20:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

see threads above. I removed it as trolling because, well, it is trolling. I left a comment on your Talk telling you what to do next, and more trolling was not one of the options. Please do be a good chap and pursue the options I outlined. Thanks. Guy (Help!) 21:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply (indeed I missed your reply). I respectfully disagree; particularly as my post at ANI is not a request for comment on Ghira's behaviour but whether the thread was rightly removed from PAIN (please note that it was not removed because the reviewer judged it was not a personal attack but because he felt I should pursue a DR instead (the only step left is ArbCom). I am going to restore the thread as it is not trolling (per WP:TROLL) - and as an administrator with a almost two years of history I believe I can recognize trolling when I see it and I don't think I troll. Further, with all due respect, I consider your accusation that I am trolling offensive - especially as I believe trolls should be banned from Wiki. So if you indeed think my post was trolling, let me encourage you to take appopriate steps as one should when dealing with a troll. PS. I also find your accusations that I am doing some kind of 'agitation' puzzling. I was accussed of vandalism and trolling (without any diffs). I reported the issue to PAIN. Is this agitation? Well, it's an agitation to respect WP:CIV and WP:NPA, if you want to call it that. Thank you. PS. Out of curiosity - because I have almost never seen threads deleted in that way - I looked for any policy basis to support your action. Even Misplaced Pages:Remove personal attacks, the strongest essay I could find, noted that only specific, offensive personal attacks should be removed but discussions should be left alone. Therefore you should (as I pointed above) remove particular personal attacks (if you can find any) from my posts, possibly report me to WP:PAIN if you wish - but not censor my request for comment on the PAIN activities.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 21:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I was really hoping you and Ghirla could simply settle it like grown-ups. Seems my Mary Poppins tendency has been getting the better of me today. If you want me to attempt to mediate I don't mind, although it will take a while since I'm off singing in a concert tomorrow, but seriously the way the thread was phrased really didn't help. Pouring petrol on the flames is not, in my experience, a great way to put the fire out. Ho hum. My experience with Ghirla, incidentally, has, I think, been pretty good, but limited. However, I will go back and re-read things and see if another reading changes my impression. Do be aware, though, that the word censorship is almost invariably an indication that whatever is supposedly censored really did need to be got rid of. Guy (Help!) 22:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for giving this a second thought. Do note there are two matters at here: at ANI I want to ask if the reason for removal of my thread from PAIN was valid (as far as I understand, it was not removed beacuse I failed to satisfy PAIN criteria, but because the reviewer decided I should pursue DR - and refused to comment on whether what I reported (and what User:Constanz agreed with) was indeed a personal attack or not). The second thing which I don't wish to raise on ANI (it's not the right place) is the question of whether Ghirla has been acting incivil - or whether (we all err...) I am overeacting. That issue is however more properly discussed at PAIN, where it cannot be because it was removed on a grounds I don't think are valid... you see my problem? That said, any and and all mediation you can offer would be appreciated (but please - follow the diffs as some editors have a habit of making unfounded statements that are, well, unfounded). PS. Please note that I tried a mediation once and asked Ghirla to participate: his reply and mediator's reply...--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 22:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

You know something? It's not simple. I mean it. It's not going to be sorted by a posting to ANI, for sure, it's not an intervention case. Positng to the noticeboards is only ever going to look like an attempt to recruit people to your side. I think you are best, if Ghirla won't do mediation, to go to ArbCom, because if he won't mediate then there's not much the rest of us can do about it. Guy (Help!) 22:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

<sad laugh> If it was simple, do you think I'd be dealing with this recurring nightmare for two years? Yes, several users have now suggested ArbCom as the course I should take and perhaps it is the best solution. I still hope that just as WP:3RR violations are quickly dealth with at WP:ANI/3RR, WP:CIV violations can be dealth in a similar way at WP:PAIN, without the need to burden ArbCom. After all, Ghirla has been blocked twice in the past for incivility even before the estabilishment of WP:PAIN - thus my suprise that when I attempted to use this tool it seemed to have misfired - and on a really strange grounds as I noted above (why whether the case in a big picture may be worthy of a further DR would make a particular incivil comment by user(s) involved in the 'big picture case' immune to WP:NPA, WP:PAIN and such? It's as illogical as saying 'this article is now at WP:RFC so we can ignore 3RR. Or am I missing something here?).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 23:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Trolling again. Ghirla was not blocked for incivility. His first block was based on Elonka's provocative and unsubstantiated complaint to ANI which she made on Piotrus' direct incite. I mean literally! Piotrus came to her page and told her what to do and she did even more as she frivolously titled the thread "Ethnic slur". (I already brought up in the past this Pioutrus' sad habit of inciting others, if possible, to achieve the content opponents' blocks and only when impossible to do this under his own name). Ghirla's second block (that caused so much outcry) was part of the post-Carnildo debacle. Block was made by Tony Sidaway (Admin no more and perhaps not even around anymore) for Ghirla's completely justified response to his typical Sydaway-style provocation. In the aftermath of this whole affair, TS is no more an admin (other things also played a role) and this was followed by the ill-fated, so called "Giano-ArbCom" that did nothing but raised the awareness among the content creating editors of the attempts to hijack the Misplaced Pages by those who see it as merely a social medium where they can realize their ambitions to be "in charge", the ambition that they never achieved, perhaps, in the real life. Too bad for the Misplaced Pages that all the non-editing users: IRC fairies, policy discussion activits, wannabe copyright experts, etc. are so badly overrepresented in the Misplaced Pages space.

