The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

I think the procedural advice further down is good. But I fear that it lacks impact in the way it is set out. Will you consider "packaging" the procedural core of the essay and placing it first, after a short introduction. Some people won't get to it because of the length and, I believe, slightly diffuse angle of the opening sections. Why not put them after the important stuff?

You might even put the procedural stuff in a quotation box to mark it off. You're fighting intransigence and shortage of time in many of your intended readers. Best to confront them at the top, then explain the other things below it.

I've raised a packaged protocol that is certainly not in conflict with your ideas at my talk page. If your essay can be re-ordered and made punchier and shorter, I'd be pleased to refer to it. Tony (talk) 04:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC) reply

That is all good advice. The essay is at its very start. I hope to improve the layout and wording significantly. I will be sure to look at your essay. Chillum 04:20, 7 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Hi Chillum!

Just wondering what ever became of User:DusterBot. It seemed to work well for a while, a couple years ago. Category:Wikipedian usernames editors have expressed concern over is since jam-packed again, with 2,768 entries, a great many of which have been blocked or renamed. Might be nice to dust it off (as it were) again, unless there were issues with it. Thanks! Arakunem ^Talk 19:32, 7 April 2009 (UTC) reply

I remember it had a bug develop a while back and I never got around to fixing it. I will see what I can do this weekend to dust off the old bot and put it to work. Chillum 20:35, 7 April 2009 (UTC) reply

It turns out I lost the source code for that bot. So I wrote it again: User:DustaBot/source! This version is much better coded than the old one. I seems to be working now just fine and catching up on its backlog: Special:Contributions/DustaBot. Chillum 01:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Wow, I just had the strange experience of watching one of my bots report another one of my bots to a noticeboard. Chillum 02:00, 8 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Hehe, interesting dynamic there. :)

And thanks a ton for reviving Duster/Dusta... it will make UAA patrol much more streamlined now! PIE FOR YOU!!

• (Award moved to award page)

Ahh, I see you know my position in the great cake vs pie debate! Of course pie is the only reasonable choice. Chillum 14:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Thanks for removing the trolling on those RFAs. I hadn't been brave enough to do it myself, so thanks for that. BTW I sent you an email the other day, if you didn't know. Cheers, Majorly talk 00:01, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

I got the e-mail, thanks. Indeed, we just need to treat this like any other trolling. Chillum 00:16, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Oh dear. He didn't like it, and decided to revert. He's not responsive to talk page requests; he's rude and angry on RFA talk; he doesn't edit the encyclopedia, or do anything remotely useful; how would an RFC go do you think? Majorly talk 00:03, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

I have left him a message asking him to please stop his disruptive editing. I am sure his talk page history has such warnings, but I want to be sure. Perhaps a record of his warnings, and which users have left them, would be useful in the RFC. Chillum 00:16, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

I very much respect your ability to recognize the classic symptoms of a brewing hyper-drama and you efforts to prevent it. It was my hopes that this could be dealt with using common sense, however I think there is too much emotional charge and too little objective thinking going on for a simple common sense approach to have much effect. I think this particular storm has reached the point of no return and is likely to become one of the great dramas of Wikipedia. It is a real shame that there is an atmosphere that enables this type of trolling. Future generations will look back and say "Why didn't they just stop the trolling?", well I guess hindsight is 20/20.

One day we should get together and cook up our trouts! Chillum 15:07, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

This is a spectacular example of a pointlessly inflammatory edit summary. I would like to think you know better.-- Tznkai ( talk) 00:18, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Gee, that is the definition of trolling... "deliberately and intentionally attempting to disrupt Wikipedia"

Doug knows this is not a productive method of debate. He knows such postings are disruptive. He does it intentionally. All the pieces are there. It is not pointless to point out trolling, the point is to draw attention to it and stop it. Inflammatory? Perhaps, but people don't like being told the truth. Are you aware of this users history with this type of action, and the sheer volume of people who have told him it is disruptive? I have to disagree with you, calling trolling trolling is essential to identify it and stop it. I have taken care to refer to his editing and not him as a person and there is nothing inappropriate about that. Chillum 00:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Perhaps it would help if you told me why calling such behavior trolling is a "spectacular example of a pointlessly inflammatory edit summary". Just stating it does little to help me understand your point of view. Chillum 00:23, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

1. removing votes isn't your job, and is inherently inflammatory and should only be done with great delicacy. 2. calling someone a troll is an insult, and telling someone they are trolling is an insult. (compare with "you're not an idiot, you just do stupid things" there is not much getting around that. If you undid with "RM invalid vote" or "Not a helpful !vote, doesn't give any room for the candidate to improve" that wouldn't be nearly as inflammatory. 3. You're not calling the vote anything, you're removing it. If you want to argue with him, there are places to do that right under the vote, or on the talk page, or on his talk page.-- Tznkai ( talk) 00:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Please put the trout down and step away from it

1. Since when do Wikipedians have assigned jobs? We all sort of do what we can. We don't have sections of Wikipedia that only designated editors can edit. Since I started editing in Feb 2006 I have participated in pretty much every part of Wikipedia. 2. I did not call him a troll, I said his edit was trolling. While we all should avoid commenting negatively about people, we absolutely must be able to criticize the edits that people make. This is a very important point. 3. I did remove it yes, that was the point. The user regularly blanks people asking him not to do this, so going to his talk page is a moot option.

