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Revision as of 23:28, 7 July 2009 editHesperian (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users135,224 edits →Violation of your editing restriction at Alexander Francis Lydon: A shining example indeed← Previous edit Revision as of 11:51, 8 July 2009 edit undoRotational (talk | contribs)9,031 edits →Violation of your editing restriction at Alexander Francis LydonNext edit →
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:::A "shining example" indeed. Note that (a) Hesperian was there first, by a year; (b) Hesperian made zero edits to the article during that dispute; (c) nine people expressed their opinion on the talk page, comprising Rotational, and eight people who disagreed with him; (d) despite unanimous-minus-one rejection of Rotational's preferred layout, Rotational reverted to his preferred layout six times in the course of a week. Yet ''somehow'', this is evidence of Hesperian stalking and victimizing poor Rotational. ] 23:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC) :::A "shining example" indeed. Note that (a) Hesperian was there first, by a year; (b) Hesperian made zero edits to the article during that dispute; (c) nine people expressed their opinion on the talk page, comprising Rotational, and eight people who disagreed with him; (d) despite unanimous-minus-one rejection of Rotational's preferred layout, Rotational reverted to his preferred layout six times in the course of a week. Yet ''somehow'', this is evidence of Hesperian stalking and victimizing poor Rotational. ] 23:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
::::That you are on this page is proof of your stalking. You are a supreme rabble-rouser - the evidence is in your edits. Furthermore you are totally unreceptive to new ideas and arrogantly impose your outdated and entrenched notions of the MoS, oblivious of the fact that the MoS should be a document under development. Improving the system is not part of your agenda, whereas character assassination and one-upmanship are supremely important to you. ] (]) 11:51, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


:Well, that leaves you with two options - either to run through the talk page discussion again in the hope of reaching consensus this time round, or to leave the issue alone and work on other things. If you ''do'' want to try it again I'd suggest doing it at ] rather than an individual article, because if you succeed in gaining consensus for a change it can then be applied to all articles rather than just the one you had the discussion at. But that's up to you. Feel free to let me know if I can help out in any way. ] (]) 10:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC) :Well, that leaves you with two options - either to run through the talk page discussion again in the hope of reaching consensus this time round, or to leave the issue alone and work on other things. If you ''do'' want to try it again I'd suggest doing it at ] rather than an individual article, because if you succeed in gaining consensus for a change it can then be applied to all articles rather than just the one you had the discussion at. But that's up to you. Feel free to let me know if I can help out in any way. ] (]) 10:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Revision as of 11:51, 8 July 2009

Infobox
I do not necessarily believe that "Infoboxes must burn in hell", but I appreciate the problem: A box promises to contain, and things that can't be neatly contained can't be put in boxes. A box suggests "this is the real deal," and if the real deal could be put in a box, then there would be no need for articles. A box says, "Here is your PowerPoint bullet point list, so you can find all the world reduced to a reductive summary; please do not strive to understand complexity, for that is for suckers." A box says, "Misplaced Pages is just like your primary school text book: full of colors and 'bites' of infotainment." A box says, "I, the box maker, have just pissed all over this article and written a counter-article, and it's short, so read it instead." A box may be found useful by some people, indeed. We call those people "non-readers." (Utgard Loki, at Giano's Talkpage, 16:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)I do not necessarily believe that "Infoboxes must burn in hell", but I appreciate the problem:
A box promises to contain, and things that can't be neatly contained can't be put in boxes. A box suggests "this is the real deal," and if the real deal could be put in a box, then there would be no need for articles. A box says, "Here is your PowerPoint bullet point list, so you can find all the world reduced to a reductive summary; please do not strive to understand complexity, for that is for suckers." A box says, "Misplaced Pages is just like your primary school text book: full of colors and 'bites' of infotainment." A box says, "I, the box maker, have just pissed all over this article and written a counter-article, and it's short, so read it instead." A box may be found useful by some people, indeed. We call those people "non-readers." (Utgard Loki, at Giano's Talkpage, 16:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not interested in "fighting the battle" on those lines, because it's completely unnecessary for me to do so. I consider it to be absolutely within policy already. Some people like to imagine that "the community" is absolutely sovereign, but it is not, has never been, and never will be. Misplaced Pages is not a democracy, as existing policy has long made abundantly clear. But trying to portray this as an issue of a community clamoring to allow paid shills to openly do battle in wikipedia versus Jimbo trying to stop it is pretty hilariously out of tune with the real discussion. You wrote an openly biased RFC that led people down a certain path - I consider this pretty pointless.