JzG was right to see that thread right through and removed it as inappropriate. I wish all imporper attempts to use the boards for not what they are for treated similarly. --Irpen 00:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh bloody hell. Here we have a situation where Irpen and Ghirla, both of whom I come across reasonably frequently and whose opinions I trust implicitly in complex matters related to certain ethnic and nationalistic issues, tell me that Piotrus is in the wrong, but then this is referenced back to Tony, who evidently disagrees in some respects, but whose judgement I have found in the past to be excellent if often unpopular. This really should go to arbitration, it is unquestionably not a candidate for any of the procedures tried so far, all of which are designed to fix either disputes between willing participants or unambiguous cases. I pronounce myself baffled and await a much more complete description of the history, which I am confident will take many hours to unravel. WP:RFAR is that way, gentlemen, and I await the opening salvoes with interest. Guy (Help!) 00:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive133#Ghirlandajo for Tony's judgement in this case. --Irpen 00:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

JzG, Tony's reaction was oversized, because following Carnildo's resysopping, a lot of users expressed their disgust (including your servant). At that time, Tony was going completely nuts and blocking people just for the fun of it. And he had to hand in his resign form after (or during) the arbcom case, and rightly so, if you ask me. So Tony's block was inappropriate, as were a few others he made around that time. -- Grafikm 00:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I remember it. Nobody comes out of that incident smelling of roses, if you ask me. Guy (Help!) 00:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I concur but as for your suggestion of ArbCom, I am afraid this will be a similar situation with lots of bad blood, lots of people going nuts and no action on behalf of ArbCom which will be able to see that this is an attempt of reducing a fierce content and POV disagreement as a Civility issue in order to get an upper hand. Piotrus is not alone who dose it and Ghirla is not an only user against whom this trick is being tried. Take a look at this when I tried to prevent a similar misrepresentation of the issues in case of Piotrus' friends. --Irpen 01:03, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

JzG, sorry if this is tiresome. You may delete this thread if it bugs you. Piotrus knows that I was telling the truth but since I was challenged to come up with diffs while I told exactly what I was talking about and I don't believe any of the involved could have possibly forgotten the course of events, I brought about some diffs. Here is the falsely titled thread that shows that several editors did not agree to such mischaracterization. Here are Piotrus' misleading of uninvolved Elonka to act with another post shortly after "Thanking her for taking a stance". And just shortly after Elonka pointing out to Piotrus to the fact that he was not truthful in the followup to that wild ANI thread. Finally, the two sections right after that are also telling. There are other instances of the attempts by this user to achieve the blocks of the content opponents but this would be too much for the talk page of our good friend here. Maybe this is already too much. So, feel free to delete this stuff. --Irpen 03:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

JzG, I used to share your confidence in Tony's judgment, but after his wild blocks and idiosyncratic demeanour in September, I now think, with Grafikm, that it comes and goes. If you want to get caught up (I realize that likely enough you don't, and I'd totally sympathise, just ignore this post if you prefer), the simplest way may be to cast an eye over this rejected request for arbitration against Ghirlandajo from September. Tony's 3-hour "cooling-down" block of Ghirla was fresh then, and is discussed in a number of the statements, together with other relevant matters. Bishonen | talk 03:41, 2 December 2006 (UTC).

Re Tony, I quite agree. The thing is, I don't see how this dispute can be fixed without some kind of binding decision, or at the very least an extensive review of the evidence. Seems to me that a lot of people have already made up their minds one way or another (and mostly in favour of Ghirla, by the looks of things). One way or another, though, we need some form of closure so that the parties can move on. Guy (Help!) 07:40, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Let me just say this: careful review of the posts would show that Irpen is far from being entirly correct or neutral. This shows that virtually nobody supported the side I disagreed with and Ghirla agreed with. This thread speaks for itself particularly well, and feel free to ask Elonka for her input. As for this, let me just point interested parties to my reply to Elonka which Irpen forgot to mention. Last, but not least, if 'most users support Ghirla', I will eat my hat without a mustard; one need just to look at Ghirla's RfC to see where 'majority' usualy is. Most users just don't know what we can do, and we don't see ArbCom as the best solution: we don't want a prolific editor like Ghirla blocked pernamently (I completly agree here with Irpen that this would not be best for Wiki), we just want him to stop offending us. Many editors on Wiki learn how to grow thick skin, but there is only so much you can take being called vandal, troll, nationalist and such until you start to wonder what you are doing here... and in the end, if users like me, Halibutt, and dozens of others Ghirla continues to offend leave, I do wonder if Wiki will truly be better off...--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 04:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I implied it was straightforward, quite the opposite. I don't believe that rehashing the arguments here is going to achieve much, though. I can't fix the problem. Guy (Help!) 07:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Neil Woodford

Why did you delete this?

You think it was autobiographical?

Are you serious?

Did you even read the page?

The guy is Head of Investment for Invesco Perpetual, and is managing £12b+. Don't you imagine he has better things to do with his time?