The argument that calling an edit trolling is an insult to the user could just as easily be applied to calling someone's edits sock puppetry or vandalism, or POV pushing. We really do need to be able to point to bad behavior and use the word that best describes it. There is no insult to the person, only their manner in editing. Both the spirit and the letter of our behavioral policy allow criticism of contributions.

I really have not been convinced by you that I have done anything wrong. This is odd because I have found your arguments very convincing in the past. Perhaps we should both let this series of events settle in our minds for a while and we can both reconsider tomorrow. Chillum 00:48, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Stepping away does seem like the thing to do. Shall we revisit this tomorrow perhaps?-- Tznkai ( talk) 00:53, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Yes. I must say I do enjoy a good disagreement and I appreciate that you have stuck to the debate at hand and not made this too personal. I certainly have no hard feelings, the passion of my arguments is solely due to my enjoyment of reasoned debate. Chillum 01:01, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

After sleeping on this I have come to the conclusion that the edits were trolling, and that I was not wrong to call them such or to revert them. I am certainly not the only person who thinks so. It appears that many still believe this user is acting in good faith, so I am going to let it be. In a few months he will either stop or people will realize it is trolling and he will be prevented via reversion or blocking. It would be nice to save a few months and just stop the trolling now, but if the community is not ready to accept that then they will just have to suffer Doug's drama until they are ready to accept that.

The fact that a minority finds his editing to be acceptable doesn't mean much unless that minority reaches a consensus. Those defending his actions do not seem to be addressing the arguments of those who think Doug's actions are not appropriate. Instead of answering questions like "Why isn't he trying to debate this elsewhere" and "What does his opinion have to do with the RfAs" and "This user is not willing to discuss this matter", the arguments more often go along the lines of "Stop trying to silence him", and "He has the right to vote any way he wants". The defense seems mostly based on the false assumption that we are somehow trying to silence Doug. In reality what we are asking is the equivalent of asking someone not to show up at a stranger's wedding to complain about alimony laws. It is like going to a stranger's funeral to complain about medi-care costs. It is like going to a theater and complaining loudly that they make too many movies while people are trying to watch, then going to every other showing of the same movie and doing the same. All are acceptable topics of discussion, but the venue is inappropriate and disruptive. All these things can be discussed in the appropriate venue, but can be disruptive when taken to the wrong venu.

Until we can call a trolling by the word intended to describe this type of behavior, "trolling", then I will have to just work on my bots and participate in discussion where emotions are not ruling so strongly. I must say I still don't like being admonished for using the correct label for a type of disruptive editing. I am sure even you have used labels like "vandalism" or "sockpuppetry" to describe edits that obviously met the description, this is really no different. Chillum 14:01, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

In particular, trolling has kind of become a broad based insult. An internet troll used to mean something specific, and is now a generalized term for anti social behavior, but usually of a certain order. Compare say, a hypothetical where someone comes into an RfA and says "Oppose because I'm a faggot" Now, thats clearly trolling. Its attention seeking, nonsensical, and deliberately provocative. If you think that Doug is trolling, I think we can agree he's on the other end of the spectrum from my hypothetical. In fact, I don't think he's trolling, he looks like's being stubborn, which is a different sort of problem entirely.

Ultimately however, I think the situation could have been better handled by not removing his post at all, but by commenting underneath it. "I think this is an invalid vote, and this user has been unwilling to discuss the matter." Not only is it less irritating to him than removing his vote as trolling, it adds far more information to the outside observer. I think when you look at this situation, not by "is this trolling" but "what is the best route towards solving this problem", you picked a higher drama route than called for.-- Tznkai ( talk) 20:04, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Insanity can be described as doing the same thing and expecting a different result than before. Lots of people have put a comment below his and have gotten no positive response from him. To do the same would yield the same result. You suggestions are definitely the best way to go, except in cases like this where such tactics have already been tried and failed.

In this case I think allowing Doug to continue will be a route with greater drama than trying to stop him. Total drama = intensity of drama * duration of drama. I don't think my reversion caused much drama other than your complaint there, in fact I was thanked both on wiki and off wiki for attempting to prevent drama by productive and long standing Wikipedians whose judgement I respect. The only reason the drama continues is because not enough people reverted Doug.

