User talk:Risker/Archive 12

Archive 12 - May 26/12 to

Ohconfucius again and another

[1] Yet another editor has questioned Ohconfucius' script use. He has edited since without replying. Discussion with him seems to get nowhere. Please review his editing in light of the date delinking arbitration, WP:DATERET, and the last few RFCs. I believe censures and blocks of Ohconfucius would fall under the AC.

I am also aware the AC has been discussing Jack, though the AC did not formally approach me for my input. I am troubled by that. Will I be informed of any result by email from an AC representative, if the result is not posted in public? Gimmetoo (talk) 18:41, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

The script OhConfucius created (& is using) is designed not to allow changing accessdates to YYYY-MM-DD and to permit only 1) changing them all to DMY, or 2) changing them all to MDY, or 3) leave them alone. OhConfucius has stated on his talk page that he dislikes YYYY-MM-DD format & that he considers any instance of lack of alignment "fair game" to remove YYYY-MM-DD (that statement since removed from his talk page). OhConfucius has been aligning the format (NEVER to YYYY-MM-DD) any time he notices they are not aligned - with no regard for WP:DATERET - resulting in the gradual removal, and potentially the eventual eradication, of YYYY-MM-DD from wikipedia. He has been notified several times that this is in violation of WP:DATERET -- and for some time pretty much ceased his behaviour & has said he does not do that anymore. Recently, we have seeen repeated cases where he is removing YYYY-MM-DD again, with no regard for WP:DATERET -- several times in cases where all the accessdates were already aligned as YYYY-MM-DD, and often where there were only a few (recent ones) not in that format. Other users have also been using his script to eliminate YYYY-MM-DD. Proposals to remove YYYY-MM-DD from accessdates have repeatedly failed, but OhC continues to ignore that. I submit that OhC's script must either 1>include the possibility of changing accessdates to YYYY-MM-DD, or 2> be stricken from WP space, or 3> be modified so that only he can use it and thus he alone will be directly responsible for its usage--JimWae (talk) 20:35, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I see your time is limited. I think Ohconfucius' editing violates WP:FAITACCOMPLI, and I think it needs to stop. I would like a recommendation from you on how to proceed. Is this something WP:AE should handle? An AC motiion? or should we initiate a WP:RFC/U first? I would also appreciate some information about the other proceeding I mentioned. Gimmetoo (talk) 06:50, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm suspicious of the status of this complaint, given that Gimmetoo is leaping in and changing WP:MOSNUM at the rate of knots. Tony (talk) 15:26, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

That's quite a way to describe things, Tony. "knots"? What is Ohconfucius then? Gimmetoo (talk) 23:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the quick response from you and the arbitration committee, Risker. Gimmetoo (talk) 23:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Well. I don't know, folks. I kind of expected that experienced editors all knew where arbitration enforcement was, and that it did not involve my talk page. I am sorry that I wasn't responsive to you earlier, Gimmetoo. However, given the fact that there's a pretty good chance if this matter gets enforced, that it will wind up at an appeal to Arbcom, I'm not really in a position to take hands-on action in these kinds of situations. Generally speaking, arbitrators don't directly enforce Arbcom decisions. Risker (talk) 23:09, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

You've just been defending an arbitrator using CU to check for possible violations of arbcom remedies. Has AC been scanning for possible socking by serial sockmasters? Would you or another CU do so? Gimmetoo (talk) 19:47, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, mostly I've been saying that the use of checkuser tools was appropriate to confirm the fairly obvious suspicion that automated tools were used. That the investigation was done by an arbitrator is sort of secondary; I don't think the subject of the checkuser could have waved a red flag at the Committee any more obviously than he did. Which serial sockmaster are you talking about? Several arbcom members participate at SPI, although I do so only rarely. Risker (talk) 19:59, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Jack, of course. He's used about 18 known socks in the last year. Or is that not a "red flag"? Gimmetoo (talk) 00:28, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

You know, Gimmetoo, you've got a point there. I've long said that Arbcom has no business enforcing its own decisions, and I am not particularly happy that some of my colleagues decided that Arbcom should be enforcing the Rich Farmbrough decision. I feel the same way about trying to enforce anything related to Jack. Besides, at this point, it is so distant from the initial case, and so unrelated to it, that I think anything dealing with Jack probably needs a new case. I have to admit I'm pretty darn tired of all his serial socks. Risker (talk) 21:54, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

And I'm sure you know that AC has left this case bollocksed. He's under a restriction to edit from one account, which he has violated repeatedly for a year. That would usually mean a ban, but AC prevents that. Why? Gimmetoo (talk) 02:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Email

Hi Risker,

I sent you an email yesterday. Sometimes WP email goes into my spam box so just wanted to drop you a note. SÆdon^talk 07:02, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Saedon, I did get your email and (interestingly) another one similar to it. I've also received other emails that disagree with the perspective you've put forward. I'm keeping an eye out, but I'm not seeing any lines being crossed here behaviourally, which was the hallmark for which I blocked previously, so though there are similarities, it's not an exact match at this point. I'm continuing to watch, though. Thanks for the heads up. Risker (talk) 02:16, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

No cabal

It is important that we are open about the nature of governance on Wikipedia. If someone holds multiple roles it should be clearly stated. I was not aware that the ArbCom appointed their own watchdogs, mainly from their own number. Of course like many organisations the pool of appropriate volunteers for these types of role is often small, so we should not be over-excited to to see the same names cropping up again and again. But if we conceal this, whether from slight embarrassment, or simply because we hadn't thought to make it public we invite criticism, and rightly so. Rich Farmbrough, 21:48, 27 May 2012 (UTC).

Rich, for heaven's sake. This is not concealed in any way, shape or form. That you've not paid attention to it in the past does not mean it is concealed. We don't appoint "our own watchdogs", we appoint the Audit Subcommittee, which investigates concerns about the use of checkuser and oversight permissions. There's nothing to be embarrassed about here; only frustration that several years after the fact you're showing up and complaining that nobody told you something that had been as well publicised as we could make it.

The Arbitration Committee has a fiduciary duty to the WMF to grant access to checkuser and oversight permissions only to those who meet WMF and community standards. As well, the Committee has a duty to the community to do its best to ensure that these roles are filled by individuals who are capable, available and are able to communicate their actions appropriately: in the case of checkusers, without violation of the privacy policy, and in the case of oversighters, to confirm what action has been taken (if any) to the requesting party. If the community-based CUs and OSs fall behind, it is usually arbitrators who will step in and fill in the gaps, so that the community continues to receive responses to their requests. For the record, as recently as 4 years ago, oversight requests often took days if not weeks to respond to, and SPIs were frequently weeks behind. Now we're more likely to get complaints because an oversight request has taken more than an hour to be addressed, or an SPI took more than a day. It's darn tough to meet these expectations given the staffing we currently have, which is why we are about to seek out more community members willing to share the workload. Risker (talk) 22:14, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Words have meanings. Are you sure you mean "fiduciary duty?" This is highly relevant to my interests. Hipocrite (talk) 22:15, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Where I come from, "fiduciary duty" means a duty assigned in trust and confidence. The WMF Board trusts Arbcom to put forward only candidates who meet WMF requirements, will follow the m:Privacy policy and will serve the community effectively. "Fiduciary" does not specifically refer to financial responsibility, although in many cases there is a financial element. There is no such element in this situation. Risker (talk) 23:03, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Indeed I would have said the fiduciary duty is to to the community, who appoint and trust the Arbitrators. Rich Farmbrough, 16:21, 28 May 2012 (UTC).

Well, access to the permissions are granted only through the processes approved by the WMF Board of Trustees, who have the over-arching responsibility for access to private information. The community has no responsibility in that regard. Risker (talk) 16:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

The WMF is there because the community needs it, to serve the projects. A fact they forgot a few times last year, and were salutarily reminded of. Rich Farmbrough, 23:20, 28 May 2012 (UTC).

"as well publicised as we could make it." Well, I have made Avraham's multiple roles better publicised in a few seconds than you could make it after "several years", yet you object. There seems to be a feeling that by asking these questions I am attacking members of the committee. Nothing could be further from the truth, I am, I think, quite entitled to ask these questions, and to express my dismay at some of the answers. Most of the items that I am taking issue with were not decided by the current arbitrators, so there is no need to feel threatened by the questions. Rich Farmbrough, 16:21, 28 May 2012 (UTC).

All of his permissions on all projects are posted on his user page. They are not particularly relevant to his appointment to the AUSC, except that they reflect someone who understands the use of these permissions. The nomination and appointment processes for checkusers, oversighters and AUSC members has been consistently published on multiple pages for several years; while nobody is obligated to pay attention to them, your insinuation that the Committee has kept everyone in the dark about this process is, bluntly put, nonsense. Indeed, one of the bigger challenges has been persuading those who specialize in determining what notices go on watchlists that these nomination cycles are important enough to justify watchlist notices. Can I count on you to support a watchlist notice for the next round of applications, which will occur in the very near future? Risker (talk) 16:26, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I am not insinuating any such thing, and I am mystified that you could draw such a conclusion. If you were not aware there is a public misconception that actually only some 900 people are allowed to edit Wikipedia. There is also a wide belief among many peripherally involved with Wikipedia that power is "all a stitch up", that Admins "circle wagons" - there is "no point arguing with an admin" etc. etc. People have gone to great lengths to create the structures the govern Wikipedia, and to ensure that as much as possible is done in the full light of day. The majority of Wikipedia scandals I am aware of, consequently result from attempts to keep things hidden. (One can only speculate how many successful attempts there have been.) For that reason I would think additional clarity is to be welcomed. People interested in the AUSC are entitled to know without having to research it that a majority of AUSC have other functionary roles. The names on their own are meaningless to a random reader.

As to watchlist notices I was not aware there was such a thing, but I did see the site wide message on a number of arbitrator elections, and I believe I voted for Elen and Hersfold. A case of casting ones bread on the waters I feel. I would think that it would depend what other watchlist notices they are competing against.

Rich Farmbrough, 23:19, 28 May 2012 (UTC).

The current watchlist notice is interesting, (an event I would go to if I were well enough) but I would support functionary nominations over that. Rich Farmbrough, 23:48, 28 May 2012 (UTC).

Note that the m:Ombudsman_commission is not appointed by Arbcom and less than half its membership are en: regulars. --Dweller (talk) 01:12, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Removal of link

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/F%C3%A6&diff=495048453&oldid=495036371 – Why was the ED link removed? It was simply a link to a log entry; it wasn't a link to the article itself. The article doesn't even contain statements or assertions. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 03:51, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not needed, and through your own admission it only exists to punish the person who uploaded the images in the first place. Risker (talk) 03:54, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Alright, but it wasn't personal. At the time, Fæ and I never interacted. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 04:17, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

One doesn't need to have interacted with someone for it to be "personal". That was pretty obviously personal. Risker (talk) 04:20, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm just saying that the article wasn't created as a result of a grudge between Fæ and me. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 04:31, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

It's ED. Prior grudges don't seem to be required. Risker (talk) 04:34, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

My edits

My edits post ArbCom are completely different than pre. Firstly I make many less edits, secondly I edit largely in talk space, and thirdly the articles I edit are almost exclusively turtles. Your, as ever, mystified. Rich Farmbrough, 18:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC).