Whether or not you have heard of him is hardly relevant. I dare say most people have not heard of Rusty Foster, yet he seems to warrant an article here.

A man who controls £12 billion is by definition notable.

He is well-known and well-reported, see http://news.google.co.uk/news?num=100&hl=en&q=%22neil%20woodford%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn for evidence. Nssdfdsfds 02:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Articles created by single purpose accounts and written in excessively florid terms are very often deleted. Guy (Help!) 07:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

That's not a justification. Could you please bring it back. If you think it should be deleted, it would be reasonable to leave it a few days so that a few people could have a chance to read it. It's clearly not spam or whatever, and the man is decidedly notable. Nssdfdsfds 21:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to re-create the article unambiguously establishing notability per WP:BIO from sources, per WP:RS. This discussion is already longer than the deleted text. Guy (Help!) 22:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Tom Birch

Tom Birch (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Tom Birch is NOT the MP for Bromsgrove! Do not add anything that suggests he may be.

I didn't, some other user did. An article states that someone is a sitting MP, that means we don't delete it under WP:CSD criterion A7. I did not fact-check it, because I was patrolling a CSD backlog of some hundreds of articles. Claim of notability = no A7, end of story. Guy (Help!) 11:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Trolling accusation?

If you think I am a troll, take me to arb com. ATren 16:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

More misrepresentation. What I said was, try asking a more generic question which does not assume as a premise the acceptance of your theory, or else risk being dismissed as a troll. Completely different. Trolls generally don't get taken to ArbCom, we simply block them for disruption or ignore them. Guy (Help!) 17:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

See what I mean?

Deng is back. Didn't take long. And he had used that IP to post to some of his "pet" articles before as you can see here. I feel like I'm playing Whack-a-mole when I'm dealing with him. --Woohookitty 22:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I know just how you feel. I currently have ATren siding with Fys, who I blocked for a completely unambiguous 3RR violation and who has been bleating about it ever since. Guy (Help!) 22:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

If you withdraw your unwarranted accusation against the neutrality of my edits, I shall stop "bleating". Removing sourced content is vandalism, and is exempt from 3RR. Fys. Ta fys aym. 22:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

LOL! So you're allowed to keep misrepresenting the reason for your block, and editorialise in the ArbCom case that sanctioned you, but I have to apologise for hurting your delicate feelings by noting that you have a stated political bias? No wonder you're in politics! It's a geat technique, though - remove, bit by bit, the 99% of your complaint where you are unambiguously in the wrong, try to find a bit where there might, under some (mis)interpretations be a grain of reason, and then use that to assert that you have won the entire argument. I'm sure it works brilliantly in the council chamber. Just as well Misplaced Pages is not politics, really. Guy (Help!) 22:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that my preference for including the Tim Ireland weblog in Anne Milton was motivated by my political views? Fys. Ta fys aym. 22:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Stop moving the goalposts. You were blocked for an unambiguous 3RR violation. Get over it. Guy (Help!) 22:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

You made that accusation. I know you cannot substantiate it and I want you to withdraw it. Fys. Ta fys aym. 22:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

And I want you to fuck off. Guy (Help!) 22:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Harassment

Without prejudice to any other disagreement that may be happening between us, DO NOT include that link again. You know which one. Misplaced Pages:Harassment refers. Fys. Ta fys aym. 22:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

You what? Guy (Help!) 22:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Portfolio for ArbCom

On Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006/Summary table, I added a column "Examples" with links that exhibit a candidate's arbitration skills. My motivation is that as a voter, I don't want to just rely on a candidate's words, but also see their actions. Moreover, I believe a portfolio of "model cases" to remember in difficult situations can be useful for each candidate, as well.

So far I have entered examples for the candidates who registered first (from their questions page), and I'm not sure if and when I will get to yours, so you may want to enter an example or two yourself. — Sebastian (talk) 00:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC) (Please reply on this page.)

Tysons Galleria deletion

You deleted the Tysons Galleria article, as spam. I think it's a legit article on the local geography here. --Howdybob 08:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not a directory, but someone thought it was so created articles on all his company's property portfolio. Feel free to create an article which substantiates the notability of this mall from non-trivial independent reliable sources, but merely existing is not enough, the mall's own website is insufficient as sourcing, the list of stores is a job we can safely leave to the mall website, copying and pasting sections of history from the mall's website is a copyright violation, and per no original research we can't call it "upscale" without an independent source. And so on - I think you get the drift here. I will repeat what I said to those involved with numerous similar articles: if you can produce evidence that this has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial coverage in independent reliable secondary sources (and that specifically excludes reprints of press releases), feel free to create an article based on those. Guy (Help!) 10:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. I just liked that I had added the trivia tidbit about the movie "The First Kid" being filmed there, which I saw. (That's not original research; I'm sure there are photos on the website which can be compared to the movie.) --Howdybob 09:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

As trivia goes it's reasonable trivia (if referenced to a reliable source, of course), but it's not much of a claim to notability :-) Guy (Help!) 10:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Before you ask....

