Misplaced Pages

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Talk page archives

Part I (July 2004 – July 2005)

In which I get a really heart-warming reply from a newbie I helped, manage to not mess up too many things in my first year editing Misplaced Pages, and end up in a content dispute

Part II (August – November 2005)

In which I resolve a content dispute, appear in the Wiktionary definition of "loser-fucker", and incidentally realize how deeply AfD sucks

Part III (November 2005 – February 2006)

In which a conflict is narrowly averted, much confusion arises from the letters "XD", and I get an article featured, but Henry Ford wrecks the party

Part IV (February -- August 2006)

In which I am given the ceremonial mop, and nothing interesting ensues except for the personal threats

Intermission

Part V (December 2006 -- February 2007)

One day we will all look back at this and laugh.

Part VI (March -- July 2007)

In which being an admin is no big deal, and I finally earn a barnstar

Part VII (August 2007 -- May 2008)

Bitey the Bear says: Only you can prevent unnecessary username blocks.

Current talk page

RFV: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Instant-runoff voting controversies (2nd nomination)

I found you on WikiProject Voting Systems and saw you specialize in NPOV, so I'd like you to please have a look at Instant-runoff voting controversies if you have some spare time, and then post your opinion at WP:AFD/Instant-runoff voting controversies (2nd nomination) when you have a chance. Thank you. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 07:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The bad DEFAULTSORTS

So how is the mass revert going to be handled? Are we going to have a bot do it? If it's going to be done manually, I'd like to help, like the other time a bunch of editors helped mass revert the bot's improper removal of red links. All in all, I think it's a good day. Enigma 07:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

With all the bot-type people around, you'd think we'd be able to get a bot to do the reverting. I think it would be appropriate to ask who wants to do this once the furor has settled down, if it's not dealt with by then. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:11, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I need a couple thousand more edits... Scarian 09:11, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

RFA Thanks

Thanks for your support at my recent Request for adminship. I hope you find I live up to your expectations. Best, Risker (talk) 13:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey

A while ago, you mentioned something about using some sort of hack involving sys.argv to log into multiple accounts using the pywikipedia framework... I remember seeing it at the time and noting that it was pretty ingenious, but can't remember for the life of me where it was at. Mind sharing again? :) east.718 at 06:37, May 23, 2008

Sure. You want to change your config.py so that it can choose a different login name based on which top-level script you're running. Something like this should do the trick:

tasks = {
'interwiki.py': 'EastInterwikiBot',
'imagetag.py': 'EastImageBot',
'doom.py': 'EastDestroyTheWholeWikiBot'
}
usernames = tasks.get(sys.argv, 'EastDefaultBot')

rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 06:49, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I probably would never have thought that up: I'm not a programmer, and I'm even less of a Python programmer. Thanks for the tip! east.718 at 07:59, May 23, 2008

Thanks

Thanks for taking care of that. —BradV 16:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

I said this to Bish too, but yours was one of the ones that meant a lot. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 23:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

A little help?

I'm kind of new here but I understand you have some connection with usernames. Can you do anything about this? 24.36.74.15 (talk) 23:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

My mistake, I see it's already been dealt with. I expected to see the block on the talk page. 24.36.74.15 (talk) 23:04, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Message

I've responded to your message on my talk page. Many thanks, Gazimoff _Read 11:19, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: UAA_reports

Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 05:29, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Reply

Promotional user names

I guess you really meant this? All of the user names that I reported are clearly promotional and not just COI issues. Can I re-report these user names or is there somewhere else I can refer this to? Thank you. – ukexpat (talk) 17:11, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

You reported Kalca, TheVeraCompany, and Comp-tutorials. I see no problems created by these names that require a username block. A username block would say "hey, Misplaced Pages doesn't like you. But we might like you more if you come back and hide your conflict of interest from us this time". And that's pointless. We like when people disclose their COI.

Even though the usernames (which are supposed to be the issue if you report things on UAA) strike me as unproblematic, I also checked their edits to see if they need to be blocked for some other reason.

TheVeraCompany created one COI article. It got speedy deleted. The username doesn't make me say "oh, I should go buy some art by Vera Neumann". Of the three reports, this is the user most likely to end up blocked for something (if they re-create the article, I would call it spamming). But for now, the article is speedy deleted and it seems very likely that the issue is resolved.

Kalca wrote an article about themselves. Lots of people do that when they arrive on Misplaced Pages. As I just said, that's not a blocking offense. You have already taken the appropriate action, which is to mark the article for speedy deletion.

Comp-tutorials is a kid. He doesn't understand Misplaced Pages. His pages have been deleted, and the name "Comp-tutorials" is thoroughly generic. No issues remain.

I'm really trying to see what kind of problem you think remains with these names that would make you insist on "referring this somewhere else".

rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:30, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I have reverted your wholesale deletion of 9 promotional usernames. These should be considered indivdually, and not just subjected to a "shotgun" approach. Again, you are acting against the consensus of admins at WP:UAA. Accounts with company names used for promotional purposes are a violation of Misplaced Pages username policy, and are routinely blocked, by the dozens, every day, by a large number of different administrators. Trying to unilaterally apply a different standard does not improve the project, and permitting some companies to retain company user names and write articles about themselves does not either, and leads to others believing that it is acceptable. --MCB (talk) 17:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

That was low. Of course I am not permitting companies to "write articles about themselves". The thing that prevents companies from writing articles about themselves is speedy deletion, which I highly endorse. I considered the names individually, and determined that none of them were a username problem.

Your attacks on me over username issues have become personal. I would only be willing to discuss this with you further if you will talk about the actual issues involved, not about some ridiculous straw-man version of me who wants companies to go around spamming (have you actually read the things I say on WT:U?), and not about who has which admins on whose side. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 18:53, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

UAA reform?

I've started a discussion about some potential reform to UAA on WT:UAA, that I believe you might be interested in. Shereth 18:03, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Vct9224175193

I acted a little too quickly. It's not inconsistent. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 01:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Coe Memorial Park

Although Coe Memorial Park is funded by a trust, and therefore isn't a company, isn't User:Coememorialpark still a promotional username? The user's name is the name of an organisation, and they created an article promoting that organisation... Am I missing something? (That's not intended to sound sarcastic, it's a genuine question!) Somno (talk) 02:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

There's a considerable debate about this on WT:U and WT:UAA. My position is that names that simply mention an organization aren't harmful, and are actually sometimes helpful because they help us to identify conflicts of interest and handle them appropriately. Blocking them for their username is counterproductive, and the focus should be on what they do. The cases where blocks for "promotional usernames" are relevant are when the username is itself an advertisement.

It's fine to identify that someone might have a conflict of interest, and might be writing about the park glowingly because they're involved in the trust. In many cases that kind of information leads us to delete the article (which people are already quite adept about doing). That's how we prevent people and groups from writing unacceptable articles about themselves, and it's a process that works fine without the username process needing to be involved. Now, I'd do that with Coe Memorial Park except I actually don't think it's a bad article. I wouldn't object if someone else suggested deletion, though (perhaps over notability and verifiability).

In particular, I don't see anything malicious about this user creating the article. What we should do, if this user wants to continue editing, to suggest that they change their username to clarify that he or she is speaking as a single person and not as an organization. But I see no reason why the block you requested on UAA would be warranted. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree, Coe Memorial Park isn't too bad an article. There is often a lack of consistency in decisions made at UAA, so hopefully the debates you've mentioned will sort that out. Thanks for taking the time to explain your decision to me. Somno (talk) 07:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

ah ok

I suppose it would apply more if his account was named after his company, however his account is purely promotional and his edits not appropriate. Sticky Parkin 23:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

What you say about people using the username blocks is true. I've seen it used by others as the first way to remove obviously problematic users of various kinds. Sorry. Sticky Parkin 23:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I suppose so. Then people could come back with a new name and do the same again. I didn't think of it that way. Anyway, I warned him politely :) Sticky Parkin 23:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

As regards this one what the person meant is there's an implied swear word he considers to contravene policy as WTF is an abbreviation for 'what the f**k'. Sticky Parkin 23:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

hey it wasn't my report:) obscene/offensive usernames tend to be blocked and if someone had a username with the word f**k written in full and in context in it, I think it would usually be blocked. I get your point though about the tenuousness of WTF, I was just saying in case you hadn't realised what the nominator was (rightly or wrongly) getting at. I suspect that person will have interesting edits though, as did User:Hairyholebutt. Sticky Parkin 23:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

User:The Anome blocked the WTF bloke, on the grounds of his username but his edits seemed to be vandalism etc too. Sticky Parkin 00:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I am aware of the username policy and User:Anome clearly felt the same in that instance. Sticky Parkin 00:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm just saying, as the policy says, what is offensive is a matter of opinion, and will vary between individuals. "The line between acceptable and unacceptable user names is based on the opinions of other editors." If you think it's wrong you could always chat to The Anome. If he hadn't been a vandal, people might have been more lenient. Sticky Parkin 00:28, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I suppose so, but it says offensive usernames may be blocked, anyway. I'm not usually a fan of WP:IAR but when it comes to obvious wronguns or useless articles it can be useful. Policy may eventually change in accordance with what people do, as it's based on consensus. And for instance at AfD, there's effectively a precedent, with not all of the unwritten rules of what's kept and what isn't, written down. You type fast by the way.:) Sticky Parkin 00:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Misunderstanding over recent actions

The Arabic name thing was not a deliberate action on my part to "bite" a user, nor was it inspired by any political or religious reasons. It was simply a misunderstanding of the policy. Also, I never said he needs to change the username, I said he was encouraged to change the username, which is what the rules said (verbatim). Please be careful with what you are trying to say. I do not want to get in trouble over some twisted words out of someone who does not even know who I am and what I have done all these years.

Also, any more of those attack comments left by you on my talkpage will be treated as a violation of WP:NPA. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 02:57, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Look, I respect you because of who you are here (an admin), but there the respect stops. I admit the templating was a inappropriate, and I reverted the change already. Why are you making a big fuss over a misunderstanding? You haven't answered my question! Arbiteroftruth (talk) 03:21, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I know the UAA can be used to block people, but I wasn't aware it always leads to a block. In this case, I thought I would report the user, and someone (an admin, most likely) will talk to him and repeat the same words I said. I didn't think I was reporting this user and asking that he be blocked at the same time. This also clears up my misunderstanding of you. I thought you were a grumpy, p**sed off admin, but now that you brought this up, I understand why you acted the way you did. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 03:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Username question

On the Arabic user we sparred over earlier, it appears that there is another user with a similar name, albeit written in English. The name (سمرقندی) can be transliterated to the word Samarkandi, who is a Misplaced Pages user . What should we do about this? Arbiteroftruth (talk) 04:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Huh?

If you were talking about User:Gluciani, the user was using Misplaced Pages for promotional purposes only, and uploaded blatantly copyrighted materials as the user's "company logo" (the logo in question belongs to Adobe). Arbiteroftruth (talk) 22:08, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Iwirewiki and UAA

You don't think the username "Iwirewiki" is close enough to "I-wireless" to constitute a username violation? - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 00:27, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, no big deal. And I've got to say that, as long as I've been around here, I've never heard of WP:COIN before. Thanks for the heads-up on that. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 15:17, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Davem, the Son of God

You rejected my WP:UAA report on User:Davem, the Son of God as someone trying to use UAA for a quick resolution to their personal conflict.

My username is Mayalld. My User page reveals that my name is Dave. So, it doesn't take a genius to work out that my RL name is Dave Mayall.

Are you seriously suggesting that registering a user name like this, for the sole purpose of attacking pages that I am involved in is anything other than an abusive username?

Mayalld (talk) 08:02, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, you should have been clearer about that. A TWINKLE-generated message with a reason that looks totally unrelated to the username policy hardly inspires confidence. I'll block him now. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:07, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, already blocked. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:08, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Point taken! I will attempt to do better, should I get any more stalkers in future. Mayalld (talk) 08:12, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your response to User_talk:Cumulus Clouds

I agree with your reply (]). For the moment, I created User:NonGuid-FFFF because the other editors were upset and will use this until someone lobbies to reinstate my old account. I did put some additional comments to User:Cumulus Clouds to help deal with some of his issues. Thanks! --GUID-3AD20178-DF60-4BDF-B4AA-7693DA6A6F23 (talk) 09:03, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikiquette alert

A thread about you has been started at Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette alerts. The concern is that you may have been bitey towards another user. This diff was given in evidence. Feel free to comment. I am not currently taking any side in this case, and am writing this as a neutral notification...... Dendodge .. Talk 02:23, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

The Bugle

I see your point with the throwing up, and I'll remove that, but I'm still keeping the mention of the Wiki in the heading.Cfan01 (talk) 12:33, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Wanted to get your opinion here

There's a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/User_names#Message_From_Xenu about said username. Thought you might be interested. Cheers! Wisdom89 _{(T / )} 02:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

UAA

Hello-
In this edit you removed a fair amount of entries from UAA. As far as I can tell, at least a few of them were valid- since it is general practice to username-block promotional usernames when they are clearly representing (or impersonating) that company, i.e. by creating a spam article about it. Please try to be more careful next time, and have a wonderful weekend. ~ L'Aquatique! 09:03, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

re: promotional pages

Both of my WP:UAA reports that you declined with this edit were usernames that based on their contributions (specifically the fact that the title of the only article they had created matched their username, and that the articles in question were clearly G11 spam material) were (in my opinion) blatant violations of WP:U.

