Gracenotes's edit stats using "wannabe Kate" tool as of 20:32, 22 May 2007 (UTC):
Category talk: 6 Category: 20 Help: 1 Image talk: 1 Image: 29 Mainspace 5523 MediaWiki talk: 112 Portal talk: 1 Portal: 4 Talk: 340 Template talk: 96 Template: 782 User talk: 2122 User: 752 Wikipedia talk: 237 Wikipedia: 1482 avg edits per page 1.54 earliest 00:47, 16 November 2005 number of unique pages 7489 total 11508 2005/11 5 2005/12 6 2006/1 1 2006/2 23 2006/3 14 2006/4 3 2006/5 0 2006/6 3 2006/7 2 2006/8 0 2006/9 10 2006/10 90 2006/11 504 2006/12 294 2007/1 721 2007/2 2479 2007/3 1467 2007/4 1646 2007/5 4240 (green denotes edits with an edit summary (even an automatic one), red denotes edits without an edit summary) Mainspace 68 2007 Fort Dix attack plot 42 February 2007 North America winter storm 39 Execution of Saddam Hussein 20 Anna Nicole Smith 16 2006 Madrid Barajas International Airport bombing 13 Iain Lee 12 Japan 11 Grace Notes 9 George Washington (inventor) 8 Gray Wolf 7 1994 San Marino Grand Prix 7 Nonaqueous titration 7 Coca tea 7 Spider-Man 3 7 Zaireeka Talk: 58 Main Page 34 AACS encryption key controversy 22 February 2007 North America winter storm 20 Execution of Saddam Hussein 19 %s 16 2007 Fort Dix attack plot 11 Criticism of Wikipedia 9 History of the board game Monopoly 7 HD DVD 6 History of victory disease 5 Newton 4 Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy 4 Tiberium 4 Flat Earth 3 Main Page/archivelist/row Category talk: 4 Articles with incorrect school infobox format Category: 3 British laws 3 Articles with incorrect school infobox format 2 Redirects from warning template 2 All pages needing to be wikified Image: 5 Gracenotes dancing.png 4 Screenshot-wpPicmark.jpg 2 En-Hydrogen (part 1).ogg MediaWiki talk: 39 Usernameblacklist 24 Revision-info 20 Common.css 9 Common.js 6 Clearyourcache 5 Stubthreshold 4 Uploadtext 2 Noimage Template: 23 Templatesnotice 20 Mwarn 16 Maximage 11 User warning set 9 NYC imagemap 8 Template shortcut 8 Oldcfdfull 8 TFD header 6 Wikisourcelang 6 RFCtemplate 6 Infobox School 6 Vandalism information 5 Uw-joke4 5 Copyrightassistanceheader 4 Infobox performer Template talk: 9 Infobox School 7 Db-meta 7 Compromised account 6 Shortcut 5 Ifd 5 Spa 5 Vandalism information 4 Episode list 4 REMOVE THIS TEMPLATE WHEN CLOSING THIS AfD 4 Pp-semi-usertalk 3 Talkheader 3 User contrib meta 2 Uw-aiv 2 Tfd 2 Policy shortcut User: 129 Gracenotes/amelvand.js 74 Gracenotes/monobook.js 64 Gracenotes/Sandbox 59 Gracenotes/fixStuff.js 58 Gracenotes 37 Gracenotes/Sandbox 3 31 Gracenotes/Sandbox 2 22 Gracenotes/changesSince.js 16 Gracenotes/g 16 Gracenotes/vandinfo.js 15 Gracenotes/Wdefcon 10 Gracenotes/PUI.js 10 Gracenotes/wpPicmark.js 9 Gracenotes/Quotes source 9 Gracenotes/Quotes User talk: 73 Gracenotes 15 Ben 11 Essjay 11 Gracenotes/Header 10 Gurch 6 202.44.190.253 6 Naconkantari/cleanup 6 66.28.139.24 5 Persian Poet Gal 5 WikiMan53 5 Staffwaterboy 5 Thewanderer 5 84.130.89.13 5 Qxz 4 Sashafklein Wikipedia: 115 Village pump (technical) 101 Help desk 89 Administrator intervention against vandalism 57 Village pump (proposals) 36 Wikipediholism test 25 Miscellany for deletion 24 Templates for deletion/Log/2007 February 9 19 Administrators' noticeboard 19 Template messages/User talk namespace 18 Templates for deletion/Log/2007 March 18 17 Templates for deletion/Log/2007 May 5 16 Articles for deletion/Essjay 16 Templates for deletion/Log/2007 March 29 13 Articles for deletion/American Airlines destinations 12 Templates for deletion/Log/2007 February 21 Wikipedia talk: 83 Template messages/User talk namespace 26 WikiProject user warnings 16 Requests for adminship 14 Attack sites 11 Criteria for speedy deletion 8 WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Twinkle 7 WikiProject Vandalism studies/Study2 5 10 things you did not know about Wikipedia 4 Bot policy 4 Templates for deletion 3 Administrator intervention against vandalism 3 Proposed deletion/Template prod 3 Avoid imitating MediaWiki user interface elements 3 Articles for deletion/Essjay 2 Userboxes/Ideas
With six days still to pass, I start to believe that this will go on WP:100 ;-) « Snowolf How can I help? » 22:09, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Closing in on WP:200 btw. Just 10 more support votes. with 6 hours or so left. -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 14:06, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Gwern, I reverted your formatting changes, because it did something weird to the count. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk) 23:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
First off, I see lots of opinion here. Several people opposed due to question number 4. While it is useful, as a question about his opinion on attack sites, it's still opinion, and he did limit it. Second off, he opposed removing ALL links from EVERYWHERE. If they're in good faith (which is perfectly possible), then it's okay. Gracenotes, please correct me if I misstated anything. ~ Ed B oy [c] 22:03, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia needs administrators with clue. Clue is an important and diminishing resource, and we need to treat it as a commodity with value. Gracenotes has demonstrated, on multiple occasions, that he has clue. He thinks for himself, which is something I value; he is not a sheep. He is polite and enquiring and, I believe, will continue to be an asset to a project that is appointing an increasing number of ineffective users to a position with an elevated standing.
Being an administrator is no big deal; assigning and removing the permission is very simple, and should be done liberally, to ensure we have enough clueful users to deal with the various irritating minutae that occur, and to do it in a manner which doesn't kick up a fuss over every little controversy. Similarly, when we encounter a user who is abusing the tools, we need only to revoke it. This pattern seems to work for all the other nine hundred odd wikis under the Wikimedia umbrella, plus countless hundreds of thousands of third party deployments of the MediaWiki software, and I see no reason the English Wikipedia should be different.
I'm not really interested in how many edits Gracenotes has made, or how many vandals he has reverted. I couldn't give a damn about his edit summary usage or his attendance record on the various deletion "discussions". What I care about is that every impression I get from this user's actions; every interaction I have with him...are positive. robchurch | talk 00:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
While I totally respect other editors' opinions, I'd like to say that increasingly people on RFA emphasize too much on ideology rather than the person's intellectual integrity, experience, and dedication to the project. This can draw a parallel in the United States Supreme Court confirmation today where it becomes politicized. The Samuel Alito mess is one example, and same thing happened here to User:Danny. In the 1960s, even the ultra-conservative Senator Barry Goldwater voted "YES" to the confirmation of a staunch liberal African-American Thurgood Marshall, and that is the correct attitude. We cannot support/oppose an editor in RFA based on his ideology over editorial/administrative quality. Wooyi Talk to me? 02:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Of course Gracenotes is allowed to disagree. But we are not required to make Gracenotes an admin. We are allowed to disagree with Gracenotes's belief that people who post links to attack sites for some reason have more right to their edits than other people have to their personal, real-life privacy. Corvus cornix 18:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
...according to the reasoning of some of the people who have commented above, people participating in this RfA are, so far, voting 84 to 19 in favor of attacking, degrading, outing, and stalking other Wikipedians, and also killing puppies and bunnies, clubbing baby seals, accelerating global warming, and distributing kiddie porn. So I guess it's time to shut down Wikipedia, as a majority of Wikipedians are just plain evil. Or, perhaps, this interpretation is just plain loony, and the majority is taking a balanced, reasonable stance on the issue. *Dan T.* 03:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
(restore indent) Not to get too involved in this, but because some people don't support a certain interpretation of the issue does not mean they "support linking to attack sites." it is not as one-sided as that. I don't think every "victim" approaches "being stalked" the same way. I, for one, have been pushing a pragmatic guideline for handling personal information issues, but so far no substantial support from people concerned about "attack sites," and I am rather perplexed as to why this is... it seems there has to be an audacious controversy to get people riled up before they support anything.— ACADEMY LEADER FOCUS! 03:55, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
(restore indent, r to Slim Virgin) Re: Bentham, I was mainly thinking of his definition of community:
The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what is it?—the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.