It concerns me that you cannot see the similiarities in at least a portion of your content edits. They're blindingly obvious to anyone who has ever looked at your edits before. It took me less than 3 minutes to figure out that you were somehow or other using a form of AWB. Risker (talk) 18:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Of course I can see the similarities. I didn't realise that I was supposed to be denying my identity and disguising me edits as if they were those of someone who cares or knows nothing about anything deeper than a typo. Easily done of course. I have dumped out my .js, and the Wiki will as a result run less efficiently, newbies will be more confused, extra edits will be made, pages will be more inconsistent. But it's all good I guess. Rich Farmbrough, 21:26, 1 June 2012 (UTC).

You've got mail

Thanks for your email. I've replied. I'm not expecting an instant response from you but I'm posting here in case the email ended up in your junk folder. Pine^✉ 21:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Pine - email received, but I probably won't be able to reply until sometime tomorrow. Thanks for your comments. Risker (talk) 21:12, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Risker, did you reply to this? I haven't seen an email from you. Pine^✉ 23:35, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I did, I thought, copying in the Functionaries mailing list. Let me check my "sent" mail. Risker (talk) 23:41, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Replying here or on your talk page is ok with me. Pine^✉ 00:09, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Pine; I appreciate the opportunity to be a bit more transparent, now that we aren't talking about a specific suppression request. I replied to your first message via email, but not your one of June 1; I wanted to see if there was some additional feedback from functionaries before responding. There was a bit of discussion about improving the WP:RFO page, and I have asked for an oversighter volunteer or two to take on the responsibility of making that page more streamlined and useful. In a few hours, we will be announcing a recruitment campaign for new Checkusers and Oversighters. (You might want to consider applying: candidates who have a genuine interest in this area are always welcome. Candidates do not need to be administrators, the suppression permission contains all the tools needed to carry out the task.) In the interim, I have also reinforced to the functionary team the importance and value of everyone on the team making an effort to participate more regularly/consistently in responding to suppression requests, especially those that come in via email.

As to the suggestion of redirecting people to the Stewards IRC channel for suppression, Stewards will not generally carry out suppressions on projects with appointed oversighters unless it is so time-sensitive it cannot wait for that project's oversighters to address; there's a long and complicated history behind that policy, but it's not really our place to challenge how stewards use their tools, as they have to respect the needs of hundreds of projects, not just ours. On the other hand, there are often Enwp admins idling in the channel who can revdelete the edit in question whilst awaiting suppression. I've been reviewing suppression requests for almost four years now, and I don't think I've seen more than 3 or 4 genuinely time-sensitive requests a year; the key to reducing harm is to ensure that the information is not in a visible version of an article so it won't wind up on Google, so reverting or revision deletion is almost always the best first step. I do understand your frustration at having to wait a much longer time than usual for the edit you identified to be suppressed, and agree that the turnaround on that particular request was suboptimal. Risker (talk) 00:18, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

OK. I will be watching to see what changes are made to the OS pages. Regarding the the CU/OS applications, if there is a sitenotice, may I suggest that the sitenotice also announce the discussion about BASC and ask for BASC volunteers in case the proposed reform is approved? Pine^✉ 00:43, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, the BASC discussion is still ongoing, and it will probably be a couple of weeks before it concludes; by that time, the nominations for CU/OS should be closed. But I do want to try for a watchlist notice. Risker (talk) 00:46, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Guylaine

Is this a female or male name in Canada? PumpkinSky talk 02:20, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

It's one of those names used by both sexes (like Lesley and Ashley), although most of the Guylaines I know are women. It's pronounced Gee-LIN. Risker (talk) 02:25, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I came across a highly technical geological writing by a Guylaine Gauthier. PumpkinSky talk 02:31, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks like this one is a "she".[2] - search for her name. Risker (talk) 02:58, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

There's a GG in New Brunswick, female, but I don't know if the same person or not.PumpkinSky talk 03:05, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I suspect it is the same one; my guess would be that she was in British Columbia for education, but the East Coast is "home". Nice to see a woman scientist doing well.  :-) Risker (talk) 03:07, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool, Version 5

Hey all :)

Just a quick update on what we've been working on:

• The centralised feedback page is now live! Feel free to use it and all other feedback pages; there's no prohibition on playing around, dealing with the comments or letting others know about it, although the full release comes much later. Let me know if you find any bugs; we know it's a bit odd in Monobook, but that should be fixed in our deployment this week.
• On Thursday, 7th June we'll be holding an office hours session at 20:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office. We'll be discussing all the latest developments, as well as what's coming up next; hope to see you all there!
• Those of you who hand-coded feedback; I believe I contacted you all about t-shirts. If I didn't, drop me a line and I'll get it sorted out :).

Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:47, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

What, again? Hi Okeyes, it amazes me how you always find the worst possible day or time for me to attend office hours. :-) I'll try to poke around on the page over the next few days if I have a chance, although I have a rather major project about to launch. Risker (talk) 23:03, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Solving the Pandora's box

Thanks very much. Your comments were correct, and you did an excellent job. It is an honor for me to meet you (even in this virtual world). Please always keep up your clerkship, we need you. Just to you know, ahead is a list of more blasted articles apparently within that same case; I already forwarded it to our friend Timotheus, but may be it can be useful to you too.

(^) –means written in other interwiki
(^^^) –means written in several interwikis
“tagged”, refers to merge

• ^^^Esoteric astrology / tagged (but non-consensual talk) / interwikis
• ^^^The Summerland / interwikis
• ^^^Involution (esoterism) / interwikis
• ^^^Cosmology (metaphysics) / tagged but without talk; summary is apparently spurious (I strong advise to check all summaries made by that user) / interwikis
• ^^^Mental plane / interwikis
• ^^^Sanat Kumara / interwikis
• ^^^The Secret Doctrine / interwikis
• ^^^Great White Brotherhood / interwikis
• ^^^Kuthumi / interwikis
• ^^^Djwal Khul ‎/ interwikis
• ^^^Septenary (Theosophy) / interwikis
• ^^^Master Hilarion ‎/ interwikis
• ^^^The Key to Theosophy /stub-sort /interwikis
• ^^^Theosophy (history of philosophy) / interwikis
• ^^^Isis Unveiled ‎ >>> redirect was contested and reverted by an editor / interwikis
• ^Thought-Forms ‎/stub-sort / interwiki
• ^The Fitness of the Environment / tagged - no talk / interwiki
• ^Master Jesus / interwiki
• ^Residual haunting /stub - old tagged - some old talk / interwiki
• ^Initiation (Theosophy) / interwiki
• ^White Lotus Day / interwiki
• ^Serapis Bey ‎/ interwiki
• Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship / stub
• Rhine Research Center ‎/ stub/ (I'd support a regular merge)
• Spirit-tapping /stub
• Spiritist healing /
• Dweller on the threshold ‎ /no tag - but a talk contended (unfounded summary by user)
• Psychic energy ‎/some talk
• Ectenic force /
• Psychic force ‎/stub-sort
• Universal Brotherhood / stub
• Root race / tagged (talk?)
• Psychosphere /stub-sort
• Physical plane / stub-sort
• Spiritual plane / stub-sort
• Divine plane / stub-sort
• Study in Consciousness /stub-sort
• Deva (New Age) /stub-sort
• Mental projection /
• The Etheric Double and Allied Phenomena ‎/stub - tagged as multiple issues (really problematic)
• Ghostwalker /stub
• Physical phenomenon (spiritualism) /stub-sort
• Survivalism (life after death)
• Vibrational medicine ‎/stub-sort / tagged and some talk
• Tunnel of light ‎ /stub - tagged - no talk
• Lady Master Nada /
• Medical dowsing ‎/stub - tagged - no talk (unfounded summary)
• Earth mysteries ‎/start - tagged - talk contended
• Astral spirits /stub
• Adi (metaphysical plane) ‎/stub-sort
• Cryptoterrestrial hypothesis ‎/stub-sort
• Monistic idealism / tagged - lonely talk
• Maitreya (Theosophy)
• Ascended Master Teachings
• Triple manifestation / (poorly sourced but still summary remains unfounded)
• Round (Theosophy) ‎
• Paul the Venetian
• Manu (Theosophy)
• Lord Ling /stub-sort
• Monadic plane /stub-sort
• Shista /stub
• Buddhic plane /stub-sort
• Masters of the Ancient Wisdom (Theosophy)
• Anupadaka
• Causal plane
• Causeless cause / stub

And (for instance) these articles, but not only, that user deleted and used to create a new one:

• Paranormal and occult hypotheses about UFOs
• ^^^Interdimensional hypothesis/ interwikis
• ^^^Psychosocial hypothesis / interwikis
  

All best, KenneBar81 (talk) 03:55, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

His above list is not fully accurate and hes lied about a few, but I have redirected back many of the articles, most of the above were redirects, less than 10 were merges. Please see my comments on [[3]] GreenUniverse (talk) 20:22, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Risker. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Pine^✉ 21:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Just for fun

An oversighter at work.

Pine^✉ 07:02, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. For the record, that is way cuter than any oversighter I've ever seen.... Risker (talk) 03:39, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Yanks beat Cannuks again

• Yanks win 4-0 sweep over Cannucks for the Calder Cup.PumpkinSky talk 11:00, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, the Admirals (who, I will point out, are largely a bunch of Canadian guys living in the US) did play a heck of a series, and they earned that trophy with talent and hard work. You'll note their star player, Mike Angelidis, is not just Canadian, but a local boy. (Well, local to me anyway.) And since when is Norfolk considered "Yankee"? Risker (talk) 03:47, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I knew you'd brig up the team roster, hehe! Yes, that last game was in your local city. As for Norfolk, it's Yankee to you, but not to us. ROFL.PumpkinSky talk 09:50, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Saturday's Email

Did ArbCom receive the Email that I've sent to them on Saturday? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 03:27, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, confirmatory email just sent a short while ago. Apologies for the delay. Risker (talk) 03:48, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

It's okay. I was only concerned due to the approaching deadline. Thanks. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 16:31, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Did ArbCom receive the last two Emails that I've sent them? One is from Friday, and the other is from Sunday. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 09:46, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Bumping. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 17:58, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Michaeldsuarez, I'm not entirely current with what has and hasn't come through the mailing list the last few days as I've been very busy co-ordinating another Arbcom activity; however, I can confirm that the two emails made it through moderation. Risker (talk) 23:45, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 11:55, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Risker. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Pine^✉ 08:10, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

AFT5 release coming up - help us design a banner!

Hey all :). First-off, thanks to everyone for all their help so far; we're coming up to a much wider deployment :). Starting at the end of this month, and scaling up until 3 July, AFT5 will begin appearing on 10 percent of articles. For this release we plan on sending out a CentralNotice that every editor will see - and for this, we need your help :). We've got plans, we know how long it's going to run for, where it's going to run...but not what it says. If you've got ideas for banners, give this page a read and submit your suggestion! Many thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:20, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Out of curiosity

Are candidates allowed to question and vote on other candidates (CUOS), or is it best they recuse?—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 17:24, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Strictly their choice; in some cases, candidates have commented and sometimes they have not. Risker (talk) 23:46, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Just sent you an e-Mail.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 13:25, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Received and responded. Risker (talk) 15:19, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

I sent a copy of the application to you and the mailing list. Let me know if you got it.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 15:41, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

It has been received. I cannot guarantee a quick response, as it will require responses from several of my colleagues. Risker (talk) 17:40, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for still considering it.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 22:58, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

A Prime Example of What Wiki Should be not what it is

• User_talk:Montanabw#A_barnstar_for_you.21 PumpkinSky talk 23:10, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I always enjoy seeing the successful results of collaborative editing. Good work, PS - and everyone else who was a part of bringing that article through to featured status. Risker (talk) 23:47, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much. PumpkinSky talk 23:48, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Lemonade

I hope to "see" you next week. In the meantime, I'm sending you a virtual ice cold lemonade. Enjoy your weekend.

