User talk:Newyorkbrad/Archive/2017/Jan

Sigh...

Regarding this - You hope people get a clue after being warned but instead... As the user vandalized after being warned they would be blocked, I have blocked indefinitely. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:11, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@NeilN: Thanks for the update (and sorry I didn't respond earlier). I rarely fault anyone for extending AGF one step too far. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:56, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Holiday card

Wishing you a Charlie Russell Christmas, Newyorkbrad/Archive/2017!

"Here's hoping that the worst end of your trail is behind you That Dad Time be your friend from here to the end And sickness nor sorrow don't find you." —C.M. Russell, Christmas greeting 1926. Montanabw(talk) 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Sunday January 15: Wikipedia Day NYC Celebration and Mini-Conference

Sunday January 15: Wikipedia Day NYC 2017

You are invited to join us at Ace Hotel for Wikipedia Day NYC 2017, a Wikipedia celebration and mini-conference as part of the project's global 16th birthday festivities. In addition to the party, the event will be a participatory unconference, with plenary panels, lightning talks, and of course open space sessions. With special guests Katherine Maher of the Wikimedia Foundation and Tim Wu of Columbia Law School speaking on our Post-truth panel! Also featuring an International/Multilingual panel, a Documenting Activism panel, a Multimedia/Tech Panel, a Science panel, an Art panel, and more. And there will be cake. We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. Sunday January 15 Wikipedia Day NYC 2017 (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 10:00am - 7:00 pm at Ace Hotel, 20 West 29th Street in Manhattan We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 14:56, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Sunday January 15: Wikipedia Day NYC Celebration and Mini-Conference

Sunday January 15: Wikipedia Day NYC 2017

You are invited to join us at Ace Hotel for Wikipedia Day NYC 2017, a Wikipedia celebration and mini-conference as part of the project's global 16th birthday festivities. In addition to the party, the event will be a participatory unconference, with plenary panels, lightning talks, and of course open space sessions. With special guests Katherine Maher of the Wikimedia Foundation and Tim Wu of Columbia Law School speaking on our Post-truth panel! Also featuring an International/Multilingual panel, a Documenting Activism panel, a Multimedia/Tech Panel, a Science panel, an Art panel, and more. And there will be cake. We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. Sunday January 15 Wikipedia Day NYC 2017 (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 10:00am - 7:00 pm at Ace Hotel, 20 West 29th Street in Manhattan We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 14:56, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Question for TPWs

On my watchlist I am seeing some entries with the notation "Tag: 2017 source edit." What does that mean? Thanks, Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:52, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

You'll be as shocked as I am to learn the WMF have made a software change without publicizing it. Basically, another attempt to sneak VisualEditor in as the default editor, under a different name. (You can see for yourself how shitty it is by going here and selecting "new Wikitext mode".) ‑ Iridescent 19:56, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

It is part of the VE extension, but strictly speaking I think it's an attempt to sneak Parsoid in; it uses the same infrastructure as VE but is a wikitext editor. It's not bad, actually. A little slow to load on large pages, and some of the interface elements really need some work, but I feel a certain sense of obligation to support efforts to modernize :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:20, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Don't believe them. The tag actually reveals membership in a cult. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:20, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Yobot

Hi. Since I am not sure here to reply in your question about Yobot, I am leaving a reply here: Yobot in order to perform task 16 (CHECKWIKI fixes) runs in various phases:

• Daily I load the list of "fixable" errors found in wmflabs server.
• Every month I load the lists generated by Bgwhite and can be found here. This list is the pages that the error was not caught or fixed during the daily scans.
• Recently I started loading every month the lists generated by NicoV and can be found here. This list is the pages that are not caught by CHECKWIKI.

Daily lists usually contain 1,000 pages. The number of pages in the monthly lists increases or decreases based on various factors.. Note that that there are also lists that are not loaded in Yobot's list and they are fixed by humans. Bgwhite for instance spends hours per day to fix unbalanced brackets while other focus on other errors. This includes GünniX and others. I myself fix many of these too.