Wikipedia has its own definition of trolling and that is "deliberately and intentionally attempting to disrupt Wikipedia". When people act that way, we call those actions trolling. Chillum 21:30, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

That appears to be your own misunderstanding of trolling, not wikipedia's definition. What wikipedia actually says is that trolling is a "deliberate and intentional attempt to disrupt the usability of Wikipedia ... [because] it necessarily involves a value judgment made by one user about the value of another's contribution ... it is considered not to be any more useful than the judgment 'I don't agree with you' by many users". Best to stick to the facts, eh? -- Malleus Fatuorum 19:01, 10 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Thank you for your opinion on trolling. Chillum 19:06, 10 April 2009 (UTC) reply

My opinion? Thank you once again for demonstrating your intransigence, petty-mindedness, and unfitness for the position that you hold. -- Malleus Fatuorum 19:11, 10 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Either stick to the topic at hand instead of attacking me as a person or please refrain from posting here. Chillum 19:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC) reply

You just can't help yourself with these personal attacks, can you. You misrepresented wikipedia's definition of trolling, I pointed out your error to you, and you call that "baiting". You're incorrigible. -- Malleus Fatuorum 19:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Actually I was felt the terms "intransigence" and "petty-mindedness" to be baiting. You pointed out your opinion on trolling and I thanked you, that is all fine. It is the abusive behavior that is the problem. I am not going to give you any sort of negative reaction unless your insults get particularly egregious, even then I don't intend to get upset. It is amazing how you can violate WP:NPA at 19:11 UTC, and accuse me of the same at 19:23 UTC. At this point I am going to ask you to drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. Chillum 19:29, 10 April 2009 (UTC) reply

"Actually I was felt the terms 'intransigence' and 'petty-mindedness' to be baiting. [ sic]" I feel those terms describe your ongoing behaviour perfectly. -- Malleus Fatuorum 02:45, 11 April 2009 (UTC) reply

for helping at my talk p. If you need help on yours... DGG ( talk) 21:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Nasty tone, and edit warring... a block is just a natural reaction. Chillum 21:29, 10 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Do you know what his claims about you are all about? Chillum 21:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Never mind. His claims are clearly baseless. Chillum 21:40, 10 April 2009 (UTC) reply

lets hope for the best, because he's gone back to NPP, with the same mix of 3/4 good and 1/4 bad tags. it might help if you could keep track of what he's tagging and give him the next round of assistance. I do patrol speedy & I'm not going to pass over something because its he who has tagged it, but I dont want to keep posting on his page. FWIW, I've made a point of deleting when he has good tags, if someone doesnt beat me to it. DGG ( talk) 03:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC) reply

I am keeping half an eye on his contribs. Chillum 05:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Well it turns out this user was a grade A troll, using proxies to put pictures of crap on people's pages and everything. Now blocked indef for general foolish behavior. Chillum 02:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC) reply

FYI. Ikip ( talk) 15:59, 13 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Thank you for pointing that out. Chillum 16:39, 13 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Thanks for your comments on ANI. I'm a bit perplexed by the discussion there that an uncivil user posting a duplicitous external link and forging a media-wiki interface is being condoned, yet this well-intended admin is being bashed. It's clear that I spend far too much time trying to help this project. Toddst1 ( talk) 22:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Sometimes a conversation can have less common sense than those involved in it. Chillum 22:29, 17 April 2009 (UTC) reply

• This is a response to an e-mail I received.

Yes, I was also a bit surprised to find us agreeing on an issue. Perhaps it is a sign of a brave new future? Chillum 21:46, 18 April 2009 (UTC) reply

You've helped me considerably with your opinion expressed on my page. I completely understand the basics of vandalism vs "bad/weird edits". I also understand the relationship is constantly fluid and will change with the direction of the wind. I am going to be on the wrong side of that fence from time to time, but I'm willing to take my lumps and (hopefully) learn from them. As you've probably seen me post before, please feel free to let me know if ever have occasion to offer opinions or suggestions regarding my edits. See ya 'round Tide rolls 22:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC) reply

All right then I will! Chillum 22:22, 18 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Sorry about that. I thought it meant something else. -- Abce2 ( talk) 22:45, 18 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Ah, the imagery that a literal interpretation of "halfassed" conjures is truly funny. Chillum 22:46, 18 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Good to see you hard at work :) Tide rolls 15:50, 19 April 2009 (UTC) reply

It is like playing Whac-A-Mole! Well, more like Whac-A-Troll. Chillum 15:51, 19 April 2009 (UTC) reply

I'm just wondering how that guy got my brother's pic :o\ Tide rolls 15:56, 19 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Please look at Wikipedia talk:Username policy#Here's an idea. -- Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 04:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Nice name. Devo comes to mind for some reason. Chillum 05:47, 21 April 2009 (UTC) reply

I guess you'd better. Believe it or not, it won't be the first time :o\ Tide rolls 00:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Consider it done. Chillum 00:08, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Gracias. Tide rolls 00:10, 22 April 2009 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.