Pine^✉ 21:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Huggle

Hello, Risker. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 20:57, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

IRL

"Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the living people about whom we write. There is a deadline for them: it is the moment that Google puts our article about them in their top-5 results. That is something that was never contemplated at the time that Wikipedia was created. We must be responsive to changes in circumstances; this is about as big a change as can be. This is part of Wikipedia maturing and becoming a responsible citizen of the information world; when we were small and unnoticed, we had almost no impact on the life of an article subject. Now, what is published in our pages can (and sometimes does) cause long-lasting harm. Why do you think Google now crawls our articles incessantly to ensure it reflects the most current version of a page? We are no longer a little upstart in a distant corner of the Internet: we are now a top-10 website whose words, whether they should be or not, are taken as relatively accurate if not entirely authoritative. Not a day goes by that someone being interviewed on radio or television isn't confronted with a question that starts "I looked up your Wikipedia entry and it says..." The failure of individuals to recognise this collective responsibility to get things right about real people does more to harm the reputation and credibility of this project than any other error that is made. —Risker (talk) 03:02, 21 June 2010 (UTC)"

Hi Risker,

I agree with you at 100 %. People should be much more sensitive to this. Anyway given WMF hosts all the wikipedia websites and set at the birth of the project all the rules of the working mechanisms of wikipedia, this "collective responsibility" is theirs in fact. I add that the WMF has human ressources to handle this thanks to the funds it receive mainly to the success of wikipedia. They cannot take the money on one hand and reject the responsibilities from the other. Not easy stuff. Pluto2012 (talk) 06:48, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

New noticeboard proposal

Our current system highlights the negative editor information (messages on user and user talk pages, noticeboards, etc) over and above any positive editor information (contribution histories, key articles, etc.). It's time that we as a community model the behaviour we expect from our editors. With indexing of noticeboards, our behaviour management process includes promotion of pejorative information about individual editors; we know these pages are highly ranked but we allow them to be widely available, despite the fact that individual editors are frequently blocked/banned for identical behaviour.

Please see User_talk:My76Strat#Re: Do we need another noticeboard?. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 06:45, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Alarbus / Br'er Rabbit

Options for resolution have been discussed. This is not an issue for a single arbitrator to address, so it is time to close this discussion.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Hi Risker, I've brought this to your attention earlier and am bringing it your attention again - see here on my user page. I don't see a solution to it, but I find it intolerable. My sense is that this is not a situation that Arbcom is set up to handle, but thought you should know anyway. Although I have good friends who have tried to keep me interested in editing, I have absolutely no desire to be here anymore, which given the demographic I represent, is unfortunate. Thanks, Truthkeeper (talk) 11:25, 26 June 2012 (UTC) 北美少年愛好協會 184.170.131.17 (talk) 06:00, 28 June 2012 (UTC) Furthermore, I'd just like to add, that had I known at the outset the history of this account, I for one would have backed way off immediately in December. Why the socking was allowed is beyond me. It's caused quite a lot of damage. Truthkeeper (talk) 15:10, 26 June 2012 (UTC) (watching) I am a bit sad that two people whom I both respect have so much difficulty to understand each other, whereas I think with some good faith it should be possible to get to facts and improve an article. Other people thank Br'er Rabbit for help (visit his talk, for examples), I certainly do, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:19, 26 June 2012 (UTC) ps see also the impressive collection of barnstars there, I like this best, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:28, 26 June 2012 (UTC) Oddly enough I was coming here about the same user. Br'er Rabbit's current user page only hints at the previous incarnations and any editing restrictions he might be under (and frankly I'm having a hard time figuring out if he is under any restriction other than a single account restriction). I just want to know if this opaqueness is in line with ArbCom's intent. Thanks, Hobit (talk) 19:25, 26 June 2012 (UTC) Then let me lift the scales from your eyes, because you already know the extent of restriction on the account. As Jack Merridew, he was indeff'd early in 2008, but took the standard offer and ArbCom allowed him back in December 2008 under mentorship and some restrictions. In December 2009 he was commended for making a clean return from an indefinite ban, and the restrictions were narrowed down to editing from a single account which was continued. Over a year later, his request to return to editing under the same restrictions as any other editor was refused by ArbCom. He is now editing under the restriction to one nominated account (presently Br'er Rabbit). If you want diffs and pages, I can supply them for you, but I'm pretty sure Risker or anybody else involved can confirm that my description of his editing restrictions is precisely accurate. I do not believe there is any compulsion for any editor to display their badges of shame on their user pages. It must be particularly galling for them to have folks come along implying that they are being opaque about other restrictions when they are under no other restrictions. Clear enough for you now? --RexxS (talk) 00:07, 27 June 2012 (UTC) Play nice, RexxS; please don't belittle other editors on my talk page. If you're going to be snarky, then please don't answer questions directed to me. As to the central question, the editor in question is not "freed" from the community's expectation that prior accounts be acknowledged simply because he was permitted to return. His return was explicitly *not* a clean start; in fact, at a few junctures, he has gone through and labeled his socks, which to me indicates that he's well aware that his use of various accounts requires him to make the community aware of their connection. I am growing increasingly concerned that we are seeing the same types of behaviour directed toward other editors (Gimmetoo, Truthkeeper88, and some others) that we saw directed toward White Cat that led to the original ban. However, at this point we're probably looking at needing a new case rather than trying to re-open a case from 2006, one that nobody on today's Arbitration Committee adjudicated. I do not predict what the outcome of such a new case would be. Risker (talk) 00:43, 27 June 2012 (UTC) Just to be clear, Gimme has been hounding /me/ since 2010 and TK simply bounces off the ceiling at regular intervals.  Br'erRabbit  00:59, 27 June 2012 (UTC) Well, that's exactly the kind of difference in perspective that needs to go to arbitration. The community isn't going to solve this one. Risker (talk) 01:05, 27 June 2012 (UTC) Of note, I just had an edit conflict on my own page, where half my edit got accepted...something weird is going on again... Actually, the community is evolving of late and I'm seeing a pretty clear consensus.  Br'erRabbit  01:10, 27 June 2012 (UTC) The community often has some pretty weird ideas, and just as often has some pretty brilliant ones. I've never taken a case to Arbcom myself, but I've accepted plenty where the people who show up at admin noticeboards saw things one way and the evidence wound up supporting a different conclusion. The ball is in the court of those who are expressing concerns; they have to decide whether or not to bring a case. Risker (talk) 01:17, 27 June 2012 (UTC) still chumming the sharks ;/  Br'erRabbit  01:26, 27 June 2012 (UTC) Br'er, two things. 1. You're signature is too long by a factor of 2.5; 2. You aren't helping your situation here. I would give my "Wikipedia doesn't do due process" speech, but I've sure I've already given it to you and you don't want to hear it again. MBisanz talk 03:15, 27 June 2012 (UTC) Alright Risker, I'll do my best to play nice, but I'm too long in the tooth to get into a swinging match with one arm tied behind my back. Allow me to address you directly and honestly then. The other side needs to play nice as well. Do you actually think that Hobit came here to ask a question about ArbCom? In fact the question was loaded by the wording "this opaqueness" which presupposes that (i) Jack has other restrictions, and (ii) he isn't telling us about them. I am gradually getting more and more sick and tired of some editors smearing Jack by innuendo on the assumption that if you fling enough mud, some will stick. By the way, you actually mean "re-open a case from 2005", where a look at the Proposed decision page will give you some idea of the bad blood existing between one former arbitrator and Jack seven years ago, as well as the behaviour of Cool Cat that started this whole thing off. May I also point to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jack Merridew ban review motion #Motion to amend User:Jack Merridew's 2008 unban motion: "Jack Merridew is to be commended for making a clean return from an indefinite ban." Those were ArbCom's words, not mine - and that was the point I was trying to make. I wasn't confusing "clean return" with a "clean start". Nevertheless, if you think Jack should keep a list of his previous accounts somewhere on his user pages, why not suggest it to him? I'm sure he'd be amenable, because he's always been willing to acknowledge his past. It's a way of moving on. But please don't ask him to display the wording of his sole restriction; we stopped tying bells on lepers a long time ago. --RexxS (talk) 02:02, 27 June 2012 (UTC) Thanks to both RexxS and Risker for their responses. I would prefer Jack keep a note about old accounts on his user page, but if that's not an ArbCom requirement (and I didn't see it as one either, which surprised me, thus the question), I'm not going to ask him to do so. I fully agree that requiring him to list off sanctions would be unneeded and inappropriate. Hobit (talk) 15:37, 27 June 2012 (UTC) I think it's a nice and imaginative note of old accounts that the user page shows a different one every day (Alarbus now) ;) More thanks for his contributions were added today, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:11, 27 June 2012 (UTC) A few responses because I began this thread. Thanks Risker for the clarification in regards to a proposed remedy, and no I won't take it to arbitration. As for my remark re the multiple accounts, my feeling is this: when a 3 week old account accuses an editor of "regressive" edits to Wikipedia's most important articles, and chooses to edit war over template colors and the difference between curly brackets vs. angle brackets, the perception is much different to learn the three week old account in fact belongs to an editor who is a guru of wiki mark-up. Furthermore, when an entirely different account, yet belonging to the same mark-up expert, chooses one of 50 FACs to comment about deficiencies in regards to mark-up without commenting on any of the other in the queue, then, in my view, the intent is clear. To RexxS, no I was not suggesting anything at all along the lines of giving a leper a bell, but I do believe the accounts should be linked. Clearly when we discussed this in the winter you were well-aware of who Alarbus was, which left me at a disadvantage in my view. Truthkeeper (talk) 13:44, 1 July 2012 (UTC) Just for the record, I did *not* know who Alarbus was until the same time that just about everyone else did. If I'd known it was him the first time I encountered him, there would have been a much different response. Risker (talk) 13:49, 1 July 2012 (UTC) "chooses one of 50 FACs" this is not true. He commented FACs for Yogo sapphire, Avery Brundage, German battleship Bismarck, and Justin Bieber on Twitter, during the same general timeframe.PumpkinSky talk 19:40, 1 July 2012 (UTC) Chinese Indonesians, an ACR on battlecruisers... (never did any curlies on Teh Hemingway, either) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:52, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Butterfingers

Sorry for the butterfingers on my phone while on a train. MBisanz ^talk 01:29, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Risker. You have new messages at Maxviwe's talk page.
Message added 22:03, 1 July 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Max Viwe | Viwe The Max 22:03, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Email

Hi Risker, did Arbcom get the email that I sent regarding CU/OS candidates? I asked for an acknowlegement in that email and I'm still waiting. I left a note on AGK's talk page but he seems to be AFK, and I want to be sure that this email gets considered during the candidate review, especially since about half of the time for the review has already passed. Thanks, Pine^✉ 05:19, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

It was received. I was so focused on sending the paraphrases of emailed comments to the candidates that I neglected to confirm its receipt. My apologies. Risker (talk) 11:31, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

OK thanks. I had my own experience of "butterfingers" a few days ago so I understand that occasionally things slip even with the best of intentions. Pine^✉ 19:47, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's Luncheon at Wikimania 2012

WikiWomen's Luncheon at Wikimania - You are invited!