... the single purpose account is Sspillers (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log) (Sara Spillers, who added nothing but links to a single site, four per article). Guy (Help!) 15:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

JzG, you are hardcore. — coelacan talk — 15:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe. Recent experience indicates that even undoing links added four per article in alphabetical order by an account with no other contributions will still attract controversy :-/ Guy (Help!) 15:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Advanced Transit Association (ATRA)

It is accurate to describe ATRA as "pro-PRT" in the same sense that it is accurate to describe The Sierra Club as "anti-littering". I would like to think that we have a larger agenda that is limited only by our focus on technical solutions to transportation problems. A significant part of our membership favors other transit alternatives than PRT, such as "Dual mode transit" and "Vactrain". There are also significant differences of opinion among the PRT advocates (wheels/maglev, suspended/supported). Certainly, we are not a monolithic group trying to suppress free thinking.

Broadly, we would like to see a larger freer transportation market that would be more accommodating to using advanced technologies (like maglev, linear motors, automated operations, reserved right-of-ways and right-sized hardware). The total effect is that we favor PRT, but we also favor all the little steps along the way (and beyond) that might solve problems with congestion, and might also help with the degradation of our cities and our environment due to congestion and the current transportation technology choices.

You are right, however, we are an advocacy group with a mission to educate the public. Perhaps it would be helpful to have an article about the organisation? On the other hand, I am unwilling to stir up any controversy by encouraging it. For some people, we seem to be the devil.

I see no benefit to my actual intervention at this point. Even when I try, I often fail the test of NPOV. That is as it should be in my current role.

If I can be of assistance, if I can provide resources or background, please feel free to let me know. We have a lot of history (since 1976) and I represent a prestigious, diverse, and knowledgeable membership. Bob 21:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC) (ATRA President)

I can believe all of the above, but in the end ATRA is not neutral in respect of PRT, is it? Everything on the ATRA website indicates pretty uncritical support for PRT. It's fine to include what ATRA says, but we should be clear about your agenda; you are not reviewing transport in the round, but advocating changes in transport. I am actually encouraged by your acknowledgement of your own bias, you would be a welcome contributor on the Talk page of that article. Incidentally, I am a daily user of mixed-mode transportation, and I think the future of transport is bicycle-shaped :-) Guy (Help!) 00:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Query

Guy, why did you delete the image of Elie Wiesel's father in Night (book)? The novel is about the relationship between Weisel and the father. There is no other way to obtain an image, as the father is dead, it has no commercial value, and we have no reason to believe anyone would mind. Also, don't these deletions have to go through images for deletion? SlimVirgin 21:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It was listed as fair use in illustrating the subject of the photograph, but the article in which it was placed was a book by the son of the subject of the photograph. The identity of the original copyright holder is also unclear from the stated upload source. Guy (Help!) 23:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Ali Sina

Why did you remove the Ali Sina article? The admin deleting the article specifically asked that it should be recreated using more appropriate sources, and that is what I have just done. -- Karl Meier 11:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, it's currently being reviewed, and like you said, a redirect to an article on the faith freedom site would be much less problematic. Guy (Help!) 11:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that BhaiSaab is using a false claim about the Ali Sina article being deleted for notability issues, to advance his pro-Islam agenda and delete large amounts of valid information on a large amount of articles. He should be blocked for vandalizing these articles. -- Karl Meier 13:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Or you should engage on Talk and achieve consensus for inclusion, in which case he can't do a thing about it. An editorial dispute between a supporter and an opponent of something is likely to end up in bilateral sanctions, especially if it includes edit-warring. What is needed is relibale secondary sources which point to faithfreedom being a notable or significant critic (or supporter) of the article subject; those sources, taken to Talk, should be sufficient to allow an acceptably neutral consensus treatment of the subject. If BhaiSaab chooses not to participate, or the consensus goes against him and he refuses to accept it, then the case becomes clear and action can be taken without the need to take sides in the dispute (which I do not propose to do). The same, of course, applies to all parties. Guy (Help!) 13:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Ali Sina talk page

Could you please restore the Ali Sina talk page with all its history. There are months of debates on that talk page which should not be lost through what I consider a premature page delete.--CltFn 13:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

For values of debate which may include months of trolling and arm-waving arguments :-) I have restored the history, I recommend you don't try to merge it back in, having the history should be sufficient. Guy (Help!) 13:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

RD

Sorry I ve been away for a short time and have only just noticed this post. I believed I had responded to all the criticisms. To which behaviour do you refer?--Light current 14:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you have any unaddressed issues with posts I have recently made?--Light current 14:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm just reminding you. The issue is live on the admin noticeboard. Guy (Help!) 14:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Im acutely aware of that. Im trying not to aggravate anybody!--Light current 14:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Jolly good. Carry on, then, there's an encyclopaedia to build! :-) Guy (Help!) 14:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

THanks for your concern! --Light current 15:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Candidacy withdrawn?