Note also that by "fixable" I mean the errors fixed by AWB's general fixes. The pages that remain unfixed after the bot run are reported as bugs (the vast majority of bug reports is done by me) and usually AWB/Yobot code is updated within some days. This means that usually 99% of the "fixable" errors is fixed.

Note also that both CHECKWIKI and WPC lists change since there are changes in the code that helps us catch the errors. In cases that an "extreme huge change" happened there were serious Yobot fails i.e. the percentage of pages fixed got seriously lower, These cases are extremely rare though. Bgwhite keeps records of the number of pages generated in monthly lists and their number is increased every month despite the fact that we add more and more detections.

Note also that for many months now me, NicoV and Bgwhite exchange emails almost daily to fix errors. There is a lot of unseen job done daily.

I hope this gives some answers. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:46, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Recent RfA

I see that a recent RfA where you and I discussed some stuff was withdrawn by the candidate, and that's sad even in spite of my concerns there. Anyway, I want to stop by here and underline that I appreciate what you tried to point out to me, even if it got some negative reactions. I thought that it was helpful and offered with good intentions. One of the other editors replied to you rather rudely, and you didn't deserve that. I know you as someone who is conscientious in offering supportive feedback to other users (including me of course), and so I want to let you know that I don't think that anyone should have yelled at you that way. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Brad's an attorney and a former (and current!!! :) !!!) Arb. And disliked by at least one very blunt editor. I'm confident he's been yelled at way worse than that many, many times. But anyway, I know you're not talking about me, but if you considered my response was too curt too, then I'm sorry Brad. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:26, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Naw, I meant the other person, not you. What you said was fine. (And I shared your concern that so many editors seemed not to care about the oppose issues.) Also, for whatever it is worth, after I posted that sort-of rebuttal to that other editor, he "thanked" me for that edit, so I'm pretty sure that he gets it, even if he didn't otherwise acknowledge it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:34, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Poor phrasing on my part. I meant "I know you're [Tryptofish] not talking about me, but if you [Brad] considered my response was too curt..." --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:43, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Understood. I'm neither a lawyer nor an Arb, and I don't even play one on TV, but I myself have been yelled at way worse on-Wiki. But nonetheless, there is no reason for good-faith editors not to try for more mutual support and more civility. And I owe Brad a lot from past events. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:16, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Come on, don't talk like that without a link or two for the tpw's. It's very frustrating. I want to read those rude responses! Bishonen | talk 22:33, 5 January 2017 (UTC).

Here's my reply, and you can see it in the diff: [1]. I do realize that my own comments here have been a bit lawyerly ("the other editor" etc.)! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:36, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, young fish. Bishonen | talk 22:50, 5 January 2017 (UTC).

(Snorts) I should yell at you about that! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks all for the comments. @Tryptofish: I actually still think it's very likely that Onel5969 meant "Clinton" rather than "Obama" and mistyped, although I know some people will think I'm AGF'ing to a fault here. Even granted that there is or was a weird theory out there about Obama's law license, it's obviously false and it's also relatively little-known—even as compared to the other nonsensical "theories" (birthplace, religion) about the same President. By contrast, Bill Clinton, the last Democratic President before Obama, actually had to give up his law license based upon an actual and very highly publicized complaint.

The context of Onel5969's comment on Talk:Virginia Beach was a WP:UNDUE question involving Bob McDonnell, the former Virginia governor, who had a felony conviction as of that time. (The conviction was subsequently overturned; see my article here, pp. 13-17, where I wrote about a different aspect of the McDonnell case.) In the same breath, Onel5969 also mentioned Spiro Agnew, whose legal issues were equally genuine. It strikes me as unlikely that Onel5969, in the course of making a sound point about undue weight in a BLP context (i.e., questioning whether a politician's legal problem should be mentioned in a "people from" location list that includes the politician), would have gratuitiously thrown in a reference to an obscure and highly contentious and in fact demonstrably false allegation about another living person, and thereby risked diverting attention from the BLP issue he felt very strongly about. (As it happens, oddly, no one seems to have noticed the Obama reference at all at the time.)

