Misplaced Pages

Hello Freewayguy. I should clarify what the new admin school is - it's simply a few pages to help new admins test their tools so they don't do it on the main pages, we haven't actually got a school. If you are considering becoming an admin, might I suggest admin coaching? You might find that benificial, and the good news is, you can do it safely from your own home ;-) Ryan Postlethwaite 22:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Looking bad

I don't have any intention of making you look bad. The pokeratlas user unblock seems completely reasonable. The user has disregarded my editing advice. Misplaced Pages wins and doesn't look like a Nazi.

Since Bellwether BC is making a stink, I put the question up in ANI. I chose ANI because now it seems to be more urgent with BC being so mad about it. If BC is so mad, he/she should see some other admins. who are really Nazis as far as blocking. Archtransit (talk) 18:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Award

Hm. Ryan, your mentee is in my soup: User talk:TenOfAllTrades#Block. He seems to be accusing me of being on an anti-American/anti-gambling crusade. Lest there be any further confusion, I understand him to be barred from using any of his admin buttons until given explicit permission from you and/or Riana to do so. I would strongly urge you to restrict him from declaring a 'consensus' in any discussion, given his interpretation of his recent AN thread.

I'm very likely to block him if he steps outside those bounds. I've stuck up for him before, but frankly I find very little reason to trust his judgement in the future. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, he's digging himself a very deep hole with edits like this. I'd be inclined to sharply warn an editor with a clean history that that type of attack is unacceptable and might draw a block. Coupled with Arch's history (recent and older) and his rather POINTy report on AN/I where he attacks Bellwether and Friday as 'bitey', 'disruptive', and 'trolling', he's skating on astonishingly thin ice, and it is only my respect for you and Riana that's keeping him unblocked right now. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi TOAT. I'm concerned about this sort of thing because it doe honestly make me think that he doesn't have a clue - I'm in dialogue with him now where I'm bringing up these issues with him, he can't talk to editors like he has been, when to be honest - he's wrong. Hopefully we won't have to resort to blocks with this one - I'm going to suggest he stays out of meta discussion completely for a while. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Ryan; I'm afraid I've been letting him get under my skin a bit, and I shouldn't be so testy with you. I wish you the best of luck with this, but I admit to holding out very little expectation of success. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:23, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

TenOfAllTrades has wrongly accused me of "He seems to be accusing me of being on an anti-American/anti-gambling crusade." This is not true. Ten was merely asked why he thought User:thepokeratlas should be blocked or re-blocked. Ten has not said why. The only difference between the ANI and listing the user's name (which was an oversight on my part) was that the user seems to be American and pro-gambling. I just asked if this or the word "poker" would make him change his decision or if such information would make a material difference in the discussion.

Therefore, Ten's belief that he is being called anti-American or anti-gambling is incorrect.

One difficulty in resolving this matter is that it increasing looks like a personal grudge against me and not based on my actions. The reason I think this is that there is little evidence that the unblock was bad, except that some people are opposed to unblocking on principle. It would look a little less of a grudge if Ten or someone pointed out what was wrong.

For example, if someone said "the policy doesn't require blocking but in practice we always block that kind of name", then it could be an example to learn. If someone says "when an administrator blocks someone, we never unblock them unless the user has an airtight case and the administrator is clearly abusive; even if there is only a weak explanation by the administrator, this is sufficient" then I would follow this (and likely try to convince others that such practice is not good for Misplaced Pages).

