Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:20, 21 March 2008

Welcome to my talk page. Please take off your shoes at the entrance and have a seat. Tea will be served shortly. Please keep all comments here calm and polite. Messages that are welcome here:

• politely-worded criticisms of my behaviour
• calmly-expressed differences of opinion
• questions about how to edit Misplaced Pages
• just saying hello or whatever
• etc.

One way to leave a message here is to click on the tab with a plus sign ("+") at the top of this page. Sometimes I reply here, sometimes on your talk page, etc.; feel free to let me know which you'd prefer.

Archives

Archive 1 Archive 2

Rudget! (A big thank you to you) :)

Your note

Hi, Coppertwig. Thanks for your note. :) My opinion, such as it is, is here. Let me know if you want more. :D --Moonriddengirl 03:28, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I've added a bit more. :) --Moonriddengirl 16:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

CSD stuff

I replied to your note at Template talk:Db-meta because the other section is getting long and convoluted. :) As far as changing the wording on the template is concerned, I'm not sure this is going to be that complicated to require creating CSD talk subpages. I'd be perfectly happy to offer up my sandbox for the purpose. It's at User:Moonriddengirl/sandbox. My thought is that once we discuss it, we can propose individual changes at the template talk pages with a note at talk:csd directing interested parties to those pages. I don't think we'll need our "workshop" retained for archival purposes, since it's really just a two-man work crew at this point. If you disagree, let me know, and I'll move what I've already done out of my sandbox to a more permanent subspace :) {{Db-nonsense}} seems fine as is to me. The first one I see that might need work is {{Db-vandalism}}. I'm watching your page for for response. :) --Moonriddengirl 15:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I replied at Template talk:db-meta with a grateful "yes, please".

Nice sandbox, and LOL about trying to keep it out of the speedy-deletable category!! (Remember not to inactivate the actual templates when eventually editing them, though!) However, I've been criticized in the past for trying to have a limited number of editors editing a sandbox as part of a policy development process; and while there are significant differences between that situation and this one, it seems to me that there are also similarities, so it would be helpful to me if you would post a message to Misplaced Pages talk:CSD inviting anyone who wants to participate to come and edit the sandbox too.

I didn't mean a subpage; I meant putting a section header and a table on the talk page of WP:CSD. Maybe the table would take up too much space on the talk page. I may still make a table, either there, or in my own sandbox, perhaps just for myself to refer to. Actually, I think I'd like to make a table there, if others won't mind too much.

My preference is to copy the entire wording of each CSD criterion into the respective template. (Maybe even transclude it!) I'm willing to compromise, though. I do think the nonsense template needs revising; it's the one I'd seen misused a few times, for example see the "Primes / rules / patterns / location" thread above (quickly, before the article gets deleted via prod).

I haven't had time yet to look at your suggested wordings in much detail, but I may be pushing for longer wordings, incorporating more of the sense of the criteria. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

In that case, you may be right. :) I think we need to keep it to just the rules, or people won't read them. I do think that the space would be too long for the talk page, so I will move it out of my typical sandbox into a special one for the occasion, and we can invite others to participate. I hadn't figured, though, on our coming up with proposals and implanting them. I had merely thought to come up with a suggestion and then discuss further from there. Anyway, poor timing that it is, I'm going to be out of town from tomorrow until Monday with no internet access (sob). I'd appreciate it if we could wait to toss the idea out to others until I'm back and available to discuss it, if you don't mind. :) --Moonriddengirl 03:43, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I've got tons of other stuff to do on-wiki and this frees my weekend to get some of them done. (I guess I don't see much distinction between a suggestion and a proposal; anyway the thing I was criticized for developing in a limited group wasn't a proposal either.) I may develop a table in one of my own sandboxes, but maybe not invite others to edit it, certainly not before you're back. How will you survive without the Internet? :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 13:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know! I hate being disconnected. :/ Anyway, I've moved what I've got to User:Moonriddengirl/CSD templates. --Moonriddengirl 13:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the context for which you were criticized previously; perhaps it was thought that you were forming a consensus pact on the sly or something? I don't know. In any event, I'm not one to try to bull through changes. If I'm involved in suggesting that something be altered and consensus isn't clear,I tend to quietly go away. :) To me, it's just a question of when we invite feedback, but I guess I don't this as a huge deal to begin with. We're only talking about bringing the templates up to date with current policy; there's no proposal to change policy of any kind. I guess the big question is whether it's better to put the entire criterion into each template or just to correct the snippet that there currently is. --Moonriddengirl 13:22, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I'm back. I have a new operating system. I feel totally lost. :) I did get your note, though, and I will be looking at specifics. --Moonriddengirl 14:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Tag! You're it! :) --Moonriddengirl 19:57, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Aww, gee, thanks!

Thank you, truly, for the response on my talk page. I was a bit taken aback by A's post, but I kept a number of your points in mind and tried to respond appropriately. Judging from your post, I must be improving! And thank you for the tea. I've had a bit of a family emergency, so I apologize for my slow responses here and on the mediation draft. I was wondering, would it be possible to discuss the unresolved issues on IRC (at some point in the near future)? I feel that if we could just talk this out, we could come to a reasonable solution.

As a side note, what is going on over at Female genital cutting? I've noticed that you and Blackworm have stepped back from the articles. I don't know if this is because of our dispute or what, but I appreciate it. However, whoever messed with all the Christian material did the article a great disservice. I'd support any one of us going in and fixing that. Phyesalis (talk) 00:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

You're quite welcome. You did very well. Speaking of improving: you may notice that at the beginning of the post I introduce myself to Andrew c. That's a habit I've developed quite recently as a result of what I learned from my interactions with you (i.e. I ran into trouble after having neglected to explain my role to you at the beginning.)

I'm sorry to hear that you're having another family emergency. I have lots of other areas of the wiki to concentrate on while waiting for you to get back to this.

I'm checking into whether I have access to IRC. There's also email and telephone.

I don't see any particular problem at FGC. I looked at what I think is the Christian section and it doesn't seem to have changed much. I think it's probably best to keep away from the articles for now and try to resolve the disputes we're already working on. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Don't worry

Yeah i know, i'm following it on IRC right now pop by if you like, its #wikipedia-en. Thanks.  Sunderland06  17:39, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Don't worry.

Don't worry about Rudget -- apparently it was just his cousin playing a joke with his account when he left his computer on. See AN and his talk page. --Coppertwig (talk) 17:42, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I have found out on IRC, thanks for telling me though. -- The Helpful One 17:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

RE:Don't worry

I'm speaking to him on IRC right now ;-)--Phoenix-wiki 17:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to have to arrange for an IRC connection for myself for times like this. It appears that I'm missing all the excitement. Well, maybe I'll go and get some editing done. :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 17:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: This and That

I don't know you much, but I don't want to see another admin drop by the wayside. I really do hope that Rlvese and Rudget do come back some time in the near future, as they were very good admins in my opinion. I just wanted to make the post at WP:AN to get my point across in midst of all the mess that has been caused over the last 24 hours. I hope my post didn't come across as if I was directing it towards a specific user, in fact, it's generally directed at everyone. Some people can get a little annoyed on Misplaced Pages - I think some just need to have a bit of tea and relax for a little bit. If your annoyed from something in the outside world, in my opinion you should stay of Misplaced Pages, and take your frustrations out of something else. Anyway that's my opinion. :)

Thanks, D.M.N. (talk) 12:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Tank Street Bridge, Brisbane

Hi, I am new to wikipedia contributions and recently created an entry for the new Tank St Bridge in Brisbane. I was wondering why you don't think it's a notable entry? Do you think it is only notable once it has been constructed? Or do you think all bridges are not notable in the wikipedia sense? Cheers, Paul Paulguard (talk) 00:33, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for your message. Welcome to Misplaced Pages. I like pedestrian bridges, and I've heard good things about Brisbane (if I remember right) as far as being a good place for pedestrians. It was with regret that I attached the notability tag because I felt that Misplaced Pages policy was compelling me to do so.

Basically, Misplaced Pages:Notability in Misplaced Pages is defined by whether there are reliable published sources giving information about the topic. I did some web searches and didn't find any, as far as I remember. But maybe you can. If you can find newspaper articles or other published sources (in print or online) and cite them as references in the article, then that will establish notability and as far as I'm concerned you can then delete the tag. Actually, I just did another web search now and had better luck than last time -- here's one! It only has a very brief mention of the bridge, though, so it hslpe but not a lot.

Let me know if there's anything I can help you with in terms of figuring out how Misplaced Pages works etc. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I added it to the article as a reference. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:47, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Here is the main source for information: http://www.publicworks.qld.gov.au/showcase/tankstbridge.cfm Cheers, Paul Paulguard (talk) 04:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm sorry I put the notability tag on in the first place. When I saw an article about a "pedestrian bridge" I was imagining something much, um, smaller. I've taken off the notability tag. It would still be good, though, to have at least one more reference which is from outside the government who are constructing the bridge: see if you can find a newspaper article about it or something. Doesn't have to be online, just listed as a reference.

In future, when creating articles you can often avoid the notability tag thing (or even speedy deletion) by just "asserting notability", i.e. making statements like "this is the biggest..." or "this is the first ..." or anything else special about the subject of the article. Not a guarantee -- some users may still demand references -- but I wouldn't have put the notability tag on if there'd been more info along those linesj, and once I'd patrolled it very likely nobody else would have either. (It was the amount of money the bridge costs that finally got it through to me that this is a big thing. Or is that just inflation and it really is just a little pedestrian bridge? Just kidding :-)

I plan to come back later and format the reference properly, that you gave me and I just put in. You can do that yourself if you like. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:31, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply note.

Just a note that I've replied to your recent messages on my talk page. (Feel free to delete this section when read.) Blackworm (talk) 03:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for offering adoption

Thanks a lot for adopting me. Of course I accept. I think that I already learned many things by doing. However, if I have any questions I will leave you a message. If you have any suggestions concerning my edits and the WikiProject Water supply and sanitation, please feel free to contact me. --Kerres (talk) 09:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip about GFDL license

I find the instructions page confusing. Lownen (talk) 20:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Preview button

You've made me think about it. I don't think anyone has ever complained about this to me before (racking my brain, I'm as sure as I can be about that, which is not 100% but nearly so). I know I read, long ago, comments by Ed Poor that given the progressive compression schemes and algorithms used by the software, disk space is not the problem. However, the edit history is a worry when there are fairly frequent edits and more than a couple of editors. This said, I think it's all habit, steadfastly remembering to click on thing! I will. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I'm sure I've seen several complaints about the preview button before. I forget whether they were complaining about me or about someone else. In any case, I've learned to try to be careful to remember to use it. I figure it's a trade-off: if I'm going to gain a lot by clicking "save page", for example making sure I don't lose a large amount of work by accident, then it's worth it. Otherwise, I figure I'm just editing once but a number of people have to look at the recent changes log and the page history, so it's worth saving them time. Similarly with edit summaries. Help:Show preview says "Saving the same article a large number of times in quick succession makes it harder for people to check what changed, and clogs up the page history. ... Saving only once is also a way of avoiding edit conflicts, as people will not see the article on recent changes, and therefore they are less likely to try editing it at the same time as you." However, I don't consider the preview button a very important issue. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Some background... I got my start as an active editor on Misplaced Pages in the so-called "Sollog wars" wherein I was much reinforced and even praised for taking a combative "supergirl" kind of attitude towards Sollog himself, who had created the page and along with many socks, engaged in a lively and often bitter debate over it for some time. I look back at the experience and sigh, because in some ways it tainted my perspective of how Misplaced Pages worked and truth be told, the experience led me (taught me to be) more combative and snippy on WP than I otherwise would have been (the Sollog issue was not dealt with through wiki-love and peace and looking back at this, say if he had waited two years to introduce his self promotional biographical article, it all would have been dealt with much more civilly and professionally on the WP side by all/most editors involved). Anyway, I carried this habit, of being combative when confronted with strong conflict and dispute, into my interactions on WP for several months. This was much reinforced when I didn't get help or support when I was taunted, baited and stalked by sundry, problematic editors (which led me to foreswear WP for months, at a time when WP was being criticized heavily in the media and which my comments here often reflected).

Meanwhile Misplaced Pages kept growing up and I grew back into it.

I would handle all of that so differently now. I guess I should have gone to more lengths to explain this straight off in my RFA but I truly thought the whole Wyss thing had blown over, given my edit history as User:Gwen Gale throughout the past 14 months. Moreover, I must say, I thought the Wyss talk page history was permanently deleted (for WP:RTV reasons, by Fred Bauder). Since I don't hold grudges or let past disputes fester, I had forgotten most of the details of my early interactions on Misplaced Pages and being unable to browse my Wyss history certainly contributed to this. Had I known the revisions could still be browsed by admins there is no question I would have looked into it and addressed my behaviour back then far more thoroughly before accepting the nomination. I've long seen my participation as User:Wyss as editorially very helpful (in the context of the time) but in terms of dispute resolution, a dismal failure. The lesson from all of this, obviously, is that civility trumps all on a collaborative online project like Misplaced Pages. Thanks for listening. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi from a while ago

Hi Coppertwig, we edited together on Pain and Nociception a while ago - a quick look at your contribution log shows what a calming effect you are having on your fellow editors. Congratulations. And I'll bet you havent been blocked for 3RRR - me either. A recent look at Pain and Nociception shows that someone with a very smooth pen found a way to easily express that with which we struggled. I'm envious of such facility. I've been editing on some edge of science articles - hasn't been relaxing at all. And then there is Serbophobia - no topic for a polite chat there sometimes. Editted Avogadro's number today - my chemistry teacher will be smiling down from whatever heaven he is in over that. (Wasn't the brightest chem student in the class. In fact I'm remembering a very attractive fellow student used to sit in front of me and I was somewhat distracted.) Anyway keep up the good work and drop by some time if you feel like it. SmithBlue (talk) 04:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi! Sorry, I got distracted and forgot to reply. Nice to hear from you. I still think "frequently" needs to be changed; maybe to "commonly" (at Pain and nociception). I might peek at some of the articles you're mentioning. Thanks (again?) for your oppose-closing vote at Simple English Wikiquote. --Coppertwig (talk) 19:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I think you've earned this

		The Barnstar of Peace
		For your civility, your diplomacy, and your calm level-headedness in numerous discussions, I think you've earned this, the Barnstar of Peace. Jakew (talk) 13:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Adoption Reply

Yes! I would love to be adopted by you! Thank you very much. Get back to me on my talk page, thank you! Daniel.M (talk) 21:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Leni Riefenstahl

I did retract it a few hours earlier on his talk page. I've responded at the RFA. The "iceberg" metaphor wasn't meant as a negative characterization at all and before using the former term, I always commented on content. I'd also like to say that asking him if English was his native language was reasonable because I'd been working with him on the article for a long time and I wanted to determine if there was a communication or interpretation problem. In my professional work, over half of the people I deal with do not speak either English or French as a native language and petty, time-wasting misunderstandings are frequently found to have been a trivial problem in some translated nuance. I do appreciate all your input on this, however. You seem to have an above average talent for communicating online civility! Gwen Gale (talk) 02:36, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess I should bring this up. The word vandalism is frequently mis-used at Talk:Abraham Lincoln by a group of editors who watch that page, to characterize good faith edits which might introduce critical sources about him. Whether or not those sources should be included is a question of consensus (which I supported by leaving the discussion). Out of politeness in my RFA, I didn't want to accuse admins interested in the content and PoV of that article, of abusing the word vandalism when talking to new editors there (not only me, it's one reason I went, my biggest objective was to at least get them to stop mis-using the word). I did mention the flash up at Abraham Lincoln when I accepted the nomination and anyone interested could go to the talk page and see for themselves how I was treated. Meanwhile, these editors came to my RFA anyway, which I question. I was attacked so aggressively at AL, for suggesting so little, my reverts do look like a brief flash of edit warring and I shouldn't have handled it that way (which is why I took a break from the article on my own). I think these editors sincerely believe they are helping Misplaced Pages (AGF) but the two admins among them have muddled, IMHO, their admin and editor roles. I can offer diffs, though I don't want "tit for tat" here, I want peace. I bring this up because you (reasonably) don't agree with my use of the word disruption, when other editors giving their opinions at my RFA have been inappropriately using the word vandalism at Abraham Lincoln. Gwen Gale (talk) 03:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see what any of the above has to do with me. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:23, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Your criticisms of me, your many questions and your participation in the discussion of my RFA. We don't need to go on about it though! Thanks again and all the best to you :) Gwen Gale (talk) 03:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, my comment above wasn't very apt and I've struck it out. It was only ever intended to refer to the second of your two messages above. By criticisms I think you mean the analysis of your contribs that I posted at your RfA. If you're interested, I can give you some advice which I think may be helpful to you if you ever find yourself going through an RfA again. I had already replied at your RfA to your first message above, and I've struck out some of my words there. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:12, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Mediation

I haven't read your comments yet but I will certainly keep the apology in mind. Thank you for that. Personally, I'm trying to allow chunks of time to pass before I respond in the discussion. --Phyesalis (talk) 18:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Added material to mediation draft

I made some changes to the RR/FGC mediation draft, and alert you to ensure that I haven't subtly misrepresented your position with any edits. Blackworm (talk) 22:38, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Techniques for handling emotions when editing

For anyone interested, here is a page I just wrote on techniques for handling emotions when editing. These are techniques I use, that others may also find useful. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:52, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for participating in my RfA!