Are you a woman attending Wikimania 2012? If so, join us on Saturday, July 14, for the annual WikiWomen's Luncheon (fka WikiChix Lunch) This event is for any women attending Wikimania. Pick up your lunch, compliments of Wikimania, and join us at 1:30pm in the Grand Ballroom for a lively facilitated discussion hosted by Sue Gardner. We look forward to seeing you there. Please sign up here. Sarah (talk) 14:26, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Notification

Re [4] Malleus was notified as indicated by Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment#confirm Nobody Ent 02:35, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania

Since I largely blame you for convincing me to come to Wikimania ;-)

We should meet in the flesh at some point (if we haven't already without me knowing it). User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 03:35, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Hope you're having a good time, King4057. I'll be chairing a panel tomorrow titled "Blacking out Wikipedia" so you'll be able to lay eyeballs on me there and then track me down later if you'd like. I tend to float around a lot, though I'm likely to show up at the "Ask the developers" session later the same day. Risker (talk) 04:36, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to DGG's The End of Notability at that time. Hoping to meetup with him after his session. Are you going to the Buffalo Billiards afterwards? Or staying for the unconference? User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 17:27, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes to both. I won't have my trademark hat tonight, but it will no doubt be close by tomorrow. My plan for tomorrow is to find a table someplace and see who shows up to sit beside me. If nothing else, there are bound to be a few interesting conversations. Risker (talk) 00:20, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what you look like, but I guess I'll look for someone sitting alone expectantly ;-)

I'll be wearing a red shirt, black pants, a goatee, glasses and I'll have luggage with me. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 03:15, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

If you wear a goatee as well, Risker, you'll identify each other easy. Talk page watcher 09:48, 15 July 2012 (UTC).

Ohh, good point. Unfortunately I didn't read this before my morning ablutions so will be unable to comply.  :-) Risker (talk) 15:12, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Hey, too bad we never talked. I did enjoy going though. Even though the content of the conference was mostly not relevant to my role on Wikipedia, I definitely felt like "oh yah, these are my people." What shocked me is how fascinated everyone was about EthicalWiki and the fact that many volunteer editors were asking for business cards to give to companies they knew. That's pretty wild when you think of how contentious/controversial the relationship is portrayed. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 01:33, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

King4057, I am really glad that you had such a positive experience at Wikimania. It doesn't surprise me in the least that Wikipedians are interested in the EthicalWiki concept - it's really not all that far away from the principles that are the foundations of this project. It's a shame that the conference went by so quickly, as there were so many interesting people to meet and so many fascinating ideas to discuss. Perhaps our paths will cross again. Risker (talk) 02:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Inactive arbiter?

Hi Risker, AGK's last activity was about two weeks ago here on EN. Should his username be moved to inactive on the list of arbiters? Also I would like to suggest that it may be helpful for other arbiters to watch his talk page and respond to activity there during his absence. Thanks, Pine^✉ 07:21, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not entirely certain what concerns you have about AGK's talk page, but some of us watch each other's pages and will step in if there is something of serious "committee" concern. As I'm not overly active myself right now (I am at Wikimania, as are several other arbitrators), I'm hard pressed to step in with respect to AGK. Risker (talk) 00:23, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't have a particular concern in mind but I'm glad to hear that there is some watching of each others' pages already. I hope that you're having an interesting time at Wikimania! Pine^✉ 06:51, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania

Risker, it was great meeting you this past weekend. I hope you have a great last few weeks of Summer!

Best, Lord Roem (talk) 18:59, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Lord Roem - a pleasure to meet you as well. The timing of our meeting at the Library of Congress reception was one of the more surreal episodes of the conference for me! Risker (talk) 02:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Excellent Meeting You!

I just wanted to say how great it was to meet you in person and to serve on your Wikimania panel.

I wasn't kidding, by the way: I do have a t-shirt I'm working on for you.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 01:44, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Jorm! I really enjoyed meeting you as well - thanks for the barnstar! And it wasn't "my" panel, it was our panel; I was pretty impressed by how it all came together given we were from all over the continent. I lost count of how many presentations and panels you participated in, what a tour de force you are.

I commented earlier to someone else, and I'll repeat it here: I had the opportunity to talk with about 30 WMF staff over the course of the conference, and every one of you impressed me with your openness, your enthusiasm, and your genuine interest in working with the larger community. I learned a lot this past week, from a lot of really wonderful Wikimedians. (And I'm dying to see this t-shirt!) Risker (talk) 02:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for putting together the panel. It was a lot of fun, and I can't imagine a better panel to have been a part of. Considering how the line-up wasn't even solid until a few days before I think it came off great. --Cyde Weys 02:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Cyde, I really appreciate you stepping up at the last minute to fill in for an absent colleague. It was a pleasure to work with you! Risker (talk) 03:01, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh and Jorm, thanks for putting up with my request for that photo. My friends are somewhat in awe that I met "that rockstar from the Wikipedia banner" (their words). --Cyde Weys 02:42, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

You're totally welcome, and it was great meeting you, too!--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 02:56, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I think there are a few images over on Commons, but as well David Fuchs did a great drawing of the panel. I don't think he'll mind if I post the link: http://i.imgur.com/nl0tT.jpg As usual, Jorm comes off best... Risker (talk) 02:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Ja, I posted this to Facebook already. I love it.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 02:56, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

When you have a minute

Will you or one of your colleagues update Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight/2012 CUOS appointments? Thanks, Pine^✉ 09:04, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Just for the record...

Not having jumped in on Noetica's desysopping straw poll one way or the other doesn't necessarily mean the "community" agrees with him.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 12:15, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Falung Gong 2 proposed decision

You've indicated in your vote to close that you have completed your voting. However, you have not voted on proposed finding of fact 6, where your vote could be decisive in the final decision. Regards --Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 20:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

A thread that may be of interest

Hi Risker. I hope you do not mind being contacted in this manner; the rules of engagement here are not clear, and I don't want to act in a manner that is viewed as violating some unspoken rules of propriety. But I wanted to quickly draw your attention to a thread on the FLG 2 case that relates to some comments you made on point of view editing. I think that, by looking at a couple diffs in isolation, some issues are no immediately clear.[5]. Also, as an open invitation, assuming that the MER passes but not the topic ban, you're welcome to point out any problems you perceived with my edits, and I will do my best to either address them (either through the provision of additional evidence to adduce the NPOV or through concessions). Regards, Homunculus (duihua) 20:25, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

And anotheron Colipon’s failure to AGF, as I see you have not yet voted on the relevant proposal. Best, Homunculus (duihua) 21:11, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Risker — sorry to bother you again. With respect to OhConfucius, I noticed that you did support the finding on edit warring, if not on point of view editing, is that correct? The evidence page shows two 3RR violations by the user within about a week of each other on this topic, as well as edit warring at other pages. I had assumed that the MER was also intended to curb such behaviors (particularly in the absence of other remedies). On that question, I would also ask that you consider reading my statement on this issue (perhaps a moot point, but I would appreciate it nonetheless[6]). Thanks for your attention. Regards, Homunculus (duihua) 01:25, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Newtongeek

Hello, Risker. You have new messages at NewtonGeek's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

No, Michael, I am not going to respond there. I have stated my position. Random people who have no history with our community and have given no evidence that they share this project's goals and mission do not have a right to do nothing much more than comment. This isn't twitter, or facebook, or Wikipediocracy or any other website like that. Risker (talk) 13:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

You should've at least advised NewtonGeek to start editing articles first. Newtongeek's comments weren't damaging Wikipedia. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:12, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

You are assuming bad faith. The ArbCom page requires an account to edit. Why shouldn't an IP register a new account so he can edit it? More to the point, where does it say in policy that people who "have no history with our community" have no right to comment on ArbCom cases? Wnt (talk) 14:16, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Both NewtonGeek and Factseducado had a very brief and tempestuous stint both here and at the Wikipediocracy, both banned from both sites in the end. I really have no idea what the agenda of either was here, he/they kindof glommed onto the whole Fae affair and made one intemperate and ill-informed comment after another. So all in all, good call, his Chicken Little act was getting tiring. Tarc (talk) 14:40, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

• Risker, if I were in the habit of giving out barnstars I'd give you one. This was a common-sense and totally appropriate action, and I wish Arbs (and clerks) would do more of this sort of thing to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in ArbCom cases. The fact that your action is at all controversial is a sad indication of the community's mindset and priorities. I never cease to be amazed and disappointed at the sheer scale of energy that people are willing to invest in defending these sorts of useless edits and throwaway accounts. If only a small fraction of that effort were instead applied to things that actually help create a serious, respected reference work - like checking sources, or resolving difficult content disputes - well, one can dream. MastCell ^Talk 18:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

It is actions like the one Risker took that end up eating more time and focus than is necessary. Had Risker blocked the account for a policy-based reason, this would have been much less contentious. But "Ignore All Rules" doesn't mean you simply make up new ones. It means you disregard the rule with an eye toward improvement. For example, Risker could have requested that ArbCom block access to that Arb page for NewtonGeek. SHe could have simply asked that NewtonGeek not post there, with a strong backup from the Arb Committee. Use your imagination for the hundreds of alternatives here. But the justification of "2.41% contribs to article space" for an editor who is barely beyond embryonic stage is simply absurd. The suggestion that maverick actions that completely ignore well-settled community consensus is barnstar-worthy is just as absurd. Perhaps the new standard should simply be, 'if it feels good, do it'. I would much prefer, 'if it is out of line with policy, correct it... with as gentle as touch as is necessary for it to stick'. -- Avanu (talk) 00:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

She. Not he. Risker (talk) 00:50, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

On the Internet, no one knows you're whatever you might be. Dennis Brown seems to believe there is more to the case than might at first meet the eye. If there's really something else going on, why not simply reblock under a more reasonable rationale? And why was this level of a block even needed? Stuff like this (and a reluctance to quickly fix it) makes admins look like bullies, even if you aren't intending that at all. -- Avanu (talk) 01:01, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It's not Risker's actions that eat up time and focus. It's the community's complete inability to ever exercise restraint or circumspection about anything. People commenting at the AN/I thread even recognized that it was a silly and pointless debate, but were incapable of taking the logical next step: ... so I'm not going to participate in it. An increasingly large proportion of the community lives for this kind of stuff, so it's not really fair to blame Risker. When a minor accident causes a 10-mile-long traffic jam, it's not the fault of the accident driver - it's the fault of the 10 miles worth of people who can't resist stopping and staring. MastCell ^Talk 17:31, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

• But why block indefinitely rather than simply ban the user from the case talk pages? I can certainly see a case for banning from the talk page, but did you not simply consider advising/requiring them to focus their attention elsewhere on the project? Prioryman (talk) 18:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

• One hemisphere of my brain thinks this was a good block, and hopes it is the first of many more similar blocks of obvious drama-only accounts to come. The other hemisphere worries that while this was a good block, it sets a precedent that less clueful admins are going follow aggressively, with damaging results. The third hemisphere hopes that when calculating the percentage of useful edits, the sock master's edits are counted too (and that it's a cumulative total, not a "last month or so" total), or else I may be joining NG in purgatory soon. --Floquenstein's monster (talk) 02:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Responses to all

I'm just going to respond to all the commentary in one go here on my user talk, since the discussion is spread all over the place. I was unexpectedly without reliable internet for the past few days (addressing family business that took much longer than expected) and it's taken me a while to find and read over the relevant threads.

