Archive July 2013 -
I think your closure of this thread may have been premature. If you read carefully the article published in The Harford Courant, it says that "investigative authorities" released Lanza's Wikipedia name (and other names such as gun message boards and gaming chat rooms) to the Courant reporters. The reporters than looked up this name on Wikipedia and reported what kind of edits he had made. The reporters did not release the username, however, probably because they have not seen the evidence for the username, and so they are maintaining it as purported, which is what good journalists do when going on reports from authorities. None the less, we can in fact verify in a reliable source that investigating authorities say that Lanza used Wikipedia to make certain kinds of edits on certain dates. I guess this is now a content issue whether to include that information in the article. However I agree since it's still purported from semi-anonymous sources it's not strong enough (yet) for any bureaucratic review of the username. Most likely though since authorities are already releasing this information to the press more details will be forthcoming. -- Green Cardamom ( talk) 15:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
It is likely that the authorities have found items of interest on Lanza's computer, although I'd be rather astonished if he hadn't wiped his browsing history a few times in the ensuing years; heck, it's done automatically by some browsers, and with others whenever they upgrade. I'm not discounting the possibility that those who are examining his behaviour have made various links, whether based on hard or soft evidence. However, those authorities have not released the information. I'm sure they will at some point. This isn't the point. Risker ( talk) 21:06, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm trying to figure out what the right approach is to Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee#You've got mail(ing list). What are your current thoughts about it? -- Tryptofish ( talk) 22:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker! Legoktm ( talk) 05:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
you have an email from me. — Ched : ? 20:36, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker, a personal note about your latest feedback - I have spent some time now just collecting and filing bugs for users, but did not actually sort them. Although I think everybody has the temptation to shout to devs "you'd better solve it quickly because that's _my bug_! It's the most important evah since _I_ filed it!" (at least, sometimes I do :p ), I do welcome your comment as a suggestion that reviewing priorities is something I should add to my tasks, the sooner the better, although the difference between "bugs for the software - bugs for the community" shall be very hard to understand; to me everything is being done for the community, although I see it might not look like it. Have a nice day. -- Elitre (WMF) ( talk) 13:27, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
I am alarmed to see "(G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/Chernobyl-packet.html)" in the deletion log for Chernobyl packet. The Jargon File has been an important source for Wikipedia since its beginnings, as you can see from Template:JargonFile; the copyright statement of the Jargon File says:
But you seem to have deleted this page, citing "unambiguous copyright infringement", because it was copied from the Jargon File. This was an error. Please undelete the page, and if this template was missing from it, please add it.
Kragen Javier Sitaker ( talk) 08:14, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
I saw your statement at the Arbcom case page re: INeverCry and for talking WMF into letting us opt out of VE - thank you. Yngvadottir ( talk) 13:16, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Dear Riscker,
I apologize for the inconvenience, but have no other way than appealing for administrators’ help recover a deleted article.
I published a film article entitled Drits (Derivas), a film by Portuguese director Ricardo Costa. It is the second film from an autobiographic trilogy, Faraways. The article was kept untouched by several months. To my surprise, it was recently eliminated and redirected to the director’s page with no discussion. I undid the redirection, but saw the article was proposed to deletion. Reason: independent, verifiable, secondary resources. I argued that the article couldn’t have but primary sources (the producer’s ones) as it is an upcoming film, like many others listed at upcoming films. A film that has not yet been premiered or distributed may not be commented. Besides, none of the films so listed has ever been deleted or even contested.
At last, in discussion, user User:reddogsix proposed that the article should be renamed to Drifts (film) or similar, and at the same time put at the disambiguation page of Dritf this reference «Drifs, unreleased film by Ricardo Costa (filmmaker). I created a new page for the same article entitled Drifts (Portuguese film). As the semantic root “drift” seemed to be the problem, I replaced the article name to Derivas (Drifts) and published it once more with some improvements. As a result, the article was fast deleted and I blocked for three days.
In the meantime, a new article about the trilogy was published: Faraways, which was proposed to fast deletion as well by the same user, User:reddogsix.
Although unreleased, although having no reliable secondary sources, Drifts is unquestionably an outstanding film for its uniqueness and characteristics: autobiography, comedy, docufiction, metafiction in one. I guess that “outstanding” may be a synonym for “notable” in such cases and that articles like this shouldn’t be deleted without previous cared analyses: important information may be lost.
This sequence of interventions is clearly a personal attack by User:reddogsix, supported by two or three user friend. It has no other explanation. It contributes in nothing to improve articles quality. Mists article, which I created on 10 September 2010, is the latest example. The article structure was unreasonably modified, loosing clarity and useful content.
NOTE: sent to 30 administrators.
Thanks for your attention, User:Tertulius 22:09, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi I'm Persian Wikipedia users. Complain I'm a bureaucracy and a user. They did not respect the rights of others., Please investigate this issue. I could tell you what is my problem? (Translated by Google Translate) ((Note: I'm sorry if I do not speak good English because my native language is Persian))-- Boyabed ( talk) 08:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
wish you would have had time to talk to me. I had bunches to to tell ya. All my best, — Ched : ? 03:28, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
I received a notice from Callanecc today that there was a proposed motion on an ARBCOM case that affected me. [2] Penwhale notified me of the case 16 July. [3] I did not reply because no comments were made about me. AGK, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs and Silk Tork have voted to ban me. Could you please explain why I am part of this case. TFD ( talk) 05:12, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
You mentioned last week how hard you had worked trying to get WMF to understand the nature of consensus when it came to Visual Editor. In about a week, we are going to need to do it again relative to Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Default State RFC. Do you think you will be ready and willing to explain just how rare it is to see that lopsided of a response in an RFC (and how vanishingly rare it is to see "Per Kww" used as an argument)?— Kww( talk) 20:56, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
No problem with the screenshot. Yes, I have my default interface language for Wikipedia set to Dutch. They really shouldn't be using that to decide what language you get notifications in.— Kww( talk) 01:19, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Mission 1 | Mission 2 | Mission 3 | Mission 4 | Mission 5 | Mission 6 | Mission 7 |
Say Hello to the World | An Invitation to Earth | Small Changes, Big Impact | The Neutral Point of View | The Veil of Verifiability | The Civility Code | Looking Good Together |
I am about to get on a flight heading to Hong Kong to attend Wikimania, and thus will have very limited availability while traveling, and reduced availability while participating, and doing the touristy things. Thus I will be inactive on any matters that I have not yet commented on, but will remain active on those I have commented on. Risker ( talk) 21:28, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Dusti *Let's talk!* 18:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Hello! Here is the location of the City Gallery which I recommended if you are interested in urban planning at all. The exhibits are a bit family-oriented but the documentary film on the upper floor is a good rundown of HK geography and urban history and a nice way to get some aircon if you're walking around Central anyway. The yum cha (dim sum) at the City Hall restaurant is also good, although more expensive than elsewhere. Quite nearby is the famous HSBC building with its lion statues pockmarked with shrapnel from when the Japanese invaded. Enjoy your visit! Citobun ( talk) 08:08, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Will you take a look at 2013080110008675 and then leave a note on that ticket with any thoughts on how to best approach this one. You appear to the be the one who issued the most recent block, so I'd like your insight into it. Please keep the discussion over there to protect privacy. Thanks! ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 04:08, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
Hi, while noticing the amount of questions that have been asked this year and thinking that I didn't have to answer such tough questions last year, I went back to the 2012 CUOS comment page, and was suprised to find Foxj not on it, but in the list of the appointed oversighter. I found this edit by you removing him as he apparently retired, while he was subsequently appointed regardless. Do you happen to remember if there was any public discussion of this? I of course understand if given the time since nothing springs to mind, and it's really not that important :) My main question is whether he should be re-added to that page given he must have later un-withdrawn, what do you think? Snowolf How can I help? 09:56, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
"I suggest you're working to try to find a way of finding out what a specific suppressed edit says, but trying to draw in the community under false pretenses."
I have, of course, been accused of bad faith before but this case is quite unusual in terms of how rebuttable your presumption is (although it's also quite remarkable that it's an ArbCom member that's making the assumption). Please take a look at the Talk page of the article the edit to which was suppressed. Do you see the link to the Daily Mail in the "This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations" section? Do you see the boxed sentence in the Wikipedia screenshot that appears in the Daily Mail article? Would the "specific suppressed edit" look anything like that? Note that it also appears word for word in Slate and la Repubblica (albeit in Italian in the latter case). Now it's nonetheless possible I didn't see these media articles, never mind that shortly before the suppression I was the guy who found and added the photo to the article such that it could be reasonably presumed that I was following article developments closely. But take a look at my comments on that Talk page and I think you will be compelled to concede that it is IMPOSSIBLE that I did not know what the "specific suppressed edit" said.
"... the suppressed edits contained libellous information ..."
Even if they did policy says there must also be "no editorial reason to keep the revision" and there happens to be a very good editorial reason here and that's that, as I told the oversighter at the time, "The specific oversighted material (Wikipedia edits) is already in the media.... The whole point of the oversight tool is to prevent Wikipedia from getting out ahead of reliably sourced material. Now that Wikipedia's behind, the fact that the tool is still being wielded shows that whoever is using it is using it more expansively than it was intended to be used." It was, in fact, another editor (not me) who first challenged the oversighter (after an ANI discussion was closed before many of us could participate), saying "The talk page describes why this edit history should be restored. I have referred the whole mess to the Arbitration Committee, since that's the only place to appeal this kind of administrator censorship." At the ANI discussion, another editor stated "there is hardly any pressing need to keep the edits hidden. Of course, we could rev-del them again, but given the fact that they have already attracted media curiosity, that would likely end up looking to the outside world more like an attempt to whitewash or cover up things than like a legitimate act of protecting the article subject." Another editor agreed, saying "Leave these edits publicly viewable and quit trying to convince the media that Wikipedia is part of the Soviet Union." Note also that it was an admin who first revealed the material to the rest of us in order "to preserve historical record" and added that "I strongly believe that we have a responsibility to be transparent about the article history." Another editor agreed, saying "preserving the historical record on [this] article... is valuable." Another editor stated "[the admin] cannot really be reproached for his actions" and yet another said "there's no abuse of tools by [the admin]". Jimbo Wales weighed in to say, "I certainly don't think [the admin] should be reproached... I do think it is a good case to examine philosophically in an effort to clarify and strengthen policy." The bottom line is the oversight action here was contrary to the community consensus and we don't know how often the community is being defied because the community is being kept in the dark.
"... you're being brutally unfair to people from the WMF or the Board (or even by throwing around my name without talking to me directly) when you expect them to give an informed opinion without any background on the specific situation."
May I remind you of what I said before you wrote this: "my current interest is in not reviewing a particular historical action..."? With respect to the WMF and the Board, I wanted to find out if the claim that "oversight matters... are subject to the WMF privacy policy and nothing else" was true or not. Answering the question does not require "background on the specific situation" beyond making it clear that the privacy of a Wikipedian is not at issue because it is a general question. With respect to you, I reckoned you could jump in, should you so choose, and verify the accuracy of my recollection of the oral exchange at Wikimania without endorsing my conclusion that "The bottom line here is that there may be a WMF oversight policy that applies, but that's not the same thing as the WMF privacy policy." I might add that the oversighter here stated at the time and in the context of the "specific situation" that "The other oversighters and the Arbitration Committee are all aware of the situation." Are you now saying that the oversighter was incorrect here as you, as a member of ArbCom, were not, in fact, made "aware of the situation" at that time?-- Brian Dell ( talk) 19:19, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm truly shocked that you'd think the news media repeating unsourced gossip has anything to do with the appropriateness of any edits on English Wikipedia. Seriously, Brian, if that original edit had not been on Wikipedia, we would never have allowed mention of that article on this project. We sure has heck wouldn't have a fancy banner on the talk page of the article pointing the world to it. Actually, why *do* we have a banner on the talk page of the article? What kind of self-aggrandisement is that? Why are we using article space to brag about having vandalism edits on our project publicized in the international media? Our sense of self-importance overrides any kind of common sense.