— --Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


Editing restriction

A community discussion at the administrators' Incidents noticeboard has reached a consensus that you be placed under the following editing restriction:

  • Do not revert-war to make any article formatting change that is against the guidelines in the Manual of Style; in particular, you must not revert another revert in order to change the level of a heading or the position of an image.

This restriction is indefinite in duration; however, at any point you may start a discussion at the administrators' noticeboard proposing that it is no longer necessary.

Thank you. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 13:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I regard this as an illegal decision, which clearly flouts the guidelines of the MoS, and do not accept it. Rotational (talk) 07:30, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
See User:Joe Hepperle's views on this kangaroo court Rotational (talk) 06:30, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

AUTOBLOCKED AGAIN??? THIS IS PATHETIC!! SOMEONE NEEDS TO WAKE UP!!

Are you still blocked? Unfortunately, only checkusers are able to see which registered accounts will be affected by IP blocks. If it happens again, you might want to ask for IP block exemption. Papa November (talk) 11:44, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems that the problem has gone away for now, since you've been editing articles since your above message. If it happens again, consider following the steps at Template:Autoblock. Regular admins are able to clear autoblocks if you supply the information requested there. Or, if the problem was actually a rangeblock we could use the supplied information to figure out who imposed the block. EdJohnston (talk) 15:36, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

June 2009

Welcome to Misplaced Pages. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, we would like to remind you not to attack other editors, as you did on Talk:Henri Boutet. Please comment on the contributions and not the contributors. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Jenuk1985 | Talk 12:27, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I think one's contributions are informed by one's aesthetics - it's not possible to separate the one from the other! But if it makes you feel better: I think the appearance of the article Henri Boutet now sucks. (Is that a more impersonal comment?) You'll have to teach me the art of lip-puckering and political correctness. ps What's with the "welcome to Misplaced Pages" bit? You've never liked my edits and I've never liked your reverts, so please don't become a hypocrite as well Rotational (talk) 20:11, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Question

Hi. May I ask why you've created literally dozens of "articles" such as User:Rotational/Henri Gabriel Ibels in your userspace? It seems a bit odd, but I trust you have a valid reason for it. Cheers. –Juliancolton |  23:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, not quite dozens, only about one dozen so far. They're created in my userspace because that is the only way to edit in peace without being harassed by a band of 8-10 editors who don't like my layouts and have made a crusade of stalking my contributions. They claim to have community consensus, despite dissenting opinions, and have gone as far as trying to impose an illegal restriction on my edits - see here and here. Logically their vendetta doesn't hold much water - if they truly believe that their style preferences are also those of the community, then they need only step back and let some other editor revert when he comes across what he thinks to be a glaring travesty of the MoS. However, I think they have tainted any claims they might have had to impartiality by their obsessive behaviour. Rotational (talk) 08:17, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Do you have any intention of moving these articles to the main article space? Jenuk1985 | Talk 15:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Why are you interested? Rotational (talk) 19:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm perfectly entitled to ask a question! Jenuk1985 | Talk 20:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
You are indeed, as I am perfectly entitled to ignore it! Rotational (talk) 20:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
As you are reluctant to answer the question, I have started an ANI thread regarding your subpages here Jenuk1985 | Talk 20:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Unaware of the ANI discussion started by Jenuk, and possibly preceding it in part, I have performed the following page moves, on the grounds that you have been retaining the pages in your user space for reasons that are a violation of our policy on Misplaced Pages:ownership of articles.

Would you like the redirects deleted?

I have left the following pages in place, because they appear to be notes or early drafts, which is a legitimate use of your user space:

Finally, User:Rotational/Alan Cunningham is a misspelled duplicate of Allan Cunningham, and I will delete it shortly unless you offer any cogent objections to my doing so. Hesperian 23:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Objections, cogent or otherwise, do not deflect you from your ponderous course; so why bother.....Rotational (talk) 09:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Please move them back to mainspace. They are good articles and deserve a wider audience. Please. --John (talk) 06:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
I've moved them back into the mainspace. They are protected from being moved again. Your comments are requested at ANI. ➲ redvers 14:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
My comments notwithstanding the articles remain in mainspace and the discussion was conveniently archived. Rotational (talk) 09:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Yes. The consensus was that they remain in the mainspace, so there they remain. The thread was not so much "conveniently archived" as "automatically archived as normal by a bot after a period of silence". ➲ redvers 10:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
The purpose of the discussion, I thought, was to determine whether what you and the gang did, was moral and legitimate, not whether you all thought it was an absolutely ripping idea. In most civilised societies there is a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. You on the other hand, acted precipitately in support of the accusers. If you examine the archived record, you will find that extremely little discussion took place regarding the merits of the issue, and that opinions supporting my view were brazenly ignored.Rotational (talk) 10:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Oh, and you'll probably want to revert this bit of nastiness when you've cooled down/sobered up! :o) ➲ redvers 10:41, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
And perhaps you'd like to re-examine the issue when your judgement is less flawed :o) Rotational (talk) 10:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Infoboxes