I'm a little bit disappointed to see that you withdrew from the ArbCom race, especially since you were ahead at the time by about 10 votes and had a pretty good chance of election. It's probably pointless to try to convince you to change your mind, but I will say I think you would have been a good arbitrator and hope you run again next year. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

No, the clinching argument for me was Cryptic, an editor whose judgement I have always respected immensely. Deals poorly with trolls sums it up perfectly, the discussions on the questions for the candidate and the vote page were completely dominated by "let's ignore the 99% of good stuff and focus on the 1% which could, with a stretch of the imagination, be portrayed as bad". If I had responded better to the pro-PRT puffery on personal rapid transit, ATren would not be able to make so much play out of the spurious assertion that I was in some way conflicted (the fact that I am a huge fan of alternative transportation is not given in evidence, for example). Ditto Fys, who I should simply have told to go away rather than debating his ridiculous bluster. A block endorsed by multiple other admins is not a controversial block, and even if it were, it would not matter at all unless people are determined to make it matter. Do you see ArbCom making much of that particular block? I don't. It was getting sucked into his self-justifying trolling which caused the problem. But even that was a trivial thing compared with getting sucked in again in the election process. The right answer is: you are entitled to your view, I beg to differ. So. The problem is that I want to persuade people to accept things which they plainly have no intention of accepting, however reasonable, however many people tell them the same thing. The solution with these people is to learn to disengage. You'd have thought that years of Usenet participation would teach this, but of course what happened was I got sucked into Usenet mode, and Misplaced Pages is not Usenet. That was a fundamentally bad call. I will defend my edits to personal rapid transit, my block of Fys, my deletion of Mega Society, right up to ArbCom if need be, but I cannot in good faith fail to put my hands up to being royally trolled. That would have been a huge problem had I been elected, so fair play to the trolls for serving a purpose for once.

I only put myself forward in the first place because I could not see enough candidates on the list who I would support unequivocally, and some I would oppose to the bitter end; thankfully there are now some more excellent candidates, certainly better than I would ever have been. It would be nice to have time to consider rather than wrestling in the mudpits, but in the end I must enjoy the wrestling or I wouldn't do it, I guess, and not many people have called into question my abilities as an admin (none I can think of whose opinion I value, anyway), so I'll go on doing what I do and most people seem to want me to continue doing.

Not that I wasn't grateful for the support votes I got, it gives me a warm feeling I've not had since hitting WP:100. It's easy to plug away in blissful ignorance of what people think of you, and good to know that even Cryptic's opposition was reluctant, so I hope he doesn't think me an irredeemable case :-) I do intend to spend more time on longer-term abuses, and to that end have seen a couple of workshop resolutions make the final cut in ArbCom cases. I'll satisfy my desire to sit and ponder by doing more of that I think. Please rest assured that I am pretty sanguine about the whole thing. Guy (Help!) 16:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hear hear. You had my support for your candidacy, but I was never convinced ArbCom was the best and highest use for you. Keep doing what you do best. Regards, Newyorkbrad 16:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Seconded, although we need more people like you on ArbCom than what we've got. I'm glad you're keeping positive about it, though. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm really sorry to hear about it. I thought you were one of the best candidates for the job. "Dealing with trolls" (whatever it is he meant by that) isn't one of the major job requirements - it's dedication, determination and the ability to see through all the bullshit that makes up an arbcomm case. I think you are good at figuring out what the issues are, and I think that the arbcomm will be worse off without you. Guettarda 17:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent withdrawal statement. Fast payment, great ebayer, will buy from again, A+++++. Keep your chin up! Love, always, - crz crztalk 17:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

LOL! Thanks for that, I needed a good giggle :-) Guy (Help!) 17:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I hate doing 'me too' posts, but I echo the above. Keep up the good work, and maybe next time around, hm? Tony Fox (arf!) 23:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey. "Me too" too, too. I think I would have described it as "doesn't suffer fools gladly". Which isn't generally a fault -- but set and setting, y'know? --jpgordon 04:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
- What a pity, I'm sorry to see this. I was impressed by the way you've been dealing with, hrrrrm, I'd better not say, but you know who I mean. You certainly suffered him a lot more patiently than I ever did (not much of a compliment as such). I think you'd have been good in ArbCom. Bishonen | talk 04:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

While I've seen you around, I haven't much interacted with you (I think my first discussion with you is directly below), but I just wanted to mention that your introspective comments above have definitely garnered my respect. I haven't read any information about the examples you list above, but I know from my own experience, that for me there's always a fine line between assuming good faith, and not feeding the trolls. Personally, I usually tend to lean too much on AGF, even when it's becoming rather clear that original research or even personal point-of-view is involved in the discussion, so I truly empathise. Presuming you're around next year, I hope you try for it again. The discernment in your comments above lead to me think that I would support such a nom in the future. - jc37 07:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Problems with User:Iantresman and Wolf Effect

Thank you for the notice. I would like to ask a favour as someone with no vested interested in the article. I'd like to demonstrate on a point-by-point basis, that ScienceApologist's assertions are a gross misrepresentation. And I'd like you to decide whose position is accurate. I would do this on the Talk:Wolf_effect page, and no science background will be necessary. Would you agree? --Iantresman 17:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

That would require the involvement of other editors with much greater experience in the field than I have (I am an engineer, I can understand a scientific argument, but my reading of the RFAR leads me to believe that in the end it will come down to matters abstruse). Plus more eyes is always better. The best way to make that happen is probably through WP:RFC or the science Wikiproject. You need to tread carefully because of your history. I will take part in the debate if I think I can usefuly contribute; article RFC refers to the talk page anyway.