The people who review concerns about oversighters on this project are the Audit Subcommittee, a six-member panel made up of 3 community members and 3 arbitrators. You've been pointed to them on several occasions. You have not taken your concern to them. I do not understand why you would take your concern to the WMF board of trustees before talking to the AUSC. It's kind of cart-before-horse to go to the Board before even discussing this in any kind of English Wikipedia forum or gathering facts (and properly sourcing them - I had to go hunting for the quotation you put in your most recent statement, would adding a link really kill you if you're making direct quotes?).
I think your idea that "non-anonymous professional lawyers" taking over suppression has about zero chance of succeeding. I have no idea why you're referring to WP:OFFICE actions when absolutely nothing involved in this situation was done under WP:OFFICE, which operates under a different principle. Sure you got a straight answer from them, but it's kind of like pointing out that my vegetarian neighbour hasn't eaten meat this week when we're talking about how to best roast a chicken: not relevant to the discussion at hand. What I don't understand is why in heaven's name it has taken almost three weeks, multiple discussions, and a whole pile of casting of aspersions, to finally get down to what you really want, which is having WMF staff lawyers take over suppression of edits that don't directly relate to the privacy of editors. I had no idea this is what you were after.
So, you know what the edit says, and I'm deeply saddened that you cannot see the difference between the information that is very well sourced in the article, and the content of the edit you seem to believe should be suppressed. I'm at least equally concerned that the undeleting administrator seems to also not see the difference, and has illustrated such a poor understanding of WP:BLP. That's actually quite sad. 15:12, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
It is, in fact, out of respect for your view that there is a pressing need for secrecy that I have declined to provided links or diffs. I didn't link to the leaker's statement as it was hidden by @Rschen7754 (contrary to the clear instructions on the hiding template that it "should never be used to end a discussion over the objections of other editors, except in cases of unambiguous disruptive editing") with instructions to "Back away." And's it's partially out of a good faith assumption that Beeblebrox was telling the truth when he claimed that "The other oversighters and the Arbitration Committee are all aware of the situation," that I have not bothered to try and draw the attention of any ArbCom Subcommittee to this particular case. My concern, as I've said repeatedly, is in fact broader. Since the so-called "community members" on AUSC are not, in fact, elected by the community but are admins appointed by ArbCom I cannot stand for election as a community member on my transparency platform but if you think there is a chance I might be appointed by ArbCom I would endeavour to satisfy the prerequisite of becoming an admin.
Hi Risker, SlimVirgin has asked me if I would revert an inappropriate edit through protection on Chelsea Manning. Would you mind if I did so? (I saw your warning on the talk page yesterday.) Mark Arsten ( talk) 17:27, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
Hi. Admins are still editing this page. I have no idea if they are doing it via "edit requests", but I find it somewhat unfair that simple requests like fixing a misspelling are falling on deaf ears while others are making pronoun changes, which seems to be part of the reason this article is locked down in the first place. Am I missing something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Two kinds of pork ( talk • contribs) 22:04, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Hello. There is currently a discussion at
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. —
ΛΧΣ
21 17:59, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
For the record, I have no intention or desire, after five years of being treated like something to be scraped off the bottom of one's shoes, to run for Arbcom again. I won't say anything more for fear of dissuading qualified candidates from running. But this sure as heck wasn't done because I wear an arbcom hat. Risker ( talk) 22:10, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
I see that you are not in disagreement with me on the unblock - whew, glad of that. I was typing up a post and had an ( edit conflict) with you. Hopefully I've explained my unblock to everyone's satisfaction; although I have no comment on the "wiki" situation regarding "Manning" as I have not been following it. — Ched : ? 18:33, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
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The Admin's Barnstar |
You and I are on the same page when it comes to admins responsibilities on fully protected articles. Even though the blocks were reverted, your actions have at least brought this long standing admin abuse problem to the discussion board. Good job. JOJ Hutton 02:22, 24 August 2013 (UTC) |
Thank you very much, JOJ. Risker ( talk) 05:40, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
I think you're a real asset to the project, and I'm disappointed to hear you're considering not running for the stocks next time. Thanks for everything you do here. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk · contribs · email) 18:09, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Otherwise, there are a lot of other things to do on this project, and working at the cross-project level. I'm thinking about suggesting a few projects and discussions to the community (including intersecting communities where applicable), but I'll wait until I have time to do it right. And of course, I'm looking forward to making more content contributions. Risker ( talk) 19:26, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Special notifications to you too as most recent proposing/enacting editor of a block for the user. I don't have time for thorough research of all evidence of his misdeeds so it seems appropriate for the people in the know to add useful summaries/evidence/context as felt appropriate (for instance, I'm unable to locate the most recent official statement by ArbCom on why he is indef-blocked). -- Nemo 10:22, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
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The Purple Barnstar | |
"The Purple Barnstar is awarded to those who have endured undue hardship (e.g., incessant harassment) on Wikipedia but still remain resolute in their commitment to the project and its ideals." Yeah, that sounds like you right about now... Beeblebrox ( talk) 06:09, 27 August 2013 (UTC) |
Hi. I remember you weighed in on something like this earlier, especially the "empathy" question. Perhaps it might interest you. Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Why is it so horrible to nominate for deletion on Wikipedia, when it's so easy on Commons? Bishonen | talk 21:12, 29 August 2013 (UTC).
[4] The nominator has erroneously failed to ping you about doing so - David Gerard ( talk) 17:48, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
I think David means here. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk · contribs · email) 19:09, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
Hey Risker. I'm contacting you because you're involved in the Article Feedback Tool in some way, either as a previous newsletter recipient or as an active user of the system. As you might have heard, a user recently anonymously disabled the feedback tool on 2,000 pages. We were unable to track or prevent this due to the lack of logging feature in AFT5. We're deeply sorry for this, as we know that quite a few users found the software very useful, and were using it on their articles.
We've now re-released the software, with the addition of a logging feature and restrictions on the ability to disable. Obviously, we're not going to automatically re-enable it on each article—we don't want to create a situation where it was enabled by users who have now moved on, and feedback would sit there unattended—but if you're interested in enabling it for your articles, it's pretty simple to do. Just go to the article you want to enable it on, click the "request feedback" link in the toolbox in the sidebar, and AFT5 will be enabled for that article.
Again, we're very sorry about this issue; hopefully it'll be smooth sailing after this :). If you have any questions, just drop them at the talkpage. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) 22:00, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker. Can I ask your opinion on something? I think English Wikipedia is defying the Foundation's BLP resolution at Bradley Manning. It tells us to take human dignity into account when editing but calling Manning "Bradley" is a gratuitous insult, an assault on Manning's dignity.
Is this something I should draw to the attention of the ED or the WMF Board? (The board doesn't have an ethics sub-committee does it?) -- Anthonyhcole ( talk · contribs · email) 14:33, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
I am concerned about the way that WP is being issued by some editors as a place to launch low level attacks on organisations. Examples of what I mean can be found at BP, where despite two RfCs there is still excessive negative information about the DWH oil spill and March against Monsanto, where the article is being used to promote the anti-Monsanto cause of the marchers. This has even spilled over to to Polyethoxylated tallow amine where a page on an unremarkable surfactant reads as if the substance is a serious poison, principally because it is an ingredient of Monsanto's 'Roundup' herbicide.
I have seen other cases WP pages have been used as coatracks for negative information about smaller organisations too.
I have no connection whatsoever with any of the organisations and appreciate that many may consider some of their actions deplorable. It may even be true that some sort of campaign against them is desirable but WP is not the place to launch it from. It will be seriously damaging to the credibility of WP if it is perceived to have an anti-establishment or environmentalist (or the reverse) slant.
I am not looking for any drastic action, just your thoughts on the problem, if you see it as one. Martin Hogbin ( talk) 12:50, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
I never commented on this issue; it seems you had little to say as well. I am glad that you still enterAed the forum and made a comment as an observer over the conduct of the discussion about the issue. I know you similarly observe other discussions and I appreciate your presence in such talks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:48, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment at
L'Origine's Talk Page regarding the role of ARBCOM in considering unblocking an Editor who has received a "community block" because of an Admin's perception of community consensus. It was stated further by Beeblebrox that:
""blocks imposed as the result of a community discussion are usually reviewed the same way"
but NE Ent told L'Origine
"You've completed the necessary steps for the appeal. Now ... you wait. You have an active unblock request which is listed at Category:Requests_for_unblock -- at some point another admin will review the situation; they could decline the unblock, accept the unblock, or ask you follow up questions."
And that's what happened, AGK reviewed the appeal and declined it. There was no community discussion.
So, here's where I'm confused. Bonkers the Clown had a similar case brought up at AN/I on the same day, people asking for his head on a stick and he, like L'Origine, received an indefinite block. But on
Beeblebrox' Talk Page, Monty845 said,
"The blocking admin of Bonkers, when asked, indicated the block was on that admin's own authority, and that it was not an implementation of consensus from the block discussion. Even if it had been a consensus block, the later decision to unblock can be a separate question, looking at the post block actions of the blocked editor. Only if the block is overturned as invalid or wrong would the overturn risk being against the block consensus."
So, how does one tell when an Admin blocks on his/her "own authority" (so he can unblock) or when an Admin blocks based on their perception of "community consensus"? I find this idea of a "community block" and the process by which one becomes unblocked confusing. I mean, if Beeblebrox was right and the correct forum was to have another community discussion about unblocking on AN/I, how would a blocked Editor even participate in the discussion and address concerns people had? Any way, that's not what happened but it's clearly what some people believe is the proper way to get unblocked from a "community block".
What's mystifying to me is that Editors get blocked and unblocked every day on Wikipedia for a variety of reasons. How can so much contradiction exist on this one question? Thanks for hearing me out, I hope you get a moment to clarify the situation for me.
Liz
Read!
Talk! 23:42, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
P.S. I purposely didn't link names because the three other versions of this conversation (which led me to the point I'm at right now) had a lot of participation from Editors and Admins and I'd prefer to receive an answer from you rather than hear even more different opinions on how the process works (or is supposed to work). L
Hi, is there any progress on this? -- A Certain White Cat chi? 20:46, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
You seem like an accomplished Wikipedian. Can you tell these idiots here ( http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Jung_Chang&action=history) that they are wrong, and explain basic POV balance and BLP? 69.171.160.59 ( talk) 05:29, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Just an FYI - the latest letter from Chelsea indicates she would prefer not to be referred to by her rank.--v/r - T P 16:43, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
Hello,
Risker,
I was just reading the conversation you were having over at
Tryptofish's Talk Page and I realized something. Everything I've learned about Wikipedia's true history has come from Editor allusions to some past conflict or incident and then doing a search by username or topic on Noticeboard or Signpost archives to see what the issue was. The "history" of Wikipedia isn't on the article page but in the memories of the most long-standing Editors. In that sense, it is biased as it is all colored by an individual's point of view but that can be balanced by including many perspectives. And, unfortunately, it is also ephemeral as every time an Editor leaves WP, they take their knowledge with them.