		Thanks for participating in my RfA!
		Although it failed 43/27/0, I'm happy because the outcome has been very helpful in many meaningful ways. Moreover your input alerted me to your understandable concerns about civility and the characterisation of others' edits in subsequent edit summaries and discussions. I will take heed and carefully address them. All the best, Gwen Gale (talk) 05:28, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

What a lovely picture! Calm and serene. --Coppertwig (talk) 20:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Committed identity

See Template:User committed identity and Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2007-05-14/Committed identity and Commitment scheme. My commitment string is 138c47efb78b28ef5b3a8ddf36958dae720b61c9 --Coppertwig (talk) 20:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC) See also for SHA-1 calculation --Coppertwig (talk) 20:13, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Opposing view for NCM material

In the mediation page you write, that the source already provided includes material expressing an opposing point of view, and that that also needs to be represented for WP:NPOV. Was this brought up in Talk:Reproductive rights? If so, I missed it. I read the Salon article again, which I assume is the source you're referring to (since I don't expect the NCM page itself to present criticism of its view), and the best I could make out is that the author implies the case (not the view) is "half-baked," and at another point, that it is bad because it may take time and attention away from the issue of women's right to abortion. In any case, I certainly don't see how the statement that certain reproductive rights of men are not legally recognized is challenged. In response to undue weight concerns, I trimmed the section in a way that removes an explicit presentation of their views. If a more specific view is challenged, then that specific view from the NCM would also need to be presented, in my opinion. Comments? Suggested edits? Blackworm (talk) 22:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm talking about here at User talk:Phyesalis/Mediation request where I said "Here's a quote from the Times article". I may be confused about which material that you want to add that I'm responding to. On the Mediation request page you say you want to add two sentences about NCM, but give a link to where there are more than two sentences. I thought we had been talking about a whole paragraph. I'm not saying that the statement certain reproductive rights of men are not legally recognized is challenged; but the Times article, and the paragraph you want to add to RR, are about the idea of changing things and starting to legally recognize those rights. That's what requires an alternative point of view. The author/editor of the Times article realized this, I think, and included that alternative view; we should too, though possibly much more briefly than the quote I gave. --Coppertwig (talk) 22:42, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The link in the mediation request originally pointed to the diff of my original edit, but I had already trimmed the material to two sentences (see the article). The link now points directly to the article section, the last paragraph of which is in question, and contains two sentences. The Times source was also stripped out in my trimming of the material, so I assumed you were discussing the Salon source. Given that you had not objected in Talk:RR, I don't feel it appropriate that this should be part of the mediation request. I think we could easily come to an agreement about an opposing view, however note that the Times article quote presents an opposing view to a view not presented in the article at the moment; if we were to include it, we would first need to expand on the specifics of the NCM's view, making the paragraph longer. I got the impression both you and Phyesalis wanted the paragraph shorter, not longer, but I don't object to a more detailed presentation of both the NCM's specific stance, and the opposing view presented in the Times article. Blackworm (talk) 11:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Our long and winding conversation

Tag! --Moonriddengirl 13:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I see: "Tag" as in "You're it!" Anyway, "Guten Tag" to you!  :-) Thanks for your reply on your talk page. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. Your turn to pursue again. :) Not wanting to split the conversation, I'll just say let me know when you're ready to approach the talk CSD crowd about these templates. Oh, and I'm not going to pursue clarification of G4 until this is done. I've developed a notion that there's far less confusion when I approach one thing at a time on a given Misplaced Pages space. It's hard enough seeing conversations through and on topic as it is! :D --Moonriddengirl 14:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Attribution and a sandbox

In case you're interested, Moonriddengirl, here's my summary of the incident which is the reason I'm declining your invitation in the particular current situation to edit your userpage unless you extend the invitation more generally. Maybe I'm over-reacting, but I prefer to err on the side of propriety.

It was in the days leading up to the big straw poll on whether to replace some of Misplaced Pages's core policy pages with the single page Misplaced Pages:Attribution. An essay had been prepared outlining the arguments in support of the merge. There was a discussion on the poll talk page about preparing an essay summarizing the arguments against the merge, and it was suggested that I do such a userspace page and that I "invite other editors with oppose rationales expressed around here to edit it" -- I see now that I may have missed a distinction in those words.

Two editors objected to the suggestion that I "moderate". Two or three editors seemed to be encouraging me to go ahead. I said, "I'm not moderating or mediating between pro-merge and anti-merge sides of the debate. Rather, I expect to create a user page..." It wasn't clear to me whether this addressed the objections or not; however, nothing had been said to convince me that what I planned to do violated any policy or guideline.

I then created the page User:Coppertwig/Stability of policy and generally invited "users who are opposed to the merge, or opposed to some aspect of the merge, to edit it according to rules on the talk page of that page."

Some users in favour of the merge edited the userpage or its talk page, and I criticized them for that.

Subsequently someone made a report to AN/I titled "Disruption and polarization by User:Coppertwig". I then spent some time reading policies and guidelines. I didn't find anything giving a definitive answer, but I gained the impression that essays are written by a single user or by all users, not by limited groups of users, and said so at AN/I. I then changed the rules and asked that I be the only one to edit the userpage, with comments and suggestions invited on its talk page. A copy of the userpage was eventually used in the poll documentation to help poll participants familiarize themselves with the debate.

(Incidentally, I never meant to imply that Seraphimblade wasn't an "uninvolved admin". I later explained to Seraphimblade that I seemed to have missed noticing his comment, which was, in effect, the admins's ruling in the AN/I report.)

(Also incidentally, I still find it amusing where I realized I had just "strongly disagreed" with Jimbo Wales.) --Coppertwig (talk) 16:43, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow! I can see why you'd be gunshy. :D --Moonriddengirl 20:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

AfDSort

Thanks for the note, and for the support. He's the first other user I've seen with the script, so that's awesome - I'm glad to see it getting some use from others, as it means there's less sorting for me to do! Thanks again, UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 03:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd say the same - thank you for your support. UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 04:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		For your extraordinary efforts to represent Misplaced Pages well and ensure fair treatment of a user with a bad first experience at Ggggggggggggggg12. -- Moonriddengirl 15:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Wiffle Bat Award

I, Heelop (talk) 02:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC), proudly present you with the Wiki Wiffle Bat Award. If you consent to receiving this award, it will be displayed on your user page.

		The Wiki Wiffle Bat
		For your exceptional logic, endurance, civility, and especially neutrality in the face of relentless irrationality. Heelop (talk) 01:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the barnstars, everyone. They look fine on my talk page. I don't display barnstars on my userpage. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The Catalyst in Society right-to-vanish case

Here, the user requested the right to vanish; his original username, which is his real name, is present in the signature. He also explains here that he doesn't want web searches on his name to return these Misplaced Pages pages.

Here, the user's talk page was moved by a bureaucrat from his real name to a pseudonym.

The user seems to have left the wiki (See edit summary); the last few edits by Catalyst in Society (talk · contribs) on Dec. 17, 2007 were to change his signature on some posts from his real name to the pseudonym.

I edited some talk pages to change his signature to the pseudonym.

An earlier discussion of this situation can be seen in this thread. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Ultraexactzz is now an Administrator

My RfA was successful, and closed with 44 Supports, 6 Opposes, and 1 Neutral. For your support, you have my thanks - I fully intend to live up to the lofty yet not-a-big-deal responsibility you have granted me. For those who opposed my candidacy, I value your input and advice, and hope that I may prove worthy of your trust. Special thanks to both Rudget and bibliomaniac15 for their expert coaching and guidance. I look forward to serving the project, my fellow editors, the pursuit of higher knowledge, et cetera, et cetera. Again, you have my thanks. UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 01:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

RE:Archive Boxes

Hey, thanks for noticing that. No wonder that didn't work.--Sunny910910 03:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. Always glad to help out. Thanks for replying. --Coppertwig (talk) 12:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: Help

Alright. It seems that the CURRENTUSER won't work here. Thanks for your help anyway. Tell me if you think of anything else! —Signed by KoЯnfan71 _{Sign Here!} 02:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Adminship?

Hey there, I was noticing your post on ANI that said you weren't an admin, but from what I can tell by your talk page and a brief look into your contribs, I don't really see any reason why you're not. Have you thought about trying an RfA? I'd be happy to nominate you if you like. Drop me a line whenever you like. :) GlassCobra 18:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I replied by email. --Coppertwig (talk) 19:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, I don't know (nor necessarily need to know) what your e-mail to him said, but I've wondered the same thing. --Moonriddengirl 14:29, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

CSD templates

I figured since the thread was long on my page and the templates moved to yours, I might as well bring the conversation here.

The only major issue I see is that the conversation looks dauntingly complex. That's one of the reasons I had thought we would discuss them individually and then propose them individually at the template pages. Even now, while working on it, I hit the image section and my brain thinks, "Isn't it time for breakfast?" That said, there may well be some editors out there who will look at your chart and willingly wade into it rather than heading off to shorter tasks. :) And it is very well organized and structured for clarity. Its complexity is innate, but I do worry that such a huge chunk may discourage participation.

With G12, the current wording could probably use a semicolon. "as an apparent copyright infringement of {{{url}}}; the material was introduced at once by a single person, there is no non-infringing content on either the page or its history worth saving and there is no credible assertion of public domain, fair use, or free license".

With A5, what do you think of "is a dictionary definition or an article for which there is an Articles for deletion decision to transwiki, and it has been properly moved to Wiktionary or another wiki, with the author information recorded." Personally I feel that might be a little more clear.

I like your r3 revision.

I9 could probably do with the addition of "that does not have a license compatible with Misplaced Pages"

Perhaps you should simplify C1 to "as a category that has been empty for at least four days...." rather than the current "is empty, has been empty"?

U1 I think needs revision. Current proposal: "as a user page or subpage requested to be deleted by the user with whom it is associated, except for rare cases of administrative need to retain the page." Perhaps something like: "as a user page or subpage requested to be deleted by the user with whom it is associated. (Note that in rare cases such may need to be retained for administrative reasons. See blahblah)"

Under p2, we have a comma splice after the word "article" which should be removed.

Okay. You're up. :) --Moonriddengirl 14:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Here are some ideas re where to have the conversation. I think having it at each template talk page would probably spread things out too much, but maybe not.

• Move all comments off the page with the tables onto its talk page, and have the discussion there.
• Form one page for each table, e.g. one page for general, one for articles, etc., possibly grouping a couple of the shorter tables onto one, e.g. categories and portals or whatever. Have the discussion on the talk pages of those pages. I think I prefer that option. (User pages, or subpages of the policy page? How about the latter, since it will be a policy discussion that will need to be archived?)
• Have a page with one or more such tables, and on its talk page make a whole lot of mini tables each showing just one row of the table, with discussion of each immediately below each.
• Leave my page of tables static, and just have discussion on Talk:CSD and/or at the template talk pages.

Note that the proposed change to db-meta requires changing a lot of templates around the same time. There should be consensus overall first. (True consensus, n days of discussion, m editors agreeing with only k disagreeing... :-)

Semicolon in G12: good idea; or a colon. I put a colon.

A5: Based on your suggestion I changed it to "as an article that is a dictionary definition or an article for which there is an Articles for deletion decision to transwiki, after it has been properly moved to Wiktionary or another wiki and the author information recorded. " I think that's what you said except that I put "after": the whole grammar changes because of the db-meta change.

Re r3: Thanks. I struggled with that one.

Re u1: I was tired when I did some of these. I've shortened it, since the actual CSD is shorter in one place than the current template (the opposite of the usual situation!). Now I've put " as a user page or subpage requested to be deleted by its user. (Note that in rare cases such may need to be retained for administrative uses. See ..."

P2:OK, I got rid of the comma splice, but I also shortened the whole thing, without losing any meaning, I think. Looking at what I had there, my mind glazed over. I think this reads more easily: "as a portal based on a topic which does not have a non-stub header article plus at least three non-stub articles on the topic. " In this case it's the opposite of making the templates conform more closely to the CSD, but so what -- the point is to make them as good as possible in all ways. --Coppertwig (talk) 22:09, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

If we're sending people to the table page in your user space, I think having the talk page serve for discussion is probably a good thing. That said, I'm also inclined to like the idea of creating a different page for each table, like you. That would make it seem less daunting, so people don't freak and flee. :D You have invested far more energy in this than I have, so I bow to your decision there. As long as people do talk, it doesn't so much matter where. Your changes seem good to me. --Moonriddengirl 22:26, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, now I'm leaning towards your original suggestion, using the talk page of each template, with discussion of the db-meta wording change being at the talk page of db-meta. I had been thinking before of having talk pages with sections to discuss each template, but I thought it might get complicated if the discussions were to get long -- archiving the talk page would be more complicated. One idea is to transclude a number of template talk pages into one page (if the discussions are relatively short) the way AfD discussions are transcluded together. I'm not sure if I know how to do that. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it wouldn't be easier just to divide up the talk. I really doubt that most (possibly even any) of these are going to be controversial in any way. :) --Moonriddengirl 02:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

OK. Should I set it up as my own user pages for discussion? (they can always be moved to a policy talk page or talk archive later.) Otherwise, it's a chicken-and-egg problem, trying to get consensus on where the discussion will be before the discussion starts. Maybe you're right, there won't be much discussion. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, that depends. Are you going to propose the pages at the existing template pages? If so, I think the discussion could take place there. It would be a simple enough matter to go to Template talk:Db-nonsense and just put in, "I propose changing this template to bring it in line with current CSD policy. Current wording of policy is blahblah. I propose changing the template to read blahblah." Again, I don't see this as a hugely contentious situation, since this is not about changing policy, only about reflecting it more accurately. --Moonriddengirl 02:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

How about this: on each template talk page I'll put a brief notice that there's a proposed wording change and telling where I suggest discussion to be (one link). On the following five talk pages I'll put:

"I suggest that discussion take place in the following locations:

• Of the proposed change in wording to db-meta and the resulting change in the first couple of words of many of the other templates, at Template talk:db-meta.
• Of other proposed changes in wording to CSD templates related to G1 to G12 (general), at Template talk:db-nonsense (i.e. at G1)
• related to A1 to A7 (articles), at Template talk:db-nocontext (i.e. at A1)
• related to I1 to I9 (images etc.) at Template talk:db-redundantimage (i.e. at I1)
• related to redirects (R1 to R3), categories (C1 to C3), userpages (U1 to U3), templates (T1 to T3) and portals (P1 to P2), at Template talk:db-redirnone (i.e. at R1)."

The last group involves 14 templates in 5 types of template. I'll also put the corresponding tables on the last four talk pages. Plus a notice at Talk:CSD inviting discussion; and possibly at the Village Pump too. What do you think? --Coppertwig (talk) 13:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Wait -- I think you mean that's unnecessary. If I'm going to put a message on the template talk page anyway, I might as well propose the actual change there and have discussion be there. If people want to make more general comments (e.g. "I oppose all of these changes because...") where will they put them? db-meta? How about "Changes in wording to many CSD templates is being proposed, mainly to make them conform more closely to the CSD; also to match a proposed shortened db-meta. We suggest discussing the wording of this template here, and using Template talk:db-meta for more general discussion of the changes. Proposed new wording: ... (from Moonriddengirl and Coppertwig)" and then I would sign normally. I was thinking we would both sign, but that would be extra work for you. :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 13:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

<reset indent>I don't mind the extra work, but I don't think we need to both sign. :) I just don't see it as that formal a business, since, again, this isn't proposing a change to any kind of policy. In fact, if I were more bold, I'd probably just make the changes to many of them, as I did to a couple. Only a few that I see may invite conversation. I'm more of a talk first, change later kind of girl, though. I'd probably propose each change at the appropriate template page and note that we had done so at Talk:CSD. I might leave language at the template pages something like this: "We are suggesting revising each of the db templates for clarity and to conform to current policy at CSD. If you'd like to discuss the change to this particular template, please do so here. To discuss generalities, you might want to join in at (pointer to place on talk:csd)." At talk:CSD, I'd say, "We are suggesting revising the db templates for clarity and to conform to current policy at CSD. A lot of them are out of date and don't line up with current language. It's a bit complex, since there are so many, so to simplify we've placed the proposed language revision at the various pages. (brief form link to those templates). You can view the whole lot of them at (link to your workshop), but if you'd like to discuss specific language issues with any of them, please do it at the template talk pages so that conversation stays together. If you'd like to discuss the changes more generally, this is probably a good place. We're suggesting at the template talk pages that anyone who sees this issue there do the same." --Moonriddengirl 16:22, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I may be a little on the busy side for a day or two. Feel free to go ahead and set things up that way meanwhile if you like; otherwise I expect I will do it in a couple of days. I was thinking of asking another user for advice, but since you seem confident that it's not a big deal and that that's a good way to do it, I guess I'll just go with that. It seems quite reasonable to me. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

All righty. If you don't get it before then, I'll try to get to it tomorrow. :) --Moonriddengirl 02:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay. I'm working on it. I'm not going to propose the change to meta, since it doesn't fall into line with the purpose of the proposal...updating language. It doesn't matter if meta is updated for the purposes of changing presentation in other templates, since it isn't transcluded in any way into those. --Moonriddengirl 13:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Now that I'm trying to actually work on this, I'm finding it less practicable than I anticipated. That's a whole lot of template talk pages to coordinate with talk:CSD. So I'd like to suggest a different approach. First, I think we should remove the meta suggestion as per my last note. It doesn't fall in line with the proposal to update language and may muddy the waters. It is a separate entity and so doesn't really matter. Second, I'd like to direct the folk at talk:CSD to the proposal page with a request for comments to be made on the proposal page's talk page. I'll leave a note at each of the template talk pages doing the same thing. The only real danger I see here as mentioned above is that the conversation will become unworkably sprawling. To resolve that, I think we should probably go with your earlier proposal of subdividing types so that we have several CSD proposal pages. Thoughts? --Moonriddengirl 13:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

User pages, or subpages of talk:CSD? In either case, what will they look like once all the discussions are archived? How about asking someone more experienced for advice? I have someone in mind, but if you would like to select someone to ask that's OK too. Perhaps someone who has participated at Talk:CSD recently. --Coppertwig (talk) 22:45, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know that it matters whether they're in userspace or project space. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "what will they look like". :) And, sure, I have no trouble with your asking input from somebody else. --Moonriddengirl 23:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I asked Seraphimblade for advice. By what they'll look like, I mean mainly what will be the names of the pages containing the eventual archived discussions. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

See Seraphimblade's reply below at User talk:Coppertwig#Thanks!. By the way, I don't agree about removing the meta suggestion. It affects the wording not only for the first couple of words, but in some cases later in the sentence too: it changes the grammatical structure. If it's going to be changed, it will require consensus and changing a lot of templates at once. I think if we're going to have a big discussion about template wording anyway, this is the time to include the suggestion about changing meta. If we were going to remove the meta suggestion, we'd have to rework all the template wordings. Not a lot, but still. If the meta suggestion is going to be rejected I'd like to see a substantive reason for rejecting it. I suggest making subpages named:

To-do list

• Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Templates (general)
• Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Templates (articles)
• Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Templates (images)
• Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Templates (other)

and also inviting discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Proposed template wording changes (section to be created) for general discussion about the changes and for discussion of the proposed db-meta change. To-do list:

• Done links in tables to templates (Thanks, Moonriddengirl, you're a step ahead of me. And yes, the typo was funny.)
• Done notice at top of User:Coppertwig/CSD (which won't be much used anyway, but still.)
• Done create subpages
• Done Adjust links in subpages to point to section in WT:CSD
• Done copy tables into subpages
• Done put links in subpages to the other discussions
• Done links on template talk pages to the discussions
• Done(except...) noinclude notices on template pages with links to the discussions

  (G1-G12 done except db-spam) (A1-A8 done) (I1-I9 done) (R1-R3, C1-C3 U1-U3, T1-T3, P2 done)

• noinclude notices on protected templates (db-meta, db-spam)
• Done create section at Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion; put links to the subpages
• Done Village pump notice? (here)
• Done hatnote at the top of WT:CSD as suggested by Seraphimblade
• Done notify Seraphimblade
• Done link from my userpage
• Anything I forgot?