"Misplaced Pages does not allow usernames that are misleading, promotional, offensive or disruptive. Domain names and e-mail addresses are likewise prohibited."

Yes, I agree, blocking a new contributor who created a WP:COI article one time would definitely be biting a newcomer, and yes in ambigious cases administrator discretion should be used and good faith assumed, but blocking a clearly inappropriate username is not biting anyone, its simply keeping the integrity of the encyclopedia. I disagree with your statement that putting a new user "through the harsh process of UAA is unnecessary and may discourage them." An inappropriate username is an inappropriate username: we don't allow spam, period. Blocking an account in violation of WP:U is not the same as blocking for vandalism or 3RR, username blocks come with an invitation to create a new account without an auto-block. Mister Senseless™ (Speak - Contributions) 01:27, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I think you've forgotten what it's like to be a newbie, especially if you say "blocking a clearly inappropriate username is not biting anyone". There's a user behind each username, and this user usually has the daunting task of figuring out the "wiki" concept and our community standards simultaneously.

The "invitation to re-create the account" in the fine print is very ineffective. Have you ever followed up on what happens, for example, when a user is erroneously soft-blocked? Your view that newbies who have just been blocked are docile, happy people who will follow whatever instructions we give them is implausible, to say the least. The most common thing they do is to give up on Misplaced Pages and go on to some other website that welcomes them more.

And why are you trying to encourage these new users to create a new account in one breath while calling them "spammers" in another? I'd say that it's the "spammer" label that's in error. The two users I declined to block showed very little indication of being malicious spammers. The more likely explanation is that they thought they could create an article on anything they wanted.

It's actually not at all as black and white as you say. When you say "We don't allow spam, period", where do the multiple levels of spam/COI warnings we have fit into your worldview? Or do you think it's wrong to have these warnings at all? Where do you draw the line between "spam" and an honest mistake?

Misplaced Pages is a weird, confusing place to most people, and it should be no surprise that many people come into it without knowing our standards. When you want to block someone immediately for creating an article called "Save the Swim Team", you're not giving them the chance to make even one mistake. And by dragging the less important issue of usernames into it, you're just confusing the issues. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:46, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Except that usernames are important as they are the living human user's primary representation on the project. Besides that, there's a difference between blocking a user and blocking an username. Let me give you two examples:

About a week ago I tagged an article called Media Power for deletion, standard non-notable corporation and borderline spam type material. After doing a little more background research on the the article's situation, it came to light that the article's creator helped started the company and that the article in question had already been deleted twice before, and several other articles about the "concepts" Media Power came up were also G11'ed. The article's author had been warned for COI on several occasions prior, and possibly could have been blocked for repeatedly creating inappropriate pages. Blocking him was not considered however due to a lack of a final warning, but it could have been an option due to multiple violations (at several different times) of WP:CORP and WP:SPAM, well beyond the AGF "giving benefit of the doubt" stage. This block would have been on the user himself for his actions, (i.e. he could not create another account until the block had expired). This would have had nothing to do with their username, which in it of itself was unrelated to the company.

On the other hand, the user Generationfree (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) only had a single contribution Generation free, which was speedily deleted for spam. Their username shows an obvious connection to the company being advertised and their only edit shows an intent to promote that company. The username policy makes this clear, edits that are blatantly promotional submitted by an account that was obviously created by the company or group being promoted are not permitted, this is black and white. Here's the distinction though, the account is blocked due to their username, not their actions. We assume good faith by using a soft block, allowing the user to simply create another account and edit there, or go through the username change process if they'd rather. Maybe this point could be stressed more during the block or in the block tag. Regardless, even if not stressed enough the invitation to create a new account is certainly not fine print. The standard block tag {{uw-ublock}} says in the first paragraph

This account has been blocked indefinitely from editing Misplaced Pages, because your username does not meet our username policy. This is often not a reflection on the user, and you are encouraged to choose a new account name which does meet our guidelines and are invited to contribute to Misplaced Pages under an appropriate username.

I respect your point of view, and definitely agree with giving the benefit of the doubt in ambiguous or questionable cases, and Save the swim team might have been a more ambiguous case. But this is why we have a username policy, defining which types of usernames are innapropriate and how to confront them. Under the username policy, the appropriate manner for confronting obvious promotional accounts, is by blocking them with an explanation. It would be one thing if we were blocking these accounts arbitrarily, but the policy accepted through consensus, should be applied evenly. Would you want a user with a clearly bad faith username (such as one with a four letter word, or hate speech) editing with their offensive, obscene, or inciting username while we try to convince them to change it on their own? Is there a better alternative? Should the username policy be overhauled or eliminated all together?

Yes good faith is what our community is built around. We always assume good faith concerning our contributors behind the username, but blocking a clearly inappropriate username is not assuming bad faith. I'm all about giving users another chance, but the fact that they cannot use an account to self promote must be made clear, regardless of how that self-promotion is taking place. If its through an article submission alone, we delete the article and attempt educate the contributor. If its through their usename, however, the username has to change or a new account created. Cheers... Mister Senseless™ (Speak - Contributions) 21:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

You say, "Under the username policy, the appropriate manner for confronting obvious promotional accounts, is by blocking them with an explanation."

I am convinced that you are simply wrong when you say this. There are safeguards in the username policy so that it only escalates to a block in the most serious cases, and I should know because I was part of the consensus that helped to develop it. The username policy is not meant to be "the spam policy but faster", and in particular the company/group names section seems to be directly at odds with your claims.

But if that's all wiki-legalese to you, tell me this: how would Misplaced Pages have suffered if we had simply explained the conflict of interest policy to these users and requested that they create a new username? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 04:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Kemeny-Young method

I just wanted to let you know that there's been some action after months of inactivity on Kemeny-Young method. If you're still interested, you may want to keep half an eye on the page.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:00, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, MarkusSchulze could probably use a hand at Schulze STV if you're interested. I don't know if you follow multiple-winner election systems, but the page is tagged {{advert}} and Markus is unwilling to remove it for COI reasons. (Actually, I tend to think the page does read like an advertisement at the moment... but at some point it'll get fixed up and someone should remove the tag then.)

CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I have to say, I don't know enough about Schulze STV. The last I heard about it was when it was just being discussed on mailing lists, and I'm surprised it has enough independent sources for an article. I'll try to keep a closer watch on Kemeny-Young, though. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 20:52, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Guide

Can I add your ACE guide to the Template:ACE 2008 guides? MBisanz 01:57, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, you found it already. Neat.

I was hoping to have more comments filled in before publicizing it, but I suppose others are in about the same state. So if you want to add it, go ahead! rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 02:32, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Your arbcom guide

I do not want a "three-layer cake with frosting" where one of the layers is made of bullshit. Someone should engrave that in marble and enshrine it for the ages. Brilliant. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 06:12, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Heh, thanks. I actually find the analogy a bit cheap, because the section called the "three-layer cake" is not one of the most objectionable parts of that decision. That honor probably actually belongs to "adequate framing". But it's hard to make such a vivid image about frames as you can about cake. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 20:50, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Saw your comment about the fivethirtyeight of Misplaced Pages. (Actually read you say that the other day somewhere but can't find it now.) It's interesting that the voter guides ended up being quite indicative of the course of the elections. Looks like the guides' only collective miss was understating support for Roger Davies. -JayHenry (talk) 03:27, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

It makes sense. I haven't added it up recently to see how accurate the meta-guide is, but you wouldn't expect it to be too far off. When Caspian Blue did his analysis, though, it also overstated support for Sam Korn. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 06:20, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I was looking at the actual expressed preferences, rather than Caspian's analysis. Although Caspian said Sam was a leading contender, half the guides were opposed to him. You could imagine a Nate Silver writing a script to see who tends to vote together, because Wikipedians (like any organization this size) tend to vote the lines of a fairly small number of unlabeled parties and factions. You could measure the weighting of these factions within the community of likely voters, figure out which factions support which candidates, and call most elections. It'd also give something to look for irregularities. Another blip in the aggregate guides is overstating support for both Cool Hand Luke and Jayvdb. I'd posit this is because the guides didn't anticipate the "well-poisoning" in the former and what appears may be some canvassing in the latter. Of course previously unknown information could also arise, which would change what guides predict. Anyway, no real point. Just musing aloud. --JayHenry (talk) 01:59, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Concerns?

Hey there! I noticed your two concerns about me in your voter guide were whether or not I can handle the caseload and if I could maintain a pseudonymous identity. First of all, while I would prefer to remain pseudonymous, if my identity were revealed by WR or someone else I wouldn't view it as a serious detriment and I would continue my ArbCom work. I take this position seriously. In that vein, I would not have become a candidate if I did not think I could maintain the level of activity and involvement the committee so desperately needs. Inactivity and drive-by arbitration is one of my biggest complaints about ArbCom, and I vow not to become one of those arbitrators should I be elected. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 07:05, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Candidacy questions / user guide

Hi:

It will come as no surprise to you when I say that I made a particularly poor job of replying to some Arbcom questions. I have had a filthy cold and a high temperature, since Friday last, and it cramped my style somewhat, especially when faced with 250+ questions/sub-questions.

I have completely revisited the whole incivility issue so that my responses now reflect actually and articulately what I believe. The key stuff is here and here.

I would be very grateful if you could find the time to review my responses and ask any specific questions that you feel need further clarification. Thank you in advance, --ROGER DAVIES  04:07, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to hear about your illness, and I admire the dedication of ArbCom candidates who think hard about and answer the hundreds of questions they're asked. I need to oppose some viable (and therefore highly qualified) candidates for my vote to matter, and the answers have given me lots of material to scrutinize. So thanks for standing up and answering all the questions -- even when I disagree with some answers, I see it as better than dodging.

Compiling my guide has required a lot of reading, and it's quite possible that in some cases I missed the point. (It sounds like I'll need to re-read Hemlock Martinis's answers, for example.)

Your answer to Heimstern is a great answer about civility... and I don't understand how it makes any sense in the context of your answer to roux. Civility position A3 says that incivility should be "weighed against" an editor's contributions to the project. Maybe you're reading it way differently from me, but to me that sounds like admins, people who edit in highly visible fora, and vested contributors get "free incivility passes" that they get to use once in a while. (It's also, as far as I can tell, the status quo.) That's the part I can't support, but I do want to hear your reply and understand what you meant by it. Thanks, rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 09:01, 4 December 2008 (UTC

Sorry about the slow reply. I think the short answer is that I'm likely to be more diplomatic (i.e. carefully written notes rather than templates) with established people in high pressure positions than I am with trouble-makers because I will want them to both continue contributing and mend their ways. However, civility is policy and is therefore non-negotiable. Because of this, it must be applied consistently right across the user base. In practical terms, this means that although the opening overtures to the editor may be different, the result of ignoring them is the same. This is important, not only to prevent newbies from justifiably feeling hard-done-by but also to ensure that a celebrity editor culture doesn't become too institutionalised. (As a side note, I do believe some celebrity editors do already have a disportionate amount of influence and that interferes with determining true concensus. You see it particularly at RfA.) In essence, I suppose the established editor is the present but the newby is the future.

