BrownHairedGirl/Archive ( block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser ( log))
Request reason:
Diannaa blocked me for 31 hours, leaving only this message.
[1] but no block notice.
Blocks are supposed to be preventive, not punitive. This block is not only punitive, it is based on a misrepresentation of comments I wrote as personal attack, whereas they were not personal attacks according to the definitions in policy; they were in fact a reasoned comment on problematic conduct. The post to which Diannaa objects is this reply
[2] by me to @
Robert McClenon. Dianaa and I discussed it at
User talk:BrownHairedGirl#A_Comment,_Gaming_the_System,_etc.. Diannaa objects to three of my comments in that reply to Robert: * my comment: That sort of response indicates either evasion or inability to comprehend the concept of selection criteria
.
That was my comment on a post by NA1K in which NA1K had responded to my question about selection to which NA1K replied with the tautologous I assessed these articles relative to their suitability for this portal
. For goodness sake, how can anyone describe the uncollaborative nature of that reply without noting that it's either evasion or a failure to grasp the concept? * my comments: I remain appalled at such trickery
and just plain devious and manipulative
.
That was about NA1K's choice to describe a former guideline which was deguidelined with NA1K's vocal support as a a schema for advisement
, which is a verbose form of words that means exactly the same thing as "guideline". It is reminiscent of early 1980s Haigspeak, which was described in the 1941–1991 Dictionary Of Neologisms as "Language characterized by pompous obscurity resulting from redundancy, the semantically strained use of words, and verbosity".
[3]
NA1K was trying to justify their controversial actions by reliance on a guideline which they themself had sought to deprecate in toto because it contained elements they believed were wrong. NA1K didn't ask for amendments to that guideline; they wanted it scrapped, made null and void. But having achieved that, NA1K was now claiming that the null-and-void document legitimated their actions. That is an attempt having their cake and eating it. What on earth is the point of delisting a guideline if the editor who sought its delisting then relies on it as if it was still a guideline? The only part of
Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#What_is_considered_to_be_a_personal_attack? which seems to me to be relevant is "Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence". I have made a conscious effort to avoid the comments on character which I made several times in the heat of the moment. My post to which Dianaa objects is a strictly a comment on conduct, and it did supply evidence. This block is contrary to policy. It amounts to an attempt to prevent me from even describing problematic conduct, and as I noted in my last reply to Dianaa,
[4] Dianaa focused entirely on the forms of words used, and not on the substance of the problems which I have described. I wrote I appreciate that you genuinely believe that you are trying to help, but I have had enough of your focus on form rather than substance
.
WP:ADMINACCT says that "editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions", and it seems that I have been blocked for challenging Dianaa's focus on the details of my phrasing rather than n the substance of the problematic actions which I was describing. --
BrownHairedGirl
(talk) • (
contribs)
20:41, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Accept reason:
Well, this is certainly a first for me, in my nine years plus as an administrator, reviewing a block imposed by (in my opinion) one of the best administrators we have on (in my opinion) another one of the best administrators we have. It is also if not a first, at least a very rare experience for me, lifting a block without consulting the blocking administrator. Before I give my reasons for doing so, I will mention, BrownHairedGirl, that your unblock request came nowhere near to being compliant with the guide to appealing blocks, and I have seen many an unblock request declined for that reason alone, irrespective of the merits of the block. OK, so now my comments on the block. In the edit which Diannaa gave as the reason for the block, BrownHairedGirl certainly showed her irritation, and she expressed herself in a less temperate way than would have been ideal. However, none of us always lives up to ideal standards, and her comments really did not amount to a "personal attack". However, had that been all, although I would have disagreed with the block, I would have merely expressed that opinion and invited Dianaa to comment, to give her a chance to justify her decision. However, that is not all. The block came over 19 hours after the comment which was given as the reason. That is not preventive. It would require a most extreme and exceptional kind of unacceptable edit for one edit to pose such a risk of continuation that in order to prevent such continuation the editor in question had to be blocked nineteen hours later, and this is not such a case. The block was therefore completely out of line with policy, and has to be regarded as a mistake. JBW ( talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 21:16, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Being no admin I don't know whether it's OK for me to post here, and express my support for BrownHairedGirl's unblock request. Their comments in the cited conversation with Robert seemed to me (after having read the entire discussion) strictly comments on content, nothing near to ad hominems. It's an evaluation of what is going on with the edits on which BrownHairedGirl was commenting, nothing more nothing less: it is perfectly normal on a user talk page to compare the content of edits with Wikipedia's behavioural guidance, if, like it seems here, the edits seemed, to BrownHairedGirl, problematic w.r.t. that guidance. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 20:58, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
I've been reading through the discussions at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Transport (which I found via the ongoing ANI discussion), and there is one accusation that you're making of NA1k that I can't figure out. You're saying that NA1k made edits to the portal that added a number of articles to the rotation, but these additional articles were obscured from view in some way. Specifically, you say that NA1k's new version of the portal does not display a list of linked articles that are part of the rotation in the portal. I have tried comparing the before and after versions of the portal (via this diff), but I don't see a list of linked articles that appears in one version and doesn't appear in the other. Can you help me understand where this list resides, and specifically how you believe NA1k's change to the article made this list more difficult to access? Thanks. ‑Scottywong | [talk] || 22:40, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
|1=Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore) |2=London congestion charge |3=MTR
etc
I hope you don't mind me butting in, but your explanation to Scotty was enlightening and now I have a couple questions:
Thanks, – Leviv ich 06:56, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
I think I found a good example of "black box" gone rogue. Can you confirm this kind of unexpected or unpredictable result is the kind of "feature" that makes those templates a dangerous "black box" in your eyes? I agree that a minimum we should document better how content is selected. Nemo 12:46, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
enough already. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 15:42, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
Hello again BrownHairedGirl. You're still saying a lot of attack-y and negative things about Northamerica1000 ("sly, cunning and deceitfully selective"; "deceitful, manipulative conduct"; "manipulative scheming") in this post. And here, "I have never seen such sustained gaming of the system as that which NA1K indulges in". While these are not as egregiously bad as some of your other recent comments, it's still not appropriate and it needs to stop. Thank you, — Diannaa 🍁 ( talk) 00:58, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
I will try to reply to User:BrownHairedGirl and to comment on the admonitions by User:Diannaa and User:Liz. As BHG knows, I agree with BHG about portals far more often than I disagree. I think that we have too many disused stupid cruddy portals that need to be deleted, and I can now finally understand why BHG says that NA1k is gaming the system. It has been very hard for me to understand how their work on portals is gaming the system, and I still am not sure that I agree. I am inclined instead still to think that it is a deeply misguided devotion to the cause of maximizing the number of portals in the English Wikipedia. I don't know why NA1k wants so many portals. I have asked, and I haven't understood the answers, so I have concluded that their belief in portals is mystical. But a mystic deeply believes in what they believe, and they aren't gaming the system, at least not intentionally, and intention does matter.