--Coppertwig (talk) 03:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings about meta. I don't think it has anything to do with the other templates. Each of the templates is distinct and separately written at its own page--at least, all the ones that I copied for my example page were. :) I don't think we need to revise meta in order to reword all the template wordings; I think meta is simply a general template to serve in the absence of a specific notice. That said, if you want to work on revising it now, that's fine with me. It's just a stylistic choice and is not related to our specific goal of bringing templates in line with CSD.

Your subpage dividers seem fine. I wouldn't haul village pump in unless it turns out to be surprisingly controversial because, again, this isn't a policy change, but just a change of templates to reflect policy. I'm very careful to discuss policy and guideline changes before implementing them, but some template changes are just do and go for me. :) But again, maybe this is going to turn out to be a much bigger deal than I'm envisioning. I presume you see that I've already linked the tables to the templates—all except meta, which you've now added. The rest should be fairly simple, but it's getting on to bedtime in my part of the world. :) If you want to get started, I'll catch up later. Otherwise, I'll pick up with you again tomorrow. --Moonriddengirl 03:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure you understand about the db-meta change. Every single one of the other templates transcludes db-meta, therefore a change in wording in db-meta changes the wording of every other template. My db-meta proposal is to shorten the db-meta wording by several words. This requires grammatical changes in all the other templates -- otherwise the sentences won't make sense. The proposed wordings listed in the table won't make sense if implemented with the current db-meta wording. The proposed db-meta change is just one of many changes we're (or I'm) proposing, and is less important than other changes, some of which are important for bringing the templates in line with the policy. I happen to like the db-meta change; I think it's worthwhile to remove several fairly uninformative words from templates that are read many, many times. I realize it might be rejected and the proposed wordings may all have to be adjusted to fit the current db-meta. But I'd like to put it out there as a proposal, anyway. Or to put it another way, I plan to put it out there as a proposal, even if you don't support it. I haven't heard any reasons yet for not making that change. OK, never mind village pump, at least for now. Yes, thanks for linking to the templates from the tables. I marked it "done" above. Now I can use those links to quickly watchlist all the templates. I'm logging off pretty much now. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll have time beginning approx 7 Feb 23:00 (UTC) and can set everything up at that time, but perhaps if we still have some details to iron out first I'll wait longer.

I forgot, or didn't know, that db-meta is used by itself as well as being transcluded into all the other templates. Also I didn't realize that it wasn't clear from the table setup how the db-meta change affects the other templates. New suggestion:

• db-meta to maintain its current look, wording and functionality
• The words "The reason given is:" to be removed from the display of the other templates (for brevity)
• To accomplish this, a new template, e.g. Template:speedybase to contain almost all of what's in db-meta now
• db-meta to transclude speedybase and add "The reason given is:"
• the other templates to transclude speedybase instead of transcluding db-meta; therefore they will not have the words "The reason given is:"

This makes it easier to make the transition: as the wording of each template is changed to match the new grammatical structure, at the same time it's changed to transclude speedybase instead of transcluding db-meta. So they can be changed one at a time without ever displaying mismatched grammar.

I'm sorry, I'd forgotten you consider these things "suggestions" rather than "proposals" and will try to remember to use that wording.

I could change each row of the table to contain more of the displayed wording of each template, to make the db-meta suggestion more obvious. For example, for G2 test it could list the current wording as "This page may meet Misplaced Pages’s criteria for speedy deletion. The reason given is: It is a test page" and the suggested wording as "This page may meet Misplaced Pages’s criteria for speedy deletion as a test page". Maybe it's worth doing that to make it clear that that's what I/we am/are suggesting. --Coppertwig (talk) 12:19, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary divider

Talk about sprawling conversations. And this is just the two of us. :)

• You're right. I did not notice that meta is transcluded in the other templates and, in fact, I would have sworn in open court it wasn't because I was sure I had copied the language from the code. Obviously, I didn't. It's been a while since we started. :) I certainly didn't mean to imply above that I didn't support the change, only that I thought it a separate issue from what we're up to. If you want to revise meta, that's okay. I don't have strong feelings about meta, although I have considered that it would require new practices of those who use it singly. (I encounter them regularly; I'd guess that for some people who don't use automated helpers find it easier to remember meta than the individual templates.) Right now, they tend to drop in a single word: nonsense, non-notable. Proposing a new speedy base would be one way to keep their usage the same, but it would also add yet another layer of complexity to conversation. (Sounds great to simplify the templates, though!) I have observed that complex conversations on Misplaced Pages tend to bog down. But, again, I don't have strong feelings about it. I'd be happy just changing the wording to add criteria language after the colon, the way I had done in my examples. I'll be happy if your meta change can be harmoniously implemented. As long as the templates are updated to reflect current language, it's good to me. To me, that's the point. However you want to suggest we reach that goal is fine with me.

• You really threw me with this one: "I'm sorry, I'd forgotten you consider these things "suggestions" rather than "proposals" and will try to remember to use that wording." I had to go back to my note from the 18th of January to figure out what you were talking about. :) My point then (as best I remember) wasn't about language; it's simply about the formality of the process. I don't care if you call it a suggestion or a proposal. Proposal is the word I used yesterday when trying to draft a notice of all this. I was responding specifically to the section of your note then about "a limited number of editors editing a sandbox as part of a policy development process". What I had intended to convey was that I regarded this project of ours as a very casual procedure, a starting point for conversation with others rather than an effort to craft big changes which we then intend to sneak in as a consensus of two. While I respect now and respected then your desire to be more circumspect, I don't see a lot of room for misinterpretation of our intentions here. That clarified, I'm not at all sure what I said yesterday to bring that back to your mind. Was it about the village pump? If so, I suppose it is related. I don't see this as a big deal. If there's no feedback at talk:csd, we may want to pump it just to give others opportunity to respond. This is about language merely; it's not a sweeping change. It almost falls under the category for being bold: "make sure the wording is accurate", but bold says, "Before editing templates or categories, consider proposing any changes on the associated talk pages and announcing the proposed change on pages of appropriate WikiProjects." That's what we're doing. Proposing it on the associated talk pages of the template; bringing it up at talk:csd. It if were a policy or guideline, I'd head over to the village pump. Unless it was a very small one, like my recent change to A7 (what, two months ago now?), discussed entirely at talk:csd.

• That said, if you want to propose a new speedy base template, maybe we should village pump it. I have some experience with changing template wording. I have no experience whatsoever with proposing new templates. I have no idea how big a deal that may or may not be.

Have I got everything? :) --Moonriddengirl 13:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I gotta rush right now, but: maybe you didn't say anything yesterday to remind me re suggestion vs. proposal; maybe I just remembered when starting to think about writing the wording of an announcement. Whatever. More later. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm willing to be bold and state that creating a new template is not a big deal. In fact, maybe I'll just go ahead and create it; it can always be deleted again if the consensus is to not use it. Village pumping whether to create it would be almost like village pumping whether to create a new article. Or even more so. :-)

I'm planning to go ahead and put more complete wording into the tables, to prevent others from missing the suggestion to delete "The reason given is". Some templates may still have "notes" or other words that are not shown in the table and that may not necessarily need to be changed. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:04, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay. Templates are not my thing. :) Well, they are. I've made tons of them, but all in my userspace. :D --Moonriddengirl 01:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm running out of time, so I won't get to set up the discussion pages now after all. Now I expect to do it starting near the end of Feb. 8 sometime on Feb. 9 (UTC)13:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC). I've nearly finished putting the beginnings of the wordings into the tables; and I've reversed the italics, in order to continue to make it easy to find the unique part of the wording, but without implying that it's a direct quote. --Coppertwig (talk)

I put a new notice at the top of User:Coppertwig/CSD. Perhaps it can just be copied to each of the subpages (or it could be modified; not sure if we need all the links to previous discussion for example.) --Coppertwig (talk) 02:13, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I was bold and created Template:Speedybase. :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 13:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I expect to create the pages and links around 13:00-14:00.

At the top of the discussion pages, I plan to put most of the same stuff that's at the top of User:Coppertwig/CSD but not listing all the links to previous discussion; instead I'll put someething like "Links to previous discussion can be found here." (i.e. at my CSD page.) and "People may edit the table and change the suggested wordings."

For the templates:

<noinclude>:''Modified wording for this template is being discussed ].''</noinclude>

<noinclude>:''Modified wording for this template is being discussed ].''</noinclude>

<noinclude>:''Modified wording for this template is being discussed ].''</noinclude>

<noinclude>:''Modified wording for this template is being discussed ].''</noinclude>

Hatnote for top of WT:CSD:

"Discussion of wording of speedy-deletion templates, including proposed new wording (Feb. 2008), is on subpages for general, articles, images and other (redirects, categories, userpages, templates, portals)."

--Coppertwig (talk) 02:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I made some last-minute changes to User:Coppertwig/CSD, including changes in wording of G11, G12, i3, i7, p2. Let me know if those changes are OK. --Coppertwig (talk) 04:00, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like all systems are go to me. :) --Moonriddengirl 17:25, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I put a hatnote on nonsense, but I'm not generally comfortable placing hatnotes on template pages. I'll put notes on the template talk pages, and if you feel hatnotes are a good idea for templates as well I'll leave that up to you. People who are watchlisting the templates will see the notes on the talk pages. People who use the templates probably don't often look at the template page. --Moonriddengirl 17:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem. Thanks a lot for helping. I think I will put in the hatnotes. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I've got all the general talk pages done. I'm heading onto articles now. --Moonriddengirl 18:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Great! It's fun doing this together. I'm marking things done in the to-do list above. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Me, too. :) This is the perfect opportunity to use my own little type of templates, which made placing notices at the talk pages easy. --Moonriddengirl 18:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

To use your what? How did you do all those notices so fast? I'm being slowed down by RL a bit. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I make lots of little templates. I templated the notices in my sandbox, here, so all I had to do was paste {{subst:User:Moonriddengirl/sandbox}} into each page and, voila, gives me dividers and everything. :) --Moonriddengirl 18:39, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Med request 2

Blackworm seems to have given his ok - how about you? I'd like to send this request tonight if it's all good. Thanks -Phyesalis (talk) 20:46, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Filed mediation request

I have filed the request here. Thank you for your help and participation. -Phyesalis (talk) 03:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Automated editing

The matter was resolved. User:Anakin101 did it. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 03:22, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you!

Hi, just dropping by to say thanks for supporting my RfA, I totally wasn't expecting to get so much support, it was a really pleasant surprise. Melesse (talk) 04:27, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Melesse (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Any suggestions re archived ANI

Hi Coppertwig I had the following on ANI but it never got admin action and now has been archived. Any suggestions? Number 10 on the index list "PresterJohn continues misrepresenting source in BLP". SmithBlue (talk) 22:45, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Your last post on the AN/I thread makes it sound as if maybe things got resolved, or partly resolved. Would you please briefly summarize here what are the disputes or problems that are still not solved, that you're looking for suggestions about? I might or might not get involved and/or give you suggestions. Thanks. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:17, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Coopertwig, basically as I see it;

PresterJohn has misrepresented a source repeatedly.

PresterJohn seems either unable or unwilling to see the problem and replies that other sources support the material as he presents it.

Editor Skyring/Pete apparently refuses/unable to understand problem of repeatedly misrepresenting a source.

Editors PresterJohn and Skyring/Pete present a view in which my efforts to correct, discuss and report issue is disruptive.

PresterJohn and Skyring/Pete have apparently shown that repeatedly misrepresenting a source has no consequences/importance to WP.

I'm feeling let down by admins on ANI - I try to take effective action against an editing practice, that damages WP, by correcting, discussing and then eventually lodging an ANI and get no assistance.

Those 6 things pretty much cover the issues/problems that are still not solved. SmithBlue (talk) 12:13, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the summary. I plan to look into this within about a day. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:06, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Please take as much time as you want - spending some time away from David Hicks sounds good to me. Let me know if you decide not to proceed though so that I can explore other options. Am open to suggestions from you on how to do a better job with possibly disruptive editors. SmithBlue (talk) 13:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

OK -- could you please be more specific? Apparently they found this source which states "He received training in weapons, commando tactics, explosives, guerrilla warfare strategies, advanced marksmanship, topography, ambush attacks, reconnaissance, surveillance, sniper training and house entries." Which particular edits are you still concerned about, and in what way (i.e. no source, source not reliable or article not reflecting source in a NPOV way, or undue weight, etc.?) Sorry for the delay, and thanks for any additional information you can provide. I appreciate you helping support WP:NPOV and WP:BLP. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I am concerned that the following edits were made which repeatedly misrepresented the source cited. The material in the article misrepresents the material in the source. The material in the article was described as admissions whereas the source says allegations (I was unaware of the source/information you provide above until after the ANI "discusion" on talk page. Pete/Skyring put forward the source you mention at 02:45, 3 February 2008)

Then following are the diffs for the edits which misrepresent the sources cited.

Revision as of 00:43, 3 February 2008

Revision as of 01:59, 13 January 2008

Revision as of 00:10, 12 January 2008

The same edits have also been performed by IP

Revision as of 03:10, 1 February 2008 by 124.180.162.217

Am not sure how much additional info you want - I discussed the issue with PresterJohn at Talk to the Hand/"David Hicks allegations" section and also with PresterJohn and Pete/Skyring at Talk:David_Hicks/SMH Afganistan allegations. SmithBlue (talk) 08:46, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

If your only concern is about edits that happened in the past, I would advise just dropping it. While the edits might not have been supported by the sources that were presented at the time, later sources were provided, e.g. another source is mentioned on the talk page using the word "admitted", etc. If there's an issue which you still consider to be a content dispute at the present time, please give me specific information about that. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

My 6 concerns are listed above. They extend beyond edits in the past. I do not think that letting this drop will promote an environment on David Hicks in which editors can work together, having confidence in the accuracy of each-others representations of sources. Nor in a way in which communication/discussion of problems can be held forth as the best method. Nor in a way in which administrator action can be relied on. For these reasons I want to continue to explore which avenues are open. If you don't wish to continue I understand that I have no claim to your time and that your advice is to let the matter go by. Thanks for your assistance so far. There is no content dipute at the present time related to my concerns. I would appreciate any suggestions as to what I could have done differently. SmithBlue (talk) 23:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Coopertwig - just confirming that I am exploring other avenues. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify my thoughts on this matter. SmithBlue (talk) 11:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry -- I missed seeing your previous post above.

Well, the first diff you give uses the word "allegedly", but later a source was provided that said "admitted" -- I may be confused but I assume that covers it. I didn't look at the other diffs. If you explain why they're significant to the situation I might look at them.

I assume you're looking for advice about what to do when someone posts something which is not supported by any sources that have been provided. Here are some ideas: First look for sources you can find yourself that support the material, if you think you might be able to find some. Also look for sources that contradict the material. Finding more sources is often the cleanest way to resolve a dispute. If that avenue has been exhausted and there's still a problem, without having looked at the way interactions on that page usually go, I would suggest reverting once, stating your concerns on the talk page, and if the material is reinstated without adequate justification, then bringing in more editors to provide their opinions. You can use Misplaced Pages:Third opinion, Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard(may or may not be appropriate), Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Biographies, post a request for comment on a talk page of one or a few related articles or a wikiproject, and the Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution process. I hope this helps, and apologize for the delay due to not seeing your post. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

By the way, feel free to ask me for a third opinion, but I'm under the impression there is currently no content dispute so no third opinion is needed at this time. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Request for mediation accepted

A Request for Mediation to which you were are a party has been accepted. You can find more information on the case subpage, Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Reproductive rights. For the Mediation Committee, WjBscribe 23:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Just a passer's by comment

Coppertwig, I wish to give you a large thank you for your unrelentless support over the past two weeks, it's proved invaluable and you've often AGF in places where others haven't. If you ever are to go through a RFA, just drop me a line and I'll do a co-nomination (that being because I'm probably not the only one wanting to nominate) :) Regards, Rudget. 16:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

That picture is a good addition, and no problem about the co-nomination offer - you deserve it. Rudget. 15:46, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for letting me know of the discussion on the new speedy templates! I personally think that the best way to do it would be to have a subpage of WT:CSD for the discussion (split into four would be fine as well), and place a noincluded note on each template page with a link to that discussion. A hatnote could also then be placed at the top of the CSD talk page. From a quick glance, they look like they're coming along quite well, I'll review them in more depth once the discussion is ready to start.