I've started the RFC process. Let the games commence. Guy (Help!) 17:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:OR reversion

Since you also reverted such edits of User:38.119.134.181 at Darth Vader, I thought I should bring this anon to your attention again. Based on this user's current contributions, and notices on the adjoining talk page they would seem to be not ceasing in such actions. (Continued disruption...) - jc37 19:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorted. I'd suggest for faster response try WP:AIV but I don't think that would be especially accurate right now :o) Guy (Help!) 19:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

On Original Research.

This is in response to your comment at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Apprentice (software), where you claimed that the article was "original research." Since I wrote a fair amount of the article, I figured that was worthy of a response. I believe that either this claim is mistaken or else you are using a far broader umbrella for the term "original research" than I do.

There's a difference between original research and, for lack of a better term, "uncommon knowledge." The vast majority of content on Misplaced Pages is loosely referenced at best, and that's okay, for now. For many non-contentious topics, it's more important for the content to be laid out rather than for all the forms to be in order, and for some topics, references are hard to come by. Just because someone did not have the book on the spread of Buddhism into China that they read in college handy doesn't mean that their addition on the subject is "original research;" it's just uncited, that's all. And being unreferenced is considerably less of a problem than OR; OR is generally inappropriate no matter what, while unreferenced can be fixed with a cite request. While telling the difference can be tricky if the contributor does not reveal the source, I think that the Assume Good Faith guideline means that you should not accuse someone of OR unless it's fairly clear (for instance, "sales of the Widget2000 are listed as 30,000 units" with an edited addition of "but store clerks in some areas have reported that they're actually selling far faster than that." Or look at the talk page of Fraulein, where someone keeps on quoting personal anecdotes as evidence rather than cites.)

The Apprentice article may have been loosely cited, like most articles, but it was not OR. It couldn't have been, since as noted in the deletion debate, I myself did not play it, never logged onto a league or IRC chatroom dedicated to it, and was not part of its "scene" during its heyday. Everything I know about it was picked up by osmosis and reading secondary sources (as the primary had long since gone under) about its importance within the MtG community. The "research" I did was no different than going into a library to look up magazine articles and books for cites, something Misplaced Pages theoretically approves of. I made the article at all on something I don't play mostly as a labor of trying to do something good for Misplaced Pages, as a new user was adding extraneous details to the main M:TG article. See Talk:Magic:_The_Gathering#Apprentice_and_Magic_Workstation and later posts if you're curious; I tried to show the proper way to go about it and made the article.

Anyway. If you still feel this is somehow Original Research, then I'd be interested to hear why. SnowFire 23:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

If it's not original research then it should be trivially easy to cite the multiple non-trivial coverage in reliable secondary sources independent of the subject from which it is drawn. Do that and you have fixed the problem. Other articles are completely irrelevant, I'm sure that a significant porportion of WP articles should be nuked or reworked, but we take them one at a time. Guy (Help!) 00:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

No, that's cause for an unreferenced tag (if references are not easy to come by), or a deletion based on a verifiability or notability argument (if the references are not reliable or are trivial- the rationale given by the others in favor of deletion in the thread, I'll add). That is quite separate from original research. I'm not saying that uncited facts are optimal, but there's a difference between facts that can be reliably cited but aren't yet, and unpublished material that can't be reliably cited. If something is truly a "novel narrative or historical interpretation," there won't be any possible cites for it (for instance, how telepathy is proved by my own amazing ability to read minds, or information gathered from claimed personal interviews, classic examples of OR. It's obvious that kind of stuff is unpublished.).

As for it being "trivially easy" to cite non-OR... clearly we are spoiled by Google. I don't know how to respond to this aside from saying it is false. Just from personal experience, I'm not at college anymore, but while I was, I read some fairly obscure books at the library- academic journals that are not available free online, books from 1900 and earlier, and so on. It would not be "trivially easy" to go back and cite them properly, but they are valid sources, and I would hope that a hypothetical article on a notable subject based on them would not be deleted simply due to the "proof" that it was not OR not coming within an arbitrary 5-day time limit. (Incidentally, in this case, citing it was certainly possible, though annoying due to the generic name and the mists of time eating some websites. I have actually gone back and added more cites thanks to Google, but even if I hadn't, I'd say that the article should have been kept and sent to cleanup instead.)

As for "other articles," I did not invoke a standard "but look at this article that barely skated past AfD!" comparison, you'll note. I only said that the vast majority of Misplaced Pages is unreferenced and that that is okay. I'm going to assume you're not in favor of deleting 95% of Misplaced Pages? AfD is not cleanup. Unreferenced articles are often better than no articles, and can be improved over time, including adding cites. SnowFire 03:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

That's your view, mine is that if it is not referenced before the end of the AfD then it should go, per policy. So should other unreferenced articles. That is policy. You are free to fix the problem and thus save the article. Guy (Help!) 07:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Then just say that and cite WP:V. I am taking exception to the added rationale of original research, as unreferenced is not equivalent to OR.