If I am elected and I do not stick to this egalitarian principle, you have a duty to follow me relentlessly, shouting accusations of "Hypocrisy!" and "Duplicity!" from the rooftops. I don't think I will change my spots on this though: social fairness has been important to me for too long. --ROGER DAVIES  14:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

PS: I think you and I interpreted A3 differently. I took A1, A2, A3 to refer to when an editor should be approached about incivility: you may see it as meaning when should sanctions be applied. --ROGER DAVIES  11:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I'm sorry to bother you again but I'm a bit puzzled. You've actually already voted "oppose" (on 1 December) based on the incivility ambiguity but have since switched to support in your ACE guide. Did you mean it to be like this? Or are the two simply slightly out of sync? --ROGER DAVIES  11:51, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I lost track and they got out of sync. I've switched my vote now. rspεεr (talk) 18:07, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Kudos

I really appreciated your questions for the ArbCom candidates. Someone pointed out your question for one of the candidates, and when I read their answer, I immediately switched my vote from support to oppose. We don't need anti-science POV's in the ArbCom (FT2's attitude is sufficient), and it's interesting how your question pulled it out of certain candidates. Oddly, I don't think I've ever crossed paths with you. Thanks again. OrangeMarlin 18:36, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

unanswered questions

In regards to your recent comment that accompanied the support vote, you might be interested in q&a page sizes. It doesnt excuse the fact I havent answered everything; I've been too busy with the real world and Oversight, but both of those time sinks are now over as of today. I'm trying to answer most of the remainder tonight; if any are not answered before the election is over, I will answer them after the election so that the community at least knows my views going forward - i.e. no surprises. Thanks for your comment. John Vandenberg 10:16, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Question you can probably answer

Per this response of mine to this question, since I don't follow these policy debates too closely, can you answer that question? Daniel Case (talk) 04:34, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I replied. Where do people get the idea that you should block newbies for the slightest mistake? Is it still hidden somewhere in the username policy? rspεεr (talk) 07:38, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

Just read your views on newbies

I like what you have to say. Lots of good ideas in there. How could we give WP:BITE more teeth, I wonder... Lot 49a 05:19, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! That's always good to hear. If you want to help defend newbies, might I suggest you become another sympathetic voice on WP:UAA? Things are going reasonably there at the moment, but there are still overzealous username reporters and overzealous admins placing blocks, and when the two happen to converge, a new user can end up getting bounced from the project just because they didn't understand our sprawling conventions about usernames when they registered. rspεεr (talk) 02:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

User: CAWUEgypt

I was just wondering why you removed User:CAWUEgypt with this edit , saying " Thanks for leaving a notice on the talk page; you didn't need to tell UAA that you were doing so." I thought such promotional usernames were blocked under WP:USERNAME, CAWUEgypt is obviously connected to the Center for arab west understanding, whose article the user keeps on creating. Should I have given this evidence when I first presented this user to WP:UAA, or would this have better been left to other methods? Thanks, --Patar knight - /_{contributions} 21:55, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Creating and re-creating an article that shouldn't be there is not the kind of thing we like to see from our new users, but it strikes me as strange to look at that behavior and then conclude that the username is the problem. The username is not doing the promotion; it's only tangentially related to the promotion, and you have to expand out the acronym to be able to tell that.

While the user needs an explanation of what content is appropriate on Misplaced Pages, the conflict of interest policy is much more relevant than the username policy here, and to ask for a username block because it's faster strikes me as policy-shopping. To me, the username issue merits at most a warning.

Now, in this case, you saw at least part of this in the same way as me, because you left that warning. It would defeat the purpose of a warning (and, to me, be excessively harsh) to block the user right afterward. So what's the use of the UAA report? All an admin could reasonably do with it is say "yep, you left a warning" and remove the report. rspεεr (talk) 01:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

But `Accounts that represent an entire group or company are not permitted, and this is clearly an inappropriate username. Also, the user is unlikely to follow my warning anyways, as they have simply disregarded numerous deletion notices, and recreated their promotional page on their group. While, some of these promotional usernames could end up being productive editors if given the change, this one probably wouldn't. So in this case, I believe a block is justified here. Other cases, like User:Ohelpee, another user I reported (though at that time under a different name) were more accepting of the policies, and thus deserved some leniency. --Patar knight - /_{contributions} 22:36, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I am not at all denying that the user has broken some policies at some point. This may surprise you, but we don't block new users the moment they break a single policy. There are lots of policies and most people have broken some of them at some point. Instead, we try to explain to them how things work and make them into better users.

Looking through the user's contributions, yes they have been self-promotional at times, and yes the username hints that they might be a role account. But the contributions have significantly improved over time. They're adding references and biographical details to people's articles. Do they have an ulterior motive in doing so? I don't know, but I wouldn't just assume it.

I'm sure they might even follow your very reasonable request that they change their name and affirm that a single person is behind the edits, so why not give them a chance to? (By now I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and using the singular they to refer to them.) Why go straight from a warning to a block request in a matter of minutes? They haven't edited since the warning. In fact -- and this is kind of the icing on the cake for why a block would be very silly -- they haven't edited since November.

If they come back and you still want them blocked, please try to make a stronger case for blocking them. The username policy isn't it. You may want the conflict of interest noticeboard. rspεεr (talk) 23:49, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but this case is obviously a blatant example of violation of the username policy. The user has firstly, broken the username policy, and then proceeded to write mostly inappropriate articles, ignoring the numerous warnings that other users were putting on his talk page. A significant majority, if not all of the other articles that the user has worked on have all been related to the group that they are promoting. Just go to Sawsan Gabra Ayoub Khalil, Cornelis Hulsman, Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation, Arab-West Report, and other articles and search for CAWU or Center for Arab Western Understanding. All of their edits are connected to this group in some way, and it is pretty clear what their intentions are. While I concur that some dialogue with the user is desirable in some cases at WP:UAA, this one is not one of them. --Patar knight - /_{contributions} 21:49, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Be careful before you accuse a user of things, Patar. The user has only received two warnings, and ignored neither of them.

The first warning was that the user should stop signing articles. They did.

The second warning came from you, to change their username. I maintain that you enforced the username policy correctly by leaving this warning, so I'm not sure why you are being so insistent that you didn't. The user has not done anything since this warning. In fact, the user has not done anything since November 15, 2008.

The user created some articles that got speedy deleted. This is not a blockable offense. They also made some edits to other articles which stuck, because the edits were helpful. I don't see anything being ignored here.

This is not a user that needs to be blocked. This is a good-faith user, and yet you are policy-shopping in an attempt to block them. The user is probably not coming back anyway, but if they did, I would welcome their helpful contributions and talk to them about their potential COI. I am declining your block request. Please let it drop now. rspεεr (talk) 23:59, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so there were only two warnings. Touché on that one. The first was the signing one, and the second about removing {{hangon}} notices (both can be seen here. However, the other notifications were about his articles which had been either speedily deleted or deleted at AFD. I know that creating speedily deleted articles is not a blockable offense in itself. However, the user's violation of the username policy, compounded with their creation of several self-promoting articles (which were the ones speedily-deleted) despite previous notices on our notability policies, leads to a justification of a block for this user, as it is entirely a self-promotional front for the CAWU. --Patar knight - /_{contributions} 01:18, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The second warning you're talking about doesn't even exist. You're misreading the template. That's some explanatory text about how you can add a hangon notice (why would a newbie want to remove one?). Your chronology also doesn't match what I see in their contributions.

It comes down to this. The user signed their articles. They got a warning about it. They stopped. They created bad articles. They got notices about them. They stopped. Seriously, the user fixed their actions in basically every way they were asked to, and then if you weren't happy with that they stopped editing anyway. I bet they would even fix their username if they were around to see your warning. Anyway, there are actual vandals out there causing actual disruption now, so there's no purpose in fixating on someone who acted noobish and self-promotional a month and a half ago and then stopped. rspεεr (talk) 08:02, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You're right. I've wasted too much time arguing about something that stopped being a problem two months ago, losing sight of what Misplaced Pages's goal is: to build an encyclopedia. While some of my points would've had merit while the user was still active, any action now is unnecessary unless the said user returns. Now my best course of action is to go over the articles that the user created, and edit them/nominate them for deletion, as befitting Misplaced Pages policy. --Patar knight - /_{contributions} 00:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Re: Responding to UAA bot reports

I don't use the templates for the bot; I use the templates for other editors who may wish to investigate the situation. –Juliancolton 17:11, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

True, but I feel it saves people time, knowing that the report is already being dealt with. –Juliancolton 19:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Long usernames

Hi Rspeer,

I saw that you reverted my boldly added long username (+25 chars) blacklist rule. I was doubting weather such a rule was appropriate myself, but I also noticed that a lot of bad long usernames do slip by. When I checked the contributions of the bot, I noticed that it caught on this rule: user:F uck billcj the big fat f f u u c c kk, User:SUPERSUPERSUPERSUPERSUPER, user:Betacommand is genderqueer, user:Acalamari would like to see Natalie Erin's "water slide", and User:DoomsayParodySpoofMovie2009. That it 5 true positives in about 5 hours. For me that means the rule is working quite well. I'm all too aware that having more than 25 characters in one's username is not a problem in itself, but if you se that these usernames get caught because of it, it might be a good idea to keep it. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

We really did have problems with the 40+ rule, and 25+ is even worse. The problem is that these names are reported to UAA, and a primary purpose of UAA is to place username blocks; if long names show up routinely there, people get the idea that names can be blocked just for being long. Myself, I'm not particularly worried about our username patrollers letting bad names slip through the cracks, considering that they seem to find them all and some perfectly fine names as well.

"SUPERSUPERSUPERSUPERSUPER" isn't even a username violation of any sort, by the way. rspεεr (talk) 20:10, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Though the long usernames are not a violation, the catching of them by NamewatcherBot could have its uses. Your name has been mentioned in the discussion at WT:UAA#suggested blacklist addition, and it would be good to have your views there. There are COI bots and spambots that complain about all kinds of innocent things, but nobody (in my opinion) thinks that this is going to cause policy to be misunderstood. EdJohnston (talk) 20:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Ping

User talk:CRGreathouse#Have you ever considered adminship?

CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:51, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, the nomination is up. Hope my statement's OK. CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Consensus Building

As a user who responded to the straw poll regarding non-free images in sports, your further input is requested with regards to the Straw poll summary and proposed guidelines on image use — BQZip01 —  01:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

"Batshit insane"

Hello. I did not appreciate your using this expression in discussing my criteria for potential adminstrators, and think it is perilously close to being a personal attack. I would be gratified if you would withdraw it. Thanks. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 04:47, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Withdrawing, because I indeed misunderstood your point. If you had been saying that 13,500 edits wasn't enough, I would have continued to criticize your criteria -- and I think criteria that are totally detached from reality, like most edit-counting is, need to be described as such without the editor who suggests them taking it personally. But again, I misunderstood, so there's no need for that description. rspεεr (talk) 20:21, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, your gesture is appreciated. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 21:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

RfA

rspεεr, I'd like to thank you for nominating me and helping me through the RfA process. I can't believe that was only a week… it felt like a month.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

RfA thankspam

		Thank you for your participation in my recent RfA, which failed with 90/38/3; whether you supported, opposed or remained neutral. Special thanks go out to Moreschi, Dougweller and Frank for nominating me, and I will try to take everyone's comments on board. Thanks again for your participation. I am currently concentrating my efforts on the Wikification WikiProject. It's fun! Please visit the project and wikify a few articles to help clear the backlog. If you can recruit some more participants, then even better. Apologies if you don't like RfA thankspam, this message was delivered by a bot which can't tell whether you want it or not. Feel free to remove it. Itsmejudith (talk), 22:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Denbot (talk) 22:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Cowboy Hats

I am going to make changes to the Cowboy hat page see:text

-oo0(GoldTrader)0oo- (talk) 09:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Your were in the Cowboy edits

Thanks see. Talk:Cowboy_hat

RfA thanks

Thank you for the trust you placed in me by supporting my RfA (which passed and, apparently, I am now an admin!). I will do my best to continue to act in a way that is consistent with the policies of wikipedia as well with our common desire to build and perfect this repository of human knowledge; and can only hope that you never feel that your trust was misplaced. Thanks again! --Regent's Park (Rose Garden) 23:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

the saga continues

See WT:U. There's a thread there questioning why we shouldn't block confusing usernames on sight. Thought you'd want to know. Mangojuice 12:56, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

A few words on disagreement

		The Original Barnstar
		Even though I regularly find myself disagreeing with your opinions, I believe it to be the constructive type of disagreement. Content and policy is best formed when reasonable people disagree reasonably. Only through a variety of differing and even contrary opinions can reasonable people find the best solution. This barnstar is for always being reasonable when you disagree. Chillum 01:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Patton 14:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for restoring my faith

...in the reading ability of humankind. I don't expect everyone to like everything I write, but I'd rather not be confused with the kind of cartoon caricature that seems to be evolving of its own accord on my RfA. Before this interesting process began, I used to think I could get a point across - not necessarily convince anyone, but at least get them to understand my position. I am not so sure now. I'm especially confused about how my admittedly inept stab at self-deprecating human can sound "sarcastic", although I suppose that is grimly self-fulfilling (that I can't even admit to imperfection without sounding even more arrogant demonstrates just how correct the self-deprecation was). --Teratornis (talk) 00:51, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I might comment about your quote:

• "I followed the links provided by opposers, and saw nothing but reasonable comments."