It has taken me weeks to understand why BHG keeps reverting NA1k's edits to portals, and I still am not sure that I agree. The purpose clearly is to improve the portals, either in advance of a deletion discussion, or during a deletion discussion. So why should improvements be reverted? BHG will say that they aren't improvements. I kept seeing that the edits were black boxes. I didn't know what that meant, and I think I am a knowledgeable editor, and one who isn't afraid to look inside the black box.
The problem is that the intensity with which you, BHG, are alleging conduct violations by NA1k is distracting from your efforts to explain what they are doing wrong. If I have been having a hard time understanding what the issue is, and I am mostly looking for portals to delete, how do you expect other editors to see what you are saying? If NA1k were trying to game the system, then they might do it by first provoking a few portal critics into irrational anger to distract. Well, what I see is irrational anger. The cause of deleting portals is rational. The amount of anger isn't. One portal critic has already been indefinitely blocked for irrational anger about portals toward someone on their own side. We don't need another.
User:BrownHairedGirl - You aren't making the case effectively about gaming the system, because all that can be seen is your anger, and not a technical explanation of the issues. Robert McClenon ( talk) 20:27, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
BHG keeps reverting NA1k's edits to portals. I did a series of reverts on 12 October, and then stopped when an ANI thread discussion took off. Since then, the only reverts I have done have been to restore the status quo ante when NA1K's version was restored while the matter was still being actively discussed.
I assessed these articles relative to their suitability for this portalwhich says precisely nothing about the criteria. That sort of response indicates either evasion or inability to comprehend the concept of selection criteria.
purpose clearly is to improve the portals, either in advance of a deletion discussion, or during a deletion discussion. So why should improvements be reverted?. Simple because: because a) NA1K has made those purported "improvements" in a way which it unnecessarily hard to evaluate whether they actually are improvements; b) because those which have been checked are abysmal.
irrational anger. I had buckets of shit poured all over my head by a lynch mob, but the same crew are now telling me that yes, portals lists do need to be transparent and easily scrutinised, and even NA1K has themself radically revised the list they made at P:Transport, acknowledging that it was indeed massively biased. So basically, thjere is now no dispute at all that I was right in substance.
irrationalis perverse. What on earth is the point of the community having guidelines if an editor says in scrap this guideline 'cos it's junk ... and then says in effect "I broke a core policy because I was following that crap former guideline"? And NA1K's choice to describe the former guideline as
a schema for advisementwas just plain devious and manipulative: the plain English meaning of that pompous phrase is "guideline", so NA1K statement amounted to "it's not a guideline but it is a guideline". If you choose to describe my anger at this as
irraional, then that's not a choice I admire. Not by a long way. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 23:14, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Hi BrownHairedGirl. Most of the above post is okay from a civility point of view but there's a couple of spots where improvements can be made. Please have a look at my analysis below for reasons why a couple of the things you said are not acceptable. I would appreciate it if you could accept my critique as a good faith attempt on my part to help you work towards further improvements in your discussions on other people's conduct.
That sort of response indicates either evasion or inability to comprehend the concept of selection criteria.Saying this is not okay, because you're stating that the editor's intention was to evade, and questioning their level of intelligence.
I remain appalled at such trickery: Again not okay, because you're stating that the editor's intention was to trick people. It's not okay to say that.
just plain devious and manipulativeAgain not okay, because you're again making negative assumptions about the other editor's motives. Don't do that please.
Now here's a couple where you use strong language, but since you're speaking about the editor's actions rather than dissing him personally, these are acceptable things to say:
the quality of NA1K's list-making has been utterly abysmal
those which have been checked are abysmal— Diannaa 🍁 ( talk) 16:50, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
making negative assumptions about the other editor's motives. Not so; I am making negative judgements based on assessments of the evidence. In the first your bullet points, you don't even have the courtesy to acknowledge that I noted two possible explanations, and you offer no alternative possible explanation.
making judgements about other people's motives. WP:VAND (policy) and WP:GAME (guideline) are both conduct issues issues in which a finding of fault hinges entirely on a judgement of intent. By extension, the alternative explanation of bad behaviour is that the editor has acted in good faith but has failed to understand why their conduct is wrong ... and however that is phrased, it is unavoidably a judgement on their comprehension skills.
making judgements about other people's motivesis unacceptable, then you would not have blocked editors for vandalism unless they had expressly stated such an intent to do harm.
Hi BrownHairedGirl,
Would it be appropriate for me to procedurally relist the Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Painting following my re-opening the discussion or, alternatively, per WP:INVOLVED, are you permitted to relist a discussion even while having !voted?
It doesn't matter who does it to me, but just wondering if a relisting would be appropriate in this case.
Alternatively, if you think past practice would suggest another editor or administrator would relist it, I might just leave it for you or another administrator/editor to relist.
Cheers,
--
Doug Mehus
T·
C
09:36, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Integrity | ||
For your upstanding character and devotion to cooperatively improving human knowledge in the face of unrelenting opposition steeped in ignorance while in a fundamentally broken system beholden to the lowest common-denominator, and ability to forgive my past shortcomings and reach for the stars of progress together. -- Newshunter12 ( talk) 21:23, 17 November 2019 (UTC) |
fundamentally broken system. My own take on it is that is a fundamentally wonderful system, whose essential wisdom is proven by the fact that we have managed to create and sustain what any reasonable person would have said was impossible: making a wide-open collaboration to build a free enyclopedia. (Yes, it's a work in progress, but so is all human knowledge, even the most hallowed towers of science and academia create only provisional knowledge). As George Bernard Shaw, wrote, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Thank God that Larry & Jimbo were so unreasonable back in 2001 when they decided to try this bonkers notion of a crowd-sourced encyclopedia.
fundamentally broken systemsays a bit more about my mindset of the present situation then the fundamentals of Wikipedia, as you have made many great points about the triumphs and pitfalls of this grand experiment. It's been a long slog in portal space, but we should remember the tale of Fruits Basket on Wikipedia. It was a den of fan cruft from 2005-08 and two long gone editors eliminated many of the fan character articles etc. I came along nearly a decade later and cleaned up most of the remaining mess. I successfully AfD'd the four remaining abandoned fan articles, removed reams of duplicate information like above, condensed links, and carefully corrected reams of information. A big mess became a much smaller mess, and I left it to others to someday finish polishing the small set of remaining articles or not.
On my talk page you said that you hadn't realised that Diannaa was an administrator. There is a script which highlights any administrator's name on talk pages etc, which I find very helpful at times. (I probably would have found it even more helpful if I had known about it in the days before I was an administrator, but never mind.)
If you would like to try the script, copy the following text and add it to User:BrownHairedGirl/monobook.js
/*** Begin adminhighlighter (From User:Theopolisme/Scripts/adminhighlighter.js) ***/ /*** See User:Theopolisme/Scripts/adminhighlighter ***/ mw.loader.load('//en.wikipedia.org/?title=User%3ATheopolisme%2FScripts%2Fadminhighlighter.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript'); // [[User:Theopolisme/Scripts/adminhighlighter.js]] /*** End adminhighlighter ***/
There are four lines of text there, three of them comments, but the Wikimedia software runs them all together in displaying them here, so copy from the edit area, not from how they are displayed.
