User talk:Floquenbeam/Archive 12

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Woohooo

Hey, Floquenbeam. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee!
Have a great day! Mjs1991 (talk) 05:59, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Joining the choir, imagine 10-part singing, - I decorated my talk for the occasion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:08, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

11 years already! Time to update the archive. Thanks Mjs1991, thanks Gerda. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:46, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

A cup of tea for you!

Thanks for supported my recent, albeit unsuccessful RfA. Your support was greatly appreciated.At least yours was successful. You seem to have established yourself as Wikipedia's answer to Rodney King. (I've also never seen a "Meh" banner before.) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:57, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

You're welcome; sorry it didn't work out. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:46, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

That mess over völva

Thanks for trying; I think we all gave it our best (including Yamla with an exemplary response to a death curse, although actually I think the threat was aimed at Bish, but if we are all Bloodofox, as the user has apparently decided, then same difference). I talked to JzG but he wants the redirect to stay unchanged, which is a pity from my perspective but ... I suddenly have like 30 edits today, and I must stay below 100 to make some sort of gesture against WMF gloating, even though as to staying below 5, that ship's sailed. So I can't push too hard for restoring a separate page on the topic, let alone rewrite it. The one thing I think should be rev-deleted is that link the user has posted, which is an attempted outing. So anyway, thanks again, and I guess I have over 50 edits to spend fixing and making articles over the rest of the month, but I wish we could have brought that person round to helping and maybe apologizing to Bloodofox Yngvadottir (talk) 22:45, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2019).

Administrator changes

added Bradv • Chetsford • Izno
readded Floquenbeam • Lectonar
removed DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

removed Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

removed Callanecc • Fox • HJ Mitchell • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Technical news

  • Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools.
  • The advanced version of the edit review pages (recent changes, watchlist, and related changes) now includes two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Re: something

A lot of people there know which editor the LTA obsesses over, and so I'm wondering whether the entire post should be rev-delled (though that might make one good-faith editor's response to that comment look a bit weird). ---Sluzzelin talk 20:09, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I grappled with that very question. I'm inclined to leave it (mostly because Jayron already replied, but also because the remainder seems harmless), but I absolutely am not claiming this is definitely the right response. I'll defer to anyone with an alternate opinion. Pinging User:Zzuuzz in particular, who blocked the IP. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:12, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
I share all your opinions. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:31, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
On reflection, I've removed the whole post, but left Jayron's useful comment. Thanks for feedback, folks. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:45, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Floq and zzuuzz (gotta love the double "zz" combined with "u"). ---Sluzzelin talk 23:42, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

That hyphen

Hi, Thanks for making that change. It makes a lot of sense not to have that hyphen; once it was explained to me I developed quite a loathing for it. It's about ambiguity; a "well known man" generally needs a hyphen, as otherwise it could mean a "known man" who is also "well". With a "newly painted room", it's obvious that "newly" qualifies "painted", as a "newly room" makes no sense. So no ambiguity and no hyphen needed. But perhaps you knew that? Ericoides (talk) 11:08, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

I know the rationale, but 3 things in response:
  1. "Loathing"? it's just a little dashed line....
  2. Writing isn't governed solely by logic; it's also adding little unnecessary touches that, while not strictly required, make it marginally easier for a reader to decode what's going on without having to think about it. Like extra commas that aren't strictly required logically, but help break up a long string of words. Or the extraneous hyphens I prefer using to make it marginally faster and easier for a reader to mentally group two words together, even if it wouldn't be strictly necessary logically.
  3. At this point in my life, I usually make most grammar decisions in my own writing based on what looks/sounds right, not on The Rules. I'll sometimes grudgingly follow The Rules even when I disagree with them for something on the main page when they're unambiguous; mostly to save another admin the work I've already done of reading the request and thinking about it and (gulp) reading the MOS.
--Floquenbeam (talk) 19:02, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
NO NO NO ... NOT the MOS. Anything - but not the MOS — Ched (talk) 21:03, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
An underutilized sanction at ArbCom/ANI: "User:Ched is not blocked or desysopped, but if he uses his tools in a dispute again, he will be required to read the MOS. The. Whole. Thing." --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:08, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Well - I haven't done anything at Antonio Brown ... YET - although much more of the back and forth and .... IDK. :-) — Ched (talk) 21:15, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Floq's statement

I think what you said is what I meant, but was perhaps I was too short? I hope they will listen to a former arb, rather than to one with "battleground" painted on her back by the almighty arbcom ;) - I just heard Otello, the opera with the 5 tenors, and before intermission, black paint was smeared on many costumes, and finally "OTELLO" on the marble wall. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:13, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I think I probably burned a whole lot of gravitas with ArbCom when I unblocked Fram. I said "per Beeb" so I could try to ride the coattails of his gravitas. I've never seen Othello performed; but it was one of the few things they made us read in English Lit (many, many years ago) that I actually enjoyed reading. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:20, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
How did you like my statement (the short one, before an arb who sentenced me baited me by a reply to say more than I wanted)? - Othello is by Shakespeare, Otello (famous) is by Verdi, Otello (less famous and hard to do - where do you find 2 tenors, and now you need 5) is by Rossini. Nice to have the "Opera House of the Year" (2018) around the corner. Today I spent with a famous and great woman who taught in the same city, on her wedding anniversary, - bicentenary tomorrow. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:28, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
I'll have to go check your statement; I didn't read that whole page! Will return in a bit. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:32, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Take your time, will return after sleep. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:35, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that was a nice concise statement. I assume you're using "baited" in jest or exaggeratedly or teasingly; I think ST's reply was well thought out and honest. Pretty sure you were teasing, right? But I know what you mean about making a laconic comment and then feeling compelled to go back later and expand on it, only to (even later) wish you'd left it alone. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:40, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Though we have won the battle the cause is lost. –xenotalk 23:04, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
New potential redirect for ArbCom: Wikipedia:Requests for Pyrrhic Victories. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:12, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
"baited" - well what is the word for "you are determined to make one short statement and no more", and then someone comes and you feel an urge to respond? It happened before, twice that I remember, in the Laurence Olivier discussion (2015, got me to AE), and in the Stanley Kubrick RfC (just over and not closed). The first time, I got defiant, the second, I regret. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:49, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Probably "tempted". "Baited" has the connotation of bad faith on the part of the person doing the baiting. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:12, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Clara Schumann
13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896
Imagine the face expression
when I think of arbcom.
I got that mellow
compared to 2013.
thank you, "and lead us not into temptation" - When I (admittedly) provoked to take me to AE for a formal violation of a restriction (not its 'spirit'), the closing admin found the term for the tempter: "They are also advised that implying misconduct on the part of editors like User:Gerda Arendt who are restricted from replying/responding to such accusations may be seen as misconduct itself." Such is the language of arbcom. The RfC is in the process of being closed. I clicked thank-you to the one who made a note that the discussion is still open. I didn't know that he was also the one to close. Won't be long and I'll be told that I tried to influence the close by that thank-you click. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:56, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
A good friend of mine got to see a reverse-race production of Othello featuring an all-black cast except for Patrick Stewart as Othello. My friend said it was quite good and the acting was strong all around. I on the other hand went to see a community theater production of Othello and the (black) actor cast as Othello fell ill before the show and was replaced with a white actor wearing blackface. It was horrifying. Also, the actress playing Desdemona chewed gum the whole time. 28bytes (talk) 00:57, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
The Unwoke Theater Company, sponsored by Wrigley. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:12, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
I found this: [1] – rather funny! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:40, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Here - as already in a performance long ago - the outcast Otello was a Muslim. He offered his bride a veil (Kopftuch) and prayed. He was welcome, even hailed, as a business partner, but not welcome as a family member. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:49, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
I wasn't aware there were two different operas. I suppose I'd always just assumed the story was invented out of whole cloth by Shakespeare, and that the opera was based on his play. Learn something new every day. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:12, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Some folks feel that Shakespeare may not have been an individual, but an amalgamation of multiple authors. Personally I was never an Othello fan, although I did enjoy The Taming of the Shrew. — Ched (talk) 21:09, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
I enjoyed reading Othello. I enjoyed watching The Taming of the Shrew. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:11, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Listen to Rossini if you can! - At our opera house, it was the first performance ever. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:56, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
... and Shakespeare based his play on Giovanni Battista Giraldi's story "Un Capitano Moro" --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:59, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Nancy Navarro

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A tag has been placed on Nancy Navarro, requesting that it be deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under two or more of the criteria for speedy deletion, by which pages can be deleted at any time, without discussion. If the page meets any of these strictly-defined criteria, then it may soon be deleted by an administrator. The reasons it has been tagged are:

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. Ad Orientem (talk) 05:00, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi Floq. I know this isn't your doing, but I am not a happy camper right now. It's a damned fluff piece and I have tagged it for CSD. My gut is telling me this thing should be zapped with a generous dose of salt thrown in for good measure. -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:08, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
Disregard the above. The recreation was done by an entirely different editor who had no clue about the recent history. -Ad Orientem (talk) 06:22, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
All settled now, I think. While all this was going on, the user has emailed that they're OK with re-deleting the userfied draft. I've move it back to the article so the history is there, re-deleted, re-added the redirect, and (per the issue above) salted. If there's still anything that needs doing, let me know. Or, obviously, do it yourself, but then let me know what I dropped the ball on. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:46, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for your support I appreciate that. How is 2001 17 I was born 1999 May 19 only 2 years younger so 20-2=18 years old. That’s it🤩 BrandoLikesMoney (talk) 18:43, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

@BrandoLikesMoney: You're welcome. Your birthday was in May. Before that you were 19, after that you were 20. Her birthday is in October. Before that she's 17, after that she'll be 18. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:46, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

My decision

As an editor in the community, I plan to retire and have complete no-access to this account. I have reviewed looked at my contributions and yes I have lacked helping the community much. As you are an Admin could you get me (blocked/banned) etc on Wikipedia as I am not just leaving Wikipedia (as an editor)/ I will still be interesting in reading articles. but I am also retiring my email associated with the account. Do you recommend me putting the account on a disposable email? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBritishEditor (talk • contribs) 18:14, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

But then you're just going to create yet another account, right? If we're being honest? That seems pointless. Instead, stick with this account, which is not blocked, but stop screwing around. Read to your heart's content. And if you want to help out once every 6 months, or every day, or somewhere in between by making small useful edits that don't attract a lot of attention or aren't part of a lark, just do that. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:21, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
  • For posterity: they kept lying, so I blocked them indef for trolling. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:49, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

I did something unusual

I made a request on ANI, or WP:Great Dismal Swamp. Need an admin to decide if something needs a revdel or not. It should not look like this. I was already told how disruptive I am, so could need help, - just look for my name, or a joyful noise. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:40, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi Gerda,
From a quick-ish review, it looks like there are two issues:
  1. Is the English translation taken from the chabad website copyrighted or not?
  2. What should the page look like until that determination is made?
For the first, I wouldn't be able to judge without taking more time than I have to research. My first instincts are that the Hebrew text is public domain, but a relatively recent new translation copied directly from a website could very well be copyrighted. On the other hand, it might not be.
For the second, it's pretty clear that the tag should stay until that's decided. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is simply non-optimal sometimes; it isn't the end of the world if an article look hideous for a couple of days until a volunteer gets to it. If no one does so in the next day or two, I should have more time and I can look at it then. In the mean time, it's doing the reader a disservice de-linking links to that article in other pages, isn't it? You're taking away an opportunity to learn something, because you think the source of that knowledge looks ugly. I'd counsel patience. Wikipedia is a work in progress; sometimes it looks more like that than other times. Whether maintenace templates should appear on the article page or the talk page has been a disagreement probably 1 month younger than Wikipedia itself. That isn't going to get resolved today. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:57, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
I am puzzled by the tags and am about to head off to ANI. The editor seems to argue that the Hebrew text was copyrighted in 2019. Drmies (talk) 20:04, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
Who is saying that? I don't think anyone is saying that. If they are, I cannot imagine that's true. I'm assuming they're saying the translation is copyrighted (which may or may not be true, depending on who did it and when they did it). New translations of public domain material are not automatically public domain. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:06, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Just so that you know: It's not a WWW site. It is a late 20th century (volume 3 of Psalms was published in 1991) translation by Avraham J. Rosenberg of New York that comes in 24 volumes in paper form. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard (talk) 20:17, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

The argument is that the translation is copyrighted (not the Hebrew text). The question is: does it need a revdel. The translation is in the article since June 2018, and nobody complained until yesterday. I guess the website's copyright is simply updated every year, regardless of when the text was posted there. - I wouldn't mind a tag such as "The following section is under investigation because of a possible copyright infringement." But telling a reader from the start about "Blatant copyright violations" seems not just "ugly" but counterproductive to "learn something". Psalm 100 is possibly the best-known of all psalms, - readers will perhaps think we don't link the same way as not to Berlin and Finland. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:32, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
It's over, in case you didn't see. Hundreds of edits (by Yoninah and all who followed in sometimes more than a year) hidden, looking suspicious. Hebrew now left without a translation. Anybody who knows one that could take the place welcome! (Not any free translation, please - we do have the King James Version - but directly from Hebrew.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:22, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Climate strikes

Thanks for the edit. Regarding your edit summary — WP:BRINT's "Good reasons to bypass redirects" section concludes with Links on the Main Page. In my opinion, one reason to do this is to facilitate use of the pageviews counter: anything on the Main Page will get tons of hits, and if we link to a redirect for an entire day, someone looking at statistics will understandably be confused by the fact that the page got far fewer hits than is common for something linked from the Main Page. Nyttend backup (talk) 23:48, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

That is the only rationale I'm aware of that actually makes any sense. I'm still not convinced it's important - when a page has been moved, the pageview statistics are inherently going to be messed up anyway - but I do appreciate someone saying something besides "because that's what our guidelines say to do". --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:09, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Ubiquitous?

I'm not really comfortable with this. I understand you may be away for the weekend ... no rush, let's talk about it when you get back. - Dank (push to talk) 01:56, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

[Came here to see if Floquenbeam had responded to my comment above.] Dank, what makes you uncomfortable? It sounds like Floquenbeam is saying "This is a moot issue, so no point in continuing the discussion", which in my opinion is entirely reasonable. Do you dispute the mootness or the "no point in continuing", or is it some other issue? Nyttend (talk) 12:15, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Things have changed this morning ... among other things, Kevin has started a discussion at WT:ERRORS, so that's probably the best place to have this discussion (for the moment). - Dank (push to talk) 13:23, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Nyttend, I wanted to make the general point before getting into specifics. Feel free to respond to what I said there first, or you can ask your specific question there ... I need to avoid a wall of text that tries to respond to everything at once. Something more conversational will work better. I'm trying to avoid "this admin screwed up" in favor of "there's a process here that doesn't respect consensus ... so what's going to work best for everyone?" - Dank (push to talk) 14:03, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Dank, sent you an email. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:04, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Poetrifan

SPI? Because I think it may be the OP at ANI socking. Doug Weller talk 16:53, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I very much doubt it's the OP. We're infested with trolls who like joe jobs. SPI might be useful in finding out which troll it is, but I'm not convinced it would do any good to know which troll it is, so I'm not going to do it. If you do think it's the OP, then by all means file an SPI, but I'd be quite surprised. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:55, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Resolving edit conflicts

Thanks for fixing mine (on User talk:Fram#RfA); after all these years, I still have trouble. How did you do it? All the best, Miniapolis 22:23, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

My understanding is the edit conflict detector thingy (sorry for technical jargon) broke a while ago, so this happens a lot more often than it used to. What I usually do if it happens to me is ctrl-C my text, give up and reload the new page, and ctrl-P the text into the new page. Whenever I try to fix it within that edit window you sometimes get during an edit conflict, it has gone badly. In this particular case it was easy, I could just copy your text, hit undo on your edit, and then repaste yours back in before saving. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:29, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply; my experience with the edit-counter-view gadget has been similar, but I thought I was missing something obvious . All the best, Miniapolis 13:24, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Special award

For your steady hand during the Wikipedia constitutional crisis of 2019, I award you this polar exploration vessel. It made it to the ends of the world and back home. More or less in one piece. Haukur (talk)

Thank you, Haukurth! Some would argue about "steady hand", but I appreciate the thought. And... wow! I've actually been to the Fram museum. Didn't realize until just now that was the name - it was a long, long, long time ago and I was just a pup - but I saw the photo of the museum, and realized I'd been there. Better the Fram than the Erebus! --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:46, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

St. Louis Cardinals page

You put the Cardinals page under full protection. As you can see from the discussion on the talk page, as well as the referenced prior discussion there is a consensus to not include the 2001 division championship. Also the Cardinals did just win the 2019 championship. Can you remove the protection so this can be updated? Spanneraol (talk) 16:34, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@Spanneraol:  Done. Let me know if someone resumes edit warring against that consensus; now that consensus is clear, future edit warring can be dealt with by blocks rather than protection. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:12, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.