This is just my interpretation, but I think its a sane idea to treat extended notions of "community," such as Anderson elaborates on in "Imagined Communities," as fictitious. I disagree with your assessment of "empathy," as I think laws were developed to prevent "angry mobs" from acting on emotions and taking justice into their own hands. Codified law, to my understanding, is not anywhere an empathetic institution.
This is not to say that real world personal security issues derived from user-generated media are themselves fictitious, but that, in the manner I've been proposing, they can be handled in ways that don't compound upon the initial problem and directly lead to further attention to both a) the attacker(s) and b) the victim(s), which is what the "no links to attack sites" policy proposal does. Even if there wasn't a controversy over it, trolls and whatnot blocked per NPA would be getting clued that there are "attack sites" out there.
Benthan and Anderson's ideas re: "community" make online interactions "saner" for me, to some extent. "Empathy" may be felt but in this environment it's probably altogether less verifiable than someone's Ph.D claims... and even if authentic, it's still not useful. Acting with sensitivity and compassion is fine and all, but claiming "empathy" more or less presumes identification with another's emotions, which is a lot to presume, esp. in an entirely self-disclosed environment that relies on trust to begin with. I can't do that, and I can't agree that "empathy" with anyone's highly individual reaction to a specific situation could be or should be taken as the basis of policy addressing similar situations.
In this case, I strongly prefer a model of triage, wherein once an attack has occurred, whatever evidence of it on WP is promptly oversighted, but there's not much else that can be done once "the horses have left the barn," so after the notes of "empathy" have been exchanged the focus should be on censuring or strongly cautioning against the posting of any personally identifiable information on WP in the first place. This wouldn't help those who already have problems, but other than "removing links to off-site attacks" there is nothing that can realistically be done for them within the WP system anyway, outside of a real-world legal system, so the focus should be on creating a culture that prevents the exchange of information that allows attacks to occur, not on "cleaning up the evidence" after the fact.
I'll look into Rawls, I haven't read him. Thanks for the opportunity to vent.— ACADEMY LEADER FOCUS! 08:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
This is one of those troubling discussions in which people I respect deeply are making what seem like very strange statements and leaps of logic. The discussion is fairly complex, though, so perhaps I'm just missing some things. Here is how it seems to me (and, I think, to others):
Is that basically correct? If so, this really seems like a matter about which reasonable people can disagree. I find it difficult to sympathize with the "it's OK to disagree about policies except for this one" approach... so I'd like to think that I'm missing something. -- Visviva 12:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not censored for minors, or workplaces, or the Chinese government. Wikipedia links to racist hate sites when there's a reason to do so. So why is a rigid censorship policy suddenly considered desirable when the protection of the tender sensibilities of other Wikipedians is concerned? *Dan T.* 17:08, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
(restore indent, r to Corvus) Unless I am misinterpreting WP:NOT# Wikipedia is not a battleground no one is "giving in" or "surrendering" by not supporting an absolutist, blanket policy against "attack sites." To my understanding, the entire point of not having a policy, of allowing links to be evaluated on the basis of content linked to, as they were previously, was to avoid blow-ups like this. Adopting a policy of "eliminating links" is not "a path to victory," but will ensure "defeat" in the sense that it will be one more item that works towards WP's embarrassment by making the administration look self-censoring. Prior to this debacle, there was no relationship between our linking to them and whatever their collective attitude was towards Wikipedia or Wikipedians, however negative. Now that there seems to be one, the strategy should not be to "set this controversy in stone" so to speak, and perpetuate it eternally, but to eliminate it by allowing review of such links when and where they pop up. This is not "giving-in" this is flexibility and sensitivity as a strategic response to context-driven situations. If appropriate: delete, if not: keep. That is the approach I think G is articulating or at least tacitly supports.— ACADEMY LEADER FOCUS! 22:37, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
In this recent diff, User:MONGO "munged" a link to an "anti-Wikipedia" forum thread, citing the attack sites policy. This link was being used by the subject of an RfC to present evidence he considered relevant to it. The thread in question was specifically critical of MONGO, but didn't do anything along the lines of "outing" him or uncovering personal information about him; it merely made an accusation about his on and off-wiki behavior (whether this was true or not I can't say, lacking further information). Was this link-munging proper or not? Does it illustrate a good or bad use of the attack sites policy? Discuss. *Dan T.* 11:44, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
2nd example: In the history of this Signpost article ( Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-04-23/Brandt_unblock), there is edit warring as to whether to include a link to Daniel Brandt's website in the text or not (the current revision does not). With all respect to the concerns of those who have been affected by DB's efforts, I maintain that given the Googlability of the website in question, the insistence that mentioning the name of the website (which is relevant for the discussion in the Signpost article) is acceptable but linking to it from that mention is not acceptable, is not productive. Martinp 14:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
3rd, less concrete example. Wikipedia Review, a site of commentary by disaffected former and current wikipedians, contains a plethora of comments that run from rather silly sounding strident complaints to genuine well-intentioned discussion of wikipedia's flaws to attempts to coordinate approaches to bring Wikipedia down. It is frequented by both constructive critics as well as destructive ones. It has been the object of considerable discussion on Wikipedia. I maintain that there is no incremental harm and some incremental benefit to being able to link to those discussions there which would be helpful in policy discussions on Wikipedia. There is no benefit and some harm to linking to fruitless sniping, mudslinging, or any privacy violations being discussed there or anywhere else. Why is a nuanced approach not the correct one here? Martinp 14:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
(outdent) No evidence has been presented that this is true; if you have accusations to make, cite them. I follow discussions there, and I have not seen anyone's address mentioned of late (or for that matter, as far back as I can remember). Mangoe 23:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
← Do you disagree with what I wrote? You asked me for my opinion on the site in general, not my opinion on the site in terms of privacy violations.
Gracenotes
T § 18:59, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I note that nobody has actually replied on-topic to my original thread-starting message, asking about whether a particular recent application of the rule was good or bad. People seem to be eager to change the subject rather than take on particular cases directly. *Dan T.* 00:54, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Grace - In the MONGO RFA, one of the arbitors gave a view on the handling of harrassment of Wikipedians on external sites. On my reading, the views you have given on this issue seem very similar to the view given below by one of the arbitors in the case.
Can you tell me if the statement below reflects your sentiments on this issue?
The decision in MONGO is intended to apply to harassment of individuals on sites which are not making a good faith effort to engage in legitimate criticism of Wikipedia or those associated with it, simply smearing Wikipedia and its users. Sites which make some attempt to engage in legitimate criticism such as Wikipedia Review present a different situation and should probably be addressed, not by a blanket prohibition, but on what is being linked to. Many of those who have been banned by the arbitration committee or by the community have ended up there, and continue to voice criticism of our decisions and practices. These criticisms are occasionally useful. It is inappropriate to attempt to generalize principles expressed and relied on in arbitration into policy. We have make it very clear that we neither honor nor set precedent. This matter nicely illustrates why. The facts and users the "policy" would apply to, often differ sharply from those presented in the arbitration case. I would make this comparison: imagine a meeting, one person comes in and loudly denounces the others attending the meeting. He shouts, gives everyone the finger, and stamps his foot. Contrast this with a situation where a person comes in and dumps a bag of shit on one of the others attending the meeting. One situation is difficult, the other utterly unacceptable, the decision in the MONGO case addresses the unacceptable situation. Fred Bauder 17:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Please move this to a more appropriate location if this is not the correct spot for such a query.
Uncle uncle uncle 16:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Fred's quoted comment seems both logical and sensitive to me. Those two qualities, however, are partially afforded by abstraction. I remember weakly disagreeing with him elsewhere. Gracenotes T § 18:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Keeping in mind that being an "admin" is not supposed to be such a big deal, and is really only supposed to be about being trustworthy with tools, I have a single question for those opposing Gracenotes's adminship:
Do you believe that Gracenotes cannot be trusted with the tools? No rhetoric about empathy, or accusations that people would feel different if it applied to them. Just a yes or no. Do you believe that Gracenotes would abuse the tools?
Bladestorm 19:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I need to ask this one again. This time, please respect that I'm trying to get actual information here. I wish to know how many people actually believe that Gracenotes will either abuse the tools, or accidentally (but destructively) misuse them. Simply a yes or no please. Bladestorm 20:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I do have another question as the language has some ambiguity: When you state:
To delineate, and to address some of the concerns in your question, I oppose removing all links to all such sites in all contexts, especially if such removals interfere with the good faith development of Wikipedia (if rules make you nervous or depressed...)
Did you mean: 1) I oppose removing all links to all such sites no matter what the context
or
Did you mean: 2) I oppose removing all links to all such sites without examining the context
I believe that the statement can be parsed either way (by a human), but there is a large difference in meaning depending on how the sentence is read.