So, reading your comment about discovering that the carpets in ARBCOM HQ were hiding rotting floor boards made me wonder if there was much documentation of ARBCOM's development and evolution, what reforms have been attempted in the past, what the pitfalls are, mistakes that were made and should be avoided in the future, you know, self-reflection on the role of ARBCOM by those who are the heart of it. In terms of a historical record, there are case proceedings but I imagine that this is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. I hope new Arbitrators have access to email archives but I'm not sure how much time an Arbitrator would ever spend diving into those (or how organized they even are).
I just think that there must be a sharp learning curve for every new Arbitrator, each of whom comes into office with ideas of how the system can be improved. It would be useful if there was a document similar to
Wikipedia:Perennial proposals that was written by outgoing Arbitrators during their last year, to preserve some of the knowledge gained through the experience. I guess I'm suggesting something like an exit interview where Arbitrators could also suggest changes they'd recommend and projects they wished they had had time to pursue.
While I imagine some documents like these would remain private to the ARBCOM community, I think they'd be invaluable if they were posted on-wiki. I think there is resentment that exists against ARBCOM by some Editors because it is opaque, people don't see the work that is involved, they only see the outcome. Maybe Arbitrator X had some radical idea to reform the request process, it was debated by ARBCOM and rejected as unfeasible. But no one off the mailing list would know this. We only see rulings, we don't see the hard work you all do.
Maybe this exists in some form already which leaves me with a severe case of "foot in mouth" disease. But if not, I hope you and Arbitrators might consider leaving some information behind besides how you voted on cases (and
Arbitration Committee (English Wikipedia) is a completely inadequate record). Of course, I'm not talking about divulging any private conversations or information, just making the work that I know goes on behind closed doors more evident to the larger community.
Thanks, I hope this hasn't been too long-winded and I was able to communicate my idea to you. Your experience, and that of other Arbitrators, is invaluable to Wikipedia. I think that there are times when people want to reinvent the wheel and they don't realize what has been attempted in the past. Sharing what has been tried, what you've learned over the past few years, could be the most substantial legacy you could leave (frustrations and all!). Cheers!
Liz
Read!
Talk! 20:05, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
It would be good if arbitrators were encouraged to write a brief history of their view of the committee's work during their term. The reason it hasn't been done more often is probably because it may re-ignite any number of old disputes... BTW, the rotting floorboards quote is here (more for myself than anything else, as I took ages to find that). And I just noticed that Liz suggested exit interviews for arbitrators. That rung a bell, and I suggested this back in 2009. I should have suggested it on-wiki as well - it is possible it has been suggested on-wiki before in some form - most things have, but the suggestions get lost.
On a side note, I agree absolutely with what Liz says about about how different individuals have different perspectives on things because they tend to see different parts of something such as a dispute, rather than the whole. Part of the problem is because the wiki editing history seems to do a great job of retaining and recording the history of what happened, but unless someone pulls it together into a coherent narrative, it is often very difficult to make sense of what happened, as well as the conflicting accounts of what people claim happened. Carcharoth ( talk) 01:07, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Hey - I thought I'd continue a line of discussion from Wikipedia talk:No paid advocacy here on your talk page, if that's OK with you. There's a lot of noise on the other talkpage, and I'm interested in exploring our difference of opinions on the subject in a quieter environment (my talkpage would be fine too, if you'd prefer).
First of all, I agree with you entirely about our excessively low notability threshold, which is the root of many problems on Wikipedia (including the problem of maintaining low-profile BLPs against promotional/revenge editing and the problem of writing seriously about obscure fringe theories). As I'm sure you've noticed, notability is usually treated in a rote checklist fashion ("Subject is notable because he was mentioned twice in the New York Times and quoted once in Newsweek"). Ideally, we'd treat notability criteria as a means to an end. The real question is: are there sufficient independent, reliable sources to write a neutral encyclopedia article on this subject? But virtually no one approaches notability/AfD discussions with that mindset. After all, once we've !voted "keep", we don't have to actually take responsibility for writing and maintaining the article in question.
So I think we agree that tighter notability standards would help immensely. I've worked in that direction in a modest way over the years, but it will be a hard slog at best. Well-defined factions have sprung up around the question ("inclusionists" vs. "deletionists"), which doesn't augur well for a thoughtful and rational resolution. And for whatever reason, the question seems to draw some of our most ideologically zealous editors. When I started participating in AfD's, WP:PROF was interpreted to mean that anyone who achieved the faculty rank of full professor at a college or university was automatically notable. That is, of course, insane, since the vast majority of full professors lack suitable sources for anything resembling an encyclopedic biography. But these articles would routinely be "kept" at AfD. In a best-case scenario, they were basically cut-and-dried rehashes of the professor's c.v. In worse cases, they were vehicles to promote or disparage the article subjects and suffered from the usual woes of low-profile BLPs. It took years for people to come around to the idea of better notability standards, and I'm not sure we're there yet although things are better than they were.
I also agree that we need to get our own house in order in terms of dealing more effectively with agenda-driven and COI editing, and I've beaten the drum in that regard where I've seen issues (albeit with little visible effect). Believe me, I know firsthand what a shitty job Wikipedia does in dealing with these things - at this point, I've probably spent more time in the trenches editing controversial articles and navigated more content disputes than anyone on the project. But I don't agree that we need to table the question of paid editing until we've definitively resolved all of our internal issues. I think we can make a strong statement of our principles on paid editing and continue to work toward a more effective way of handling tendentious/agenda-driven editing.
Sorry for the rant. I'd like to explore the examples you raised of psychologists under the Canadian system and researchers looking to improve their visibility on Google Scholar, but I should probably take a breath and stop there. MastCell Talk 19:30, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
One of my most significant concerns here is that the proposals (pretty much all of them) are written in such a way as to provide a tool to people who are advocating or otherwise pushing a point of view (even if it is just WP:OWN) for reasons other than financial gain to attack editors by implying and insisting the opponents are editing with a (financial) COI; it's been happening for years ("you wouldn't remove that if you weren't an agent for Article Subject" is a common refrain, as we all know). These proposals would put editors challenging status quo on the defensive, forcing them to "prove" they *aren't* in conflict - and again outing themselves in the process. Wikipedia has to be about the content, not about who writes which sentence of fixes which typo, and any effort to personalize editing to the extent that these proposals do is fundamentally anti-wiki. Risker ( talk) 00:38, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Maybe I should have looked at the talk page first. The article itself has a lot of material copied from other articles and I've deleted the article as a copyright violation. It's also at AfC and in the user's sandbox. Not sure where to go from here but I don't think we can allow this. What do you think? Dougweller ( talk) 05:44, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
While I appreciate you trying to redirect these articles, there is actually consensus against redirecting player articles - especially active players - to their parent clubs. Giant Snowman 08:33, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
User:Awindell/Blackstone Media
Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013
by The Interior ( talk · contribs), Ocaasi ( talk · contribs)
Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...
New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian
Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.
New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??
New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges
News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY
Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions
New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration
Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. -- The Interior 20:18, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Sorry you weren't able to attend all of it! James had asked you a question for context before he could actually answer to yours: he said Which "edit tools" were you thinking of, specifically? If you want to follow-up, we'll be glad to satisfy your curiosity :) -- Elitre (WMF) ( talk) 17:54, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
As one of six sitting arbitrators whose terms are expiring, have you decided whether you will be running for re-election? 50.45.158.239 ( talk) 05:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Related to a particularly nasty article that has become a battleground in a real-life dispute, an editor said at the bottom of this page that a company representative was posting personally identifiable information about other Wikipedia editors and attacking them on his website. This is consistent with allegations of similar behavior by this company on Reddit and online, where the company threatened to sue customers that spoke negatively of them and allegedly used sockpuppets to insult critics, etc. according to the media.
Anyways, it was mentioned as something that may require Arb Com attention, since there is currently an unblock request and they are trying to figure out how to do that if the account-holder is allegedly harassing other involved editors off-wiki. Similar harassment and outing behavior on-wiki is the reason for the block. Thought you might be able to point things in the right direction. CorporateM ( Talk) 01:37, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Many thanks, I'll try and send something through today or tomorrow. Giant Snowman 10:43, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
Risker- I apologize for the handling of the two PRODs. I thought that I had put reasons when I did it, but in fact I had put them in the edit summary instead. I must say that it was a bit frustrating to see the PRODs removed over a technicality when the reasons were recorded (though not in the template certainly). That felt a bit like unnecessary beuracracy. Going through an AfD seemed a bit silly to me since the articles had been tagged for over the required 7 days and the creators were notified when it was done (they could have removed the notices). But in the future I will make sure that I follow all of the steps. Rikster2 ( talk) 16:40, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Just read your advice at
User:Risker/Thoughts for Arbitration Committee Candidates and it is quite daunting. I don't know how someone could be an arbitrator, have a job and a family. And it takes an awfully thick skin, it seems.
No urgent questions, I just appreciate your article. Thanks for taking the time to put your thoughts down.
Liz
Read!
Talk! 23:56, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi. In your FAQ for ArbCom candidates, you say that "Checkuser and Oversight permissions are not dependent on administrator permissions; thus, this is not a direct bar for non-administrators to become arbitrators." But in light of the Foundation's March 2013 statement insisting that access to deleted revisions requires passing an RfA or RfA-identical process, I'm not sure I see any way that a non-admin could qualify to be an arb. This doesn't appear to be a problem right now (we did have one non-arb throw his hat in the ring this time, but he withdrew very soon thereafter), but it certainly could be a future problem, so perhaps your FAQ needs to be tweaked accordingly. Your thoughts on this? — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:21, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker, please see the below statement, in response to the question you left on my talk page.
"The Wikimedia Foundation has been asked to clarify and/or expand on a previous decision of the legal team, specifically that the Foundation would not allow users to have Checkuser or Oversight rights added to the user account of a user who had not passed a request for adminship or an equally rigorous community selection process.
Our legal and community advocacy team has been asked whether running for (and winning) a seat on the Arbitration Committee would meet the "rigorous community selection process" test, and therefore qualify an elected ArbCom member for Checkuser/Oversight rights. We believe that being elected to ArbCom is an involved process that strongly demonstrates community trust, and that there is a reasonable expectation that Arbitration Committee members on the English Wikipedia's Arbcom will hold those tools, except in exceptional circumstances. Therefore, we will not object to the assignment of checkuser/oversight tools to any user who runs for, wins, and is seated on the Arbitration Committee.
Respectfully,
Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy"
I hope this resolves the question to your satisfaction. I am posting a courtesy copy to the election's page, and to the Arbcom via mailing list. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation ( talk) 23:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
I want to type your real name, because I feel that I know you as a person - but I do know better than that. I am so sorry that the things I've posted have been discouraging to you. I think the world of you - even when I don't agree, I do respect you - and yes - care about you. I know you have so so much to deal with. I wish I could help. I really do wish I could see your name at wp:ace2013 - and feel a touch of guilt that people like me have driven the good folk like you from doing what is needed.