Technical news

  • As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:55, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

mouthbreathers

Floq, I generally like you. I get what you're doing. I don't want to see you get embroiled in a dispute over something like that. If your cause is just, leave it to others to pursue. FWIW, I don't think you should redact perceived personal attacks. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) Chris Troutman (talk) 17:35, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'm not terribly concerned with getting embroiled in a dispute, and am aware what might happen. But if this had been a case of me doing something recklessly without thinking it through, your note would have been a very kind thing to do. (I mean, it was kind anyway... you get what I mean) We'll have to agree to disagree about removing personal attacks; I've found it better than templated warnings and threats of blocking. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:38, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
You know what's even better than either of those options? Actually talking to people. You'll probably remove this also, but at least I know you'll have to read it to do so. Cheers. Sebthepleb (talk) 17:43, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
You said you were uninterested in a conversation where I didn't immediately apologize to you. I find it hard to take someone seriously when they simultaneously call people "mouthbreathers" and demand that they be treated with respect. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:52, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Floquenbeam, what about the sentence that immediately follows? I thought that was what you removed when I saw your edit summary on my watchlist. Usedtobecool TALK ✨ 17:48, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Good point. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:52, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
I think my larger point, Floq, is that we have many good admins (and some editors who ought to be admins) doing the necessary but unpleasant work and they will get hemmed-up simply for stepping in the wrong puddle thereby diminishing their effectiveness. In the interests of not losing more of those folks doing the necessary but unpleasant work, I advocate the avoidance of puddles when there's very little to be gained from it. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:01, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Fair enough. Now I'm off to look up what "hemmed-up" means. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:15, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
September
meadow saffron
I'm off to my first Ring. Highly promising opening! (more on my talk) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:47, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Enjoy! --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:38, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
Enjoyed first half tremendously! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:53, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
... and the end (when even the "dead" rose to listen to the music, turning their back to the audience because the orchestra is behind the actors on that stage). Das Wunder von Minden. I started an article, click on "my first Ring" again. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:52, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Locking user page

Hi, I'm probably going to be writing up an Arbitration committee report this month for The Signpost. Before I start, I found this and wondered if you had anything to say about the reasoning behind it. Seems a bit unusual and – well – uneven-handed. If you could specifically address why you aren't following the policy-defined process in Wikipedia:Banning policy#User pages, I'd appreciate that. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:16, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

That was a controversial tagging, which was edit warred over last month. It had died down and was quiet for quite a while, and then someone re-added it just to cause more drama. An arb or CU is still able to tag it if they think there’s a benefit to that. But now no more drive by shit stirring can happen. -Floquenbeam (talk) 02:34, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Question

I noticed your "block on hold" and the wording It cannot be undone without (a) consent of blocking admin, or (b) consensus at AN or AE. . The community can overturn or unblock an Arb block at AN? — Ched (talk) 16:44, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I believe so, yes. Not any Arb block, but a block to enforce a previous ArbCom decision. Per Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Appeals_by_sanctioned_editors. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:46, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Hmmm. Seems a bit ambiguous to me, I'll come back and re-read later. Given that there's now been a bunch of oversighting done - not sure I want to ... not sure what I want to do. I need to go do something, then come back and think on this whole thing. It just seems like entrapment to me at the moment. — Ched (talk) 16:58, 16 October 2019 (UTC) (oh - ty for the reply)
No prob. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:04, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks for putting the block on hold. For community health reasons, this should probably be declined and referred back to AC first. Not sure if you are composing a request to blocking admin, but they already declined another request to unblock based on the unblock request. –xenotalk 17:41, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
    • I was kind of waiting to see what Ritchie's response would be to my suggestion he explicitly state he will no longer edit articles Prax has tagged, and PMC's response to Ritchie's response. Not that I hold out a lot of hope. I wasn't planning on making any further request to PMC. I'm not 100% sure what the best thing to do with that unblock request is; if you think it best to actually close it, I'm happy to defer to your judgement. My main goal was to prevent an innocent admin coming along and foolishly attempting to apply common sense... --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:51, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
      • Ah okay- let's see how that plays out. Certainly for AC to shorten the block would be calmest way forward. Not sure if Ritchie333 knows you are awaiting a response. –xenotalk 17:57, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
        • Fair point, I've now made a note in the unblock request itself. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:05, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

And you are...?

Who are you to put restrictions on another user's page? Another one of Wikipedia's pretentious, petty dictators who presumes too much of their own importance? Jersey John (talk) 03:16, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

yeah, pretty much. —Floquenbeam (talk) 03:21, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
And this makes you look like what? Jersey John (talk) 03:27, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
many people say George Clooney. -Floquenbeam (talk) 03:29, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
...Someone trying to enforce our rules on personal attacks, and prevent disruption of the encyclopedia? SQLQuery me! 03:30, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Ah I see, the pretentious power-clique starts to close ranks. Jersey John (talk) 03:34, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
You may wish to consider the possibility that in testing boundaries, you've overstepped them. Now that you know the limits of what we'll tolerate, you'll reconsider your approach to interactions with other editors. Acroterion (talk) 03:38, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes I am ever so impressed. Jersey John (talk)
then it looks like our work here is done. -Floquenbeam (talk) 03:42, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Does it. Jersey John (talk) 03:43, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Then how about removing you block so I can just blank the stupid thing entirely? Or are we going to just leave it blocked to me so you can prove a point? Jersey John (talk) 03:47, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Blanked. --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:53, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
I suggest that you promise to refrain from personal attacks on another editor if you want your user page to be unlocked. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 03:55, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Ok. Promise. Jersey John (talk) 05:40, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Rms

You know the bizarre thing is, he isn't even blocked. He was indeffed but that was reduced to a month by Arbcom and he just hasn't edited since the block expired. He does have a topic ban from BLPs and politics but he's not "banned" in the way that IP was trying to make out.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 16:24, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) There's whiff of WP:LTA/BKFIP about that one. Favonian (talk) 16:30, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
I was just thinking the same, but it's kind of moot. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:36, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Ugh, thanks for reminding me PK3. I actually knew this (no, really) because I looked at it yesterday but someone else was faster and reverted first. But today my fingers were moving faster than my brain. Is it worth unprotecting and re-protecting with a clarification? --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:36, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Might be, if only to prevent any more pedants like me coming along.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 16:41, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 Done. Though your pedantry is welcome anytime. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:54, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Cap in hand

Would you kindly delete the third bullet point ("My Wikipedia-linked email address is...") with an edit summary such like: "editprotected request: notification now handled by the software". I voted for you after all, I feel like I can call in a few favours. No rush. –xenotalk 16:28, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

A comedian! You missed your calling. –xenotalk 16:42, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
I see you changed and then unchanged this. Now I'm not sure what you prefer. I'm happy to add what you just removed here, just let me know. Or I could reduce the protection level; forgive my poor memory, but I thought edit notices were already protected from everyone except the user and admins? Maybe that's only .js and .css pages. Except even that has changed, I think. What a clueless, incompetent admin, I'm amazed they gave me the bit back. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:43, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
I think it's fine as it is (went back and forth on it) - thank you. See: Special:Diff/921899083. –xenotalk 16:46, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
No prob. Thanks for performing the experiment. So can you edit .js and .css pages in your own userspace? I'm pretty sure something changed with those recently, but can't recall what. I guess I could use Floquensock to check and see, but switching accounts is so exhausting and confusing. I'd make a horrible sockmaster. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:52, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
I can do .js and .css but I think that only a certain class is allowed to create editnotices of user subpages is what changed? (Wikipedia:Editnotice#User and user talk). –xenotalk 17:01, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Not sure what brought me here (probably stalking xeno) the javascript/css stuff is Wikipedia:Interface_administrators#Technical_access, in short normal admins can't edit other's js/css without getting extra access added. — xaosflux Talk 17:04, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Aha. That's what I was thinking of, yes. Thanks Xaosflux. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:08, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
You just knew I was a stone's throw away from pinging you. –xenotalk 17:10, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Ah, that feeling...

...when a seemingly new and enthusiastic editor lights up your watchlist with changes that maybe aren't so well-thought-out but seem good-faith enough, and then your watchlist lights up with someone reverting them without explanation and tagging their stuff for deletion out of process, so you consider trying to step in and try to sort it out but by that point the newbie has been blocked for abusing multiple accounts and you think, welp, guess my work here is done. 28bytes (talk) 01:00, 18 October 2019‎ (UTC)

{[ping|28bytes}} It could be worse. What has happened to me before, at least a couple of times, is I got to the point of righteously lecturing the people who are harassing the poor guy, and only then does the CU come around and make me look like a pompous moron. <<== redacted/struck through by Ched as a personal attack on one's self. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:33, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
reping @28bytes:. I am really not having a good typing day. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:58, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
You do tend to leave yourself open for punchlines. ... naaaa - too easy. j/k — Ched (talk) 17:02, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
I'd be disappointed if someone didn't make fun of my editing skills today. 50% of my edits this morning have been to fix my own mistakes. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:09, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Well then - we aim to please. :) — Ched (talk) 18:28, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, did you mean to ping 28bytes above, or is that a typo too? Risker (talk) 18:43, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
I tend to have the opposite problem. I know it’s some banned user masquerading as new, but can’t prove it. I promise the AGF looking like a moron is a better feeling... TonyBallioni (talk) 18:34, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

95.89.101.40

user:95.89.101.40 is abusing her talkpage. CLCStudent (talk) 17:13, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Just let them blank it. It doesn't matter. If I see abuse I'll reblock. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:14, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
She was saying something mean about Wikipedia after the block. CLCStudent (talk) 17:14, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
I think Wikipedia can handle it. Still, just to nip this in bud, I've removed talk page access. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:15, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Parallelism

It's cool that this universe has your good nature in it, best wishes. Stephen 23:56, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Aw, thanks Stephen, what a nice thing to see 1st thing in the AM. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:15, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

80.25.203.19

80.25.203.19 (talk · contribs), an IP whose only edits have been to ‎articles about Cirque du Soleil, was warned by you that they would be blocked if they continued to revert without discussion. Unfortunately, they have since done so. Dorsetonian (talk) 08:16, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Blocked for a week, hopefully to get their attention. Let me know if they resume after it expires, and I'll significantly increase the duration to try to force discussion. Also let me know if a new IP starts making the same edits. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:20, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
Very many thanks! Dorsetonian (talk) 08:44, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).

Guideline and policy news

  • A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Help to publish first article

hello dear sir... may you please check my sandbox to see my first article and help me to improve it before publishing on the wikipedia? thanks Adamrizi12 (talk) 20:46, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

@Adamrizi12: I'm a little puzzled how you chose me; have we interacted before? Maybe under a different user name? Sorry, that's not really my skill set, and I'm a little busier than normal anyway. See WP:My first article, or ask for advice at WP:Teahouse. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:20, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

October
... with thanks from QAI

... for your clarifications and efforts in Ritchie's case, - nice to be not alone. I typed a lot on my talk this morning, ending on "should be unblocked", - and then found out he was ;) - "don't believe in miracles, rely on them" (Mascha Kaléko).

Today, I decorated my talk in memory of one who wanted reformation, and one who told him to go on with life laughing, - I gave him Precious that day, seven years ago, first in style, - memory lane. He was an arb cand many could agree on. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:27, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, he's still missed every day. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:16, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes. In my edit notice for wikilife. And here. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:37, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
I was cited to WP:Great Dismal Swamp, take a look please, header Chuckstreet. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:20, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Unless it's really, really straightforward, I'm not sure I'll have a lot of time to look at anything remotely complicated until later. I'll try to find some time. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will be simple. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:12, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
It's simple. We have a new user reported by someone who went for dispute resolution within the first day of an alleged dispute (over the MoS observation in headers, of all-importance), and when that was closed, went to ANI, where it was solved in Wikipedia style by blocking the new user (who had said some things, being annoyed, no surprise ...) - all while I slept. I explained in more detail there. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:21, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
I've taken a look, and I think I'll decline to get involved. I'm not sure it's accurate to call User:Chuckstreet a new user. While I can understand his frustration, he acted obnoxiously enough that, while maybe the dispute could have been solved without blocking, I'm not going to spend my limited time arguing for an early unblock, or arguing the block was wrong. The only thing I see really wrong here is that I don't understand why User:AnUnnamedUser wasn't blocked too. They were both acting disruptively, both edit warring, both getting way too carried away, both not assuming an iota of good faith in the other user. I guess the only difference is AnUnnamedUser stopped short of calling people names; right or wrong, that does seem to be the most important thing around here. Every time I look at a dispute like this, I lose a little more faith in humanity as a whole. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:17, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes. But then there's people like you, to restore the faith. On vacation, - I use "your" blue design to indicate that on my talk, did you see? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:07, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Today, I am proud of a great woman on the Main page, Márta Kurtág, finally, who has much in common with Schumann! - I restored the arb thread to his talk. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:25, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Tis the season for arb threads. We were never able to convince him. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:17, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
These positions which require people with a brain, but no people with a brain would be willing to fill ... - Thank you for using yours to supply a rationale the other day! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:18, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Off-wiki responsibilities

Santa?!?-- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 20:49, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

(takes out a list, makes a black mark next to Ponyo's name) Mind your own business, young lady. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:53, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Trust me, it's not the first time my name's been crossed off that particular list. Ah, the good ol' days! -- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 21:38, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, and sorry

Saw your note on Arbcom. Acknowledging and complying. I also wanted to say how refreshing I found your tone in your earlier comment. You represent what Wikipedia used to be back in the days of Phaedriel and others. Hope you're having a lovely day! Jokestress (talk) 19:02, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, and thanks. Nice of you to say. You must have caught me on a good day; I sort of have a reputation in some circles as a self-righteous cowboy admin. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:11, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Somebody's got to...

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:24, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

You should have just told them to floq off. –xenotalk 00:03, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
I was disappointed this wasn’t ArbFloq Round 2. –xenotalk 00:04, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Dude. Don't give them ideas... --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:43, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Aardvarkrbitrator Floquenbeam Mark II. –xenotalk 02:31, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Oh. My. God. I thought you meant you thought it would be funny if they'd taken me to ArbCom. But you mean you thought the thread title implied I was going to run for ArbCom? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. (takes breath) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha . --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:39, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
You wound me sir! –xenotalk 07:00, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
You forgot a ha. TonyBallioni (talk) 07:02, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
If you don't run, nor SBHB, who will say "no foul, play on"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:20, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
You know if you are just going to do the work of an arbitrator, you might as well take the hat. It's one of the handsomest hats, too. –xenotalk 18:55, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
If you're talking about what I assume you're talking about, that's the kind of thing an Arb (mostly) just can't do. An Arb almost never acts unilaterally, they have to go thru the glacial process of herding all the other cats getting the consent of the other Arbs first. The quickest the Committee could turn around a motion to say something like that - if it's unanimous - is probably like 2 days.
I was a horrible Arb during my 6 months on the job, mostly due to not having the time to do a lot of the work, while simultaneously feeling enormous guilt because I felt an obligation to try to pull my own weight. Also because I think I'm probably a big picture person rather than a detail-oriented person, so I *hated* the round-and-round detail tweaking on the mailing list. Also the unrelenting ugliness of people (often on both sides of a dispute) depressed me more than I expected it would. Also everyone else on the Committee was so much more competent than I was. I. Will. Never. Ever. Run. Again.
But not only that, I feel I'm actually much more useful to the community as an admin than as an Arb. In this case, I could review the situation, make what I think was a fair decision, compose a couple of sentences, and post it in 15 minutes, instead of 2 days. I feel much more productive and much more useful as a rouge admin than I ever did as an Arb. It's good to be self-aware enough to know when you aren't cut out for something. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:13, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the understanding

Hey Floq,

Thanks for the close on my Proposal. I did not know you had to propose that on arbcom. I’m not an admin and not entirely familiar with ArbCom, so Ill steer clear of starting a case and maybe someone else will bring it up.

