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My talk page is also my "to-do" list

No really, I do read all my messages in a timely manner. I also archive fairly regularly once the subject of the message has been resolved. I keep things on my talk page until they've been addressed, so stuff tends to be out of date order. Consider the top half of this page my to-do list. Some things just take time. See also User:Risker/Copyedit Requests. Risker (talk)

"Trust me, I'm an admin"

That's from our Famous Last Words Department.

Unaccustomed as I am to browsing other than as an admin, I temporarily forgot that a non-admin who lands on a deleted page, e.g. by clicking this, sees more than a note of just the latest deletion. In that state of ignorance, I thought that the fix to this would be very simple. Well, I was wrong. Sorryyyyy.

Personally I don't think that the slur (if that's what it is) is oversightworthy, but I also don't think that the history merits protection from oversighting. If I were the autocrat of WP, I'd just zap the history without hesitation. But I'm not, and rules are rules, and you're surely more familiar with them than I am. (Plus you've got all those super gee-whiz buttons to play with.) What's the best way to proceed? -- Hoary (talk) 03:37, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you just move the page to an obscure place and delete the redirect? Or wouldn't that solve the problem? --Hans Adler (talk) 09:03, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but the redirect would have a history.... Arguably, it would be an improvement; however, somebody might well object to mess involved. The cleanest way to do this would I think be to OS-delete the last three or so edits, and then to redelete the article in an innocuous fashion. (Incidentally, I'm not entirely sure that it was speediable, but I'm glad that nobody is contesting that.) -- Hoary (talk) 09:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Fascinating discussion, gentlemen, and one close to my heart; thanks for bringing it to this page. On doing a bit of research, it appears that (when not logged in), the Misplaced Pages page that shows the edit/log summaries for the deleted edits is the #2 Google hit for the subject of the article. It's not very pleasant to have that #2 hit saying that you are self-promoting; it's easily perceived as a slur upon one's reputation and, if it appeared in an article's text rather than the edit summary, most administrators would delete that particular edit at the request of its subject. Of course, as it currently stands, admins aren't able to "delete" the content of edit/log summaries, but those of us with oversight permissions can "hide" it. As there is a request that the information be removed being made by someone who we can reasonably assume is the likely subject, I will "hide" that edit summary. Your "trust me, I'm an admin" isn't problematic in my mind, though, Hoary.

A somewhat larger issue is that the edit/log summary is derived directly from the text of the nomination for CSD. This is intended to be a MediaWiki "feature" but has caused issues in the past (e.g., first sentences of attack articles automatically winding up in edit summaries, inappropriate comments in nominations being imprinted on logs). This is probably worthy of further review outside of this specific case, and I will try to formulate some thoughts on the subject. If one or the other of you beats me to it (which would be pretty easy given my time constraints), please link me to the discussion. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Hoary. Risker (talk) 17:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

automatically archiving Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard?

I think that setting up automatic archiving of Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard would be a good idea, and possibly Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard as well, but I don't know where the proper place to make the suggestion would be. The most logical place seems to be on the talk page itself, but that page has (so far) been used solely for discussing the contents of the noticeboard. So I'm not sure what to do. I desperately want to create Misplaced Pages talk talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard, but I doubt that my suggestion would get much of a response if I did that :P J.delanoy_adds 22:13, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, there's been some sort of discussion about this on Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard, but the clerks will probably remember better than I would. Probably the best place to raise the question is on that page itself. Personally, I'm inclined to having a rather extended period before archiving (a couple of weeks at least) for most posts, although I concede that some announcements are less ...umm... memorable than others. Risker (talk) 22:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Archiving--Tznkai (talk) 14:02, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Tznkai! Risker (talk) 15:29, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Thurbert Baker vandalism

