Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Saranghae honey (talk | contribs) at 01:24, 28 February 2008 (→block of 89.108.143.2: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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A note on email: Misplaced Pages-related discussion should be carried on here, in view of the Misplaced Pages community. Following the principles stated in this arbcom decision, I will not conduct Misplaced Pages business by private email. My email is enabled and you're welcome to initiate contact that way; however, I won't respond by email to your inquiry and will instead reply on-wiki.

Sorry I wasn't here to take your call. You can leave a message after the tone.

Tone

Question

Could you weigh in on this? Raul654 (talk) 17:18, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like William has responded already. Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:07, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

You made a comment

That you deleted on the talk homeopathy page. I generally agree with you that the lead is getting worse. Consider that excesses on both sides are leading to a lack of consensus and a degradation of the article. Anthon01 (talk) 01:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Waterboarding

This Arbitration case has closed, and the final decision may be reviewed through the above link. Further to the relevant findings of fact, Waterboarding and all closely-related pages are subject to article probation (full remedy); editors working on Waterboarding, or closely related pages, may be subject to an editing restriction at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator, whereby any edits by that editor which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith, may result in a block. (full remedy).

Should any user subject to an editing restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block length shall increase to one year (full enforcement). Before such restrictions are enacted on an editor, he or she must be issued with a warning containing a link to the decision.

For the Arbitration Committee,
AGK (talk) 14:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Following the ArbCom having come to a conclusion in this case, and having instated remedies, I'd like to ask you to unprotect the waterboarding article, since you appear to have been the one who protected it over a month ago. Tx. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:14, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Support, if you could, Raymond. Admins will have a free hand now to deal with the idiots, trolls, and various formulations of BryanFromPalatine. Lawrence § t/e 16:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. FWIW I don't regularly edit Misplaced Pages any more so you might want to call on other admins in the future. Any admin can do stuff like this. Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you really escaping from the asylum? MastCell  21:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't blame anyone from wanting to take a step back from the insanity. I get tired of fighting with jokers and I escape back to some of the friendly dark corners of Misplaced Pages where I can just delight in learning things and producing interesting articles without interference from the legions of anti-intellectuals.--Filll (talk) 22:46, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I've taken my own advice and become a Wikisloth. I check in once in a while and make an edit or two when the mood arises. As for this place in general -- sane editors please, please take the high road when dealing with fringers and their ilk. Be civil even when the other side doesn't deserve it. No, be civil especially when the other side doesn't deserve it. Insults don't do anything except harden the opposition and make us look bad to outside observers. In short, letting the loonies turn civility against us is dumb. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Robert Randall

Hi. I was about to create an article on "Robert Randall" (the pseudonym used by Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett), but I saw a note saying that you had deleted an article by this name last September. I can't find any log showing what the old article contained, so I'm going to have to guess that the page you deleted said essentially what I had been about to say myself.

I do believe some sort of mention of "Robert Randall" is appropriate, even if only to redirect readers to Silverberg and Garrett. I could make "Robert Randall" a redirect to Silverberg, but one could argue just as strongly that the pseudonym ought to redirect to Garrett (and a simple redirect obviously can't point to both).

What do you think? Richwales (talk) 22:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't delete pages any more so it's not something that I would act on as an administrator. Go ahead and do whatever you think best. Sorry but I don't have any way to know if someone else would object. Raymond Arritt (talk) 22:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. As it turns out, there's another Robert Randall — an early medical marijuana advocate — so I should be able to get away with creating a "Robert Randall" disambiguation page. Richwales (talk) 18:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

GW

If Bugsy has made blockable violations, then it should be raised in an appropriate forum. Don't worry, I haven't misplaced my troll radar and he probably is trolling. I have met people around here who simply don't "get it"—particulary, our definition of OR—and I'm willing to waste a post or two. (Paul from Michigan on Talk:Apex predator is my favourite personal example—he drives me nuts but he's just a well-meaning fellow who simply cannot grasp the concept of OR.) Marskell (talk) 17:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and I've raised this once before but only got a couple of comments: we really should change "recent decades" to something that identifies the industrial era. "Recent" should be avoided in leads, and it would also help with the problem the Bugsy is illustrating now. Is it possible this decade will be cooler than the last one? Of course. We don't want to leave the article open to the suggestion that this disproves anthropogenic heating. Marskell (talk) 17:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I've been saying that for quite some time now, with opposition from William M. Connolley or simply being ignored. ~ UBeR (talk) 17:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