My proposal was done in good faith and I stand by my reasonings I proposed. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

AmericanAir88(talk) 19:16, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl decided she needed the last word, so I've given up and removed the archive box. Just FYI, a desysop will still not happen as a result of an ANI thread, so my advice is to not waste more time on that discussion, but I no longer care if people voluntarily choose to waste their time there. In fact, I think I may have been unwise in closing it; it might be useful as a kind of honey pot to keep the pro-portal and anti-portal fanatics out of the hair of normal humans for a few weeks. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:56, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

EC userpage

I disagree with the tag addition, but concede that the functionaries - those who are most involved with dealing with arbcom bans and socking - have apparently found it useful. I disagree more strongly about the kicking-them-when-they're-down aspect of removing the user page content, because that cannot possibly be useful and so is functionally indistinguishable from gravedancing, but concede that Eric pissed a lot of powerful people off, and so I can't do anything about that either. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains. Thanks to Ivanvector for handling this with a lot of class (even if he was (apparently) outvoted about blanking the page content). --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:08, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hi Floq. You removed the sock tags from EC's userpage and indefinitely full protected it. He is still socking, and using socks to influence RfAs. This editor should not receive special treatment. Please unprotect the page and/or place the normal sock master tags. Thank you. – Levivich 16:25, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

I’ve said before, and will say again, I won't fight with an Arb, an Arb clerk responding to an Arb's request, or a CU readding the tag. I'd disagree, but defer to their opinion. I wouldn't even fight with a random admin who overrode the protection, probably, just because that isn't a hill I'm willing to wheel war on. But I note that no Arb or clerk or CU has felt the need to override the protection so far. What I think is poisonous, and continues to be poisonous regardless of Eric's behavior, is Eric’s enemies crawling out from the woodwork in order to try to shame him by making sure the tag is there. In particular, one enemy rekindling the fight after it had died down for a month.
In my experience, there is usually no actual benefit to those tags, for anyone, except the gleeful feeling of victory they give to the editors' enemies. People claiming this is special treatment are apparently unaware that these tags are not uniformly applied, and there's a lot of variance in how it's handled. People claiming they want it on there in order to inform innocent editors dropping by the page that the user is blocked are lying. They want it as a token of victory. Yuck. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:23, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Months later he is still socking and using the socks to try and tank multiple RfAs. That just washed over you like it’s nothing? Still worthy of your protection? – Levivich 17:35, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
The presence or absence of the tag would not have changed that. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:41, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
No, but it should change your opinion as to whether or not he deserves your protection. – Levivich 17:54, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
It's a human being who can't edit their own talk page. By definition that deserves protection. --valereee (talk) 17:58, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Valereee, we don't full-protect the pages of editors who have TPA revoked as a matter of ordinary course. You're also missing the big, giant, point: it's not the protection, it's removing the tag, and then full-protecting it. This is hiding from public view the fact that this account is a sock master. AND the sockmaster is using socks to tank the RfAs of editors with whom he had disputes years ago. Go ahead, and tell me this is OK. – Levivich 18:02, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Levivich, do you not have anything else you could be doing? I recommend WP:FAC or WP:GAC, or maybe even turn a red link blue. Ya know, constructive things that benefit us all. CassiantoTalk 18:09, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

  • you have to understand that you're dealing with an editor who thinks posting a proud "these are disagreements I've been in" on their user page is a reason to support a RfA. I don't suspect that logic, reasoning, and compassion are inside their wheelhouse. — Ched (talk) 18:18, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
    Ched, you're saying I lack compassion for the editor who is socking to oppose the RfAs of editors with whom he had disputes years ago? You're goddamn right I do. – Levivich 18:30, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Levivich, that editor tried to tank my own RfA, and I'm not sure I'd ever had an interaction with him. :) I just feel like we don't need to make sure bad behavior is punished in every possible way. --valereee (talk) 18:42, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
- just a FYI - mine as well. — Ched (talk) 20:06, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Another reason that passers-by should not be tagging user pages is that such mindless activity generates bitterness by grave dancing—it's pointless, unpleasant and degrades the community. Johnuniq (talk) 01:27, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't know about the others here, but I had a tag on my page for the whole year (2013 to 2014) that I was banned. I'm not an enemy of EC, but his page should be tagged as long as EC's banned. GoodDay (talk) 04:29, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

He isn't banned, he's blocked. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:57, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that's a distinction with a difference. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:23, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
  • As a checkuser, I would appreciate if you would restore the {{sockpuppeteer}} tag. That tag is used for tracking (e.g. Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Eric Corbett) and it is also important to note (e.g. for admins considering unblocking him) that there is non-public evidence demonstrating he has evaded his block. He's also one checkuser finding away from being banned by the community in addition to Arbcom's actions. I have no opinion about the rest. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:50, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
    • There is no info in the tag that isn't in the block log, and Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Eric Corbett exists whether the tag is there or not. If, as a Checkuser, you honestly think there is some benefit to adding the tag beyond its function as a scarlet letter, then please do so; I'll defer to your authority in this area, and you'll get no further argument from me. Just FYI, if you decide to add it, you'll get fewer people screaming at you if you add it to the user page, rather than replace the user page contents with the tag. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:56, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
      This is the thing for me, Floq: for whom else have you done this? For what other editor have you removed a sockpuppet tag and then full-protected their userpage? Would you do this for me, if I socked? Or is this the only one? I don't really care if the sockpuppet tag is there or not–that's really a technical matter above my paygrade–it's you using your tools to give someone special treatment that I object to. Despite your good intentions, surely you can see that this just shouts favoritism. It plays right into the "unblockables" narrative. I am hoping that even if you thought it was the right thing to do at the time you did it, you will come to realize it's not the right thing to do, and reverse yourself. (And not put it upon another editor to reverse you, which will put a target on their other editor's back.) – Levivich 18:19, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
      • (edit conflict) For one thing the block log is not properly notated (EC's master account was not re-blocked upon discovery of their confirmed socks, since they were already blocked and we're not supposed to use blocks just to make notations in the log), and the template also provides links to the relevant categories and evidence discussions. It also categorizes the page in Category:Wikipedia sockpuppeteers, which is a separate process from the sockpuppet categories. I agree that generally application of these tags should be left to SPI clerks and checkusers, and also that the contents of the page needn't be replaced by the tag, but I disagree that the application is inconsistent in particular for {{sockpuppeteer}} - every confirmed sockmaster should have that tag, and if they don't then it should be added. I suppose you can make a fair argument that the tag is a badge of shame, but, well, that's our tag for editors who use multiple accounts abusively. I think what you really mean in this particular situation is that the various block tags are being used as a parting shot, and the editors who are engaging in that might well find themselves blocked too. Your protection of the page was probably a fairer response to that.
    (after ec) Levivich, we appreciate your passion but, respectfully, I think you should take a step back from this. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:24, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
    Like I said, Ivan, I am perfectly willing to defer to you. If you re-add, there will be no hard feelings on my end; while the effect will still be a badge of shame, I know that is not your intention. Thank you for replying to Levivich, it means I don't have to. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:31, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
    I appreciate you saying so, and since I get that this is not a run-of-the-mill situation and just to check that I don't have my head too far up my own ass (and also WP:NDR) I've sent off a note to the functionaries mailing list to ask for more input on the tag. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:37, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
    Sounds like a plan. I do think, no matter what the decision ends up being, that the protection should remain. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:41, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Personally I don't care whether the page is tagged or not, and I've not seen any of the other arbs express a strong opinion on it either. It's the CheckUser team that are going to have to enforce EC's block from hereon out so I'll defer to whatever they find most useful. But I'm puzzled by your comment I won't fight with an Arb, an Arb clerk responding to an Arb's request, or a CU readding the tag. I (an arb and CU) originally added the tags as a routine part of the ArbCom/CU block. So your reverting to and protecting the version before that is already overriding an arbitration/CU action. Like I say, if that's what you want to do it's fine by me, but let's call a spade a spade. – Joe (talk) 21:04, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
    Readd. The tag had been off the page for about a month, and the dispute had settled down, and no arbs or CUs seemed to be bothered by that nor had they readded it, when it was readded by someone who is not an arb and not a CU, and who had already been reverted once before. You're welcome to look at it from this "overriding an Arb" perspective, of course; but it isn't the perspective I would use. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:27, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
Alright, so you're happy to protect the revert of an arbitration action, as long as an arb only tries to do it once? Seems a little arbitrary. – Joe (talk) 21:42, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
Look, I'm sorry your feelings are hurt. You are not going to look at this from any other perspective besides your own, so I think further snark by you here will be unproductive. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:46, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
@Pawnkingthree: Thanks, I wanted to link to that discussion but couldn't find it. But I think the point remains that Floq is enforcing a consensus (actually only two editors explicitly in support, as far as I can see) to overturn an arbitration action. So the suggestion that he is only acting insofar as he isn't challenged by an arb or CU is inconsistent. – Joe (talk) 21:40, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
  • An easy compromise here would be to just manually add Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Eric Corbett to EC's user page. The CUs get their tracking, and it's much less badge-of-shame-like than the full template. ~Awilley (talk) 22:03, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
    I'm no longer a functionary, so I'm not part of that discussion, but @Ivanvector: might want to suggest that to them. Whatever they think best. Haven't thought it completely through, but that might not be a bad idea for all people blocked for sockpuppetry. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:09, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The privacy policy for this survey is here. This survey is a one-off request from us related to this unique topic.

Thank you for your participation, Kbrown (WMF) 10:44, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

I assume if I don't participate in the survey, I'll get another mass message asking me to take a survey on why not? To nip this in the bud, I responded at the survey with the following comment: I have lost faith that my opinion would count for anything if it did not align with the WMF's prefered position. In that case, my participation would be legitimizing a farce, and a waste of my time. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:22, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Reverts on mottainai

Floquenbeam, were these two reverts by Hijiri88 yesterday in the spirit of your earlier warnings to Hijiri88 and I? [2][3] These reverts are the same as the previous [4], and I feel that it was too soon to revert yet again before a full discussion was complete. I believe he ignored the spirit of the warnings delivered by several editors to avoid making contentious reverts so soon. [5][6]Martinthewriter (talk) 22:19, 13 November 2019 (UTC)​

The world is an imperfect place. A case could be made that the whole thing should have been reverted back to the version from October, but when two people have violated 3RR, it's difficult to not have one of them temporarily "win" and one temporarily "lose", and I felt this was the best way to get both of you to stop reverting without resorting to blocks. But it means the article was in the state you wanted it, and so Hijiri should get a little leeway here. Since Hijiri is making small, targeted reverts and explaining them clearly in edit summaries, I'm not going to treat this like a continuation of an edit war. It would be different if he waited a day and re-did the whole thing, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The revert of the lead is minor and unimportant and the wording of the lead should probably come last anyway, after all other points of contention are addressed. As for the removal of the paragraph starting "One of the earliest appearances...", do you actually disagree with that removal or not? If so, say so on the talk page and explain why, and see what others say, it can always be re-added if there's consensus for it. If not, then please don't try to get someone in trouble just to get them in trouble, particularly when you were edit warring yourself a day ago.
I have very little desire to monitor that page constantly, or be anyone's overseer or fairy godmother. I see several editors have joined the two of you on that page, including two I trust very much, so just give discussion and consensus a chance to happen, accept a little give and take, don't demand that the article be exactly like you want it until consensus is against you. If something is changed that you particularly disagree with, revert that as part of WP:BRD, but don't do so reflexively or obstinately, and limit yourself to one revert just to be safe. There are other editors there now who can revert if something is really wrong. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:00, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

OTD put-down

Floquenbeam, regarding your disparaging comment at WP:MP/E about "harping" on faulty juxtapositioning: I notice German Wiki's OTD manages to coordinate illustrations and blurbs. If they can do it, why can't we "grownups" (as you snarkily style yourself) do it? – Sca (talk) 20:06, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

PS: What in the world is "Floquenbeam" supposed to connote or imply? – Sca (talk) 20:06, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
  • You've complained about that many times, and been told each time that it can't be done the way OTD is currently set up. We do not currently have a way of aligning the picture with the text, without introducing bugs in how it displays. If the German Wikipedia has figured out a way, bring that up at WT:OTD (or WT:ITN, where it also applies, or Talk:Main Page) to see if we can start doing what they do, or if there's a technical reason we can't. But just posting it at ERRORS again for the 46th time, expecting a different answer, doesn't do anyone any good. I spent a few minutes of my time trying to figure out what the error even was, because it was worded so opaquely, before finally realizing you were just pointing out the same thing you're always pointing out. I'd like those minutes back.
The answer to your second question is here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:20, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

IBAN clarification

It was a busy night on the ARS list. There was a minor edit war, with User ජපස reverting my addition to the rescue list twice: first, second. Next User ජපස tried to delete the whole project. Next the talk page. I decided to exit at this point.

Then Hijiri88 then became involved posting on my addition to the list which the editors were fussing over, here and here Due to my IBAN with Hijiri88, I understand we are not allowed to "feud" with one another, but is Hijiri88's involvement with my listing okay? Thanks in advance, and apologies for the long way of asking a question here. Lightburst (talk) 15:11, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

It isn't an interaction ban - admins can't unilaterally impose those, which I find stupid but it is what it is - it is a "stop feuding or get blocked for disruption" warning. In what way do you think this is feuding? It is not addressed to you, does not comment on your post, does not imply anything negative about your post. Hijiri has posted to that page many times, so it doesn't seem like he's tracking your contribs. So how is it feuding? This isn't a rhetorical question, but a genuine one. Am I missing something? If you're just asking for clarity about what you can do, then stuff like this would be OK. You can participate in a discussion that Hijiri is participating in. You guys can even disagree. You just can't follow each other around, or make personal comments on each other, or demonstrate a pattern of opposing each other. Let me know if I've missed context and this could legitimately be considered continuing the feud. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:29, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks. When an editor comes after me as hard as this one has, I consider this involvement following (especially days after your warning). Posting and commenting on my thread has no purpose other than a provocation. When you say the editor has posted there before so it is not following that is not entirely accurate- He last posted there to needle me 4 months ago). If this type of following/needling behavior is allowable, I am disappointed. But thanks, and sorry to take time away from the project. Lightburst (talk) 17:57, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
    You guys both edit in deletion-related areas a lot. You're going to run into each other. You almost never agree. The key is not to ensure you never run into each other, or that you stop disagreeing, but that you don't keep escalating the personalization of the dispute. I don't see his comment as personalizing your previous dispute. If a pattern develops, that's another thing. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:06, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Floq, I'm sorry to bother you again, but do you think this edit is appropriate? Lightburst has no interest in the article itself, and was clearly not just responding to the RFC but showing up there to !vote the opposite way to me. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:43, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
    • Kind of the same way you showed up at ARS for the first time in 4 months to make a seemingly innocuous comment on a section Lightburst started? You should read the whole section below, substituting "Hijiri" for "Lightburst" and "Lightburst" for "Hijiri". Then, you and Lightburst should both do a tiny bit of self reflection about why it is so important to annoy each other and get each other in trouble, and why engaging in a just-barely-under-the-radar (or, more accurately, no-longer-under-the-radar-and blockworthy-next-time) tit-for-tat is more important than it is to not waste the time of other people. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:31, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Kind of the same way you showed up at ARS for the first time in 4 months to make a seemingly innocuous comment on a section Lightburst started? I don't edit ARS very often (I find the process very frustrating -- I point out that someone is canvassing, then someone else shows up and tells me to **** off, rinse and repeat). But I monitor it constantly, and frequently show up on the AFDs linked from there. In this instance I actually wanted to comment on the AFD, but because you had told me you would block me for "battleground" behaviour if you saw me disputing with LB, and I was fairly certain LB would post something like the above if I became involved in any way, I stayed away.[7] Then I saw another editor, not LB, alter someone else's (also not LB) comment without explanation, and I didn't even revert that, but rather left a note inline explaining that it had happened. I have been monitoring ARS for well over a year (actually exactly as long as I've been monitoring the Mottainai article) and it could even be argued that LB followed me there (he became much more active on it after I filed a CCI on him; LB's showing up out of the blue on an article I have been involved in to !vote against me is clear disruptive hounding (he made it so the RFC couldn't be speedy-closed as the tendentious canvassing that it was).
But it's clear you're not going to do anything about, so I'll try to forget about it for now. I sincerely hope it doesn't happen again.
Cheers,
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:02, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