Hi SilkTork, Lovely-looking baby! Going through the history of Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (infoboxes) I found this diff of an edit by All Hallow's Wraith who claims "reverted to older description - change was evidently done without consensus". Conversely, I find no consensus for boxes being placed at top and right-aligned. In the original proposal on 10 March 2006 by Kirill Lokshin he writes "Infobox templates are a broad group of templates commonly used at the top of an article", this observation later becomes a rigid foundation stone of the infobox ethos and is seemingly not supported by consensus. I'd like to hear your views on the matter. Rotational (talk) 08:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

There was some discussion about the placing of infoboxes in the top right of articles. It was thought by those involved in the discussions that infoboxes could be intrusive in the lead section, but that long term usage implied a wide consensus. I will see if I can dig up those discussions. SilkTork * 18:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Discussions: and . There may be others. SilkTork * 19:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Please do not attack other editors. Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you. PeterSymonds (talk) 11:31, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for this and several other of your edits to pages I recently created or edited. Hesperian 23:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

No need to thank me - my only motive was to ingratiate myself with you. Rotational (talk) 10:30, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I realised that; just as your sudden and unprecedented interest in carnivorous plants stemmed solely from a desire to please Rkitko. Hesperian 11:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Or your very long nose in my activities stemming from a deep-rooted altruism. Rotational (talk) 07:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

AUTOBLOCKED AGAIN..........

{{unblock-ip|1=41.213.126.5|2=<nowiki>{{blocked proxy}} <!-- 41.213.57.95:1080 -->|3=ProcseeBot}}</nowiki>

I have granted your account an exemption from IP blocking. This will allow you to edit through full blocks affecting your IP address when you are logged in.

Please read the page Misplaced Pages:IP block exemption carefully, especially the section on IP block exemption conditions.

Note in particular that you are not permitted to use this newly-granted right to edit Misplaced Pages via anonymous proxies, or disruptively. If you do, or there is a serious concern of abuse, then the right may be removed by any administrator.

Appropriate usage and compliance with the policy may be checked periodically, due to the nature of block exemption, and block exemption will be removed when no longer needed (for example, when the block it is related to expires).

I hope this will enhance your editing, and allow you to edit successfully and without disruption. (Your IP has been blocked twice in recent months by ProcseeBot, which checks usability of a proxy before blocking it. Since you've had autoblock difficulties before I figured it was best to just grant IPBE.) Mangojuice 14:43, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Violation of your editing restriction at Alexander Francis Lydon

Hello Rotational. Please see WP:ANI#Violation of editing restriction by Rotational. You have twice removed the infobox at Alexander Francis Lydon, which violates your editing restriction. You are requested to undo your last edit. If you continue to obstruct the restoration of the infobox, without first getting consensus to support your action on Talk or at ANI, you may be blocked. EdJohnston (talk) 01:21, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

A community discussion at the administrators' Incidents noticeboard has reached a consensus that you be placed under the following editing restriction. Do not revert-war to make any article formatting change that is against the guidelines in the Manual of Style; in particular, you must not revert another revert in order to change the level of a heading or the position of an image.