As to the rest, no worries at all. :) At that time, there were a lot of "silent" edit conflicts, where two edits got posted at once rather than the last person getting an edit conflict. That certainly could make conversations hard to follow and make replies appear to be to the wrong thing. It seems that bug is fixed now, I haven't had that happen in a while. Seraphimblade 00:00, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Article protection

I've changed my mind on article protection and am asking that FGC and RR be protected. I withdraw my request that we not edit the talk pages. As always, thanks for your continued GF participation. --Phyesalis (talk) 20:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

RE: Re your comment on an RfA

Ahh yes. Thanks for telling me, that was a typo on my part. Thanks again!--Sunny910910 23:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey Copper, is your comment supposed to be attached to the #45 or did you retract your support? I think you are supporting Seresin, but I can't tell---indented comments like yours usually indicates a retracted support?Balloonman (talk) 23:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out. That was my attempt to format a multi-paragraph vote. I've modified it. I'd appreciate it if you know of any way to further improve a multi-paragraph formatting. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

About your reply: No problem, I'm just glad it didn't go unnoticed for a long time.--Sunny910910 00:05, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Your modified version works for me... I didn't want to "fix" it without checking with you. Thanks.Balloonman (talk) 00:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Fine, thanks for not "fixing" it, but if you (or anyone) can tell me about a better way to format multi-paragraph votes I'd appreciate knowing for next time. Anyway, it's all fine. --Coppertwig (talk) 20:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Timeline

Re formatting of a vote on an RfA. I'm collecting this information for purposes other than to criticize Cometstyles, Balloonman or anyone else.

• 17:13 9 Feb 2008 I voted, attempting to format a multi-paragraph vote. I put one line which was totally blank except for "#" (hash), followed by four lines beginning with "#:" (hash colon); the first of these four containing the word "Support".
• 23:44 Balloonman suggested that it wasn't clear whether my vote was intended as a valid one (Thank you for pointing that out, Balloonman.)
• 23:49 I removed a colon beside the word "Support". At this point, there was a line which was blank except for "#" (hash), followed by a line beginning with "#" (hash) and also containing the word "Support". The page rendering showed a correct vote count, treating these two lines as one combined item, but apparently the bot counted them as two. I should have deleted the line which was blank except for "#" (hash). (Sorry about that.) (wrong bot count begins, I think)
• 06:01 and 06:05, 10 Feb Cometstyles modified my vote (combining two paragraphs into one, inserting "and" between them, adding my signature to the end of the second paragraph and making the indentation of the first part different from that of the last paragraph) and in the next edit removed the line which was blank except for "#" (hash), allowing the bot to count the vote correctly (Thank you for noticing the problem, pinpointing it and fixing it, Cometstyles.) (wrong bot count ends, I think)
• 03:38 11 Feb I "restored the original wording" of my vote, and also combined the three paragraphs into one and insserted "(paragraph break)" between them. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

#'''Vote #1''' text of vote
#'''Vote #2''' text of vote
#'''Vote #3''' text of vote

#'''Vote #1''' text of vote
#
#:'''Vote #2''' text of vote
#'''Vote #3''' text of vote

#'''Vote #1''' text of vote
#
#'''Vote #2''' text of vote
#'''Vote #3''' text of vote

#'''Vote #1''' text of vote
#
#
#'''Vote #2''' text of vote
#'''Vote #3''' text of vote

--Coppertwig (talk) 01:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Clarification

Im sorry I wasnt clear about the problem... I do not want to change Huautla de Jiménez into a redirect. It is the name of a town and the seat (capital) of the Municipality of Huautla de Jiménez. Is there a way to merger the information of the two articles without turning one of them into a redirect? Thanks Thelmadatter (talk) 17:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

re:Formatting of RfA votes

Sorry for not notifying soon, but I had to leave soon afterwards, and I returned 4 hours later and it slipped my mind..sorry :) ..--Cometstyles 06:02, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem, as I said on your talk page. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

formatting suggestion

1. I noticed you put (paragraph break) inside your comment at Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Seresin. Many don't seem to be aware of the option that you can use <br /> to create a paragraph break that retains the indentation.
   Using <br /><br /> you can create a paragraph break with an empty line.
   
   User:Dorftrottel 15:06, February 11, 2008
2. Let me try. Suppose this were the first paragraph of my vote.<br.>This would be the second paragraph, then.
   It works! Thanks a lot -- that's what I was looking for. I won't change the formatting of my vote in this RfA, but I expect I'll be using it in future ones -- I often have longish votes. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

:) you're welcome. User:Dorftrottel 01:03, February 12, 2008

Protected template edits

Given that there is objection to the edits, I'm afraid they can't be made to protected templates unless a strong consensus were shown in favor of making them. To do otherwise would violate the protection policy. They're not a necessity in any case, a link on the talk pages would be fine if people find the template notes objectionable. Seraphimblade 19:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

re welcometemplates

In reply to your message, we have {{welcome-anon}} and {{welcome-anon-vandal}} templates out there, as well as quite a few others. The Friendly javascript tool automates adding these template messages and quite a few others - I recommend having that and Twinkle installed just to simplify your life a bit - these addons provide a number of extra tabs to save time and prevent mistakes in complex processes. Triona (talk) 03:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Dual use of List & Disamb

I palce another comment at the Help Desk regarding this issue & would be interested in your comments. I do appreciate your assistence & opinion. Tahnks! FieldMarine (talk) 17:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your time & comments. Semper Fi, FieldMarine (talk) 03:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Consolidation complete on the List of jail and prison museums & the situation is resolved. Thanks again for facilitating the discussion. FieldMarine (talk) 06:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

IAR is what makes Misplaced Pages great!

<div style="position: fixed; right:0; bottom:0; display:block; height:{{{1|150}}}px; width:{{{1|150}}}px;"><div style="position: relative; width: {{{1|150}}}px; height: {{{1|150}}}px; overflow: lolz"> <div style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; font-size: 300px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 300px; z-index: 3">]</div> <div style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; z-index: 2">]</div></div></div>

Regards, QuackGuru (talk) 20:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I realized something about Misplaced Pages. It has no rules. Just consensus. Therefore, we are all IAR. QuackGuru (talk) 01:17, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

It has consensus? Where? I missed it!!! :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 01:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. How can we have consensus when there is no broad agreement. That means there are no rules... QuackGuru (talk) 01:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

If there's no consensus, does that mean we can do anything -- or does that mean we can't do anything? :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 01:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Take a quick look at the chiropractic talk page. Copyright violations, deletion of cited material (there are four chiro groups), and a whole series of problems. We can do something about it if we IAR. QuackGuru (talk) 01:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I will if I can find time. I have some things I need to do. Possibly soon, or in a couple of days. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

(Additional answer to same message) Using IAR as a tool to enforce policies? Fighting fire with fire? Maybe if you like fire. That seems to me a somewhat paradoxical way to proceed. I tend to use a calmer, wetter, far-less-likely-to-get-blocked approach, which I really think is much more effective, much more likely to arrive at the closest thing possible to a solution everybody agrees on, and also therefore on average more likely to arrive at a solution considered better from any given POV. Note my "harmonious editing club" and "self-revert" userboxes on my userpage. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I've been going over Chiropractic and expect to continue. By copyright violations I think you mean long quotes. I don't think they're copyright violations. One could argue that they are because they're too long. I think it's a matter of opinion. There's a page to put in a request for an administrator to look into cases of suspected copyright violation; you might want to try that if you haven't already. However, I would expect the administrator would say that it isn't a copyright violation. See Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems. Also, I suggest waiting until a week or two after your block expires before (possibly) putting in a request on that page, as just putting in such a request about the issue which has already been discussed may be seen as disruptive. Maybe I shouldn't even be suggesting it to you. You might want to ask someone's advice, e.g. maybe that of one of the admins who reviewed your block, before doing something like that. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:28, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Adoption request

Thanks again for adopting me. As you may have noticed, I don't overload you with questions. However, a friend of mine who is new in Misplaced Pages asked me if I knew anyone who accepts a new adoptee. She is prepared to learn more and already very active in Misplaced Pages. I would appreciate it if you could adopt her.--Kerres (Talk) 08:24, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Adoption request

Hi Coppertwig! I was wondering if you could adopt me. I am new in wikipedia but I am aiming to contribute quite regularly. Please, take a look to some recent contributions I am looking for some help with editing but also some assistante with getting to know the especifics of how wikipedia works. Thank you very much. .--anunezsanchez (Talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.220.83.143 (talk) 14:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi! I saw the request from Kerres above. I'm sorry I just haven't had time yet to have a look at your contribs. I expect I'll answer within about 24 hours. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:29, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: Your comments on museum lists on FieldMarine's talk page

Thanks for your comments there, which helped me to think through the matter more. Whether or not to split lists or categories by nationality isn't really something covered by NPOV, I think, because the consideration should be what helps the reader and what lists may be too long, and that just depends on the information we have or expect to have. I'm not sure what's most useful for readers when it comes to lists of jail/prison museums, and since the list is sortable, it's only a minor inconvenience to readers if we get it wrong (alternately, it's a minor improvement if we get it right). Again, thanks. Noroton (talk) 19:08, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree: NPOV does cover how lists are divided up. In most cases it probably doesn't matter. However, grouping geographical things in a particular way could, in some particular situations, be seen as legitimizing controversial borders. There are people who feel very strongly one way or another, I believe, as to whether Turkey is or is not part of Europe, for example. In the case of these museum lists you probably don't have to worry about this sort of thing much, but it can come up. Anyway, go forth and be bold. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Okie dokie!

- Apologies for any confusion caused! Scarian 02:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

66.100.163.146 and Kittenpants.com

I was not the only person who deleted the kittenpants.com link (which was not related to the article), two other registered users also did likewise. I feel I am being the one singled out for Bites. Her/his attempts to clean up the rest of spam only came after 6 or 7 attempts to insert the kittenpants.com links and two warnings (one from me and the other user). I might understand singling me out if I was acting alone, or if I was unduly rude to the anon user. You assume good faith of someone who attempts to insert non relevant spam, but I am not extended the same courtesy? Jacksinterweb (talk) 02:22, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for the tone of my message. I thought it sounded too harsh as soon as I'd posted it, and posted a gentler one to Scarian, partly also because the user only posted one vandalism warning to that user while you posted two. I'm not sure what third editor you're referring to, but in any case, I had no problem with people deleting the link; I was focussing on the vandalism warnings posted at User talk:66.100.163.146.

I'm sorry that I didn't study the user contribs and talk page history as carefully as I could have, and jumped to the conclusion that your last warning was referring to the edit which the user appeared to think it was referring to, i.e. this edit, which was not vandalism. I see now that it would be much more reasonable to assume you were referring to the edit a minute earlier which re-added kittenpants.com. You can reduce the chance of such confusion in future (by the recipient of the warning or by others such as myself) by including specific reference to which edit you mean when you post vandalism messages, although this doesn't excuse me from making that error. (This is similar to what I said to the other user about edit summaries.)

I still haven't completely figured out what happened, and maybe it's not worth taking the time to do so, but it seems to me that the user inserted "kittenpants.com" twice and received three vandalism warnings, so something wasn't quite right. Scarian has deleted the vandalism warnings and posted an apologetic message at the help desk.

It's possible that your warnings were technically correct, and I apologize for making a similar error with you that I was accusing you of making with this new user.

I encourage you to have a look at the help desk thread if you haven't already, to get an idea of how your vandalism warnings were experienced by the user. Possibly more than one user was bitten.

You could still try treating the addition of links as a content dispute rather than as vandalism; explain in a little more detail to new users why their edits are considered vandalism; and post welcome templates so the users have some chance of figuring out what types of edits they are or are not supposed to be doing. --Coppertwig (talk) 12:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Or you could have checked the history of the article to see the sequence of events and this "content dispute". You would have also seen the third person who saw the spamming and removed the last bits of it. Instead you pronounced me guilty and pounced.

Or you could have checked MY contributions and see that I revert many times without using boiler plate warnings, often reverting small hijinx made hours earlier and moving on (little point warning an anon IP when that user has moved on).

I do revert spam links many times without calling spam vandalism. In this case she/he used a Trojan horse to conceal spam (a so called "fact" with external link to pvt website selling kittenpants.com products). He/she made several attempts to make the link work before I issued first warning. I in fact checked the website to see if it was just an innocent mistake (did you?) and saw no connection but saw a site selling a book and kittenpant related products. Possibly a COI but more likely just a kid pushing his/her fav site. Scarian and I overlapped, and indeed the last of the eight or so "edits" was not in fact spam, but in light of previous 7 edits her intent wasn't so clear nor so innocent, but I was still in error on that one.

Yes, I did see the Help Desk, did you? If you had you would have seen that he/she misrepresented what actually happened (no mention of spam link, no actual yelling - just the claim that she was only trying to insert a "fact" and then correct it...but you didn't check the article's history so you wouldn't know that wasn't so much the case). I also saw another editor responded to his/her request, and make note on Anon's talk page....but you decided to pile on too and issued harsh baseless rebukes. All that aside; ignorance of guidelines and rules does not make one innocent or a victim but you treated him/her as such.

It boils down to this: you took as gospel the word of an Anon user with 8 edits all involving spamming over the history of a registered user with over 13,000 edits and no record of mischief and issued a rebuke, which you stand by in spirit if not totally in tone.

Or you could have taken time to investigate before firing off "harshly worded" rebukes. If you didn't have the time to investigate, perhaps you should have just let it go since someone else already addressed the situation.

Or you could have amended your message to me once you "thought it sounded too harsh", but you made the decision to let it ride (I was guilty and not due the respect offered to Anon user, right?).

Or you could have resisted the temptation today to assume bad faith, that all my activites in the past are in error too.

You are no doubt a very smart person (your user page implies this), so let me ask you this, who did more harm to Misplaced Pages? Was it the Anon user pushing a spam site? Or was it me, in posting a boiler plate template to get her/him to stop? Or was it a third party who gave the 'green light" to a spammer/victim and then pivot to insult, tried to humiliate and chase off an established user with no record of disruptive behavior for trying to revert anon user's actions?

In the end, You Win! The accussation (and your pronouncement of my guilt) remains on the Help Desk and Anon User page waiting for the next "helpful" person to chime in. But more important you needn't ever worry about you and I crossing paths again.

I wonder what special Barnstar you will receive for your very "special" contribution to this matter? Jacksinterweb (talk) 16:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I made a mistake. I apologize. I would strike out my comment on your talk page, except that you've already deleted it. I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused you. Next time I feel like rebuking someone for BITE I'll literally do 10 pushups first and then recheck the contrib histories etc. again. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:21, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm also sorry to have taken up so much of your time. I would like you to know that at every stage of this incident, I assumed that your actions were carried out in good faith, whether I thought they were constructive or whether I mistakenly thought they didn't appear to be constructive. I never had the slightest reason to suspect that you might not be acting in good faith. I'm sorry if I accidentally gave an impression otherwise. --Coppertwig (talk) 14:25, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Apologies accepted and sincerely appreciated. We all have feet of clay. WP provides a thousand and one guidelines and rules that we can cherry pick and hide behind when we do something clumsy or wrong, but you chose not to. You actually thought for yourself and displayed grace; for that I am very appreciative and impressed. I am not interested seeing you embarrassed nor do I need a permanent display of apology, so unless you just like hairshirt threads on your talk page, please feel free to delete our discussions (no one should have the word "kittenpants" on the talk page). Thank you. Jack

Jacksinterweb (talk) 16:36, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm very relieved to get your message. I was worried.

My standard practice is to archive messages from my talk page, not delete them. I don't think it will bother me having this here until my next archiving action, now that it's resolved.

I'm planning to take up some new habits that will help me remember to check things more thoroughly in situations like that. --Coppertwig (talk) 16:55, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Just saying hallo

Hi Coppertwig, thanks a lot for your offer. Whenever you are bored, you can always review any of the articles on water supply and sanitation, especially those about Latin American and Caribbean countries. Any comments are welcome. Greetings!--Kerres (Talk) 11:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your comments! They are very useful for the articles. Mschiffler and I already made some minor changes to it. Concerning the other articles, I mean all those which are included in the navbox on my user page and at the end of each article. At the moment, we nominated Water supply and sanitation in Colombia as a good article. Your comments are welcome!--Kerres (Talk) 19:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

How are you? I added a table you may already have seen in my sandbox to Misplaced Pages. Do you think that it was a good solution to establish a link here or would it be better to include the table in the article? By the way, I hope you are at least a little interested in the issue and the articles don't bore you.--Kerres (Talk) 10:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Editors claim that repeatedly misrepresenting a source is OK

Hi Coppertwig , thanks for your input. I have replied on my talk page ]. I disagree strongly. I am interested in continuing this conversation. Am also trying to include SeraphimBlade in this discusion. All the best. SmithBlue (talk) 08:29, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Have replied on my talk page ] thanks SmithBlue (talk) 11:51, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Coppertwig - a question: Have you read the actual lengthy discusions I have had with PresterJohn and Skyring/Pete on this issue? Or are you discussing with me a hypothetical situation of an editor misrepresenting sources? I am feeling misunderstood by you and the admins I have contacted on this matter. And can only make sense of the response I have got by thinking none of you has read the discusions I referenced.

I have replied briefly to your latest post on my talk page. Hope to add more soon. SmithBlue (talk) 04:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed reply.

The allegations/accusations being misrepresented are specific ones; "attended a number of al-Qaeda training courses at various camps around Afghanistan, learning guerilla warfare, weapons training, including landmines, kidnapping techniques and assassination methods. He also participated in an advanced course on surveillance, in which he conducted surveillance of the U.S. and British embassies in Kabul, Afghanistan". On one occasion when al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden visited an Afghan camp, Hicks questioned bin Laden about the lack of English in training material and subsequently "began to translate the training camp materials from Arabic to English"."

Before the edit in which I wrote, "Ummm.... I have not disputed that many reliable sources show Hicks training with AlQ.", PresterJohn repeatedly responded as if "Hicks trained with AlQ" was all that needed to be correctly sourced. (There is is a list of specific allegations as shown above and PresterJohn is required to give a correct source for them all under VER and BLP.)