You can be of assistance in mentorship. You could e-mail me and say "look Archtransit, we have some customs in WP that we don't ....." This unblock of thepokeratlas was an attempt to follow policy. Look at the big picture. Was Misplaced Pages harmed? Did thepokeratlas destroy articles? No. Did thepokeratlas try to advertise thepokeratlas.com? No, but I educated him on WP policy. Is thepokeratlas so angry that he/she wants to attack WP? I don't think so. Incorporate this incident into our lesson and it will help. Archtransit (talk) 00:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Special:Unwatchedpages

I was not sure where to go. I would like to bring up a proposal. Could you look at User:Maximillion Pegasus/Unwatched, and then tell me what you think? Thanks. Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 19:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey Maximillion. The reason why we have Special:Unwatchedpages only open to admins is because it's open to a serious ammount of abuse - even for a short period of time, a page could be subjected to seriously bad editing, especially BLP violations. Given the problems with rollback, I wouldn't suggest adding a new usergoup for this. It would be good however if somehow we could reduce the page to next to nothing, and then open it up - the problem now is that we just have too many pages on it. Ryan Postlethwaite 05:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Thats why I just removed these proposals. What is your opinion on letting rollbackers view it? Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 15:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to say...

I'd send you cookies or kittens or whatever those templates are I see on people's userpages, to send to folks who are having a bad day; but I'm not in a Hallmark-card kind of mood anyway. Listen: You and Riana really tried to do a good thing, and I'm sure you're getting a fair amount of crap (or at least "told you so"s)--but I just wanted to say, thank you for trying. People can say what they want and quote acronyms til they're blue, but the sad fact is, WP:ABF is way more commonly-observed than WP:AGF--and you two clearly AGF'ed WAY beyond the call of duty. I saw the length of one of those subpages you were working on with him--that's a lot of time, and I'm sure you have one of those wacky non-Misplaced Pages things I keep hearing about....what's it called again? Oh yeah: a "life".

Short form (nearly impossible for me): You tried, and you were right to try; try not to let this make you TOO bitter, even though you'd have to be nearly superhuman not to feel a LITTLE bit jaded after all this. Keep your head up--your effort, at the very least, was appreciated. Gladys J Cortez 04:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. None of this was your fault. If anybody tries to rub your nose in it, you have my permission to tell them to FOAD (though you're probably too nice a guy for that). Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you guys, it means a lot coming from two respected users, but I do share some of the blame for this – there were clearly very serious concerns raised even without the sock evidence and I should probably have stayed out of it and let the RfC run its course. I didn’t expect this. Obviously my prides been hit now, but it’s not the be all and end all – I’ll bounce back and I’ll take this as a learning curve. Thanks again – I appreciate the comments. Ryan Postlethwaite 04:18, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, me too, Ryan. Yourself an Riana did a super job in trying to work with the guy and giving him every fair chance. Not your fault at all and just about everyone was carried along with this. You both did your utmost here - Alison 04:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Cheers Alison, it's much appreciated - I guess assuming good faith is better than assuming bad faith. Thanks a lot for your efforts with doing the CU investigations, this wouldn't have been uncovered without your time and efforts. Ryan Postlethwaite 04:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Quite agree with all of the above, Ryan and Riana. And I hope one of the lessons you will take with you is that the community stands behind your trying so hard with Archtransit. I have no doubt that you'd do it again for another editor or admin who needs a helping hand. (Okay, maybe not tomorrow...but in due time) --Risker (talk) 04:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Risker, it means a lot especially considering me and you haven’t always seen eye to eye on some issues, but please be aware, I always respect your opinion because a lot of thought goes into it. I will most probably offer to mentor people in the future – it’s (unfortunately!?) in my nature, but as I said above, it’s a learning curve for me and I’ll take it into account when helping people in the future. Ryan Postlethwaite 04:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Chin up, old bean. You did a damn fine job in your attempt to mentor Archtransit, in the best traditions of Misplaced Pages community-building. Few (none?) of the rest of us noticed the socking; there's no shame in your not catching it either. I promise you that not all mentees will turn out to be abusive sockpuppeteers! Cheers, TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Wow, what can I say? You took a lot of crap from Arch and yet I still tried to defend him (although by the end, my patience was wearing thin). Thanks buddy and as always, if you have any concerns, by all means contact me – by email, IRC or on my talk – I respect my fellow wikipedians opinions, especially ones who do so much for the project. Ryan Postlethwaite 04:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You went above and beyond what any normal person should be expected to do. You're a really good admin/Wikipedian/person, and I'm sure you'll keep doing well. You and Riana assumed so much good faith it spilled out of my computer screen, and I really commend you for that. I also made a special lolcat for this, enjoy. (every bad situation can be solved by a lolcat.) Keilana| 04:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Haha!! I love it! I guess it’s always good to bring humour into these things – we’d all get depressed otherwise. Like many of the above, I respect you a lot here, and your words are much appreciated here. On a side note, keep doing things as you have been – I know you get a lot of rubbish from SPA’s and socks, but all of us know you do a fantastic job. Ryan Postlethwaite 04:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Keilana: lolcats are the best medicine. Gladys J Cortez 04:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Lolcats rock, and thanks, Ryan. You have given this your all, and to have it end like this, well, sucks. Best, Keilana| 05:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to say that I completely support your good faith effort to mentor this user. He obviously had many more people than you duped, and this should be looked upon as a positive aspect of your character, not a negative. I, for one, will look upon you with greater respect as a result of the entire incident. If you do need a good laugh (and you probably do), read Misplaced Pages:Village stocks. At worst, you could add yourself there for catharsis purposes. I would consider that "punishment" enough. Good day to you (and to Riana, these comments apply to her as well), and remember, no one thinks less of you over this... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