In retrospect, rather than post what I thought was a clarification in response to the opposes, but which several of you disagreed with with varying degrees of emphasis, it probably would have been better for me to post my Q11 right away, and allow the candidate to make the clarification. As it was, even if Orel5969 had answered Q11 with "Newyorkbrad's guess is correct, I just mistyped, sorry," I suspect someone would have insinuated that he was merely following my lead. (Nonetheless, he's still quite welcome to respond here and confirm or disprove whether I was right or not.) Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:07, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Newyorkbrad... I had made a decision (you can see the comment I made on Sam Walton's talk page), not to respond to any !oppose comments. I would, and did, respond to all valid questions posed. But per your courteous query above, it's only logical that I would have meant Clinton. I was attempting, to include examples from both sides of the aisle in order to not show a bias. Kind of ironic when you think about it. Unfortunately there seem to be quite a few editors who don't get AGF. Anyway, thanks for your attempts. Take care. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 17:12, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, I for one take exception to your accusing others of not AGFing. WP:BLP is too important a policy to the pedia, to throw around names of living persons in such an apparently reckless fashion and Clinton and Obama are two very different people with entirely different names, and BLP actually demands a high level of care. 'Some president, Clinton, Obama, whatever' hardly demonstrates care. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Brad, I really do hear you, and it's certainly a constant issue as to when to AGF and when not to. All any of us can do is to try to use our best judgment. And in fact, I had looked carefully and seen everything that you point to in your comment here. Onel5969, I'm glad that you saw this discussion, and even though I ended up giving you a lot of grief I genuinely do feel sad at the outcome. For what it's worth, I independently checked your answer to me about other Koch pages, and I indeed confirmed that your answer to me was truthful. (I asked it primarily because the Kochs are known for hiring people to make them look good, and I was wondering about undisclosed paid editing.) I was very aware through the RfA that a lot of editors I respect said that they had worked with you and thought very highly of you, and in fact, I meant it literally when I said that I was receptive to persuasion. It's altogether possible that I was wrong, and it wouldn't be the first time and won't be the last, but I went with what I could see. In one fish's opinion, there is nothing wrong with replying briefly to RfA opposes. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:16, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I should point out that I am omniscient, at least in relation to people talking about me on random wikipedia pages. Regarding the RFA, for too long it has been near impossible for someone to oppose a candidate, especially early in an RFA, without the poor opposer having to bat away some misguided rebuttal attempt. Sometimes a bit of well-timed rudeness is necessary to get people to mind their own business. --Mkativerata (talk) 06:28, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm omniscient too! I knew there was one other editor! And of course you didn't need to tell me it was you, because I knew it all along. I can appreciate well-timed rudeness directed at a troll. But that was not the situation here. But thank you for thanking me for the well-timed reply that I gave to you at the RfA page. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:04, 7 January 2017 (UTC) PS: Any time you want me to yell at you, just let me know!

More on that RfA

I am sorry but I have been stewing about this all weekend and I cannot let the conversation die out at this stage. I don't know what the outcome of Onel5969's RfA might otherwise have been if this misunderstanding had not arisen, though I believe it would likely have passed—but the way an RfA was derailed by the fact that the candidate once mistyped a single name is very troubling to me.

Mkativerata, your describing my comment on the RfA as "bullshit" and accusing me of "wasting [your] time" by posting it were not appropriate. The tone of your response, although crass, is not a major concern; as Floquenbeam says, I've heard much worse, both on and certainly off Wikipedia. The much greater problem is that in your eagerness to "get [me] to mind [my] own business," you overlooked the fact that I was not only not "bullshit[ting]," but that I was, in fact, very likely to be right. As I've explained above, it would have made absolutely no sense for Onel5969, in the course of raising a legitimate BLP issue to interject an unrelated and much more serious BLP violation. He may not hide his politics, and like everyone he needs to bear NPOV in mind on issues he feels strongly about, but he's an experienced editor with no history of BLP violations or spreading conspiracy theories. He has now confirmed that my interpretation of what happened is exactly what did happen. I hope you and others do not think he is lying about it.