First, thank you; and second, it seems to me you have identified the problem. Some people don't like reasonable comments. For example a theme with some of the participants seems to be that they can't find anything factually wrong with what I wrote, they just don't like the way I wrote it. Given that Style over substance is a fallacy, this amounts to a selective rejection of reason (which is how the vast majority of people think, applying reason when it suits them, and thinking in other ways when it doesn't). I understand the need for administrators to have some political finesse, for example when doing things that some users aren't going to like. My record as a non-admin on the Help desk has consistently been to look for the workable compromise when there is one, for example transwiki'ing someone's article instead of just obliterating it. I think if a new user has accepted our invitation to just start editing away, without any requirement to read our several thousand pages of instructions first, then we owe them some help with transwiki'ing if they violate one of our numerous unguessable policies or guidelines. --Teratornis (talk) 01:15, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

re:User:Rizaisdabestindawholewideworld UAA report

Hi, just a quick question. I was under the impression that excessively long or confusing usernames names were against policy, is this not the case anymore? - 2 ... says you, says me, suggestion box 03:30, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I was just going by what I saw in the block logs, and I agree, some admins likely are still enforcing it, after re-reading WP:U I couldn't find a reference to confusing names anywhere. - 2 ... says you, says me, suggestion box 14:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:AN

Please don't remove other people's comments from discussion pages. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 17:38, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

You didn't make a comment. You posted a user warning template on AN, which makes no sense. What were you trying to say? rspεεr (talk) 03:15, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

That the person making the comment is a sock puppet with a conflict of interest concerning the cleaning up of Long Term Abuse pages. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:22, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. (Sorry, but the template was a very unclear way of saying that.) Care to explain more? rspεεr (talk) 20:33, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The person making the comment is the sockpuppet (and now blocked) of a former blocked editor. He was more than happy to have Long Term Abuse pages removed, thus a conflict of interest. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:54, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Third opinion - request

Rspeer,

Thanks for giving a third opinion at Talk:Kelpers#Third_Opinion_response. I assume you came to the dispute via WP:Third opinion. If so, I'd be grateful if you could follow the directions there and remove a listed dispute that you are going to offer an opinion for before you provide that opinion. I nearly read all of the arguments before fortunately scrolling down and seeing your response was there already! Cheers, Bigger digger (talk) 09:37, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Formal Mediation for Sports Logos

As a contributor to Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content/RFC_on_use_of_sports_team_logos, you have been included in a request for formal mediation regarding the subject at Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Use of Sports Logos. With your input and agreement to work through mediation, it is hoped we can achieve a lasting solution. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:20, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

RfC for Corp Usernames

I have created an RfC for a proposed change to the username policy in regards to corporate names. I invite your input. Thanks. Gigs (talk) 01:19, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Heads up

I made a new proposal Wikipedia_talk:Username_policy/Blatant_Promotion_RfC#Proposal_5_--_Reflect_consensus_in_twinkle_and_templates.

Also I'm not sure what to do with your proposal. It had some support and little opposition, however I'm not sure it reflects consensus, since many people expressed opposite sentiments on proposal 1 comments, and the proposal to completely ban explicit corporate names did carry, which seems incompatible. I'll let you decide what to do there. Gigs (talk) 02:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Request for mediation not accepted

A Request for Mediation to which you were are a party was not accepted and has been delisted. You can find more information on the case subpage, Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Use of Sports Logos. For the Mediation Committee, Ryan Postlethwaite 02:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

UAA

re this, yeah, I blocked those two as socks. –Juliancolton |  20:23, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello!

Hi, I'm looking to learn more about the UAA function, since I only started using it recently. I know that you removed an addition of mine, which I re-added because your explanation didn't make a lot of sense to me. Perhaps you can clarify here. I've been under the impression that group names are to be blocked, since that's what the policy says. I think I may have convinced the individual to get a new username, but the policy doesn't say "will be blocked unless the editors agree to change his or her username," does it? :-) Really, though, is that the standard operating procedure? If so, the wording of the policy ought to be updated. Let me know if there's something I missed since, like I said, I'm new to the UAA procedure and I'm curious to find out more. Cheers! --King of the Arverni (talk) 21:01, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I prefer to deal with COI issues as COI issues rather than as username issues, given the choice. In addition to the fact that I didn't find "might be a group name" to be a compelling enough reason to apply a username block, I found that the COI approach appears to be working, so there's really no need for a username block.

There are many situations that could fall under either the username policy or the COI policy, and deciding which policy to apply and how is often a judgement call. I prefer not to block people when it's not necessary. rspεεr (talk) 21:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Gotcha. Makes some sense to me. I'm still interested in the idea of adding that sort of caveat to the SPAMNAME policy (though, for all I know, that may have already been tried before). I know that you didn't block the username in question, but you didn't oppose it a second time, either. Was it just a question of picking your battles, or did you think the reason more compelling the second time around? --King of the Arverni (talk) 15:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

It's simpler than that -- I wasn't there to see it the second time around. But yes, I probably would have "picked my battles", as you say -- particularly because a revert war on UAA would be one of the lamest battles ever. :P rspεεr (talk) 07:15, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

username blocks and policys

Hello,
Username policy says pretty clearly that no username is confusing enough to require an instant block without prior discussion. Username policy makes no mention of not using IP addresses as usernames. I was blocked instantly, permanently, for having a username that 'resembled an IP address'. It took several appeals with the unblock template to get a policy based reason for this - some people might be confused by edit summaries.
Please, could you have a look at the policy and add the needed lines? And please could you continue your work of making admins realise just how horrible it is for editors to be caught up in a username block. "We've blocked you. Policy says we should have discussed it with you before blocking, but we didn't. Policy doesn't mention the reason we've given you for blocking your name. Your name doesn't appear to be covered by the policy. And when you ask us to add a simple line to the policy to make it clear we'll tell you you're asking in the wrong place, even though you're unable to ask anywhere else. And, even though you're a new editor, and you're asking politely and calmly for more information about our block (which doesn't, as far as you can see, conform to any policy) we'll tell you that you're abusing the block template and could be blocked for that too." I dunno. It kind of sucked. See my userpage, and the linked user page for full historys.) 87.113.86.207 (talk) 11:14, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

UAA header/edit notice

Heya, I revised the header at UAA today to bring it in-line with the redraft of policy. Even though much of the old header format and wording was carried over, to me it now seems clearer. I welcome any insight you may have. Also, one thing that I carried over from the previous version that bothers me is the differentiation between an 'ordinary' and 'obvious' violations of policy. It seems to me that what's obvious and ordinary will be unclear to some. No examples are given at UAA or in the policy itself. I wonder what could be done to clarify what requires immediate intervention by admins, and thus a report at UAA, and what doesn't. One thought of mine is to add a module to the new admin school on username policy, with examples of common scenarios and recommended actions. This would not only benefit admins, but editors active in UAA, just as the NAS module on rollback has benefited the wider community as a whole. Thoughts? Nja 11:11, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

IP addresses

Sorry, but not one admin mentioned the (talk), everysingle one of them mention IP address. I can't suggest you try creating accounts with just dotted quads and seeing them get blocked, because that's probably against some rule, (Disruption to prove a point?) even if that test-sock only makes good positive edits and is very polite once blocked. But, if you decide it's not un-ethical to do so I recommend you try it and see how many people will block for a dotted quad without a (talk), and how many admins will refuse an unblock. Try a dotted quad with the (talk) and see how many admins suggest "you can keep the name, just remove the (talk) part". And, really, (this is a minor wiki-lawyering point) including the (talk) doesn't mimic the software, because you end up with "xx.xx.xx.xx (talk) (talk)". It just seems odd that some people insist on having "email addresses", but refuse to include "email and IP addresses", even though we have admins who will issue an instant indef block for dotted quads, and admins who'll refuse to unblock. Having written all this screed I'll finish by agreeing with you - I can see how general principles (Don't be confusing) is better than trying to nail specifics (don't be confusing by doing X,Y,Z). But I will add that you'll need admins who can explain why a username is confusing. Kind Regards. Hurr87.113.86.207durr (talk) 00:31, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

not disruptive

I brought the subject on ANI. Except for me, there was 100% consensus for not blocking and to bring it to UAA.

I then brought it to UAA, like I was told to. At UAA, the report was removed citing that the accounts were old. I put it back at UAA and an administrator did the same thing, removing it citing that the accounts were old.

There is then 100% consensus that old name are not blocked. This is not disruptive unless you say that all the other administrators who agreed are all disruptive.

I now do not seek that these accounts be blocked. This is not disruption. I then wrote down what all the other administrators were saying so this is not disruption. By writing it, it becomes known to all. Starting from this second, it IS disruptive if someone blocks names that are old and questionable. Acme Plumbing (talk) 03:12, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I think I understand it now. A stale account is inactive, therefore, it shouldn't be blocked. However, if the name was inappropriate now, it was inappropriate before. It's just the user was sneaky enough. Policy should be written out. That's why Misplaced Pages is so strange. When someone wants to write the policy out, it gets opposition. Yet, everyone agrees on the secret policy.

Now that I know one of the secret policies, I suppose I am in the know. Thank you for sort of explaining it. Acme Plumbing (talk) 01:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

		The Special Barnstar
		You clearly have the best interests of Misplaced Pages in mind. I greatly appreciate what you are giving to Misplaced Pages, and I wish more people would bring the level of sincerity and seriousness that you are offering us on a daily basis. Peace be with you. Pastor Theo (talk) 02:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

   GameShowKid – talk – evidence   02:06, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Calm down

I obviously made a mistake too. Do you really think I'd purposefully misinterpret things like that? Nja 10:00, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't think you would have purposefully done that. I shouldn't have responded in a way that implied you did. But if I can turn this around: why, may I ask, are you questioning the motives of Seicer and me? Do you think we have motives besides stopping newbies from being unnecessarily blocked? rspεεr (talk) 10:05, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't question either of your motives, but I do wonder why if someone was bored and concerned they avoided discussing the issue with me directly , particularly as none of his examples were after our discussion where I apologised and have been careful to do my best. Anyhow I plan to stay away from UAA for a while at this point as I certainly don't feel as though my contributions are valued there. There are admins who clear the queue there with ridiculous blocks of names that were non-blatant, yet I'm the biggest asshole of all apparently. Thus, I'll move on to more pressing areas. Nja 10:08, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if you acknowledged on your AN post that I too was mistaken and never meant to accuse Seicer of starting the poll itself. I have refactored my comments to take that into account, and being that no one else replied since then it stands to reason you're the only one who read my mistake. Nja 10:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Wheelwar

I blocked Bottracker for "Disruptive editing: refusal to discuss copyright issues and extreme personal attacks possibly driving another editor away" and you unblock him saying that "The two admins who blocked you were completely unjustified in doing so."? Exactly why did you decide to do this without having the courtesy of discussing it with me and also insulting me in this way? How was I completely unjustified? And why did you suggest I blocked him because of his username, which is what you've said. Dougweller (talk) 21:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I should add you've more or less told him he's done nothing wrong. Do you still think that's the case? The 'bot' bit is a red herring, please comment on his behavior, not the username thing. I'm off to bed now before I fall asleep at the keyboard, I was up far too early this morning. Dougweller (talk) 21:40, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

A question

Were you here when there was no UAA, and do you think it was less bitey back then because of that? -- Mentifisto 00:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I remember when there was no noticeboard. Then there was RFCN which helped considerably, but as a side effected resulted in a backlog of clear cut cases being reported. Then UAA came about and I think the sorting has gone fairly well since then. RFCN is only used occasionally as should be, the policy is not that hard to interpret, and most cases are handled through UAA. I think any problem with biteyness is more a result of individual administrative discretion, not a problem with the process, noticeboards or the policy.

I have noticed some contention regarding what the content of the username policy should be, but I think consensus has settled that. Regarding biteyness, I think that the templates of undergone numerous passes to ensure they explain that they are welcome back under a more appropriate username. Chillum 00:24, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Generally speaking anyone I post at UAA is invariably someone trying to use this place as a free advertisement billboard. Anyone I post usually deserves deletion. HalfShadow 00:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Interesting question! I was here when there was no UAA, and even no RFC/N, but it was because the job was being done entirely by a handful of admins. The most active one -- I should really remember his name but I don't -- was basically running an unapproved semi-automated block-bot; it would basically block people based on criteria like the current UAA bots use to report people, and to be extra unhelpful it would leave the block message of "user...". Eventually, that guy had so many bad blocks catch up with him that he resigned.

That's probably a good indication that a process like UAA has its place, but what happens there can make all the difference.