I have grown cynical, and for the best part of the last year my posts have been detrimental in a large degree. I see what is wrong, and instead of continuing a "good fight", I've only lamented about what is wrong. It is easier to say "this is wrong" than to try to fix things, and I've taken the easy way out.
I do try to walk away when I get angry, and I often don't do what I should. I am sorry. You are a wonderful person that is fair and honest. The day that Arbcom does not include you will be a dark day indeed I fear. I can't promise to be what I should be, but I can honestly say that you do indeed have a piece of my heart ****. Wikipedia is a wonderful project, but ... NO - I won't go into the "but".
I can't promise to change, I'm too old and too tired to even try.
I just couldn't disappear without letting you know how much I thought of you.
Ched
— Ched ZILLA 11:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
It's important for those of us who've spent a fair amount of time in the darker side of the project to keep in touch with its wonders and its joys, to remember why we came here in the first place, to be able to take pleasure in what so often becomes a major part of our lives. The other day, as part of my staged preparations for being back in the "real Wikipedia world", I did nothing related to Arbcom, and went back to my roots. I copy-edited an article, did some speedy deletions, did some poking around other content — and had the most fun I've had on Wikipedia in years. It did serve to remind me that the little corner of Wikipedia that is the drama boards and Arbcom is *not* what Wikipedia is all about; yes, a lot of these tasks are necessary, and it takes the right mix of people to get things right most of the time. But they can't be the same people all the time. We can't develop new leaders if those of us who've worked in this area won't move on. I've been worried for a while that Arbcom was being selected from too small a subset of the already-shrinking group of administrators; it's only since 2009 that incumbents have regularly been re-elected. There are more things that I want to do on this project, and other areas where I think I can contribute both here and globally. We'll see where things take me.
You know that I wish only the very best for you, Ched, and that you're one of the Wikipedians I'm really glad to have met. You've had an impact here, and I'm sure you'll have an impact wherever the winds may blow. Take care, and don't be afraid to pop by and say hello when you're in the neighbourhood. :-) Risker ( talk) 13:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Template_talk:Bullying#RfC:_Template_links.
Lord Sjones23 (
talk -
contributions) 05:41, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Mind if you help at WP:AIV right now? It's truck loads of reports! ///EuroCar GT 05:30, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
I have just restored Manuela Gandarillas. I assume your deletion was an error as G13 is not applicable to pages in mainspace. My fault for not cleaning up the AFC templates fast enough after moving it. Spinning Spark 15:18, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Hey there. Last night I was doing some new page patrol and CSD tagging some broken redirects. This morning you deleted a lot of what I'd tagged. I'd tagged Manley mutt as a hoax, but you deleted it as A10. Could you point out the existing topic? I try to do a WP:BEFORE when I tag possible hoaxes, and I saw nothing in online sources, including WP, which justified the subject's inclusion. Thanks again for following up on my tagging spree. BusterD ( talk) 15:58, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Giant Snowman 20:26, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Response sent, thanks GiantSnowman. Risker ( talk) 20:42, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi. I'm trying to understand the WMF. And failing, really. In a comment presently on Iridescent's talk page you said, "The events of this summer, with the VisualEditor and the very deliberate decision to sabotage any chance of successful implementation of that software should tell you that the WMF is in no way capable of understanding this project." Would you be willing to explain to me who made the very deliberate decision to sabotage there? Do you mean the en. community or WMF? Feel free to ignore this. Email's good, if you prefer. Cheers. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk · contribs · email) 15:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Per m:SN#Stewards_needed_for_the_enwp_ArbCom_elections, the scrutineers this year are User:Mathonius, User:Vituzzu, User:Matanya, and User:Tegel. In the past they have been granted CU locally for the duration of the elections; should they be this year as well? -- Rs chen 7754 02:35, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi, I saw you deleted the page. I don't understand what does the page have to do with the link you provided
http://www.cacttus.com/Portals/0/Case%20studies/Software%20development.pdf.
The link is some kind of software, while the article is about government agency. Probably the pdf has info from the Agency website as well, but I don't see any copyright issues with it. I never referred to that page you provided.
Regards
Mondiad (
talk) 15:38, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi t | c 14:59, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Oh, bravo. Shudder. Laugh. Georgewilliamherbert ( talk) 06:01, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
[6] may be of interest to you. -- Rs chen 7754 21:31, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
I've emailed you on a Signpost matter. Tony (talk) 06:38, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi, I just logged in an incident on ANI. Check this [7]. I feel that the action by the admin in discussion was harsh, sudden and one sided. Whilst I wait for the discussion on ANI to progress, I am placing a request to you if you can review this independently and give me your feedback. Cheers AKS
Thank you for your thoughts as a parting arb who will be missed: "The Arbitration Committee's purpose is to look out for the best interests of Wikipedia". You were not involved in the socalled Infoboxes case. Andy wrote an article on a nature reserve. He is restricted from adding any infobox, I am restricted from adding one to articles not my own. I believe that Wikipedia would be served better with an infobox, like similar articles, but it would take courage, -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 08:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Could you restore Land reform in Zambia? I want to contest deletion.-- TM 11:36, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Did you get email from me over the last week? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
![]() |
The Tireless Contributor Barnstar |
I'd just like to thank you for your service on ArbCom. I know it's been a pain in the behind most of the time, and while I don't always agree with your stances on issues, I appreciate the service. Enjoy your break. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC) |
Noting that I have responded (belatedly!) to each of you on your talk pages. Thank you very much for your kind words. Risker ( talk) 04:25, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker. Please pardon me, but I am working on the next iteration of a COI policy and am trying to take into account the views of strong opposers to earlier, failed versions. I wondered if you would answer some questions to help with that. Several times in your responses to the failed No Paid Advocacy policy proposal, you said things like "We refuse to deal with non-financial COI and advocacy amongst our own editorship while whining endlessly that Company XX has come here and had the nerve to suggest we've got something wrong." as in this dif and earlier difs like this and especially this. You also noted that you think more stringent notability standards would be a useful check to advocacy. I am willing to make the next draft focus more broadly on advocacy, while also dealing with paid advocacy. Four questions, now:
Thank you for your time! 66.108.38.156 ( talk) 12:00, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
![]() |
The Barnstar of Diplomacy |
For your success in changing a few others editors' opinion in a contentious BLP debate. Someone not using his real name ( talk) 17:27, 28 November 2013 (UTC) |
There is a serious backlog of about 20K individual IPs that are blocked without expiration. I have broken the IPs into groups of 5000: m:User:とある白い猫/English Wikipedia open proxy candidates. So they are effectively blocked until time ends. This creates considerable potential collateral damage as the owners of IPs tend to be not very consistent. Some of these IPs are on dynamic ranges which results in arbitrary blocks of good users. Vast majority of the blocks go back years all the way to 2004 - some were preemptively blocked. Nowadays even open proxies normally do not get indefinite blocks.
The problem is that no single admin wants to review this many IPs and very few have the technical capability to review. Such a technical review would be non-trivial for individual IPs which in my humble opinion would be a complete waste of time. I feel ArbCom could step in and provide criteria for bulk action. A bulk unblock of all indefinite blocks (with exceptions if the specific single IP unblocks are contested) before - say - 2010 would be a good start.
Open proxies tend to be better handled at meta as open proxies are a global problem for all wikis.
-- A Certain White Cat chi? 11:31, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
You know the issue of indef blocked IPs is not a personal issue for me. I am not affected by them. This may not have been your intention but you implied to this end. I do not need to be 'satisfied'. I just wish the issue to be properly handled rather than being ignored. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 06:10, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker. I see now that you aren't a candidate for the current arbcom elections... In my mind you are the arbcom here. I expect that will be strange, for you and for us, with not you having in the committee. I guess you needed a break after so many years. Take care and hopefully you won't disappear completely from WP. ;) With regards, Trijnstel talk 23:41, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
On 8 December 2013 you deleted Category:Woman janitors. There was no discussion about this deletion at wp:CFD (I believe?). When you have a minute I would appreciate finding out why this category disappeared so quickly.
Since you offered, I would appreciate a response on my talkpge, since I do not follow your talkpage regularly. Thanks in advance, X Ottawahitech ( talk) 15:33, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
Recently, your graphics on your user page, File:Complexity Map.svg, reminded me of the discussion on "systemic bias" on the "Wikipedia" Page. Are you aware of any attempt to draw the "complexity map" for Wikipedia in either its current form or its historical form. Such a graph would make a useful addition to the section on systemic bias on the "Wikipedia" Page if you have ever seen such a graph or illustration. BillMoyers ( talk) 14:05, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
Hello Risker, you are listed as draft-arb, and Callanecc kinda-sorta suggested I contact you. Summing up:
I don't think Callanecc nor Hasteur were acting in bad faith.
But I *do* want the arbs to read my statement, [9] and not miss it because it was moved.
Callanecc said that arbs "should" see it on the evidence-talkpage. Is that correct?
That is all I really am after here; I don't care if it is moved again, or not, as long as it is not missed lost the hustle-n-bustle.
Thanks for improving wikipedia, sorry to be bothersome. 74.192.84.101 ( talk) 03:23, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
After the reduction in level of pending changes protection on Bigg Boss 7, the pending changes protection is of no use because the page is already semi protected and new and unregistered users already can't edit it. Please see to it. Thanks. -- Param Mudgal ( talk) 09:10, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
No problem. Thanks.-- Param Mudgal ( talk) 12:59, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
It appears that you were right and I was wrong.-- Tznkai ( talk) 06:34, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
At this time, I'd like to send you a thank you that means a lot to me. Very early in my editing experience, you helped me with something ( [10]), and it made all the difference in me not walking away from Wikipedia. I mentioned this briefly in a discussion we had a while back, but I want to say it more formally now. It's been a long time, and I've waited until there would no longer be any question of making you have to recuse from anything, but I never forgot. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 00:29, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't know why .. but a couple folks on Wikipedia touched my heart. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas. Thank you for always being so kind to me. — Ched ZILLA 00:22, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
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The Barnstar of Integrity | |
Thank you for your service on the Arbitration Committee. Your comments and insight on the arbitration process itself (the good, the bad, and the ugly) are manifold and always of particular merit. The project has benefited from your efforts in ways uncountable. — ArtifexMayhem ( talk) 21:53, 22 December 2013 (UTC) |
@ ArtifexMayhem:, thank you very much for such high praise. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Risker ( talk) 06:56, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Merry Yuletides to you! (And a happy new year!)
~
TheGeneralUser
(talk) is wishing you a
Merry
Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes
WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a
Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!
Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{ subst:Xmas3}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Hi Risker, Wishing you a very Happy and Wonderful Merry Christmas! Hope you are having a great time with family and friends :-) Best wishes. ~ TheGeneralUser (talk) 23:02, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
get my email about an IP you unblocked? Dougweller ( talk) 17:14, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Posting here, because it's a bit of a tangential point, but your comment piqued my sense of "Wiki-history" and I hope you'll excuse this digression. The appointment I think you refer to was one of two. The other, Mackensen (who was a former Arb), as I recall served out the remainder of that term without much controversy. Also, I suppose it is worth remarking on James F's and Jayjg's respective appointments to ArbCom in mid-2005 to fill vacancies created by the resignations of Ambi and Grunt respectively (both of whom had been elected in the December 2004 election). Not only did James F and Jayjg finish their terms, they were elected by the community to new terms in the January 2006 elections. But that was a long time ago! Best, WJBscribe (talk) 10:29, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Archive July 2013 -
I think your closure of this thread may have been premature. If you read carefully the article published in The Harford Courant, it says that "investigative authorities" released Lanza's Wikipedia name (and other names such as gun message boards and gaming chat rooms) to the Courant reporters. The reporters than looked up this name on Wikipedia and reported what kind of edits he had made. The reporters did not release the username, however, probably because they have not seen the evidence for the username, and so they are maintaining it as purported, which is what good journalists do when going on reports from authorities. None the less, we can in fact verify in a reliable source that investigating authorities say that Lanza used Wikipedia to make certain kinds of edits on certain dates. I guess this is now a content issue whether to include that information in the article. However I agree since it's still purported from semi-anonymous sources it's not strong enough (yet) for any bureaucratic review of the username. Most likely though since authorities are already releasing this information to the press more details will be forthcoming. -- Green Cardamom ( talk) 15:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
It is likely that the authorities have found items of interest on Lanza's computer, although I'd be rather astonished if he hadn't wiped his browsing history a few times in the ensuing years; heck, it's done automatically by some browsers, and with others whenever they upgrade. I'm not discounting the possibility that those who are examining his behaviour have made various links, whether based on hard or soft evidence. However, those authorities have not released the information. I'm sure they will at some point. This isn't the point. Risker ( talk) 21:06, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm trying to figure out what the right approach is to Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee#You've got mail(ing list). What are your current thoughts about it? -- Tryptofish ( talk) 22:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker! Legoktm ( talk) 05:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
you have an email from me. — Ched : ? 20:36, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker, a personal note about your latest feedback - I have spent some time now just collecting and filing bugs for users, but did not actually sort them. Although I think everybody has the temptation to shout to devs "you'd better solve it quickly because that's _my bug_! It's the most important evah since _I_ filed it!" (at least, sometimes I do :p ), I do welcome your comment as a suggestion that reviewing priorities is something I should add to my tasks, the sooner the better, although the difference between "bugs for the software - bugs for the community" shall be very hard to understand; to me everything is being done for the community, although I see it might not look like it. Have a nice day. -- Elitre (WMF) ( talk) 13:27, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
I am alarmed to see "(G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/Chernobyl-packet.html)" in the deletion log for Chernobyl packet. The Jargon File has been an important source for Wikipedia since its beginnings, as you can see from Template:JargonFile; the copyright statement of the Jargon File says:
But you seem to have deleted this page, citing "unambiguous copyright infringement", because it was copied from the Jargon File. This was an error. Please undelete the page, and if this template was missing from it, please add it.
Kragen Javier Sitaker ( talk) 08:14, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
I saw your statement at the Arbcom case page re: INeverCry and for talking WMF into letting us opt out of VE - thank you. Yngvadottir ( talk) 13:16, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Dear Riscker,
I apologize for the inconvenience, but have no other way than appealing for administrators’ help recover a deleted article.
I published a film article entitled Drits (Derivas), a film by Portuguese director Ricardo Costa. It is the second film from an autobiographic trilogy, Faraways. The article was kept untouched by several months. To my surprise, it was recently eliminated and redirected to the director’s page with no discussion. I undid the redirection, but saw the article was proposed to deletion. Reason: independent, verifiable, secondary resources. I argued that the article couldn’t have but primary sources (the producer’s ones) as it is an upcoming film, like many others listed at upcoming films. A film that has not yet been premiered or distributed may not be commented. Besides, none of the films so listed has ever been deleted or even contested.
At last, in discussion, user User:reddogsix proposed that the article should be renamed to Drifts (film) or similar, and at the same time put at the disambiguation page of Dritf this reference «Drifs, unreleased film by Ricardo Costa (filmmaker). I created a new page for the same article entitled Drifts (Portuguese film). As the semantic root “drift” seemed to be the problem, I replaced the article name to Derivas (Drifts) and published it once more with some improvements. As a result, the article was fast deleted and I blocked for three days.
In the meantime, a new article about the trilogy was published: Faraways, which was proposed to fast deletion as well by the same user, User:reddogsix.
Although unreleased, although having no reliable secondary sources, Drifts is unquestionably an outstanding film for its uniqueness and characteristics: autobiography, comedy, docufiction, metafiction in one. I guess that “outstanding” may be a synonym for “notable” in such cases and that articles like this shouldn’t be deleted without previous cared analyses: important information may be lost.
This sequence of interventions is clearly a personal attack by User:reddogsix, supported by two or three user friend. It has no other explanation. It contributes in nothing to improve articles quality. Mists article, which I created on 10 September 2010, is the latest example. The article structure was unreasonably modified, loosing clarity and useful content.
NOTE: sent to 30 administrators.
Thanks for your attention, User:Tertulius 22:09, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi I'm Persian Wikipedia users. Complain I'm a bureaucracy and a user. They did not respect the rights of others., Please investigate this issue. I could tell you what is my problem? (Translated by Google Translate) ((Note: I'm sorry if I do not speak good English because my native language is Persian))-- Boyabed ( talk) 08:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
wish you would have had time to talk to me. I had bunches to to tell ya. All my best, — Ched : ? 03:28, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
I received a notice from Callanecc today that there was a proposed motion on an ARBCOM case that affected me. [2] Penwhale notified me of the case 16 July. [3] I did not reply because no comments were made about me. AGK, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs and Silk Tork have voted to ban me. Could you please explain why I am part of this case. TFD ( talk) 05:12, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
You mentioned last week how hard you had worked trying to get WMF to understand the nature of consensus when it came to Visual Editor. In about a week, we are going to need to do it again relative to Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Default State RFC. Do you think you will be ready and willing to explain just how rare it is to see that lopsided of a response in an RFC (and how vanishingly rare it is to see "Per Kww" used as an argument)?— Kww( talk) 20:56, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
No problem with the screenshot. Yes, I have my default interface language for Wikipedia set to Dutch. They really shouldn't be using that to decide what language you get notifications in.— Kww( talk) 01:19, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Mission 1 | Mission 2 | Mission 3 | Mission 4 | Mission 5 | Mission 6 | Mission 7 |
Say Hello to the World | An Invitation to Earth | Small Changes, Big Impact | The Neutral Point of View | The Veil of Verifiability | The Civility Code | Looking Good Together |
I am about to get on a flight heading to Hong Kong to attend Wikimania, and thus will have very limited availability while traveling, and reduced availability while participating, and doing the touristy things. Thus I will be inactive on any matters that I have not yet commented on, but will remain active on those I have commented on. Risker ( talk) 21:28, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Dusti *Let's talk!* 18:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Hello! Here is the location of the City Gallery which I recommended if you are interested in urban planning at all. The exhibits are a bit family-oriented but the documentary film on the upper floor is a good rundown of HK geography and urban history and a nice way to get some aircon if you're walking around Central anyway. The yum cha (dim sum) at the City Hall restaurant is also good, although more expensive than elsewhere. Quite nearby is the famous HSBC building with its lion statues pockmarked with shrapnel from when the Japanese invaded. Enjoy your visit! Citobun ( talk) 08:08, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Will you take a look at 2013080110008675 and then leave a note on that ticket with any thoughts on how to best approach this one. You appear to the be the one who issued the most recent block, so I'd like your insight into it. Please keep the discussion over there to protect privacy. Thanks! ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 04:08, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
Hi, while noticing the amount of questions that have been asked this year and thinking that I didn't have to answer such tough questions last year, I went back to the 2012 CUOS comment page, and was suprised to find Foxj not on it, but in the list of the appointed oversighter. I found this edit by you removing him as he apparently retired, while he was subsequently appointed regardless. Do you happen to remember if there was any public discussion of this? I of course understand if given the time since nothing springs to mind, and it's really not that important :) My main question is whether he should be re-added to that page given he must have later un-withdrawn, what do you think? Snowolf How can I help? 09:56, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
"I suggest you're working to try to find a way of finding out what a specific suppressed edit says, but trying to draw in the community under false pretenses."
I have, of course, been accused of bad faith before but this case is quite unusual in terms of how rebuttable your presumption is (although it's also quite remarkable that it's an ArbCom member that's making the assumption). Please take a look at the Talk page of the article the edit to which was suppressed. Do you see the link to the Daily Mail in the "This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations" section? Do you see the boxed sentence in the Wikipedia screenshot that appears in the Daily Mail article? Would the "specific suppressed edit" look anything like that? Note that it also appears word for word in Slate and la Repubblica (albeit in Italian in the latter case). Now it's nonetheless possible I didn't see these media articles, never mind that shortly before the suppression I was the guy who found and added the photo to the article such that it could be reasonably presumed that I was following article developments closely. But take a look at my comments on that Talk page and I think you will be compelled to concede that it is IMPOSSIBLE that I did not know what the "specific suppressed edit" said.
"... the suppressed edits contained libellous information ..."
Even if they did policy says there must also be "no editorial reason to keep the revision" and there happens to be a very good editorial reason here and that's that, as I told the oversighter at the time, "The specific oversighted material (Wikipedia edits) is already in the media.... The whole point of the oversight tool is to prevent Wikipedia from getting out ahead of reliably sourced material. Now that Wikipedia's behind, the fact that the tool is still being wielded shows that whoever is using it is using it more expansively than it was intended to be used." It was, in fact, another editor (not me) who first challenged the oversighter (after an ANI discussion was closed before many of us could participate), saying "The talk page describes why this edit history should be restored. I have referred the whole mess to the Arbitration Committee, since that's the only place to appeal this kind of administrator censorship." At the ANI discussion, another editor stated "there is hardly any pressing need to keep the edits hidden. Of course, we could rev-del them again, but given the fact that they have already attracted media curiosity, that would likely end up looking to the outside world more like an attempt to whitewash or cover up things than like a legitimate act of protecting the article subject." Another editor agreed, saying "Leave these edits publicly viewable and quit trying to convince the media that Wikipedia is part of the Soviet Union." Note also that it was an admin who first revealed the material to the rest of us in order "to preserve historical record" and added that "I strongly believe that we have a responsibility to be transparent about the article history." Another editor agreed, saying "preserving the historical record on [this] article... is valuable." Another editor stated "[the admin] cannot really be reproached for his actions" and yet another said "there's no abuse of tools by [the admin]". Jimbo Wales weighed in to say, "I certainly don't think [the admin] should be reproached... I do think it is a good case to examine philosophically in an effort to clarify and strengthen policy." The bottom line is the oversight action here was contrary to the community consensus and we don't know how often the community is being defied because the community is being kept in the dark.
"... you're being brutally unfair to people from the WMF or the Board (or even by throwing around my name without talking to me directly) when you expect them to give an informed opinion without any background on the specific situation."
May I remind you of what I said before you wrote this: "my current interest is in not reviewing a particular historical action..."? With respect to the WMF and the Board, I wanted to find out if the claim that "oversight matters... are subject to the WMF privacy policy and nothing else" was true or not. Answering the question does not require "background on the specific situation" beyond making it clear that the privacy of a Wikipedian is not at issue because it is a general question. With respect to you, I reckoned you could jump in, should you so choose, and verify the accuracy of my recollection of the oral exchange at Wikimania without endorsing my conclusion that "The bottom line here is that there may be a WMF oversight policy that applies, but that's not the same thing as the WMF privacy policy." I might add that the oversighter here stated at the time and in the context of the "specific situation" that "The other oversighters and the Arbitration Committee are all aware of the situation." Are you now saying that the oversighter was incorrect here as you, as a member of ArbCom, were not, in fact, made "aware of the situation" at that time?-- Brian Dell ( talk) 19:19, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm truly shocked that you'd think the news media repeating unsourced gossip has anything to do with the appropriateness of any edits on English Wikipedia. Seriously, Brian, if that original edit had not been on Wikipedia, we would never have allowed mention of that article on this project. We sure has heck wouldn't have a fancy banner on the talk page of the article pointing the world to it. Actually, why *do* we have a banner on the talk page of the article? What kind of self-aggrandisement is that? Why are we using article space to brag about having vandalism edits on our project publicized in the international media? Our sense of self-importance overrides any kind of common sense.