As Tryptofish points out, the facts underlying the longer explanation I've given above were apparent from the conversation that was cited. I am surprised that the situation was not as clear to others as it was to me; if I had realized that, I would have posted the longer explanation at the outset; I didn't do so because, ironically for me, I was trying for once to be succinct. Also: my opinion on RfAs is worth no more than anyone else's, and in fact I sometimes support plausible candidates early and easily, so my opinion near the beginning of an RfA may sometimes actually be worth less than that of editors who specialize in reviewing candidates' records more thoroughly before opining. But after 11 years on this project I think I'm known as someone who evaluates evidence competently, and who is also sensitive to BLP concerns. If I had "minded my own business" by ignoring the Obama aspect of your RfA comment then I would have disserved the candidate, the community, and the RfA process.

Onel5969, although "not responding to the opposers" may usually be a good plan for both peace-of-mind and tactical reasons, an exception would have been warranted where, as here, several opposes were based on good-faith concern arising from a typing mistake you had made, where what you had actually typed was troubling, and only you could confirm that it was in fact a mistake rather than something more serious. It is unfortunate that by the time I realized that I needed to phrase my response in the form of a question, it was too late as pile-on opposes had come in and you decided to withdraw the candidacy. As a result, others who opposed in whole or part on this basis, including MartinZ02, Cullen328, Glrx, Wugapodes, and possibly others did not have the benefit of such explanation. I have pinged them here, not to revisit the RfA per se, but so that they will not come away with the long-term impression that you are an "Obama law license conspiracy theorist" rather than someone who once made a typing error. Most important, although I understand that your enjoyment of Wikipedia was damaged by your negative RfA experience, there is no reason you should not seek adminship again, and I certainly hope you will not be retiring as an editor as you indicated last week you would do.

It is one of my (self-appointed) roles on this project to detect miscommunications like this one and stave off detrimental consequences from them, and I am sorry I failed to accomplish that in this instance. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:59, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• I don't know why you find that an excuse, consistent with the care demanded by BLP. And I certainly don't know why, you or anyone think accusing others of not AGFing is a good idea, when all they did was take the person at their word - the words they wrote and are responsible for. One would think, the proper response is to be mortified that one spread a malicious untruth about a living person (regardless of intent), profusely apologize, and do all they can to make it right - instead, abetted apparently by you, the response is to be silent, do nothing, and after the fact attack the persons that pointed to the lie (and it is a lie, regardless of excuse). So, I for one, am heartily disappointed in the response and reaffirm my opposition even more. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:27, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• I had been watching the RfA all along and had been very concerned about the Americans for Prosperity matter, and was leaning toward oppose. I must admit that the Obama comment was, in my mind, a significant secondary factor that made my decision easier. I find it difficult to see the reference to Obama as a mistyping of Clinton, although anything is possible, I suppose. If Onel5969 decides to go through RfA again, I would appreciate a more detailed explanation as to how they could confuse a 20th century president with the current 21st century president, as well as a better explanation of the thinking behind their efforts to remove or downplay the involvement of the Koch Brothers in AFP. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:19, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• Just acknowledging the ping. While it is certainly possible that Onel mistakenly referred to Obama when he meant Bill Clinton, I don’t think this possibility is nearly as likely as NYB does. I’m not sure what benefit there is to explain in more detail why I feel that way - it would feel like kicking someone when they're down - but I can if asked. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:16, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• There should be no self-appointed roles on wikipedia. Every time I've seen someone try to do one it has ended in tears, either for them or for wikpedia. And rightly so. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:18, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Almost everything on WP is a self-appointed role. This is just a way of saying "One of the things I feel useful doing is...". --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:24, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Either I'm unusually ineffective at communicating today, or I've badly misread this situation. Let's try it this way: Does anyone agree with me? Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:26, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

About WP:BLP? Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:31, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

About the fact that something went wrong in this RfA. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