A related script, perhaps less useful but still helpful at times, highlights your own user name, in a different colour than used by the script above. That can make it easy to quickly find mentions of yourself in long discussion pages. Here it is:
/*** Begin highlightmyname2 ***/ //This script ([[User:ais523/highlightmyname2.js]]) highlights all instances of the //logged-in user's username on pages by giving them a bright red background. importScript('User:Ais523/highlightmyname2.js'); /*** End highlightmyname2 ***/
You may like to try them, or not, but I find them helpful. JBW ( talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 12:46, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
Hi BHG - I asked a question on NA1K's TP about whether we should have links to WikiProject pages on the front Main Space pages of the Main Articles, instead of the Talk Page. My thought was that ultimately Portals are caught between Main Articles (+NavBoxes) and WikiProject Directories, and can compete with neither. Maybe if we had WikiProject links on the Mainspace articles, it would solve a lot of these issues? NA1K gave this a slim chance of being accepted by the community, however. What do you think? Britishfinance ( talk) 13:58, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Hello. I noticed on WP:ANI, you wrote: "I did was very clear that POG is a former guideline, and I cited it to explicitly stress the folly of that guideline. NA!K is trying to conflate this with their efforts to cite POG as guidance on how to act, which is the exact opposite of what I did. NA1K actually claimed that POG has current value, which I explicitly did not." Could I ask how this reconciles with your reference to WP:POG as "policy" in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Vermont? I'm sure you've also referred to it as policy elsewhere, although I don't have much time to go digging. Regards, Vermont ( talk) 03:52, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Sure, Vermont. That first question is very simple.
WP:POG was delisted as a guideline on 27 Set 2019 [9]. That followed the closure on 26 Sept of WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 153#RFC:_Formalize_Standing_of_Portal_Guidelines_as_a_Guideline_(18_July_2019)
My last edit at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Vermont was on 26 July 2019. At that point, POG was tagged as a guideline, as it had been for years. I accepted the status quo, and worked within the guideline, even though I had grave reservations about much of it. I used at as guideline while it was still a guideline, and whe it was delisted per RFC I stopped citing it as a guideline ... though I frequently noted how absurd it had been to recommend only 20 articles.
That is how WP:Consensus works: accept a guideline unless and until it is changed. The status of POG changed two months later, but I work within policy and guideline as they are now, not how they might be in the future.
My wording there are MFD was sloppy in one respect. In reply to you, I referred to two fundamental policy issues
, but I should of course have used the word "guideline". I am sorry for that error, but I don't think it was a major issue in the context. I think that our disagreement would have been the same whichever word was used.
As your comments that I am pushing [my] view that all portals should be deleted regardless of what consensus and guidelines
, that is very far from the truth. Of the last 30 portals I assessed for possible MFD noms, I nominated only about 5.
I think that you miss some very important distinctions. Editors are all entitled to their views and to express them. They are also required to respect the current consensus.
In this case, some editors would like to have thousands of portals, and some would like to have zero. I would like few or none, and if we got down to say 100 portals I'd say good enough for now: the 100 would still be pretty useless, but at least at that number they would probably have enough traffic to be maintained, and maybe even restructured to add a little more value than the failed model of pseudo-magazine with a Rube Goldberg machine. But for now there are two points of consensus: a) that there should not be a deletion of all portals, per WP:ENDPORTALS, and b) that individual portals may be deleted at MFD.
So that is my personal view, and I hold it while also respecting the current consensus. I support the deletion of failed portals, and those on excessively narrow topics. I would oppose the deletion of a broad-topic portal if it is in good shape, and if it is a high-level topic portal in terrible shape then I would support a WP:TNT deletion pending a rebuild, as I did e.g. at MFD:Portal:Asia. If P:Asia had been in good shape, I'd have said keep it.
I regard the stream of MFDs as being a process of removal of failed portals, like P:Vermont. I thought that process would have ended months ago, but sadly MFD nominators are still finding lots of failed portals. In hindsight, I realise that I had radically overestimated the degree to which portals were being maintained, and now realise that the rot extends much further than I had thought.
I hope that clarifies my views.
Best wishes, -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 04:54, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
regardless of what consensus and guidelines. The information is available on the 8th line of the revision history of WP:POG, or you could simply have asked me the question. Instead you chose to make a pejorative judgement on me without having the key fact. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 16:55, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
it never received actual formal discussion to be enacted as a real English Wikipedia guideline page. I could never have imagined a situation where an actual admin would repeat that deception in a discussion where the error had already been noted in the post to which they were replying ... and I am shocked that it has all been done in support of sneaky edits which amount to massive breach of the core policy WP:NPOV.
Hi again BrownHairedGirl,
I thought for sure I'd see you participating in the
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Weather deletion discussion, but, indeed, neither as nominator or as a participant, you weren't there. The discussion has been open for quite awhile now and there seems to be a significant consensus forming to have formed in favour of delete. It's got something like 2,100 subpages, so one of your bots might be able to be engaged in some way. At any rate, seeing as how you haven't participated in this discussion, I was wondering if you might be able to assess the consensus and close the discussion?
Oops.
Cheers,
--
Doug Mehus
T·
C
01:32, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
A Maltese puppy. | |
Sorry real life is stressful right now. Please take this puppy! – MJL ‐Talk‐ ☖ 03:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC) |
Hi, I see you are removing deleted portals from navboxes, but unfortunately you seem to be replacing them with general, non-specific portals. I do not believe this to be correct. Portals in navboxes should only be included if they correlate directly to the topic of the navbox, and navboxes should not be used to populate tangential non-specific portals in this way. 212.135.65.247 ( talk) 10:44, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
It is unwise to continue advancing a partisan position in a dispute, as you did here [11], while a request for arbitration is pending and have not taken the time to respond to the request. I urge you to stop all activity related to portals and respond to the case request first. Thank you. Jehochman Talk 13:19, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Hi BHG...long time etc. Could you take a look at Round Tower Stakes? There is a large number of such articles that you've tagged to IrlProj. Is the article Round Tower Stakes an article or a list? Regards Sarah777 ( talk) 18:44, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Conduct in portal space and portal deletion discussions and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. As threaded discussion is not permitted on most arbitration pages, please ensure that you make all comments in your own section only. Additionally, the guide to arbitration and the Arbitration Committee's procedures may be of use.