• Though I ended up opposing mentorship at the RfC, and was on the wrong end of some of AT's abuses, you're without blame here. You tried, and it didn't work out. There's something admirable in what you and Riana tried to do, even if I didn't think it would work out. You both deserve kudos, not criticism. And if I ever decide to pursue adminship, you and Riana will definitely be on the shortlist of administrators whom I respect enough to ask for coaching, along with users like Newyorkbrad, WjBScribe, and a few others. You're a credit to this project. Bellwether _C 15:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I came here to thank you for your awesome job of AGF. No one had seen this coming. I was a fairly strong advocate of him. I worked with Arch a lot at DYK before he became an admin it this whole incident is a complete shock. Now we can see why he had did such unusual things. There was no way that anyone would have any faith in what he did after the truth was found out, so the community ban was appropriate. You should hold your head up REAL HIGH for your effort! Royalbroil 19:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Bleargh

Hey Ryan, ta for the heads-up, I haven't had a chance to read up on AN yet but I'm doing so now. I just read the ban proposal and while that's understandable, I'm tending towards not endorsing - his article work has been fine so far. I'm thinking what took place with Qst worked out very well - RfA ban, civility parole (though that's not a huge problem here), perhaps a ban from project space, and naturally to stick to one account and one account only. As we know this worked out well with Qst and he's an absolutely delightful chap now. What do you think?

Anyway, we gave it a shot, we probably look pretty silly, but everyone deserves one last chance, I guess. Hope you get better, I feel a bit like my eyes are about to explode! :s Not very pleasant! lol ~ Riana ⁂ 06:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think either of you look silly at all. Assuming good faith is an editing mode, a necessary attitude, it doesn't mean you're gullible or naïve. You may "assume good faith" against your gut feeling and even against better judgment. Probably there were people who had suspicions early on, but no one could know for sure. Both of you chose a commendable stance and course of action. The only one who looks silly is the person who invested all this time and mental energy into elaborate and pointless confusion and sockpuppeteering. ---Sluzzelin talk 08:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Scratch the partial ban proposal, naturally ~ Riana ⁂ 19:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it's obvious it got worse than what we were already thinking - we all got trolled real good. Ryan Postlethwaite 19:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I had previously spoken on behalf of Arch, requesting that people not be too hard on him in his early sysop decisions - well, I was wrong and they were right. One of the benefits of age is the realisation that being made to look silly is part of the human condition... I respect that you were prepared to AGF, and then prepared to hold your hand up when you realised you had been gamed.