The first way would indicate an opposition to ever deleting such links, where the second would indicate something quite different. Uncle uncle uncle 19:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to understand the controversy over attack sites and am finding myself a little puzzled. I apologize in advance for the naïveté of the following questions, but I have read everything I can find about the controversy and these questions haven't yet been answered, so here goes. 1) Why are they called "attack sites"? They seem to combine strong criticism/critique of Wikipedia with periodic efforts to "out" editors. From what I can tell, it's the latter goal that we consider intolerable, so why aren't they called "outing sites"? "Attack sites" makes it seem that the problem is criticism of Wikipedia. 2) To those who are opposing Gracenotes RfA on the grounds that he won't elevate his opposition to the linking of such sites to a blanket prescriptive rule, I'd like to ask: Would such a blanket rule carry no cost at all to other dimensions of the Wikipedian ethos, such as WP:NOT#CENSORED? Please note that I'm not saying the latter should take precedent; I'm just wondering if it should be seen as relevant at all, and perhaps have a tempering effect on the position a prospective admin takes on WP:NPA. 3) It has been claimed that not reverting a link to those sites "gives them oxygen." Is this true, or just a kind of rhetorical statement? It seems anyone who sees mention of one of these sites can find it in a few seconds. Wikipedians are pretty good internet navigators, maybe the best. We could ban even the discussion or mention of them, but that would certainly come at a high cost to what Wikipedia is supposed to be all about, and I doubt many are prepared to do that. But just banning the link itself is a little like writing "Motherf$%*er!" and imagining that the reader's innocence has been protected.
Regarding oxygen. I actually went and read one of these sites for the first time as a result of the pie fight over Gracenotes' RfA. And from what I can tell one of the liveliest threads at the moment focuses on Gracenotes' RfA and the controversy around BADSITES. I'm looking at the tally at the bottom saying the number of "users" and "guests" currently reading the thread, and I realize I'm counted among them, and I begin to wonder if our turning this into a major litmus test, a high-profile divisive issue, and – to be very frank – a platform for grandstanding, etc., isn't giving far more oxygen to these sites than Gracenotes' low-key, pragmatic approach would do.
When one considers any measure having even the faintest whiff of censorship, the measure has to clear a pretty high hurdle of cost-benefit analysis. The speech value of shouting fire in a crowded theater is so low, and the cost so high, that just about everybody can agree about it; it may be safe to say that those who don't lack "common sense." I do not see how a blanket rule against all linking of attack sites, however, can clear such a hurdle. And I can't but wonder if the collective passion over this question hasn't become a proxy for something else; perhaps a way of expressing loyalty or solidarity to admins who have prominently identified themselves with this issue. If true, I think this would be unfair to Gracenotes and unhealthy for Wikipedia. Solidarity with editors who feel victimized is a good thing, loyalty oaths are a bad thing; and I wonder if the one hasn't bled into the other in this most tumultuous of RfA's.-- G-Dett 18:44, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
"Anyone who believes a site ... is not trustworthy." That sentence makes no sense – and I'm not just being picky, because this is important. Do you mean "anyone who believes in the site is untrustworthy"? I don't think so – it makes no sense to say that an editor in good standing "believes" in an attack site, and that is clearly untrue in this case. What exactly do you think Gracenotes believes? If you mean Gracenotes believes links to attack sites are fine, that's simply not the case. Gracenotes voiced opposition to a proposal (which is not and was never policy) which would have not only have prohibited linking to sites that incidentally happened to contain a page with personal attacks, but actually blacklisted them (that's the Wikimedia-wide, all-namespaces blacklist where you can't save a page until all offending links are removed). The proposal as worded would have made it policy to remove all links to, say, MySpace (from userpages as well as the encyclopedia) if someone put up a MySpace page attacking a Wikipedia user. This would of course never happen, as a request to blacklist such a site would be rejected as "silly", but the fate of smaller sites – say, an otherwise useful wiki that temporarily contains an attack page because they're a bit slow at dealing with vandalism – would be open to abuse. The proposal would also have allowed people to get away with removing more or less any link simply by calling it an "attack site". This was a bad wording, not a malicious intention on the part of anybody – but such things need to be caught and fixed. That's all Gracenotes did – object to that absolute, no-questions-asked, unnecessarily restrictive proposal. Which he has every right to do. I repeat the word proposal again, because he has never violated the policy on personal attacks and I see no indication that he would. And somehow that has been turned into a claim that he "supports attack sites" – yes, I find it hard to believe I'm not dreaming, but people have used those exact words. Of course he does not support linking to pages which contain personal attacks or reveal private infomation. There is absolutely no evidence of that, and it's a ludicrous accusation. Have you seen him do so? I thought not. And the idea that he might not be trusted with deleted revisions is an attempt to blow this thing out of proportion still further. Certainly a user who would happily scoop up deleted revisions and post them to an attack site is someone who should be denied adminship. But, I say again, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Gracenotes would do this. There no more evidence that he would do it than there is that any other RfA candidate or current administrator would. And at the very least, there is no more evidence that he would than that anyone else who opposed the proposal would; several of those people are administrators, yet I don't see a call for their adminship to be revoked because they can't be trusted with deleted revisions. This is a chronic violation of Assume Good Faith on the part of the entire community – Gurch 20:20, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I've put together an essay expressing my views on this contentious issue here:
*Dan T.* 23:09, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
The candidate's contribs show a max of about 6 edits per minute. This is certainly a high rate, but not beyond what a human could achieve. In fact, I think I have gotten up to 10 edits per minute when doing a batch of trivial fixes, without any script assistance whatsoever. With the minimal script assistance the candidate has described, it seems perfectly credible that adequate judgment was given and that these edits were not "automatic" in any meaningful sense.
Anyway, I don't recall contrib spikes being an issue in my RfA, although that may just be because nobody really looked through my entire contribs in detail (nobody mentioned the fact that I gave Ed Poor a barnstar for deleting VfD either, heh heh). -- Visviva 01:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Crum375: I feel as thought the best way for you to understand it is for you to try it yourself. Enable JavaScript, and then go to User:Gracenotes/Sandbox 2. Click "unhide", and see how long it takes for you to check whether the hidden text contains "{{r from shortcut}}" or not. Now, imagine that you had to do the same thing, except instead of clicking to reveal the contents of a page, you merely had to scroll down. Gracenotes T § 02:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
if (new RegExp('r from shortcut', 'i').test(temp)) { if (confirm('The template was already sensed. Click OK to STOP editing.')) return; }
Category talk: 6 Category: 22 Help: 1 Image talk: 1 Image: 30 Mainspace 3500 MediaWiki talk: 119 Portal talk: 1 Portal: 5 Talk: 346 Template talk: 96 Template: 785 User talk: 2269 User: 772 Wikipedia talk: 266 Wikipedia: 1568
Crum375, it really comes down to this: at first I thought you were trying to bring a valid criticism to my attention, but you're only flitting from issue to issue, avoiding a resolution for every issue you bring up. I do not understand why I am being accused of being "evasive" when I can point out several examples of people on this talk page who are doing the exact same thing. There is a difference between providing constructive criticism and maligning me.
Now, I have several essays due for school, and instead of doing them and maintenance work on Wikipedia, I am patiently replying to queries asked of me on this RFA. So I'm begging you—if you have a shred of empathy in you, please stop this conversation. Please. If you look, I have already answered everything from your most recent question. Gracenotes T § 16:24, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I have made a proposal regarding to attack sites that might solve the problem. Editors please take a look, thanks. Wooyi Talk to me? 02:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
...anyway? I understood that discussion on this aspect of policy had stalled (on the relevant talkpage) and that it hadn't found the consensus to be adopted. Too much of this debate, and how it impinges on this candidates suitability, appears based that it is part of NPA, indicating that the candidate does not (or would not) follow rules/guidelines in this matter. This is incorrect.
If it is not about failure to adhere to policy, then what is the basis of the objections to this candidates application regarding this matter? LessHeard vanU 09:56, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Reading through the RFA and the talk pages, it seems to me that there is a lot of misunderstanding, talking past one another, and unnecessarily heated emotion. It makes me sad to see my colleagues treating each other like this. And it makes me even sadder to read through all this stuff and struggle to learn anything about the presumably reasonable and reasoned points at the core of the problem. As far as I can tell, the two factions believe:
And that further, people in the first faction feel that people in the second faction are displaying such poor judgement that they are unsuited to become administrators. Is that the crux of it? And can anybody point me to pages that have WP:COOL explanations of the two perspectives? Thanks, William Pietri 16:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
What makes me sad is an editor who has a history of not just creating sockpuppets (forgets to edit under the right name) [3], but of also talking to them (attempt to create illusion of consensus among multiple editors) [4] about edits he makes in a controversial article, then protests too much about gracenotes's rfa, well that's what makes me sad about this. Should this editor really be "trusted" to give opinions about trustworthiness? Piperdown 19:45, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Just to make sure it doesn't get missed by someone who could help me, I'm still looking for some sort of a pointer to a WP:COOL explanation of what I tentatively characterized as position 1 above. Dan Tobias was kind enough to point me to his essay, but I'd love something similar for the other view (or for every other major view if there's more than one). Thanks, William Pietri 18:17, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Am I supposed to remove or edit the text since it mentions a site which has/does host attack pages, or do I ask for a link to support the accusation? LessHeard vanU 18:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Forgive me if this is the wrong place to discuss this, but many of the oppose votes have frankly shocked me. This is not meant to be a personal attack on anyone, but if you are opposing based on whether or not an admin will remove links to attack sites, you are voting in the wrong place. RfA is not a place to push for a particular policy, and quite frankly I'm surprised at the audacity displayed by those who are.