Thanks, ToThAc ( talk) 16:55, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
Hi BrownHairedGirl. I am sorry to hear about these troubles and have proposed to my colleagues that we afford you extra time to submit a statement. And I am prepared to take your report of real-life troubles at face value. However, it is difficult to keep the request virtually in abeyance while you continue contributing at a fairly high rate to pages that appear directly connected to the dispute actually being considered. I think you need to use any available wiki time addressing the arbitration request. I appreciate that you may simultaneously feel up to simple editing and unable to pull off the more complex task of writing an arbitration statement. However, the word limit at arbitration is short and writing a statement should be accomplishable. In my view you are obliged to submit a statement now. After your next batch of edits to portals, I will be reviewing your statement (currently empty) at the arbitration request and I may cast a vote immediately if you have not explained at that time why your statement remains missing. AGK ■ 19:41, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
BHG, I would like to make this easier for you since you seem to be having more than enough stress in real life. At this point you don’t need to summarize what happened. All you need to do is say whether you think arbitration would be helpful or not, and possibly what the scope of the case should be. Keep in mind that arbitration is just a fancy negotiation. If you can work things out with the other parties, that’s always best. Another option is to say that you don’t feel the dispute is worth it and that you want to just walk away from the area of dispute. (You May or may not feel like doing that of course — just an example of how a case might be obviated if you wish to avoid it.) Jehochman Talk 03:52, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Since its early existence Wikipedia had to defuse phenomenons that were only marginally relevant to its mainspace articles. E.g. Wikia (whether that was among its explicitly stated goals or not) was initiated, at least in part, to defuse fancruft compilations from Wikipedia's mainspace. Category namespace was (in part) created to avoid excessive lists in Wikipedia's mainspace, etc. Of course, similarly for Portal namespace.
Something in that genre that is not (yet) defused from mainspace are WP:OUTLINE articles, to some extent comparable to Portal pages. Whether excised from mainspace (like Portals) or not (like Outlines), I tend to ignore these phenomenons in the margin. I tend to see them as a playground for those interested in them, without judging them as either overzealous enthusiasts, trolls, incompetents, or, more positively, as servants of greater goals. So, this is the thought: my attitude is to ignore these phenomenons, that is, insofar as they don't intrude too blatantly in Wikipedia's core business, which I consider to be the writing of high quality encyclopedia articles. I'd rather eliminate a conspicuous banner with a Portal link from mainspace, than clean the Portal page up. Other than that, occasionally some of these marginal phenomenons can come in surprisingly handy.
Having said that, I do, of course, enormously respect those who try to keep the marginal phenomenons manageable. Them not, ultimately, pervading mainspace depends on those with a sound judgement to define the ins and outs in these realms, best served without losing their cool in the face of hordes of zealots (or whatever they may be called in these circumstances). This is the objective of writing here about my thought: contributing to the management of these marginal phenomenons requires some sort of an off-hand manner – they are not essential to the encyclopedia, and, basically, someone else's playground. Left to their own devices in their respective realms, the in-crowd of these realms are often, for large stretches of time, not much of a threat to the integrity of Wikipedia's mainspace, and in some cases the side-phenomenon may even fizzle out if less and less people give attention to it. I've done categories intensively, many years ago, even wrote a guideline to keep occurrence of categories in Wikipedia's mainspace manageable. But then, for most of the time, left it to other editors: my main objective is to write mainspace articles, not manage marginal phenomenons. Here is me celebrating a fun victory in the Category department: look at the reply of the co-author of that little de-dramatisation (no pun intended) in category namespace... she'd left the arena of the marginal phenomenon when it became too much of a swamp in which one could easily drown. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 11:48, 21 November 2019h (UTC)
Heh, BHG. I thought you gave a powerful, thorough, and well reasoned statement to the arbitration committee. I also am unfamiliar with ArbCom and was wondering if you (or a friendly talk-page stalker) could please tell me if the case is now going forward if the present votes stay in place for the next 24-hours? If I'm understanding this and the eight-strong list of arbitrators at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee correctly, the brief time wait is the last obstacle to case acceptance. Right? Thank you.
On a related note, portal fans have been coming hard of late after using page views at MfD. Allowing portals on any topic desired and not using page views to measure the value of a content-less navigation device having either high-editor-time overhead or a litany of serious prolonged issues is like having a bus for each street in a country without monitoring ridership or bringing the Tube to every hamlet in Britain. The only problem with this analogy, besides fairly clunky wording, is that I've just insulted the incredibly useful Bus and the Tube by comparing them to a decrepit collage of playgrounds that have never had an actual purpose or factual basis. Goodness, a personal attack (steel is just as human as the bot readership of portals, or so the United States Supreme Court said) of this magnitude surely deserves an indef block. Your... not going to turn me in, are you? Or block me yourself?
And speaking of America, since we found out in this delightfully cognizant conversation you are a proponent of the American Empire, Made in Ireland At BHG's house For reasons no one was really quite sure, you should celebrate Thanksgiving in a few days. If you're going to partake in some of the worst of America, you might as well enjoy some of the best: a turkey feast. Of course, since Benjamin Franklin supported making the turkey America's national bird, to eat one is an act of penance for your nationalist sins. I read so in the DYK section of Portal:Meanie BrownHairedGirl Exposed!, so it must be true. And the red link tells me you must have stabbed this portal in its sleep. Your bloodlust just knows no bounds...
I hope my attempt at humor brought a little smiling and light heartedness to your stressful days. Remember to take it easy! Newshunter12 ( talk) 07:26, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Hello,
Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.
I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!
From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.
If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.
Thank you!
-- User:Martin Urbanec ( talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Arbitration norms confuse me so maybe someone already let you know. But if not, I think you made a mistake in your comment at ARC.
[16] You said "
RFA1 and
RFA2
" but as you can see: [[WP:Requests for adminship/Northamerica1000_2#Oppose|RFA1]] and [[WP:Requests for adminship/Northamerica1000_2#Oppose|RFA2]]
both of these link to the same thing, the second RfA.
Nil Einne (
talk)
17:07, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
December 2019, Volume 5, Issue 12, Numbers 107, 108, 144, 145, 146, 147
|
-- Megalibrarygirl ( talk) 18:42, 25 November 2019 (UTC) via MassMessaging
Hi, I've been working through some articles in Category:Welsh expatriate footballers and noticed you seem to have added a number of players to this category at the start of the year using AWB who seemingly shouldn't be there. I've already removed Danny Allsopp and Peter Barnes (footballer) and a quick look finds others such as Giorgio Chinaglia, Chris Blackburn, Aurélien Collin and Terry Cooke. Category:Welsh expatriate sportspeople in the United States also seems to be affected as they were added simultaneously. Thought I'd check if there was a reason for the additions before going ahead and removing en masse, I'm guessing it's got something to do with the fact that these players all played for a Welsh club at some point, cheers. Kosack ( talk) 21:09, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
@ Kosack: I have now cleaned up the last of this, in these 5 edits: [18]
I started by cleaning up Category:Footballers by city or town in Wales. After the good work done by you (and maybe some others),the remaining problem was Category:Merthyr Tydfil F.C. players, which I removed [19] from Category:Footballers by city or town in Wales.
I then used this Petscan query to check for miscategorised welsh expatriate footballers, and fixed the remaining 5 errors. [20]
Thanks again for spotting this, and for helping clean up. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 05:17, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
click here to leave a new message for BrownHairedGirl | ||
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BrownHairedGirl/Archive ( block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser ( log))
Request reason:
Diannaa blocked me for 31 hours, leaving only this message.