In April 2008, incidentally, I wrote a summary of username policy and UAA-related changes from my point of view, going back to the creation of UAA. One take-away message from that is: UAA has gotten way, way, way better since 2007. We were probably losing many more newbies to it then than we are now. But you can still find newbies who have clearly had a crappy Misplaced Pages experience through not much fault of their own, especially if you look off Misplaced Pages, where they're blogging about how intolerant WP is. Now, when our supply of new users is dwindling for whatever reason, we have to try to do better. rspεεr (talk) 08:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

BTW: I just checked my facts, and they were kinda wrong. The person running the block-bot was Curps. And although he left Misplaced Pages shortly after he stopped running his bot, I don't think he ever had his adminship removed. In fact, when it was revealed publicly that he was running a semi-automated admin-bot which blocked people and left the summary of "user...", what he got was an outpouring of support. Sometimes I can't make any sense of the way Misplaced Pages worked three years ago. rspεεr (talk) 07:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Bottracker

Per the conversation on WP:AN, can I ask why you believe the copyright problem accusations were false? I remember looking at this user's uploads at the time and certainly many of the images were lifted from other websites - i.e. File:Rhian3.jpg was copied from the artist's MTV bio page!. Given that many of the uploads were clearly copyvios, and most of the images were of professional quality, the obvious indication would be that they all were. Black Kite 20:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Because I hadn't done that much sleuthing. What I had seen were the images of Ghanaian food which could plausibly have been taken by Bottracker. rspεεr (talk) 23:07, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the food and clothing ones are more dubious, but I remember finding two of them on different user's Flickr pages, suggesting that the user had trawled the web for suitable images. The fact that none of the images had any metadata, and were quite small and randomly sized also led to the conclusion that they were copyvios. Having said that, I think your new unblock message is a good compromise. Regards, Black Kite 23:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Name blocks

The Cusata thing was a mistake; don't know how it happened, but I've reversed it and left a COI message instead. The "Smug" name was an s.p.a. whose only purpose was to publicize the movie Smuggler so to me a spamusername block was appropriate. I appreciate the thought you put into this process. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:16, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: I'd like to unblock User:Andi 3ö

I have replied to your query at my talk page. CIreland (talk) 23:34, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for unblocking me...seems you forgot to fix the template on my page accordingly. Thanx, Andi 3ö (talk) 10:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Please undo your deletion

When you made this edit you deleted comments by another user. Please revert your edit and then make your comments again, this time without blanking the other editor's comments. - Nick Thorne 06:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

It's restored now. I have no idea why it didn't give me an edit conflict. rspεεr (talk) 07:17, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Irbisgreif (talk) 08:21, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Account Advice

Thank you showing mercy on a newbie like me to the Wiki world. I really appreciate it! Question: I followed some advice to start a new account with a new user name and now a different person told me that it would be better to keep the original account. What is the correct thing to do? DonnaKP 03:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SAT1932CU (talk • contribs)

Question about your decline of the User:Dskfgjfdskfkg report at UAA

Hello. I would like to know why you labeled that report as "clearly invalid." I probably should have worded the report in a different way, but I still believe that the username in question was blatantly disruptive for the following two reasons: (1) it consisted of a nonsense string of characters that can be quite annoying to look at, and (2) the user in question has a vandalism-only contribution history. Although I agree that a confusing username that lacks a contribution history wouldn't be considered a blatant violation of the username policy, I have seen several confusing usernames that were indefinitely blocked and marked as violations of username policy after they were used to make a few vandalism edits (and such users weren't even given final warnings). SoCalSuperEagle (talk) 04:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Upon first glance I determined this account should be blocked and have done so. Chillum 04:28, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

SoCalSuperEagle, when are you finding these frequent examples of people blocking vandals for "confusing usernames" instead of vandalism? Are these examples from a year or more ago? I would hope that's not particularly common anymore. The username policy is quite clear that "confusing username" is not a reason to block someone. Besides that, common sense says you should care much more about the vandalism than whether you can spell their username off the top of your head.

Chillum correctly blocked the user as a "vandalism-only account". Thank you for that. SoCalSuperEagle, in the future, report vandalism to WP:AIV instead of WP:UAA, and I admit I could have been more helpful by moving the report there myself. rspεεr (talk) 03:25, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Usernames

(replying to User talk:Closedmouth/Archive 14#Block review of User:Lolpwndurass) Hey, sorry for not getting back to you before this, I've had an insane couple of weeks IRL and Misplaced Pages's consequently been very low on my list of priorities. Anyway, on the issue at hand, I still feel that each of the blocks you've mentioned were and are legitimate blocks, although I suppose some of the details could have been different. I don't know why you think "Lolpwndurass" isn't an obvious instablock, it seems fairly blatant to me, but feel free to convince me otherwise. "General Secretary of the Soviet Union" was blocked as a misleading and confusing name; probably a slight overreaction, but he went on to create GSSU (talk · contribs) so I guess that's a moot point. I don't know why I hard blocked "Spamolotzzzz", seems kinda harsh in retrospect, but I would still probably block that as a disruptive username. Erm, well, anyway, it's getting late and I can't think what else to write. Have fun ripping me a new asshole. --Closedmouth (talk) 16:37, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank You

Dear Rspeer, I took your class at ESP (Spark!) last spring, and I wanted to thank you. You got me involved in Misplaced Pages, allowing me to be bold, welcome new users, learn WikiMarkup, and patrol new pages. Most importantly, I learned about the processes and notice boards, such as AfD, the Village Pump, and RfA; that make Misplaced Pages run. Your class was very helpful, and I encourage you to teach it again, in the hopes of creating more productive editors. (Feel free to respond on my talk page.) Gosox5555 (talk) 01:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank You very much

Thank you very much for “fighting” for me I greatly appreciate it. I read the discussion from the link you sent me it seemed like the editor Dougweller was still bent on claiming that my account should remainded blocked because of copyright violations. I have a question for you did they tell you who “owned” the pictures I uploaded? Because if they claim they weren’t mine they had to be someones right? As I read the discussions between you. I had just one that wasn't mine and I marked it as that ALL the rest were my own The one that wasn't mine was not from MTV as the editor above claimed. It was from the artists website and THEY GAVE FULL PERMISION for it to be used as long as they got credit and I marked it as such. I do not belive for a split second that my indefinite block was based on these so called copyright violations. It all started when an editor Polly asked Dougweller to block be clamming that MY pictures were not mine and he didn’t want me to have the "opportunity to download more picture". Then Polly came back claiming I had left some “aggressive comments on another editors page User:Daisy1213" this same editor had been sending me rude messages but that wasn’t considered. Daisy also left a message on her talk page telling people if they don’t like her edits they should take it up with Dougweller. How ironic . The message Polly left Dougweller is right here on his talk page]. I saw over and over again that Dougweller did not like that you said an apology should be issued to me. I guess that would be admitting that he is wrong and what he did was in fact cowardly. He has had a long list of unjustified blocks, I was just one of them. Once again I thank you for fighting for me, but I am disgusted with the admistrator power abuse on Misplaced Pages and people like Dougweller make me not want to be a part of wikipedia any longer. Take care Bottracker (talk) 23:57, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Once again and for the record, your original block was for copyright violation. Your uploads were reviewed by an Administrator User:Black Kite, with a great deal of experience in this area and he agreed with me. The unblock was done under the misunderstanding that you'd been blocked for your username and I objected to an apology made thinking I'd blocked you for your username. (rspεεr, your recent comment on this editor's talk page calls it a username block - it was the reset of the block for abusing his talk page that mentioned username, my original block had nothing to do with his username). There was no reason for me to owe you an apology for a username block as that wasn't the reason for my block. I'm disappointed that instead of admitting that perhaps you don't understand our copyright policy and trying to find out how you can insure that your uploads are within our policy you instead call me names. I know you won't believe me, but if I was ever wrong about a block I'd apologise. And all you needed to do to get me to unblock you originally was to say "I didn't think I'd made any copyright violations and if I did, I'm sorry, what do I need to do to make sure this doesn't happen again" and also a commitment not to make personal attacks. It would have been that easy.

rspεεr, best of luck in this argument you are having about UAA. I hope it gets resolved amicably. Dougweller (talk) 07:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I kind of doubt Bottracker is still listening here. Anyway, yeah, I hope none of this comes across as a slight to you, Dougweller, just because the circumstances made me want to give Bottracker a second chance. I have since recognized that you were in the right when you placed that first block. I only entered the situation after Nja247 placed his username + other stuff block. rspεεr (talk) 07:20, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree, he probably isn't. But just in case and in case anyone else reads it I wouldn't want them to think Bottracker was correct. I take no offense at all. Dougweller (talk) 14:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Alert

Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Desiphral/Archive

You raised concern about this user in the past. What do you think can be done about this matter? Triplestop x3 02:39, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Your UAA claims

At the IMatthew RfA, you either made problematic claims about UAA or claims that show a lack of understanding our policies.

1. "Don't fight religious battles on UAA. Ever." - It is clear IMatthew stated that the contribs would be needed to see if this user name was going around and existing only as an attack name. This is very important and something that is checked, as the two matter. UAA makes this 100% clear - "Any block issued as a result of a user's behaviour may take their username into account, if it is part of the problem". Thus, your statement above goes against UAA standards.

2. "Take it quickly off of UAA instead of drawing unnecessary attention to the identity of someone under 13. Talk to the user privately, with the goal of getting the username changed." Patently false. We do not know they are underage. This could be a year that is used as a graduation date, as many people do just this. As such, you would need to discuss with the individual directly and point out the naming policy in such a situation. It might also require discussions with oversiters and the rest if it is a child. However, you are putting forth an assumption that cannot be made, and is a blanket statement that could damage someone.

3. "A vandal? There is no reason to assume bad faith because someone repeats letters in their name. IMatthew is recommending the awful practice of username-blocking people who don't violate the username policy because they might be vandals... instead of simply vandalism-blocking people who vandalize." See above of the quote from UAA. It is very clear about this issue, which contradicts your statement.

4. "Wikimedia is a global project with global usernames. Putting someone's name on UAA just because it's in Thai is unkind and unhelpful. Take that report off unless the reporter has believably said that the name is offensive/disruptive in Thai." A reporter cannot be deemed as a trusted individual, hence why you would talk to an admin with language skills. Furthermore, this makes it clear that users with non-Latin based characters in their name should be recommended not to use such names on English wiki, as many people have computers that cannot read them. I, being one of those people, have had lots of problems trying to respond to people with foreign characters in their name. This is something UAA deals with.

As such, I think your answers show a lack of insight in UAA and show an immediate demand for a response that is problematic. I hope that you do not follow in your own claims, especially with your refusal to discuss matters before acting in any way. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I think a possible resolution here is that RSpeer and IMatthew read the question differently; the question was "What administrative actions do you take", not "Do you issue a username block as a result of this UAA report". As far as I can tell, IMatthew gave very similar answers to what I would have said, although I would have been a little wordier, as follows:

1. Western nations are increasingly secular over time; non-Western nations are, in general, not. "God does not exist" is a statement I don't personally have a problem with, but Asians, Africans and South Americans often perceive the statement as racist, whether it is or not ... that is, they're hearing "Just about everyone in Asia, Africa and South America is delusional, ignorant or deceitful." I applaud IMatthew for picking up on that; I would also definitely look at the contribs and, depending on what I see, I might block them myself, or report them at AIV or COIN. OTOH, I also agree with RSpeer that UAA is not the place to make these kinds of judgments.

2. This is the first time I've ever heard someone recommend removing something from UAA on the theory that it would be dangerous to leave it up there, but I'll trust RSpeer if he says that happens. My instinct would be to leave reports up on UAA until consensus is reached on how to handle them. IMatthew didn't recommend a block but did think there was an issue to be dealt with, which I thought was exactly the right answer.

3. IMatthew said that repeating characters in the username was a clue that the person might be a vandal. Meaning, check the contribs, and report them to AIV or block them if they're a vandal. Seems like the right answer to me. But I understand RSpeer was reading the question differently.

4. WP:U says, "To avoid confusion and aid navigation, users with such usernames are encouraged to use Latin characters in their signature." I.e., we recommend against it, but it's not blockable. I thought IMatthew's answer was great; how can you know if it squares with our username policy if you can't read it? Don't respond to it, let someone who can read it respond to it. - Dank (push to talk) 19:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Just some more reason why Rspeer's rationales are problematic.

1. As an admin, he would be expected to look into the contribs of the name regardless, as the UAA process makes it clear that user names are to be checked along with their history. An admin who does not do such is acting irresponsibly. He did not say that he wouldn't remove it if there was no history of problems. However, there is no way to say to blatantly remove something from UAA, as you shouldn't really blatantly remove -anything- from UAA without looking first.

2. By removing it quickly like that would be to suggest that there was proof that this was a child. That would be inappropriate and you are supposed to deal with things quietly. Always check first and never make assumptions. Contribs, user pages, etc, should always be checked in addition to direct questioning. If it is a child, then they should be told how to create a new name to protect themselves. But to assume right off it is one would be inappropriate.

3. As I said for one, UAA always requires to check the contribs, so it is never the right answer to just remove things. Rspeer was very wrong in this, which would mean that he may remove many names from UAA that are vandals and these are not caught. This would show UAA failing in its purpose.