What strikes me immediately is that there does not appear to be any significant dissent to my premise that NewtonGeek was not here to build an encyclopedia. Some commented that I was failing to assume good faith, but good faith had already been extended to that account and the user's response was to make his first edit by commenting on an Oversight candidate, and then make almost all of the rest of his edits in relation to an arbitration case; good faith is not a suicide pact, and it is not in the best interests of the project to enable such behaviour. Others pointed out that I have failed to block (a) Seth Finkelstein and (b) a certain unregistered user, both of whom give the appearance of primarily commenting on the site; however, everyone knows exactly who Seth Finkelstein is as he has edited Wikipedia for many years under his real name and at times has made fair (if somewhat harsh) comment, and the unregistered user has been making generally sensible comments on Arbcom cases since before I was first appointed to the Committee.

A non-negligible portion of the community has been just as vociferous about blocks of accounts when the reason for the block is not immediately apparent, particularly where the block reason alludes to non-public information. While I have no difficulty in confirming that there are times where that is necessary, I elected to do this block for clearly visible reasons - "not here to build an encyclopedia" - which in this case the community doesn't seem to dispute. Given the history of the account, which was created by another account that was blocked for editing logged out, competency issues, and making unfounded accusations directed at other editors, this should have been sufficient. However, as has become apparent through the extended discussion of the block, there was also plenty of non-public information that supported the indefinite block of the account. I thank my colleagues on the Arbitration Committee for confirming that this was the case, and ultimately for taking over the block. I also recognize that the reference to the percentage of edits made to article space was unhelpful, and that the community found this to be distracting, so I do not intend to include that information for any blocks in the future. Risker (talk) 03:22, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your candid reply and while I was 'vociferous' about this to some extent, please understand that I have zero ill will about your block decision, I simply found the stated rationale to be odd and troubling. You have obviously given a great deal of thought to this and the action itself was borne out by support of the Committee endorsing a continuation of that block. Thanks for taking a moment to explain and I wish you the best. -- Avanu (talk) 03:51, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

AN/I

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 15:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Major pooch up

If your account was listed on Category:Wikipedia administrators open to trout slapping I'd be pasting a huge picture of a trout here. Ents have long memories and my sporadic crossing paths with you over the years, along with NYBs endorsement on ANI, tells my gut that the block itself probably falls into the not horrible to justified range. But the reasoning you gave -- 2.4% not here to build an encyclopedia just here for the politics -- comes across as making up a new policy out of whole cloth. If that really is a policy tell me know and I'll be gone without any fuss, cause clearly I'm not here to write articles, either. The ANI churn is prima facie evidence of what a misstep that was. Under the principle of starting with least sanction, a ban from ArbCom pages imposed by a clerk (NW would be best) would have been a much less contentious remedy.

As I've mucked around here for six years it's become quite apparent to me that contributors are not simply judged on their content but on the Wiki-cred of the contributor, and as a sitting committee member you're really high up in the Wiki-cred ranking. Your imposing a block with a poorly worded reason just isn't good for the project, especially as it seems to be implying the existence of some new policy. Under actions speak louder concept, I request you unblock NewtonGeek with a clearly worded AC ban; alternatively, if you have non-public reasons for the indef a statement to that effect would be appreciated. I realize that it's highly likely that would result in annoying inappropriate demands from some editors to divulge the info, but most of the community gets the necessity for some private/behind the scenes committee work. Nobody Ent 11:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Maybe its just me, but I think the "2.41%" is being a little strawman'ed here...not by you per se, your argument here against is leagues better than the ANI bleating yesterday. When I read the block rationale, I took it mean "NewtonGeek's comments in the Arb case are unhelpful and an overall negative addition to the discussion...and oh by the way he never edits mainspace". It was just an aside, a cherry on top. IIRC, Newton never once contributed to the actual Arbitration deliberations, i.e. Evidence or Workshop. His contribs were 100% to the talk page of "Proposed Decision" as the case is being wrapped up. You've been around the block long enough to know how much of a drama magnet Talk:Proposed Decision is at that point. Do we really value the input of someone who only contributes at the point of highest eDrama? Tarc (talk) 12:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

@Tarc, it's been pointed out, the proper thing in general there would be to first ask not to edit those pages, then ban from those pages. A complete indef ban without any warning seemed over the top, on what was evident. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 14:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It's probably worth mentioning by the way that this is not the first time that "Not here to build an encyclopedia" has been used for a block and it's exceedingly unlikely it will be last.  Roger Davies ^talk 18:09, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

@Roger Davies, what you say is true, but it's also true that the vagueness and apparent arbitrariness of that charge is certainly of legitimate concern to those of us who have to worry about abusive admins. Please remember that as an Arbcom member, you are at little risk of an admin suddenly deciding, in a fit of personal pique, to capriciously ban you on a basis of not being worthwhile, and challenging any other admins to contradict them (with obvious issues of social retaliation in mind). It's clear there were many issues at work in this specific case. But the stated reason was extremely problematic because of the justification it would give to more political usages. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 14:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely, it could have been better expressed but it seems to me that the "thin end of the wedge" argument you're offering here is a little bit overstated. I understand your fears about abusive admins (the block rational of "Vandalism only account", applied to someone who has only made one edit always makes me wonder) but there is no reason to suppose that Risker has suddenly gone rouge ;)  Roger Davies ^talk 07:45, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I suspect there's a disconnect based perhaps on what information you had (as an Arbcom member), at the time of the block, versus how it appeared to everyone else who viewed the situation based on what they saw and the given block reason. Note, Risker's immediate post-block statement said nothing about private Arbcom concerns, but only reinforced the original block basis of too much commenting. And Risker was at the moment a person directly involved in the most critical part of the case (the allegations of basically, judge-lobbying), where emotions were running high, so there was a rational basis to wonder if not exactly gone rouge, at least a bit pinked. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 17:13, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

@Roger Davies "It's probably worth mentioning...." . I guess it might be worth mentioning if you were a pompous little arse who also was not here to build an encyclopaedia, but instead thought they added some value by acting like a shameless politician defending their own. Now I don't think you are a pompous nor shameless person Rog me old mucker - so perhaps you'll fill me in on why it's probably worth mentioning? Pedro :  Chat  21:27, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Pompous little arse? My good and copious self? My dear fellow you must be speaking in jest ;)  Roger Davies ^talk 07:45, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I have to say that I think that it was a terrible block Risker. From the fact that it was indef (there is no justification for it extending beyond the length of the Fae case) to the fact that it had zero warning, and little grounds in any policy that I can see, it was just bad all around. Newtongeek may well have been a troll, or been worthless, but at the time you made the block there was no legitimate reason to do so. You really ought to reconsider this one if you want to have any legitimacy the next time you call another admin out for making what you feel to be a bad block in the hypothetical future.⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 09:45, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Keep in mind that I both agree with the outcome of the Fae case, and understand that there was some behind the scenes contacting going on/things that can't be disclosed publicly (at least from my reading of one of Brad's comments somewhere). I even get that dude was probably a troll. Those things aside, on the face of it I don't see the justification for the block. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 10:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback newsletter

Hey all!

So, big news this week - on Tuesday, we ramped up to 5 percent of articles :). There's been a lot more feedback (pardon the pun) as I'm sure you've noticed, and to try and help we've scheduled a large number of office hours sessions, including one this evening at 22:00 UTC in the #wikimedia-office ^connect channel, and another at 01:00 UTC for the aussies amongst us :). I hope to see some of you there - if any of you can't make it but have any questions, I'm always happy to help.

Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:35, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania

Wikimania Hi Risker! It was a pleasure meeting you at Wikimania 2012! Hope to see you again next year! —Ynhockey (Talk) 13:48, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Note

• Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fæ/Proposed_decision#Prohibited

As I mentioned you, please note. - jc37 17:36, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Seriously?

Back under the bridge...Dennis Brown - 2¢ © (WER) 18:26, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Hey, Anne. Can you please have a look into this... particularly the *hilarious* bit where an admin blocked the account for block evasion *before* blocking the IP address *at the same time as* removing my defence and very reasonable requests from the area where I'm meant to defend myself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Halfnakedlabrador Or is it normal to do this? If so, I request the contact details of the checkuser ombudsman committee. Ta. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheap54678 (talk • contribs) 11:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Mentmore golf courses

Please see Menmore Towers talk page Ghughesarch (talk) 20:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Re this revert, the map website is the 1946 OS Map, with the addition of modern postcodes. These can be hidden using the "hide markers" feature at the right of the page when on the map website. The Ordnance Survey is a reliable source when it come to data extrapolated from maps. Mjroots (talk) 20:38, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but it's irrelevant in this context. There's no map showing the golf courses, so no reliable source. And land usage from 65 years ago is also not useful as applied with that edit; as a working estate, there's plenty of reason to believe that the land usage changed over time. For example, the stud farm that was present in the 1960s isn't marked on that map, and I daresay it's more relevant since that is temporally more proximal to the time that it ceased being a working estate. Risker (talk) 20:42, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

One wouldn't expect to find 1960s info on a 1940s map. Mjroots (talk) 20:44, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's kind of my point. Why in heaven's name would we include a 1940s map, except to say "this is what the estate looked like in 1946"? It's certainly not evidence of where the golf course is in 2012. Risker (talk) 20:49, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

It shows that where the golf course now is was the park, and that therefore edits made on the basis that the golf course is not in the park are not accurate nor backed up by the available evidence. Ghughesarch (talk) 20:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

You're not listening. There's no reliable source that says *where* the golf course is, and whether it is on former farmland or former park. What the land was used for in 1946 is irrelevant. Risker (talk) 21:00, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Will you accept google maps as a reliable source? the golf courses are clearly shown in the aerial view: https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=mentmore&hl=en&ll=51.865468,-0.689392&spn=0.029787,0.077162&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=5.270256,10.50293&t=h&hnear=Mentmore,+Buckinghamshire,+United+Kingdom&z=14 and equally clearly occupy a large part of the area marked as park on the 1946 OS map (ie, not "ploughed fields")Ghughesarch (talk) 21:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear, please don't get me going on google maps, particularly for non-urban settings. Let's just say that if I depended on google maps to travel, I'd never find half the places I want to go. Let's stick to the subject. There's no direct line between "park" and "golf course" since there are 40-odd years intervening, with heaven only knows what land use changes. As an illustration of what the estate looked like in 1946, it is an excellent source, and I would have no problem adding it to the article as such. Risker (talk) 21:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, here is English Heritage's definition of the boundaries of the park, as identified for planning purposes on the basis of its historic form http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1000319&searchtype=mapsearch Usefully mapped and also showing the location of the golf courses, and indeed stating in the description: The park is divided into three main sections. The area west of the south drive is largely surrounded by belt planting with substantial spinneys and parkland trees. This area contains a golf course (laid out c 1990), with related structures, ponds and planting in the landscape, together with a clubhouse at the centre of the west park and an access drive from the south-east entering from the main avenue on the Cheddington lane. Will that do? Ghughesarch (talk) 21:29, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Without prejudice to responding or continuing this discussion, I'm going to copy all of this over to the talk page of the article; it was poor form of all of us commenting on this page not to take it to the article talk (I include myself!), as there are some different points being raised, and we're all repeating ourselves as well. Risker (talk) 21:38, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

AFT5 newsletter

Hey again all :). So, some big news, some small news, some good news, some bad news!