I wasn't here to change your opinion- you'll note that I didn't spam the talk pages of other delete voters- but rather to address what I see as a factual inaccuracy, as the page was not original research even in its earlier, uncited form. SnowFire 15:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

That which is not verifiable from reliable sources, is original research (i.e. novel synthesis form primary sources). But none of that is especially relevant; if you can cite good quality critical reviews from reliable secondary sources which support the content, then there is no problem. Incidentally, the sources you have go some way towards this, but in my view we could do with linking specific parts of the text to the sources, and hopefully finding sources outside the MTG community as well, to avoid appearances of a walled garden. Guy (Help!) 16:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree that when notability is in question, more sources from the "outside" is a good indicator of notability, although in my opinion not a required one. However, my hopes are not high for finding non-MTG community articles on Apprentice, just as I wouldn't expect there to be much written (worth citing, at least) on the King's Indian Defence outside of the chess community. (Note: If you have a higher standard for inclusion than the de facto WP standard and wouldn't mind deleting both, that's perfectly understandable since WP effectively has very liberal inclusion policies, as I'm sure you know. I happen to think that subtopics of notable topics are probably notable if the topic is large and relevant enough.) Some of the other posters said they saw it in a magazine, and I found websites of, say, Harry Potter CCG players who'd made data sets for Apprentice with the HP card game, but the magazine cites will probably only come with time, not before the AfD finishes, and the general CCG references aren't really that far afield.

As for the OR deal, I think we may be going in circles, so I'll try and leave it at this. We may actually already agree, it's just that I feel that the distinction between unreferenced(tag), unverifiable (delete by WP:V), and original research is significant and misclassifying even unverifiable information (Which will be deleted anyway) isn't good and will create bad blood. I noticed that in a recent DfR you voted in (Misplaced Pages:Deletion_review#Starfleet_alternate_ranks_and_insignia), a user made the comment "having sources is not magical pixie dust that stops original research being original research," because even if the sources are reliable, the way they're used may be a novel synthesis. On the flip side, if a vandal removed all the references from a featured article and somehow blew away the database history, the article wouldn't suddenly be OR, even lacking references. SnowFire 04:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The above assumes that MTG is on a par with chess (which it isn't) and that published works from mainstream publishers, available for chess, are on a par with the MTG fansites and forums used as sources for the MTG article (which is also false). Things which will "come with time" equate to crystal balling. Guy (Help!) 07:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You cabalist, you!

File:Anti-Star Trek Cabal logo.png

I knew it! _└ / _talk 21:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Eowbotm

Hi JzG,

I see that you handled the block for User:Eowbotm's sockpuppets on WP:AN/I (for which I am quite grateful = ). Well, he appears to be back as an IP address. This may be worth looking into. Thank you. —Lantoka 21:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Railfans gone mad?

Is it just me, or is this a bit much? And yes, it's part of a series. --Calton | Talk 00:17, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh dear. Needs trimming and merging, I think. Guy (Help!) 00:18, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

NPA

As per as well as others: Please see Misplaced Pages's no personal attacks policy. Comment on content, not on contributors; personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Note that continued personal attacks may lead to blocks for disruption. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you. --Cat out 01:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Go away. You have accused me more than once of bad faith nominations without a shred of evidence, and that is unacceptable. Stating that forking commando to a list of celebrities who go commando is an atrocious way of solving the obsessive addition of cruft is absolutely not a personal attack, not least because I didn't even look at who created it or who the obsessive poster of this cruft is. Misplaced Pages is not tabloid journalism. Note that posting template warnings on the Talk pages of admins may in itself be considered incivil and disruptive, especially when the post in question was on the admin noticeboard and thus available for every admin to see, should they choose to react. Guy (Help!) 08:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Ali Sina question

Hello Guy, I've just noticed that in addition to redirecting this deleted article you've restored the history. Out of curiosity, what was your logic for that? Look forward to your response. (→Netscott) 02:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

For DRV purposes. It can be deleted any time now, I think, but there may be GFDL issues (though probably not as Karl rewrote from scratch). Guy (Help!) 08:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Experiment proves that Personal Rapid Transit is mainly about politics... not technology

Why else would PRT promoter Mr. Grant (David Gow) who lives in Seattle rush to edit new pages on two MInnesota politicians?. ATren (from Buffalo, NY) has edited the Michele Bachmann page. Three politicians not even mentioned in the PRT article... Amazing coincidence!!!Avidor 04:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

So, you're surprised we occasionally check on the Bachmann, Olson, and Zimmermann articles, just in case the guy responsible for the "dumpbachmann", "dumpmarkolson" and "greenpartygonebad" blogs decided to use those articles to spread his anti-PRT message? And this is somehow "proof" about something PRT-related?

By the way, I found out about the Olson/Zimmermann articles by looking at your contributions. I didn't comment on them because they looked OK to me, nothing really inflammatory or inaccurate. Mr Grant explicitly complimented you on your relatively NPOV presentation, and only requested a few clarifications on sources. What's your beef? ATren 05:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: it seems Mr Grant did do some editing to the Olson article - he basically removed the word "unproven" before PRT and added a list of bills sponsored by Olson. Now, how does this indicate a conspiracy? ATren 05:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You left out Gow casting doubt on Olson's history of abusing his staff... the Star Tribune article he cites is wrong. Olson did throw a typewriter at a secretary in his first term and Olson got into trouble for abusing staff years later... Olson... Bachmann... Zimmermann... PRT promoters sure are an interesting bunch... you'd think they'd get a mention in the PRT article.... incidentally, I think you gave Bill James a raw deal - There was a story about J-Pods in the Star Tribune and on Fox Television. Just because Bill James made his prototype in his garage using duct tape and plywood doesn't mean you should keep him out of the article. Does Unimodal have a prototype? How about Tritrack? I'll bet Tritrack never got on Fox Television.Avidor 06:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