FYI

see my last comment at end of thread. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:00, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Thought you should know that Hijiri 88 will not drop the stick. He now refers to me in code, as one of the "Big four". If you read the thread there is no other conclusion to make. He is working hard in the Village Pump thread to get me topic banned or get someone else to file an ANI saying I should be site banned. Additionally here he is talking about my edits on SportingFlyer's talk page to get him fired up too. For my part I have avoided the editor. I am also not responding to his spurious attacks. It gets old and I am tired of collecting diffs, probably as tired as you are of looking at them. Lightburst (talk) 15:13, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Blocked for 1 week. If this happens again, please work harder on reporting without the commentary. Yes, very tired. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:56, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Sorry to bother you with this, just not really sure or not. When he refers to the "big four" in three different places, he is also referring to me. The deletion discussions linked to shows me participating, no way he could be talking about anyone else. There is a two way interaction ban between us.[8] Does this violate that? If he isn't allowed to talk about two of the four editors then puts us together in a group like that to get around that, seems like that might be a violation. Dream Focus 16:42, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
    Dream Focus, if it's a two way ban, aren't you violating it right here? Usedtobecool TALK ✨ 17:19, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
    I am allowed to ask questions about the block. Dream Focus 17:43, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
    Right, of course! Thanks! Usedtobecool TALK ✨ 17:55, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
  • le sigh. I'm not going to bitch too hard about the block, or dispute it. I wish Hijiri88 would just stop taking the bait. But I also wish people would stop rewarding the baiters. Back at the edit warring noticeboard you tried to defuse the issue by threatening H88 with a block for edit warring and picking fights, and the other party for camping at H88s contributions in the hope of catching him out. Well, don't you think it's weird that an editor who claims to be keeping their distance is still able to report on H88's felonies almost in real time? It's easy to make a show of disengaging when you're part of a tag team and can count on your friends carrying on the campaign, knowing they'll eventually bait the other guy into giving the whole tag team a blast. Then they've indirectly referred to you and you can instantly go running to the admins to get them blocked. I'm not defending Hijiri88, he's got to stop being so dumb and belligerent, I'm just asking you to open your eyes and really look at what's going on in future. Thanks for listening. Reyk roaming (talk) 17:10, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
    I am online all day. I have recently interacted with Lightburst at [9] and elsewhere, so I did click his contributions and found this. Dream Focus 17:44, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
    Reyk, I'm trying to keep an eye on that possibility, and I've tried to be pretty even handed in the warnings in the threads up above here. or maybe already archived, too depressed to look. The thing is, I don't think that's exactly what happened here. Both were active in the discussion, so no contribs camping was needed. I'd agree with you about the diff on SportingFlyer's talk page, except that (a) directly comments on Lightburst, and (b) once the personalization at VPP was noticed, I have a hard time being too critical of Lightburst looking at recent edits. It is literally impossible to be 100% fair to everyone all the time, and people's motivations and tactics are not 100% transparent all the time. I'm trying to do the best I can at being fair here, and am well aware that neither "side" is blameless. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:09, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
    That's fair enough. TBH I don't really understand the context behind the diffs on SportingFlyer's talk so I won't venture an opinion on that. The point I was more getting at is that the VPP indiscretions happened because people worked out what Hijiri's berserk button is and pushed it relentlessly. It's being called dishonest- and whatever other faults Hijiri may have dishonesty actually is not one of them. I note it took about 11.2 nanoseconds for the gloating to start. Eh, perhaps I'm getting a bit carried away and I don't want to come across as excusing Hijiri's bouts of bad temper. I just tend to empathise more with the guy who's getting ganged up on. Also, I used to have a berserk button of my own years ago- being called a hypocrite- and damned if people didn't pound away at that button every chance they got. So I know what that's like. Well, I got over it once I realised what people were up to and I bet H88 will too. Thanks for indulging this little rant. Reyk YO! 20:13, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Floquenbeam, Nobody pushed any "Berserk" buttons. Nobody ganged up on the editor. Nobody made the editor come after the "Big four". Nobody did any grave dancing after the block either. Reyk has been co-signing the bad behavior for some time and even subjected me to a personal attack and Reyk never struck the attack or apologized. This contributes to the general atmosphere and bad feelings. I am not suggesting anyone punish Reyk, but I am saying the editor should consider civility, and perhaps consider not defending an editor with a "Berserk" button. I just want to help build the encyclopedia. Whichever administrator can get the editor to drop the stick is my hero. Lightburst (talk) 00:51, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Did you notice the without the commentary in the first response above? The way to show moral superiority is to stop talking about it. Johnuniq (talk) 01:05, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Floquenbeam I wouldn't mind getting an answer to Dream Focus' concerns about Hijiri88's IBAN violations. Hijiri88 has been following Dream Focus around, constantly criticizing him without mentioning his name. He criticizes him as being one of the "big four"[10]. He also followed Dream Focus to a deletion discussion and said, "It should probably also be noted that all (but one?) of the keep !votes are regular WP:ARS members who were canvassed on that page and showed up to block-vote"[11]. Hijiri88 also followed Dream Focus to another discussion to say "many (most?) of the people who are arguing with you (several of whom have a history of being blocked, warned, or having their edits revdelled, due to copyright violations)"[12]. Is it a violation of Hijiri88's IBAN for Hijiri88 to be stalking Dream Focus and casting aspersions on him without mentioning his name specifically? This is a point that is badly in need of clarification. Worldlywise (talk) 01:50, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm keeping an eye on interactions between Hijiri and Lightburst (well, not really, because I don't have time, but I've accepted that they are going to post about it here because I'm the one who issued the warning). I don't want to be the go-to admin to try to get Hijiri blocked. If you want to get him in trouble for violating an iban, take it to another admin or ANI or something. At this stage, it would be really smart for pretty much everyone who has posted to this section to take everyone else who posted to this section off their watchlists, and avoid the temptation to look at their contribs. I look into my crystal ball and I see someone eventually creating an ANI report, and it turns into a timesink, and lots of people on both sides of the feud get sanctioned. I honestly cannot fathom why anyone would want any part of that. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:59, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Preventing accidental submits

Hi. I recognized this edit as something that had frustratingly happened to me many times. To prevent this annoying situation, add the following to User:Floquenbeam/common.js: 

// Prevent accidental submits
$(document).ready(function(){
    $('input#wpSummary').keypress(function(e){
        if(e.which==13) e.preventDefault();
    });
});

This will prevent your edit from being submitted if you accidentally (or on purpose) hit the enter key in the edit summary. It will only be submitted upon hitting the "Publish changes" button. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:57, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks so much, Mandarax. I'll try it our in this edit summary. Fingers crossed. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:29, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
You're welcome. I hope you'll find it as useful as I have. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:38, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Re: Category:Potential violations and Template:Rule violating talk discussion

Hello. The purpose of those pages is because I have noticed many off-topic talk discussions, and I wanted a place for administrators to easily see and delete obvious rule violation.

E Super Maker (😲 shout) 00:44, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

One problem is that there are few talk pages where it would not be possible to find some discussion that another editor might regard as off-topic. Putting a large number of talk pages in a maintenance category would not help anything. Usually discussion end naturally so the problem of an off-topic discussion soon goes away. Johnuniq (talk) 02:45, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
@E Super Maker: Yes, what Johnuniq said. This would be a pretty massive undertaking, big enough so that it doesn't make sense to start this up based on one editor's initiative. John makes a compelling argument, I think; please consider it. If you still really want to move forward, I'd suggest a proposal at WP:VPP to gauge interest. I wouldn't advise that personally, though. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:50, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

also OTD

... I think of Hevrin Khalaf and protest. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:30, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

... but today it looks more like music --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:47, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanksgiving
Cassia javanica, Torremolinos
... with thanks from QAI

... and today is a great holiday, enjoy. I won't forgot my first in the U.S., invited by a great person and his wife. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:52, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019).

Administrator changes

added EvergreenFir • ToBeFree
removed Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂

CheckUser changes

readded Beeblebrox
removed Deskana

Interface administrator changes

readded Evad37

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:47, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Der Ring in Minden

... finally appeared today, - my opera experience of the year. Part of the hook, "... to listen to the music at the end", would be a good motto ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:35, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

That's very cool, I'm glad you enjoyed it, Gerda. Is seeing the entire cycle the grown up equivalent of binging a series on Netflix? --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:19, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Peace Dove

Peace is a state of balance and understanding in yourself and between others, where respect is gained by the acceptance of differences, tolerance persists, conflicts are resolved through dialog, peoples rights are respected and their voices are heard, and everyone is at their highest point of serenity without social tension. Happy Holidays to you and yours.

―Buster7 ☎ 01:46, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Buster7, the same to you. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:35, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Io Saturnalia!

Io, Saturnalia!
Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. May the year ahead be productive and distraction-free. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:28, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, @Ealdgyth:. Wishes for a productive 2020 are more appropriate for actual productive people (e.g. you). For useless people like me, distractions are all we have to live for. But the kind wishes are noted, and reciprocated. Cheers. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:17, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Happy Holidays

Thank you for continuing to make Wikipedia the greatest project in the world. I hope you have an excellent holiday season. Lightburst (talk) 22:45, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, @Lightburst:, hope your holidays were great, and wishing you whatever kind of 2020 will make you happiest. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:19, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Good luck

豊かな十年へようこそ/WELCOME TO THE D20s

Miraclepine wishes you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a prosperous decade of change and fortune.
このミラPはFloquenbeamたちのメリークリスマスも新年も変革と幸運の豊かな十年をおめでとうございます！
フレフレ、みんなの未来！/GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR FUTURE!
ミラP 03:33, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, @Miraclepine:, I did have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year; I hope you had the same. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:21, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

Hello there! Shearonink (talk) wishes you & yours the very best of the season!

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa,
Festivus (for the rest of us!) or even the Saturnalia,
here's to
hoping your holiday time is wonderful
and that the New Year will be an improvement upon the old.
CHEERS!

Share these holiday wishes by adding {{subst:User:Shearonink/Holiday}} ~~~~ to your friends' talk pages.

Thanks, @Shearonick:, I think you got them all covered. Yes, my holiday time was wonderful, hope yours was too. I hope 2020 will be better than 2019; at first glance, it seems like it would be hard for it to be worse. But that doesn't mean I'm optimistic. Just hopeful. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, there's one new year's resolution shattered already. Didn't preview. Repinging @Shearonink:. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:28, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!
Floquenbeam,
Have a great 2020 and thanks for your continued contributions to Wikipedia.

   – 2020 is a leap year – news article.
   – Background color is Classic Blue (#0F4C81), Pantone's 2020 Color of the year

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year 2020}} to user talk pages.

– Utopes (talk) 09:04, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

That's certainly an impressive template! Thanks, @Utopes:, hope you have a great 2020 too. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:33, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Cheers

Damon Runyon's short story "Dancing Dan's Christmas" is a fun read if you have the time. Right from the start it extols the virtues of the hot Tom and Jerry

This hot Tom and Jerry is an old-time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true.

No matter what concoction is your favorite to imbibe during this festive season I would like to toast you with it and to thank you for all your work here at the 'pedia this past year. Best wishes for your 2020 as well F. MarnetteD|Talk 21:56, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

I had one of almost every kind of Christmas drink I know of the last week or two, mostly to recover from a rough November/December. Didn't have a Tom and Jerry exactly, but came close. Thanks, @MarnetteD:, best wishes for your 2020 too. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:13, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

You are welcome F and thanks for your kind wishes in return. MarnetteD|Talk 18:57, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Play on in 2020

Happy 2020
missing Brian ...

Enjoy the season! We sang a lot, and the last service even live broadcast! Check out the Happy link, - decoration to come, but "look" and "listen" possible. - I am looking for an admin who dares to move Peter Schreier to Recent deaths in Template:In the news, - he died on Christmas Day which seems no longer recent. Perhaps someone is watching? WP:ITNN#RD: Peter Schreier. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:58, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Gerda! Glad your season was full of song. Looks like someone dealt with the RD. Have a happy and peaceful 2020. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:31, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! If the visions in 2020 come out as well as the thanks in 2019, happy and peaceful will come along. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:03, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Floquenbeam!

Happy New Year!

Floquenbeam,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Happy New Year! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 11:14, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Thanks, @DBigXray:, you too! Although if my new year is prosperous and productive and enjoyable, I'll eat my hat... --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars." —Les Brown. --Happy New Year! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 19:05, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Page protection needed at "Earliest known life forms"?

Protection may seem to be indicated for the "Earliest known life forms" page - Rationale => recent target of vandalism (at least 4 times in last 10 days? => 1 + 2 + 3 + 4) - possible Page Protection Type => "([Edit=Require autoconfirmed or confirmed access] (indefinite) [Move=Require autoconfirmed or confirmed access] (indefinite))" - in any case - Enjoy :) Drbogdan (talk) 21:40, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Drbogdan: I'm almost completely useless these days, as my visits to WP are few and far between. I see User:Johnuniq has already protected it - either because you wisely gave up on me and went to WP:RFPP, or because he's watching my talk page. Either way, thanks, John. While it's good to hear from you, Drbogdan, you shouldn't really rely on me to actually help with anything for a while. Real life is somewhat overwhelming at the moment. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:53, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
@Floquenbeam: Thank you *very much* for your reply - and comments - yes - decided to post my request on "WP:RFPP" - no problem whatsoever re the Page Protection for "Earliest known life forms" - all is now well - very best of luck in your present circumstances of course - Thanks again for your comments - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 21:05, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Have a very happy adminship anniversary on your special day!

Best wishes, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 07:22, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks CAPTAIN RAJU! Very hard to believe I've been an admin for 10 years. (Well, with all the ragequits and inactivity breaks, it's probably more like 8 years in total, but still....) --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:54, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Floquenbeam 2 reset your clock. You're a lowly rookie again, like Nathan Fillion but less clumsy. –xenotalk 18:36, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm a newbie again? So does that mean I can stop being all jaded and cynical? --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:10, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
It takes three years to get over that, and then two more years to get it back. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:51, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you

The Thank You Barnstar
For reaching out to me and helping me to get unblocked. Joseph2302 (talk) 19:36, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Glad it worked out. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:40, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
  • The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.

Technical news

  • Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
  • When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [13]

Arbitration

  • Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.

Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

AN post removal

You're free to remove my post at AN, since you're an administrator. But, take it easy with the edit summary content. I've been around for over 14+ years on Wikipedia & I have a strong sense of when a 'new' editor is going to be a long-term problem. PS - recommend you keep on eye on both Albert II of Belgium & Delphine Boel, in the meantime. GoodDay (talk) 20:37, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

AN is not your private army. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:39, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Nor is your property. GoodDay (talk) 20:40, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
That's correct, my property is not your private army either. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:41, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
This is your talkpage, so of course you get the last word here. You can count on me though not to be in your corner, in future. GoodDay (talk) 20:43, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Ah, so you're one of those who decide whether to agree or disagree with someone's position based on whether you like them or not. In other words, the quintessential AN/ANI denizen. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:48, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
The removal of GoodDay's AN post may satisfy karmic justice but it now leaves the subject (User:Helsing90) nowhere to respond to the complaint. I did leave a notice for them on their user talk. EdJohnston (talk) 20:57, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
If you think it's fair to Helsing90 to be reported to AN like that, with no talk page message whatsoever leading up to it, then feel free to restore the post to AN; I'll defer to your judgement. I'm sure the calm and patient people who frequent that page will politely set him right. Or you can revise your message on their talk page, and they can reply to you there. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:03, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Oh, I thought of another one. You could re-add the thread, but immediately close it with "Improperly filed". --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:14, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Your edit summary