4. He seems to assume that the name is acceptable. This is never the case. An admin should never assume, especially with UAA. That is why I feel strong about his initial claims representing a possibly problematic interpretation of UAA, and that it should probably be checked to ensure that these problems that I show could come up are not. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Ottava Rima, I disagree with you entirely. A UAA report that is not based on the username policy creates no obligation for admins to hunt down what else the new user is "doing wrong". And none of these hypothetical reports are based on the username policy (except for the religious minefield of deeming #1 "offensive").

I have seen, too many times, some exceedingly minor "problems" with usernames used to justify hounding new users and jumping on whatever other minor missteps they may make. The UAA process gives people a defense of assuming bad faith and biting newbies. I will never stand for it.

When you say things like "blatantly remove something from UAA", you make it sound like it is UAA that needs to be protected and not users. UAA is an idiosyncratic process with its good and bad uses. Users are the future of our encyclopedia. Anyone who puts the bad uses of UAA -- you know, the ones that aren't in the username policy -- over the well-being of users, or even defers to the people who do, is not somebody I want to become an admin. rspεεr (talk) 20:34, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

"for admins to hunt down what else the new user is "doing wrong"." That is so unbelievably wrong. You are required to check the contribs in the reports. That is standard procedure. If you are unwilling to even glance at them, maybe you should find a new place to work in. Rspeer, I have no confidence in your ability as an admin, let alone work in UAA. I talk to a lot of people who work in UAA and I deal with them often. I am sure they will feel the same way. Your statements go against multiple policy and I fear for those who you deal with as there is an obvious gap that can only possibly damage this encyclopedia. If you are going to state the above and then push the issue upon others, that can only be a hazard to the process as a whole. I am disgusted by your response. I suggest you strike your claim immediately and admit the extreme wrong. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:46, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Also, for your information, I already proved that "not based on the username policy" is wrong when I clearly demonstrated that the foreign language name -was- in the username policy. The fact that you would then suggest that the questions didn't deal with them suggests that you don't -know- the username policy. This is something extremely troublesome for someone who wishes to work there. I hope that you will acknowledge the extreme problem in making such a blatantly wrong mistake. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:48, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

At some point you're going to have to back down and admit you're dead wrong on this one. Of course I know the username policy, and it says that:

1. Non-latin characters are never a reason to block. In fact, as the first sentence of the Non-English section says, "There is no requirement that usernames be in English."
2. UAA is for reporting names that there would be a reason to block.
3. When someone has non-Latin characters in their name, you may want to ask them nicely to make a signature that is more readable. rspεεr (talk) 21:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

More detailed responses on why I stand by these views:

1. I'm sorry, but no, you may not go fishing for a reason to block someone because of religious positions they express in their username. You may not do this to JesusSaves, or PraiseBeUntoAllah, or HareHareKrishnaKrishna, or GodDoesNotExist. This is particularly true because I know that the only ones to actually get this kind of scrutiny would be the ones who are distrusted minorities in English-speaking countries -- that is, Muslims and atheists. Now, if a user is disrupting something with religious trolling, then report that to an appropriate noticeboard. The fact that it's on UAA, though, shows that someone reported the user solely because they didn't like their name.
2. You're twisting my reasoning here. The only reason someone would report MikeArmstrong1997 to UAA is if they believed the user was under 13. You're certainly allowed to follow up on that belief, but I still believe that a one-on-one discussion is much more appropriate than a "HEY LOOK AT THE TWELVE-YEAR-OLD" argument on UAA.
3. IMatthew's response suggested that a user who repeated letters, despite that this is not a violation of the username policy, should get extra scrutiny from UAA because they might vandalize in the future. This manages to be a non-sequitur and assume bad faith at the same time, and is not the kind of reasoning I would like to see from an admin.
4. Likewise, just because you can't read someone's username, you shouldn't assume it says something awful. Now, if the UAA reporter tells you it says something awful, you should of course follow up on that -- maybe using Google Translate to verify. But if they don't, then it's the standard "oh noes a foreigner!" reflex that needs to be driven off of UAA with fire. Are you aware that, in the past, people have been blocked out of process solely for having foreign names? rspεεr (talk) 21:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Just so you know, the translation for คนพอใจ according to Google Translate is 'People Happy'. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 00:08, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Warning

Personal attacks means that I attack your person. I have only talked about your -words- and your -actions-. As such, a false claim of personal attack is a personal attack. This is your warning not to make such attacks again. If you cannot handle criticism of your misbehavior, do not make personal attacks as a response. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Isn't saying you made a personal attack a comment on your actions, too? Why not apply the same standards? Anyway, that's much less than your repeated, brazen statements that I don't know anything about the username policy and that I am "trolling".

You didn't follow up on my helpful hint, so here's the answer: I wrote the username policy, with the support of many other people and a wide consensus that apparently did not include you. Several times you have stated outright that it says the opposite of what it says. I removed your comment because this has gotten completely absurd, I am not interested in pursuing it any longer, and the best thing to do is to de-escalate. rspεεr (talk) 21:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

No, WP:NPA - Claims of personal attacks that are false -are- personal attack policy violations. Furthermore, you have made it clear that your stances above are soap boxed positions to protect "minorities" in violation of our guidelines and policies. It has been put up why you are wrong, and you suggest that you are right anyway to the point of trying to tank someone's RfA on the matter. This is not suitable practice for an admin, nor is it suitable practice for a user. I ask that you now put yourself up for recall. You have disrupted for no legitimate reason and this is a serious matter. As I have been informed, you have done this quite often at UAA to push your perspective that many others disagree with. If necessary, an RfC/U would have to go into effect. I am still waiting for you to strike your blatantly absurd comments above that have no legitimate place on Misplaced Pages. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:05, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Saying that I am "trolling" is a personal attack. I have absolutely no reason to comply with your absurd demands. Get off my talk page. rspεεr (talk) 22:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Trolling is a verb. NPA says to comment on -actions-. I find this telling that Dank contradicts each of your beliefs and puts up a stronger reason. It seems like you are constantly misconstruing our policies in a very bad manner. An RfC/U is definitely in order, especially with your behavior when being challenged - removing criticism in order to leave only your own statements, replacing it with personal attacks, and constantly misconstruing our policies. That is not how admin operate. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:15, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Um... read your link... I did the followup that Dank wanted. In the next edit, he agreed with my conclusion. What are you talking about? rspεεr (talk) 22:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Yea guys, come on get over it, back to your corners, agree to disagree, perhaps come back in a few days to discuss the finer points when you are both calmer. Off2riorob (talk) 22:12, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I am 100% calm. When I see an abusive admin, I follow standard procedures to remove them. Rspeer has made his misunderstanding and problematic pushing of false understandings of policies rather blatant. It is about time he is corrected. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:15, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

No, really, agree to disagree. We disagree over one policy. This does not preclude you from editing or me from being an admin. I'm trying to de-escalate, so do your part. rspεεr (talk) 22:17, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

You have stated that 1. your objective is to protect minorities, 2. that there are abuses that you are trying to right even though a policy says otherwise, 3. your actions at UAA have been to say things are acceptable when they aren't, 4 you have pushed those mistaken claims about UAA onto another in a problematic way, 5. you have personally attacked a critic and blanked criticism, and 6. you continue to act as if you are doing something acceptable. You are clearly unfit and you shouldn't be near UAA. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

My objective is to protect good-faith contributors. All of them. You must have misunderstood me, but we can put that misunderstanding behind us. I'm also trying to protect you from the damage this will do to your Wiki-reputation if you pursue this any further, by agreeing to disagree and de-escalating this conflict. rspεεr (talk) 22:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

"because I know that the only ones to actually get this kind of scrutiny would be the ones who are distrusted minorities in English" That is an extremely poor assumption of bad faith against this community. Your "objective" as an admin should merely to be neutral and to enforce both our policies and consensus. No more, no less. The fact that you don't believe that is why I will pursue an RfC/U. You cannot be held as fit to work in UAA until you acknowledge that your job is not to protect anyone or to promote any view, but to merely be an objective and neutral judge. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Do you know what "agree to disagree" and "de-escalate" mean? Do them. Or do you start an RFC/U against every single person you ever disagree with? rspεεr (talk) 22:42, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

When I come across an entrenched admin who wont admit they are wrong, shows a blatant misunderstanding of policy, refuses to apologize or to change their behaviors, and who many, many people in the area share the same concerns, then no, I don't stop from pursuing an RfC/U. I have a problem with anyone who disrespects our policies here, and it is worse when they are put into a position of power. You still think that what you claimed above is defensible? You admitted to not caring about our policies to help protect people against abusive racists. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:56, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what you're on about or what you hope to accomplish. Of course I care deeply about the policy, as I have for years. You've got some erroneous assumptions here that you haven't even revisited, and if you'd read and consider my responses, instead of just assuming I am evil incarnate, I think you'd realize how bad an idea your RfC/U would be. rspεεr (talk) 23:05, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

If you care deeply about policy, why did you just massively assume bad faith by claiming Wikipedians are racists and bigots above? That seems like a highly unacceptable comment that reveals a strong bias that is inappropriate for an administrator. That alone would be worthy of a desysop and yet you haven't apologized or admitted that it was in extremely poor taste. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:13, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, you introduced "racism" and "bigotry" to this conversation, not me, but now I'm curious what you could possibly mean. Do you think there are no racists or bigots on Misplaced Pages, or do you think I am biased against racism and bigotry? If it's the first, you're blind, but if it's the second, I will let your point stand. I, rspeer, am thoroughly biased against racism and bigotry. "Protecting users against abusive racists", as you put it, actually sounds like a great idea to me. Are you sure this is a battle you want to be fighting? rspεεr (talk) 04:14, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I never introduced bigotry or racism. You did with this bad faith accusation against all of Wiki - "I know that the only ones to actually get this kind of scrutiny would be the ones who are distrusted minorities in English". Such things are a blockable offense and show a soap boxing that is really bad. ArbCom has desysopped such people with such beliefs who then use admin tools to further such agendas. You are making up racists and bigots to push a view that is not your right to push. Ottava Rima (talk) 12:53, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

re vandal-only account Youtubepoop333

Apologies if you feel that the intention with Youtubepoop333 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was to "trump your decision", this was misconstrued, that was not my attempt. The user is clearly both a vandal-only account and an improper choice of username for that vandal-only account. Hope we can both move on and in the future interact amicably, politely and constructively in dialogue. Cheers, Cirt (talk) 19:04, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep, we're cool. For what it's worth, I just blocked his second incarnation, User:Pooptubeyoup. My newbie-hugging side was interested in offering a second chance, but he sure doesn't get a third. rspεεr (talk) 02:07, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Picoplatin

No objection ... I guess I have an itchy trigger finger when someone creates an article whose title is the same as the author's username. Blueboy96 13:41, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Voting System FAR

I have nominated Voting system for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Feinoha 20:58, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

thank you

thank you so much for unblocking me. regards--Orangesodakid 13:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

thank you for beleaving my inocence in that misunderstanding, here is a barnstar.

		"The thank you for saveing me Barnstar" Barnstar
		for saveing me during that big misunderstanding--Orangesodakid 18:02, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

regards--Orangesodakid 18:02, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

How you drove a longtime editor away from Misplaced Pages

Rspeer, your actions resulted in driving me away from Misplaced Pages for ten weeks. I hope that writing to you, making you aware of what you've done, may prevent you from doing the same to others.

In August, I was reading WP:AN and I followed a link which you had posted there. I was shocked to discover that it was a note in which you had vilified me yet again.

I knew that you had previously posted similar sentiments to the relatively private venues of my and another admin's user talk pages, but now you exposed me to the ridicule of all of Misplaced Pages by posting the link in such a public forum. I usually follow such links to get the proper context, and I assume that most people usually do this also. I realize that it was not your intention to publicly embarrass me at that time, but that was the effect.

I was just heartsick. I quietly left Misplaced Pages, and haven't been back until I finally decided that you need to know the devastating effects of your wanton disregard for peoples' feelings (and for the truth). Ten weeks may not seem like a long time away from WP for some people, but for me it is. In the most recent WP:List of Wikipedians by number of recent edits, I ranked as the 47th most active non-bot user and the 30th most active non-bot, non-admin user.

I don't like bringing all of this up after I accepted your apology, but when I did so, I was not aware of the extent of your smear campaign against me, in which you had also maligned me on a second admin's talk page (and who knows where else?), and you hadn't yet linked to that disparagement on the very public AN forum. It has kept me from Misplaced Pages for over two months, and if I didn't clear the air, I would probably never return.

And I did forgive you too easily. I don't think you realize the magnitude of your transgression. I've been here for over four and a half years and have made over 48,000 contributions. I've created a few articles and made minor improvements to visual arts articles, but my work has mostly been Wikignoming and fighting vandalism. It's the kind of minor stuff which doesn't generate a lot of attention, but I wasn't seeking any attention. I just felt that this work, though minor, was important, and that was reward enough. Still, it was fulfilling when an admin gave me a barnstar. Your ridiculing him for this, telling him that I didn't deserve it, was one of the most petty, shameful, mean-spirited things I've ever seen. It was absolutely disheartening, and I haven't been back to WP:UAA since.