You should not be voting based on the answer to the question "will you enforce this particular disputed policy." You should be voting based on the answer to the question "will you enforce community consensus," which includes all current and future policies and discussions. If BADSITES becomes policy, then it's the duty of admins to enforce it on sight. But opposing an RfA based on the enforcement of it right now, while it is disputed, is simply rude, inflammatory, and disruptive.
I've been through an RfA before, and it's very stressful. Please don't make this hard for Gracenotes by bringing your agenda here. I appreciate that some users may feel strongly about this, but it's the wrong place to discuss it.
If this nomination is borderline, I beg the closing bureaucrat to disregard all such votes as irrelevant to this particular candidate.
Note that as I haven't much experience with this particular editor, I'm not voting. But I'm not willing to watch and say nothing as an RfA becomes a battleground for policy.
That's my two cents, take it or leave it. -- Chris (talk) 05:02, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
This kerfuffle has led me to start on a little essay in userspace that might be of some relevance to this RfA. I'm still working on it at User:Chairboy/Wikipedia:Treeism. - CHAIRBOY ( ☎) 01:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
It's official. Is there any reason left to oppose him? – Gurch 02:28, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Right, I've got some serious concerns here with the opposers, how does Gracenotes stance on attack sites mean that he's going to make a poor administrator? He's not going to link to them, that's clear, he certainly doesn't support them. The only thing that he's stated is that he wouldn't blindly remove every single link if he saw them. The last time I checked, removing links was not an admin only job - any user can do it, or take the same stance, so why jump to conclusions and presume that Gracenotes is going screw up as an admin because of it? There's plenty of people who are willing to remove attack site links on wikipedia, so if there really is an issue with a link, it will be removed quickly anyway, no doubt by Gracenotes if theres NPA issues with it. Ryan Postlethwaite 14:07, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
As this has been a difficult discussion, and as there has been some suggestion that this end in a "'crat chat," something I think should only be a very, very last resort, I have made a proposal at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#One_Bureaucrat.27s_Impression. -- Cecropia 16:37, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi. Can somebody please add the link below to the RfA? I can't do it, presumably since this RfA was speedy deleted in the past and I can't handle that. Thanks!
Mathbot 17:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
This RFA is going to be like Danny's now...I think bureaucrats are going to be pretty upset about that. Wooyi Talk to me? 17:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Suggestion to bureaucrats: please consider disregarding the votes against for not supporting WP:BADSITES - a failed policy proposal which its supporters appear to be attempting to hijack RFA to try to backdoor in. The audacity is remarkable. This sort of behaviour needs not to be encouraged - David Gerard 20:54, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I am still committed to accept the closing crat[']s['] decision. To recall a statement I said days ago, "I am here to maintain an encyclopedia, and to help keep what I can running smoothly. I can do this with or without adminship." Gracenotes T § 22:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
The issue is not support of BADSITES, and never was. It's extremely unhelpful to present straw man views of your opponents position. Jayjg (talk) 14:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
David, I'm not aware of a single oppose vote that is a result of Gracenotes not supporting WP:BADSITES. I never supported it as it was worded, though I thought it had possibilities and could have been useful if the bad parts had been altered. It is now fairly certain that it was created by a sockpuppet/troll who intended, by an exaggerated wording and an aggressive implementation, to make everyone who supported the MONGO ArbCom ruling look bad.
As proof (for the bureaucrats, and perhaps for you if you're interested) that this is not simply about a refusal to support BADSITES, I would refer people to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ikiroid 2, where SlimVirgin asked the candidate his position on links to attack sites, and he replied that he would allow them in articles such as Daniel Brandt and perhaps Criticism of Wikipedia. Now, the WP:BADSITES proposal would not have allowed those exceptions; yet, after reading Ikiroid's response, SlimVirgin thanked him and didn't vote, and I changed from oppose to support.
The fact that WP:BADSITES is not policy is irrelevant. If I opposed a candiate because I was concerned by his position regarding WP:BITE, Wikipedia:Etiquette, WP:AGF, or WP:POINT, I would not expect to see pleas to the bureaucrats to disregard my vote because those guidelines were not policy. I want to make it very, very clear to bureaucrats that I am not opposing because of a refusal to give a blind, unthinking support to BADSITES. I am not sure that anyone is supporting it for that reason, and I am postive that not many are.
Many of the people I trust on Wikipedia are less enthusiastic about the BADSITES proposal than I am, and it is frustrating for those who are concerned by the candidate's attitude towards the whole issue of stalking and stalkers to see people accusing us of opposing because he doesn't give full support to an idea that was almost certainly thought up by a troll in order to hinder the implementation of the MONGO ArbCom ruling. It is perfectly reasonable, after the Everyking case, and after seeing various examples of adminstrators causing trouble by assuming that trolls and stalkers who have been blocked are the innocent parties, to have concerns about trusting the tools to someone who, while familiar enough with WR to be aware of the horrific harassment of some of our editors, can calmly state that it's a "mixed bag".
If some people are voting oppose without any other reason than the candidate's position on linking to attack sites, it has to be acknowledged that others are voting support for exactly the same reason. People who wouldn't have come near this RfA have suddenly discovered that it's being opposed by those who want to remove links to sites that "out" editors, and they're showing up to vote support.
My final plea to bureaucrats is, please, please do not make your decision based on the totally false argument put forth by supporters, that anyone who voices concern as to whether a candidate who is not entirely unsympathetic to the WR crowd has the necessary sensitivity and judgment for adminship and whether he can be trusted with access to deleted revisions is opposing because the candidate does not give 100% support to the failed WP:BADSITES proposal. Please note also that some people opposed for more than one reason (I also mentioned the candidate's trolling of Gaillimh over the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jimbo Wales joke, and some people mentioned other concerns in addition to their concerns about sensitivity, empathy, and judgment). Musical L inguist 23:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
The only editor whose position has been consistently (and quite mercilessly) strawmanned is Gracenotes.-- G-Dett 14:29, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I scrapped this whole thing about "advice" to the bureaucrats from the main discussion page. It's totally duplicate with what was here, and it's totally out of line even HERE. Those people are more then capable enough to make decisions, it's those qualities that made us select them for cratship. -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 14:29, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Maybe this discussion isn't the best possible approach to the issue. I read this primarily as an attempt at canvassing. And blaming the supporters in an oppose comment is not a good idea either. Shall we leave it to the bureaucrats now, instead of trying to discredit each others' comments? Otherwise this will become more undignified with each successive comment. — Alde Baer 15:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I should note that the reason why I mentioned BADSITES was to transition from talking about "attack sites" to "attack links". Gracenotes T § 16:49, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
The "deletionists' cabal" comment was meant to have nothing to do with attack sites, only with deletionism. Gracenotes T § 17:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
My side is pure common sense... it's the other side that's nothing but straw men! *Dan T.* 04:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
moved to Wikipedia_talk:No_personal_attacks#An_interesting_accusation
Damn, I missed this one. I would have supported strongly, I once offered to nominate Gracenotes for adminship
[10] and nothing has changed since then to change my mind. Not that the tally would matter much, but I want to go on the record. The shame! See below
Hiding
Talk 15:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Looking over some of the oppose votes, I see some users whom I respect (and in some cases, have never interacted with), which is a bit saddening. To them, and everyone: I'm nearly sure this goes without saying, but if a community consensus can be reached on the "links to criticism/attack sites" issue, I plan on following it. As for judgment and empathy, those are qualities that I possess (or do not possess) as a human being, so I'm not sure that they can be determined solely from my view on this issue: my other contributions, and numerous interactions with other users in various debates contributes, could also be a factor. Whether promoted or not, I hope that my link-oriented (rather than site-oriented) views on this issue will not sour any interactions we shall have in the future. Cheers, Gracenotes T § 19:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