However after I made it clear that I was not disputing that "Hicks trained with Al Qaeda" PresterJohn continued to edit as if I was. This effectively created a strawman - something he could loudly disprove while ignoring the issue of misrepresentation.

User:Prester John's contribution page shows his first edit as 02:03, 27 August 2006 (hist) (diff) Alexander Downer‎ (I have changed "off Australian " waters to)

shows

Mainspace 4313

Misplaced Pages: 207

total 6263

User:Coppertwig shows

Mainspace 2175

Misplaced Pages: 519

total 6819

User:SmithBlue shows

Mainspace 501

Misplaced Pages: 24

total 1408

PresterJohn has a comparable number of edits to you.

He is familar with Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents having posted there 32 times which is similar in number to your posting there. He is not a new user and could be typified as experienced.

And yet he apparently misunderstands the necessity of accurate representation of sources. I wonder - especially given his continued promotion of the strawman of "Hicks trained with Al Qaeda" after I pointed out that that was not disputed.

You write, "I'm not aware of any policy stating that articles have to "accurately reflect the content of sources.""

You seem to be relating this to my statement "This discusion is about accurately reflecting the content of sources."

In the case to hand I am discussing edits/"material inserted into article" needing to accurately represent the content of the cited sources. If the information in the edits does not "accurately reflect the content of sources" then it will, at least, be misleading. The reader will assume that the material in the article accurrately represents the source given as this is the established convention.

I have put in a . I have tried to frame it in line with your suggested layout. I would appreciate your view of it. If you are too busy I do understand that priorities are very important to maintain. SmithBlue (talk) 06:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm planning to reply within a day or two. Feel free to remind me if I forget. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, from your description it seems that you're dealing with an editor who thinks it's OK to leave out the word "allegedly" when quoting from a newspaper. (Of course it's not OK to just use a source that says "allegedly" as if it didn't contain that word.) This sort of thing is not uncommon. I myself have learned (mostly from Jakew) better habits of quoting sources more precisely, during my time here at Misplaced Pages. In my opinion, the primary method of educating users about this sort of thing is discussion on the article talk page.

Are you thinking of doing an RfC (article content) or an RfC (user conduct)? They're two very different things. However, in my experience, RfC (user conduct)'s are unlikely to do any good and are very likely to do more harm than good. I think I've heard that there have existed RfC (user conduct)'s that did some good, but I haven't actually seen one. :-)

You're talking about edits that happened weeks ago. I advise you to just drop the matter. It may be that Prester John has (without wanting to admit it) learned from your earlier messages and has stopped doing those kinds of edits. I advise that you keep the page on your watchlist and be ready to revert any unsourced or improperly sourced edits, and be ready to take other actions if and when they're needed.

I note that you haven't followed my advice about beginning with a single sentence which expresses the main point you want to get across. (What is the main point you want to get across?) Also, you've listed diffs of edits by Prester John, but you have not put into the same list any diffs of comments by you to Prester John (e.g. on the user's talk page) coming chronologically between the user's edits and explaining why that sort of edit is unconstructive. Therefore your argument is weak. Also, you're including a lot of information near the top of your post that is only tangentially related to your main point, requiring the reader to do a lot of mental work to try to figure out what you're getting at.

Try to get along with other users. A friendly approach is more likely to get a positive response than making a fuss with AN/I and other processes. Try to focus on article content rather than the behaviour of other users. Focus on user behaviour only if quite necessary. Since the last problematic edit seems to have been Feb. 3 according to your post at Editor assistance/Requests (the link you give above), it seems to me that everything is fine now. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:01, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Coppertwig, thanks for being a good sounding board. I seem to have found some traction and presented my view on the article talk page and asked for other views on the matter. If I was confident that my AGF was well placed I would agree with your suggestion to let it go. Rather I think continuing to explore this matter will make editing WP a more fruitful experience for me and others. Whilst I have not always agreed with what you have written on this matter you have helped a lot in getting my thoughts clarified. Thanks for confirming my views on RfC User - am thinking that Mediation may work better. I hope so because an admin pointed out that as ANI failed to address issue then ARBCOM is open. But, while I think this issue is very important, I really dont want to take up valuable time unless it becomes last resort.

The issue I wish to deal with is that Prester John and Skyring promote editing practices that involve breaching:

• WP:NOR, which states "Information in an article must be verifiable in the references cited.", as the source given does not verify the information in his edit.
• WP:BLP which states "The writing style should be neutral and factual, avoiding both understatement and overstatement." Presenting allegations and accusatons as fact or as admitted is neither neutral nor factual.
• WP:VER which states, "Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed." Prester John did not provide a reliable source for material that had been challenged.

In addition Prester John continued with these edits knowing that they were disputed and did not have consensus support. He later was supported by Skyring for having continued with these edits.

To me the defense of the misrepresenting edits disrupts and works to destroy Misplaced Pages. It may be that I am wrong. But so far my earnest efforts to be shown how I am wrong have not succeeded.

Thanks for your support over the last weeks - it has been very helpful. I think I'll be right on my own two feet from here. If I can be of any assistance please let me know. SmithBlue (talk) 08:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you've found my comments helpful.

I doubt that Prester John and Skyring admit that the practices they promote breach those policies. You could present your point in a more neutral fashion by stating that they promote certain practices (described in a neutral way such that they would agree that those are the practices that they promote) and state that in your opinion these practices breach those policies.

If the last edit in question is indeed Feb. 3, your use of the word "continued" seems somewhat misleading to me. When saying something like that, I think it's worthwhile adding more information to qualify what you're saying to make it clear that you're talking about one or two edits weeks ago after receiving a warning (if that's what the situation is) rather than a pattern that is currently continuing. Avoiding exaggeration or any appearance of exaggeration in your argument is more courteous to the other people involved (including those who have to read what you say and figure out what's going on) and also leaves your argument less open to distracting counter-arguments. --Coppertwig (talk) 12:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Coppertwig, a messagte to WP:VER talk produced this; WP:NOR#Using sources "Information in an article must be verifiable in the references cited." Knowing this will make things easier to explain next time. Thanks for your time. SmithBlue (talk) 02:00, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: Thanks for helping out a new user

That's usually my policy. :) Anything to help other people contribute whilst not being discouraged by deletions of recently created pages is a big must. The source supplied looks appropriate and verifiable enough, so it was all in a day's work. Regards, Rudget. 11:46, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you think you're ready for a request for adminship now? If so, I can contact Moonriddengirl because she also seems to have pretty close relations with you aswell. If not, no worries. Regards, Rudget. 19:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I replied by email. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

point de vue neutrale a l'article de chiropratique

Salut Coppertwig,

J'aimerais bien vous feliciter pour tes efforts a l'article de chiropratique. J'espere que tu decidera de rester avec nous pour donner votre POV et nous aider avec des changements controversiaux; on a besoin plus d'editeurs objectif! A la prochaine, EBDCM (talk) 03:09, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Merci beaucoup, et merci d'utiliser quelques de mes suggestions. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Rewording of CSD templates

While your suggestions for rewording the CSD templates are interesting, they don't seem to have gained very much support or discussion. How are you planning to proceed? Happy‑melon 14:01, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

As co-doer of that, I'll just note that silence equals consent. Of course, that isn't true in policy pages or guidelines, but in templates there's no reason to presume it isn't. --Moonriddengirl 14:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The plan is as descibed at User talk:Moonriddengirl#CSD stuff, i.e. if continued silence after one more notice, then WP:BRD. I'll wait a short time for you to comment on this procedure if you wish, happy-melon, before posting that notice at WT:CSD. I really appreciate your comments -- nice to get a few comments, anyway! Some of your comments required some thinking, (e.g. the list of which templates transclude which, which I haven't finished,) which is why I haven't answered them yet, but still plan to; however, I don't think this necessarily requires delaying implementing the other changes. --Coppertwig (talk) 14:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hey thanks for the advice! Now that i've looked I found a userpage that I'd like to use. Plus more information on my page (ALOT more) would be helpful! =) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Letter 7 (talk • contribs) 19:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thanks. Now I know how notable Takkō Ishimori is.Kitty53 (talk) 03:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: Criticism

Howdy Coppertwig! Thank you very much for the RfA support; I really appreciate you taking the time to !vote on it. And also, thank you very much for the message and well detailed and well thought out "criticisms". In reply to those consecutive (1 minute gap) vandal warnings: As you probably know WP:HUGGLE queues up edits... e.g. 1) A user makes an edit and I perceive it as vandalism and revert... Huggle then blacklists that user (anon or registered) and pulls up other unreverted edits that that user has done for me to check over... That's how the situation of edits made at 14:18 and 14:29 ended up getting warned at 14:52 and 14:53. The edits are queued up (eventually creating a backlog)... I understand that I should notice the time difference and take into account a users ability to read and take heed of a warning within a certain amount of time.
Welcome messages... Hmm... I did used to do them. Quite a few months ago actually. But then I realised that the vast majority of {{welcomeg}} tags I placed were ignored and the user's never edited again. So it never provided me with any sort of "satisfaction" so to speak. I do realise and acknowledge that I should start doing it again and that the welcome templates can do a lot of good in welcoming and bringing new users into our community.
I think those are my explanations ... So the warning troubles can be blamed partially on Huggle with me accepting that I should pay more attention to time discrepancies. And I should begin welcoming users again simply as a matter of curtesy and politeness. My user page colours... Hmm... I'd be willing to change them if numerous users found it difficult to read .
I hope you find my answers satisfactory. If you have any follow up criticisms please feel free to message. I hope you are well, friend. Thanks again for the message, I really appreciate you taking the time. Take care, Scarian 18:49, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

boserup versus böserup

thank you for your input. ludo86--Ludo86 (talk) 20:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the help. It really helped my understanding of Misplaced Pages. The reason I ask people to post massages on the the archive is because it means people don't clog up my talk page with answers. It helps me to keep up with talk and answers without the mixture of both. There are some riddles on my user page. Chubbennaitor (talk) 20:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

j stalin

i also think the selling candy on BART sentance should be removed, it may is embarassing. Its also illegal. It's even more of a liability since its law breaking as a child. user wikidemo reverted my removal of the selling candy on the bart train, and also removed my {{fact}} on the non contentious claim that he started rapping at age 13 which is cited based on unpublished album notes which cannot be found. this is on the J Stalin article, would someone intervene and revert and also discuss?Icamepica (talk) 07:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of J Stalin

An article that you have been involved in editing, J Stalin, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/J Stalin (2nd nomination). Thank you. Icamepica (talk) 05:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Templates

Yes, you've done that pretty much correctly. It would be helpful to pass the parameter |bot={{{bot|}}} to ensure consistent support for the new bot-tagged feature, which I forgot to do in the four I did. As you correctly noticed, the documentation pages should be at {{db-xN/doc}}, not {{db-xN/new/doc}}, and try and put everything, including shortcuts, into the documentation, so if we ever do need to protect them again, the documentation can still be edited. Other than that, it looks good.

My own knowledge of bots is only moderate, based on the pywikipedia framework. I actually knew nothing about python until I started playing around with it, but it's a very intuitive language and a fairly shallow learning curve. If you've done any other programming before, you could pick it up fairly quickly. Happy‑melon 09:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Speculation about Mona Lisa

Hi Coppertwig, I wanted to let you know that I reverted your correct and well-researched contribution to Mona Lisa only because the information is more aptly covered in the 'Speculation' article, wherein several theories are offered regarding the lady's smile. The creation of the 'Speculation' entry is recent, and now acts as the home for this and similar scholarship. I wanted to contact you directly because yours was a very good faith edit, coming from a good contributor. Respectfully yours, JNW (talk) 02:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It is difficult for me to undo an erudite contribution! Your subsequent revisions, and explanation, make perfect sense. I may change the tense in one of your sentences from present to past--if you find me in error, please revert back. Cheers, JNW (talk) 03:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The footnotes are great--my apologies for not being more thorough and moving them there myself. The original Mona article had gotten pretty unwieldy, and the speculation section was split off into a separate article. My (unexpressed) trepidation was that just such occurrences would result, but the links you added address this smartly. Thanks. JNW (talk) 03:25, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

j stalin

he immediately reverted you edit. i reverted his blatantly disregarding edit which seems to be a WP:OWN problem now too and warned him in his talk page which you may want to comment at.Icamepica (talk) 11:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm under the impression that you've admitted to being a sockpuppet, and that the person you're admitting to be has been blocked indefinitely for disruption. (See Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Boomgaylove.) --Coppertwig (talk) 03:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

J Stalin article

Hi there. Please realize that I'm trying to keep some order around here. I've gotten sucked into dealing with a bunch of sockpuppets, who are busy attacking me and creating forks all over the place. I'm not trying to blindly revert stuff, I just don't think we can have a reasonable discussion about the content of these articles while they are under attack. If you can hold on for half a day you'll find me quite reasonable. I have no agenda regarding the content other than that trying to keep a lid on disruption and sockpuppetry until things return to normal. The status quo for these articles is that they mentioned the statements about drug dealing, with the same sources they do now but not in reasonable citation format. I've improved the citation formats, added a bunch more sources to the article, reorganized and improved it, and added some content, all so the sockpuppets could not game the system by appealing to notability. Just hold on a bit and we'll work it out, okay? Thanks, Wikidemo (talk) 12:08, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Re J Stalin article: I understand that there are allegations of sockpuppetry involved, and I've made some edits to Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/J Stalin (2nd nomination) and to Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Boomgaylove in support of the sockpuppetry allegations. Nevertheless, WP:BLP states clearly "immediately and without discussion". While you've asked me to "hold on a bit," you haven't provided anything that looks to me like a reason for doing so, so I am turning down your request. Your edit violates WP:BLP and you have not provided counter-arguments supporting your edit, therefore it also violates WP:CONSENSUS. Please do not re-insert the disputed material again. If it had not already been reverted I would be asking you now to self-revert it. --Coppertwig (talk) 12:22, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

You can delete BLP violations immediately and without discussion. This is not a BLP violation, so deleting it amounts to edit warring. I see that's the fourth time you've made the untrue statement that I have not justified my edit. I will re-insert the sourced material at some point if and when the sockpuppet issue dies down. If you want to discuss it at that point we can do so in the appropriate forum and you're willing to make your argument and seek consensus. For the moment you have none. I've offered and pleaded with you to handle this in a reasonable calm way, and you say you refuse to do so. The reason to hold off is that you are tag teaming with the sock puppet to delete sourced content. All I can conclude is that you want to edit war on the side of the sockpuppet instead of dealing constructively with this. Incidentally, you've responded here and on my talk page. If you would care to discuss this further we should choose one or the other. Wikidemo (talk) 12:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I contend that it is a BLP violation, as poorly-sourced material. I've provided arguments that the sources are poor. I apologize for being unclear: I didn't mean you hadn't justified your edit. I meant you hadn't provided counter-arguments to my last two posts at Talk:J Stalin. If you've previously justified the edit, please either restate the arguments or provide links to those arguments at J Stalin below my posts. (Update: I see that you have provided responses there now.) Please do not re-insert the material at any time unless there is first a consensus at Talk:J Stalin that sufficiently reliable sources have been found. I'm willing to discuss it at any time. You say "For the moment you have none". I don't understand this. Do you mean I have no argument? I've posted arguments at Talk:J Stalin based on WP:BLP, WP:CONSENSUS and WP:RS. I believe I'm handling this in a reasonable and calm way. You misquote me: I have not refused to handle this in a reasonable and calm way. Please don't misquote me. Deleting sourced content is fine, particularly when it is, as I contend in this case, poorly-sourced contentious material that WP:BLP requires deleting "immediately and without discussion". Please assume good faith: I have no desire to edit war or to do anything for the purpose of being on the side of a sockpuppet. In accusing me of "edit war", are you admitting to doing so yourself? You've reverted the contentious material into the article three times in a 24-hour period, against the edits of 3 other editors (only one of whom is accused of sockpuppetry, I believe). --Coppertwig (talk) 13:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I was going to come back and refactor to be a little less combative - sorry I didn't get to that in time. The procedure is that I don't need a consensus to insert, you need a consensus to remove. Your opinion that they're a BLP violation does not trump my opinion that they are not. If we have a dispute over that we follow the normal dispute rules, but we also have BLP/N or administrative intervention/help available. Any dispute resolution forum is vulnerable to the sockpuppets, so the only real way to deal with it is to appeal to a neutral administrator who's willing to sort it out...if willing. Many would avoid it as a content dispute; others might offer their opinion. Of the editors, one is a likely sockpuppet, one is a serial disruptive editor (look at the block history), and you're not being very patient if I must say. And 2-1 doesn't make for consensus anyway. But if you'll notice, User:Neil has blocked the one account for 24 hours, which (if it's not lifted) will probably give everyone time to figure out if it's a sockpuppet or not. If so my guess is this and some other accounts will be indefinitely blocked. If it's conclusive that it's not a sockpuppet I'll owe the user a big fat apology. So I think we can probably sit back now and take things a little easier. I do know you're acting in good faith. It's just really hard to operate when you're getting attacked left and right, by socks and regular editors alike.Wikidemo (talk) 13:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your assumption of good faith. You also seem to be acting in good faith and getting somewhat frustrated with the way this issue is being dragged around to so many different fora.

You said, "The procedure is that I don't need a consensus to insert, you need a consensus to remove." I don't remember seeing anything like that in any policy or guideline. At the moment I see no reason why I should agree to such a procedure.

I'm sorry for the impatience; that's because of WP:BLP saying "immediately". Thank you for your own forebearance. I think it would be helpful to get the opinions of some more editors. We could consider posting to Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. However, maybe you're tired of having various fora dragged into this. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:04, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Sample Standard Deviation Denominator N-1

Thanks a lot, with your explanation for why using "N-1" it finally "clicked" for me. About the proof for it: If we would go to higher dimensions, would it still be "N-1"? I was told that for 2-dim it would be "N-2", but it just doesn't sound right to me (but this is only a gut-feeling :-). Stevemiller (talk) 04:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the compliment. I suppose you mean this edit by me, which was one of my first few edits on Misplaced Pages, so it was fun to look back at it.