The people who review concerns about oversighters on this project are the Audit Subcommittee, a six-member panel made up of 3 community members and 3 arbitrators. You've been pointed to them on several occasions. You have not taken your concern to them. I do not understand why you would take your concern to the WMF board of trustees before talking to the AUSC. It's kind of cart-before-horse to go to the Board before even discussing this in any kind of English Wikipedia forum or gathering facts (and properly sourcing them - I had to go hunting for the quotation you put in your most recent statement, would adding a link really kill you if you're making direct quotes?).
I think your idea that "non-anonymous professional lawyers" taking over suppression has about zero chance of succeeding. I have no idea why you're referring to WP:OFFICE actions when absolutely nothing involved in this situation was done under WP:OFFICE, which operates under a different principle. Sure you got a straight answer from them, but it's kind of like pointing out that my vegetarian neighbour hasn't eaten meat this week when we're talking about how to best roast a chicken: not relevant to the discussion at hand. What I don't understand is why in heaven's name it has taken almost three weeks, multiple discussions, and a whole pile of casting of aspersions, to finally get down to what you really want, which is having WMF staff lawyers take over suppression of edits that don't directly relate to the privacy of editors. I had no idea this is what you were after.
So, you know what the edit says, and I'm deeply saddened that you cannot see the difference between the information that is very well sourced in the article, and the content of the edit you seem to believe should be suppressed. I'm at least equally concerned that the undeleting administrator seems to also not see the difference, and has illustrated such a poor understanding of WP:BLP. That's actually quite sad. 15:12, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
It is, in fact, out of respect for your view that there is a pressing need for secrecy that I have declined to provided links or diffs. I didn't link to the leaker's statement as it was hidden by @Rschen7754 (contrary to the clear instructions on the hiding template that it "should never be used to end a discussion over the objections of other editors, except in cases of unambiguous disruptive editing") with instructions to "Back away." And's it's partially out of a good faith assumption that Beeblebrox was telling the truth when he claimed that "The other oversighters and the Arbitration Committee are all aware of the situation," that I have not bothered to try and draw the attention of any ArbCom Subcommittee to this particular case. My concern, as I've said repeatedly, is in fact broader. Since the so-called "community members" on AUSC are not, in fact, elected by the community but are admins appointed by ArbCom I cannot stand for election as a community member on my transparency platform but if you think there is a chance I might be appointed by ArbCom I would endeavour to satisfy the prerequisite of becoming an admin.
Hi Risker, SlimVirgin has asked me if I would revert an inappropriate edit through protection on Chelsea Manning. Would you mind if I did so? (I saw your warning on the talk page yesterday.) Mark Arsten ( talk) 17:27, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
Hi. Admins are still editing this page. I have no idea if they are doing it via "edit requests", but I find it somewhat unfair that simple requests like fixing a misspelling are falling on deaf ears while others are making pronoun changes, which seems to be part of the reason this article is locked down in the first place. Am I missing something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Two kinds of pork ( talk • contribs) 22:04, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Hello. There is currently a discussion at
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. —
ΛΧΣ
21 17:59, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
For the record, I have no intention or desire, after five years of being treated like something to be scraped off the bottom of one's shoes, to run for Arbcom again. I won't say anything more for fear of dissuading qualified candidates from running. But this sure as heck wasn't done because I wear an arbcom hat. Risker ( talk) 22:10, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
I see that you are not in disagreement with me on the unblock - whew, glad of that. I was typing up a post and had an ( edit conflict) with you. Hopefully I've explained my unblock to everyone's satisfaction; although I have no comment on the "wiki" situation regarding "Manning" as I have not been following it. — Ched : ? 18:33, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
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The Admin's Barnstar |
You and I are on the same page when it comes to admins responsibilities on fully protected articles. Even though the blocks were reverted, your actions have at least brought this long standing admin abuse problem to the discussion board. Good job. JOJ Hutton 02:22, 24 August 2013 (UTC) |
Thank you very much, JOJ. Risker ( talk) 05:40, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
I think you're a real asset to the project, and I'm disappointed to hear you're considering not running for the stocks next time. Thanks for everything you do here. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk · contribs · email) 18:09, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Otherwise, there are a lot of other things to do on this project, and working at the cross-project level. I'm thinking about suggesting a few projects and discussions to the community (including intersecting communities where applicable), but I'll wait until I have time to do it right. And of course, I'm looking forward to making more content contributions. Risker ( talk) 19:26, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Special notifications to you too as most recent proposing/enacting editor of a block for the user. I don't have time for thorough research of all evidence of his misdeeds so it seems appropriate for the people in the know to add useful summaries/evidence/context as felt appropriate (for instance, I'm unable to locate the most recent official statement by ArbCom on why he is indef-blocked). -- Nemo 10:22, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
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The Purple Barnstar | |
"The Purple Barnstar is awarded to those who have endured undue hardship (e.g., incessant harassment) on Wikipedia but still remain resolute in their commitment to the project and its ideals." Yeah, that sounds like you right about now... Beeblebrox ( talk) 06:09, 27 August 2013 (UTC) |
Hi. I remember you weighed in on something like this earlier, especially the "empathy" question. Perhaps it might interest you. Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Why is it so horrible to nominate for deletion on Wikipedia, when it's so easy on Commons? Bishonen | talk 21:12, 29 August 2013 (UTC).
[4] The nominator has erroneously failed to ping you about doing so - David Gerard ( talk) 17:48, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
I think David means here. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk · contribs · email) 19:09, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
Hey Risker. I'm contacting you because you're involved in the Article Feedback Tool in some way, either as a previous newsletter recipient or as an active user of the system. As you might have heard, a user recently anonymously disabled the feedback tool on 2,000 pages. We were unable to track or prevent this due to the lack of logging feature in AFT5. We're deeply sorry for this, as we know that quite a few users found the software very useful, and were using it on their articles.
We've now re-released the software, with the addition of a logging feature and restrictions on the ability to disable. Obviously, we're not going to automatically re-enable it on each article—we don't want to create a situation where it was enabled by users who have now moved on, and feedback would sit there unattended—but if you're interested in enabling it for your articles, it's pretty simple to do. Just go to the article you want to enable it on, click the "request feedback" link in the toolbox in the sidebar, and AFT5 will be enabled for that article.
Again, we're very sorry about this issue; hopefully it'll be smooth sailing after this :). If you have any questions, just drop them at the talkpage. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) 22:00, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker. Can I ask your opinion on something? I think English Wikipedia is defying the Foundation's BLP resolution at Bradley Manning. It tells us to take human dignity into account when editing but calling Manning "Bradley" is a gratuitous insult, an assault on Manning's dignity.
Is this something I should draw to the attention of the ED or the WMF Board? (The board doesn't have an ethics sub-committee does it?) -- Anthonyhcole ( talk · contribs · email) 14:33, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
I am concerned about the way that WP is being issued by some editors as a place to launch low level attacks on organisations. Examples of what I mean can be found at BP, where despite two RfCs there is still excessive negative information about the DWH oil spill and March against Monsanto, where the article is being used to promote the anti-Monsanto cause of the marchers. This has even spilled over to to Polyethoxylated tallow amine where a page on an unremarkable surfactant reads as if the substance is a serious poison, principally because it is an ingredient of Monsanto's 'Roundup' herbicide.
I have seen other cases WP pages have been used as coatracks for negative information about smaller organisations too.
I have no connection whatsoever with any of the organisations and appreciate that many may consider some of their actions deplorable. It may even be true that some sort of campaign against them is desirable but WP is not the place to launch it from. It will be seriously damaging to the credibility of WP if it is perceived to have an anti-establishment or environmentalist (or the reverse) slant.
I am not looking for any drastic action, just your thoughts on the problem, if you see it as one. Martin Hogbin ( talk) 12:50, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
I never commented on this issue; it seems you had little to say as well. I am glad that you still enterAed the forum and made a comment as an observer over the conduct of the discussion about the issue. I know you similarly observe other discussions and I appreciate your presence in such talks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:48, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment at
L'Origine's Talk Page regarding the role of ARBCOM in considering unblocking an Editor who has received a "community block" because of an Admin's perception of community consensus. It was stated further by Beeblebrox that:
""blocks imposed as the result of a community discussion are usually reviewed the same way"
but NE Ent told L'Origine
"You've completed the necessary steps for the appeal. Now ... you wait. You have an active unblock request which is listed at Category:Requests_for_unblock -- at some point another admin will review the situation; they could decline the unblock, accept the unblock, or ask you follow up questions."
And that's what happened, AGK reviewed the appeal and declined it. There was no community discussion.
So, here's where I'm confused. Bonkers the Clown had a similar case brought up at AN/I on the same day, people asking for his head on a stick and he, like L'Origine, received an indefinite block. But on
Beeblebrox' Talk Page, Monty845 said,
"The blocking admin of Bonkers, when asked, indicated the block was on that admin's own authority, and that it was not an implementation of consensus from the block discussion. Even if it had been a consensus block, the later decision to unblock can be a separate question, looking at the post block actions of the blocked editor. Only if the block is overturned as invalid or wrong would the overturn risk being against the block consensus."
So, how does one tell when an Admin blocks on his/her "own authority" (so he can unblock) or when an Admin blocks based on their perception of "community consensus"? I find this idea of a "community block" and the process by which one becomes unblocked confusing. I mean, if Beeblebrox was right and the correct forum was to have another community discussion about unblocking on AN/I, how would a blocked Editor even participate in the discussion and address concerns people had? Any way, that's not what happened but it's clearly what some people believe is the proper way to get unblocked from a "community block".
What's mystifying to me is that Editors get blocked and unblocked every day on Wikipedia for a variety of reasons. How can so much contradiction exist on this one question? Thanks for hearing me out, I hope you get a moment to clarify the situation for me.
Liz
Read!
Talk! 23:42, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
P.S. I purposely didn't link names because the three other versions of this conversation (which led me to the point I'm at right now) had a lot of participation from Editors and Admins and I'd prefer to receive an answer from you rather than hear even more different opinions on how the process works (or is supposed to work). L
Hi, is there any progress on this? -- A Certain White Cat chi? 20:46, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
You seem like an accomplished Wikipedian. Can you tell these idiots here ( http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Jung_Chang&action=history) that they are wrong, and explain basic POV balance and BLP? 69.171.160.59 ( talk) 05:29, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Just an FYI - the latest letter from Chelsea indicates she would prefer not to be referred to by her rank.--v/r - T P 16:43, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
Hello,
Risker,
I was just reading the conversation you were having over at
Tryptofish's Talk Page and I realized something. Everything I've learned about Wikipedia's true history has come from Editor allusions to some past conflict or incident and then doing a search by username or topic on Noticeboard or Signpost archives to see what the issue was. The "history" of Wikipedia isn't on the article page but in the memories of the most long-standing Editors. In that sense, it is biased as it is all colored by an individual's point of view but that can be balanced by including many perspectives. And, unfortunately, it is also ephemeral as every time an Editor leaves WP, they take their knowledge with them.