One problem I didn't see your approach accounting for was that an attack site featuring a thread without privacy breaches, the next minute can feature privacy breaches (and those get to stay). Tis the nature of certain sites, then, that makes treating them incrementally so problematic. El_C 22:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Guys this is pointless. Write a proposal and post it on the Village Pump if you wanna change something. -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 18:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I have opened a bureaucrat chat on this RfA here for reasons outlined on that page. Please remember that this is open to all to view in the interests of transparency, but it is only for bureaucrats' discussion and any other comments will be removed. -- Cecropia 15:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Gracenotes's edit stats using "wannabe Kate" tool as of 20:32, 22 May 2007 (UTC):
Category talk: 6 Category: 20 Help: 1 Image talk: 1 Image: 29 Mainspace 5523 MediaWiki talk: 112 Portal talk: 1 Portal: 4 Talk: 340 Template talk: 96 Template: 782 User talk: 2122 User: 752 Wikipedia talk: 237 Wikipedia: 1482 avg edits per page 1.54 earliest 00:47, 16 November 2005 number of unique pages 7489 total 11508 2005/11 5 2005/12 6 2006/1 1 2006/2 23 2006/3 14 2006/4 3 2006/5 0 2006/6 3 2006/7 2 2006/8 0 2006/9 10 2006/10 90 2006/11 504 2006/12 294 2007/1 721 2007/2 2479 2007/3 1467 2007/4 1646 2007/5 4240 (green denotes edits with an edit summary (even an automatic one), red denotes edits without an edit summary) Mainspace 68 2007 Fort Dix attack plot 42 February 2007 North America winter storm 39 Execution of Saddam Hussein 20 Anna Nicole Smith 16 2006 Madrid Barajas International Airport bombing 13 Iain Lee 12 Japan 11 Grace Notes 9 George Washington (inventor) 8 Gray Wolf 7 1994 San Marino Grand Prix 7 Nonaqueous titration 7 Coca tea 7 Spider-Man 3 7 Zaireeka Talk: 58 Main Page 34 AACS encryption key controversy 22 February 2007 North America winter storm 20 Execution of Saddam Hussein 19 %s 16 2007 Fort Dix attack plot 11 Criticism of Wikipedia 9 History of the board game Monopoly 7 HD DVD 6 History of victory disease 5 Newton 4 Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy 4 Tiberium 4 Flat Earth 3 Main Page/archivelist/row Category talk: 4 Articles with incorrect school infobox format Category: 3 British laws 3 Articles with incorrect school infobox format 2 Redirects from warning template 2 All pages needing to be wikified Image: 5 Gracenotes dancing.png 4 Screenshot-wpPicmark.jpg 2 En-Hydrogen (part 1).ogg MediaWiki talk: 39 Usernameblacklist 24 Revision-info 20 Common.css 9 Common.js 6 Clearyourcache 5 Stubthreshold 4 Uploadtext 2 Noimage Template: 23 Templatesnotice 20 Mwarn 16 Maximage 11 User warning set 9 NYC imagemap 8 Template shortcut 8 Oldcfdfull 8 TFD header 6 Wikisourcelang 6 RFCtemplate 6 Infobox School 6 Vandalism information 5 Uw-joke4 5 Copyrightassistanceheader 4 Infobox performer Template talk: 9 Infobox School 7 Db-meta 7 Compromised account 6 Shortcut 5 Ifd 5 Spa 5 Vandalism information 4 Episode list 4 REMOVE THIS TEMPLATE WHEN CLOSING THIS AfD 4 Pp-semi-usertalk 3 Talkheader 3 User contrib meta 2 Uw-aiv 2 Tfd 2 Policy shortcut User: 129 Gracenotes/amelvand.js 74 Gracenotes/monobook.js 64 Gracenotes/Sandbox 59 Gracenotes/fixStuff.js 58 Gracenotes 37 Gracenotes/Sandbox 3 31 Gracenotes/Sandbox 2 22 Gracenotes/changesSince.js 16 Gracenotes/g 16 Gracenotes/vandinfo.js 15 Gracenotes/Wdefcon 10 Gracenotes/PUI.js 10 Gracenotes/wpPicmark.js 9 Gracenotes/Quotes source 9 Gracenotes/Quotes User talk: 73 Gracenotes 15 Ben 11 Essjay 11 Gracenotes/Header 10 Gurch 6 202.44.190.253 6 Naconkantari/cleanup 6 66.28.139.24 5 Persian Poet Gal 5 WikiMan53 5 Staffwaterboy 5 Thewanderer 5 84.130.89.13 5 Qxz 4 Sashafklein Wikipedia: 115 Village pump (technical) 101 Help desk 89 Administrator intervention against vandalism 57 Village pump (proposals) 36 Wikipediholism test 25 Miscellany for deletion 24 Templates for deletion/Log/2007 February 9 19 Administrators' noticeboard 19 Template messages/User talk namespace 18 Templates for deletion/Log/2007 March 18 17 Templates for deletion/Log/2007 May 5 16 Articles for deletion/Essjay 16 Templates for deletion/Log/2007 March 29 13 Articles for deletion/American Airlines destinations 12 Templates for deletion/Log/2007 February 21 Wikipedia talk: 83 Template messages/User talk namespace 26 WikiProject user warnings 16 Requests for adminship 14 Attack sites 11 Criteria for speedy deletion 8 WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Twinkle 7 WikiProject Vandalism studies/Study2 5 10 things you did not know about Wikipedia 4 Bot policy 4 Templates for deletion 3 Administrator intervention against vandalism 3 Proposed deletion/Template prod 3 Avoid imitating MediaWiki user interface elements 3 Articles for deletion/Essjay 2 Userboxes/Ideas
With six days still to pass, I start to believe that this will go on WP:100 ;-) « Snowolf How can I help? » 22:09, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Closing in on WP:200 btw. Just 10 more support votes. with 6 hours or so left. -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 14:06, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Gwern, I reverted your formatting changes, because it did something weird to the count. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk) 23:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
First off, I see lots of opinion here. Several people opposed due to question number 4. While it is useful, as a question about his opinion on attack sites, it's still opinion, and he did limit it. Second off, he opposed removing ALL links from EVERYWHERE. If they're in good faith (which is perfectly possible), then it's okay. Gracenotes, please correct me if I misstated anything. ~ Ed B oy [c] 22:03, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia needs administrators with clue. Clue is an important and diminishing resource, and we need to treat it as a commodity with value. Gracenotes has demonstrated, on multiple occasions, that he has clue. He thinks for himself, which is something I value; he is not a sheep. He is polite and enquiring and, I believe, will continue to be an asset to a project that is appointing an increasing number of ineffective users to a position with an elevated standing.
Being an administrator is no big deal; assigning and removing the permission is very simple, and should be done liberally, to ensure we have enough clueful users to deal with the various irritating minutae that occur, and to do it in a manner which doesn't kick up a fuss over every little controversy. Similarly, when we encounter a user who is abusing the tools, we need only to revoke it. This pattern seems to work for all the other nine hundred odd wikis under the Wikimedia umbrella, plus countless hundreds of thousands of third party deployments of the MediaWiki software, and I see no reason the English Wikipedia should be different.
I'm not really interested in how many edits Gracenotes has made, or how many vandals he has reverted. I couldn't give a damn about his edit summary usage or his attendance record on the various deletion "discussions". What I care about is that every impression I get from this user's actions; every interaction I have with him...are positive. robchurch | talk 00:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
While I totally respect other editors' opinions, I'd like to say that increasingly people on RFA emphasize too much on ideology rather than the person's intellectual integrity, experience, and dedication to the project. This can draw a parallel in the United States Supreme Court confirmation today where it becomes politicized. The Samuel Alito mess is one example, and same thing happened here to User:Danny. In the 1960s, even the ultra-conservative Senator Barry Goldwater voted "YES" to the confirmation of a staunch liberal African-American Thurgood Marshall, and that is the correct attitude. We cannot support/oppose an editor in RFA based on his ideology over editorial/administrative quality. Wooyi Talk to me? 02:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Of course Gracenotes is allowed to disagree. But we are not required to make Gracenotes an admin. We are allowed to disagree with Gracenotes's belief that people who post links to attack sites for some reason have more right to their edits than other people have to their personal, real-life privacy. Corvus cornix 18:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
...according to the reasoning of some of the people who have commented above, people participating in this RfA are, so far, voting 84 to 19 in favor of attacking, degrading, outing, and stalking other Wikipedians, and also killing puppies and bunnies, clubbing baby seals, accelerating global warming, and distributing kiddie porn. So I guess it's time to shut down Wikipedia, as a majority of Wikipedians are just plain evil. Or, perhaps, this interpretation is just plain loony, and the majority is taking a balanced, reasonable stance on the issue. *Dan T.* 03:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
(restore indent) Not to get too involved in this, but because some people don't support a certain interpretation of the issue does not mean they "support linking to attack sites." it is not as one-sided as that. I don't think every "victim" approaches "being stalked" the same way. I, for one, have been pushing a pragmatic guideline for handling personal information issues, but so far no substantial support from people concerned about "attack sites," and I am rather perplexed as to why this is... it seems there has to be an audacious controversy to get people riled up before they support anything.— ACADEMY LEADER FOCUS! 03:55, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
(restore indent, r to Slim Virgin) Re: Bentham, I was mainly thinking of his definition of community:
The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what is it?—the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.