Speaking of gamed, Arch contacted me by email asking if I would be a member of a private review group advising him - and I agreed. I commented that I thought you would be a good mentor, but was willing to help him when requested. It seems that things changed before he could use my services! If you wish I will forward our mails (because my caveat allows me to do that), but I suspect you would prefer this thing to fade away.

Whatever. You tried, and that's really the best anyone can do. Cheers. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Intellitech

Hi, Ryan. You closed out the Intellitech article as keep, and I believe that was an incorrect decision. The article as it stands still fails to meet notability guidelines (WP:CORP). There are two external references posted in the article. One is a reprint of a company press release (from business wire, where any business can release any press release they like), and the other is merely an entry in a list of 450,000 companies, with no discussion about the company itself. Since an AfD is supposed to be closed based on the merits of the arguments presented and not the number of votes, I believe that a deletion review would overturn your closing the AdD as a keep, and I'd like you to reconsider. —  X  S  G  16:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Keep was the right decision. It wasn't number counting, the consensus was the the sources were accpetable. Those wishing to delete said exactly the opposite, but after a user found some extra sources during the discussion, all other users who commented said keep. I don't think DRV would overturn my decision, but try by all means. Ryan Postlethwaite 16:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Based on that rational then yes, you made the correct decision, however I don't think your rationale takes into account the validity of arguments made by those who said keep. The reason this article doesn't stand up to the WP:CORP notability test is that each and every reference (and I am not even slightly exaggerating here) is either a) written by the company, b) a corporate press releases posted on a third-party site through Business Wire, or c) provide merely trivial coverage (i.e. provides the name and address of the company). If I were just glancing at the article, I'd have thought it met WP:CORP, but on further investigation it really doesn't. I'd feel better if you at least told me you took a look at the article and agreed that it met WP:CORP notability guidelines. —  X  S  G  02:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

But it's not my job to decide whether I believe the article should be kept or deleted - I simply work out the consensus. As I said, the people commenting keep believed the sources were adequate to ensure it meets WP:CORP. From what I recall, after the sources were added, there were only people commenting to keep the article. If I was commenting on the article, I would be on the fence - possibly even sway to weak delete because I'm not convinced (not completely unconvinced though) that the sources are adequate, but that's not what the consensus of the AfD was, and it's not the closing admins job to make the decision based on his own opinion. Ryan Postlethwaite 02:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

That's quite fair, and I sincerely appreciate your taking the time to explain it to me. Knowing that one of Misplaced Pages's tenets is to err on the side of keep, I think it's best to see what becomes of this article over the next year. If it isn't improved (and if someone remembers to check up on it), we'll see which way the wind blows then. —  X  S  G  02:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry

Hello Ryan, don't worry too much about what happened: you did what you thought was right with the mentorship (I supported your proposal), and you assumed good faith to the very end. I think you performed spectacularly through it all, and I want to congratulate you. I think that anyone mentored by you should be honored by the fact you're taking them under your wing. Best wishes. Acalamari 19:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Oneonta Gulf Coast Collaboration

Hi, thank you for relisting Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Oneonta Gulf Coast Collaboration, a decision with which I agree. I have removed the page from Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Log/2008 February 11. TerriersFan (talk) 00:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem. Just out of interest, if we relist, are we supposed to remove it from the log? Ryan Postlethwaite 00:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes; when you relist you add to the current day (as you did) and then remove manually from the previous log. It is also good practice then to go to WP:AFDO and then click on 'Refresh the number of open discussions' to avoid fellow admins from following completed trails. HTH. TerriersFan (talk) 01:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Template:UsernameGuidance

A tag has been placed on Template:UsernameGuidance requesting that it be speedily deleted from Misplaced Pages. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

RFA

Request for comment on main page deletion incident

As you made an edit to the incident listed in the Administrators notice board, it is requested that you confirm the details of the incident here (section 1.1.2)

This is as the incident is used as the basis of an argument and needs to be confirm by persons familar with the event

Regards --User:Mitrebox talk 2008-02-22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.11.244.78 (talk) 07:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)