On the "big news" front; we've now deployed AFT5 on to 10 percent of articles, This is pretty awesome :). On the "bad news", however, it looks like we're having to stop at 10 percent until around September - there are scaling issues that make it dangerous to deploy wider. Happily, our awesome features engineering team is looking into them as we speak, and I'm optimistic that the issues will be resolved.

For both "small" and "good" news; we've got another office hours session. This one is tomorrow, at 22:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office ^connect - I appreciate it's a bit late for Europeans, but I wanted to juggle it so US east coasters could attend if they wanted :). Hope to see you all there!

Raise your hand if you can define "authority control"

Hi Risker—long time! Hope things are well with you.

I appreciated not being completely alone in the opposition section of the RFC on "authority control templates". That RFC seems likely to be so self-selecting as to be non-informative, even more so because it is about a very undramatic topic. The question I didn't properly ask (rhetorically) is simply: "How many people who view a Wikipedia article can define 'authority control'"? Not one in a thousand. But now we're putting a template about it on every biography, implicitly telling the reader that "this box of mystery links might be useful to you". The only one of those authority control links that is quickly understandable to a general audience, much less vaguely useful, is WorldCat. Versus e.g. (1, 2–in German at that!, 3–huh?) The silliness of further cluttering articles with this stuff—the type of action that should only ever be justified by reference to improving the reader's experience—is such that calling it a bad idea doesn't even seem like an opinion, yet only two people see it that way? Astounding.

More importantly, it's happening within the context you alluded to in the RFC. As the en.wp editing base has a tendency to consolidate toward a technically oriented group, their interests subtly move the edits being made on en.wp, on average, toward "form" as opposed to content. (This might be forgivable if one really believed that the encyclopedia was "complete"!) Some of us have been quietly concerned about this trend for years, of course—whether it's about the scope of bots, the overuse of maintenance templates, etc.—and aren't talking out of our hat, as these instances demonstrate. The "business requirements" of this project are increasingly being invented by the back office, if you will, rather than being driven by readers. (In this light the initiatives of the WMF, such as academic partnerships and user experience testing, look... very important.)

I declined to comment further in the RFC. When someone is asking you to explain "what value would be added to wikipedia by preventing users from being able to [access these links--but insert anything here]"... well, that train of thought is just a little logically problematic. I came here to write the first few sentences; sorry for the longer unsolicited opinion. Take care, Riggr Mortis (talk) 19:20, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I love your longer unsolicited opinions: they're always well-considered, and I think you've hit the nail on the head in this case. It was a losing battle, but I think the heading you've selected says it all. I can also see that you remain a copy-editor at heart. ;-) I think I'll go delete some PRODs and find an article to improve, that will make me feel better... Thanks for popping by, it is always a pleasure to see your name on my watchlist! Risker (talk) 03:34, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia seems to be pretty successful at recruiting those who want to exert authority over the diminishing number of those who simply want to write. Doesn't really make any sense. Malleus Fatuorum 04:02, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Grey's Anatomy

Hi, Risker. I've been searching for a good copyeditor for the above article for a long time now. The first one given by the GOCE was not satisfactory, by the opinions of myself and several other users. So then, I was instructed to find a copyeditor who has copyedited at least one featured article. I found several users, but I received extreme delays and no response from them. I am writing to you after two months of searching, to ask you to copyedit the article. I am preparing it for FAC, and once copyedited, the peer reviewer deemed it ready to go. After reviewing your user page, I realized you are exactly the editor I was looking for to copyedit Grey's Anatomy, being that you've copyedited a television related article that is now a FA. I think some of the article's problems are: MOS:LQ issues, quoting issues in general, wording, comma under/over usage, and run-ons. It is written in American English (hope that's okay), and I would prefer the context to be changed as little as possible while being copyedited. I really hope you can copyedit this article, TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 15:28, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm a tad rusty (Arbcom seems to consume much of my wiki-time), but I have read over the article and see room for improvement. If it is alright with you, I'll chip away at it starting in a day or two (need to give it a really serious once-over). I usually leave notes for the primary editor on the talk page of the article, and will refer to the comments from the PR in going through. It's a pretty long and dense article and, as such, will take a while to get through. Like Ruhrfish, I did not regularly watch the series, so this will be an education for me as well; the advantage of not being familiar with the series and characters is that one can spot where the text needs additional clarity for the uninitiated reader. Risker (talk) 18:01, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Great! Thank you for agreeing to copyedit. Currently, I am doing a bit of expansion, but will be done in a few hours. Thanks again, TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 18:09, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Also note that there are two main characters with the last name 'Grey' (Meredith and Lexie), which is why I refer to them by first name throughout the article. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 20:28, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

No worries, TRLIJC19. I've read through the article a couple of times over the last two days to get a feel for it, and to get some ideas of how to help improve it. I'll start with phrasing and word choice, but as we progress, I will likely have some recommendations about organization. Risker (talk) 20:37, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

That's great. I was a bit uneasy about the organization, so recommendations would be helpful! TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 20:45, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify, are you starting today or tomorrow? Granted, we may be on a different time zone (I'm on EST and it's currently 8pm). TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 23:58, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Starting in about 45 minutes (I am on ET as well so we're on at the same time). Just have to finish up a few family matters. Risker (talk) 00:03, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know! TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 00:09, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Quick question. You said the copyediting would take long, but do you have some sort of rough expectation of when it will be done? I obviously don't want to rush it; it's just that medical school resumes in September, and I am hoping to nominate it at FAC before then. It's certainly okay if I have to nominate it later, but I will be able to respond to comments at the FAC much faster if the nomination is sooner. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 21:07, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I've got a target completion date of August 12 in my mind (that gives two weekends for more intensive work), so that should fit into your agenda. If we're able to pull that off, I'll be happy to follow the FAC and help out with any prose issues that arise, although this would be your nomination and you'll have primary responsibility. Does that work for you? Risker (talk) 04:42, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's earlier than I expected to be honest. :-) TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 04:52, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, again. I recently wrote a new section (Broadcast history), because I finally found enough information for it, and a new subsection of reception (Impact). I hope you can begin copyediting the article again soon, TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 01:25, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I've just got back online after weather interfered with my availability today/tonight. Ah, the joys of hot sticky days and evening thunderstorms. I'll be working on it shortly. Risker (talk) 01:43, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I hear you; I lost power last night while developing an article, and had to rewrite the whole thing. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 01:46, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Risker! Are you planning on doing any copyediting to the article tonight, because if you are, I'll remain online for a while to address any questions regarding the copyedit/article. I completely understand if you don't have time tonight, though. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 04:21, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

You might as well hit the sack tonight; I'm working on it offline and won't post it until tomorrow. Sometimes it's a bit easier to work with this stuff in Word when one is rearranging things. Plus the font is nicer... Risker (talk) 04:25, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Great, I'm excited to see it tomorrow! TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 04:27, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Any update on progress of the copyedit? TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 22:08, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

How's it going? You said I think 2 nights ago you were going to do another section. Hope all is well! TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 00:52, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Heh - I was copy editing as you wrote that, and didn't pay attention to the yellow bar until I pasted stuff over... Please see the notes on the article talk. Risker (talk) 04:17, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

The referencing issues have been resolved. I hope you can start c/e again soon. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 17:34, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Overdue Apology

Hi, Risker. I just realised I never got around to this. I said some pretty harsh words to you over the whole NewtonGeek thing. I still feel that could have been handled better, but you didn't deserve the scathing criticism I bestowed on you during that episode. I'm sorry I went overboard. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 20:14, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

No worries, Jorgath. I don't know if you saw my "response to all" with respect to that block; in trying to address one type of concern, it turns out I touched off a different debate entirely. What I keep coming back to is that there was very little dispute about my stated reason for blocking the account ("not here to build an encyclopedia"); it's a shame that the community keeps letting itself get pulled into these kinds of dramas. Risker (talk) 20:20, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Note

Hi. I made some observations at Usertalk Jimbo Wales, and they included mention of you by way of analysis, FYI. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:18, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Commons

Over on Commons, Tip beat me to whacking those photos so I endorse with a tationale since he didn't leave one. PumpkinSky talk 10:20, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

User rights for the Education Program extension

Hi Risker! The education program team (which I just rejoined, as basically the community liaison) is trying to reconfigure the user rights for the (soon to re-deploy, hopefully) Education Program extension. I've started a discussion here, and thought you might like to participate. If there's anything I can help clarify or that you have problems with, let me know and hopefully we can work it out. I know the timeline (figure out the rights configuration by Friday) is quick, and I apologize for that.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:43, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Risker. You have new messages at Dcshank's talk page.
Message added 06:21, 7 August 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

 :- ) Don 06:21, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Risker. You have new messages at Dcshank's talk page.
Message added 02:02, 8 August 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

You'll never guess what I found on my talk page.  :- ) Don 02:02, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Advice requested

Hi Risker. If I recall correctly, you've had some dealings with Jack Merridew/Br'er Rabbit before. Could you please advise on what action you feel is appropriate for dealing with this sort of nonsense? NW (Talk) 03:47, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

You should have left it alone. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 03:50, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh for heaven's sake Br'er. You know better than that. Go ahead and put it on your user page or something if you want, but that kind of absolute mess on a talk page turns off everyone else who tries to edit it. You've invested uncounted hours in developing templates that don't totally overwhelm the editing window....and then you pull a stunt like that. It's behaviour like this that just embarrasses those who have invested their own social capital in trying to keep your detractors neutralized. If you want to make personal statements, please don't use another editor's RFA to do so; that's staggeringly inconsiderate. Risker (talk) 04:02, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• missing minnow

Preceding unsigned {{minnow}} added by Br'er Rabbi 06:25, 9 August 2012 (UTC) ^[7][8]

free popcorn

Br'er Rabbit, you don't get to trout me for calling you out for your inappropriate behaviour. "Oooh look, I found a loophole!!!11!!!" is not an excuse for anti-collegial behaviour. It wasn't a loophole, you were using that mass of HTML as a signature; if you weren't intending it that way, then it should not have been used in the circumstances in which you were using it, i.e. making a statement at an RFA. Risker (talk) 14:12, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

It's behaviour like this that just embarrasses those who have invested their own social capital in trying to keep your detractors neutralized. - At least you have the good sense to be embarrassed by the situation you've created. Raul654 (talk) 12:41, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Raul654, I have said in in the past that there are indeed very concerning behaviours, but that it's time to bring a new case. The prior case was six years ago, before half of the committee had even started editing, and before any currently sitting member was even on Arbcom. The case is there to be made; I don't think a single arbitrator acting alone should act. Risker (talk) 14:12, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I tried that this in May, remember? Kirill invented exceptions to the sockpuppetry prohibition out of whole cloth. Elen's interpretation of the no-sockpuppeting prohibition was that it was OK for him to register a new username each week as long as he wasn't using them 'at the same time'. Taking her claim to its logical conclusion, it would be perfectly OK for him to have 1000 accounts, and switch between them every edit, and as long as they don't edit conflict with each other, that's OK too.

When show that he violated even their own insanely defined prohibition, they ignored that too.