So, reading your comment about discovering that the carpets in ARBCOM HQ were hiding rotting floor boards made me wonder if there was much documentation of ARBCOM's development and evolution, what reforms have been attempted in the past, what the pitfalls are, mistakes that were made and should be avoided in the future, you know, self-reflection on the role of ARBCOM by those who are the heart of it. In terms of a historical record, there are case proceedings but I imagine that this is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. I hope new Arbitrators have access to email archives but I'm not sure how much time an Arbitrator would ever spend diving into those (or how organized they even are).
I just think that there must be a sharp learning curve for every new Arbitrator, each of whom comes into office with ideas of how the system can be improved. It would be useful if there was a document similar to
Wikipedia:Perennial proposals that was written by outgoing Arbitrators during their last year, to preserve some of the knowledge gained through the experience. I guess I'm suggesting something like an exit interview where Arbitrators could also suggest changes they'd recommend and projects they wished they had had time to pursue.
While I imagine some documents like these would remain private to the ARBCOM community, I think they'd be invaluable if they were posted on-wiki. I think there is resentment that exists against ARBCOM by some Editors because it is opaque, people don't see the work that is involved, they only see the outcome. Maybe Arbitrator X had some radical idea to reform the request process, it was debated by ARBCOM and rejected as unfeasible. But no one off the mailing list would know this. We only see rulings, we don't see the hard work you all do.
Maybe this exists in some form already which leaves me with a severe case of "foot in mouth" disease. But if not, I hope you and Arbitrators might consider leaving some information behind besides how you voted on cases (and
Arbitration Committee (English Wikipedia) is a completely inadequate record). Of course, I'm not talking about divulging any private conversations or information, just making the work that I know goes on behind closed doors more evident to the larger community.
Thanks, I hope this hasn't been too long-winded and I was able to communicate my idea to you. Your experience, and that of other Arbitrators, is invaluable to Wikipedia. I think that there are times when people want to reinvent the wheel and they don't realize what has been attempted in the past. Sharing what has been tried, what you've learned over the past few years, could be the most substantial legacy you could leave (frustrations and all!). Cheers!
Liz
Read!
Talk! 20:05, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
It would be good if arbitrators were encouraged to write a brief history of their view of the committee's work during their term. The reason it hasn't been done more often is probably because it may re-ignite any number of old disputes... BTW, the rotting floorboards quote is here (more for myself than anything else, as I took ages to find that). And I just noticed that Liz suggested exit interviews for arbitrators. That rung a bell, and I suggested this back in 2009. I should have suggested it on-wiki as well - it is possible it has been suggested on-wiki before in some form - most things have, but the suggestions get lost.
On a side note, I agree absolutely with what Liz says about about how different individuals have different perspectives on things because they tend to see different parts of something such as a dispute, rather than the whole. Part of the problem is because the wiki editing history seems to do a great job of retaining and recording the history of what happened, but unless someone pulls it together into a coherent narrative, it is often very difficult to make sense of what happened, as well as the conflicting accounts of what people claim happened. Carcharoth ( talk) 01:07, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Hey - I thought I'd continue a line of discussion from Wikipedia talk:No paid advocacy here on your talk page, if that's OK with you. There's a lot of noise on the other talkpage, and I'm interested in exploring our difference of opinions on the subject in a quieter environment (my talkpage would be fine too, if you'd prefer).
First of all, I agree with you entirely about our excessively low notability threshold, which is the root of many problems on Wikipedia (including the problem of maintaining low-profile BLPs against promotional/revenge editing and the problem of writing seriously about obscure fringe theories). As I'm sure you've noticed, notability is usually treated in a rote checklist fashion ("Subject is notable because he was mentioned twice in the New York Times and quoted once in Newsweek"). Ideally, we'd treat notability criteria as a means to an end. The real question is: are there sufficient independent, reliable sources to write a neutral encyclopedia article on this subject? But virtually no one approaches notability/AfD discussions with that mindset. After all, once we've !voted "keep", we don't have to actually take responsibility for writing and maintaining the article in question.
So I think we agree that tighter notability standards would help immensely. I've worked in that direction in a modest way over the years, but it will be a hard slog at best. Well-defined factions have sprung up around the question ("inclusionists" vs. "deletionists"), which doesn't augur well for a thoughtful and rational resolution. And for whatever reason, the question seems to draw some of our most ideologically zealous editors. When I started participating in AfD's, WP:PROF was interpreted to mean that anyone who achieved the faculty rank of full professor at a college or university was automatically notable. That is, of course, insane, since the vast majority of full professors lack suitable sources for anything resembling an encyclopedic biography. But these articles would routinely be "kept" at AfD. In a best-case scenario, they were basically cut-and-dried rehashes of the professor's c.v. In worse cases, they were vehicles to promote or disparage the article subjects and suffered from the usual woes of low-profile BLPs. It took years for people to come around to the idea of better notability standards, and I'm not sure we're there yet although things are better than they were.
I also agree that we need to get our own house in order in terms of dealing more effectively with agenda-driven and COI editing, and I've beaten the drum in that regard where I've seen issues (albeit with little visible effect). Believe me, I know firsthand what a shitty job Wikipedia does in dealing with these things - at this point, I've probably spent more time in the trenches editing controversial articles and navigated more content disputes than anyone on the project. But I don't agree that we need to table the question of paid editing until we've definitively resolved all of our internal issues. I think we can make a strong statement of our principles on paid editing and continue to work toward a more effective way of handling tendentious/agenda-driven editing.
Sorry for the rant. I'd like to explore the examples you raised of psychologists under the Canadian system and researchers looking to improve their visibility on Google Scholar, but I should probably take a breath and stop there. MastCell Talk 19:30, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
One of my most significant concerns here is that the proposals (pretty much all of them) are written in such a way as to provide a tool to people who are advocating or otherwise pushing a point of view (even if it is just WP:OWN) for reasons other than financial gain to attack editors by implying and insisting the opponents are editing with a (financial) COI; it's been happening for years ("you wouldn't remove that if you weren't an agent for Article Subject" is a common refrain, as we all know). These proposals would put editors challenging status quo on the defensive, forcing them to "prove" they *aren't* in conflict - and again outing themselves in the process. Wikipedia has to be about the content, not about who writes which sentence of fixes which typo, and any effort to personalize editing to the extent that these proposals do is fundamentally anti-wiki. Risker ( talk) 00:38, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Maybe I should have looked at the talk page first. The article itself has a lot of material copied from other articles and I've deleted the article as a copyright violation. It's also at AfC and in the user's sandbox. Not sure where to go from here but I don't think we can allow this. What do you think? Dougweller ( talk) 05:44, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
While I appreciate you trying to redirect these articles, there is actually consensus against redirecting player articles - especially active players - to their parent clubs. Giant Snowman 08:33, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
User:Awindell/Blackstone Media
Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013
by The Interior ( talk · contribs), Ocaasi ( talk · contribs)
Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...
New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian
Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.
New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??
New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges
News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY
Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions
New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration
Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. -- The Interior 20:18, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Sorry you weren't able to attend all of it! James had asked you a question for context before he could actually answer to yours: he said Which "edit tools" were you thinking of, specifically? If you want to follow-up, we'll be glad to satisfy your curiosity :) -- Elitre (WMF) ( talk) 17:54, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
As one of six sitting arbitrators whose terms are expiring, have you decided whether you will be running for re-election? 50.45.158.239 ( talk) 05:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Related to a particularly nasty article that has become a battleground in a real-life dispute, an editor said at the bottom of this page that a company representative was posting personally identifiable information about other Wikipedia editors and attacking them on his website. This is consistent with allegations of similar behavior by this company on Reddit and online, where the company threatened to sue customers that spoke negatively of them and allegedly used sockpuppets to insult critics, etc. according to the media.
Anyways, it was mentioned as something that may require Arb Com attention, since there is currently an unblock request and they are trying to figure out how to do that if the account-holder is allegedly harassing other involved editors off-wiki. Similar harassment and outing behavior on-wiki is the reason for the block. Thought you might be able to point things in the right direction. CorporateM ( Talk) 01:37, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Many thanks, I'll try and send something through today or tomorrow. Giant Snowman 10:43, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
Risker- I apologize for the handling of the two PRODs. I thought that I had put reasons when I did it, but in fact I had put them in the edit summary instead. I must say that it was a bit frustrating to see the PRODs removed over a technicality when the reasons were recorded (though not in the template certainly). That felt a bit like unnecessary beuracracy. Going through an AfD seemed a bit silly to me since the articles had been tagged for over the required 7 days and the creators were notified when it was done (they could have removed the notices). But in the future I will make sure that I follow all of the steps. Rikster2 ( talk) 16:40, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Just read your advice at
User:Risker/Thoughts for Arbitration Committee Candidates and it is quite daunting. I don't know how someone could be an arbitrator, have a job and a family. And it takes an awfully thick skin, it seems.
No urgent questions, I just appreciate your article. Thanks for taking the time to put your thoughts down.
Liz
Read!
Talk! 23:56, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi. In your FAQ for ArbCom candidates, you say that "Checkuser and Oversight permissions are not dependent on administrator permissions; thus, this is not a direct bar for non-administrators to become arbitrators." But in light of the Foundation's March 2013 statement insisting that access to deleted revisions requires passing an RfA or RfA-identical process, I'm not sure I see any way that a non-admin could qualify to be an arb. This doesn't appear to be a problem right now (we did have one non-arb throw his hat in the ring this time, but he withdrew very soon thereafter), but it certainly could be a future problem, so perhaps your FAQ needs to be tweaked accordingly. Your thoughts on this? — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:21, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker, please see the below statement, in response to the question you left on my talk page.
"The Wikimedia Foundation has been asked to clarify and/or expand on a previous decision of the legal team, specifically that the Foundation would not allow users to have Checkuser or Oversight rights added to the user account of a user who had not passed a request for adminship or an equally rigorous community selection process.
Our legal and community advocacy team has been asked whether running for (and winning) a seat on the Arbitration Committee would meet the "rigorous community selection process" test, and therefore qualify an elected ArbCom member for Checkuser/Oversight rights. We believe that being elected to ArbCom is an involved process that strongly demonstrates community trust, and that there is a reasonable expectation that Arbitration Committee members on the English Wikipedia's Arbcom will hold those tools, except in exceptional circumstances. Therefore, we will not object to the assignment of checkuser/oversight tools to any user who runs for, wins, and is seated on the Arbitration Committee.
Respectfully,
Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy"
I hope this resolves the question to your satisfaction. I am posting a courtesy copy to the election's page, and to the Arbcom via mailing list. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation ( talk) 23:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
I want to type your real name, because I feel that I know you as a person - but I do know better than that. I am so sorry that the things I've posted have been discouraging to you. I think the world of you - even when I don't agree, I do respect you - and yes - care about you. I know you have so so much to deal with. I wish I could help. I really do wish I could see your name at wp:ace2013 - and feel a touch of guilt that people like me have driven the good folk like you from doing what is needed.