You may already know this, but the same POV, undue-weight (and copyvio) edits that have been repeatedly done by multiple IPs on the Baker article have also been done on Sonny Perdue and Michael F. Adams. I just reverted it on those articles. Thanks. Ward3001 (talk) 19:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I've SP'd Perdue and fully protected Adams for the time being, requesting that discussion happen on the Adams page to determine proper weight of any additions. If problems continue after the full protection on the Adams article expires, please let me or another admin know so it can be reprotected. Lar has a special subpage for BLPs that require additional eyes and possible protection, if you haven't seen it. Risker (talk) 19:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Your note

It's a question of trolling, Risker, not sockpuppetry. This is someone who used to do it, and has arrived again. I've been ignoring her as she made her way through several articles I edit, but I resisted at AR, because I'd like to get it to FA. Then Lar, who is attacking me on and offwiki, arrived to give me a "warning." What readers think does matter, yes, but it would be good if this could be a decent place for contributors too. Anyway, others have joined in the discussion at AR, so the content issue will resolve itself, and now that more eyes are on the editing patterns, I hope and believe the whole thing will stop. I will send more details when I get a chance. Best, SlimVirgin 01:59, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Request re terms nationalism/nationalistic

Hi Risker - could we talk a moment? Could you try and discourage the use of the words nationalism/nationalistic at the ArbCom? By committee members, at least. I know it's not the most pejorative term on the block, but it's certainly not productive. I doubt whether it's used by UN negotiators. Novickas (talk) 13:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Do I get a blue helmet if I undertake this mission?  ;-) Joking aside, I do understand your concerns, but would be interested in hearing alternative terms, because most of the ones that are coming to my mind on short notice are more pejorative than "nationalistic". Risker (talk) 13:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

That looks likely to give a person hat hair. Well, this author describes patriotic as more neutral . But I could try and cough up some more, maybe from UN sources...Novickas (talk) 13:38, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, it looks like the words are used in a fair number of UN documents. . And I suppose editors will say they are just calling a spade a spade. Altho we can't be in on the highest levels of diplomacy, do you not agree that they probably describe it as something like "disputed terminology" rather than "competing nationalistic claims" when they discuss it? Novickas (talk) 14:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Looking over some past Arbcom findings, I didn't see the words being by committee members, with the exception of the Macedonia case. So I suppose I should engage C. about this. In general, it looks like the dispute is described as touching on national sensitivities and national identities - verbage from the International Crisis Group at . Maybe there's no need to attach adjectives to the disputants. Best wishes to all of you in this case. Novickas (talk) 14:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in late on the debate here. May I still offer my 2c? In my experience, "nationalist" is very well applicable in Misplaced Pages contexts in many occasions, though it is sometimes over-used. A Misplaced Pages editor can be classified as a nationalist editor by their editing profile, on pretty objective criteria. If you have a permanent editing focus on aggressively enforcing article content related to your own ethnic/national group in such a way as to make it conform to typical nationalist narratives, then you are a nationalist editor. Typical nationalist narratives are those that serve to construct collective identity through emphasising collective myths of origin, patterns of struggle with neighbouring groups, narratives of collective victimisation, emphatic affirmation of continuity of ethnic identity, or of historical cultural achievements perceived of as marking your group special. These editing patterns are pretty easy to recognise, and everybody active in relevant fields of the project knows that there are a large number of editors who concentrate almost entirely on such types of editing. Being a "nationalist editor" in this sense is quite unrelated to being located in a real-world political spectrum at some position typically characterised as "nationalist". I consider calling an editor nationalist in this sense a legitimate instance of calling a spade a spade.

On the other hand, you don't need to be a "nationalist editor" in this sense to sometimes become part of "national issues" conflict/problem in Misplaced Pages. There are patterns of POV editing motivated by national political positions that aren't necessarily nationalist. I think "national advocacy editing" is an appropriate term to refer to some forms of behaviour in this domain, where calling editors "nationalist" might not be.

