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Barnstar for you

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		I, Beagel, give this barnstar to you for your attempt to make the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and BP related articles more encyclopaedic. Many good editors have tried this but have give up for obvious reasons. I hope you have more luck and courage to keep Misplaced Pages being an encyclopaedia. Beagel (talk) 05:47, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Template:Z147

Hear hear. Do take care though not to use offensive language, be uncivil in any way, or edit war as there are those here who would not miss the opportunity to get you banned or blocked. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:31, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Your posts

Hi Geogene. I just wanted to suggest that you tone down your rhetoric a bit. I was observing your posts on Talk:BP, and also your conversation with another editor above about a third party. You come across as an aggressive, partisan editor, with a strong POV and disdain for other editors, and also being somewhat on the insulting and abrasive side. Having a conversation about an unnamed editor as you do above, while probably not in breach of any policy, has a polarizing effect. I'm offering this advice in a friendly way. Feel free to delete if you disagree or feel it is out of line. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 14:06, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Figureofnine. You are not in any way out of line. You earned my respect the other day, but I am encouraging comments on my behavior from any party here, especially anyone I seem to be having trouble with. I may not agree but can only benefit from such feedback, positive or negative, because I have a lot more learning to do about protocols here. And I hope to work well with all of you, though we do seem to be off to a bad start. I believe some of this comes down to matters of perception. All editors have POV, but we all view POV through blinders that make our own invisible while exaggerating those of others with different views. My views seem to be a little different from the rest, and that's the ultimate source (from both directions) of tension. Being direct in addressing problems with an article can sometimes seem aggressive even if that is not my intent, although I have probably crossed that line any number of times in fact. Trying to make an article more neutral can be misinterpreted as partisanship, because it's hard to objectively define what is "neutral" with POV blinders on. On the other side, that someone accused me of being part of a conspiracy to bias a Federal court case is more than a little insulting and abrasive, and frankly it seems crazy. Doing it to other people habitually merits outside attention. Even if discussing how to handle those allegations is "polarizing", I don't know how that can be helped. I may be misinterpreting you, but the gist of that seems to be that I must tolerate abuse if I want other editors to be AGF towards me. I can't accept that. But I will be toning down the rhetoric. I hope that we can all work together to write better articles. Geogene (talk) 18:06, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

That's a constructive answer, thank you. I was concerned by your most recent post in Talk:BP. The atmosphere there has soured to the point that I personally steer clear of it, and it has tended to sour me on Misplaced Pages generally. Please don't contribute to that. Using the "undo" tool also generates hard feelings. It is better to come to a compromise instead of just rolling back an edit you don't agree with. Your conversation on this page regarding the transgressions of an unnamed editor concerned me even more, whatever the provocation. What you seem to be doing is working with another editor to intimidate a third party, justifiably or not. That's all. I appreciate your cooperative attitude in addressing this. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 18:21, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Now that you point that out I see what you mean, though I didn't intend it that way. I did hope the user we're disputing with would see things more from my viewpoint this way. The "undo" tool is just a tool, my additions get "undone" from time to time, usually for a good reason. But you're right, the fact that it pings makes it seem a little confrontational. Be advised I left you a reply in the Talk:BP thread as well that is more defensive. I think we have a opposing POV but you're a good editor, and I don't want to run you off. I don't want to run anybody off, but in one instance I feel like I was put in a situation that should get outside attention. We'll see if I can avoid being run off myself because the whole environment is souring on me too. I prefer less controversial subjects, and anything more controversial than this I avoid. Geogene (talk) 19:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Figureofnine, I can't speak for Geogene, and I've never participated at Talk:BP, but I assure you that I personally have absolutely no desire to intimidate anyone or to create a polarizing environment. In fact, my goal in the above conversation is to create a less intimidating, less polarizing environment in which editors having different POVs can resolve their disagreements civilly and productively. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:46, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Arbcom?