I have grown cynical, and for the best part of the last year my posts have been detrimental in a large degree. I see what is wrong, and instead of continuing a "good fight", I've only lamented about what is wrong. It is easier to say "this is wrong" than to try to fix things, and I've taken the easy way out.
I do try to walk away when I get angry, and I often don't do what I should. I am sorry. You are a wonderful person that is fair and honest. The day that Arbcom does not include you will be a dark day indeed I fear. I can't promise to be what I should be, but I can honestly say that you do indeed have a piece of my heart ****. Wikipedia is a wonderful project, but ... NO - I won't go into the "but".
I can't promise to change, I'm too old and too tired to even try.
I just couldn't disappear without letting you know how much I thought of you.
Ched
— Ched ZILLA 11:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
It's important for those of us who've spent a fair amount of time in the darker side of the project to keep in touch with its wonders and its joys, to remember why we came here in the first place, to be able to take pleasure in what so often becomes a major part of our lives. The other day, as part of my staged preparations for being back in the "real Wikipedia world", I did nothing related to Arbcom, and went back to my roots. I copy-edited an article, did some speedy deletions, did some poking around other content — and had the most fun I've had on Wikipedia in years. It did serve to remind me that the little corner of Wikipedia that is the drama boards and Arbcom is *not* what Wikipedia is all about; yes, a lot of these tasks are necessary, and it takes the right mix of people to get things right most of the time. But they can't be the same people all the time. We can't develop new leaders if those of us who've worked in this area won't move on. I've been worried for a while that Arbcom was being selected from too small a subset of the already-shrinking group of administrators; it's only since 2009 that incumbents have regularly been re-elected. There are more things that I want to do on this project, and other areas where I think I can contribute both here and globally. We'll see where things take me.
You know that I wish only the very best for you, Ched, and that you're one of the Wikipedians I'm really glad to have met. You've had an impact here, and I'm sure you'll have an impact wherever the winds may blow. Take care, and don't be afraid to pop by and say hello when you're in the neighbourhood. :-) Risker ( talk) 13:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Template_talk:Bullying#RfC:_Template_links.
Lord Sjones23 (
talk -
contributions) 05:41, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Mind if you help at WP:AIV right now? It's truck loads of reports! ///EuroCar GT 05:30, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
I have just restored Manuela Gandarillas. I assume your deletion was an error as G13 is not applicable to pages in mainspace. My fault for not cleaning up the AFC templates fast enough after moving it. Spinning Spark 15:18, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Hey there. Last night I was doing some new page patrol and CSD tagging some broken redirects. This morning you deleted a lot of what I'd tagged. I'd tagged Manley mutt as a hoax, but you deleted it as A10. Could you point out the existing topic? I try to do a WP:BEFORE when I tag possible hoaxes, and I saw nothing in online sources, including WP, which justified the subject's inclusion. Thanks again for following up on my tagging spree. BusterD ( talk) 15:58, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Giant Snowman 20:26, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Response sent, thanks GiantSnowman. Risker ( talk) 20:42, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi. I'm trying to understand the WMF. And failing, really. In a comment presently on Iridescent's talk page you said, "The events of this summer, with the VisualEditor and the very deliberate decision to sabotage any chance of successful implementation of that software should tell you that the WMF is in no way capable of understanding this project." Would you be willing to explain to me who made the very deliberate decision to sabotage there? Do you mean the en. community or WMF? Feel free to ignore this. Email's good, if you prefer. Cheers. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk · contribs · email) 15:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Per m:SN#Stewards_needed_for_the_enwp_ArbCom_elections, the scrutineers this year are User:Mathonius, User:Vituzzu, User:Matanya, and User:Tegel. In the past they have been granted CU locally for the duration of the elections; should they be this year as well? -- Rs chen 7754 02:35, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi, I saw you deleted the page. I don't understand what does the page have to do with the link you provided
http://www.cacttus.com/Portals/0/Case%20studies/Software%20development.pdf.
The link is some kind of software, while the article is about government agency. Probably the pdf has info from the Agency website as well, but I don't see any copyright issues with it. I never referred to that page you provided.
Regards
Mondiad (
talk) 15:38, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi t | c 14:59, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Oh, bravo. Shudder. Laugh. Georgewilliamherbert ( talk) 06:01, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
[6] may be of interest to you. -- Rs chen 7754 21:31, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
I've emailed you on a Signpost matter. Tony (talk) 06:38, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi, I just logged in an incident on ANI. Check this [7]. I feel that the action by the admin in discussion was harsh, sudden and one sided. Whilst I wait for the discussion on ANI to progress, I am placing a request to you if you can review this independently and give me your feedback. Cheers AKS
Thank you for your thoughts as a parting arb who will be missed: "The Arbitration Committee's purpose is to look out for the best interests of Wikipedia". You were not involved in the socalled Infoboxes case. Andy wrote an article on a nature reserve. He is restricted from adding any infobox, I am restricted from adding one to articles not my own. I believe that Wikipedia would be served better with an infobox, like similar articles, but it would take courage, -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 08:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Could you restore Land reform in Zambia? I want to contest deletion.-- TM 11:36, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Did you get email from me over the last week? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
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The Tireless Contributor Barnstar |
I'd just like to thank you for your service on ArbCom. I know it's been a pain in the behind most of the time, and while I don't always agree with your stances on issues, I appreciate the service. Enjoy your break. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC) |
Noting that I have responded (belatedly!) to each of you on your talk pages. Thank you very much for your kind words. Risker ( talk) 04:25, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker. Please pardon me, but I am working on the next iteration of a COI policy and am trying to take into account the views of strong opposers to earlier, failed versions. I wondered if you would answer some questions to help with that. Several times in your responses to the failed No Paid Advocacy policy proposal, you said things like "We refuse to deal with non-financial COI and advocacy amongst our own editorship while whining endlessly that Company XX has come here and had the nerve to suggest we've got something wrong." as in this dif and earlier difs like this and especially this. You also noted that you think more stringent notability standards would be a useful check to advocacy. I am willing to make the next draft focus more broadly on advocacy, while also dealing with paid advocacy. Four questions, now:
Thank you for your time! 66.108.38.156 ( talk) 12:00, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
![]() |
The Barnstar of Diplomacy |
For your success in changing a few others editors' opinion in a contentious BLP debate. Someone not using his real name ( talk) 17:27, 28 November 2013 (UTC) |
There is a serious backlog of about 20K individual IPs that are blocked without expiration. I have broken the IPs into groups of 5000: m:User:とある白い猫/English Wikipedia open proxy candidates. So they are effectively blocked until time ends. This creates considerable potential collateral damage as the owners of IPs tend to be not very consistent. Some of these IPs are on dynamic ranges which results in arbitrary blocks of good users. Vast majority of the blocks go back years all the way to 2004 - some were preemptively blocked. Nowadays even open proxies normally do not get indefinite blocks.
The problem is that no single admin wants to review this many IPs and very few have the technical capability to review. Such a technical review would be non-trivial for individual IPs which in my humble opinion would be a complete waste of time. I feel ArbCom could step in and provide criteria for bulk action. A bulk unblock of all indefinite blocks (with exceptions if the specific single IP unblocks are contested) before - say - 2010 would be a good start.
Open proxies tend to be better handled at meta as open proxies are a global problem for all wikis.
-- A Certain White Cat chi? 11:31, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
You know the issue of indef blocked IPs is not a personal issue for me. I am not affected by them. This may not have been your intention but you implied to this end. I do not need to be 'satisfied'. I just wish the issue to be properly handled rather than being ignored. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 06:10, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi Risker. I see now that you aren't a candidate for the current arbcom elections... In my mind you are the arbcom here. I expect that will be strange, for you and for us, with not you having in the committee. I guess you needed a break after so many years. Take care and hopefully you won't disappear completely from WP. ;) With regards, Trijnstel talk 23:41, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
On 8 December 2013 you deleted Category:Woman janitors. There was no discussion about this deletion at wp:CFD (I believe?). When you have a minute I would appreciate finding out why this category disappeared so quickly.
Since you offered, I would appreciate a response on my talkpge, since I do not follow your talkpage regularly. Thanks in advance, X Ottawahitech ( talk) 15:33, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
Recently, your graphics on your user page, File:Complexity Map.svg, reminded me of the discussion on "systemic bias" on the "Wikipedia" Page. Are you aware of any attempt to draw the "complexity map" for Wikipedia in either its current form or its historical form. Such a graph would make a useful addition to the section on systemic bias on the "Wikipedia" Page if you have ever seen such a graph or illustration. BillMoyers ( talk) 14:05, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
Hello Risker, you are listed as draft-arb, and Callanecc kinda-sorta suggested I contact you. Summing up:
I don't think Callanecc nor Hasteur were acting in bad faith.
But I *do* want the arbs to read my statement, [9] and not miss it because it was moved.
Callanecc said that arbs "should" see it on the evidence-talkpage. Is that correct?
That is all I really am after here; I don't care if it is moved again, or not, as long as it is not missed lost the hustle-n-bustle.
Thanks for improving wikipedia, sorry to be bothersome. 74.192.84.101 ( talk) 03:23, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
After the reduction in level of pending changes protection on Bigg Boss 7, the pending changes protection is of no use because the page is already semi protected and new and unregistered users already can't edit it. Please see to it. Thanks. -- Param Mudgal ( talk) 09:10, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
No problem. Thanks.-- Param Mudgal ( talk) 12:59, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
It appears that you were right and I was wrong.-- Tznkai ( talk) 06:34, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
At this time, I'd like to send you a thank you that means a lot to me. Very early in my editing experience, you helped me with something ( [10]), and it made all the difference in me not walking away from Wikipedia. I mentioned this briefly in a discussion we had a while back, but I want to say it more formally now. It's been a long time, and I've waited until there would no longer be any question of making you have to recuse from anything, but I never forgot. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 00:29, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't know why .. but a couple folks on Wikipedia touched my heart. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas. Thank you for always being so kind to me. — Ched ZILLA 00:22, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
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The Barnstar of Integrity | |
Thank you for your service on the Arbitration Committee. Your comments and insight on the arbitration process itself (the good, the bad, and the ugly) are manifold and always of particular merit. The project has benefited from your efforts in ways uncountable. — ArtifexMayhem ( talk) 21:53, 22 December 2013 (UTC) |
@ ArtifexMayhem:, thank you very much for such high praise. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Risker ( talk) 06:56, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Merry Yuletides to you! (And a happy new year!)
~
TheGeneralUser
(talk) is wishing you a
Merry
Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes
WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a
Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!
Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{ subst:Xmas3}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Hi Risker, Wishing you a very Happy and Wonderful Merry Christmas! Hope you are having a great time with family and friends :-) Best wishes. ~ TheGeneralUser (talk) 23:02, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
get my email about an IP you unblocked? Dougweller ( talk) 17:14, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Posting here, because it's a bit of a tangential point, but your comment piqued my sense of "Wiki-history" and I hope you'll excuse this digression. The appointment I think you refer to was one of two. The other, Mackensen (who was a former Arb), as I recall served out the remainder of that term without much controversy. Also, I suppose it is worth remarking on James F's and Jayjg's respective appointments to ArbCom in mid-2005 to fill vacancies created by the resignations of Ambi and Grunt respectively (both of whom had been elected in the December 2004 election). Not only did James F and Jayjg finish their terms, they were elected by the community to new terms in the January 2006 elections. But that was a long time ago! Best, WJBscribe (talk) 10:29, 31 December 2013 (UTC)