[1] but no block notice.
Blocks are supposed to be preventive, not punitive. This block is not only punitive, it is based on a misrepresentation of comments I wrote as personal attack, whereas they were not personal attacks according to the definitions in policy; they were in fact a reasoned comment on problematic conduct. The post to which Diannaa objects is this reply
[2] by me to @
Robert McClenon. Dianaa and I discussed it at
User talk:BrownHairedGirl#A_Comment,_Gaming_the_System,_etc.. Diannaa objects to three of my comments in that reply to Robert: * my comment: That sort of response indicates either evasion or inability to comprehend the concept of selection criteria
.
That was my comment on a post by NA1K in which NA1K had responded to my question about selection to which NA1K replied with the tautologous I assessed these articles relative to their suitability for this portal
. For goodness sake, how can anyone describe the uncollaborative nature of that reply without noting that it's either evasion or a failure to grasp the concept? * my comments: I remain appalled at such trickery
and just plain devious and manipulative
.
That was about NA1K's choice to describe a former guideline which was deguidelined with NA1K's vocal support as a a schema for advisement
, which is a verbose form of words that means exactly the same thing as "guideline". It is reminiscent of early 1980s Haigspeak, which was described in the 1941–1991 Dictionary Of Neologisms as "Language characterized by pompous obscurity resulting from redundancy, the semantically strained use of words, and verbosity".
[3]
NA1K was trying to justify their controversial actions by reliance on a guideline which they themself had sought to deprecate in toto because it contained elements they believed were wrong. NA1K didn't ask for amendments to that guideline; they wanted it scrapped, made null and void. But having achieved that, NA1K was now claiming that the null-and-void document legitimated their actions. That is an attempt having their cake and eating it. What on earth is the point of delisting a guideline if the editor who sought its delisting then relies on it as if it was still a guideline? The only part of
Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#What_is_considered_to_be_a_personal_attack? which seems to me to be relevant is "Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence". I have made a conscious effort to avoid the comments on character which I made several times in the heat of the moment. My post to which Dianaa objects is a strictly a comment on conduct, and it did supply evidence. This block is contrary to policy. It amounts to an attempt to prevent me from even describing problematic conduct, and as I noted in my last reply to Dianaa,
[4] Dianaa focused entirely on the forms of words used, and not on the substance of the problems which I have described. I wrote I appreciate that you genuinely believe that you are trying to help, but I have had enough of your focus on form rather than substance
.
WP:ADMINACCT says that "editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions", and it seems that I have been blocked for challenging Dianaa's focus on the details of my phrasing rather than n the substance of the problematic actions which I was describing. --
BrownHairedGirl
(talk) • (
contribs)
20:41, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Accept reason:
Well, this is certainly a first for me, in my nine years plus as an administrator, reviewing a block imposed by (in my opinion) one of the best administrators we have on (in my opinion) another one of the best administrators we have. It is also if not a first, at least a very rare experience for me, lifting a block without consulting the blocking administrator. Before I give my reasons for doing so, I will mention, BrownHairedGirl, that your unblock request came nowhere near to being compliant with the guide to appealing blocks, and I have seen many an unblock request declined for that reason alone, irrespective of the merits of the block. OK, so now my comments on the block. In the edit which Diannaa gave as the reason for the block, BrownHairedGirl certainly showed her irritation, and she expressed herself in a less temperate way than would have been ideal. However, none of us always lives up to ideal standards, and her comments really did not amount to a "personal attack". However, had that been all, although I would have disagreed with the block, I would have merely expressed that opinion and invited Dianaa to comment, to give her a chance to justify her decision. However, that is not all. The block came over 19 hours after the comment which was given as the reason. That is not preventive. It would require a most extreme and exceptional kind of unacceptable edit for one edit to pose such a risk of continuation that in order to prevent such continuation the editor in question had to be blocked nineteen hours later, and this is not such a case. The block was therefore completely out of line with policy, and has to be regarded as a mistake. JBW ( talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 21:16, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
Being no admin I don't know whether it's OK for me to post here, and express my support for BrownHairedGirl's unblock request. Their comments in the cited conversation with Robert seemed to me (after having read the entire discussion) strictly comments on content, nothing near to ad hominems. It's an evaluation of what is going on with the edits on which BrownHairedGirl was commenting, nothing more nothing less: it is perfectly normal on a user talk page to compare the content of edits with Wikipedia's behavioural guidance, if, like it seems here, the edits seemed, to BrownHairedGirl, problematic w.r.t. that guidance. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 20:58, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
I've been reading through the discussions at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Transport (which I found via the ongoing ANI discussion), and there is one accusation that you're making of NA1k that I can't figure out. You're saying that NA1k made edits to the portal that added a number of articles to the rotation, but these additional articles were obscured from view in some way. Specifically, you say that NA1k's new version of the portal does not display a list of linked articles that are part of the rotation in the portal. I have tried comparing the before and after versions of the portal (via this diff), but I don't see a list of linked articles that appears in one version and doesn't appear in the other. Can you help me understand where this list resides, and specifically how you believe NA1k's change to the article made this list more difficult to access? Thanks. ‑Scottywong | [talk] || 22:40, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
|1=Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore) |2=London congestion charge |3=MTR
etc
I hope you don't mind me butting in, but your explanation to Scotty was enlightening and now I have a couple questions:
Thanks, – Leviv ich 06:56, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
I think I found a good example of "black box" gone rogue. Can you confirm this kind of unexpected or unpredictable result is the kind of "feature" that makes those templates a dangerous "black box" in your eyes? I agree that a minimum we should document better how content is selected. Nemo 12:46, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
enough already. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 15:42, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
Hello again BrownHairedGirl. You're still saying a lot of attack-y and negative things about Northamerica1000 ("sly, cunning and deceitfully selective"; "deceitful, manipulative conduct"; "manipulative scheming") in this post. And here, "I have never seen such sustained gaming of the system as that which NA1K indulges in". While these are not as egregiously bad as some of your other recent comments, it's still not appropriate and it needs to stop. Thank you, — Diannaa 🍁 ( talk) 00:58, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
I will try to reply to User:BrownHairedGirl and to comment on the admonitions by User:Diannaa and User:Liz. As BHG knows, I agree with BHG about portals far more often than I disagree. I think that we have too many disused stupid cruddy portals that need to be deleted, and I can now finally understand why BHG says that NA1k is gaming the system. It has been very hard for me to understand how their work on portals is gaming the system, and I still am not sure that I agree. I am inclined instead still to think that it is a deeply misguided devotion to the cause of maximizing the number of portals in the English Wikipedia. I don't know why NA1k wants so many portals. I have asked, and I haven't understood the answers, so I have concluded that their belief in portals is mystical. But a mystic deeply believes in what they believe, and they aren't gaming the system, at least not intentionally, and intention does matter.