I know that I'm not the only person you've driven away from UAA.

You wrote about me: "When someone has such a large number of UAA reports declined as being unsupported by the username policy, it indicates to me that they are using the process irresponsibly."

Saying that I've had "a large number of UAA reports declined" is unequivocally false. According to the namespace edit counter, I've made 153 edits to WP:Usernames for administrator attention. Some of those are comments or clarifications, but most are my reports. I know that only about three have been declined, because I always returned to check the status of my reports. This was to ensure that my reports were valid. If, as you falsely claim, a large number had been declined, I would have noticed and I would have changed my behavior accordingly or asked for clarification as to why they were declined.

One that was declined was one I normally wouldn't have reported, but I did so because I apparently misinterpreted advice which I had received from a bureaucrat. Another one was declined because of your input, but likely would have been blocked otherwise (see my comments); after you posted this one as an example (WT:Username policy/Archive 14#Adding an example of how not to deal with promotional usernames), and saw the responses from respected and reasonable admins, you even admitted "I could be swayed."

You wrote "... you didn't decline Mandarax's report as being invalid, and I believe you went after them just because Mandarax (who appears to be quite prolific at dubious username reports) listed them on UAA."

How could the fact that the report was made by me rather than any other user possibly be relevant enough to justify dragging me into this? It appears that you were just on a crusade against me and couldn't resist the opportunity to sling some mud at me.

If you truly believe that I'm "quite prolific at dubious username reports", how do you explain the fact that virtually all of my reports resulted in blocks? Are you saying that you're right and the other distinguished admins who blocked users named in my "dubious" reports were wrong? Among them are: Stephen, Dank, Edgar181, King of Hearts, Chillum, Nihonjoe, Orangemike, Bubba hotep, Shereth, Juliancolton, Cirt, Od Mishehu, Bongwarrior, Daniel Case, Gogo Dodo, EVula, DragonflySixtyseven, J.delanoy, Tnxman307, Closedmouth, and many more. If you feel that these admins have made bad blocks, it should be brought up with them, without dragging me into it. How dare you castigate me, a conscientious regular user, for making good-faith reports which have resulted in usernames being blocked by dozens of admins who obviously agree that my reports are consistent with the username policy? I've watched UAA enough to see many reports by others declined, and I almost always agree with those declines. So when I see my reports consistently result in blocks time after time, I can only conclude that I'm doing something right. Responsible UAA reporters such as myself take cues from admins in seeing how they block or decline.

But whether you agree with my reports or not is quite irrelevant. What's important here is the shabby way you treated me.

Your user page mentions at length the need to nurture newbies to keep them here. I'm curious, what is the cutoff point, when users turn from newbies in need of nurturing and protection, to regular users who can be treated with disrespect and disdain? In one mild example, you included superfluous negative comments about another admin on your talk page. When he complained, you replied "it's true that clause was unnecessary, and I had no reason to drag you into this description" and you removed the offending thread. I'm afraid that you think you can do any outrageous thing you want, and if you get called on it, you can just apologize and everything's okay. It's not. Again, I appreciate your earlier apologies, but when I encountered the disparagement which I had previously been unaware of, it just stirred everything up again. I figured that maybe if you're made aware of the full extent of the effect your comments have had on me, you'll be more careful with others in the future.

I've taken plenty of abuse from vandals who were upset about my attempts to thwart them, and that's to be expected. But I never thought I would be subjected to unprovoked and unwarranted comments that felt like attacks from an administrator whose single-minded interest in pushing his agenda at all costs is apparently all that matters.

You have made me feel very unwelcome and very unappreciated.

Am I overreacting and being oversensitive? Maybe. But whenever I considered returning, all I could think about was how you portrayed me as an irresponsible user. I figured, why bother? Nobody's going to take me seriously any more. Your negative comments about me may not seem like much to some people, but they were just completely disheartening to me. Now that I've had time to recover from the sting of you badmouthing me, I know that I'd never let something like this keep me away from Misplaced Pages again, but you need to know about this so you don't go around alienating and driving away any other productive, constructive contributors. It was nice to see that in my absence I'd received a note from Amalthea (an admin with whom I've previously had minimal contact) who had somehow noticed that I'd disappeared, expressed concern, and said "I sure hope you'll be back eventually!" It was good to know that somebody seemed to value my contributions. But I still felt that I couldn't continue editing without clearing my name and letting you know about the consequences of your actions.

Hopefully this is not a case of WP:TLDR, as I feel these are things you need to hear. In any case, they were absolutely things I had to say.

On your user page, you say that a "welcoming environment is something that has to be sustained by everyone". Please try to remember that this should apply to all users, not just the newbies.

Note — I considered posting a link to this on AN, where you posted the link which originally started all of this, so that people who had followed that link and saw your note would have the opportunity to get my side of the story. But I realize that would have the effect of embarrassing you more than just clearing my name, and that is not my intention. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:02, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I wish you would accept my original apology, because my negative comments toward you were all part of the same incident. Everyone makes mistakes in the way they apply processes, and while I try to focus on preventing the kind of mistakes that result in new, good-faith contributors being blocked, I occasionally make some where I get the wrong "big picture" about what someone is up to. When I looked at your history and saw some blocks I thought were inappropriate and some that were declined, I assumed you were the typical person using UAA to bounce away newbies that they didn't like the look of.

I hope you can understand that after those hasty, regrettable comments I made about you, I did not continue "smearing" you. It certainly put me in my place to be talked down from those comments by Pastor Theo. Look at that in retrospect. I was talking to a sockpuppet of a banned user, and he was the reasonable one in the conversation. Not my finest hour!

I talked to Nja about Zz022 at the same time I talked to you about it. The later discussion on AN was entirely about Nja247, not about you, and I had no intention to drag you into it, so I didn't use your name or make any reference to who had originally requested the block. By then, I had already noticed that most of your block requests were perfectly reasonable. But I still disagreed over Zz022. (I still disagree strongly that using the same username on Blogspot and on Misplaced Pages is cause for a username block, but I understand why the resulting URL would have been a red flag for you when you're looking for blatant spammers.) So I felt it was relevant to add my experience of discussing Zz022 with Nja247, when an AN thread appeared about him making inappropriate username blocks.

As far as I can tell, you name has been cleared in all venues where I maligned you, and (perhaps due to my overaggressiveness) opinions have solidified more around your interpretation of the promotional username clause than mine. Let me know if there's anything else I need to do to set things straight. Feedback is important on all sides of the new-user debate, so I will take my massive mistake here into account in the future, and hopefully I will not once more get so passionate about protecting newbies that I unjustly attack an established contributor. rspεεr (talk) 21:44, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your sincere apology. I truly regretted bringing all of this up after you'd already apologized for part of it, but I just felt that I had to get it all out before I could move on.

I want you to know that I hold absolutely no ill will towards you. I know that you have the best interests of Misplaced Pages in mind, and I wish you the best in your endeavors here and elsewhere.

BTW, I agree with you about nurturing newbies. For example, when I come across constructive edits by users with red talk links, I welcome them, whether they're registered or IPs. And after I revert newbie vandalism, if it's not extremely blatant, I often issue a friendlier "test" warning rather than a harsher "vandalism" warning. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 00:36, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Rjanag Conduct RfC

A Request for Comments has been opened concerning the conduct of Rjanag. This follows the suggestion of a number of arbitrators at the Rjanag RfA. I am contacting you because you previously participated in one of the underlying referenced AN/Is.

The RfC can be found here.

Editors (including those who certify the RfC) can offer comments by:

(a) posting their own view; and/or

(b) endorsing one or more views of others.

You may certify or endorse the original RfC statement. You may also endorse as many views as you wish, including Rjanag's response. Anyone can endorse any views, regardless of whether they are outside parties or inside parties.

Information on the RfC process can be found at:

1. RfC Conduct
2. RfC Guide
3. RfC Guide 2
4. RfC Rules

Thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:01, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in SecurePoll feedback and workshop

As you participated in the recent Audit Subcommittee election, or in one of two requests for comment that relate to the use of SecurePoll for elections on this project, you are invited to participate in the SecurePoll feedback and workshop. Your comments, suggestions and observations are welcome.

For the Arbitration Committee,
Risker (talk) 08:32, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Neutral, Abstain, no selection etc

Thanks for asking What's supposed to be the difference?. Now that we have all aired our opinions, are you still of the same mind? Either way, please come back and join the discussion. - Pointillist (talk) 22:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Unblock request from User_talk:Jackie_JP

On the subject of the unblock request from Jackie JP, I have seen that User:Rhode Island Red asked her to provide evidence of her status as a Juice Plus employee at 16:11 on 8 Nov. diff, and then raised the SPI on her on the same day at 23:54diff, claiming that she had not provided any evidence. This seems like unreasonable haste by Rhode Island Red.

I have placed this message on User_talk:MuZeMike too. As you will have seen in her unblock request, she provided her email address on her user page on 12 Nov, but this was unfortunately removed when she was blocked. I have asked MuZeMike to reinstate this (i.e. evidence of good faith). Thanks. --TraceyR (talk) 10:53, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Please see recent comments on this matter here. Rhode Island Red (talk) 16:44, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

(copied from User_talk:MuZeMike):This is getting rather Kafka-esque! First it is stated clearly (by you at User_talk:MuZeMike) that no evidence has been seen that I'm the same person as Julia Havey (which is correct - one doesn't need textual analysis software to see that); but then it is stated that we "of course" have the same COI! Weird! Since the assumption (for it is no more than this) of COI in my case originates with Rhode Island Red, maybe you are the wrong person to ask about it, but I do object most strongly to the uncritical way in which you take this assumption at face value! If I were to point out the many instances of apparent COI editing by Rhode Island Red (his agenda is plain to see and has often been remarked upon over the years, including by admin Shell Kinney), would you just as readily consider blocking him? Have allegations against me been made off-Wiki, of which I'm not aware? Is this where the reference to "multi-level marketing schemes" comes from? This is Alice-in-Wikiland! I have stated that I have no COI here; Rhode Island Red once claimed the same for himself. So why the assumption in my case? Let's have a level playing-field, please. I'll post this on Rspeer's talk page too, since this is where the COI assumption came from. --TraceyR (talk) 08:39, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Rhode Island Red:

He most certainly posted my (JH) HOME address on WikiPedia, see #17:

A Google search indicates that the Haveys (Julia and husband Patrick Havey, who jointly operate a Juice Plus distirbutor ship under the name of the the "Health and Wellness Institute") formerly resided in St. Louis Missouri up until about March of this year and then relocated to the Nashville, TN region (Brentwood, TN) sometime later this year. first. Rhode Island Red (talk) 23:54, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

This editor has a very serious obsession with me and it is unwarrented and needs to STOP. He insists it's a lie that he posted my HOME address yet here it is in black and white, irrefutable! Julia Havey —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.52.212.221 (talk) 01:28, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Shell commented that only negative comments exsist about Juice Plus and that is why the article slants that way, that isn't accurate. There is much positive published material about Juice Plus, many experts such as Fox News House Call w/ Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld who publically comment about it's merit,but RIR only allows negative content to stay on the article so one would assume there is only negative material if they were to rely on Misplaced Pages for their information. It isn't rocket science, it's fruit and vegetables nutrients incapsulated. They don't market it as anything more than that and certainly not as a replacement for eating the real thing. I can't tell you why RIR hates it so much, or hates me, clearly he does, but at this point, posting my home address, when I moved, that I moved....WHAT does that have to do with him? Wiki? or the article? He also said that NSA is here in Nashville, they are in Memphis. He said my ISP is the same as "socks" yet they are totally different numbers. He has crossed the line. I didn't make legal threats either, I said I would have my attorney look into the matter if he continues to mention my name in his rants. Certainly I should have some protection under the laws of privacy. There is NO reason for him to have posted my residence on this site. NONE. And to lie about it? Explain that one to me if you can? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.52.212.221 (talk) 01:37, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

My RfA

Thanks for clarifying that point about username blocks. I'd scanned past the bit about 'casual use' of religious words in that guideline on offensive words, and you're absolutely right that a block on those grounds wouldn't be justified. Don't worry, I'm not going to go all trigger-happy on users who have 'God' or 'Jesus' in their username. Fences&Windows 22:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Timsort visualization

When generating the content as it is right now I tried setting it up so you can see the flip happening, but the dataset of 64 elements is too big to be properly compressed into a single meaningful image similar to the size of the current on. So unless the height of the image becomes something like 2, maybe even 3 times larger, then it can be done. That said, I'd rather have it set up the way it is now instead of doing that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crashmatrix (talk • contribs) 17:00, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom election bots

Yo Rspeer, Skomorokh from the ArbCom election coordinators here. You indicated that you might be able to help with some automated tasks in the election, so I wonder if you could take a look at this bot request. Regards,  Skomorokh  01:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

SPI Followup

As a principal in the past SPI related to user JuliaHavey, you might want to check the followup SPI report filed today. Thank you. Rhode Island Red (talk) 02:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Jackie JP

Thanks for responding on Jackie JP's talk page to my background to her recent sock puppet block. In the interests of Misplaced Pages I hope that this situation will soon be rectified.