Your edit summary ...and it's a bad look when someone on the other side of the arbcom case is the one to remove it. Does this apply to Ritchie333's change? Someone who gave evidence "...on the other side..." and which change significantly altered the page appearance (I did glance at it, before the removal). Why the differentiation? OK, with hindsight I could've commented it out, which would've given a prompt, point taken; I noticed something in situ which others may not have. What is the reason for your biased commentary?--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 04:10, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it does apply to Ritchie's change too; I just didn't notice that. If it actually breaks the stat tool, then fine (although Ritchie should have let someone else do it). If it doesn't break the stats tool, then it should be put back. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:06, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
oops, meant to ping @Rocknrollmancer:. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:08, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
How is this helping the encyclopedia? There really is no benefit from poking someone. Johnuniq (talk) 04:32, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
I was actually going to post on Ritchie's talk page asking him to reconsider doing that, for the same reasons as Floq gave for the topicon. I'm not sure on the policy of whether an ex-admin is entitled to continue to display their admin stats, but it's not actually saying "I'm an admin" so I would have left it there.-- P-K3 (talk) 14:50, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
My reason is 1) it breaks the stats tool (or at least I thought it did) and 2) it means people will continue to post "Hey, you deleted 'x' two years ago, can you restore it" on his talk page, which, knowing RHaworth, is rubbing salt into the wounds a bit too much. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:56, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
@Ritchie333: How does it break the stats tool? If it doesn't actually break it, then it should be put back, and let RH handle it however he would like. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:04, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
I read the template's documentation; it doesn't "break" in the sense of harming anything, it breaks in the sense of no longer being updated by a bot. Which doesn't really matter, since the stats will no longer change. I've put the table back. If the documentation is wrong, or if I've read it wrong, and it does somehow break something, then point it out and I'll comment it out. I don't think it's a good idea for someone on the other side of the arbcom case to be changing his user page. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:17, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Okay, it doesn't break it, so my memory was wrong. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:20, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
To be fair, the documentation isn't terribly clear. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:28, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
There is the second point to consider though (although it's more a general thing rather about this specifically), which is while I thought a desysop was necessary for the project, it doesn't mean I want to "stick it" to RHaworth any more than somebody I end up having to block for WP:COMPETENCE issues - both are done out of a profound sense of regret and necessity. However, if RHaworth still appears to be an admin, new users will ask him admin questions, such as to restore a draft or explain a deletion. Either he has to tell a whole bunch of newbies he's no longer an admin, or face a talk page stalker doing the same. Either way, it's humiliating. I don't want to rub his face in it, because that's not nice - I am pretty sure that right now he just wants to be left alone. I've got a long-term plan to possibly work with him on something like getting East Croydon railway station to GA together, but I don't want to rush things. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:01, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
By my careful calculations,
  • 0% of newbies will think he's an admin because he has {{admin stats}} on his user page. They simply won't look there to try to figure it out.
  • 1% of newbies who might think he's an admin will think that because they ran across his user talk page for some unrelated reason, and saw the {{admin topicon}} on his talk page.
  • 99% of newbies who might think he's an admin will think that because he previously deleted a page. Of those people, 1% would realize he wasn't an admin if the topicon wasn't there. The rest will (understandably) post their questions and undeletion requests without further research, and will have to be pointed in the right direction regardless.
Everyone who ends up thinking he's still an admin will think that completely independently of the {{admin stats}} template, and nearly independently of the {{admin topicon}}. That's not to say they "should" be kept; were I in his position, I'd remove them. It's just that it seems disrespectful to strip them from his pages like he's having dessert taken away for being a naughty boy, when any benefits to removing them will have negligible affect on other editors' behavior. Were I in his position, people doing that in my absence would highly annoy me. Depending on who they were and what their relationship was to me, I'd likely interpret it as gravedancing, regardless of the intent. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:52, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
I tend to agree, Floiquenbeam, except that this looks awful and makes me very glad I was creeped out enough by the thing to put it on a subpage. I was also grateful to the person who took the admin category off my user page; I was just sitting there wondering where to go from here. So tehre's an element of kindness to be seen in these actions, too. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:43, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Hmmm... I have a sinking feeling I'm going to have to eat crow (or, at least, Ritchie's hat) soon. If the bot replaces the table on RH's user page with that awfulness, then Ritchie is right about "breaking" the tool, and I'll undo my edit (and add a line to the documentation). Someone else took the actual category off his user page; I don't have any argument about that. The little icon I'm still inclined to leave and let RH decide what to do when he comes back. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:53, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
I never realized this is the template output, which could be insensitive in a number of circumstances. What's wrong with former administrators having their administrative actions displayed? –xenotalk 21:09, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
I have no idea. I think ex-admins should be able to have a table of their past actions for posterity, but I'm starting to fear that Ritchie is right and this is not what the bot is going to do the next time it runs that task. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:12, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Cyberpower678: how hard would it be to have the bot complete the table for former administrators? Is it disabled for performance reasons or something? –xenotalk 21:15, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
This does Yngvadottir no good, but would it be technically possible to subst RH's table before the bot runs again? If so, what would you folks think of me doing that? Although I'm not thrilled with the idea of screwing around any more on his user page either. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:19, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure how well substing will work, there is sometimes nested templates, etc. The data will remain in the edit history in any case - see Special:Permalink/687078653, for example. –xenotalk 21:23, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Substing didn't work (see User:Floquenbeam/sandbox history). I'm now officially confused why Yngvadottir's page looks the way it does. When the bot runs again, would RH's page look the same as it does now until someone edited his user page, at which time the awfulness appears? Time to admin I'm in over my head, technically. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:27, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
It's black magic trickery, through and through (Special:Permalink/939182755). –xenotalk 21:40, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
(/head explodes/) I assume you were just repeatedly substing sub templates and sub sub templates and sub sub sub templates? --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:45, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes, but I’m sure there was a better way to do it. xaosflux: isn’t there some kind of “substall:”!function that will output raw wiki text no matter how many sub templates? –xenotalk 21:52, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
@Xeno: "recursive subst" a/k/a "substall" doesn't exist, but if you set the WABAC machine to the dawn of time you can see it requested in phab:T4777. — xaosflux Talk 23:57, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
(ec) ThanQ for your comments; you've doubtless seen the refund requests continuing. My primary concern was the 'Ambassador' aspect, but it was suggested I ignore it; I'm here to learn, in real time as distinct from longer term, and if I run the risk of being cast as the villain of the piece by a gauntlet of partisan supporters for minor actions, so be it. Maybe RHaworth is having a chuckle.

I queried when the trainee clerk posted at 19:00-ish that Evidence was to close in 7 hours time; I am used to ebay machine time of 23:59:59, not + 2 extra hours. Moreover, the clerk got it wrong by a whole day, and had to be advised/self correct. I also commented on the generic, catch-all term User rights, meaning low-level tools dished out to anyone who requested them, as advised to me in early 2015, as distinct from administrator privileges which are determined after a formal sequence.

I noticed at RHaworth someone commented on BHG - I didn't know about it, but have collaborated with someone she just short-blocked, of which I was aware; I noticed Liz made some changes to BHG, but didn't look deeply. Now I will go through it, together with Fram, TRM as always intended, plus BuRob13(?), why not, writing this from memory, also re-acquaint myself with JYTdog. I have my own agenda; I curtailed contributing prose over the past two years through disillusionment although I'm still around much more than would be surmised by tallying the edits against the gaps.

Johnuniq I regret that you've concluded I'm here to poke a stick; I tried to be neutral at all times, including when I suggested RHaworth as file mover (en WP to Commons). Ritchie333 I could also suggest a programming project, but perhaps that would not go down well; I've tried three without fruit - 1. blocked, 2. responded but failed to follow up (I think not capable), 3. responded only by tps. I was interested to see some disquiet at RHaworth regarding broken closing-code, having been picked up for that myself recently. Think that's all for now.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 20:58, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

I kind of stopped reading at ...if I run the risk of being cast as the villain of the piece by a gauntlet of partisan supporters.... Go cast aspersions on your own talk page. If you do, don't ping me, I won't want to know. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:09, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Flowers

14 February
Happy Valentine's Day!
Alte Liebe
I Will Mention the Loving-kindnesses

My little contrib to the day is Alte Liebe, - the other one started but not gotten far, + there's real life, and real death. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:57, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the flowers, Gerda. I gave my wife tulips this year instead of the more traditional roses; at this stage, we both would rather be reminded that spring is coming than be reminded that someone loves us.... -Floquenbeam (talk) 19:47, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
I get chocolates. It is always the right gift, especially in February. Risker (talk) 20:26, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
I actually forgot it was Valentine’s Day. My excuse that after the number of years we’ve been married it’s a miracle I can still remember what day of the week it is fell on rather glacial ground. Roll on next year to redeem myself. Perhaps somebody could prompt me on the 13th Feb next year. Giano (talk) 21:51, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
I've added "remind Giano about Valentine's Day" to my calendar for 12 Feb 2021 (to give you time to go buy something). Perhaps it would also be wise if you sought outside feedback on potential excuses before deploying them; I think most of my (and your) talk page watchers probably would have tried to talk you out of that one... --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:00, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
Thank you Floq that would be appreciated. At least our wedding anniversary being Bastille Day is easier to remember, and Mrs G being born on Festa della Repubblica is a great bonus. Giano (talk) 22:13, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

List of pornographic subgenres

Hi. I hope you are doing well.
Would you please create/userfy List of pornographic subgenres at User:Usernamekiran/List of pornographic subgenres? It was deleted a little while back via Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of pornographic subgenres. Regards, —usernamekiran (talk) 20:00, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Working on it. I'm probably pretty rusty, give me a few minutes. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:06, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
It's crashed on me twice now. Not sure if it's a temporary problem or something else is wrong. I'll try again in a while. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:09, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
No hurries :) Maybe we should give it a try after a few hours. —usernamekiran (talk) 22:18, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
@Usernamekiran: Do you really plan on working on this? Seems like simultaneously a lost cause and a lot of work to me. But anyway, if so, you're going to need to ask someone smarter than me (maybe at WP:VPT?) why I can't undelete; it's continually crashing when I try, and I may not be back online for a while to follow up. FYI, there are more than 1440 revisions, possibly that's an issue although I think I've undeleted bigger files before. But I'm having no problem deleting and undeleting smaller files, like my sandbox. Also, if you find another admin who is able to do this, please tell them to look in the logs for some edits that User:Oshwah revdel'd. Those 6 edits shouldn't be restored without talking to him first. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:25, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Hi Floquenbeam! Thanks for the ping regarding the six revisions that I hid back in 2018. Looking back at each revision now, I'm honestly not seeing anything that would cause them to require rev del, and I've restored the visibility to them and with an explanation in the log. I only use RD5 for rare and unique situations where rev del is necessary in the given situation but doesn't technically fall into the other criteria. My guess is that it wasn't 100% clear to me even back then; the log in 2018 shows that I hid those six revisions, restored them under RD6 shortly afterward, then changed my mind and re-hid them later. I'm fairly confident that, regardless of what actions result from this discussion, my input is not necessary nor required. ;-) Please let me know if there are any questions about those revisions and the actions I took, and I'll be happy to answer them. Cheers - ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 05:47, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
Honestly speaking, I dont remember the condition of the article. Maybe I should start working on it after a few months. I apologise for the inconvenience. But your co-operation means a lot to me. Thanks a lot for that And whenever I am ready to work on it, we will undelete it together See you around :) —usernamekiran (talk) 23:21, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
OK, I'll stop trying to undelete then. Ta. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:14, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

on the seconds thoughts, only if it is not trouble/too time consuming, would it be possible to copy the last version of article, and paste it to User:Usernamekiran/List of pornographic subgenres? Just in case full or some trimmed version is acceptable for mainspace, then we can perform a histmerge later. I am really sorry for the inconvenience. I feel sort of guilty/odd for pestering. Please feel free to say no. —usernamekiran (talk) 19:52, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm not comfortable copy/pasting the article to WP w/out the history attached; I'm sure no one will actually go after me (or you) for a copyvio, but it's bad form and a bad habit to get into.
Normally, if this was List of sitcom subgenres, I could email you a text copy of the file. In this case I'm not comfortable doing that either.
I tried to undelete the whole history again just now, and it timed out again. I think this is a feature not a bug; it apparently doesn't want me to undelete such a large file.
It might be doable in pieces, but I'm short of time lately, and to be honest don't want to spend too much time on this when I'm frankly not confident this will actually be able to be salvaged. I suggest asking another admin who is (a) technically more competent, (b) more available, or (c) both. Sorry. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:08, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Your close

Thank you for closing that, hopfuly everything is resovled now. I think the next step would be to open an RfC to make the WP:SIG stuff less vague. But I will leave that to someone else as I have no idea how to go about it. LakesideMinersCome Talk To Me! 17:34, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Hopefully, yes. I'm not sure an RFC will be successful - there seems to be a pretty wide variety of opinions - but I've certainly been wrong before when trying to guess what will happen on WP. FYI, since I didn't want to say this on a public page like AN, but now you're here: that last comment in the close was directed at you, among several others. I'm not trying to lecture, just trying to provide feedback. At times it seemed almost as if you wanted to disengage, but couldn't quite bring yourself to actually do it. FWIW. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:06, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Floquenbeam, yah, I know, I don't want him to be blocked, but the PA's were starting to piss me off. But yah, I am ashamed on how I acted in the thread. Some IRL stuff has been pissing me off as well. And yes, I wanted to disengage, but I couldn't bring myself to, I'm going to stay away from places like AN and ANI for a bit. Thank you for your input. It is greatly appreciated. LakesideMinersCome Talk To Me! 18:40, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Floquenbeam, also to mirror SharabSalam's question. you used "enemies" between quotations. Why? LakesideMinersCome Talk To Me! 19:58, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
They're scare quotes. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:07, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks LakesideMiners. And thanks Floquenbeam, I thought you are quoting someone who have said we are enemies. I have said before that I have nothing against that editor.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 20:39, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Floquenbeam, thank you. LakesideMinersCome Talk To Me! 21:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Revert

Just so you know, I done the reverts on the edits with disclaimer, however if I do come across more, what should I do? Should do what you mentioned on the ANI and hold full responsibility of the edit? --Vauxford (talk) 22:50, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I would certainly not restore them en masse, even if you think they're right; that would start getting into problematic territory. You'd want to get consensus to do a mass restoration at - I don't know, WP:CARS? - first. But if you run across isolated instances, then yes, with an edit summary like that should be fine. The important thing is don't edit war with anyone if they revert you again even if you think their justification is wrong, but instead try to get a consensus on the talk page. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:58, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
Alright, thank you again. --Vauxford (talk) 23:02, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Regarding your question on the LTA IP at AIV

There is no LTA page for that vandal. I've considered one but also consider WP:DENY and am not sure which direction to go. There has been the occasional edit that clearly indicates bad faith, but on the whole the fixation on categories (while some of the past IPs have been used to introduce grammatical issues as well) is only marginally disruptive and a rather strange thing for someone to choose as a form of disruption. Would an LTA page be a good idea? --Sable232 (talk) 23:05, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure, to be honest. I asked because I wanted to see evidence that they'd been warned before. But then the thought occurred to me to, you know, actually look at the article history, and I saw what you meant right away. Probably not an actual LTA page, no. But what I've sometimes done before in similar situations is to list several of the IP's in a subpage in my user space, and then link to that page when reporting new incarnations. Might be something to try if other admins give you a headache about it too. Sorry. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:10, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
No need to apologize - in fact, I'm surprised it isn't questioned more often. Thanks for the tip on a userspace subpage - I think I'll try that. --Sable232 (talk) 01:32, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for reverting that. Consistently with sick trolling idiots, they got all their facts wrong. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:11, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

No prob. Even whack-a-mole isn't that big a deal with enough people wielding mallets. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:14, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
I knew my scooby doo support was justified. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:44, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Scooby doo support >> Strong support >> Support. For more on the intersection of Floq and Scooby Doo, see User:Floquenbeam/Policy-violating blog#A Story of Academic Dishonesty. For User:Ponyo. Who I can't help but notice didn't actually ask for details about this, even when I subtly prompted her, but who I'm sure really wanted to know and just got distracted and forgot to ask. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:21, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
lol :) missed that at the time - makes me smile though. — Ched (talk) 18:02, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
  • A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.

Technical news

  • Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.

Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Question

This : Would you do this if I was a registered editor? Please see WP:HUMAN. 107.77.173.21 (talk) 02:58, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

If a registered user was trolling, yes. But I'd block them indef. You only get a week, because a non-troll might want to use that IP someday. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:59, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Quick question regarding striking of blocked users' posts

Hi Floq,

Since you have proposed to close the ANI thread concerning me, I'm reaching out to you for an independent assessment related to my argument/proposal having been struck in the subject MfD thread. Noting that my arguments in outstanding XfD discussions hadn't been struck and since there were at least 1-2 other editors who posted similar arguments after me, I'm just wondering if you can independently assess whether my argument can remain in that thread.

Thanks,
Doug M. T·C 18:06, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

In theory, it could be unstruck (important note: it would be a bad idea for you to do that yourself, though). You're not currently blocked, and even if/when you are, the comment was not made while you were blocked. We trust closers of MFD to weigh arguments, if your argument was bad the closer will consider that. Guy can comment on your comment if he feels the need.
In practice, I'd suggest letting it go. It appears to be a very hard thing for you to do, but I suggest making the effort. As preparation for separating from WP for 4 months, and as preparation for not participating in WP space for 4 more months, and to practice the skills of "not sweating the small stuff", and "accepting that imperfect things will happen, and it annoys others when you harp on that too much".
That said, if you want it unstruck, I'll reluctantly do so, it's not an unreasonable request. Let me know. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:16, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I didn't want to unstrike the comment. I realize that closers should consider all arguments, unless they were stricken for reasons for sockpuppetry, so I'm not opposed to leaving it as is, but was just concerned that the closer may inadvertently skip over the stricken comment. So, I am fine with leaving it stricken or unstriking it. I'll leave it up to your judgment. Doug M. T·C 18:22, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Great. In that case, I've unstruck, not because you asked, but because in my judgement it's the right thing. I'm glad you were willing to defer to others, though. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:37, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Regarding your impending close

I was in the process of drafting a final statement for my talk page, but I'll keep this brief. I did express support for the proposed close, as written, but what was troubling me—and what kept me awake most of the night—was the proposed Wikipedia:/Wikipedia talk: namespace restriction that would follow the community-sanctioned four-month block. Ivanvector sums up my concern concisely in that it would preclude me from participating in XfD discussions, from closing XfD discussions, from nominating non-notable articles or problematic redirects created while patrolling as part of New Pages Patrol. Since Rosguill had previously encouraged me to be bold later this spring and draft a section on soft redirects to Wikimedia sister projects in the NPP WP:RPATROL guide for patrollers, this would also be precluded, as would WikiGnoming-type edits on the NPP pages (i.e., manually archiving closed WT:RWHITELIST requests after they've been closed for the stipulated timeframe, correction of minor errors, and so forth). Likewise, it would also preclude me from listing at WP:RMTR otherwise potentially controversial bold, but undiscussed page moves that should have had a full discussion, and it would preclude me from listing at WP:PM, and helping to complete, proposed article mergers in the applicable holding cell. So, I'm wondering if we could maybe have a community-mandated mentor that could provide me with the necessary guidance, and observe my general editing and behaviour patterns and briefly report in to WP:AN in 3-4 months following the lifting of the block for a lifting of the restrictions? Doug M. T·C 17:08, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Since I just enacted the block, I'll move this to your talk page in a few minutes. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:23, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

messages

Floquenbeam, you are more than welcome to poke your nose in my talk page at any time, any situation. It was a good message, and necessary for that editor. 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 17:39, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@78.26: Thanks, that's certainly also true for you on my talk page. But still, you had it well in hand, so if I had realized where I was I wouldn't have bothered to insert myself into the conversation. Your talk page must have appeared just above or just below AN or ANI on my watchlist, and I saw a thread titled "request" on what I thought was a recent edit to a noticeboard. So I clicked thru to take a look and see if I could help. In fact, I was about to notify the IP editor of the thread (and chastise the other editor for not leaving one), and only when I looked again to see if I should direct them to AN or ANI did I realize I wasn't where I thought I was. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:56, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Dmehus' editing restriction

Just wanted to give you a heads up that I added Dmehus' editing restrictions (per the ANI) to Wikipedia:Editing restrictions/Placed by the Wikipedia community. Feel free to tweak if necessary. Steel1943 (talk) 18:09, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I never remember to do that. I'll take a look at the wording but I'm sure it will be fine. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:10, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Arbitration case opened

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Jytdog. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Jytdog/Evidence. Please add your evidence by March 23, 2020, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Jytdog/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration.