Geogene, you once mentioned the possibility of asking Arbcom to arbitrate on the BP and related articles. My respose was that Arbcom will not arbitrate on content issues but, on reflection, I think that the anti-business, anti-oil pressure on WP is so important to its future and credibility that they may take on the case. There are also some editor behaviour issues such a page ownership and unsubstantiated claims of COI editing that they may look at too. What do you think? Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:27, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

What would we be asking them for as far as content is concerned? I think that to address those issues would be good for Misplaced Pages, but I'm not so sure that the community realizes it. On the other issues, I am very interested in asking that the unsubstantiated COI claims be addressed, as I've found them to be bothersome, persistent, and known by everyone to be against the rules. In fact I believe that the community has tolerated them this long because they are generally associated with BP articles. Geogene (talk) 16:42, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Regarding content, we would be would be asking that the article should be written in an encyclopedic style rather than be a vehicle to attack a company which some see as bad.

I thing Arbcom may well take action about the false COI claims, which have also been made against me and others. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:49, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

The root problem is that all editors are self-selected and so the majority of the edits will be done by the people that feel most strongly about the subject of the article. The Hitler and Pol Pot articles were written by history buffs. There are no corporation buffs, so corporate articles tend to be written by editors motivated by anti-corporate views. This is why articles about corporations can be more negative than those of genocidal dictators. I see no solution to this. WP's model is not perfect but I'm surprised it isn't much worse than it is.

I think that something BP-related will eventually go to ArbCom, and if it does I want to be part of it. I might or might not initiate such a submission, but a submission of one from me is not imminent. I will not submit something myself without coordination with you others. There might still be some other avenue of mediation that should be tried first. I doubt ArbCom will be interested in content especially after that RfC, which is unfortunate, because I have read the comments and am not impressed with the arguments presented. Today I was told I have been edit-warring, so I would best back away from this for a while. I'm not in a hurry. Geogene (talk) 00:02, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

As you rightly point out above, the problem here is larger than the BP article. For many contentious topics there are sets of editors on both sides, leaving the 'encyclopedists' holding the balance of power. For business articles, may pro-business editors would be considered to have a COI and be discouraged from editing. This leaves the anti-business, anti-oil editors free to take over articles. I see this as a very serious threat to the authority and credibility of WP that fully deserves the attention of Arbcom. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:00, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree. How to go about it? Geogene (talk) 16:13, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Deepwater Horizon oil spill

I saw an article in an actual newspaper which I thought was going to have a significant amount of information that could be added, but apparently not. Some of what was in the article was already there in a sense, but I don't think anyone wants to go through all the specifics of how the company feels it is being cheated and I don't feel comfortable trying to add anything to that.

On the other hand, a couple of other details were in that article and I tried to fit them in, but one didn't have an appropriate section already and the other may be all right where I put it. By creating a new section, I hope I started something that could be expanded on. I figure you have an interest in seeing that the article is expanded in appropriate ways.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:29, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that was just a back-and-forth where BP would certainly like the cleanup to be over, and the government says it's certainly not over. I'm not sure that has much significance in itself. If they're out of the penalty box for government leases now, that's probably notable, as an update to material already in the article. I would really like to know if BP's going to be resuming deepwater drilling in the Gulf, and especially if they're going to try drilling the Macondo Prospect again. Geogene (talk) 20:23, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Personal attacks on ANI

For your information, it is considered to be a personal attack to accuse another contributor of having a mental illness or condition, particularly as a debating point.

Your ANI edit here did so regarding Petrachan47.

Without attempting to interfere with the general give and take of the ANI discussion, I would like to request that you redact or strike the portions of that comment making aspersions regarding mental condition.

Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:09, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I will do that, Georgewilliamherbert, but I hope that you or someone else will investigate the conduct between that person and myself over the past four months. I do not want to take this to ArbCom. I will strike it out because last time I redacted my own incivility I was accused of being "sneaky" and castigated for it for days. You have no idea. But thanks for reading that thread. Geogene (talk) 20:34, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Is that all, Georgewilliamherbert? I see that you have not corrected anyone else. It's remarkable that I can never find an admin to hear my complaints but they're never far away for my incivility...or even to accuse me of things I haven't done. And there's plenty of incivility to go around there, and there has been for months. I hate to push this point, but I resent that other editors are allowed to cast aspersions on my motivations for weeks at a time. I resent having been told, by an admin, that nobody will be willing to hear my complaints, and that I'll have to take it ArbCom to find mediation. Yet admins appear out of the woodwork to accuse me of things I haven't even done, based on my timestamps! Why is that? Why the hell should I continue editing here anyway? All you get for it is abuse, day in and day out. Geogene (talk) 23:14, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Let me put this in context... Accusing someone of having a mental condition is around an 8 on a 1-10 scale of seriousness, and is easy and obvious to spot. Let us say this is a 2 on the difficulty scale of understanding and then intervening. Trying to unravel 3+ months of multiparty argument and bad behavior on several pages, the worst of which seems to rise to about a seriousness of 6 by itself lacking bigger picture context, is about a 8 on the difficulty scale of understanding and then intervening, possibly 9. The only factors which would make this worse would be more editors involved and sockpuppetry, I think.

Resolving that type of incident can take months of calendar time, and multiple person-weeks of effort to understand and then respond to appropriately (hundreds of person-hours).

If that is unsatisfactory to you, I don't have a good answer.

You have made a specific and possibly actionable complaint. I have not ignored it. But it cannot be acted upon without due diligence and research. I cannot at this time in any fair manner tell who started which, nor do I have anything approaching a coherent picture of who did what abuses, be they direct incivility or personal attacks, disruptive or obstructive editing, etc. A quick overview makes me think *all* of you are to blame, but that sort of initial impression is unwise to act upon.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay...I see that you are being helpful, and I appreciate that. I also agree, basically, with your observations above. But what I'm hearing at my end is that this situation will never be resolved. I can accept that, but I don't have to like it. Geogene (talk) 23:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

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New Madrid Seismic Zone

I am concerned about the amount of material you have removed from this article, which has been relatively stable for a while until your recent editing. Are these changes absolutely necessary? Have you given every deletion the due consideration it deserves before removing the material?

I trust that your knowledge of this subject is vastly superior to mine, so I'm not in a position to argue with your deletions on specific matters, but it does concern me that you, of all the editors who have passed through the article, seem to be the only one who sees a need for deletions of considerable size. BMK (talk) 21:37, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi BMK. What does it means when we say that an article is "stable"? What does it mean when we mention to someone else, in passing, that the article was "stable" before they decided to edit it? I think you've been involved in the article for longer than I have, but I thought it was fairly stable when I made these edits in 2009. (, ,  ?). I made a lot of changes in June of that year, and it returned to a state of "stability" when I was done. I'm going to take this to the NMSZ talk page and give some thoughts on why I did what I did today. That way we can discuss it with a potentially wider audience, and decide what ought to be added back. Geogene (talk) 23:05, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Please understand clearly, I am not saying that your edits were wrong -- if I thought that I would say so, unequivocally. My comment was not a passive-aggressive way of criticizing you, it was precisely what it appears to be: an editor concerned about the deletions being made to an article, and asking the deleting editor if they had carefully considered them. That you're taking your reasoning to the NMSZ talk page is fine, but, really, all you had to do was offer some assurances that your edits were well-considered. BMK (talk) 23:09, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I had a bad experience with the Stability Argument last time I heard it, but your concerns are reasonable. Geogene (talk) 23:23, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

United States Senate Republican primary election in Mississippi, 2014

I saw your talk page edit here. ] . I agree with you. It needs work. But what an interesting race. I have been meaning to doing some work on it. I would love it if you took a look at it.Casprings (talk) 01:07, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I apologize for my unnecessarily snarky tone in that post, which I have since retracted. This article and my own partisan perspective encouraged me to look a little too hard for POV-tilt in the articles related to this election. But the RFC process that took place on the Chris McDaniel article showed consensus seeking and even-handedness that one would not find an article being interfered with by a campaign. I do have a sense of it being a little more about McDaniel, and his endorsements, and his battle with the "establishment". But I also must consider that that's a big part of the election's notability. I also feel like it is a little soft on the antics of some of his supporters, but I understand the desire to avoid attack pages takes precedence. Geogene (talk) 01:34, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