"Industrial era" is wrong, because attributable warming didn't begin until, well, recent decades. This is because over half of the anthropogenic CO2 has been added since 1970. See IPCC Working Group I, chapter 9. They use the phrasing "last half century". If you'd rather say "last half century" to avoid the word "decades" that's fine, but "industrial era" isn't an option. Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thinking back now, my dispute was effect of natural variations of "pre-industrial" until 1950. Most of 1950 onward can be attributed to human actions. ~ UBeR (talk) 18:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that appreciable warming is a matter of recent decades. But causally, it's not wrong to identify the industrial era. We would need to get the wording down properly. "Recent decades" is terribly vague, and the use of "decade" invites comments of just the sort Bugsy is posting. Marskell (talk) 18:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I think we should side on correctness rather an casualness. Recent decades is rather vague (though correct), perhaps "1950," "mid-twentieth century," or "last half century," as Dr. Arritt suggests, would be better, since common usage implies human influence. But this is perhaps a discussion better suited for talk:global warming. ~ UBeR (talk) 18:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure, start a talk thread; I was going to, but posted to Raymond directly because my last talk thread got few comments. There's a bit of misnomer at work, which creates problems with determining "correctness". "Global warming", as a label, conflates mechanisms (anthropogenic factors that tend toward heating) with observations (it's been a lot warmer in "recent decades"). If we take it strictly in the latter sense, the trolls have a point: if there's a cooler decade, you can't say the globe is warming. The first sentence should be based on the former sense—human activities contribute to a warmer planet. "Industrial era" makes that clear. Marskell (talk) 18:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

Many thanks for the Barnstar, it's much appreciated. I'm also glad to see someone else putting common-sense before political correctness. It's nice to know I'm not on my own. --WebHamster 18:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

No consequence

Please accept my apology over my false statement made regarding a surmised block (I had the two editors confused while doing a Google query). To try to answer your statement (since I hate exaggerating it out at RfA) at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for mediation/Cold fusion, I feel that I have not been as strict in regards to the process. A usual MC will feature opening statements, arguments, my contributions to the discussion, then a vote, where essentially the majority rules out and the case is solved. With Cold Fusion, I attempted something more... hands on, by actually opening the dialogue to any interested party (sought via e-mail), and by creating sections where the Lead and History section was transposed and open game for editing and discussion. I've been actually active in the editing of the sections myself, essentially rewriting the text for clarity while maintaining the content within, and requesting sources where needed; that itself has not been disputed, and it has provoked discussion and further edits by other parties -- the intended effect.

It's become quite an extended stay, so to speak, and has so far taken much longer than most typical cases to resolve -- which we are not close to yet. But I feel that this method will produce an article that is not only agreeable to most of the involved editors, but will produce an article that is close to or at GA-status -- which it was near not that long ago (and before that, it was a FA). Thanks for your comments, though -- it's always welcome to hear departing comments and I will take those into consideration. seicer | talk | contribs 02:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

No apology necessary; it was a simple mistake. I should point out that I've become hypersensitive to the fact that bullshit artists are hijacking Misplaced Pages to promote their fringe or "paranormal" or "alternative" views (whatever they're called). They've learned that as long as they follow the letter (rather than the spirit) of policy they're free to press the idea that people can communicate with the dead using tape recorders or any other crazy thing. In short, our policies -- and especially, our obsession with so-called "civility" -- are being turned against us. Thanks for not taking it personally; I meant it when I wrote that you're a good guy and are well intended. Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:34, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages Way

Raymond, you need to go to the blackboard and write 100 times, "I will not encourage the unfortunate misconception among some editors that support for civility and quality content need be mutually exclusive." TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:59, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I already know that. I think I write quality content, and I do my best to be civil. What's your point? Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:01, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It was meant to be a not-too-subtle comment on your message to Randy Blackamoor. Frankly, I probably agree with his outlook on homeopathy, but I sometimes find it embarrassing to be on the 'same side' as he is because of his too-frequent descents into flat-out insults and rudeness. I was concerned that your message gave the impression that civility isn't important when the 'other side' is, for lack of a better term, wrong.

Having angry, frustrated, namecalling 'allies' in a content dispute is a very trying thing. The personal attacks and interpersonal conflicts confuse and conceal the legitimate content concerns. New arrivals on the talk page are scared off almost immediately by the angry invective, pretty much ensuring that short of Arbitration no resolution ever happens. Venting one's personal feelings about a topic might feel good, but it doesn't build the encyclopedia. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I mostly agree with your second paragraph. I'm not bothered at all when someone is "uncivil" toward me though I get really upset when people misrepresent sources, distort the facts, and so on. To be honest I think the "he called me a bad name" complaints that we see so often are immature; one expects that on a playground and not in a project to build an encyclopedia. But I recognize that my view is opposite to that of the community, which values civility above WP:V, WP:WEIGHT, and all other policies. So I follow the community's norms, realizing that I can't change those norms, and I try to get other reality-based editors to follow them as well. That means I have to speak to them in terms that they understand. The flowers-and-butterflies, hold hands and dance around the maypole Wikilove stuff won't work with most editors who have a scientific bent; we just roll our eyes at that. Instead I tell them that although I disagree with placing civility above content, that's just how things work around here and we can't change it. People who have an agenda have learned that they can score points by getting their opposite number in trouble for real or imagined incivility. My note to Randy was meant to convey that reality-based editors need to learn to be "civil" because that's how the game is played here and ceding the "civility" bludgeon to the fringers does us no good. I put "civil" in scare quotes here because what Misplaced Pages counts as "civility" often looks more like unctuous ingratiation, and what Misplaced Pages counts as "incivility" often looks more like forthright commentary. This person put it well. Raymond Arritt (talk) 18:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Complaints about name calling might be immature, but then again so is name calling. ~ UBeR (talk) 01:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Did anybody say it wasn't? Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I didn't know that was prerequisite. ~ UBeR (talk) 03:41, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Er, you're right. The stolen painting is in the house next door. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:48, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Well-put, Raymond, well-put. •Jim62sch• 21:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