Then I saw that a week before, Elen had been talking on her talk page with Jack about me, by name. And when I mentioned this to her, she blithely shrugged it off by saying that she doesn't have to recuse during an arbitration clarification; it takes a full case for that.

Given the committee's outrageous behavior last time, if you think I'm going to waste my time opening a new case, you're crazy. Raul654 (talk) 14:59, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

No, you didn't try to bring a case. You complained that a case from 6 years ago wasn't being enforced the way you wanted it to be. There's a pretty big difference. And indeed, asking for a clarification of a case that has gone through half a dozen permutations and amendments over those six years, when the behaviour involved couldn't be shown to be directly linked to the initial case, was pretty much a textbook example of the square peg/round hole principle. A new case is needed, because there are significant variations in the issues that are of concern. I understand that it is a fair amount of work to collate the material needed to bring a case. On the other hand, both Arbcom and individual arbitrators are regularly disparaged for what a portion of the community feels is outside of scope. You've seen the decisions the committee makes nowadays: Arbcom is not afraid to sanction longtime editors for inappropriate behaviour, once a reasonable case is brought forward. Risker (talk) 15:15, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Nice try to rewrite history. My opinion never came into it -- he was flatly in violation of the controlling remedy. The arbitration committee conveniently got around this fact by inventing out of whole cloth an exception large enough to drive a truck through. When that exception wasn't big enough, they just plain ignored me. Only an idiot would think they're doing anything but purposefully turning a blind eye to his misbehavior, and I'm not about to waste my time giving them another chance to prove it. (During the next arbitration case, the worst thing they might do is give him a little trophy for sock-puppetry and harassment above and beyond the call of duty) If I invest any more time in this, it will be in December to make sure those arbitrators who run again have to answer for their actions. And as far as being disparaged is concerned, they've earned it in spades. Raul654 (talk) 22:00, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Confused

I don't understand your comment addressed to me regarding PhilKnight and recusal. Nobody Ent 21:44, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Apologies, I mixed up your comment with that of Ten of all Trades. I have corrected myself. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Risker (talk) 21:49, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Unprotection request at WP:RFPP

Hi Risker, there is a request for unprotection on artilce George W. Bush which you, along with Icestorm815 (I've just left a message on User talk:Icestorm815 as well), protected. Regards, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:42, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Canada - A Vast Nothingness

This is an absolute true story. Right now I'm watching a show about some guys driving northward through Alaska. One says "to the west, Siberia; to the right, a vast nothingness some call Canada." PumpkinSky talk 19:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

In fairness, even Canadians find the Yukon to be desolate. :-) Risker (talk) 19:34, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me for intruding but, hmph!.... "Land of the free, home of the brave", "from sea to shining sea." That is Canada... :O)(olive (talk) 19:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC))

Is there any particular reason why you're quoting from two songs that are used to praise the United States of America? Risker (talk) 19:34, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Between desolation and Poutine, that's quite a mix. PumpkinSky talk 19:40, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Holy lord... I've been living here too long....I can't believe I just did that... I blame it on the knowledge that we Canadians are what those words say, and having just spent weeks on the Canadian part of Atlantic, the seas are shining .., and a moving phone call that seems to have left me rattled a bit.

and Poutine is delicious, as long as you don't eat it too often as is a Newfoundland breakfast if you ever get the chance. Apologies to all Canadians even myself....(Olive slinks away) Serves me right for jumping in on this conversation. (olive (talk) 19:59, 14 August 2012 (UTC))

Must be all the Boredom Rays. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 20:21, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

You know, after the War of 1812, Great Britain felt it wasn't worth the effort to defend Canada against another U.S. invasion, but we decided that it wasn't worth the effort to invade. So one could attribute Canada's independent existence to a duel of indifference. :P Although to be fair, the Canadians did capture Detroit and force the evacuation of Chicago. For some reason, they gave us back Detroit. MastCell ^Talk 20:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

THey can have Detroit back.PumpkinSky talk 20:49, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

You broke it... you bought it... :O)(olive (talk) 20:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC))

US foreign policy...flawed perhaps given the amount of water in Canada ... the new oil. And one should never underestimate a large, quiet, unassuming neighbour. :O} (olive (talk) 20:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC))

This thread is HILARIOUS! And Risker's current thoughts are... PumpkinSky talk 21:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, at the time you wrote that, my current thoughts were "gah, how I hate doing statistics....only 8 more reports and I can go home..." (In other words, my comments here were when I was taking a brief break.) I've now reacquainted myself with this thread and am rather intrigued by the rewriting of history going on here. :D And yes, we were smart enough to figure out the whole Detroit thing almost 200 years ago. The auto industry notwithstanding, I think Canada was proven right. Risker (talk) 01:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah, Canada, the land that once global warming progresses a bit more will no longer be the Great Frozen North.PumpkinSky talk 01:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Heck, we're practically tropical now — if I didn't know better, I'd think we were in monsoon season. Since Thursday night, we have had six inches of rain (yes, that's inches, over 15 centimeters), with several thunderstorms a day, power outages, internet outages... And apparently we're getting more tomorrow afternoon. Risker (talk) 01:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Global warming? You guys sound like a bunch of SPOV pushers. :| MastCell ^Talk 07:06, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

No, we are world leaders. Both in per-capita carbon-equivalent emissions and in endlessly complaining about the weather. ;) And Risker knows quite well that The Ex has started, and about 3 days after it ends, it ain't gonna be rain piling up in her driveway anymore. Then we'll start hearing the world-class complaints. :) Franamax (talk) 07:22, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

• Canada: The people who live upstairs; above a really great, albeit sometimes loud, party. — Ched :  ?  10:48, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

And Lo, sayeth the Lord, let there be heat, all upon the whole world, so that the people will be cold no more, and then Canada, the Land of the Great Frozen North, shall be no more. PumpkinSky talk 23:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• But would be the land of the silver waters ("my paddle clean and bright flashing with silver") ... everywhere.... and Canada still wins per the new oil comment..:O)(olive (talk) 16:49, 23 August 2012 (UTC))

But where would the NHL be without Canada? OH NOES! All hail "Le Magnifique". — Ched :  ?  23:44, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank goodness for artificial ice and Zambonis given everyone but hockey players will be in canoes.(olive (talk) 16:49, 23 August 2012 (UTC))

• Easy enough: when World War Z breaks out, the Americans will be clambering over themselves to reach our cool, cool confines. And us? We'll be eating poutine and BeaverTails. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• I learned everything I know about Canadians from The Onion's fine article Perky Canada Has Own Government, Laws. Pine^✉ 01:52, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Fasttimes68 – a mysterious nothingness

Hello Risker. User talk:Fasttimes68 tells the world: (1) You have been indefinitely blocked by the Arbitration Committee (for which no reason is indicated), and (2) Questions about this block should be directed to the committee's mailing list.

I wrote about something related to the ML on 8 August. Elen of the roads replied "Just confirming we did get this, thanks for the info." No further response.

As invited, I wrote directly about Fasttimes68 on 10 August. No response.

I wrote more directly about Fasttimes68 (but still politely, I think) on 12 August. No response.

Did the mailing list software trash my second and third messages before they reached you? Where and when will "the community" be told why Fasttimes68 got an indefinite block, extending to his own talk page? (Or does ArbCom simply "disappear" people at its discretion?) -- Hoary (talk) 00:38, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Hoary - Sorry that the Committee has not been more responsive in recent days; several of our members have had very limited availability (I could barely log in over the weekend for weather reasons) and there have been several significant activities. I do see that the matter in question has not been fully addressed, generally speaking, and will try to move it forward. I reviewed the mailing list archives for your posts: the ones on August 8 and 10 went through fine. The one on August 12 somehow went from the moderation queue to the great black hole in the internet; however, as it happens I retain my list admin emails for a while (they contain the original email), and I have now forwarded that one through to the mailing list. I can't explain how that happened; we've had emails disappear from the moderation queue periodically on various lists for the last couple of years, and it's never been quite clear whether someone's made a mistake when moderating, or whether the email has just gone walkabout. This is an issue that needs to be resolved, so I will see if I can get some of our better minds on it. Thanks for the ping. Risker (talk) 02:13, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I see. Thank you for the update. Sorry to hear about both (i) "significant activities", which I somehow guess is a diplomatic way of saying "major pains in the ass", and (ii) your weather. Meanwhile, the weather where I am is, I'd say, balmy -- if I were a sloth. Since I'm a sloth only metaphorically, I'll add that rivulets of sweat run down my arms as I type. Eww. ¶ Happy arbitering! I can wait. -- Hoary (talk) 03:01, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Pleased to meet you; IP editing

Hi, Risker! I'm quite familiar with your editing but just now found your picture. Ah!! We're about the same age and have about the same hairstyle. (Same gender, too.) How exciting to discover you're not a twenty-something male. Not that I dislike twenty-something males; my son is an awesome one.

Anyway, I took Bishonen's challenge on Jimbo's talk page to correct typos as an IP and see if I got reverted. I didn't. If you're a statistician, you may well discount my experiment from small sample size--3 articles. Two, however, are very active.

I'm guessing the reason is because I'm at my home computer. I'm wondering if the "insecure computer," may have had an IP address notorious at WP for vandalism. ???

I'm posting here because Bishonen suggested no more comments be made about this on Jimbo's page. Bishonen, I've surmised, is a she, but I haven't figured out how many "Bishes" are hers, and exactly what her relationship is to Dave Souza. All velly intelesting. Yopienso (talk) 05:34, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Yopienso - welcome to my page! I'm pretty sure all the little Bishes are related in some way to Bishonen, but Dave Souza is not; in fact, I believe he is their portraitist. (Is there such a word?) Back when I did my little experiment (though it wasn't actually intended as an experiment), I did check the contributions for the IP address once I started getting warnings; while there was definitely some vandalism, there was also a history of very good contributions attached to it, so that should not have triggered the issue. It was, however, an "institutional" (as opposed to "home" IP address, and I know that colours some people's perspectives. Now, it could be that (1) RC patrollers are paying more attention to the edits they're reviewing or (2) the value of high edit counts related to RC patrolling has diminished in the intervening time or even (3) fewer edits are being reviewed. I do suspect that the risk of unwarranted reversion is somewhat lower using a "home" IP address, and significantly higher than even my experience if using a school IP address. Nowadays, people using IP addresses that are linked to businesses or organizations tend to get reverted a lot if they edit anything vaguely related to that business/organization, even if they are adding reliably sourced information or removing obviously problematic material. On the other hand, if I ran a business, I'd really not be happy about my staff making it obvious that they were editing the article about my business... Risker (talk) 19:47, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! En fin--it's refreshing to know that at least some people at the top appreciate what it's like at the bottom. Thanks for all your work around here. Yopienso (talk) 00:29, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Risker and Yopienso. Dave Souza is immortal for creating the original Bishapod (Tiktaalik), but there are many many portraitists of the Bishonen conglomerate — RexxS and Tex work overtime. Unfortunately I suck massively at computer drawing, but my friends more than make up for it. :-) Darwinbish especially has got the creative juices flowing lately; she just added a special collection of scary portraits to her userpage. Talk Page Watcher, 22:12, 20 August 2012 (UTC).