It has taken me weeks to understand why BHG keeps reverting NA1k's edits to portals, and I still am not sure that I agree. The purpose clearly is to improve the portals, either in advance of a deletion discussion, or during a deletion discussion. So why should improvements be reverted? BHG will say that they aren't improvements. I kept seeing that the edits were black boxes. I didn't know what that meant, and I think I am a knowledgeable editor, and one who isn't afraid to look inside the black box.
The problem is that the intensity with which you, BHG, are alleging conduct violations by NA1k is distracting from your efforts to explain what they are doing wrong. If I have been having a hard time understanding what the issue is, and I am mostly looking for portals to delete, how do you expect other editors to see what you are saying? If NA1k were trying to game the system, then they might do it by first provoking a few portal critics into irrational anger to distract. Well, what I see is irrational anger. The cause of deleting portals is rational. The amount of anger isn't. One portal critic has already been indefinitely blocked for irrational anger about portals toward someone on their own side. We don't need another.
User:BrownHairedGirl - You aren't making the case effectively about gaming the system, because all that can be seen is your anger, and not a technical explanation of the issues. Robert McClenon ( talk) 20:27, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
BHG keeps reverting NA1k's edits to portals. I did a series of reverts on 12 October, and then stopped when an ANI thread discussion took off. Since then, the only reverts I have done have been to restore the status quo ante when NA1K's version was restored while the matter was still being actively discussed.
I assessed these articles relative to their suitability for this portalwhich says precisely nothing about the criteria. That sort of response indicates either evasion or inability to comprehend the concept of selection criteria.
purpose clearly is to improve the portals, either in advance of a deletion discussion, or during a deletion discussion. So why should improvements be reverted?. Simple because: because a) NA1K has made those purported "improvements" in a way which it unnecessarily hard to evaluate whether they actually are improvements; b) because those which have been checked are abysmal.
irrational anger. I had buckets of shit poured all over my head by a lynch mob, but the same crew are now telling me that yes, portals lists do need to be transparent and easily scrutinised, and even NA1K has themself radically revised the list they made at P:Transport, acknowledging that it was indeed massively biased. So basically, thjere is now no dispute at all that I was right in substance.
irrationalis perverse. What on earth is the point of the community having guidelines if an editor says in scrap this guideline 'cos it's junk ... and then says in effect "I broke a core policy because I was following that crap former guideline"? And NA1K's choice to describe the former guideline as
a schema for advisementwas just plain devious and manipulative: the plain English meaning of that pompous phrase is "guideline", so NA1K statement amounted to "it's not a guideline but it is a guideline". If you choose to describe my anger at this as
irraional, then that's not a choice I admire. Not by a long way. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 23:14, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Hi BrownHairedGirl. Most of the above post is okay from a civility point of view but there's a couple of spots where improvements can be made. Please have a look at my analysis below for reasons why a couple of the things you said are not acceptable. I would appreciate it if you could accept my critique as a good faith attempt on my part to help you work towards further improvements in your discussions on other people's conduct.
That sort of response indicates either evasion or inability to comprehend the concept of selection criteria.Saying this is not okay, because you're stating that the editor's intention was to evade, and questioning their level of intelligence.
I remain appalled at such trickery: Again not okay, because you're stating that the editor's intention was to trick people. It's not okay to say that.
just plain devious and manipulativeAgain not okay, because you're again making negative assumptions about the other editor's motives. Don't do that please.
Now here's a couple where you use strong language, but since you're speaking about the editor's actions rather than dissing him personally, these are acceptable things to say:
the quality of NA1K's list-making has been utterly abysmal
those which have been checked are abysmal— Diannaa 🍁 ( talk) 16:50, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
making negative assumptions about the other editor's motives. Not so; I am making negative judgements based on assessments of the evidence. In the first your bullet points, you don't even have the courtesy to acknowledge that I noted two possible explanations, and you offer no alternative possible explanation.
making judgements about other people's motives. WP:VAND (policy) and WP:GAME (guideline) are both conduct issues issues in which a finding of fault hinges entirely on a judgement of intent. By extension, the alternative explanation of bad behaviour is that the editor has acted in good faith but has failed to understand why their conduct is wrong ... and however that is phrased, it is unavoidably a judgement on their comprehension skills.
making judgements about other people's motivesis unacceptable, then you would not have blocked editors for vandalism unless they had expressly stated such an intent to do harm.
Hi BrownHairedGirl,
Would it be appropriate for me to procedurally relist the Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Painting following my re-opening the discussion or, alternatively, per WP:INVOLVED, are you permitted to relist a discussion even while having !voted?
It doesn't matter who does it to me, but just wondering if a relisting would be appropriate in this case.
Alternatively, if you think past practice would suggest another editor or administrator would relist it, I might just leave it for you or another administrator/editor to relist.
Cheers,
--
Doug Mehus
T·
C
09:36, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Integrity | ||
For your upstanding character and devotion to cooperatively improving human knowledge in the face of unrelenting opposition steeped in ignorance while in a fundamentally broken system beholden to the lowest common-denominator, and ability to forgive my past shortcomings and reach for the stars of progress together. -- Newshunter12 ( talk) 21:23, 17 November 2019 (UTC) |
fundamentally broken system. My own take on it is that is a fundamentally wonderful system, whose essential wisdom is proven by the fact that we have managed to create and sustain what any reasonable person would have said was impossible: making a wide-open collaboration to build a free enyclopedia. (Yes, it's a work in progress, but so is all human knowledge, even the most hallowed towers of science and academia create only provisional knowledge). As George Bernard Shaw, wrote, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Thank God that Larry & Jimbo were so unreasonable back in 2001 when they decided to try this bonkers notion of a crowd-sourced encyclopedia.
fundamentally broken systemsays a bit more about my mindset of the present situation then the fundamentals of Wikipedia, as you have made many great points about the triumphs and pitfalls of this grand experiment. It's been a long slog in portal space, but we should remember the tale of Fruits Basket on Wikipedia. It was a den of fan cruft from 2005-08 and two long gone editors eliminated many of the fan character articles etc. I came along nearly a decade later and cleaned up most of the remaining mess. I successfully AfD'd the four remaining abandoned fan articles, removed reams of duplicate information like above, condensed links, and carefully corrected reams of information. A big mess became a much smaller mess, and I left it to others to someday finish polishing the small set of remaining articles or not.
On my talk page you said that you hadn't realised that Diannaa was an administrator. There is a script which highlights any administrator's name on talk pages etc, which I find very helpful at times. (I probably would have found it even more helpful if I had known about it in the days before I was an administrator, but never mind.)
If you would like to try the script, copy the following text and add it to User:BrownHairedGirl/monobook.js
/*** Begin adminhighlighter (From User:Theopolisme/Scripts/adminhighlighter.js) ***/ /*** See User:Theopolisme/Scripts/adminhighlighter ***/ mw.loader.load('//en.wikipedia.org/?title=User%3ATheopolisme%2FScripts%2Fadminhighlighter.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript'); // [[User:Theopolisme/Scripts/adminhighlighter.js]] /*** End adminhighlighter ***/
There are four lines of text there, three of them comments, but the Wikimedia software runs them all together in displaying them here, so copy from the edit area, not from how they are displayed.