This is just my interpretation, but I think its a sane idea to treat extended notions of "community," such as Anderson elaborates on in "Imagined Communities," as fictitious. I disagree with your assessment of "empathy," as I think laws were developed to prevent "angry mobs" from acting on emotions and taking justice into their own hands. Codified law, to my understanding, is not anywhere an empathetic institution.
This is not to say that real world personal security issues derived from user-generated media are themselves fictitious, but that, in the manner I've been proposing, they can be handled in ways that don't compound upon the initial problem and directly lead to further attention to both a) the attacker(s) and b) the victim(s), which is what the "no links to attack sites" policy proposal does. Even if there wasn't a controversy over it, trolls and whatnot blocked per NPA would be getting clued that there are "attack sites" out there.
Benthan and Anderson's ideas re: "community" make online interactions "saner" for me, to some extent. "Empathy" may be felt but in this environment it's probably altogether less verifiable than someone's Ph.D claims... and even if authentic, it's still not useful. Acting with sensitivity and compassion is fine and all, but claiming "empathy" more or less presumes identification with another's emotions, which is a lot to presume, esp. in an entirely self-disclosed environment that relies on trust to begin with. I can't do that, and I can't agree that "empathy" with anyone's highly individual reaction to a specific situation could be or should be taken as the basis of policy addressing similar situations.
In this case, I strongly prefer a model of triage, wherein once an attack has occurred, whatever evidence of it on WP is promptly oversighted, but there's not much else that can be done once "the horses have left the barn," so after the notes of "empathy" have been exchanged the focus should be on censuring or strongly cautioning against the posting of any personally identifiable information on WP in the first place. This wouldn't help those who already have problems, but other than "removing links to off-site attacks" there is nothing that can realistically be done for them within the WP system anyway, outside of a real-world legal system, so the focus should be on creating a culture that prevents the exchange of information that allows attacks to occur, not on "cleaning up the evidence" after the fact.
I'll look into Rawls, I haven't read him. Thanks for the opportunity to vent.— ACADEMY LEADER FOCUS! 08:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
This is one of those troubling discussions in which people I respect deeply are making what seem like very strange statements and leaps of logic. The discussion is fairly complex, though, so perhaps I'm just missing some things. Here is how it seems to me (and, I think, to others):
Is that basically correct? If so, this really seems like a matter about which reasonable people can disagree. I find it difficult to sympathize with the "it's OK to disagree about policies except for this one" approach... so I'd like to think that I'm missing something. -- Visviva 12:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not censored for minors, or workplaces, or the Chinese government. Wikipedia links to racist hate sites when there's a reason to do so. So why is a rigid censorship policy suddenly considered desirable when the protection of the tender sensibilities of other Wikipedians is concerned? *Dan T.* 17:08, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
(restore indent, r to Corvus) Unless I am misinterpreting WP:NOT# Wikipedia is not a battleground no one is "giving in" or "surrendering" by not supporting an absolutist, blanket policy against "attack sites." To my understanding, the entire point of not having a policy, of allowing links to be evaluated on the basis of content linked to, as they were previously, was to avoid blow-ups like this. Adopting a policy of "eliminating links" is not "a path to victory," but will ensure "defeat" in the sense that it will be one more item that works towards WP's embarrassment by making the administration look self-censoring. Prior to this debacle, there was no relationship between our linking to them and whatever their collective attitude was towards Wikipedia or Wikipedians, however negative. Now that there seems to be one, the strategy should not be to "set this controversy in stone" so to speak, and perpetuate it eternally, but to eliminate it by allowing review of such links when and where they pop up. This is not "giving-in" this is flexibility and sensitivity as a strategic response to context-driven situations. If appropriate: delete, if not: keep. That is the approach I think G is articulating or at least tacitly supports.— ACADEMY LEADER FOCUS! 22:37, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
In this recent diff, User:MONGO "munged" a link to an "anti-Wikipedia" forum thread, citing the attack sites policy. This link was being used by the subject of an RfC to present evidence he considered relevant to it. The thread in question was specifically critical of MONGO, but didn't do anything along the lines of "outing" him or uncovering personal information about him; it merely made an accusation about his on and off-wiki behavior (whether this was true or not I can't say, lacking further information). Was this link-munging proper or not? Does it illustrate a good or bad use of the attack sites policy? Discuss. *Dan T.* 11:44, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
2nd example: In the history of this Signpost article ( Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-04-23/Brandt_unblock), there is edit warring as to whether to include a link to Daniel Brandt's website in the text or not (the current revision does not). With all respect to the concerns of those who have been affected by DB's efforts, I maintain that given the Googlability of the website in question, the insistence that mentioning the name of the website (which is relevant for the discussion in the Signpost article) is acceptable but linking to it from that mention is not acceptable, is not productive. Martinp 14:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
3rd, less concrete example. Wikipedia Review, a site of commentary by disaffected former and current wikipedians, contains a plethora of comments that run from rather silly sounding strident complaints to genuine well-intentioned discussion of wikipedia's flaws to attempts to coordinate approaches to bring Wikipedia down. It is frequented by both constructive critics as well as destructive ones. It has been the object of considerable discussion on Wikipedia. I maintain that there is no incremental harm and some incremental benefit to being able to link to those discussions there which would be helpful in policy discussions on Wikipedia. There is no benefit and some harm to linking to fruitless sniping, mudslinging, or any privacy violations being discussed there or anywhere else. Why is a nuanced approach not the correct one here? Martinp 14:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
(outdent) No evidence has been presented that this is true; if you have accusations to make, cite them. I follow discussions there, and I have not seen anyone's address mentioned of late (or for that matter, as far back as I can remember). Mangoe 23:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
← Do you disagree with what I wrote? You asked me for my opinion on the site in general, not my opinion on the site in terms of privacy violations.
Gracenotes
T § 18:59, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I note that nobody has actually replied on-topic to my original thread-starting message, asking about whether a particular recent application of the rule was good or bad. People seem to be eager to change the subject rather than take on particular cases directly. *Dan T.* 00:54, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Grace - In the MONGO RFA, one of the arbitors gave a view on the handling of harrassment of Wikipedians on external sites. On my reading, the views you have given on this issue seem very similar to the view given below by one of the arbitors in the case.
Can you tell me if the statement below reflects your sentiments on this issue?
The decision in MONGO is intended to apply to harassment of individuals on sites which are not making a good faith effort to engage in legitimate criticism of Wikipedia or those associated with it, simply smearing Wikipedia and its users. Sites which make some attempt to engage in legitimate criticism such as Wikipedia Review present a different situation and should probably be addressed, not by a blanket prohibition, but on what is being linked to. Many of those who have been banned by the arbitration committee or by the community have ended up there, and continue to voice criticism of our decisions and practices. These criticisms are occasionally useful. It is inappropriate to attempt to generalize principles expressed and relied on in arbitration into policy. We have make it very clear that we neither honor nor set precedent. This matter nicely illustrates why. The facts and users the "policy" would apply to, often differ sharply from those presented in the arbitration case. I would make this comparison: imagine a meeting, one person comes in and loudly denounces the others attending the meeting. He shouts, gives everyone the finger, and stamps his foot. Contrast this with a situation where a person comes in and dumps a bag of shit on one of the others attending the meeting. One situation is difficult, the other utterly unacceptable, the decision in the MONGO case addresses the unacceptable situation. Fred Bauder 17:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Please move this to a more appropriate location if this is not the correct spot for such a query.
Uncle uncle uncle 16:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Fred's quoted comment seems both logical and sensitive to me. Those two qualities, however, are partially afforded by abstraction. I remember weakly disagreeing with him elsewhere. Gracenotes T § 18:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Keeping in mind that being an "admin" is not supposed to be such a big deal, and is really only supposed to be about being trustworthy with tools, I have a single question for those opposing Gracenotes's adminship:
Do you believe that Gracenotes cannot be trusted with the tools? No rhetoric about empathy, or accusations that people would feel different if it applied to them. Just a yes or no. Do you believe that Gracenotes would abuse the tools?
Bladestorm 19:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I need to ask this one again. This time, please respect that I'm trying to get actual information here. I wish to know how many people actually believe that Gracenotes will either abuse the tools, or accidentally (but destructively) misuse them. Simply a yes or no please. Bladestorm 20:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I do have another question as the language has some ambiguity: When you state:
To delineate, and to address some of the concerns in your question, I oppose removing all links to all such sites in all contexts, especially if such removals interfere with the good faith development of Wikipedia (if rules make you nervous or depressed...)
Did you mean: 1) I oppose removing all links to all such sites no matter what the context
or
Did you mean: 2) I oppose removing all links to all such sites without examining the context
I believe that the statement can be parsed either way (by a human), but there is a large difference in meaning depending on how the sentence is read.