First of all, I misinterpreted a statement you made on the homeopathy talk page and immediately apologized for it on that page and, later, on your talk page as well. On his talk page, Randy's comments were You (Anthon01) and the rest of the pro-homeopathy crusaders simply pretended that the sources and the people advocating them did not exist, and went on asking "where are the citations?". This is yet another example of the dishonesty and gamesmanship that you(Anthon01) and the other pro-homeopaths have brought to that article. is uncivil. He directly accused me of simply pretended, dishonesty and gamesmanship, and you responded, without exception, by supporting his statement. You said Apparently it is. I wouldn't consider Randy's comments uncivil, but simply an honest and forthright appraisal of the situation. In this case I don't see how I have not AGF? Please clarify. I also told you that you were encouraging him. Anthon01 (talk) 17:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh brother...--Filll (talk) 18:31, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Filll: Who is this addressed to? Anthon01 (talk) 00:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of being blocked for my comments here, I must say that you have missed the point of my comment to User talk:Randy Blackamoor. My comment was, in fact, on content. I asked for advice at and the first response was from him: "You are an "active researcher" on the topic of whether ghosts live in my tape recorder? I guess we'd better do what you say! Randy Blackamoor (talk) 00:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)" Since that was essentially a sarcastic remark that added nothing to the discussion, I felt it would be productive to ask him to stop to his face. As it turned out, the other commenting editors basically agree with him, so I suppose I need to find an admin for advice. Do you agree with him as well? Tom Butler (talk) 18:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Tom B: Who is this addressed to? Anthon01 (talk) 00:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It's sarcasm; is that a bad thing? •Jim62sch• 21:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

All of us have to remember what the goals of WP are; NPOV is not neutral and not sympathetic and not uncritical. NPOV is not unbiased. WP:FRINGE is a reasonable policy and so is WP:NPOV and WP:RS. People fighting against these are just wasting everyone's time.--Filll (talk) 01:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Note

I saw your note of concern at a talk page and wanted to ask for you to take a look at events that occurred at the article Amy Winehouse and Talk:Amy Winehouse. Actions were taken and except for a one sentence comment about logic, the editor in question has not responded to our request for him to discuss the action he took, or objections to specific things. My note about the events is on the talk page. I don't honestly know what to do next, since this editor has been online all day and has ignored the request for discussion. Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:45, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

A quick review of the talk page shows that controversial material was deleted more or less in accordance with WP:BLP. My understanding is that to avoid lawsuits Misplaced Pages has to be very circumspect about anything remotely critical with regard to living people. This is not an area where I have much experience, so it would be better to ask another admin. Raymond Arritt (talk) 05:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Elias/Boodles

Not with that post. I'm just being my frank, honest self. I don't see why trolls who call others Nazis deserve sympathy themselves - AGF is not a suicide pact. Will 10:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not convinced that calling someone a Nazi is a worse offense than actually holding and promoting virulently anti-semitic views, but that seems to be the way things work these days. Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Um, what?

Why did you feel the need to remind me of this? - CobaltBlueTony™ _talk 21:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

This edit indicated you were unaware of it. Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:02, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: the above. It looks like I was leaving a note for Cobaltbluetony at the same time you were asking on my talk page. I do intend to stick by my warning; if Cobaltbluetony or Anthon01 leave any further 'helpful' warnings or suggestions while Randy is blocked or afterward, drop me a note and I'll block them for goading. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Ouch. Incidentally, I'm not the original individual with whom he had an issue. I was just dumb enough to stick my neck in. Randy appears too agitated to have a logical discussion, at least at this time and/or on this issue. Your own comments suggest you feel as I do regarding the editing practices of some of the others involved; it would be so much easier if we could just have a concensus on the policies involved, and not a debate as to whether homeopathy was a scientifically sound practice. (I so don't care!) - CobaltBlueTony™ _talk 17:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Now a prod?

Are we not allowed to have sandbox articles associated with articles? Should I move it to a sandbox associated with my account? What the heck is this?--Filll (talk) 23:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, stuff like this should be in your user space. Just move the article to something like User:Fill/Evolution draft and work on it there. The Spencer guy was technically correct but it was needlessly confusing because he prodded the article as a test instead of just asking you to userfy. Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

block of 89.108.143.2

Thanks! мirаgeinred سَراب ٭ (talk) 01:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)