A related script, perhaps less useful but still helpful at times, highlights your own user name, in a different colour than used by the script above. That can make it easy to quickly find mentions of yourself in long discussion pages. Here it is:
/*** Begin highlightmyname2 ***/ //This script ([[User:ais523/highlightmyname2.js]]) highlights all instances of the //logged-in user's username on pages by giving them a bright red background. importScript('User:Ais523/highlightmyname2.js'); /*** End highlightmyname2 ***/
You may like to try them, or not, but I find them helpful. JBW ( talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 12:46, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
Hi BHG - I asked a question on NA1K's TP about whether we should have links to WikiProject pages on the front Main Space pages of the Main Articles, instead of the Talk Page. My thought was that ultimately Portals are caught between Main Articles (+NavBoxes) and WikiProject Directories, and can compete with neither. Maybe if we had WikiProject links on the Mainspace articles, it would solve a lot of these issues? NA1K gave this a slim chance of being accepted by the community, however. What do you think? Britishfinance ( talk) 13:58, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Hello. I noticed on WP:ANI, you wrote: "I did was very clear that POG is a former guideline, and I cited it to explicitly stress the folly of that guideline. NA!K is trying to conflate this with their efforts to cite POG as guidance on how to act, which is the exact opposite of what I did. NA1K actually claimed that POG has current value, which I explicitly did not." Could I ask how this reconciles with your reference to WP:POG as "policy" in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Vermont? I'm sure you've also referred to it as policy elsewhere, although I don't have much time to go digging. Regards, Vermont ( talk) 03:52, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Sure, Vermont. That first question is very simple.
WP:POG was delisted as a guideline on 27 Set 2019 [9]. That followed the closure on 26 Sept of WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 153#RFC:_Formalize_Standing_of_Portal_Guidelines_as_a_Guideline_(18_July_2019)
My last edit at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Vermont was on 26 July 2019. At that point, POG was tagged as a guideline, as it had been for years. I accepted the status quo, and worked within the guideline, even though I had grave reservations about much of it. I used at as guideline while it was still a guideline, and whe it was delisted per RFC I stopped citing it as a guideline ... though I frequently noted how absurd it had been to recommend only 20 articles.
That is how WP:Consensus works: accept a guideline unless and until it is changed. The status of POG changed two months later, but I work within policy and guideline as they are now, not how they might be in the future.
My wording there are MFD was sloppy in one respect. In reply to you, I referred to two fundamental policy issues
, but I should of course have used the word "guideline". I am sorry for that error, but I don't think it was a major issue in the context. I think that our disagreement would have been the same whichever word was used.
As your comments that I am pushing [my] view that all portals should be deleted regardless of what consensus and guidelines
, that is very far from the truth. Of the last 30 portals I assessed for possible MFD noms, I nominated only about 5.
I think that you miss some very important distinctions. Editors are all entitled to their views and to express them. They are also required to respect the current consensus.
In this case, some editors would like to have thousands of portals, and some would like to have zero. I would like few or none, and if we got down to say 100 portals I'd say good enough for now: the 100 would still be pretty useless, but at least at that number they would probably have enough traffic to be maintained, and maybe even restructured to add a little more value than the failed model of pseudo-magazine with a Rube Goldberg machine. But for now there are two points of consensus: a) that there should not be a deletion of all portals, per WP:ENDPORTALS, and b) that individual portals may be deleted at MFD.
So that is my personal view, and I hold it while also respecting the current consensus. I support the deletion of failed portals, and those on excessively narrow topics. I would oppose the deletion of a broad-topic portal if it is in good shape, and if it is a high-level topic portal in terrible shape then I would support a WP:TNT deletion pending a rebuild, as I did e.g. at MFD:Portal:Asia. If P:Asia had been in good shape, I'd have said keep it.
I regard the stream of MFDs as being a process of removal of failed portals, like P:Vermont. I thought that process would have ended months ago, but sadly MFD nominators are still finding lots of failed portals. In hindsight, I realise that I had radically overestimated the degree to which portals were being maintained, and now realise that the rot extends much further than I had thought.
I hope that clarifies my views.
Best wishes, -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 04:54, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
regardless of what consensus and guidelines. The information is available on the 8th line of the revision history of WP:POG, or you could simply have asked me the question. Instead you chose to make a pejorative judgement on me without having the key fact. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 16:55, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
it never received actual formal discussion to be enacted as a real English Wikipedia guideline page. I could never have imagined a situation where an actual admin would repeat that deception in a discussion where the error had already been noted in the post to which they were replying ... and I am shocked that it has all been done in support of sneaky edits which amount to massive breach of the core policy WP:NPOV.
Hi again BrownHairedGirl,
I thought for sure I'd see you participating in the
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Weather deletion discussion, but, indeed, neither as nominator or as a participant, you weren't there. The discussion has been open for quite awhile now and there seems to be a significant consensus forming to have formed in favour of delete. It's got something like 2,100 subpages, so one of your bots might be able to be engaged in some way. At any rate, seeing as how you haven't participated in this discussion, I was wondering if you might be able to assess the consensus and close the discussion?
Oops.
Cheers,
--
Doug Mehus
T·
C
01:32, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
A Maltese puppy. | |
Sorry real life is stressful right now. Please take this puppy! – MJL ‐Talk‐ ☖ 03:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC) |
Hi, I see you are removing deleted portals from navboxes, but unfortunately you seem to be replacing them with general, non-specific portals. I do not believe this to be correct. Portals in navboxes should only be included if they correlate directly to the topic of the navbox, and navboxes should not be used to populate tangential non-specific portals in this way. 212.135.65.247 ( talk) 10:44, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
It is unwise to continue advancing a partisan position in a dispute, as you did here [11], while a request for arbitration is pending and have not taken the time to respond to the request. I urge you to stop all activity related to portals and respond to the case request first. Thank you. Jehochman Talk 13:19, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Hi BHG...long time etc. Could you take a look at Round Tower Stakes? There is a large number of such articles that you've tagged to IrlProj. Is the article Round Tower Stakes an article or a list? Regards Sarah777 ( talk) 18:44, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Conduct in portal space and portal deletion discussions and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. As threaded discussion is not permitted on most arbitration pages, please ensure that you make all comments in your own section only. Additionally, the guide to arbitration and the Arbitration Committee's procedures may be of use.