I would just like to query the comment you made there that "nobody with a conflict of interest in promoting Juice Plus would be allowed to edit anything surrounding Juice Plus in this environment, so you would be welcome to edit, but only on unrelated topics." Surely this is not accurate. The "in a nutshell" summary of the COI page states "Do not edit Misplaced Pages to promote your own interests, or those of other individuals or of organizations, including employers, unless you are certain that a neutral editor would agree that your edits are in the best interest of Misplaced Pages." (my emphasis).

In other words, anyone (even someone with a COI) is permitted to edit in a neutral fashion. I appreciate that it might be hard in the current environment for any edit to be considered neutral. Is this what you mean by "in this environment"? If so, it is the environment which is the problem, not the neutral edit!

Whatever, the COI summary is clear that a COI per se does not prevent an editor from making neutral edits, such as providing an up-to-date product image (something explicitly permitted on the COI page). No neutral editor would consider adding an up-to-date product image to be "promoting Juice Plus". So perhaps it depends upon (1) the definition of "neutral" and (2) who decides on that definition here. Thanks for reading this! --TraceyR (talk) 16:42, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It's quite straightforward, though you may not like the conclusion. WP:COI tells you how to make benign COI edits. There is no way to make a benign COI edit to Juice Plus while there are sockpuppets disguising their identities and trying to bias the article. Controversial articles are off limits to editors with a clear conflict of interest. rspεεr (talk) 18:16, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Rspeer, I was wondering if I'm allowed to remove the sock puppet box on my User Page since the block has been removed or am I required to leave it up? Thanks. Jackie JP (talk) 17:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

That certainly wasn't supposed to be there anymore. I've removed it. But thanks for asking. rspεεr (talk) 00:34, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Jackie JP (talk) 14:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Re:UAA report

I am apologizing. I never knowing that user. It just my mistake. The Junk Police (reports|works) 01:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Talkback

Policy Report

The community gave feedback on a couple of policy pages at WT:SOCK#Interview for Signpost and WT:CIVILITY#Policy Report for Signpost, and there will be another one in Monday's Signpost that we're putting together at WT:Username policy#Signpost Policy Report. I'm leaving you a message because you've made a recent comment on that talk page. If you want the "short version", I've suggested some questions at WT:U#Questions, but I'm hoping that sometime in the near future I won't have to suggest questions, because people will understand how this works from looking at the previous surveys. If you have questions, feel free to ask at WT:Username policy#Signpost Policy Report or my talk page. Thanks for your time. - Dank (push to talk) 16:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

RSElectionBot

When you get a chance, could you turn off User:RSElectionBot, or stop it from updating the timestamp on the voter log. Cheers, and thanks for running the bot. --John Vandenberg 04:53, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Done. rspεεr (talk) 05:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Notification: Proposed 'Motion to Close' at Misplaced Pages:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC

You are invited to join the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC re: a 'Motion to close', which would dissolve Cda as a proposal. The motion includes an !vote. You have previously commented at this page. Jusdafax 07:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Ping

I have sent you an e-mail. --Tenmei (talk) 05:03, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your time and curiosity. As a gesture of appreciation, may I share a rhetorical question from the Analects of Confucius: "Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?" --Tenmei (talk) 16:32, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Ping: I sent an e-mail detailing a plan. I wonder if critical commentary might be within the ambit of your expertise and interests? --Tenmei (talk) 07:04, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Community de-Adminship - finalization poll for the CDA proposal

After tolling up the votes in the revision proposals, it emerged that 5.4 had the most support, but elements of that support remained unclear, and various comments throughout the polls needed consideration.

A finalisation poll (intended, if possible, to be one last poll before finalising the CDA proposal) has been run to;

• gather opinion on the 'consensus margin' (what percentages, if any, have the most support) and

• ascertain whether there is support for a 'two-phase' poll at the eventual RfC (not far off now), where CDA will finally be put to the community. Matt Lewis (talk) 01:03, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

RfC on Community de-adminship

You are receiving this message because you contributed to Misplaced Pages talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC and have not participated at Misplaced Pages:Community de-adminship/RfC or been directly informed this RfC has opened. Please accept my apologies if you have been informed of and/or participated in the RfC already.

This RfC has opened and your comments are welcome and encouraged. Please visit Misplaced Pages:Community de-adminship/RfC. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 16:15, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Pure wiki deletion

Hi Rspeer, I just wanted to let you know that I implemented WP:PWD as an extension. The prototype is here. Being new to PHP, I didn't know how to escape my output at first, but I just put in some htmlentities calls in there so hopefully that will take care of the security issues. Thank you for submitting the bug; that provided useful guidance in implementing it. Tisane (talk) 18:20, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. To be sure, there is still a to do list that needs to be addressed at some point but the basic functionality is there. Tisane (talk) 08:49, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Another useful extension, if you find yourself borrowing content a lot from Misplaced Pages, or putting in a lot of interwiki links to Misplaced Pages, is the RPED extension. That one, however, depends upon having a reasonably up-to-date list of Misplaced Pages page titles, e.g. all-titles-in-ns0.gz. A demonstration wiki is worth 1,000 words, so check out http://rped.org/RPED:Sandbox . All wikilinks use the regular format, i.e., double brackets, but if an article exists on the local wiki, the wikilink turns green; if it exists on Misplaced Pages but not the local wiki, it turns blue. Otherwise, it turns red. Tisane (talk) 09:19, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Socratic Barnstar
		For your level-headed approach to username policy, which has done a great deal to help make Misplaced Pages a more welcoming place. --Bongwarrior (talk) 06:23, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Part II

I notice that in Part II you noticed how deeply AFD sucks. That seems to be pretty standard. If users run into it in Part I, they often just don't bother to come back; but on the other hand, it doesn't take too terribly long to discover the awful truth. By that point, though, you're already wiki-addicted. Tisane (talk) 08:51, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Voting system

Please moderate in a dispute between Homunq and me. Homunq added the claim that Bucklin voting satisfies Condorcet loser, independence of irrelevant alternatives, and independence of clones (diff). I corrected those claims (diff). Homunq re-inserted those claims (diff). Here is the discussion. Markus Schulze 20:51, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Review

Hello friend this is user:bottracker I have been blocked indefinately with recieving any pior warnings for trying to prevent the removal of content in the article cinema of nigeria because the user who started the edit war created a false case aganist me on ANI I trust you judgement so please review this and if you belive my block was done according to wikipedia policies and was justified I will accept it and stay away from wikipedia. Thank you Bottracker —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.87.50 (talk) 14:36, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Cleanup-meta

Template:Cleanup-meta has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. — This, that, and the other (talk) 09:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Timsort

The article Timsort has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

The page does not clearly describe the algorithm.

And this algorithm does not seem to exist in any algorithm related book.

While all contributions to Misplaced Pages are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Kletos (talk) 23:04, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

MSU Interview

Dear Rspeer,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Misplaced Pages administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the communityHERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

• Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
• Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
• All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
• All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
• The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your nameHERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 35.9.34.167 (talk) 20:55, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary

Thank you

Thank you for you help and sorry for such a late reply. I will put my name in Roman on my user page so that any one can know it how to read. Thanks again. --سمرقندی (Samarqandi) (talk) 07:19, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

File:Corporate ballot.svg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Corporate ballot.svg, has been listed at Misplaced Pages:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Kelly 04:33, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment

Hello there, a proposal regarding pre-adminship review has been raised at Village pump by Anna Frodesiak. Your comments here is very much appreciated. Many thanks. Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:46, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

talp p.

I adjusted the placement of a comment of yours on my user talk because the indentation made it look as if you were replying to me, not the other party. It confused me for a bit. DGG ( talk ) 23:41, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Sentinels of the Multiverse merger discussion

You took place in a discussion in which the decision to merge the Sentinels Of The Multiverse article with that for the video game port was taken. We are attempting to discuss this merger on the videogame talk page, and are seeking input from the members involved in the discussion. If you would join us that would be appreciated, otherwise, thank you for your time. Aawood (talk) 12:39, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Help

Gday Rspeer, I see that you do a good job helping out new users, I have been a Wikipedian since 2006, I have been a bit inactive recently so I'm a bit rusty. Anyway it looks like they are taking away my user name on here and on commons and on meta simply because a user with only an account on Portuguese Misplaced Pages "won" the global account becouse they have 71 more edits then myself. I was hoping you could give me some guidance on how I could dispute this, it just seems to me be a proverbial "pissing contest" which I lost for not being active. If you are willing to help me I will give you more details later. Regards Beaver (talk) 00:14, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:48, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Rspeer. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

• Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
• A bot will post a notification at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Rspeer.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Rspeer. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. Mdann52 (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Rspeer. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. Mdann52 (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Notification of pending suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity

Following a community discussion in June 2011, consensus was reached to provisionally suspend the administrative permissions of users who have been inactive for one year (i.e. administrators who have not made any edits or logged actions in more than one year). As a result of this discussion, your administrative permissions will be removed pending your return if you do not return to activity within the next month. If you wish to have these permissions reinstated should this occur, please post to the Misplaced Pages:Bureaucrats' noticeboard and the userright will be restored per the re-sysopping process (i.e. as long as the attending bureaucrats are reasonably satisfied that your account has not been compromised, that your inactivity did not have the effect of evading scrutiny of any actions which might have led to sanctions, and that you have not been inactive for a three-year period of time). If you remain inactive for a three-year period of time, including the present year you have been inactive, you will need to request reinstatement at WP:RFA. This removal of access is procedural only, and not intended to reflect negatively upon you in any way. We wish you the best in future endeavors, and thank you for your past administrative efforts. MadmanBot (talk) 01:30, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

• Well, hello there, bot. I still do care about Misplaced Pages, and I think it's important to stick around as an admin who remembers the less bureaucratic Misplaced Pages of last decade. I'll try to remember to improve an article sometime soon. rspεεr (talk) 08:18, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

• A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Misplaced Pages talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
• Misplaced Pages:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
• Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.

Technical news

• When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
• Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Misplaced Pages, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
• The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.

Obituaries

• JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Misplaced Pages seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

13:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Footnotes (disambiguation) listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Misplaced Pages:Footnotes (disambiguation). Since you had some involvement with the Misplaced Pages:Footnotes (disambiguation) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Steel1943 (talk) 20:31, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red World Contest

Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Rspeer. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Notification of pending suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity

Following a community discussion in June 2011, consensus was reached to provisionally suspend the administrative permissions of users who have been inactive for one year (i.e. administrators who have not made any edits or logged actions in more than one year). As a result of this discussion, your administrative permissions will be removed pending your return if you do not return to activity within the next month. If you wish to have these permissions reinstated should this occur, please post to the Misplaced Pages:Bureaucrats' noticeboard and the userright will be restored per the re-sysopping process (i.e. as long as the attending bureaucrats are reasonably satisfied that your account has not been compromised, that your inactivity did not have the effect of evading scrutiny of any actions which might have led to sanctions, and that you have not been inactive for a three-year period of time). If you remain inactive for a three-year period of time, including the present year you have been inactive, you will need to request reinstatement at WP:RFA. This removal of access is procedural only, and not intended to reflect negatively upon you in any way. We wish you the best in future endeavors, and thank you for your past administrative efforts. — xaosflux 04:50, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Notification of imminent suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity

Following a community discussion in June 2011, consensus was reached to provisionally suspend the administrative permissions of users who have been inactive for one year (i.e. administrators who have not made any edits or logged actions in more than one year). As a result of this discussion, your administrative permissions will be removed pending your return if you do not return to activity within the next several days. If you wish to have these permissions reinstated should this occur, please post to the Misplaced Pages:Bureaucrats' noticeboard and the userright will be restored per the re-sysopping process (i.e. as long as the attending bureaucrats are reasonably satisfied that your account has not been compromised, that your inactivity did not have the effect of evading scrutiny of any actions which might have led to sanctions, and that you have not been inactive for a three-year period of time). If you remain inactive for a three-year period of time, including the present year you have been inactive, you will need to request reinstatement at WP:RFA. This removal of access is procedural only, and not intended to reflect negatively upon you in any way. We wish you the best in future endeavors, and thank you for your past administrative efforts. MadmanBot (talk) 01:30, 25 February 2018 (UTC)