The first way would indicate an opposition to ever deleting such links, where the second would indicate something quite different. Uncle uncle uncle 19:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to understand the controversy over attack sites and am finding myself a little puzzled. I apologize in advance for the naïveté of the following questions, but I have read everything I can find about the controversy and these questions haven't yet been answered, so here goes. 1) Why are they called "attack sites"? They seem to combine strong criticism/critique of Wikipedia with periodic efforts to "out" editors. From what I can tell, it's the latter goal that we consider intolerable, so why aren't they called "outing sites"? "Attack sites" makes it seem that the problem is criticism of Wikipedia. 2) To those who are opposing Gracenotes RfA on the grounds that he won't elevate his opposition to the linking of such sites to a blanket prescriptive rule, I'd like to ask: Would such a blanket rule carry no cost at all to other dimensions of the Wikipedian ethos, such as WP:NOT#CENSORED? Please note that I'm not saying the latter should take precedent; I'm just wondering if it should be seen as relevant at all, and perhaps have a tempering effect on the position a prospective admin takes on WP:NPA. 3) It has been claimed that not reverting a link to those sites "gives them oxygen." Is this true, or just a kind of rhetorical statement? It seems anyone who sees mention of one of these sites can find it in a few seconds. Wikipedians are pretty good internet navigators, maybe the best. We could ban even the discussion or mention of them, but that would certainly come at a high cost to what Wikipedia is supposed to be all about, and I doubt many are prepared to do that. But just banning the link itself is a little like writing "Motherf$%*er!" and imagining that the reader's innocence has been protected.
Regarding oxygen. I actually went and read one of these sites for the first time as a result of the pie fight over Gracenotes' RfA. And from what I can tell one of the liveliest threads at the moment focuses on Gracenotes' RfA and the controversy around BADSITES. I'm looking at the tally at the bottom saying the number of "users" and "guests" currently reading the thread, and I realize I'm counted among them, and I begin to wonder if our turning this into a major litmus test, a high-profile divisive issue, and – to be very frank – a platform for grandstanding, etc., isn't giving far more oxygen to these sites than Gracenotes' low-key, pragmatic approach would do.
When one considers any measure having even the faintest whiff of censorship, the measure has to clear a pretty high hurdle of cost-benefit analysis. The speech value of shouting fire in a crowded theater is so low, and the cost so high, that just about everybody can agree about it; it may be safe to say that those who don't lack "common sense." I do not see how a blanket rule against all linking of attack sites, however, can clear such a hurdle. And I can't but wonder if the collective passion over this question hasn't become a proxy for something else; perhaps a way of expressing loyalty or solidarity to admins who have prominently identified themselves with this issue. If true, I think this would be unfair to Gracenotes and unhealthy for Wikipedia. Solidarity with editors who feel victimized is a good thing, loyalty oaths are a bad thing; and I wonder if the one hasn't bled into the other in this most tumultuous of RfA's.-- G-Dett 18:44, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
"Anyone who believes a site ... is not trustworthy." That sentence makes no sense – and I'm not just being picky, because this is important. Do you mean "anyone who believes in the site is untrustworthy"? I don't think so – it makes no sense to say that an editor in good standing "believes" in an attack site, and that is clearly untrue in this case. What exactly do you think Gracenotes believes? If you mean Gracenotes believes links to attack sites are fine, that's simply not the case. Gracenotes voiced opposition to a proposal (which is not and was never policy) which would have not only have prohibited linking to sites that incidentally happened to contain a page with personal attacks, but actually blacklisted them (that's the Wikimedia-wide, all-namespaces blacklist where you can't save a page until all offending links are removed). The proposal as worded would have made it policy to remove all links to, say, MySpace (from userpages as well as the encyclopedia) if someone put up a MySpace page attacking a Wikipedia user. This would of course never happen, as a request to blacklist such a site would be rejected as "silly", but the fate of smaller sites – say, an otherwise useful wiki that temporarily contains an attack page because they're a bit slow at dealing with vandalism – would be open to abuse. The proposal would also have allowed people to get away with removing more or less any link simply by calling it an "attack site". This was a bad wording, not a malicious intention on the part of anybody – but such things need to be caught and fixed. That's all Gracenotes did – object to that absolute, no-questions-asked, unnecessarily restrictive proposal. Which he has every right to do. I repeat the word proposal again, because he has never violated the policy on personal attacks and I see no indication that he would. And somehow that has been turned into a claim that he "supports attack sites" – yes, I find it hard to believe I'm not dreaming, but people have used those exact words. Of course he does not support linking to pages which contain personal attacks or reveal private infomation. There is absolutely no evidence of that, and it's a ludicrous accusation. Have you seen him do so? I thought not. And the idea that he might not be trusted with deleted revisions is an attempt to blow this thing out of proportion still further. Certainly a user who would happily scoop up deleted revisions and post them to an attack site is someone who should be denied adminship. But, I say again, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Gracenotes would do this. There no more evidence that he would do it than there is that any other RfA candidate or current administrator would. And at the very least, there is no more evidence that he would than that anyone else who opposed the proposal would; several of those people are administrators, yet I don't see a call for their adminship to be revoked because they can't be trusted with deleted revisions. This is a chronic violation of Assume Good Faith on the part of the entire community – Gurch 20:20, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I've put together an essay expressing my views on this contentious issue here:
*Dan T.* 23:09, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
The candidate's contribs show a max of about 6 edits per minute. This is certainly a high rate, but not beyond what a human could achieve. In fact, I think I have gotten up to 10 edits per minute when doing a batch of trivial fixes, without any script assistance whatsoever. With the minimal script assistance the candidate has described, it seems perfectly credible that adequate judgment was given and that these edits were not "automatic" in any meaningful sense.
Anyway, I don't recall contrib spikes being an issue in my RfA, although that may just be because nobody really looked through my entire contribs in detail (nobody mentioned the fact that I gave Ed Poor a barnstar for deleting VfD either, heh heh). -- Visviva 01:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Crum375: I feel as thought the best way for you to understand it is for you to try it yourself. Enable JavaScript, and then go to User:Gracenotes/Sandbox 2. Click "unhide", and see how long it takes for you to check whether the hidden text contains "{{r from shortcut}}" or not. Now, imagine that you had to do the same thing, except instead of clicking to reveal the contents of a page, you merely had to scroll down. Gracenotes T § 02:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
if (new RegExp('r from shortcut', 'i').test(temp)) { if (confirm('The template was already sensed. Click OK to STOP editing.')) return; }
Category talk: 6 Category: 22 Help: 1 Image talk: 1 Image: 30 Mainspace 3500 MediaWiki talk: 119 Portal talk: 1 Portal: 5 Talk: 346 Template talk: 96 Template: 785 User talk: 2269 User: 772 Wikipedia talk: 266 Wikipedia: 1568
Crum375, it really comes down to this: at first I thought you were trying to bring a valid criticism to my attention, but you're only flitting from issue to issue, avoiding a resolution for every issue you bring up. I do not understand why I am being accused of being "evasive" when I can point out several examples of people on this talk page who are doing the exact same thing. There is a difference between providing constructive criticism and maligning me.
Now, I have several essays due for school, and instead of doing them and maintenance work on Wikipedia, I am patiently replying to queries asked of me on this RFA. So I'm begging you—if you have a shred of empathy in you, please stop this conversation. Please. If you look, I have already answered everything from your most recent question. Gracenotes T § 16:24, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I have made a proposal regarding to attack sites that might solve the problem. Editors please take a look, thanks. Wooyi Talk to me? 02:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
...anyway? I understood that discussion on this aspect of policy had stalled (on the relevant talkpage) and that it hadn't found the consensus to be adopted. Too much of this debate, and how it impinges on this candidates suitability, appears based that it is part of NPA, indicating that the candidate does not (or would not) follow rules/guidelines in this matter. This is incorrect.
If it is not about failure to adhere to policy, then what is the basis of the objections to this candidates application regarding this matter? LessHeard vanU 09:56, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Reading through the RFA and the talk pages, it seems to me that there is a lot of misunderstanding, talking past one another, and unnecessarily heated emotion. It makes me sad to see my colleagues treating each other like this. And it makes me even sadder to read through all this stuff and struggle to learn anything about the presumably reasonable and reasoned points at the core of the problem. As far as I can tell, the two factions believe:
And that further, people in the first faction feel that people in the second faction are displaying such poor judgement that they are unsuited to become administrators. Is that the crux of it? And can anybody point me to pages that have WP:COOL explanations of the two perspectives? Thanks, William Pietri 16:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
What makes me sad is an editor who has a history of not just creating sockpuppets (forgets to edit under the right name) [3], but of also talking to them (attempt to create illusion of consensus among multiple editors) [4] about edits he makes in a controversial article, then protests too much about gracenotes's rfa, well that's what makes me sad about this. Should this editor really be "trusted" to give opinions about trustworthiness? Piperdown 19:45, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Just to make sure it doesn't get missed by someone who could help me, I'm still looking for some sort of a pointer to a WP:COOL explanation of what I tentatively characterized as position 1 above. Dan Tobias was kind enough to point me to his essay, but I'd love something similar for the other view (or for every other major view if there's more than one). Thanks, William Pietri 18:17, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Am I supposed to remove or edit the text since it mentions a site which has/does host attack pages, or do I ask for a link to support the accusation? LessHeard vanU 18:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Forgive me if this is the wrong place to discuss this, but many of the oppose votes have frankly shocked me. This is not meant to be a personal attack on anyone, but if you are opposing based on whether or not an admin will remove links to attack sites, you are voting in the wrong place. RfA is not a place to push for a particular policy, and quite frankly I'm surprised at the audacity displayed by those who are.