Firstly, which guideline states that an article has to have an infobox? Secondly, I made it quite clear that "I regard this as an illegal decision, which clearly flouts the guidelines of the MoS, and do not accept it." Lastly, your so-called 'community discussion' involved some half a dozen people, all of whom had an axe to grind, except for Joe Hepperle whose input was ignored. After the gangrape in which articles were removed from my userspace and placed in mainspace against my wishes, I have stopped contributing new articles. So if it makes you and your gang feel any better, block away to your heart's content and know that I have lost all respect for your judgement and a system which lends itself to harassing constructive editors. Rotational (talk) 05:18, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I've reverted your edit to the Alexander Francis Lydon article, because as you know the WP:MOS states in part "Start an article with a right-aligned lead image or infobox" (emphasis added). A trivial infobox with a useful image might readily be replaced with the image plus caption, but that should be right-aligned as the first content after the header.
I note you also disagree with some interpretations of the Manual of Style, or at least where there is an internal conflict in it you have strong views about how that should be resolved. That's fine of itself, but its been repeatedly spelt out that disputes like this should be resolved by discussion on the relevant MOS talk page, not edit-warring directly in articles. Past edit-warring has led to the editing restriction, which exists regardless of whether you consider it "illegal". There's no restriction on you seeking changes to the MOS, which if supported by consensus can then be appied to any article you like. But until/unless you succeed in getting consensus for such a change, please abide by the restriction and stop changing article format in a way that breaches the style manual.
Nothing I've said here is new, and I apologise if you consider it repetitive. The point of the above is to once again request that you adhere to the MOS, leave unilateral format changes alone for the while and continue instead with your much-appreciated content work. Responses welcome. Euryalus (talk) 11:03, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments - I respect level-headed editors (God knows, there are few enough of them!). At the risk of boring you, I would like to summarise my 'conflict' with Hesperian and his group:
The first supposed issue is that an article should start with a right-aligned image. I have no problem with this except when the image happens to be a right-facing portrait. The guidelines clearly state that such portraits be placed on the left and numerous editors have supported this view. Hesperian and his cohorts have interpreted this as a conflict/inconsistency in the MoS and for various specious reasons have decided that the lead image directive trumps the right-facing image guideline. I can see no fundamental conflict in these two guidelines, since it is almost always possible to find an image which is not a right-facing portrait to use as a lead image, after which a right-facing portrait can then be placed on the left hand side further down the body of the text. This idea is revolutionary to Hesperian and he feels that a right-facing portrait should never appear on the left. The nub of the matter is that I am not seeking changes to the MoS, because the provision is already in place - I am simply not allowed to make use of it and my edits are termed disruptive. So in effect the restriction allows Hesperian free play with his interpretation of the MoS, while my perfectly reasonable interpretation is quashed and derisively labelled 'my preference' - see here

The second issue arose out of what I can only assume to be vindictiveness - see here Hesperian and Jenuk decided that articles which I had started and had kept in my userspace were there illegally and had to be moved to mainspace, no matter how much I objected. My reassurance that I would release them to mainspace when I considered them ready, fell on deaf ears. As a direct result of that action, I decided not to contribute any new articles, at least not until these issues have been resolved. Thank you for your interest. Rotational (talk) 13:13, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Euryalus, the above may well reflect Rotational's views, but they don't reflect reality. The key facts here are
  • Rotational's history is full of edit wars over the same issue. It is always Rotational against everyone else. Rotational likes his layout, everyone else disagrees. Rotational thinks the MOS supports his preferred layout, everyone else disagrees. Contrary to Rotational's "small gang of buffoons" rhetoric, the aggregate of Wikipedians with whom he has has edit-warred over this one issue is very large indeed. It may suit Rotational's agenda to declare himself a victim of "Hesperian and his group", but an examination of Rotational's 2+ years of edit warring over this issue will give the lie to that claim. In particular, I have been involved in this issue only since April, about 10% of the total period that Rotational has been edit-warring over this.
Sometimes I wonder whether we are from the same planet.... The so-called 'edit wars' were ALWAYS started by Hesperian and his relatively small group seeking to enforce their interpretation of the MoS. "Everyone" does NOT agree with Hesperian - he just chooses to ignore them (eg Joe Hepperle). I have no agenda except to contribute in peace. Rotational (talk)
  • Rotational's edit-warring was recognised by the community as long-term disruption, and he was placed on an editing restriction: he was forbidden to revert a revert in order to change the level of a heading or the position of an image.
The "community" consisting of Hesperian and his cronies.Rotational (talk)
  • Rotational's response to this restriction was to begin building a personal library of articles in his user space: articles that were complete and ready for mainspace, yet were held back, so that Rotational could retain control over their layout. Rotational having admitted this, I moved them into mainspace for him. This action was subsequently endorsed at AN/I. And when he moved them back, an uninvolved adminstrator re-moved and move-protected them.
I think I am the best judge of when an article I have started and am working on is complete. The only control I wanted was to work on them in peace - "They're created in my userspace because that is the only way to edit in peace without being harassed by a band of 8-10 editors who don't like my layouts and have made a crusade of stalking my contributions." Moving them into mainspace on my behalf is a brazen lie - I never requested it or condoned it - Really, you take one's breath away!!!Rotational (talk)
  • If there were any doubts over Rotational's reasons for retaining these articles in user space, they were dispelled by his next move, which was to declare that he was no longer able to contribute articles at all. Having lost the ability to enforce ownership over the layout of his articles, he refused to contribute any further content.
Like most of your clairvoyance, this deduction is fatally flawed - I don't see that my refusal to contribute spotlights anything other than my disgust with your behaviour Rotational (talk)
  • Rotational has today violated his edit restriction by once again edit-warring over the placement of an image.
Hesperian 14:10, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