Thanks, ToThAc ( talk) 16:55, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
Hi BrownHairedGirl. I am sorry to hear about these troubles and have proposed to my colleagues that we afford you extra time to submit a statement. And I am prepared to take your report of real-life troubles at face value. However, it is difficult to keep the request virtually in abeyance while you continue contributing at a fairly high rate to pages that appear directly connected to the dispute actually being considered. I think you need to use any available wiki time addressing the arbitration request. I appreciate that you may simultaneously feel up to simple editing and unable to pull off the more complex task of writing an arbitration statement. However, the word limit at arbitration is short and writing a statement should be accomplishable. In my view you are obliged to submit a statement now. After your next batch of edits to portals, I will be reviewing your statement (currently empty) at the arbitration request and I may cast a vote immediately if you have not explained at that time why your statement remains missing. AGK ■ 19:41, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
BHG, I would like to make this easier for you since you seem to be having more than enough stress in real life. At this point you don’t need to summarize what happened. All you need to do is say whether you think arbitration would be helpful or not, and possibly what the scope of the case should be. Keep in mind that arbitration is just a fancy negotiation. If you can work things out with the other parties, that’s always best. Another option is to say that you don’t feel the dispute is worth it and that you want to just walk away from the area of dispute. (You May or may not feel like doing that of course — just an example of how a case might be obviated if you wish to avoid it.) Jehochman Talk 03:52, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Since its early existence Wikipedia had to defuse phenomenons that were only marginally relevant to its mainspace articles. E.g. Wikia (whether that was among its explicitly stated goals or not) was initiated, at least in part, to defuse fancruft compilations from Wikipedia's mainspace. Category namespace was (in part) created to avoid excessive lists in Wikipedia's mainspace, etc. Of course, similarly for Portal namespace.
Something in that genre that is not (yet) defused from mainspace are WP:OUTLINE articles, to some extent comparable to Portal pages. Whether excised from mainspace (like Portals) or not (like Outlines), I tend to ignore these phenomenons in the margin. I tend to see them as a playground for those interested in them, without judging them as either overzealous enthusiasts, trolls, incompetents, or, more positively, as servants of greater goals. So, this is the thought: my attitude is to ignore these phenomenons, that is, insofar as they don't intrude too blatantly in Wikipedia's core business, which I consider to be the writing of high quality encyclopedia articles. I'd rather eliminate a conspicuous banner with a Portal link from mainspace, than clean the Portal page up. Other than that, occasionally some of these marginal phenomenons can come in surprisingly handy.
Having said that, I do, of course, enormously respect those who try to keep the marginal phenomenons manageable. Them not, ultimately, pervading mainspace depends on those with a sound judgement to define the ins and outs in these realms, best served without losing their cool in the face of hordes of zealots (or whatever they may be called in these circumstances). This is the objective of writing here about my thought: contributing to the management of these marginal phenomenons requires some sort of an off-hand manner – they are not essential to the encyclopedia, and, basically, someone else's playground. Left to their own devices in their respective realms, the in-crowd of these realms are often, for large stretches of time, not much of a threat to the integrity of Wikipedia's mainspace, and in some cases the side-phenomenon may even fizzle out if less and less people give attention to it. I've done categories intensively, many years ago, even wrote a guideline to keep occurrence of categories in Wikipedia's mainspace manageable. But then, for most of the time, left it to other editors: my main objective is to write mainspace articles, not manage marginal phenomenons. Here is me celebrating a fun victory in the Category department: look at the reply of the co-author of that little de-dramatisation (no pun intended) in category namespace... she'd left the arena of the marginal phenomenon when it became too much of a swamp in which one could easily drown. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 11:48, 21 November 2019h (UTC)
Heh, BHG. I thought you gave a powerful, thorough, and well reasoned statement to the arbitration committee. I also am unfamiliar with ArbCom and was wondering if you (or a friendly talk-page stalker) could please tell me if the case is now going forward if the present votes stay in place for the next 24-hours? If I'm understanding this and the eight-strong list of arbitrators at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee correctly, the brief time wait is the last obstacle to case acceptance. Right? Thank you.
On a related note, portal fans have been coming hard of late after using page views at MfD. Allowing portals on any topic desired and not using page views to measure the value of a content-less navigation device having either high-editor-time overhead or a litany of serious prolonged issues is like having a bus for each street in a country without monitoring ridership or bringing the Tube to every hamlet in Britain. The only problem with this analogy, besides fairly clunky wording, is that I've just insulted the incredibly useful Bus and the Tube by comparing them to a decrepit collage of playgrounds that have never had an actual purpose or factual basis. Goodness, a personal attack (steel is just as human as the bot readership of portals, or so the United States Supreme Court said) of this magnitude surely deserves an indef block. Your... not going to turn me in, are you? Or block me yourself?
And speaking of America, since we found out in this delightfully cognizant conversation you are a proponent of the American Empire, Made in Ireland At BHG's house For reasons no one was really quite sure, you should celebrate Thanksgiving in a few days. If you're going to partake in some of the worst of America, you might as well enjoy some of the best: a turkey feast. Of course, since Benjamin Franklin supported making the turkey America's national bird, to eat one is an act of penance for your nationalist sins. I read so in the DYK section of Portal:Meanie BrownHairedGirl Exposed!, so it must be true. And the red link tells me you must have stabbed this portal in its sleep. Your bloodlust just knows no bounds...
I hope my attempt at humor brought a little smiling and light heartedness to your stressful days. Remember to take it easy! Newshunter12 ( talk) 07:26, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Hello,
Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.
I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!
From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.
If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.
Thank you!
-- User:Martin Urbanec ( talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Arbitration norms confuse me so maybe someone already let you know. But if not, I think you made a mistake in your comment at ARC.
[16] You said "
RFA1 and
RFA2
" but as you can see: [[WP:Requests for adminship/Northamerica1000_2#Oppose|RFA1]] and [[WP:Requests for adminship/Northamerica1000_2#Oppose|RFA2]]
both of these link to the same thing, the second RfA.
Nil Einne (
talk)
17:07, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
December 2019, Volume 5, Issue 12, Numbers 107, 108, 144, 145, 146, 147
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-- Megalibrarygirl ( talk) 18:42, 25 November 2019 (UTC) via MassMessaging
Hi, I've been working through some articles in Category:Welsh expatriate footballers and noticed you seem to have added a number of players to this category at the start of the year using AWB who seemingly shouldn't be there. I've already removed Danny Allsopp and Peter Barnes (footballer) and a quick look finds others such as Giorgio Chinaglia, Chris Blackburn, Aurélien Collin and Terry Cooke. Category:Welsh expatriate sportspeople in the United States also seems to be affected as they were added simultaneously. Thought I'd check if there was a reason for the additions before going ahead and removing en masse, I'm guessing it's got something to do with the fact that these players all played for a Welsh club at some point, cheers. Kosack ( talk) 21:09, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
@ Kosack: I have now cleaned up the last of this, in these 5 edits: [18]
I started by cleaning up Category:Footballers by city or town in Wales. After the good work done by you (and maybe some others),the remaining problem was Category:Merthyr Tydfil F.C. players, which I removed [19] from Category:Footballers by city or town in Wales.
I then used this Petscan query to check for miscategorised welsh expatriate footballers, and fixed the remaining 5 errors. [20]
Thanks again for spotting this, and for helping clean up. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 05:17, 27 November 2019 (UTC)