Two-dimensional: OK, suppose you have two paramters -- suppose they're the two parameters specifying the equation for a line. Suppose you have some samples from a population which are randomly distributed close to the line but with random errors; but you don't know the equation of the line. If you knew the equation of the line, you could estimate the standard deviation of the errors using the deviation of each point from the line. But you don't. So you first estimate the equation of the line, based on your samples, then use that to find the deviations. But the estimated line will be closer to your points than the original, unknown line. If you knew any one of the two parameters in the equation for the line and you were estimating the other parameter, you could use N-1 instead of N in the denominator to correct for that. If you knew both parameters, you would simply use N in the denominator. But if both are unknown, you use N-2 to get an unbiased estimate. Maybe some day I'll try to come up with a simple proof of this. To be honest, it tended to mystify me too, in statistics class. Look up the concept of "number of degrees of freedom." I find it makes sense intuitively but don't always have a firm handle on connecting it to actual proofs. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the pointer to more information - it really helped. So for e.g. a 3-dim problem I cannot calculate the sample standard deviation if I only have 3 samples (I would divide by zero) and should not calculate it if I have only two (get a negative number under the square root; a complex standard deviation doesn't make sense, does it?). So I always need at least one more sample than the number of degrees of freedom? (Well, I understand to avoid overfitting I need even more than that, but that's a different topic) --Stevemiller (talk) 04:30, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposal RE: User:Mikkalai's vow of silence

You are a previous participant in the discussion at WP:AN/I about User:Mikkalai's vow of silence. This is to inform you, that I have made a proposal for resolution for the issue. I am informing all of the users who participated, so this is not an attempt to WP:CANVAS support for any particular position.

The proposal can be found at: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposed resolution (Mikkalai vow of silence) Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 02:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Karma

If you're cool with it, so am i Tom.mevlie (talk) 00:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Radical environmentalism

Thanks for the message, I realised it was a very short article (for what is a much bigger topic leading to many others) so decided to get to work at it. I also noticed it had previously been written almost exclusively from only one source which was quite vague to say the least at describing things. I'll keep adding sources and including information, I have a cold at the moment so I haven't got much else to do! Thanks again. Blueberrypie12 (talk) 01:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Be Like Others

Hi Coppertwig, thanks so much for the message, I'm glad you enjoyed reading the article. --BelovedFreak 18:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

re: An edit

-> "I think the last sentence of this edit of yours at User talk:Mikkalai was unconstructive."

Perhaps you are right, I shouldn't have wrote that. But there's just something about a person who randomly, out of the blue, attacks your edits and calls you stupid that makes you react in a different way that you usually do -- you know what I mean? I don't know who this guy is, and then I go to his user page and I receive this you're a jerk message... anyway, you're still right. It was unconstructive. Cheers,  Berg _{Drop a Line ޗ pls} 18:58, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You understand

Indeed. I think a lot of people forget number 12, the way people tend not to think about obvious things they see every day, like they don't notice the picture on the wall until someone takes it down. Number 38 is maybe even more important. Every time one of these good people leaves, it's a huge, and poignant loss to the project. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 20:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to learn to hesitate and re-check and re-think things a lot before criticizing established editors. I need to remember that different people have different standards. The consensus system means that not everyone is following exactly the same set of rules. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Water supply and sanitation

Thanks a lot for your contributions to Water supply and sanitation in Latin America and your suggestions concerning Water supply and sanitation in Colombia. I was busy in the last days but I will work on the articles now. Greetings --Kerres (Talk) 15:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Greetings! Thanks for your message. I'm glad to hear my suggestions were appreciated. I'm planning to do more work on Water supply and sanitation in Colombia soon. :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 01:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks !!!

Just a quick thank you note. I really appreciate that you took the time to respond to me yesterday... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raandrade (talk • contribs) 22:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Ignore all rules

See also Perspectives on incivility.

Ignore all rules "is policy on the English Misplaced Pages, and according to Jimbo Wales, it 'always has been.' Ignore all rules was Misplaced Pages's first rule to consider."

Rules are still important, but they are not to be followed blindly, used as technicalities, or enforced for their own sake, as if following the rules were the ultimate purpose of this project.

I apologize to Mikkalai for having engaged in wikilawyering, without realizing that that was what I was doing, when I had much less of an understanding of what was bothering him.

The remedy for wikilawyering is "Ignore all rules". It's the way to freedom. I've put up the "Ignore all rules" banner (originally bestowed on me by QuackGuru) on my talk page and user page, and plan to leave them up for a while, in solidarity with Mikkalai and in support of my Ignore all rules thread at WT:RFAR. See also SOW/REAP. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:10, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Moonriddengirl: the two girls in the poem you link from your userpage could be like the two hemispheres of the brain. When editing Misplaced Pages, I and many others spend a lot of time focussed on sentences and sentence structure, wikitext symbols, and other left-brain-type things, and it's possible that Misplaced Pages as a whole tends to be rather left-brain-y. The occasional glance at an image gives a slight bit of relief from that.

(The following is told with poetic license.) One side of me tends to follow rules religiously, to make up rules, and to expect other people to follow the rules too: rules of grammar, rules about how to format Misplaced Pages articles, rules of games, rules of behaviour, rules of this, rules of that. I like using creative thinking (and there the right brain gets to come into play a bit) to come up with modifications of the rules that will work well in a variety of situations. And pretty soon I have pages of rules in fine detail, and I'm running around telling people, "no, no, you're supposed to do it this way." If Misplaced Pages gets like that, there will be less and less freedom and it will be dry, vacuous, boring, lifeless.

But then the other side of me comes along as a river and says, "I am soul. I am freedom. I am truth. I am emotion, understanding and depth." And it flows, pours, floods, smashes and washes away all those puny, fiddly little rules. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I've got it! εὕρηκα! (Eureka) The remedy for wikilawyering. You know how in WP:WIARM it says "A rule-ignorer must justify how their actions improve the encyclopedia if challenged."? Well, let's turn that on its head! It goes on to say, "Actually, everyone should be able to do that at all times." In other words, when following or applying a rule one should be prepared to justify why one did that, too! If we eliminate the following of rules for no good reason other than the following of rules, I think we eliminate wikilawyering.

It also says, ""Ignore all rules" does not stop you from pointing out a rule to someone who has broken it, but do consider that their judgment may have been correct." I figure: when someone breaks a rule or does something wrong or counterproductive, that doesn't necessarily justify criticizing them for it. Criticizing is an action in itself and has a fairly steep cost in terms of alienating users and driving them from the project. Criticizing is sometimes necessary, but often it's better to say nothing. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to make what I think is an important point here: "wikilawyering" is about more than just linking to policy pages. The above suggests that that's all it is, but it really isn't. Wikilawyering, in this particular context, is about asserting the primacy of "the letter of the law" over its spirit. It's also about citing policy pages specifically as a means of justifying bad edits. For example, if I were to make an edit that was totally against the NPOV idea and then, when challenged, responded, "I can do what I like - see WP:BOLD and WP:IAR", then that would be wikilawyering. On the other hand, if I were to insert unsourced, controversial content into an article about a living person, and you reverted saying, "WP:BLP says no unsourced, controversial content", then that would not be wikilawyering since it is fully in keeping with the spirit of biographies of living persons, respecting the way in which we need to be more careful when putting unsourced info into such articles.

My problem with this whole wikilawyering issue with Mikkalai is that he routinely (well, not any more since he's stopped being communicative) throws the term at people simply for citing policy pages even when what that person is doing is not consistent with what wikilawyering is. At the same time, he himself routinely cites those same policy pages when reverting other people's edits elsewhere. To be honest, it's pretty clear that he uses "wikilawyer" simply as a means to dismiss people, and that isn't reasonable behavior, imo. -- Hux (talk) 03:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your message, Hux. It's good to have this opportunity to discuss this with you.

I already agree with you about the definition of wikilawyering – perhaps you couldn't see that because I didn't include a definition of wikilawyering in my above posts – except that I'm not sure whether you mean that all wikilawyering is about justifying bad edits, whereas I think only some wikilawyering is about that and some is about other things (or maybe everything that happens here is an edit, so maybe it is always about justifying bad edits, including bad reverts and bad criticisms of people.) I didn't intend to suggest that wikilawyering is merely linking to policy pages; that wasn't what I meant at all, and since Mikkalai was (reportedly) citing policies from time to time too, I don't think that's what Mikkalai meant either. Actually, I have trouble seeing how you could see my above posts as suggesting that wikilawyering is merely about citing policy. I see my above posts as being very much about emphasizing the spirit rather than the letter of policy.

Please remember that there are different points of view about the same situations. A few weeks ago, you posted a definition of wikilawyering to Mikkalai'a talk page, apparently thinking he had been misusing the term because he hadn't known what it meant. I thought that post came across as very patronizing. In my opinion, Mikkalai seemed to have already known what wikilawyering meant, and I could well see how the definition of wikilawyering could be applied to what he had been applying it to. (I wouldn't necessarily say that I actually agree that it was wikilawyering, but I could clearly see that it was a reasonable and understandable opinion to consider it wikilawyering.) The people responding to Mikkalai's charges of wikilawyering did not address his point adequately, apparently because they did not understand the point he was making. Clearer communication is needed. People need to be aware of their own biasses and to be open-minded enough to be able to comprehend the concepts being put forward by others. This requires constant effort to handle one's own biasses. Remember, too, that Mikkalai may have more difficulty expressing himself in English than he would in his native language.

When something happens that Mikkalai considers to be wikilawyering, it would be helpful to understand why he considers it to be wikilawyering and what differences he sees between that and what he himself does on other occasions -- for surely he sees such differences. It could be in some cases that there is some subtle point of policy that he doesn't understand is being invoked. In that case, a clearer and more detailed explanation of the original statement invoking policy might be helpful, but a repeat of the definition of wikilawyering would be unhelpful. In other cases, there could be some subtle point of policy that the person accused of wikilawyering is missing. In that case, it might be helpful to tactfully encourage Mikkalai to explain his point further. Again, just stating "no it is not wikilawyering!" would only cut off communication. In general, when accused of doing something, it's helpful to communicate more clearly or in more detail than merely saying the equivalent of "no, I'm not."

I think I've understood some of the points Mikkalai has made, so I might sometimes be able to help facilitate communication, without claiming that I would necessarily either be taking a neutral position or attempting to act in Mikkalai's interests. I invite people to call on me in such situations.

For example: in the post I mentioned above where you told Mikkalai the definition of wikilawyering (as you also told it to me just now, although I also already knew it,) you don't mention what posts you're replying to, but I assume that this may be one of them. While I don't condone telling someone to go away nor putting such a negative term as "despicable" that close semantically to an editor, in my opinion Mikkalai's use of the term "wikilawyering" here is understandable. The policy is that Misplaced Pages is not a dictionary, and it might not be useful to write into the policy an exception that it's OK to have a certain number of bytes of dictionary-like information at the beginning of an article (pronunciation, etymology, definition etc.) Nevertheless, Misplaced Pages articles often do have dictionary-like information in their first sentence or two, from time to time including etymological information, and often such information is not a summary of anything appearing later in the article. They're like that because that's what's deemed to be most useful to the reader. Apparently it appeared to Mikkalai that someone was deleting etymological information simply because a rule (WP:NOT) said so. Perhaps the other person doesn't value etymological information, or values very concise lead sections more than other people do. Personally, I'm fascinated by linguistics and always like to see etymological information. Different people will have different values. Apparently Mikkalai thought that it might have been reasonable to move the information to another part of the article but that to delete it was to destroy useful information; and apparently Mikkalai did not see how the spirit of WP:NOT could justify such deletion. I must confess, being blinded by my bias in favour of including linguistic information, I'm having difficulty seeing that myself. The correct response is for the person favouring deletion of the information to explain what they see as being the spirit of WP:NOT as it applies to this situation and to explain how they see the deletion as following that spirit; or else to apologize for the deletion and restore the material. Unless I'm forgetting some other creative solution, any other response to the situation is to miss the point Mikkalai was trying to make.

In other words: Mikkalai believed that deleting the etymological information was a bad edit, and that a policy was being cited to justify it: in other words, he saw it as a wikilawyering situation. The thing to do is to discuss meaningfully whether it was a bad edit or not, rather than getting sidetracked into any side issues.

One problem might be people assuming that certain things are obvious. Mikkalai may be assuming that it's obvious that deleting information is bad, and therefore that he doesn't need to say that. Someone else might be assuming that it's obvious that deleting information that goes against policy is good, so they think they don't need to say that. Actually, they do need to say it, and to explain why they think it's good or bad. Establishing communication with people with different points of view can be difficult but rewarding: it involves stretching the mind to be able to see things in ways in which one didn't see them before. It's difficult because when you're starting out, you don't know in which direction to try to stretch: it will be a direction you didn't even imagine existed. --Coppertwig (talk) 14:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC) (See also my reply at Perspectives on incivility.) --Coppertwig (talk) 15:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the the (very!) detailed response. I think it's important to note something from the outset: none of us has a direct line to another editor's understanding; we can only gain insight into their mindset based on their edits, so if you think I've misunderstood your understanding of what "wikilawyering" means then you need to bear in mind that I'm coming to that conclusion based on what you've written because that's all I have to go on. My response to you on this is informed by what you wrote on the topic just as my response to Mikkalai was informed by what he wrote on the topic. In both cases, what I'm reading suggests that your understanding of the concept is incomplete. I don't say this to cause offense or to be patronizing, it's just an observation, and the examples you've provided seem to support that observation.

For example, above, you cite this diff, saying that it represents a regrettable instance of you engaging in wikilawyering. The trouble is, I see nothing in that diff (or indeed anywhere in your surrounding statement) that actually constitutes wikilawyering. You're clearly not ignoring the spirit of Misplaced Pages for the sake of focusing on the "letter of the law", nor are you trying to cite policy unreasonably. All you're doing is making observations of behavior and suggesting that such behavior is inconsistent with what Misplaced Pages strives for. I think that is perfectly reasonable and if anyone were to accuse you of wikilawyering as a result I would call foul. The diff you posted where Mikkalai asked me to explain "the reason of your wikilawyering" is another example of the same thing. All I was saying there was that extended etymological discussion doesn't belong in the lead section of an article (which is true, from a stylistic perspective; "leader bloat" is a common problem on Misplaced Pages) and that such discussion would be better placed further down the page. This is not wikilawyering by any stretch and Mikkalai's response was a prime example of what I'm talking about: using the term to unreasonably dismiss contrary opinions.

I think his response to the diff above is quite telling: without ever having communicated with me before, Mikkalai appeared to have made the decision that I agreed completely with Matisse's actions and thus that I was simply wrong in general. (You can see this by the way in which he assumed that I was supporting Matisse's deletion of the text when in fact at no point had I ever suggest that it should be deleted, only that it should be moved.) Having made this decision, he then curtly brushed me aside as someone who was simply getting in the way. This view of disagreement as something that involves only two "sides" is unfortunately very common (see the way in which FOX News in the US constantly talks about representing "both sides of the debate", for example). However, as should be obvious, such a viewpoint is inherently unproductive when it comes to solving problems because people invariably have a range of different opinions. Misplaced Pages is not, from my perspective, a place filled with editors who are either with me or against me; for any given editor, I agree with some things they say and disagree with others. Mikkalai's comments strongly give me the impression that he views his interpretation of the way things should be as "correct", and thus anyone who disagrees with him goes into a box marked, "people who are wrong". This is regrettable.

What should have happened in that particular exchange, in my opinion, was that if Mikkalai viewed my suggestion as a poor one he should've discussed why he thought it was poor, perhaps by arguing - just as you do above - that sometimes it's good to have etymological discussion in the lead section and that this was such a case. Instead he instantly dismissed my input as wikilawyering and pushed me out of the way, and I see nothing wrong with pointing out the unreasonable and unproductive nature of that approach.

So, hopefully this longer response gives you better insight into where I'm coming from now. But if not then I will be happy to elaborate on anything that comes across as unclear. That's my responsibility, after all. :) -- Hux (talk) 19:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for tolerating my very long post and for providing lots of detail yourself! This is another very long one and I hope it isn't too long for you.

I agree that we can never know exactly what's in another's mind, so I hesitated a bit to say that I was using the same definition of wikilawyering as you, because although the ideas in two peoples' minds may be similar they're never exactly the same. I'm trying to be open to the idea that maybe, as you say, the situation is that we're using significantly different definitions of wikilawyering. In any case, we seem to have some sort of difference of opinion or possibly a misunderstanding. I hope that with discussion and thinking it over we can come to a mutual understanding. That doesn't have to mean we have the same opinions, but that we will understand each others' opinions and hopefully understand why we disagree.

I think wikilawyering means citing policy in a way which is technically correct but which is inappropriate in some way. It could be inappropriate because it goes against the spirit of the very policy being cited; or because it is not particularly supported by the spirit of that policy, but goes against the overall purpose of generating an encyclopedia; or perhaps it could be inappropriate for some other reason. (It's more-or-less the same thing to say that the action of citing policy is inappropriate or that the edit being supported by the citation of policy is a bad edit.) In any case, it will be a matter of opinion whether something is inappropriate or not, whether something is bad or not, and therefore it will be a matter of opinion whether a given action is wikilawyering or not. Perhaps this makes the term "wikilawyering" rather useless: rather like the term "bad" or "good": too vague. The argument could devolve into "That's a bad edit!" "No, it's not, it's a good edit!" "No, it's a bad edit!" etc., which is not very useful. More detail needs to be given to make progress towards consensus. Using the term "wikilawyering" might allow similarly useless arguments to happen without people realizing quite as easily that that's all they are.

I said that it was wikilawyering when I posted a statement on an Arbitration Request page that Mikkalai had carried out "inappropriate use of admin tools in semi-protecting the page Poon..." (As you probably realize, the diff mentioned was where I struck out the alleged wikilawyering.) If someone else had posted the same thing I probably would not have accused them of wikilawyering. I can apply stricter standards to myself than I would to other people. Also, I had access to knowledge of my own motivations.