Just my thoughts. -- Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:36, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Jack McClellan

I noticed that last month you deleted the article on this guy. I found out because I was reading an article about him from CNET Network news here and thought it would make a good reference to add. But when I went to add it, it was deleted. I am really confused about this, how much time did you give people to improve it? Do you have a copy of the former contents? I would be willing to host it on my userspace until it is adequately developed to be considered for inclusion in an article. I figured it would be better to contact you about this first, as opposed to simply recreating it. This way, I can understand what happened and not go through similar problems. Previous to you, a redirect or something was deleted so I am guessing it was developed after that.

The thing is, this guy does seem notable. Reporters interviewed police, he was on talk shows, and a UCLA teacher was commenting. If there were problems with the article, couldn't they have been sorted out without deleting it? If you thought he lacked importance, perhaps you could make a list of seminotable people and put him as one section on it, but to outright delete it just seems a bit wasteful. Due to this, an entire editing history on the article would be lost. I will go read the vote for deletion and stuff to learn more I guess. Tyciol (talk) 03:03, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

In answer to your key question, much of the content in the article was completely unsourced, several of the sources used did not meet WP:RS, and many of the references used did not support the statements they were being used to reference. There is nothing special about this man, as is true of the overwhelming majority of people subject to court injunctions. Being mentioned in news items, primarily as an example to illustrate the subject of the article, doesn't establish notability. In other words, this article was not meeting any standards for inclusion and was essentially violating our BLP policy as it stood. Given all of the above, I am not prepared to userfy the content as it existed at the time of deletion.

I would have considered emailing you a copy of the article as it existed at the time of deletion, had you been an editor involved in its development; however, I don't see any contributions by you in its article history, so I can't really entertain that option. I don't want to close the door on this discussion, though, so if you have other suggestions, I would be happy to respond. Others watching this page who have an interest in the subject might also chime in, and I'd welcome further comment all around. Risker (talk) 13:25, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

George M. Zinkhan

You speedied this under another name yesterday, in my opinion without good reason; it has, in my opinion, properly, been recreated and is at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/George M. Zinkhan. Only fair to let you know, as you may want to comment. DGG (talk) 03:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi DGG. The version I speedied (which was George Zinkhan, not George M. Zinkhan) is very different from the one that the page now redirects to; for one thing, there wasn't a single reference. I did comment on WP:BLPN that there was the possibility of another article being appropriate, just not that one. Thanks for letting me know of the DRV, I will indeed comment. Risker (talk) 03:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

FYI

I believe G-Dett is a she. See her userpage. HTH. IronDuke 04:13, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Oops, you are absolutely right. I had just copy/pasted from the one above and failed to change the pronoun when I changed the name. I shall fix it immediately. Thanks. Risker (talk) 04:17, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Arb activity

Given your comment on the proposed decision about not voting "at this point," should you still be listed as inactive in Rfar/West Bank-Judea and Samaria? I mention it only because it would affect the majority. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point, Newyorkbrad; I need to go through all the open cases and figure out if I need to remain inactive in any of them. The situation that has affected my availability is still not resolved, unfortunately, but most of the cases have progressed slowly enough that I think I can participate in almost all of them. Risker (talk) 04:32, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

regarding your comment on Cool Hand Luke's talk page, regarding my situation. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:16, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Oka, it happened again. Another user reverted, but my point is that there is a root problem someone needs to attend to, otherwise you guys will have to keep using oversight, or an article and worse, its talk page, will have to be blocked to all new users for an indefinite amount of time, something which I do not think is really good for the project. I have no agenda here except a wish that the article and its talk page could be open and stable. Since I seem to be a major provocation, I won't edit either. FYI. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Well that was very odd, and I am sorry that I missed a couple of those edits; I think I have cleaned up everything now. I've reblocked the IP for a longer period, so you should be okay to return to the article. Risker (talk) 00:06, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't mean to suggest you missed it - I thought he just came back after you cleaned up. I appreciate your blocking the IP I am assuming then that it was not for a public site. I have seen some really determined sock-puppeteer trolls, but this one really seems extreme. Thank you for your help. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:20, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The J&S case

Hi Risker,

I hope this isn't inappropriate. I fear some of the evidence may have gone ignored by those who have already voted, so I urge you to read the evidence discussion page and perhaps also a couple of the talk pages from the relevant period before you vote. Apologies if you have done so already. MeteorMaker (talk) 22:52, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

No worries, MeteorMaker. I've been taking my time on some of the proposals specifically to read these discussions further before voting. There is much to think about here. Risker (talk) 23:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

For all the little things you help me with...