All content, links, and diffs from the original ARC and the latest ARC are being read into the evidence for this case.

The secondary mailing list is in use for this case: arbcom-en-b@wikimedia.org

For the Arbitration Committee, CThomas3 (talk) 05:51, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Response

"This is very wordy." My reasoning for this was because I wanted to be clear about everything.

"...this seems more appropriate for Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies than this noticeboard." I thought about putting it there. I might have an edited version there.

"It's good manners to notify people if you're talking about them." I did not think about this at all. I'm sorry for not doing this.

"I'm concerned that you just happened to choose to talk about two of the most contentious arguments about infoboxes. How did you come to notice that these two articles did not have infoboxes?" I discovered Kubrick's article not having an infobox first, and I almost put one in, but then I saw the discussion/consensus notice. I looked through the archived talk pages on this. I just discovered that last night that Cary Grant's page did not have one after looking up his article while watching North By Northwest. This is the one that made me question Dr. Blofeld in the first place.

Overall, I'm sorry if I came off as an enemy.

- Thatstinkyguy (talk) 22:02, 11 March 2020 (UTC)Thatstinkyguy

Well, not my enemy, because I have carefully cultivated, over the years, an attitude of "I do not care about infoboxes one way or the other". But I find the whole infobox conflict distressing because there are editors I really, really admire on both sides of the issue, and I don't understand why they all think it is so important. So yes, after reading that post, it does feel like you're a pro-infobox warrior, whether or not you actually are one. The current just-barely-holding truce seems to be "don't add one without a consensus if the article's main author doesn't want one, don't remove one without a consensus if the article's main author wants one." I suspect a site-wide RFC on this subject would last months, cause 5% of editors to quit in disgust, and end with a 3-person team closing it as "no consensus for anything". My advice is to find something - anything - to worry about instead. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:08, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I would like there to be infoboxes for every notable person, just because almost other has one. And I'm just gonna quit Wikipedia for the time being. I might come back. I might not. Thanks for the civil reply!
- Thatstinkyguy (talk) 22:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)Thatstinkyguy
I'm not going to tell you what to do, but there's a really wide gap between arguing about infoboxes and quitting altogether. It's easy to find things to be annoyed about, but don't lose sight of what you like about the place. Best of luck whatever you decide. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:49, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Hey, Thatstinkyguy, Floq's right. You unfortunately wandered into an area that for reasons unfathomable to me is hugely contentious here. That can be really upsetting, but it's not worth quitting doing something you enjoy over. FWIW, the fact other articles have infoboxes (or X subsection, or sourcing to Y deprecated source) is never going to help you in a debate, per the advice at Wikipedia:Other stuff exists. :) Best wishes, hope you stick around. --valereee (talk) 12:09, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

ANI

Hi Floquenbeam, I'll not be available until tomorrow morning probably. I have no objection against you closing (and even deleting) the ANI section I started. I or anyone else can then start an ArbCom case, or (if this is better) mail the known facts to ArbCom so they can deal with it privately. I knew that something needed to be done, but had no idea what was the best course of action (and things only got worse at ANI so far, not better...). Fram (talk) 16:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

OK. I'm concerned that things will go even further off the rails in a hurry if this is continued at ANI. I probably can't justify removing and revdel'ing the thread - tho that is my first instinct. But I'll at least remove it. I've already emailed Oversight in case they want to redact some stuff. I really think emailing ArbCom, rather than posting a case request, is best. If they decide they need community input, they can ask for it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:21, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
It should obviously be oversighted...to erase from global memory the only time you have ever agreed with me in the history of the world :p ——SN54129 16:27, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
No it shouldn't. :) --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:28, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  • On reflection, I've now revdel'd, possibly an over-reaction but easily reversed by the oversight team. Don't have time to follow all the rabbit holes to figure out who outed who when and where to redact that too, but at least the links aren't on ANI anymore. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:37, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll email ArbCom about this (perhaps others have done as well, so be it). Fram (talk) 08:06, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

  • Hi all. Just got home from work. As you can see from my time card, I only edit on in the evening on workdays. Looking at the WP:Dramaboard stuff now. Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 10:29, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
    The dramaboard stuff has been oversighted now, so it's hard to look at. Not sure where this is headed, tbh, so best of luck to all involved and I hope the right thing gets done (whatever that is). --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:00, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Old Love

Today's Alte Liebe became especially meaningful after yesterday's funeral. - I'd add to the Valentine flowers but you archived fast ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:24, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Yesterday's funeral? I think I missed something somewhere. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:49, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
... I see this only now: there's a link, and the date and church and music of a funeral are listed (quite a song, played in church!), and Old Love became even more meaningful than for Valentine month anyway. - I just tried to expand the church article, but can't find enough sources. But Jessye Norman became GA today! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
today's music: O salutaris hostia, we sang it last Sunday, with less room than in the video. The composer's article was (until I changed it today) word for word what source PH Publishers had, - and I don't know who copied from whom ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:10, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
It's always hard to know which came first. Thanks for today's music. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:54, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Thatstinkyguy, please reconsider, and thank you for at least removing the black box from your user page. Imagine you had a belief that you nurtured for more than a decade, and someone came and told you that something is wrong with it. You created articles, thank you! Could you simply stick to that? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:30, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I have to admit, Gerda, that when I posted about infoboxes below, and a minute or two later I got a notification that you'd posted, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. I apologize for my lack of faith! --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:54, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Thatstinkyguy: "Don't believe in miracles. --- Rely on them." (Translated from Mascha Kaléko.) In the same line: Don't talk about infoboxes (the first commandement if you want to be happy and healthy here). --- Make them (but only in articles you created yourself). - It's as simple as that. Quoting a wonderful friend: "Disregard the commandments herein at your peril." --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
What can we do? I noticed this editor's disbelief when looking at a page loaded with discretionary sanction warning and long debates, yesterday morning. He talked to one of the debaters. Instead of explaining (to an editor new to the field, but to think so would have required good faith ...) that it's a hot topic, his message was deleted. What would you have done? He talked to the next debater, this time received a reply, first by a third, then that one. What would you have done? He went to a noticeboard, the wrong one. He left Wikipedia, yesterday evening. Whan can we do? I wrote at the beginning of the year that the assumption of good faith would cure much of the site's misery. - I want to have decent relations to the three editors in question, but editor retention is a bit higher on my priority list. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:58, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
I could strike all that because he's back. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:01, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
It's a hard place to leave. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:57, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
tsg, see, we all had our phases of wanting to leave this miserable place, but found it's more miserable without us. Recent deaths had a judoca whose article was 95% copyvio, a composer who will not make it to the Main pages because it's simly detailed and not all sourced, and a politician who will hopefully make it after I'll work on it. I took the judoca first because of the copyvio, and the composer because I love music more than politics. 3 in one day is hard. - On the Main page now: Burkhard Driest, quite an unusual career to actor, script writer and producer. He became famous for Romy Schneider telling him on live tv: "I like you very much." --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:08, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Hello @Gerda Arendt: Thank you for the understanding! Did you see my reply message on Dr. Blofeld's page?
- Thatstinkyguy (talk) 15:31, 13 March 2020 (UTC)Thatstinkyguy
Yes, I posted right below it ;) - Why do you have your user name twice in your signature? Just curiuos. - For context: Dr. Blofeld was the second recipient of an award I give, and would have been first if I hadn't wanted a woman ;) - He does great things for actor articles, but says he doesn't want to improve Audrey Hepburn, for fear of having to discuss the then planned removal of the infobox, - no idea why, but that's where we stand. As Voceditenore once said: better a good article without infobox than a mediocre one with it. I consider every minute spent in infobox discussions a lost minute. So much content is missing! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:43, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt: To answer your question, I'm not sure why my signature does that. It was automatic I believe. I find it weird myself. Anyhow, in regards to Audrey Hepburn's article, here's my stance, if information is missing from the article, add it. If information is missing from the box, add onto it.
- Thatstinkyguy (talk) 16:14, 13 March 2020 (UTC)Thatstinkyguy
You mean you just write four tildes, and that's the result? I thought you type your name + add the tildes. - Asking my helper in all formatting questions, RexxS. For Hepburn + others: no the deal among the parties is that whosoever writes, or expands sufficiently, gets to employ their preferred way. I expanded Max Reger, for example. Dr. Blofeld expanded others which I won't name, because if I do it's branded canvassing to begin an infobox discussion. What I see: Reger has been stable, the others are not ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:42, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

A cup of coffee and a thank you

Here's a digital cup of coffee for you! Thank you for believing in me and for your help!
StrangeloveFan101 (talk) 14:31, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome. Glad JzG was around to unblock, I thought I had a few minutes free and it turned into one minute free. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:33, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

That's fine. (Except for the thanks and coffees I gave) I'm ready to move past the whole block situation. Have a good one! StrangeloveFan101 (talk) 15:57, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

And another thing if you don't mind

Could you tell Cassianto that I'm sorry for everything please. I feel like it's something I need to to, but if I gave them a private message myself, they might consider it to be trolling or something of the like. StrangeloveFan101 (talk) 18:51, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) You are indefinitely ibanned from interacting with all of Cassianto, Schrocat, Dr. Blofeld. Read the points in the link. That means you are banned from, among other things, mak[ing] reference to or comment[ing] on each other anywhere on Wikipedia, directly or indirectly. They do not exist to you. Clear? Mr rnddude (talk) 19:30, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
@Mr rnddude: Alright, I'm sorry. StrangeloveFan101 (talk) 19:43, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

ANI closure

Floq, please will you reverse this closure?

I have had my posts repeatedly removed by an editor with whom I was in disagreement ... and who has claimed[14] that my restoration of the posts he removed and my posting in the same way as everyone else posts was "[taking] it out on the disadvantaged just to try to get at me".

This is just character assassination, trying to portray my normal editing as mounting some sort of revenge attack on RexxS, or -- an order of magnitude worse -- persecuting disabled people. I am utterly sickened by it all.

Does this sort of stuff really just get shrugged off? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:19, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

You both seem to have gone a far bit off the rails, are both heavily involved in character assassination, have escalated the dispute, and I really, honestly believe that continuing to have you two talk to each other that way on a public page is going to result in you both being blocked, which I do not want to happen. Iridescent is right. I cannot think of a way to get both of you to dial it back by about 90%, and that's the only way that can become a productive discussion. Which it is not now. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:23, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree with BHG this should not have been closed. BHG's complaint that RexxS was being aggressive and uncivil looked legitimate and we can't just dismiss civility and conduct concerns raised about an admin as maybe happened in previous times, that has been made clear to us in recent ArbCom cases. I'm not sure on what basis it was closed when no action had been taken.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:54, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
    It was a wise close. (If that is not enough for you, just look at how I was pinged to the WP:Great Dismal Swamp, - but I don't follow such invitations.) Do you have an opinion in the underlying discussion? That is still open. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:17, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
    @Gerda Arendt: that's a good strategy, certainly. I wish we could all avoid any drama and get along nicely, it would be so much better wouldn't it! I don't have time to get into discussions right now, super busy, but things should ease off from next weekand I'm hoping to get into some decent article writing and expansion...  — Amakuru (talk) 10:03, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
    • ANI is one of the most widely watched pages. The fact that the discussion is still closed indicates a strong agreement with the close. Johnuniq (talk) 09:02, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
      Great, so despite ArbCom repeatedly telling us we have to take civility more seriously, we just drop a legitimate complaint as just playground rough and tumble, and because everyone's stressed about coronavirus anyway? Of course they're stressed, but having people engaging in blatant personal attacks and having no action taken is hardly going to help with the stress. If this had been closed with a warning of some sort to RexxS to seek dispute resolution and not engage in personal attacks, that would have been fine, but closing with no action and denying a request by the filing party for a reopening and re-evaluation is just not on in my view, I'm sorry.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:58, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
      You didn't follow to my invitation to ANI, obviously. Some wisdom of the close was its admireable brevity, in a case where a waterfall of words was the biggest issue. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:28, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
      It would've been great for you, Amakuru, because you're on the side of BHG, as evidence by your comments at ANI. But do you honestly think this argument, having done that, would've simply melted away to nothing? Don't be so delusional. If you want someone to blame, how about offering up a bit of diplomacy and blaming them both and then we can all move on to build an encyclopaedia? I literally had this same bloody argument a week or so ago with Valereee, who thought it conducive to bollock one person, RexxS, in a dispute he was engaged in with EEng, rather than not knocking both their heads together. Clearly, that's never going to be accepted, and so it goes on. Good closure, Floq. CassiantoTalk 17:35, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
I do not think that this is simply a matter that can be dropped, tbh. This will simply fester, and then boil over at a later time. If not this venue—and I agree, not that venue—then where? It is too soon for ArbCom, and we cannot be punting every scrap between to veteran editors there anyway. We cannot be this incompetent. Btw, can you assholes[FBDB] fix your indenting. This is maliciously taking it out on disadvantaged editors. See how nonsensical that is? Mr rnddude (talk) 10:22, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Mr rnddude, do you have any evidence that the dispute will simply fester? As far as I can see, the original CfD debate is petering out and Fayenatic london has fixed BHG's formatting for her, so I have no need to remove or amend her errors, which is all that I have been doing. Similarly, BHG has managed to get someone else to clean up her mess, so she has no reason to attack me further for fixing her posts. If you think there's more to it than that, please feel free to raise your concerns on my talk page, and I'll be happy to discuss them civilly. If your concerns remain afterwards, then you know where ANI is and presumably WP:RfArb as well. --RexxS (talk) 17:08, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
  • That thread was a perfect example of how horrible ANI is at problem solving, and how expert it is a bringing out the worst in us. I didn't close it because there was no underlying problem. I closed it because that problem was not simple and one-sided, was not being solved, and it was actively doing real damage. I agree with BHG and Rexx that there is an underlying problem that needs to be solved, but I can't understand why anyone thinks that thread was solving it, or if left open was going to solve it. First, the two of them had pretty much lost it, and were both repeatedly hurling insults in long posts, sometimes in bold or big text, that couldn't have gone on much longer before someone (or both) were blocked. Second, everyone who hates BHG was crawling out of the woodwork to explain what a horrible person she is, and everyone who hates Rexx was crawling out of the woodwork to explain how horrible he is. And by "explain", I mean "they are, and have always been, lairs and evil and dumb and smelly".If this was User:Idiot1 and User:Idiot2 in an edit war about which peanut butter recipe to put in the External links section, it might have been harmless. But we cannot afford to lose either of these two.
    Their problem could probably be solved in 15 minutes if there was someone who's judgement they both trusted could talk to them calmly, offline, without a peanut gallery egging them on. If that describes anyone, raise your hand. A thought I had last night would be that things might be improved (not good, just improved) if the discussion was reopened but neither one could post there anymore. I honestly don't know what we should do, but I'm fairly sure it's not what we were doing last night.
    Finally, I'm not God. If someone wants to re-open it, then re-open it. I did what I really think was best. I'm wrong about a lot of things, this might be one of them. But I don't think so. --Floquenbeam (talk) 12:53, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
    Thank you. I could raise my hand in saying that I get along fine with RexxS, and normally with BHG. But I can't help in this case where she practically closed her talk to me in a rant which tells me that I am a disruptive tag-teamer, just for finding her giant category renaming project ("musical composition" instead of "composition") not needed. I admit that I never read the proposal fully, intentionally so. Why study details of a suggestion you know you will not like? Life is too short. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:02, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Peanuts after the butter has gone in, surely, never before! CassiantoTalk 17:22, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Floquenbeam, I agree with what you wrote above — I support your close as the right call. That trainwreck was going nowhere good fast. El_C 17:33, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
    I agree. Honestly, that may be the stupidest thing I've ever seen from two basically sane, useful editors. I literally felt sick reading it. --valereee (talk) 17:53, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Just wanted to say thank you for closing that Floq. Plenty enough blame to be handed out on many sides, and I personally prefer a wiki with as little knuckle smacking as possible. — Ched (talk) 21:36, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
    ... and all about "trying to fix things that aren't broken", as Francis said --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:12, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

New Love

St. Patrick's Day

decoration + music for the day. - Thank you for good spirits, for example an unblock offer. What do you think of unblocking with the condition of reblocking if your conditions are not met? I know the story of editing peacefully for two years until you get crushed when geting close to a certain topic. DYK that 7 years ago, we had a little discussion on Talk:Robert Stoepel, and I thought that this unholy war was over. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:41, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe. I'll probably wait a week or two, or at least for the next unblock request. I'm pretty unimpressed by the second dive back into the conflict, but there is a long history of peaceful editing leading up to that. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
The new unblock request is there. Working on singing in defiance, - my reply back then to a certain arbcom case, and now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:49, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
I took a look at the unblock request, and left a note. We'll see. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:58, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
I always shudder when I read the word infobox wars. What does it mean, in 2020? I loved this comment, 2018. - When you hear "composition", of what do you think? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:58, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Live and let live is good. Not sure what you mean by "composition". What composition do I think of when I hear the word? What does the word mean? Free association? My first reaction when I hear the word is those blue, thin, bound paper composition books they made us write our essays in during school, years before the idea of laptops was imagined. But you're a musician, so you probably think one of Bach's? --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:41, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Voce is wise, - if only all listened ;) - When I - raised German - hear composition, I think of music, whatever kind, but I hear that you think of school first, - fine. It's a topic of little harmony here. - add "musical" or not, that is a question which keeps users busy, these days, - can't believe it. Hoping you and yours are well, and regards. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:53, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
thank you for saying a lot with few words, play on, borrowing her smile --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:44, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2020).