My Mistake

I looked at the history on the wrong tab, and came up with March 2014. Sorry about that. Cadwallader (talk) 23:45, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Ah. For the record, I've never seen Talk page redactions from other editors before. I think the climate there is going downhill. Geogene (talk) 18:53, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Following up on your comment from BP Talk

Hi Geogene, I've been meaning to reply to the comment you left on the BP Talk page in mid-June about natural gas being included in BP's renewable energy investments. However, that conversation was recently archived so I'm leaving you a message here.

I wanted to let you know that I chose not to make an issue of it at the time but BP's natural gas operations is part of the company's Upstream business, not the Alternative Energy division. Therefore the $8.3 billion that BP has invested in alternative energy sources has primarily gone towards biofuels and wind, not natural gas. There was a discussion on the talk page last year about BP's alternative energy investments that discusses this in more detail. You can see that here if you're interested.

I also wanted to respond to your comment about whether the information about BP's alternative energy investments merits inclusion. Because the article currently discusses (in several locations) the fact that BP's investments in alternative energy are much smaller than its investments in oil and gas I think it is appropriate to at least explain more about the alternative energy investments somewhere in the article.

Hope this additional information is helpful to you. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 17:34, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello Arturo. Thanks for clarifying those two points. I saw your Talk Page request regarding tar sands vs. oil sands. I don't have a strong opinion on either being preferred use. Neither is especially accurate and both seem to be used in the current literature. There are some strong opinions in the community against "oil sands" so it should have a clear consensus and be of considerable benefit to the article to make the change. Geogene (talk) 18:43, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Also, if you haven't seen it, RockyMtnGuy made some informative, and I think, persuasive comments on the BP Talk page in response to my question about the Canadian tar/oil sands heading. Arturo at BP (talk) 16:48, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Dog-attack photo

Hi, and thanks very much for your pointing out that the photo on the James Bevel page would need more data. I added it back with the photographers details from his page. I didn't know about Hudson, so have added him to the 'Photographers of the American civil rights movement' page as well, and added the movement template to his page. Please check out the changes and see if they are appropriate to what you're thinking. Good to meet you, and thanks for inspiring the addition of Hudson to the CRM photographers article. Randy Kryn 22:07 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for adding Hudson to the CR photographers' article, I'm surprised he wasn't already there, because that's such a powerful image. Thank you for correcting that oversight. My concerns with the photo in the James Bevel article are based on the minimal usage criterion for non-free imagery (as found here: WP:NFC#7) and the non-free content "unacceptable use" criterion #7 here: WP:NFC#UUI, that applies to photographs belonging to press agencies. Basically we avoid them to the extent that we can because of their commercial value; where we do display them they have to be a subject of sourced commentary in the article, to be sure that the Fair Use exemptions in copyright laws are satisfied. I'm not certain that the current use fully satisfies the WP guidelines, but your revision of the caption to include commentary is a definite improvement there. It describes the scene and clearly links the iconic photo to Bevel through his students. Geogene (talk) 00:33, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, it's good to know about Hudson's history. I wrote up a stub article for photographer James Karales awhile back, another man who took an iconic photo during the civil rights movement. Quite the picture, taken on the march from Selma to Montgomery. I wish Misplaced Pages could use that one on Karales' page, on the Selma march page, etc. I literally knew nothing about Hudson until your comment. I wonder if the young man in the photo is still alive (and those in other iconic photos from the era). Wonder what photos would have been gotten if everyone had a cell phone camera at the time (the dogs attacking from the students point of view)! Randy Kryn 22:22 15 August 2014 (UTC)