So, Mr Grant adds sourced content about Olson's domestic violence charge... and this "proves that PRT is mainly about politics"? ATren 07:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course! Why else would your esteemed Advanced Transit Assoc. cite the expert opinion of now convicted felon Dean Zimmermann(and installer of bathroom fixtures) on its website ...But, I'm poking a sharp stick at the over-inflated optimism of gadget invention that is at the core of the cult worship of technology (that is also at the geeky heart of Misplaced Pages). Nevermind that PRT, like perpetual motion machines and cold fusion are impossible fantasies... thirty-plus years of failure are only more reason to sing as the wacky inventors do in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang "from the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success!!!" (there really should be a link to that video on the PRT page)Avidor 14:16, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I see that Bob Dunning, ATRA Chairman is helping with the PRT page When the troubled Rep. Mark Olson insisted last session that ATRA be consulted on the Central Corridor, he was nearly laughed off the floor Avidor 22:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Please take a look at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Starfleet Judge Advocate General

Is the merge/rename/compliation they have performed here per deletion process policy? Since people are now hurling accusations of bad faith in all directions, I am reluctant to comment on the propriety of this, but it feel so ... gamey.--Elar a girl 07:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If they had fixed the fundamental problem, instead of just citing even more original media, I'd be happy, but no. The new article still relies entirely on original media. Guy (Help!) 08:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

laughs in amusment I've been RfC'd by Cool Cat for incivility and disruption. And being a deltionist. My irony alert has runneth over. More to the point, he's jerked down the AfD notice again. Husnock , at least, seems to be editing in good faith (and as fast as he can) to find at least some kind of sourcing for things. I'm more concerned about the precident this kind of tapdancing will set for other deletions. --Elar a girl 14:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

TOS TrekMUSE

Um, you meant to put that at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/TOS TrekMUSE (2nd nomination), right? Morwen - Talk 13:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You are so right. My inbound spam filter has just gone bang and all hell has broken loose in RL. Guy (Help!) 13:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

ScienceApologist

I feel like I'm telling tales, but I feel that ScienceApologist's behaviour has demonstrably failed to meet those standards described in the recent Arbitration case,

In the discussions on the Wolf effect, I've just been called a "bean counter",
In another discussion on William G. Tifft, I've just been called a liar,
He's also confirmed that those who model quasars are the "ultimate authority over what is significant" and he's "not budging from that position", when the Arbitration case noted that he should "respect all policies and guidelines, in spirit as well as letter, when editing articles concerning some alternative to conventional science"
I also note that he's now trying to remove the Wolf effect from the Redshift article,, again in defiance of the Arbitration case.
I don't think I'm being aggressive, or unreasonable myself, and am providing sufficient verifiable, reliable sources.
This is in additional to ScienceApologist's original complain against me, where he took my peer reviewed sources, and deprecated a number of researchers as "a self-employed crystal technician" and "employee of Xerox Corp", again noted in the arbitration case,. --Iantresman 15:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

CC. Case Arbitrator Fred Bauer.

I will look at this when I have more time (I am in the middle of a bit of a crisis right now) but I will repeat what I have said before, the two of you disagree so vehemently on so many things that it is going to require immense effort on both your parts to be at all productive on the same article, and that effort is going to have to start with deciding not to rise to the bait. I appreciate that you are not happy about this, and if SA is removing stuff wholesale, and not debating them on Talk, you may need to ask him nicely if he wouldn't mind taking them to Talk, or maybe collecting all of them in a monster RFC, but SA is acting in what must be assumed to be good faith based on his assessment of policy, which assessment is in general correct per the ArbCom case. So while his style may be aggressive, his actions may well be acceptable, as long as he does not go too far. Take a deep breath and remember there is no deadline, in time we can hopefully come to some kind of mutually acceptable resolution. And if not, well, at least we should be able to demonstrate that we tried our damndest, no? I suggest you do something else for a while, or maybe collect together the disputed statements and begin the debate on Talk. Remember, if your actions are unambiguously in line with the outcomes of the ArbCom case (discuss, do not disrupt, remain calm and civil) you are much more likely to get your way, or at least some part of it. Above all, resist the temptation to play the man instead of the ball. Guy (Help!) 17:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Arbcom elections

Support: sadly, you've had to withdraw due to some minor indiscretions. Alas, such is politics! David Mestel 17:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

No worries!

Anytime, Guy. Just remember, you're only mortal. :P -- saberwyn 11:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You really get around, don't you? -- saberwyn 11:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't feel like it - CSD - AFD - DRV - AN - repeat :-) Guy (Help!) 12:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

My article

I'm notable. And I've an inalienable right to write about myself on here. I'll see you in court if you keep this malarky of deleting my stuff up. Stop smoking waccy baccy, and get back to the real world. Sheesh, geez louise, will you stop being an idiot already?? --Leonalewis 13:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)