You should not be voting based on the answer to the question "will you enforce this particular disputed policy." You should be voting based on the answer to the question "will you enforce community consensus," which includes all current and future policies and discussions. If BADSITES becomes policy, then it's the duty of admins to enforce it on sight. But opposing an RfA based on the enforcement of it right now, while it is disputed, is simply rude, inflammatory, and disruptive.
I've been through an RfA before, and it's very stressful. Please don't make this hard for Gracenotes by bringing your agenda here. I appreciate that some users may feel strongly about this, but it's the wrong place to discuss it.
If this nomination is borderline, I beg the closing bureaucrat to disregard all such votes as irrelevant to this particular candidate.
Note that as I haven't much experience with this particular editor, I'm not voting. But I'm not willing to watch and say nothing as an RfA becomes a battleground for policy.
That's my two cents, take it or leave it. -- Chris (talk) 05:02, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
This kerfuffle has led me to start on a little essay in userspace that might be of some relevance to this RfA. I'm still working on it at User:Chairboy/Wikipedia:Treeism. - CHAIRBOY ( ☎) 01:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
It's official. Is there any reason left to oppose him? – Gurch 02:28, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Right, I've got some serious concerns here with the opposers, how does Gracenotes stance on attack sites mean that he's going to make a poor administrator? He's not going to link to them, that's clear, he certainly doesn't support them. The only thing that he's stated is that he wouldn't blindly remove every single link if he saw them. The last time I checked, removing links was not an admin only job - any user can do it, or take the same stance, so why jump to conclusions and presume that Gracenotes is going screw up as an admin because of it? There's plenty of people who are willing to remove attack site links on wikipedia, so if there really is an issue with a link, it will be removed quickly anyway, no doubt by Gracenotes if theres NPA issues with it. Ryan Postlethwaite 14:07, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
As this has been a difficult discussion, and as there has been some suggestion that this end in a "'crat chat," something I think should only be a very, very last resort, I have made a proposal at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#One_Bureaucrat.27s_Impression. -- Cecropia 16:37, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi. Can somebody please add the link below to the RfA? I can't do it, presumably since this RfA was speedy deleted in the past and I can't handle that. Thanks!
Mathbot 17:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
This RFA is going to be like Danny's now...I think bureaucrats are going to be pretty upset about that. Wooyi Talk to me? 17:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Suggestion to bureaucrats: please consider disregarding the votes against for not supporting WP:BADSITES - a failed policy proposal which its supporters appear to be attempting to hijack RFA to try to backdoor in. The audacity is remarkable. This sort of behaviour needs not to be encouraged - David Gerard 20:54, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I am still committed to accept the closing crat[']s['] decision. To recall a statement I said days ago, "I am here to maintain an encyclopedia, and to help keep what I can running smoothly. I can do this with or without adminship." Gracenotes T § 22:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
The issue is not support of BADSITES, and never was. It's extremely unhelpful to present straw man views of your opponents position. Jayjg (talk) 14:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
David, I'm not aware of a single oppose vote that is a result of Gracenotes not supporting WP:BADSITES. I never supported it as it was worded, though I thought it had possibilities and could have been useful if the bad parts had been altered. It is now fairly certain that it was created by a sockpuppet/troll who intended, by an exaggerated wording and an aggressive implementation, to make everyone who supported the MONGO ArbCom ruling look bad.
As proof (for the bureaucrats, and perhaps for you if you're interested) that this is not simply about a refusal to support BADSITES, I would refer people to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ikiroid 2, where SlimVirgin asked the candidate his position on links to attack sites, and he replied that he would allow them in articles such as Daniel Brandt and perhaps Criticism of Wikipedia. Now, the WP:BADSITES proposal would not have allowed those exceptions; yet, after reading Ikiroid's response, SlimVirgin thanked him and didn't vote, and I changed from oppose to support.
The fact that WP:BADSITES is not policy is irrelevant. If I opposed a candiate because I was concerned by his position regarding WP:BITE, Wikipedia:Etiquette, WP:AGF, or WP:POINT, I would not expect to see pleas to the bureaucrats to disregard my vote because those guidelines were not policy. I want to make it very, very clear to bureaucrats that I am not opposing because of a refusal to give a blind, unthinking support to BADSITES. I am not sure that anyone is supporting it for that reason, and I am postive that not many are.
Many of the people I trust on Wikipedia are less enthusiastic about the BADSITES proposal than I am, and it is frustrating for those who are concerned by the candidate's attitude towards the whole issue of stalking and stalkers to see people accusing us of opposing because he doesn't give full support to an idea that was almost certainly thought up by a troll in order to hinder the implementation of the MONGO ArbCom ruling. It is perfectly reasonable, after the Everyking case, and after seeing various examples of adminstrators causing trouble by assuming that trolls and stalkers who have been blocked are the innocent parties, to have concerns about trusting the tools to someone who, while familiar enough with WR to be aware of the horrific harassment of some of our editors, can calmly state that it's a "mixed bag".
If some people are voting oppose without any other reason than the candidate's position on linking to attack sites, it has to be acknowledged that others are voting support for exactly the same reason. People who wouldn't have come near this RfA have suddenly discovered that it's being opposed by those who want to remove links to sites that "out" editors, and they're showing up to vote support.
My final plea to bureaucrats is, please, please do not make your decision based on the totally false argument put forth by supporters, that anyone who voices concern as to whether a candidate who is not entirely unsympathetic to the WR crowd has the necessary sensitivity and judgment for adminship and whether he can be trusted with access to deleted revisions is opposing because the candidate does not give 100% support to the failed WP:BADSITES proposal. Please note also that some people opposed for more than one reason (I also mentioned the candidate's trolling of Gaillimh over the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jimbo Wales joke, and some people mentioned other concerns in addition to their concerns about sensitivity, empathy, and judgment). Musical L inguist 23:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
The only editor whose position has been consistently (and quite mercilessly) strawmanned is Gracenotes.-- G-Dett 14:29, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I scrapped this whole thing about "advice" to the bureaucrats from the main discussion page. It's totally duplicate with what was here, and it's totally out of line even HERE. Those people are more then capable enough to make decisions, it's those qualities that made us select them for cratship. -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 14:29, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Maybe this discussion isn't the best possible approach to the issue. I read this primarily as an attempt at canvassing. And blaming the supporters in an oppose comment is not a good idea either. Shall we leave it to the bureaucrats now, instead of trying to discredit each others' comments? Otherwise this will become more undignified with each successive comment. — Alde Baer 15:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I should note that the reason why I mentioned BADSITES was to transition from talking about "attack sites" to "attack links". Gracenotes T § 16:49, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
The "deletionists' cabal" comment was meant to have nothing to do with attack sites, only with deletionism. Gracenotes T § 17:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
My side is pure common sense... it's the other side that's nothing but straw men! *Dan T.* 04:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
moved to Wikipedia_talk:No_personal_attacks#An_interesting_accusation
Damn, I missed this one. I would have supported strongly, I once offered to nominate Gracenotes for adminship
[10] and nothing has changed since then to change my mind. Not that the tally would matter much, but I want to go on the record. The shame! See below
Hiding
Talk 15:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Looking over some of the oppose votes, I see some users whom I respect (and in some cases, have never interacted with), which is a bit saddening. To them, and everyone: I'm nearly sure this goes without saying, but if a community consensus can be reached on the "links to criticism/attack sites" issue, I plan on following it. As for judgment and empathy, those are qualities that I possess (or do not possess) as a human being, so I'm not sure that they can be determined solely from my view on this issue: my other contributions, and numerous interactions with other users in various debates contributes, could also be a factor. Whether promoted or not, I hope that my link-oriented (rather than site-oriented) views on this issue will not sour any interactions we shall have in the future. Cheers, Gracenotes T § 19:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
One problem I didn't see your approach accounting for was that an attack site featuring a thread without privacy breaches, the next minute can feature privacy breaches (and those get to stay). Tis the nature of certain sites, then, that makes treating them incrementally so problematic. El_C 22:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Guys this is pointless. Write a proposal and post it on the Village Pump if you wanna change something. -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 18:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I have opened a bureaucrat chat on this RfA here for reasons outlined on that page. Please remember that this is open to all to view in the interests of transparency, but it is only for bureaucrats' discussion and any other comments will be removed. -- Cecropia 15:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)