Guideline and policy news

  • There is an ongoing request for comment to streamline the source deprecation and blacklisting process.

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The WMF has begun a pilot report of the pages most visited through various social media platforms to help with anti-vandalism and anti-disinformation efforts. The report is updated daily and will be available through the end of May.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:00, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you re: poking the bear

God. Damn. It. Both of you grow the fuck up. Leave each other the fuck alone. Don't post on each others' talk pages. Don't ping the other person. Don't try to get the other in trouble. Have some tiny modicum of respect for the people who have to live with you two sniping at each other. Right now neither of you is showing any concern about anyone or anything except your little feud. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:55, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hi Floquenbeam, thank you for point out to me that I was inappropriately poking the bear at User talk:CaradhrasAiguo. What would be the proper forum to raise such issues at? Also, CaradhrasAiguo is once again on my talk page [15], would engaging with him there count as poking the bear? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:44, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Within four minutes of being admonished for doing that, you tagged me again at another admin's talk, asking the same what would be the proper forum. This is spam on multiple fronts.
If HEJ cannot conduct himself properly with respect to a specific editor (and worse, have the veneer of false civility while at it), there should be an WP:IBAN enacted. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 16:47, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I responded to your complaint about being tagged by not tagging you here. Does tagging the talk page also send a notification? If it does I apologize, I thought it didn’t. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:54, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

OK, I'm being too snippy. So to reword the underlying message: You guys have become trapped in an unhealthy feuding mindset. My outside perspective is that you're both in the wrong, to varying degrees. The best thing to do in situations like that is not to try to be vindicated, and not to ask/demand an iban, but to both simply walk away, and find a part of the project you enjoy working on. Other people are more than capable of monitoring the other editors' faults. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:12, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Violation of de-facto IBAN

Hijiri88 and Lightburst are supposed to not mention one another, due to what you call "a stop feuding or get blocked for disruption warning" However, on his talk page, Hijiri88 makes dubious accusations against him and refers to him as a "degenerate"?[16] Isn't this a violation of your warning? Worldlywise (talk) 16:38, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

That's twice I've seen Hijiri88 mentioned in a negative context in the space of two days, the other time being here. They seem to be very troublesome. Pinging Andy Dingley purely for the fact I'm linking to his block notice, nothing more. CassiantoTalk 16:46, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Let's play a game where we don't watchlist our enemies' talk pages, looking for things to be outraged about? Of course that was over the top, but Hijiri mentions a dozen people (including me), and none of us have felt the need to respond to his venting. As per my comments in the section below, I don't understand what it is about this place the nurtures this desire to feud with everyone all the time. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:03, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
To put it in a less snippy way: sometimes the best thing to do when someone is venting is to ignore it. I believe that is the case here. Even if one of the other editors who was the target of the venting complained, I'd still suggest ignoring it, albeit with more understanding than I showed above. But do one thinks any less of any of the editors listed there because of what Hijiri said. If Hijiri returns to editing, I'll ask him to tone the comment down. But right now, lecturing/demanding anything of him would be counter productive. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:16, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I would agree with this. If people put as much effort into writing than they do arguing, and being offended by it, we would have ourselves a bloody good encyclopaedia here. CassiantoTalk 18:22, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Just gonna put this here. We're already seeing it start to happen, and we're only in week one of at least twelve; this is going to be Wikipedia's long hot summer. ‑ Iridescent 18:48, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the help on the desk, and how did you get the blue meh userbox? New3400 (talk) 19:40, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

No problem, hope it helps. To get the blue "meh" at the top of the page, I just took the code from Template:Semi-retired, and tweaked it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:47, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, im going to try that. How do I do it? New3400 (talk) 19:52, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, like most mediawiki tricks, I learned only by copying other people's work
  1. Copy the text of the template to your sandbox
  2. Fiddle with it until it looks like you want it to
  3. Paste the text at the top of your page.
Alternately you can just find the text at the top of my page and copy/paste that, but I'm sure you can come up with something more original. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:56, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm trying to put in magic fan in it. (Orlando magic if you did not get it) thanks mate. New3400 (talk) 20:01, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

It worked. Your a cool dude 😎New3400 (talk) 20:03, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Beati

Blessed

Music for you, listen if you can. We did it on 8 March. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:32, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Finally looked at your link again and figured out what you meant by "listen". That was beautiful. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:53, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
next round, or: the resurrection of loving-kindness - the most stunning videos under Passion, further down, one man singing all roles in the St John Passion, in 2020 when all other Passions (including ours) were cancelled --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:07, 12 April 2020 (UTC)


Music for thought

... free imagination in battle with thought control --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:46, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Rushdie has always struck me as the kind of writer I'm supposed to like... but I couldn't make it through the one book I tried to read. Perhaps he's better in opera format. Or perhaps I'm just a tasteless barbarian. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:19, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I didn't try either, just have this weakness to write about a composition if I can't get the composer up to my standards ;) - today Credo --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:33, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

ANI

It looks like this post-hatting comment didn't get cleared out with the last revert. Thanks for hatting. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 19:45, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

That's odd, I think some kind of edit conflict. Fixed. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:49, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Cheers Floq. I hope all's well with you. - SchroCat (talk) 21:05, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't aware

Sorry. I hit save as you hatted, or the other way round. Who knows, who cares, hope you're well. CassiantoTalk 19:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I assumed something like that. Hope you (and, of coure, everyone here) are well too. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:50, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello

Hello again. I use this site occasionally still. I just came back to apologize again for acting so ridiculously way back in 2016. I was basically a kid at the time who wanted to write about stuff and I know I wasted everyone's time back then. It's been a long time and I'm sure everyone's forgotten about the whole thing but I still think about it periodically and feel like I never gave an official apology especially to you. So I am sorry. Other than that I hope you are doing well. Cogaidh (talk) 06:02, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@Cogaidh: I have to admit I don't remember what this is all about, but I'm happy to accept the apology, and I'd suggest not worrying about it anymore; water under the bridge. Glad you stuck around. Hope you're well too. --Floquenbeam (talk) 12:57, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2020).

Administrator changes

removed Gnangarra • Kaisershatner • Malcolmxl5

CheckUser changes

readded Callanecc

Oversight changes

readded HJ Mitchell

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

User:Clarkkent23

Hi Floquenbeam. I came across this editor via User talk:John from Idegon#James E. Taylor High School. Despite the obvious NPA I also think WP:DUCK and WP:EVADE might now be issues given Special:Contributions/Davis1861. If you feel a SPI/CU is needed here, then let me know, but would you also mind taking a look at it. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:09, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. No SPi needed; I've blocked the new account, and semi-protected the page for a month. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:35, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Hmph :-)

I'm not slow, I keep a measured pace! :-p --bonadea contributions talk 16:14, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm slower than other people 95% of the time, so I hope I can be forgiven when I brag about the rare occasions when I'm quicker on the draw. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

May

May · Mary · Monteverdi

Sadly longer and longer: the list of people for whose life we are thankful enough to improve their articles. - I have a FAC open, one of Monteverdi's exceptional works, in memory of Brian who passed me his collected sources. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:18, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

DYK ... that on Good Friday 2020, Benedikt Kristjánsson sang all roles in a chamber arrangement of Bach's St John Passion, broadcast live from the composer's burial place? - listen --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:13, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

today a composer pictured who wrote a triple concerto for violin, harp and double bass, in honour of the composer who died and my brother who plays double bass. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:42, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't know where you find the time, Gerda. Good work. Good luck on the FA. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:43, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
FA looks promising. Found some time for his colleague and his opera. Did you know that Smirnow - as a Wikipedian - began both articles, and took the pic, and wrote about a Stravinsky opera? Just wait ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:51, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2020).

Administrator changes

added CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth
removed Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL

CheckUser changes

removed SQL

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

  • A motion was passed to enact a 500/30 restriction on articles related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland. Article talk pages where disruption occurs may also be managed with the stated restriction.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Today's Wikipedian 10 years ago

Awesome
Ten years!

sorry, was yesterday, but now the image fits better ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:28, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Better late than premature  :) ——Serial # 13:25, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for remembering, Gerda! The time just flies by. Have a userbox on my user page to commemorate that, but still forgot... until you reminded me. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:32, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
Don't thank for memory, it's simply that Rlevse kept a good archive, which I only expanded. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:40, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

On global misnomers!

EC'd with Nihlus, but global renamer is a local meta right, not a global right (try to figure that out.) Anyway, it means popups doesn't show it, nor would the local rights here. You'd have to look at CentralAuth. Almost as much a misnomer as LoginWiki CheckUser, which does not track logins, but account creations. Global stuff isn't difficult to follow...! Also, stay safe and healthy :) TonyBallioni (talk) 03:26, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

As I just mentioned on Nihlus' talk page, I (somehow) knew to check Meta.... I just searched for "Nilhus". --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:29, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Also, thanks and you too. --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.
Please note, I am only doing this notification as required by AN, I am asking for a self-review of my actions related to the above and only because I've mentioned you I have to notify you to be legit, I am not asking for any AN action towards you or others. --Masem (t) 00:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

couple minor edits

‎We can do minor misSpellings in dab pages, but probably best not mixed in with the correctly spelled matches.

...Did you remind someone to sign their posts... in an unsigned post? ;-)

96.244.220.178 (talk)

Thanks for both notes, replied on your talk page. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:37, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
I can confirm from personal experience that at least one other person has made that mistake... TonyBallioni (talk) 22:35, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
I saw "Panam" somewhere on WP yesterday, and thought "that's a geographical place in some fantasy/SF book, but which one?" I actually first thought it was maybe from the Dark Tower series somewhere. That was actually Gilead, which I thought was in Princess Bride, but that was Guilder, which I also saw somewhere yesterday. As I get older, I find that sometimes I'm not losing memory, so much as it's all blurring together.... Anyway, had to cycle thru Panam, Pannam, Panum, and Pannum before I found it, and thought I'd save someone the trouble in the future. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:37, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Clarification regarding "significant contributions" in my editing restriction

Hi Floq,

For starters, I'll start by saying that I hope you've been doing well, and am sure COVID-19 has probably provided a lot of fodder for spirited discussion between editors. A lot has happened since early March, when we last interacted.

Anyway, as promised on my talk page, I have a quick question regarding my editing restriction, I have had Draft:Erica C. Barnett and Erica C. Barnett on my watchlist since the AfD that closed as
delete. While I was confined to my own user talk page, the draft was subsequently speedily deleted per G13, and undeletion was requested by the draft's creator. At that point, it was moved back to main namespace, boldly, with, arguably, little added changes to the article beyond one additional citation being added to reference the publication of her now-published autobiography. Chetsford (as an aside, {{noping}} is going to be my new 'go-to' template to use to tag someone, in order to avoid pinging, really, anyone) has, rightly, in my view, re-nominated for it for AfD. I do have some additional comments that I'd like to make, and the WMF xtools' page stats for Erica C. Barnett does list as me as the #3 ranked editor (by total number of edits performed) and the #7 ranked editor (by added text/bytes), so was just wondering if I can add my comments, once, to that AfD on why it should be either deleted or redraftified. I was actually surprised to have ranked so highly, as most of my edits were in the addition of tags and fixing and adding citations/references. Would that be sufficiently broadly construed as "significant contributions" to allow me to participate in that AfD? I would, of course, limit my comments to one instance, and would seek either your or Mazca's approval should I feel as though additional comments are needed in response to any added comments by other editors.

Thanks,
Dmehus (talk) 18:53, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Dmehus: I think the best thing to do would be to not participate, for two three main reasons:
  1. You got into a dispute in the previous AFD for this article; let's not start testing the waters on an article that already prompted one dispute.
  2. You say yourself that most of your edits have been tagging/fixing refs; let's not start testing the waters on what's a "significant contribution" by using such a borderline example.
  3. If I were you, for a while I'd shy away from such discussions even if you were a significant contributor, just because you're coming back from a 3 month ban, and it's better to avoid edge cases. I would recommend, for a while, looking for reasons not to do something rather than looking for reasons to do something, if you know what I mean. It isn't a big deal, but it's the tiniest bit concerning that your first day back you're looking to participate in something anywhere near the boundaries of your topic ban. (I'll hasten to add, it's definitely reassuring that you asked first!)
I'm going to go ahead and actually ping @Mazca:, even though I like the fact you're avoiding pinging people unnecessarily, because now is a good time to find out if he's willing to mentor you, or if you should cast a wider net. In any case, welcome back. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:55, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Believe me, I didn't want to immediately jump back into any of the XfDs initially, absolutely. It's just that the arguments provided by Chetsford, I, and several others in the previous AfD carried some weight in SilkTork's closing rationale. So, I thought my contribution would be needed and useful for this second debate. Nevertheless, I'll defer to your judgment, and opt not to participate and steer clear of the XfDs until @Mazca: believes I am ready to participate in a limited or measured way. Perhaps, as an alternative solution, would it simply be better to let Chetsford know why I'm not able to participate in this go-around (via his user talk page)? Dmehus (talk) 21:14, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
I really, honestly think that a big part of the success or failure of your return to editing is going to be cultivating the ability to let stuff go. Completely. Just practice walking away. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:17, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Okay, fair enough. Thanks for the advice. Now about that mentorship...I will actually reach out to Mazca on his talk page, and give your talk page a rest. Thanks again! Dmehus (talk) 21:19, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping - Doug's been in touch on my talkpage now. I'd say I agree completely with your advice regarding Erica C. Barnett, it's enough of an edge-case at the best of times and generally best not to get involved in anything like that immediately anyway. ~ mazca talk 22:30, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

More info Matthewishere0

Yes please. --Deep fried okra (schalte ein) 16:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

First off, I take the "my friend did it on a computer I left at his house" defense as prima facie[1] evidence that this person is not going to become a productive editor any time soon. This did not happen. They are lying; they created a vandalism-only account for fun, and the original 1-week block was generous. I also cannot imagine productivity coming from someone who says "the worst part is I was blocked by a girl". It's either evidence they're 10, or evidence they're an idiot. This led me to review their talk page, where (a) they're doing a lot of stuff wrong, and (b) more importantly, they are not understanding why what they do is wrong. It's a constant stream of "thank you for telling me, I won't do it again", followed by either (a) doing it again, or (b) moving on to disrupt something else. Their unblock request from 9 June is, essentially, incomprehensible. I think what this person needs is another 2-3 years of growing up. As it is, they waste a lot of other editors' time. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Don't see him as a VOA. Mostly Wikignoming since 2017. Has had a hard time grasping sourcing and article creation. The sexist comment is most unendearing, though. --Deep fried okra (schalte ein) 16:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't see them as a VOA either; just not competent to do what they insist on doing. I am puzzled why the UTRS request is being considered, though. They have talk page access. Doesn't UTRS usually tell them to use {{unblock}} if they can? Or maybe you're trying to provide them with a little guidance. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:47, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Note to self: I use this word too much. I see I did it earlier on their talk page regarding the issue two sentences further down. I'll try to stop it.