No, I think you're overthinking it and ending up with the whole AGF-as-a-suicide-pact thing. Now that I've had enough snarky comments, I'll make a serious one. The thing that startles me is that my own oppose gave the candidate a very easy way out of it. I told him exactly what he needed to do for me to change my !vote. He didn't take the chance. Why? Think about that... --Mkativerata (talk) 19:36, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree with several things you said, Brad. I agree it's possible. I agree people have, on occasion, been known to make mistakes. I agree asking a question first would have likely been better (tho I don't fault you for not doing it). I agree it was reasonable for you to comment when you saw something you thought was the result of a misunderstanding. I agree you didn't deserve to get yelled at. I agree Onel made a mistake not addressing this when it was first raised. About the only thing I disagree with is the likelihood you are correct in your interpretation. I would imagine large swaths of people who supported would agree with you on that, too, they just aren't watching this discussion. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:39, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Brad, if it helps clarify, assuming for the sake of argument that your interpretation was correct, then I think by far the biggest thing that "went wrong in this RFA" - by a substantial margin - is that Onel didn't simply correct the misunderstanding as soon as he saw it. I'm trying to imagine being in that position and saying nothing - hoping that an accidental BLP violation I made that was just pointed out in the oppose section would just blow over - and I can't imagine it. In 99/100 cases, someone in that position would have clarified that it was an error before anyone else even had a chance to oppose "per Mkativerata". --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:57, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• Brad, my ivote noted one thing that went wrong at the RfA (but it wasn't this) -- this particular thing, I noted in my ivote went wrong at the Virginia Beach page, before the RfA, and as sometimes happens things like this are continuing wrongs, especially when the response is lacking (if you want to look at as, 'it is not the mistake, it's the response', you may, but really this is the internet, and passing on falsehoods about people is a seriously important thing not to do - all that is required is care). Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:45, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• As the editor who started this talk page discussion, wow, I really stirred up a lot more than I anticipated I would. But I want to go back to what I said in my opening post. Brad: I agree with you about a lot here, and you are doing just fine in communicating. It's all very clear. And I want to emphasize that my opening premise remains my current view: that you did not deserve to be yelled at like that. Full stop. There have been so many times when you, personally, have been kind to me when I needed some kindness, it's the least that I could do to return the favor in a very small way. To all: whatever else one thinks about the merits of the particular RfA, what Brad pointed out was a helpful and good faith contribution to the discussion. Again: full stop.

Now having said all that, here's what I think about the RfA itself. I said then that I was open to being persuaded to change my mind, and a big part of why that never happened was the early withdrawal of the candidacy. I don't know where I would have eventually ended up. But here is a reason why I suspect that I may have been right. Look right here in this discussion. When One responded to Brad's ping, I would have expected something like yes, that's what happened, and I didn't mean it the way it got interpreted, and it's distressing that others did not understand that. Or something to that effect. But look at the actual response: "it's only logical that I would have meant Clinton." Perhaps that means that those of us who suspected otherwise were mistaken in not arriving at the most "logical" interpretation. But I'm reading it another way. It sounds like a carefully crafted way of saying, not that Brad's interpretation was what actually happened, but rather that Brad's interpretation certainly makes sense. I'm not a lawyer, but if I had a witness who answered like that, I'd sure jump on it in cross-examination. I wasn't going to raise it because I hoped to move on, but now I feel I have to point out that this, and also several answers to RfA questions, sounded like actually having those dubious views and being willing to inject them into content, but trying to dance around that fact in a manner that sounds "correct". Maybe Brad's right and I'm wrong. I guess that's why we don't have one-person juries. The two of us can look at the same facts and maybe see different things, but of course neither one of us deserves to be yelled at for it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:19, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Kenzie Ziegler move request