Apparently you believe that my mention of the Poon page was appropriate. I believe it was counterproductive and done for bad reasons. Would you agree that, if it was counterproductive and done for bad reasons, then it would fit the definition of wikilawyering?

Obviously, at the time I mentioned Poon I thought it was productive to do so. My thinking evolved afterwards, based on a number of things including pondering a comment by GTBacchus which took time to digest, "Get to that place of understanding, and you'll find Mikkai already there."

The reason I mentioned Poon wasn't because I cared about that page specifically. I had searched through Mikkalai's contribs looking for examples of things like admin abuse or unanswered complaints. Technically, I think my point was valid. In practice, it was the sort of minor mistake or difference of judgement that many admins make from time to time and that are often worked out by discussion. (I know -- that's one of the problems -- Mikka wasn't discussing.) It wasn't a de-sysoppable offense.

If I were someone who cared about editing that article, it might be very reasonable to post a complaint about it. Searching through someone's contribs for examples of wrongdoing can be OK too, at times: I do it when participating in RfA discussions, for example, and I think it's fine then. It was just too petty for an arbitration request; and my motivation was wrong. For some reason I don't understand I (temporarily) took on the role of looking for evidence against Mikkalai. I think that wasn't a helpful thing to do in that situation. If there had been actual victims, OK. In this case as far as I know nobody was significantly bothered.

The point is: we need to find a way to improve the situation. Criticizing Mikkalai had already been tried and had not helped. More criticism was only going to make things worse. He was already complaining about wikilawyering; he was going to see the whole arbitration case as more wikilawyering. We needed to do something different -- something like showing Mikkalai that we understand his side of the story.

Criticism is very useful at times. It's like the cry of a baby. The cry is useful because it signals the parents to pay attention to the baby and fix things that are wrong. But when a baby cries more than the parents are able to tolerate, then more crying just makes things worse. If the baby cries so much that the parents get no sleep etc., then more crying is not going to get more attention from the parents -- it's going to get less attention, because the parents are overwhelmed already and have no more to give. I think we'd reached that point with criticizing Mikkalai. Note that it's a function not only of the amount of criticism but also of how much the person is able to take. Anyway, I believed that more criticism would only make things worse, and struck out my comments about Poon. Later I withdrew practically my whole statement in the arbitration request, for somewhat similar but not exactly the same reasons; I don't claim that the rest of the statement was wikilawyering, though I'm guessing Mikkalai thinks it was.

With the etymological example: You believe that it's true that the long passage on etymology didn't belong in the lead. Mikkalai apparently disagreed. Would you agree that, if it really was better for the encyclopedia to have the long etymology section in the lead, then to cite a policy to support removing it would be wikilawyering?

I think Mikkalai's response was rather aggressive and no doubt caused rather hard feelings in you. Those feelings in turn make it harder for you, I think, to see his point of view.

It's not at all clear to me that Mikka thought you were supporting deletion of the text. From what I see in the diff there, it looks as though Mikka preferred to keep the text in the lead section and was annoyed because you opposed that. You stated clearly that moving it was an option and Mikka didn't state clearly that you didn't think moving it was an option, so I don't see any reason to jump to conclusions that Mikka thought that.

I agree that we need to get out of a two-sides paradigm and think in terms of complex, multiple opinions and getting along with each other.

I agree: Mikka should have discussed why he thought it was a poor edit. However, I'm not sure whether it does us much good to talk about what Mikka could do differently. Maybe we don't have much influence over him on such matters. If we have influence over him, maybe talking about what he should do differently is not the way that that influence can be exercised.

Assuming you are perhaps open to direct influence, I'll say that I think also you should have discussed in more detail why you thought it was a good edit -- unless maybe it didn't seem possible to do so in the climate of not-a-smooth-piece-of-cake posts. Once wikilawyering is mentioned, then that's the signal to discuss why you think it's a good edit in terms that go beyond merely citing policy.

When one person is acting angry and apparently unreasonable, it's often possible for the other person to fix the situation by being very diplomatic. One might think it's unfair to have to do that. One doesn't have to do that. But one can. This is about building an encyclopedia, not about getting an equal share of points in a game. One can (try to) show the other person that one understands their point of view, which usually results in them calming down, and then after that gently re-express one's own point of view. It can be very difficult to do this if one has just been insulted, though. It takes a lot of calmness, careful thinking and tact.

As far as the definition of wikilawyering is concerned, I think we need to separate out the definition from differing opinions of whether a particular action was good or bad. Then we'll be able to see more clearly whether we're both using the same definition or not. I've asked a couple of questions above to try to clarify this.

I just thought of something: there's a sense in which there's no such thing as wikilawyering. Or at least, there's no such thing as something that someone can admit is wikilawyering while they're doing it. While they're doing it, or while they continue to hold the same opinion as when they did it, they obviously think it was the right thing to do. But if it was the right thing to do it couldn't have been wikilawyering. So only other people, or the same person after having later changed their opinion, can think of it as wikilawyering. That makes the term "wikilawyering" rather useless in discussions between people of different points of view. The word "wikilawyering" is not an objectively verifiable quality of something. It's like the words "inappropriate" or "horrible" -- a word people apply to others' behaviour but not to their own.

I've run out of time for now, and will look forward to replying to your comment in the Perspectives on incivility section another time. Thank you for participating in this discussion. I'm finding it interesting and I hope it's productive :-) and I hope Mikkalai isn't offended by it. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Your helpful comment

I noticed your helpful comment on Igorberger's page regarding Misplaced Pages:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/WikiBreak Enforcer. Just thought I'd tell that Cardamon had also given that link to Igor a few edits previously (on his talk page) but he had just ignored it at that time.--VS 02:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for letting me know (and for calling it a "helpful comment" under the circumstances – I appreciate that!) I suppose I could have used my browser search function to check for that before posting it – next time I'll think of that. It's like when I add items to "See also" lists – now I know to check whether they're already wikilinked in the text. Whether Igor chooses to do anything with the script is totally up to him. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:48, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Perspectives on incivility

Here's a hypothesis: There's nothing wrong with Mikkalai.

Here's an analogy which may help explain the above hypothesis. It's a story about something that happened to me. An analogy compares two situations which have some similarities and some differences; therefore stating that it is an analogy is not an assertion that any particular aspect of the two situations is the same – for example, swear words play quite a different role in the two situations, I believe. Some of the details in the story as told below may not be exactly as it happened, as I've filled in some details that I don't remember in order to make a coherent story, but basically it's what happened.

I went to a meeting of an organization I belonged to, but that time only one other person showed up. So we were sitting there talking. The other person used some swear words (obscene words). I told the person I wasn't comfortable with that and asked them not to talk like that. The other person argued that those words had been allowed by a judge to be used in a court of law and therefore they were OK to use. The person was not angry at me, but was talking to me in anger at some other people who were not present, and used swear words again rather loudly and angrily. I suddenly picked up my coat and stuff, said "Well, bye" and walked rapidly out of the room.

I paced back and forth in the hall for a while, calmed down, then after several minutes I went back into the room. I smiled, said "Sorry about that," sat down and started talking to the person again. After a while, the person started swearing loudly again. Again, I picked up my coat and stuff and walked suddenly and rapidly out of the room. I paced in the hall again for a while, my heart beating rapidly from adrenalin, and I thought, "What's wrong with me? Usually in recent years I've handled a variety of situations calmly. Here I've acted suddenly, impulsively and impolitely. What's wrong with me? Am I angry? Did something happen earlier today that made me upset, so I'm on edge? Did I not get enough sleep last night?"

I thought it over for a while, and eventually the answer came to me: There was nothing wrong with me!! The way I reacted, walking out of the room like that, is/was my usual and correct reaction to situations like that. It's just that I didn't know it was my usual reaction because such situations hadn't come up before. I had acted correctly. I couldn't think of a better response to the situation. It was what I had wanted to do and would do again if a similar situation repeated itself.

All Wikipedians deserve to be free of being subjected to incivility, whether the incivility takes the form of swear words that might seem to be directed at them; or having their good-faith edits referred to as vandalism; or having AN/I threads about them continuing on long after the people actually affected by the alleged events have been satisfied that enough has been said already; or having messages posted to their talk page when they've asked not to have such messages posted; or having people speculating about their emotional state, etc. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

See also the "Ignore all rules" thread two sections further up on this talk page. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really seeing how the analogy backs up your hypothesis. If anything I'd say it supports the reverse. I mean Mikkalai has certainly been the object of incivility, no doubt about that, but when you say that everyone "deserve to be free of being subjected to incivility" it's hard to see how that can be read as a statement of support for Mikkalai given how uncivil he has been to others. What it does suggest, though, is that if you, I, Mikkalai or anyone else is attacked on Misplaced Pages then what we should do is ignore it. That's something I completely agree with and right now that's what Mikkalai is doing also with his pledge of silence. The downside of that pledge, though, is that it conflicts with the responsibilities of being an Wiki admin. -- Hux (talk) 04:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

It might be helpful if you would you explain in more detail what you mean by the reverse of my hypothesis and how you see my analogy as backing that up, although I'm not necessarily encouraging you to do so if it would tend towards violating NPA.

It often happens on Misplaced Pages that one person is being very uncivil and that same person is also the object of much lesser incivilities. Or it often appears that way; though I suspect that usually in such situations the one carrying out the obvious incivilities doesn't see it that way, but sees subtle incivilities against themself, or incivilities that others are not even aware of, as being just as bad or worse than their more obvious ones. This is not to say that that point of view is necessarily the right one -- just that that's how people tend to see things. Incivilities against oneself tend to be greatly exaggerated in one's mind. For example, someone might see something like a revert of their edit as being a gross incivility, and respond with harsh words. Others might see the harsh words as being totally unprovoked. Some detail, such as whether the revert was explained or not or some other aspect of the situation, might explain why the same person also carries out reverts of others' edits and doesn't consider them uncivil.

I don't understand: I don't see why you're saying it's hard to read what I said as a statement of support for Mikkalai. I am not in any way intending to support any incivilities by Mikkalai. I acknowledge that he is, as he puts it, not a smooth piece of cake. But why can't I support Mikkalai by opposing incivilities directed against him? OK, I know, at the emotional level it's hard to focus on that point of view because a strong emotional response about other aspects of the situation gets in the way. For example, it was probably hard for people to listen to Mikkalai's message about wikilawyering because he also included harsh words in the same post.

When someone is being uncivil, it is still possible to oppose incivilities against that person -- even ones that appear to be much smaller or harder for some people to understand as being incivilities than what the person is doing. I would go further and say that it's particularly important at that time to oppose incivilities against the person, in order to defuse the whole situation.

I'm having trouble understanding some of what you're saying. Do you mean that you think if someone is being uncivil, we should not support that person by protecting them from incivilities from others? Remember that one can support a person without necessarily supporting or condoning all of their actions.

The analogy I present above is just an analogy, therefore it is not a strong argument. It may help those who are open to the idea to see the situation from a different point of view. The main point of the analogy is that sometimes it's appropriate to cut off communication even if it seems uncivil to do so.

Mikkalai described himself as reacting like a cornered wolf. Apparently he felt he had few or no options. Apparently, from his point of view, cutting off communication was the least bad of a number of bad options available.

Often ignoring is the best response to incivility, especially incivility against oneself. I wouldn't necessarily say it's always the best response and I don't see how my above post supports the ignoring option. I don't consider walking out of the room to be "ignoring". Remaining seated and listening quietly would have been ignoring. For incivilities against people other than oneself, opportunities come up more often to do things more productive than ignoring, although still often ignoring is the best option I know of.

You say that Mikkalai's silence conflicts with his responsibilities as an admin. I don't see that. Earlier, when he had general insults on his talk page, a vow of silence etc. and was performing admin actions I think there was such a conflict. But when he had instructions on his talk page about going to WP:DRV etc., I don't see a significant problem there. And now he has no communication-blocking message on his talk page, and in the time during which that has been the situation I haven't seen any unanswered complaints about admin actions by him. Maybe you'd like to explain in more detail why you think there's a conflict with his responsibilities as an admin. --Coppertwig (talk) 15:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the confusion may be caused by my misunderstanding the "players" in your analogy i.e. I assumed that you were you and the uncivil person you walked away from was Mikkalai. Hence, I took the analogy to be an argument that people bear no responsibility for their uncivil actions and that if one is offended by them one should simply leave. Instead, it seems that the you in the story was supposed to be Mikkalai and the uncivil person represents everyone who's been uncivil towards him, hence the analogy gives an explanation for why Mikkalai decided to "leave", i.e. cut off communication. If I'm correct in that assumption then I can see where you're coming from: in some scenarios I think it makes good sense to diffuse an escalating situation of incivility by making the decision to not respond at all. However, I disagree that this is one of those situations.

I don't think your analogy applies very well here because in it you did nothing to push the exchange in the direction of incivility. You simply objected to the incivility that was already extant and, when your polite objection didn't change the situation, diffused it by leaving. With Mikkalai we have a situation in which he himself is routinely both the object and (until recently) the instigator of incivility. In that situation, taking the decision to be silent and citing the reason as feeling like a "cornered wolf" suggests that he doesn't think his part in all of this is in any way problematic. Coupled with the fact that the cause of a lot of unreasonable comments - the nature of his edits - is still going on, I feel that giving people the silent treatment is unreasonable. He needs to take responsibility for his actions, both in terms of the edits he makes and the responses he gives. That's a responsibility that I think all editors have, but it applies especially to admins.

Due to the - how shall we say - prolific quantity of his administrative edits, it is inevitable that he's going to attract more uncivil responses than most editors, but it is also inevitable that if one acts uncivilly oneself then those responses are only ever going to increase in frequency, and the more that happens the easier it becomes to regard all disagreements as attacks on one's position. This is the position that I suspect Mikkalai views himself to be in, hence the "cornered wolf" response. The trouble with that is that choosing not to communicate as a last resort against what one perceives as near-universal condemnation ignores an important fact: it takes two to tango and I've yet to see any acknowledgment on Mikkalai's part of his own responsibility in creating this situation. For example, when someone attempts to politely object to something he's done, or some position that he holds, they are met with uncivil behavior (e.g. "read the f***ing edit summary") or, as is the current trend, silence. The former response is unreasonable on its face. The latter response, while outwardly neutral, is not reasonable in this case given the "cornered wolf" justification behind it. It's as if to say, "I'm still right and you're still wrong, so I'm just gonna do what I like anyway and not talk to you". Passive-aggressiveness, basically. I wish there was some way that he could step back and recognize that not all objections are personal attacks, but he doesn't appear to be able to do that, so his solution is to ignore everyone. For a regular editor this is not a big deal, but for an admin I don't think that's appropriate and, for what it's worth, neither does the arbitration community.

Don't get me wrong: I agree with you that it's possible to oppose incivility against Mikkalai even as he himself is being uncivil. However, if that support lacks any criticism of his uncivil actions then such support is, in my opinion, unreasonable and misapplied. Nobody should get a free pass to be rude to people and that goes double for an admin, in my view. -- Hux (talk) 21:23, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

CSD templates (2)

Hi. Sorry I didn't get to them yesterday; busy day at work, and I could never etch out a large enough block of time. Looking at Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Templates (other), something seems to have happened to t3 hardcode? It lacks the bottom material, including a pointer to the criterion. Otherwise, everything seems fine on that page. I corrected one typo. :) Off to look at the next in line. --Moonriddengirl 15:36, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, a couple of changes to Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Templates (images) which you can see documented in the history. (P.S. If you want to move this into the above section on the subject, feel free. I'm putting them here to ensure that they aren't lost.) --Moonriddengirl 15:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Done. --Moonriddengirl 15:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

At Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Templates (general), we probably need to keep the note at G6. I'm not going to delete an article on Ringo Starr under G6 for instance, but if the reason template is used and tells me that there's a history merge needed from Ringo H. Starr, then I know what's up. Other changes have been made there, and I've broached a discussion with you on that talk page about the wording of G12. :) --Moonriddengirl 16:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, wait. Maybe you've just been looking at the wording in the tables on those pages? I meant the actual draft templates, for example Template:db-a1/new. Still, thanks for checking, I'll have a look at those ones. By the way, note that there's a message addressed to you, Moonriddengirl, in the middle of the Ignore all rules section above. Also, I hope you don't mind that I edited your user page. The link to the poem wasn't working. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Re T3 hardcode: You mean the 3rd bullet point? Note in the discussion below it that Happy-melon and I seemed to have agreed on removing the 3rd bullet point. It seems unnecessary to me, being essentially a repeat of the same idea and therefore redundant and superfluous and can therefore be left out as something not needed :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 01:01, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Period in i3: Good catch. I've propagated that change to Template:db-i3/new. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

You're right; I misunderstood you and was verifying the suggested wordings, not the new templates. My bad! I can go through the new templates and do it all again tomorrow. :D (I meant the ts hardcode on the talk page, which is missing the bottom part that says "Templates in this category may be deleted after being tagged for seven days (CSD T3)") --Moonriddengirl 01:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Sorry I wasn't clearer. Don't worry about T3: the draft template has that note at the bottom. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Note also that in User:Coppertwig/Sandbox4 I have convenient links that open up edit windows on the templates. I think I'm about to modify it so it will also have ordinary (not edit-window) links. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

When you edit the tables, it would be helpful to mention in the edit summary which one you're editing, e.g. "I6". Thanks. Not a big deal. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:34, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

In the tables, a the left, there are convenient links to the draft templates and to the template documentation (e.g. Template:db-a1/doc.) In most cases, the template documentation is not currently showing in the current templates. It's mostly new documentation created by me, based on Happy-melon's suggestions and other material. When the draft templates are copied to the proper names, the documentation will start to display. It would be helpful if you would have a look at the documentation pages, too. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Based on your comments, I went to add a feature to Template:db-g6/new to allow the user to specify a reason. I started to add the feature, then noticed that "wording=" already allows you to do that. So I added a description of that to the documentation, at first with "Ringo H. Starr" as an example but then I got boring and BLP-ish and changed it to "Example merge page".  :-) I think the "note" you're mentioning is still in the draft template. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

←Starting over. I don't know what went wrong with this one, but it lost part of itself somewhere in the coding. I don't know how to fix it, so I'll leave it to you. --Moonriddengirl 20:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I've made a couple of changes directly to the new templates listed here. (I'm sure you have them watchlisted.) --Moonriddengirl 22:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

A couple of small changes to the templates listed Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Templates (images). Probably my biggest (maybe only substantial) change is to Template:Db-i5/new, bringing it in line with proposal. --Moonriddengirl 23:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Done with the last two pages. Left a note for you there about G12. :) --Moonriddengirl 23:53, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks, Moonriddengirl. No, I'd forgotten to watchlist them. I've just closed the barn door by setting the option to watch pages I create. :-) I'll have a look later.--Coppertwig (talk) 01:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Probability and statistics sub-project?