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		You know what this is for :-) You have no idea how much I appreciate your assistance with the many things I bug you about. J.delanoyadds 04:27, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Wow, thanks, JD. This means a lot to me, and I am glad I am able to help out from time to time with those little things.  :-) Risker (talk) 12:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Haiduc redux

Can you please keep an eye on this situation? We seem to be having ownership problems on the usual set of articles - he's wholesale reverting to ancient text, in many cases unsourced and with no apparent discussion on the articles' talk pages. Thanks. Nandesuka (talk) 12:14, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ryulong

The proposed decision is up in the above case. It is located here. The proposed decision will be presented to the Arbitration Committee for voting on May 11.

For the Arbitration Committee. KnightLago (talk) 01:16, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Just a note

Just for the record. I do appreciate that nice discrimination you showed in the vote on my record. I admit that my edit summary against User talk:Jordandov, in writing 'reverted good faith vandalism,' was not what is expected of wiki editors. It was tongue-in-cheek mischievousness on my part, but there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that this was a fair summary of the editor, who registered, made just a few edits on three pages concerning one very small area, two contiguous settlements in the Southern Hebron Hills where he probably lives or has connections. Those settlements have a very bad repute in Israel also as consistently violent. Jordandov elided well-sourced information, and then disappeared. This happens very frequently in the I/P area, one of his edits was defamatory, and with the others at Susya, it seemed logical to conclude he is a native settler in that area, and wiped out sources he disliked. I do think that vandalistic. I do think he thought doing this was in the best political interests of his settlement. But, as you would remind me, even if done comically, my summary justification need not have been as ironic and sardonic as it was. Regards, (no need to reply, you guys are overloaded with work. I just like to tidy corners).Nishidani (talk) 10:00, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Nishidani, my problem was as much with the content of the edit as it was with the edit summary, but your comments above confirm my concerns. Our readers do not care one whit who adds information to articles; they care only that the information is correct (to paraphrase myself). Jordanov changed the POV of that section and, instead of neutrally reviewing the changes, you reverted back to an equally POV version of the page. I know that you do not see it that way. Your edit summary is not ironic or sardonic, it's symbolic of the extent of the problem in the topic area; it's this casual use of pejorative terms about each other, and assumptions about the people behind the usernames, that is so destructive. Risker (talk) 13:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps then the ban is correct, for your analysis means I have never understood POV, vs.NPOV. I only have experience in what is expected of academic writing, and am not an expert on wiki rules.

I won't argue at length on this, since what is done is done. I'd like just to point out that every sentence excised by Jordandov in that passage had been composed by paraphrasing directly from the work of 5 academics. Three of them are Israelis, two with professorships, who have long fieldwork experience of that area. If this wasn't clear, he should have, as I understand it, have put a citation needed tag there. I have 40 pages of notes on Susya compiled over the years, and would have been happy to provide further RS if there was any doubt, or quote verse and chapter from the books and articles already cited to show why this text of mine merely reflected what specialist sources say.

Jordandov decided that only a bare minimum of that RS information was acceptable. It is not a POV to state that they were evacuated, and the land expropriated. The UN has said this, scholars have documented it, Christian Peace Teams have photographic archives of it, the Israeli courts have acknowledged it. Data registered in courts, area histories, and archives, if intepreted, become POV. But the data, on who did what to whom, at such and such a date, as registered in books by ethnologists, UN bodies etc., cannot just be challenged as POV, unless of course every fact is a POV.