Hello, and happy holidays. Someone created a page called Kenzie Ziegler. All reliable sources (and nearly all Google "news" sources) call this person "Mackenzie" Ziegler, she performs professionally under the name Mackenzie, and even her social media use the full name "Mackenzie". "Kenzie" is a nickname used only by her friends, and perhaps some fans. See: https://www.google.com/#q=%22mackenzie+ziegler%22&tbm=nws

vs. https://www.google.com/#tbm=nws&q=%22Kenzie+ziegler%22

Previously, someone protected the page "Mackenzie Ziegler" from creation, so I am unable to move the page. I think that Mackenzie Ziegler is probably now notable -- she has 5.8 million instagram followers, was a main character on a successful reality TV show for several years, and has attracted a considerable amount of press (although this new article is quite a mess). More than 3,000 Google "News" sources: https://www.google.com/#q=%22mackenzie+ziegler%22&tbm=nws But I am sure that the page should not be called "Kenzie Ziegler". Can you please move it? Thanks for any help! -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:56, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

NYB, no move should take place until a consensus is reached at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kenzie Ziegler. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:22, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

@Bbb23: I understand that the AfD discussion will go ahead, but I'm not sure why the page shouldn't be moved from an inappropriate to the correct title in the meantime. The AfD notice would move with it. Is there some technical reason that the move would mess up the AfD or something else I'm missing? Thanks, Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:02, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

If the consensus is keep, it can then be moved. If the consensus is delete, there's no reason to move it.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:25, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd have a serious BLP issue with leaving an article, even temporarily, at an incorrect or improper name, and would move such an article notwithstanding any pending AfD. Here, given that "Kenzie" is apparently merely a diminutive or nickname, I suppose there is less cause for concern, but my own inclination would still be to move it. Does anyone else who happens to be reading here have a view? Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:07, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

How long does the AfD stay open? Is it 7 days? If so, just three more days to go. -- Ssilvers (talk) 10:22, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, usually 7 days, unless there's a reason to extend it. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:59, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ssilvers: I see that the AfD was closed last week as Keep and the article was moved. I think this resolves what you were asking me for. If you haven't already, you might want to check that any incoming links now go to the correct page. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:58, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, already done. Thanks. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:45, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

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Thank you! --EGalvez (WMF) (talk) 19:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

References

It's been ten years, today.

Wishing Newyorkbrad a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Chris Troutman (talk) 16:49, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: Thanks for the Happy Anniversary message. I find it altogether unbelievable that ten years have passed since my RfA. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:13, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary

Wishing Newyorkbrad/Archive/2017/Jan a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! CAPTAIN RAJU (✉) 20:09, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

@CAPTAIN RAJU: Thank you very much for the message. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:13, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Nuclear option

Hello, Newyorkbrad! I recently had a look at your final statement on my question about the "nuclear option" again – belated thanks for posting, by the way! Now, I only wondered about what exactly you mean by saying "the majority leader made a point of order that the vote required to invoke cloture for a non-Supreme Court nomination was by majority vote". What would have been the usual procedure then if not a majority vote? I hope you can help me with that one, too. Best--Hubon (talk) 20:35, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

@Hubon: Ordinarily, under the Standing Rules of the Senate, invoking cloture requires 60 votes ("three fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn"). Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:13, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, but that would be a majority, too, right? Just a qualified one...--Hubon (talk) 23:37, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

The word "majority" without an adjective is understood to mean "50% plus one." This is also sometimes called "simple majority." One might refer to a requirement of (for example) a two-thirds vote as "a two-thirds majority" but never as just a "majority." Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:57, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Supermajority. Jehochman ^Talk 14:00, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for explaning! Best--Hubon (talk) 22:39, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Signpost Arbitration interview request

Hi there. I am lead writer for the Signpost's "Arbitration Report" and am wondering if you would be interested in answering some interviews questions as a newly elected Arbitrator. The questions can be asked through email, unless answering them here would be a more suitable choice. GamerPro64 20:25, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd be happy to answer the questions, whichever way is more convenient for you. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:49, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

@GamerPro64: Did you e-mail the questions? I haven't seen anything yet. No rush if you haven't gotten to it yet. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:06, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I have not emailed the questions yet. I am currently writing up the newest report along with other IRL stuff. Once I have done that I will email you. Thank you for understanding. GamerPro64 23:18, 30 January 2017 (UTC)