Dear Coppertwig, I recently proposed starting a "probability and statistics" sub-project (aka task force or work group) of WikiProject Maths and was wondering if you'd be interested in participating. If so, please add your name and any comments at WP:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Probability and statistics. Regards, Qwfp (talk) 22:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I was going to sign up but it took me a couple of days to get around to it. Now I can't find your proposal. What happened? --Coppertwig (talk) 22:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Please see my post just now over at the WikiProject Mathematics talk page. The discussion expanded to whether a WikiProject Statistics would be preferable, and the consensus clearly favoured this (in fact I seemed to be the only one who had initial reservations but I changed my mind) so I created it earlier today. In line with the instructions at WikiProject Council/Proposals I deleted the discussion there about half an hour ago, after archiving it at WP:WikiProject Statistics/Proposal. So you're still very welcome to sign up, but the place to do so is now WP:WikiProject Statistics#Participants!

Possibly I moved a bit quickly, but 11 people had signed up which is more than enough to create a project according to the instructions at WikiProject Council/Proposals and if I hadn't done it today I wouldn't have had time to do it until after Easter. Regards, Qwfp (talk) 22:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for joining up without hesitation! As I indicated above, I may not have much time to do any more with this myself for a week or two so I'll quite happy to let the other members take the initiative. I had fun setting it up today, and I hope I've done enough to start the ball rolling. Qwfp (talk) 23:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Word usage, connotations and positive and pejorative meanings

This is a continuation of a discussion started at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (proposals)#Bots_and_the_.7B.7Bbots.7D.7D_template.

In reply to 68.237.2.101: I hereby continue to chime in on this issue. This is not only about word usage and primary meanings. It's also about whether or not it's OK to comment pejoratively about the choice of words in someone's talk page post when the meaning is already clear; and it's also about whether it's OK to occasionally use a word according to its secondary meaning, rather than always having to use a primary meaning; and it's also about whether it's OK to state that someone's words meant something when they merely at most connoted it. I oppose objections to the use of words on the grounds that the words are positive or pejorative, because I believe that such objections contribute to a change in usage and meaning of the word. The objection raised here was intended to influence Locke Cole to change the way the user uses that phrase in future: in effect, putting a stop to the use of neutral meanings of the word. Such actions, multiplied many times, result in a change in usage and eventually a change in meanings listed in the dictionary to reflect such changes in usage. Whether or not this particular phrase is shifting towards the pejorative I don't know, but I believe that words and phrases in general tend to shift from neutral meanings towards positive or negative meanings, and I deplore such shifts. When a word has a neutral meaning and someone wants to say something judgemental, they can insert additional words such as "good", "bad", and many other such words into their sentence. But when someone (as I often do) wants to say something judgementally neutral, they can be stuck: no matter which word they use to refer to a thing, someone will insist on interpreting it in a positive or pejorative way. They become unable to effectively express the neutral idea they wish to express.

There's another thing involved here. According to a book I read (but I've misplaced it), different people or groups of people tend to have different reactions when someone else starts to speak when they're already speaking. In some cultures, among some personality types and often among women, it's quite acceptable for two people to be talking at once for brief periods of time (often about half a sentence or about three or four words, for example around the time one person stops talking and the other starts.) Often among men and in other cultures or among people of other personality types, it is not acceptable.

For example suppose someone is saying something several sentences long and the other person nods and says, "Yeah, I agree completely!" while they're talking. In one extreme, the other person will continue talking without a break, without even slowing down, and will enjoy the commentary, and neither person will be aware that there's anything wrong; likely they won't even really notice that both had been talking at the same time. In the other extreme, the other person might stop and say "You interrupted me! Now, will you please keep quiet until I've finished!"

The connotations of the phrase "chime in" will, I believe, tend to be perceived differently by people from these different groups. --Coppertwig (talk) 12:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Diplomacy

I try to be nice. Thaaks for the tea! - Smerus (talk) 13:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

and many very many thanks for the Star - you are most generous!. Toodle-pip - --Smerus (talk) 08:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Barnstar of Peace
		I, Chrislk02, award you this barnstar of peace for your amazing response here here to a potentially explosive situation. We need more editors with your grace and tact! Thanks again and happy editing. Chrislk02 01:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the barnstar! --Coppertwig (talk) 01:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Good Faith

The discussion has been on the talk page for a while. if one party chooses not to talk what are you supposed to do? --evrik  01:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

(An edit conflict on my talk page!! Whee!) Thanks for your message, Evrik. I understand your frustration: although the last message posted in the section Talk:And you are lynching Negroes#Images is your post stating that the image is appropriate and that we aren't going to post an image of a lynching, and nobody has replied to that, nevertheless your edits placing the article keep getting reverted.

Images are nice and help make an article more appealing.

Please try to see another side to this situation. Two other editors have opposed placing the image in the article, and have stated a reason, i.e., that it is not directly related to the topic of the article. You seem to be the only one supporting putting the article image (01:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)) in. You have not stated any reason why you think it's directly related to the topic, and you haven't stated any reason why you think it's a good idea to include an image that is not directly related. So, putting the article image (01:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)) in seems to me to violate WP:CONSENSUS policy.

I wouldn't say that anyone is choosing not to talk. Mikkalai has commented on the talk page and has also said something in edit summaries. If anything, you look like the one who isn't talking: your edit summaries give no reason why you're reverting. In my opinion, when you revert, your edit summary should always begin with "revert" or equivalent (e.g. "rv") and should always explain the reason, unless you're reverting something that everyone would agree is vandalism. At Help:Revert it says "When a revert is necessary, let people know why you reverted." If there has been a previous discussion with consensus favouring a certain edit, you can put a link to that discussion in your edit summary, for example "see Talk:And you are lynching Negroes#Images" in your edit summary, or at least "see talk"; and in my opinion it's best to also put an additional comment on the talk page every time you revert, e.g. "I'm reverting again becauuse ..." However, in this case, the discussion in that section seems to be weighted towards not including the image, so that would not be a valid explanation in this case. You would have to explain further.

Having your comment be the last comment in a section of the talk page is not an indication that your opinion has consensus. The refutation of your comment is already contained in the previous messages in the same section.

If you ever find yourself in a situation where someone is reverting without explanation, there are ways to handle that situation. This is not that situation. If you ask me again, I'll give you some ideas what to do in that type of situation. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

• I don't agree with a lot of what you've said, but I'll have to come back to this in a few days. ttfn --evrik  01:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

• That's fine. I look forward to reading your discussion of what you disagree with, Evrik, when you have time. All the best to you. :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 01:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: Majorly

I realize how bad this looks to people who are not in the loop, so to speak. However, Majorly was aware that this particular banned editor represents a very real threat to several contributors in real life, and that there are other unfortunate circumstances that warrant removing all of his edits. He chose to repeatedly prove a point about his disagreements with the Arbitration Committee/office in this manner despite warnings and couldn't have expected anything else in return. In the end, all that happened was that Majorly couldn't edit a website for half an hour - if he decides to not edit ever again because of something so trivial, that is his prerogative. Respectfully yours, east.718 at 03:45, March 19, 2008

AIDS

AIDS has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.OrangeMarlin 00:59, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Reply

Sorry that you do not understand the situation. Thanks any way. Mattisse (Talk) 02:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you would be more understanding if you knew this article is up for FAR review. But other editors, as well as the FAR reviewers, have washed there hands of the article. User:Redthoreau thinks Misplaced Pages policies and FAR review suggestion are baloney. We wanted the article to keep its FAR in memonry of User:Zleitzen who left wikipedia in discuss over the FA process.User:Polaris999 was one of the article's creators who was driven away. Redthoreau even reverted User:SandyGeorgia, director of FA under Raul before she washed her hands of the Che Guevara mess.I know that I no longer have the drive to work on FA articles. This is a great lesson to my why I no longer do. Thanks! 03:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Making clear the "vague allegations"

If I were to properly source all of the vague allegations I made about Jimmy Wales, how will you respond? I don't want to waste my time providing you links if you're just going to react with some juvenile response like, "How do we know the New York Times is telling the truth?" - Four Thirty-Nine (talk) 03:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't wish to predict in advance how I would respond or whether I would respond at all. I agree with Mtmelendez that English Misplaced Pages is not an appropriate forum for this discussion. I hope you won't use my talk page as a place to lay out such evidence, although if you do list sources somewhere on this project (which, however, may not necessarily be an appropriate thing to do, given the way the discussion was closed) I would not object to a brief note informing me of the location of the discussion. I have great respect for young people, but I don't think they have a monopoly on the idea of questioning whether something in a newspaper is true or not. My intention was more to make the point that evidence had not been provided, than to indicate a personal desire to see such evidence. It may not be worthwhile going to a lot of trouble treating what I said as a request. Now that the discussion is closed, I might not be interested in participating further. Sorry. Regards, --Coppertwig (talk) 11:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

For Coppertwig - posted on my talk page for you

(This was posted on my talk page as a reply to your post to me. I have removed it from my page and copied it here. Please ask User:Redthoreau to stop following me around making comments under mine where I post an an editor's page. Pleas also ask him to stop using my talk page as a poster board to talk to other users about me - or other topics for that matter. My page is not a board to post messages on to other. Further, Redthoreau is prolonging the antagonism by this behavior. This is becoming nerve-racking. (I was working on another article when I got the message and accidentally lost an article I was working on but not saved, as I am very anxious and tense now.) Please ask User:Redthoreau to leave me alone. Thanks, Mattisse (Talk) 19:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC) )

I am including the post for which I was replying to in order for my response to be in it's appropriate context. Unfortunately Mattisse likes to control the flow of information and present things out of their appropriate framework. As to his request of "leaving him alone" ... trust me there is nothing I wish for more, than not to have to respond to his daily slander. Redthoreau (talk TR 21:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

2 posts which appeared on Mattisse's talk page

Thanks! I will certainly take you up on your offer for help. By the way, User:Redthoreau is not a regular but rather a single purpose account, a bureaucrat informed me, while I am nor with over +44,000 edits on a while range of articles (into the thousands) so I am asking you to please do not treat me as a Redthoreau. I know about Misplaced Pages:Don't template the regulars. In fact, in the past I have seen regulars forgiven when they are provoked. I deserve to be in that category. The WP:OWN has been brought up many times with User:Redthoreau, but no one is willing to waste their time on the article any more. (Again, I ask you to look at the article history -- it will only take a few minutes for you to get the picture. If you look back at the article talk pages you will find many attempts on my part to explain the procedures to Redhoreau, while his responses to me and others have often been rants, or personal attacks, calling me insane and saying I need a mental health exam. Please read Misplaced Pages:Featured article review/Che Guevara The "The malformed" answers I have received from both the 3RR people and the Village Pump people msny times. And I still do not understand. The only 3RR I have successfully reported in the 2 years I have been here was one that User:Salix Alba kindly fixed the glitches for me. Also, I am not clear what is a 3RR. I have been blocked for 3RR by reverting my own User Page. I have been blocked for 3RR for making three edits in 24 hour of material that was not related to the person who templated me (e.g. was not his wording or even in the paragraph he had written but was my own writing. Can you explain? That I could warm a user with three templates and he continues with another 15 t0 20 edits is unfathomable. But since it works that way now, I feel I should be able to the same. Am I incorrect? Please inform me! I am very confused over this. Regards, Mattisse (Talk) 16:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Correction of the facts - as it is clear that Mattisse has an issue getting them correctly and lies more than any editor I have ever seen (by the way that is not a personal attack, but a fact, he makes factually incorrect statements at will about me). (1) I am not a “single purpose account”, and have contributed to a wide range of articles since I first began editing a few months ago. Yes many of them have been related to a similar subject area, but that is the area that is my expertise, thus I edit accordingly (just as most of Mattisse’s edits have to deal with a similar subject matter which I believe may be Psycholgy ... oh the irony). Also all I have ever wanted was to be treated the same as anyone else ... it is Mattisse who believes that since he has (44 K edits) that it allows him to play de-facto monarch of any article for which he is involved in. ----- Yes, please do look at the article history, read the talk page and take note of my demeanor in contrast to Mattisse. You will find that he declared he was finished with the article and demanded that I stop messaging about him around Noon yesterday (he is notorious for doing this in the past) ... only to come back in the afternoon and begin editing again and false templating me against wiki policy. When I point out that he makes statements publicly on the talk page – only to then act as if they haven’t happened, and ponder openly how I can react to such “oddity”, he then from that impugns that I am attacking his mental state (which is not necessary, as the facts speak for themselves). I have come across a wide range of people in my life, and I am truly dumbfounded at whatever “reality” Mattisse seems to be living in. = Nothing he says represents reality, and thus when I became angry after weeks of this and in response to him calling me a sock puppet I called him “Insane”. An insult? Possibly, but also a medical diagnosis I believe (as I am not sure what else to call it). I have made countless pleas for him to (1) Stop Harassing me (2) Stop templating me against wiki policy -- which he has been warned from a moderator about (3) Stop mirroring my edits and placing tags on any article I work on as a way to cause annoyance (4) Stop lying about my behavior, creating a situation where I am justified in defending myself, and thus responding (5) Be civil and collaborative instead of rude, divisive, irrational, “crazy”, and combative. ---- I will continue to defend myself against his lies, as I believe I am entitled that opportunity. I do not rant, something he does often, and only defend my right to answer the charges against me. I would just as much prefer to never have to leave a message on his talk page again ... but unfortunately he won’t leave my talk page alone, and thus every time he leaves a message for me, I respond in turn, and then discover another libelous smear he is spreading about me. As I asked several times nicely yesterday ... Mattisse please follow wiki policy, and leave me alone. If you wish to discuss something about me do it on the article talk page. I will not respond to you unless you message me or attack me on your talk page. Thank you. Redthoreau (talk TR 19:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Mattisse and dear Redthoreau, welcome to my talk page. I'm really very happy to have you here, and I look forward to a nice, enjoyable and productive discussion with you.

I'm afraid I do have to ask one thing of you, though: would you please not make comments about each other (or any other editor) or about each others' behaviour or what you've done in the past, etc. for example "while his responses to me and others have often been rants, or personal attacks" or "which I believe may be Psycholgy ... oh the irony". I would like you both to feel comfortable and welcome here, and I'm afraid those sorts of comments make those feelings impossible.

Well, now that we've eliminated that topic of conversation, what do we have left to talk about? We can talk about the Che Guevara article and about the relative merits of various versions of various parts of the article -- although it may be better to do that on the article talk page, so that others can benefit from the discussion too, and I may be participating there as well. We can talk about the future: how we hope to get along with each other, and what are our preferred methods of interacting, without saying anything about what happened in the past. How do you like to do reverts? My preferred method is often to ask the person who did an edit to revert it themselves, explaining the reason why. Note the "self-revert" and "harmonious editing club" (1RR) userboxen on my user page. What are the methods you prefer?

I try to treat everyone with respect, from the newest user to the most long-established bureaucrat. I don't tend to treat people differently because of whether they're an administrator or how many articles they've edited, etc. I also tend to apply the same methods to editing articles regardless of whether they're undergoing Featured Article review or Articles for Deletion discussion or anything else. In any case, the principles to apply are verifiability, neutral point of view, etc.

By the way, I initially got involved in this by looking at the 3RR page to see if there were any 3RR reports I could usefully contribute to. As far as I remember I had not previously been involved in the Che Guevara article and had not interacted with either of you. I might become involved in editing the article, though. I might maintain a neutral position and help facilitate working out conflicts between you, or I might develop and express my own opinions about the article content.

I have a suggestion: how about if we take two versions of the introductory paragraph of the article, perhaps the current version and the version in the previous edit, and copy both versions to the article talk page, and then discuss them there without making any comments about editors or editor behaviour, only about words and sentences and POV (POV of words in the article, not POV of editors) and sources and things like that that are relevant to article content? We could develop a new, consensus version of the introductory section on the article talk page. (This method has been used, for example, at the Chiropractic article.) Do you think that's a good idea?

Mattisse, if you're interested in understanding 3RR better, you might want to carefully read or re-read the WP:3RR policy. Do you understand what I was telling you, that consecutive edits by one editor usually count as one edit? Salix Alba is absolutely wonderful, isn't he? The 3RR policy says that usually reverts to your own user page don't count as 3RR violations, but there are some exceptions, e.g. copyright violations and some other things, so that it is possible to violate 3RR on your own user page if it's one of those exceptions. For the 3RR rule, it doesn't matter whose material you're reverting. You could be reverting 4 different parts of a page that were put there by 4 different people, and a fifth person could report you for 3RR and it would be a violation. You might not even receive a warning. New users who might not know the 3RR rule are expected to be given a warning, but users who already know about the rule might just be reported to the WP:AN/3RR noticeboard without getting a warning first. It says in the instructions at the top of that page that it's good form to inform the person that they're being reported. In other words, they might be informed at the same time that they're being reported, and not necessarily warned before. I think it's nice to warn the person before, though, and give them a chance to "self-revert" their last revert so that they won't be blocked. Even after being reported, they may still have a chance to "self-revert".

Anyway, as I said elsewhere, I hope we won't need to worry about the exact details of the 3RR rule because I hope everyone will get along in a polite and friendly way and find a consensus version of the article. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The prototype article you suggested on the help desk

User:LoserNo1/The_Game_(game). Thanks. LoserNo1 (talk) 00:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)