It is a POV to elide these duly sourced facts to create the fiction, in his text, that the people just moved to the vicinity of an Israeli village built of the very land they once owned and were driven off from when that village was established. Deeply, profoundly political, and untrue. Anyway, I'm not someone who wears grudges. Best wishes for yourself and the project. Regards Nishidani (talk) 22:21, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Your warning - and a question

See my comment on my talkpage. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:33, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Responded on your talk page. Risker (talk) 06:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Where did it go?

It appears that someone is taking the "p" in their edit summaries... LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:40, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I was going to pretend it was an ancient French word meaning "to make a sound", but I couldn't type that with a straight face. I am just afraid my q's might go AWOL as well. Risker (talk) 21:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

"...I couldn't type that with a straight face." Unless "Straight Face" is one of those fonts that are available with certain printers and I am therefore speaking out of order, I think I have an answer to your problems in dropping letters from the messages you are attempting to convey; Try. using. your. fingers. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:20, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

reminds me of the joke of the kid who needs to go to the toilet an' the teacher makes him say hte alphabet first an' he says 'abcdefghijklmnoqrstuvwxyz' an' the teacher says 'where is the 'p' ?' an' the kid says 'running down my leg' :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:35, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I've always preferred "the p is silent, as in swimming" :) Franamax (talk) 20:50, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject User Rehab

Would you be interested in joining this project? We need more editors who share a burden for rescuing promising editors who have gotten into serious trouble because of behavioral issues. IF (a fundamental condition!) they are interested in reforming and adapting to our standards of conduct, and are also willing to abide by our policies and guidelines, rather than constantly subverting them, we can offer to help them return to Misplaced Pages as constructive editors. Right now many if not most users who have been banned are still active here, but they are here as socks or anonymous IPs who may or may not be constructive. We should offer them a proper way to return. If you think this is a good idea, please join us. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:18, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for being a voice of reason and sanity, specifically with regard to this and this, but also as a general observation. MastCell  08:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

regarding the suggestion Tiptoety gave me, do you have any suggestions on what I should do? I will watch your userpage. Ikip (talk) 00:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

please note

my latest addition to . i would greatly appreciate a specific response to what i said about collect violating 1rr and collect continuing his problematic behavior since the RfC. --Brendan19 (talk) 05:10, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

why havent you responded? --Brendan19 (talk) 20:33, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Apologies, Brendan19. I have had extremely limited time on-wiki this week, and what time I had here was almost exclusively devoted to voting on current cases. I will do my best to review this in the next 24 hours. Risker (talk) 13:04, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

no need to apologize, glad youre going to review it. i just want to make sure people think this thing through. thanks--Brendan19 (talk) 05:41, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

ok, so the case disappeared from the request page. now what?--Brendan19 (talk) 18:41, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Admin action in Scientology related article

Heya. I decided to watch Scientology in Germany while it was being constructed some months ago and assist only in an administrative capacity instead of content. I had to warn an editor, Whispanow (talk · contribs), a couple times for reverting and mass tagging without explaining why he was tagging. I left a strongly worded warning on his talk page following that:

He reappeared yesterday, mass tagging again: , giving the edit summary "Still a POV text, see reasons given and discussion." I notified him a few minutes later on his talk page that he needed to give his reasons clearly on the talk page instead of in edit summaries , and told him if none were supplied I would remove the tags in 24 hours, which I did. and removed mass tagging from an anonymous IP immediately before that.

This morning he performed these edits, re-tagging the article and leaving a message on the talk page that seems to be neither detailed or analytical and accused me of working with Jayen466 (talk · contribs): please see edit summary here

Ah, well. I just blocked him for removing cited information this morning.

This is my first admin block in a Scientology-related article. If I should post this somewhere else, please point me in the right direction. Thank you. --Moni3 (talk) 14:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)