What is glaringly obvious is that Hesperian has avoided discussing the issue of right-facing images and has instead introduced a shoal of red herrings. Rotational (talk) 15:01, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

One can hardly blame Hesperian for no longer bothering to engage in layout arguments with somebody who has proven time and time again that his only consideration is what he likes best. Hesperian 23:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
One can only wonder why he bothered putting in an appearance - it certainly wasn't by invitation and his contributions do nothing to resolve the problem he created. Rotational (talk) 15:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Rotational, I can see the issue you raise with WP:MOSIMAGES, though I personally think its resolved by the emphasis difference:
  • "Start an article with a right-aligned lead image" is a definitive statement;
  • "It is often preferable to place images of faces so that the face or eyes look toward the text" indicates a preference rather than a direction.
But that's my personal view. The correct way to resolve a dispute between these two sentences is via discussion, either on the talk page of the particular article or at WT:MOS where it has been a regular debate over the years. Some examples of past discussion include this and this, and there's also this apparent contradiction of the MOS at WP:IMAGES. The conflict can sometimes be avoided where there's multiple images to choose from, but where that can't be done the usual process is bold, revert, discuss - where you change an article and someone reverts it, please discuss on the talk page rather than reverting the revert. Once again, not telling you anything you didn't already know I'm sure.
Re the edit restriction - "Bold, revert, discuss" applies to everyone, the only difference in your case is that at least for the moment you've been specifically asked not to revert a revert of a format change. Essentially, where you make a format change that in your view the MOS permits but someone else reverts it, don't revert it back - instead, open a talk page discussion on the issue and seek consensus for an outcome. Not a huge deal, and something every editor should reasonably do when there's a dispute over article layout. The edit restriction means there's less (or no) tolerance if you revert a revert compared to others doing it, but the broad principle applies to everyone.
I don't have a view on the article move from userspace to mainspace - I don't know why you were keeping them in userspace to begin with but whatever. I don't think this should stop you from contributing to other pages and hope you'll continue to do so, especially as your speciality areas aren't ones the average editor has any expertise in. So we need your work.
And lastly, the world would be a happier place if everyone commented on article contributions rather than article contributors and no one let past battles influence current debates. Please excuse my overly rose-colored glasses, and the longwinded nature of the above. Euryalus (talk) 00:30, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, the approach you advise has been tried many times - see here for a shining example of a discussion getting nowhere, and note from the history how untroubled the article was before Hesperian and his merry gang arrived on the scene. Rotational (talk)

A "shining example" indeed. Note that (a) Hesperian was there first, by a year; (b) Hesperian made zero edits to the article during that dispute; (c) nine people expressed their opinion on the talk page, comprising Rotational, and eight people who disagreed with him; (d) despite unanimous-minus-one rejection of Rotational's preferred layout, Rotational reverted to his preferred layout six times in the course of a week. Yet somehow, this is evidence of Hesperian stalking and victimizing poor Rotational. Hesperian 23:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
That you are on this page is proof of your stalking. You are a supreme rabble-rouser - the evidence is in your edits. Furthermore you are totally unreceptive to new ideas and arrogantly impose your outdated and entrenched notions of the MoS, oblivious of the fact that the MoS should be a document under development. Improving the system is not part of your agenda, whereas character assassination and one-upmanship are supremely important to you. Rotational (talk) 11:51, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, that leaves you with two options - either to run through the talk page discussion again in the hope of reaching consensus this time round, or to leave the issue alone and work on other things. If you do want to try it again I'd suggest doing it at WT:MOS rather than an individual article, because if you succeed in gaining consensus for a change it can then be applied to all articles rather than just the one you had the discussion at. But that's up to you. Feel free to let me know if I can help out in any way. Euryalus (talk) 10:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)