WP:Errors, 28 Liberty Street

Hey Floquenbeam. I responded at WP:Errors with regards to Template:Did you know nominations/28 Liberty Street. Since there were two other approved hooks, I guess you can swap either one for the current hook. I don't think the one about the vault is too interesting; it just came into my head when I was throwing out alts, so I'm surprised that one was approved. epicgenius (talk) 16:45, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I hesitate to substitute one for the other on my own, but I'll go comment there. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:48, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

An apology

I'm sorry I trolled you; I thought you were that IP. Mvcg66b3r (talk) 00:09, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

No worries, it's not trolling if it's a mistake. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:51, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

General thanks

For being a voice of sanity. Also, your edit notice reminds me that as a former arb, you can be on the functs list again. Your voice would be a positive. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Aw, thanks Tony. I quit the list last year during Framgate, and am not 100% sure I'd be welcomed back. I was frankly not very useful even when I was on it, I probably only commented on 5-10% of the threads. But it's nice to hear people say things like that. While you're here, thanks for being willing to suffer slings and arrows in order to try to protect editors from t---c people. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:08, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
I mean, you and I were kinda on opposite sides of that from an optics perspective (probably closer than either of us realize in reality, but that was an interesting time on-wiki...) I don’t think anyone would be opposed (I’ll ping Risker who isn’t an arb but is a list admin and is also Risker...)
Yeah, I don’t mind taking hits to protect people. My general view is that if you’re treating someone in a way that would cause them to justifiably tell you to fuck off in real life, you’re in violation of some policy. I guess I’m in the controversial super majority on that. Only on Wikipedia can you have a controversial super majority. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:51, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Unrelated: I want to (belatedly) thank both you TonyBallioni and you Floquenbeam for your part in looking out for me. It was no small feat.El_C 08:02, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious
Eight years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:02, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Wait; didn't I have one of these like a month ago? I get two days?? Geez, i guess I really am special. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
All that Rlevse recognised have two days (unless I chose the same date), and Casliber and some others have four ... - + you really ARE special ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:56, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Special day, having a friend on the Main page in the recent deaths. There was nobody like her. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:55, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm sorry to hear that, Gerda. I'm glad you were able to get the article on the Main Page as a tribute. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:27, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Request

Can you take a look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive edits by 1292simon please? This thread has been ignored for days while this user continues to remove content and modify infoboxes to his own desired way without seeking consensus at BMW articles. U1 quattro TALK 07:07, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Either you're at fault for the edit warring - again - or you're getting a taste of your own medicine. Use the talk page, stop with the aggressive personalization, and stop edit warring. If you cannot do that I expect you'll be banned soon. This is true whether or not User:1292simon is in the wrong, which I have not and will not look into. From 30 seconds of looking at the article history, I wouldn't be too surprised if an admin eventually sees the ANI thread, looks into it, and blocks both of you for edit warring. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:17, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
I tried discussing matters with him but it was of no use. He was previously told to seek a consensus regarding his way of editing but so far, he has not done that and is back with his editing pattern once again. U1 quattro TALK 03:55, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
When you say "he was previously told to", you mean you previously told him to. --Floquenbeam (talk) 04:02, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Cultural marxism - unfairly represented via misuse of protocols

Hello, I notice that the description of cultural marxism on the Frankfurt school page is described as a conspiracy theory. As I'm sure you are aware philosophy as a rule is open to critisicm. The only criticism of the Frankfurt school is presented as a white supremacist conspiracy, which is undeniable biased. The efforts taken to particularly preserve this section, ie. Removing other users edits and locking the page to further edits is untenable. Further to that, I notice that the page for cultural marxism is also locked and redirects to the Frankfurt school section which calls it a conspiracy theory.

I take issue with this and see it as remarkably biased censorship on a topic that is necessarily open to discussion. What do you propose to do about this?

Thank you, I look forward to your reply. Katiedel0 (talk) 20:51, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand why you're telling me this. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:50, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
I think they are coming to you because five years ago you salted the Cultural Marxism redirect to prevent recreation of the article. There was an AfD that required a three admin panel close, and a deletion review. P-K3 (talk) 01:17, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
But that was Black Kite? --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:23, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Oh, I see, I salted Cultural marxism (small m). --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:25, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
I do not propose to do anything about this. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:25, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi Flo, I don't know how to use this interface, so I apologize if I'm replying in the wrong place.

I used to do PR work for Constance Jackson in the late 2000's and created the pages for her many films about the history of Civil Rights in the USA. So Ms. Jackson certainly gave her permission to use her copyrighted material, but I have no way to confirm that (you may want to contact her directly). Personally, I'm disappointed that anyone would intentionally search for and delete pages regarding civil rights and the plight of African Americans, but apparently that's in accordance with Wikipedia policy. Ms. Jackson's Wikipedia pages certainly aren't harming anyone, and I respectfully ask that they be left alone. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThroughTheWoods (talk • contribs) 17:23, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

(by talk reader) @ThroughTheWoods: Please understand that contrary to what you may believe we're not here to do anything about anyone's plight. Wikipedia does not allow copyrighted material; you can just re-write in your own words. The harm in keeping content like that is that this encyclopedia is open for everyone and we don't rob from rights holders to give said information away. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:37, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't understand why you're telling me this. Unless you're accusing me of trying to "intentionally search for and delete pages regarding civil rights and the plight of African Americans", in which case, go away. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:49, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
@ThroughTheWoods: Oh, I see, you're responding to a message I left you 11 years ago on your talk page. Yes, it is fine to reply here. First, you're glossing over a really important thing: we do have to confirm that, such confirmation is vital, not a minor technicality. Second, as I said in message 11 years ago, even if we had permission, we don't really to testimonials here. And third, if you were editing those articles for pay, you should read WP:COI before editing them again. Things were less harsh then than they are now, but we're pretty strict about undeclared editing for pay, so read that carefully about what you need to do. And fourth, I still don't see who you're talking about "intentionally search for and delete pages regarding civil rights and the plight of African Americans", that isn't even close to what I said back then. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:32, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2020).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

July

July
pale globe-thistle above the Rhine

Look! 'tis the time of the year I fondly remember fireworks ... --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:08, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Me too. Not this year though. :( --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:33, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

IBAN violation

(moved, by me, from Talk:Karakax_County --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:34, 1 July 2020 (UTC))

@Floquenbeam: we have a problem. See [17] and [18]. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:46, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I've asked a general question about this at WP:AN, but I don't think it's a great idea for you or CA to participate there. I'm not going to sanction anyone; depending on what I hear there, I'll give both of you some clarification. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:34, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, sorry for starting the discussion on the talk page for the article rather than your talk page. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 19:02, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, not gonna get to this until after the weekend. Luckily nothing seems to be on fire. HEJ, CA, I assume you're both watchinglisting and I don't need to ping. If you're Americans, happy 4th, and if you're not, have a good "typical" weekend. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:56, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack and CaradhrasAiguo: This was tricky, but based on the AN discussion (permalink) it probably counts as i-ban violation. I've reverted it. I believe it was inadvertent, because (a) it has only happened once, (b) it was not a full revrt, but a modification, and (c) it relates to an edit from February, which is admittedly hard to trace.

This is part of the reason i-bans are hard; it seems crazy to have to figure out the ultimate source of every piece of text you want to change. That's why many editors will disengage, before an i-ban is imposed, to avoid this headache.

This i-ban expires in a few days, on 9 July at 00:01 UTC. I'm still not clear if you both want to extend it or not, but I'm not sure a true i-ban is terribly workable in this particular case, with two prolific editors frequenting the same articles. If you both want an i-ban, let's say that if anything like this comes up in the future, you can ping me that the other person broke the i-ban, and if I agree I'll revert the edit. If it starts happening frequently, then I'll start to lose faith that they're inadvertent.

Please both of you, let me know what you want going forward. Both would need to agree for a 2-way i-ban to be imposed without community discussion. If you don't agree, then the next conflict will have to head to ANI, which as we all know is a crapshoot. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:01, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Floq, I am not in a position to comment on anything specific other than, as you suggested to me, to act as if it [I-ban] extended indefinitely. This ranks quite low on my concerns compared to, even, the weeks-long Falun Gong (an area of rare agreement) edit war. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 00:12, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Spam-only account

What annoys me is the OP never discussed with me before tagging a page I'd AfC declined w/o tagging for G11, took it to ANI w/o discussing with me first, never notified me of the ANI discussion, and never responded when I raised those issues at the post-close comments. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:20, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I wonder what Germany's policy on immigration is these days. Pretty sure I can claim German citizenship as son of an ex-pat. I could use a walk thru the Black Forest about now. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:22, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
@Deepfriedokra: The OP concerns me some; though I have to admit I've only seen the name 3 times, each one was an error in judgement. More disruptive to building an encyclopedia than some kid writing a draft about his school, is someone with RedWarn/Twinkle/Huggle and a lack of compassion and common sense, and a desire to take advantage of the opportunity we inexplicably give them to tell other people what to do. I suspect for many, for the first time in their young lives. Some kind of maturity/wisdom test should be applied before we turn someone loose allow someone to turn themselves loose page "patrolling" or vandal "fighting". Your last message on his page (the blocked editor, not the OP) was nice. Thanks. I think the problem is, we're legitimately dealing with the proverbial firehose of spam, and for time availability and sanity reasons, it's hard to quickly differentiate clueless from evil. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:20, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Er, have you see the related development at ANI. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:43, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Oh, no I hadn't seen anything there since Ritchie's last ping (crazy busy in real life). I'd support that, but I wish there was a way to have mature anti-vandalism without a public shaming like that. One good step would be: an admin (who I keep having to add, is allowed to indef block without preliminary community discussion) is allowed to impose a topic ban (or, for that matter, an interaction ban) unilaterally. Without being forced by law to go to the cesspit to ask for it. Then the target of the ban could appeal, much like they can appeal a block. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:57, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Good laugh when I saw your comment!!

Hi other "Flo", I had a good laugh when I saw your comment. I doubt that's true. But it's nice to have something to laugh about in these challenging times. Hope all is well with you. Sydney Poore/FloNightUser talk:FloNight 00:12, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Flo#1,
Good to have you drop by, and glad I could momentarily brighten your day. All is well here, hope you can say the same. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:32, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Assistance Sought re [WP:HOUND]

Hello. I'm being subject to stalking from a JoelB.Lewis, and request assistance.

Their editing history is here:[19]

1. On 12 July at 15.35 he prematurely closed a discussion I had opened on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard regarding Reliable Sources. [20]

He then proceeded the stalking.

2. On 12 July at 15.48, having clearly viewed my edit history, he then removed a page tag I had added on a completely unassociated topic.

3. On 13 July at 20.38, it having been restored, he reverts it again.

4. On 15 July, he again clearly reviews my edit history, and again begins stalking: firstly at at 13.01 on Banksy which I had just edited

5. On 15 July at 13.49, his next immediate edit is Pages for Deletion: Prince Louis Ferdinand on which I had commented.

6. Continuing the psychopathic behaviour, he then goes back to Dark Emu, and then has the temerity to post on my Talk page that I have been guilty of personal attacks. If you review what is a difficult discussion ('Disputed') with a separate emotive editor, you will see there is no personal attack.

Could you please caution this JoelB.Lewis (whose Talk Page ironically features a barnstar provided by a sockpuppet) to desist from stalking and harrassing other editors. Thanks so much. ClearBreeze (talk) 17:28, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Also please note: he appears to have a history of disruptive editing, but takes pains to wipe his Talk Page. e.g. see the most recent comment at the base of this page, wiped today: [21] You have in the past blocked him. ClearBreeze (talk) 17:48, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
@ClearBreeze: I just do not have time to dive into anything right now. You'll have to resolve this with them, or go to WP:ANI. I'll note that:
  • If (I haven't looked, but if) you're doing something wrong, it isn't "hounding" to look at your contribs to see where else you've done something wrong, so just proving they're looking at your contribs is not enough.
  • It's allowed to remove stuff from one's own talk page, so that is not evidence of anything.
  • If you do post to ANI, you're going to need to provide more diffs then the two above, so people don't have to play detective and hunt down what edits you're talking about. Even if I did have time, I wouldn't be inclined to look thru all their edits to see which ones you're talking about.
  • If you do post to ANI, understand that your behavior is looked at too. If you believe you're both probably at fault, it's probably better to try to resolve this with them, rather than go to ANI - which can be dysfunctional. For example, calling what they did "psychopathic" is probably not a smart move. I know when I saw that, it annoyed me.
--Floquenbeam (talk) 18:13, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. As for what I termed the behaviour: I was at pains to distinguish it from its perpetrator. However to call it normative would be plainly false. In any case, given they're monitoring my edit history, they would now be aware they're on notice. If they continue, it will make their block at ANI that much easier. ClearBreeze (talk) 19:00, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

YBSOne

Hi Floq, Hope you and yours are well,
In May you blocked Ybsone as they'd asked for a self-requested block,
They've since returned here claiming to be YBS and they appear to be violating their IBAN between themselves and U1Quattro,
Not sure the best way to handle that as any IP can claim to be someone, I've removed their comment to save there being any more drama but wasn't entirely sure if this should be taken to ANI, them being IBAN-blocked or this simply being ignored,
Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 18:08, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

here's what I think needs to be done but I don't have time to do it. i'd miss dotting an i or crossing a t somewhere. either bring to ANI, or wait a bit and I'll do it next week. Or maybe, since I ping Bish below, she'll do it?
  • I am very confident the IP is Ybsone
  • unblock Ybsone; we generally recind the courtesy of a self-requested block if it's avoided by just logging out. someone (I think Bbb23) once blocked someone else (no idea who) for that, but I think others (incl. Bish if memory serves) decided the appropriate action was remove the block, don't reblock.
  • Warn Ybsone, one time, about their interaction ban, and remove their comment from ANI if it's still there.
  • Remind U1Quattro about the interaction ban.
  • Block whichever one of them if they break it again.
sorry no time for more. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:38, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Hey Floq, Many thanks for replying and your help - If you don't mind I'll leave the reporting to either yourself or Bish as I'm utterly hopeless with this sort of thing and would rather leave it to those far more experienced than me,
I certainly wouldn't detail it as good as both of you either, Anyway there's no rush RL is much more important,
In the meantime take care, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 19:48, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
I've posted to YBSone's talk page. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:11, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
And at U1Quattro's too. I think this puts it to bed for now. Although I suspect I should have been a little harsher. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:15, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

It has begun again

What do I do here? I don’t want to go down that path again but this sort of thing just cant fly [22]. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:12, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I really don't have time for this, sorry. I raised a thread at WP:ANI proposing an interaction ban between the 2 of you. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:11, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
I know they are called the drama boards for a reason, but it just hit me after I hatted another nowhere set of bickering between long term users that should know better. It's exhausting. I guess 95% of ANI is taken up in meaningless discussions/rants/squabbles between long term editors that will not result in any admin action. Meanwhile, threads started about real problems that do not involve ANI regulars close without any discussion, attention, or action. It's frustrating the Hell out of me. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 20:10, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
July
pale globe-thistle above the Rhine
It's called Swamp for reasons. I haven't been there all year, which is at its height. Floq, the walk through town became a favourite with new guest, which we enjoy every time, such as last Saturday. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:55, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
Just thru town, or thru that street festival on the river thing? (I've lost track of time, can't recall what part of the summer we were there) I imagine the festival isn't (or wasn't) the same... --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:27, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
Just our town, the first stroll. No festival this year, - imagine the tree-shaded section (where it was) fenced, to control the limited access to the wine stand, addresses taken. But the roses bloomed as ever, if not more magnificently. When we saw them in July, less so, of course. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:50, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
@Deepfriedokra: Amen. ANI is not really fit for purpose, I go there as a last resort. I don't really know what the answer is, but Someone Should Do Something(TM). I sometimes think what we really need is a couple dozen paid professional dispute resolution professionals, and good faith users go to one to solve disputes. Bad faith users who don't cooperate are quickly shown the door. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:27, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
Great thought, and well within WMF's remit as it perceives it. To support the encyclopedia builders in matters beyond editing the encyclopedia. Its remit as I perceive it. Maybe the third time an interpersonal conflict lands at ANI, only to close with no consensus after a week of rending of clothes and cries for evisceration, they get referred to WMF. Gad. It would end the petty bullshit bickering overnight, deprive the dramaturges, and leave ANI for actual editing problems. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 15:18, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Personal attack criticizing personal attacks?

Great comment at RfA. I wish you just hadn't chosen to gild the lily by making your own personal attack. I know I'm feeding into what you talked about by writing this but I believe strongly enough in not making personal attacks that here I am. But like I said great comment before the last 3 sentences. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:44, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I guess I should have said "my spidey sense" tells me that they're a horrible person. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:59, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
snort —valereee (talk) 20:20, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2020).

Administrator changes

added Red Phoenix
readded Euryalus • SQL
removed Jujutacular • Monty845 • Rettetast • Madchester

Oversight changes

readded GB fan
removed Keegan • Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Guideline and policy news

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:20, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Notice of ANI that mentions you in passing

Greetings, FYI I filed a request at WP:ANI titled "CIR-based community-imposed site ban re: RTG". In providing a basis for my request I mentioned you and your prior dealings with this editor. Your input at ANI is optional, i.e., invited but not specifically requested. Thanks for reading. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:57, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

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