Premature application of PC

Hi, Risker. If PC is being applied now (except on test pages), do you think a quiet word with the offending admins would be in order? (Btw, I really hope you'll remain involved in the discussions. Nearly all of the opponents have given up and moved on, which is making it an uphill struggle to minimize the worst of the damage.) Rivertorch (talk) 09:06, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Existential Canada

Since you, Risker, admit Canada is a vast nothingness and desolate, at least in some places, where would you be if you were deep in the heart of nothingness? The center of nothingness? What is the center of nothing? PumpkinSky talk 02:41, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Something worth invading. And it's the centre, of course. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:03, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

• If I were deep in the heart of nothingness? I'd be safe from zombies but probably sensorily deprived. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

No, no. I didn't admit anything of the sort. There is always something here, although it may appear mundane to me as a Canadian. The pines that appear to grow out of bedrock. The lichen covering the muskeg. The vivid fields of canola going on as far as the eye can see. The sky, always the sky. I'm deep in the heart of something, but it's not desolate, and it's not nothing. Risker (talk) 03:11, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

• • @nm; except taht tehy didn't. it was agitprop. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 03:19, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Methinks the centER of nothing would be the southeast corner of Northwest Territories or thereabouts. PumpkinSky talk 02:10, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

• Border of Nunavut and the NWT. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Noo, I think the centre of nothing is in your own mind. Perhaps you have never been on a 12-day wilderness trip of two people and a canoe, maybe you haven't been out there paddling with one arm and bailing with another, but it sure ain't nothing. Especially when your food is running out and you need some fish to live on. They don't come from nowhere. Of course that is original research, my personal experience, but you shouldn't so blindly dismiss the Canadian experience. And for that matter, the centre of nothing is actually where you yourself stand, trying to figure out how to extract your vehicle from the ditch in a raging blizzard, and the centre of hope is the next resident of Soviet Canuckistan who pulls over to help you dig/push/tow that sucker out of the ditch. Franamax (talk) 03:16, 31 August 2012 (UTC) (Also our beer tastes better ;)

• If it's more than 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from a Timmy's it's the middle of nowhere... so most of the US is in the middle of nowhere  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:19, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Nooo, the Timmy's metric is for how far you have to travel to find a police car. ;) Franamax (talk) 03:55, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

• How about a horse? Look for the curly moustache? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:58, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
• As a side note, that leaves most of the US unpatrolled. No wonder there's so many shootings there. Pumpkin! Build more Timmy's. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Looking just at some recent hit ratios, I'd suggest the best way to protect US citizens is arguably to gently pry away those cop firearms. Really people, you should be aiming at the perpetrator rather than spinning in circles firing madly. What is the deal with that? And I/the collective we have the same questions in this country too. Franamax (talk) 04:23, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

• You can always make Something out of nothing. — Ched :  ?  03:51, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

@Franamax--yes, I've been on wilderness canoe trips of many days, I've lived in the Lower 48 version of Canada (take a guess), I've bailed canoes, been stuck in a blizzard, etc. So yes, I know what it's like. And yes, I've been to the Great Frozen North, towit: BC, Alberta, Ontario. I've been to various Timmy's in Cannuckistan too. PumpkinSky talk 20:52, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

• Canada exists to keep the crazies out in Alaska from getting to us in the better part of the United States. Unfortunately it's not doing such a good job, as the 2008 elections showed. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:55, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Ping

Hi, I don't know if you saw my message above, but I haven't heard from you in 10 days. Can you confirm that you're still working on the article? Thanks, TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 04:50, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I hate to bother you again, but it's been over a week since I've heard anything from you. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 21:58, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Again, I express my apologies for bothering, but another week has passed since I've heard anything from you, and it's been 3 weeks since your most recent copyedit. I understand you may be working in MS Word or the like, so just let me know. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 20:50, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

Steven Zhang's Fellowship Slideshow

In this issue:

• Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
• Research: The most recent DR data
• Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
• Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
• DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
• Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
• Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

Read the entire first edition of The Olive Branch -->

--The Olive Branch 19:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

ObamaCare vs PearsonCare

Which is worst? ObamaCare or PearsonCare PumpkinSky talk 23:38, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Apparently, we have a lengthy article on the subject. MastCell ^Talk 23:52, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm still not sure which is worse. PumpkinSky talk 00:22, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

• My take is that in Canada, there is less disparity between the health care available to patients based on income or heritage, and the Canadian system is less dependent on profit–oriented third parties (insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, privately operated health care facilities). On the other hand, there's more significant disparity in the availability of health care depending on population density; those of our citizens in rural or northern areas do not enjoy the same degree of availability as, for example, those in major cities or more densely populated areas like Southern Ontario or Quebec's Eastern Townships. Of course, unlike in the US, it is much more difficult for the rich to jump queues or to obtain care more quickly or more selectively than is true in the US. Nonetheless, my sense is that health care is heavily controlled on both sides of the border, and while Canada may have longer wait times, it may be nearly impossible for Americans covered under certain plans to access certain types of health care at all. One concern I have across the spectrum is the increased insistence on "best practices". While I agree that the best type of care should be provided to patients, the development of best practices is significantly dependent on experimentation, study and evidentiary review — which is often not covered under health care plans on either side of the border. Thus, the very patients who have been willing to participate in the development of better practices may well find themselves paying huge amounts for care that "isn't proven". I think this is a false economy. Risker (talk) 00:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello

Iridescent and I are talking about you here. We're discussing the formation of a new thematic organization, Wikimedia Medicine. I was wondering if you might be interested in this project. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:27, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Anthony - I'll take a look at Iridescent's page; however, any comments I make would be on the general principle of thematic organizations rather than this particular wikiproject/group of wikiprojects. Just for the record, it appears that your edit was reverted on my user talk, and I have re-reverted to bring it back and to respond.[9] Risker (talk) 23:44, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Enquiring minds

Enquiring minds want to know the real story to the Oak Island "Money Pit". Anyone got the low down? PumpkinSky talk 00:21, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

• Well, it's definitely down low. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:46, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

• I think they want to know if its Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, or Lake Huron-Michigan. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:26, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Either way .. "Huron" the water. — ChedZILLA 00:36, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

My theory on Oak Island...some alien from a galaxy far far away did it, then realized he was in Cannuckistan and left it for us mortals to try to figure out. PumpkinSky talk 00:49, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Knowing me - I'd just get "lost" anyway. < o/ ... waves at Risker, thanks for the use of your talk page - I lost my own. :)> — ChedZILLA 00:59, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

• Hi folks....I'm always fascinated by the things that wind up here... No idea about the money pit, though. And if I did, do you really think I'd tell you? :D Risker (talk) 01:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Could we bribe you with brownies? :) — ChedZILLA 01:46, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Bribe you with centijimbos? PumpkinSky talk 01:51, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh wow, I'm up to 12.2 centijimbos. Last time I looked it was closer to 7. <waves to her audience - welcome everyone!> Risker (talk) 02:08, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I must be much more boring. I only have 3.8 centijimbos. You get all these "interesting" threads because it's so much fun harass you and Cannuckistan. PumpkinSky talk 02:14, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Teeheehee ... I'm thinkin I LIKE having 0 centijimbos.  :-) — ChedZILLA 02:47, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Ummmm. About the brownies. If Risker doesn't want 'em, I'll be happy to take them off your hands, as a favour of course. First things first. Who cares about a pit when there are brownie offerings being waved about.(olive (talk) 03:10, 10 September 2012 (UTC))

R&I amendment

Don't take this the wrong way - you know I think you do great work - but this amendment request has become a total dog's breakfast. I've never seen something so simple become so willfully overcomplicated; it's almost Abd-esque.

If it makes things any easier for you guys, I can tell you that the next time I see TrevelyanL85A2 or one of his close associates do anything remotely resembling enabling Echigo mole's harassment campaign, I'm going to block him indefinitely. Then his full-time defense lawyer can take me to court, and Jclemens can go on about how we're providing "administrative cover" for Mathsci by trying to deal with this abusive sockpuppeteer's harassment, and the wheel can go around again.

I'm just letting you know in case it saves you guys some time. I see you're trying to formulate a narrow set of conditions to address whether TrevelyanL85A2 is allowed to restore edits from this banned, abusive sockpuppeteer. In my mind, there are no justifications; this should have been dealt with decisively about a year ago, and I'm going to deal with it decisively the next time it happens. MastCell ^Talk 21:40, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

No offense meant, but the "Adb-esque" part made me think of "Kafkaesque", which made me think of who is playing what role in his Die Verwandlung.PumpkinSky talk 21:47, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I chose that adjective form because it invoked Kafka (my first choice was "Abd-tastic"). The central theme of Kafka's writing, at least to me, is the transformation of the familiar and seemingly simple into the irretrievably complex, impenetrable, and inscrutable. Something about this amendment request echoed that theme. Anyhow, literary deconstruction aside, I meant what I said. MastCell ^Talk 22:28, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Don't forget about the "people caught in the mindless machinations of a bureaucracy part" of Kafka. Kafka should be required reading for everyone in RL and wiki. He's one of the greatest writers of all time. PumpkinSky talk 22:33, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Kafka was required reading, at least where I went to school. Maybe that's why I'm not a huge fan. He always seemed to straddle the line between profundity and meaningless absurdity, sort of like David Lynch. MastCell ^Talk 23:07, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I love Kafka. And Herman Hesse. Ever read Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game AKA Magister Ludi)? PumpkinSky talk 23:27, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Glass Bead Game has been on my shelf, unread, for probably thirty years. I should make the effort. Rich Farmbrough, 23:32, 15 December 2012 (UTC).

• Hi MastCell - While I won't speak for my colleagues, I wasn't thinking of *any* specific editor in relation to this matter. My concern is that our motions, even those that we link to a specific case, tend to get used all over the place if we don't make it clear that it relates to a specific case. As far as I am concerned, anyone who's reinstating those kinds of edits should probably be topic–banned (as well as possibly facing other edit–specific sanctions), and I'd have no objection at all for a whole pile of people to be topic–banned because of this kind of disruption. I just want to make sure that it's clear we're talking about the R&I case, right within the motion, so that we don't have people hanging their hats on this motion to excuse reverts that return POV/BLP/harassing/etc edits or demand sanctions for reinstatement of "good" edits by banned users elsewhere. I've seen the "it was made by a banned user, therefore it MUST be removed and never returned" attitude in at least half a dozen topic areas (not just ones covered by Arbcom cases), and it does far more harm than good. I can recall one time when I saw an admin threatened to block a longterm editor for restoring a sports score that the admin insisted had been inserted by a banned user. The fact that the score had been reported in multiple reliable sources, and that the edit was properly sourced, was irelevant; the admin was adamant that restoring the information was "proxying for a banned user". Talk about missing the point of an encyclopedia.

  Incidentally, I don't think there's any evidence at all supporting the notion that removing valid edits from banned users does anything to discourage them from editing. (Note I'm specifying *valid* edits, not vandalism or extreme POV stuff.) I wish we could come up with a way to have these sorts of edits reviewed by neutral editors and figure out whether or not the content should be inserted in the same or slightly different form. (I specify "neutral" because most edits by banned users are spotted by people who are heavily involved in editing the topic area.) The "editor" part of me is annoyed no end when useful information that improves an article is removed from an article because of who wrote it rather than for any valid encyclopedic reason. Risker (talk) 22:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

  • All of that makes sense, and I get it. I guess I don't see why you guys need to go through the trouble of a formal motion which, as you mentioned, runs the risk of being appropriated and misused in unrelated contexts. Just endorse the administrative actions taken so far, and clearly establish that the behavior in this specific case was inappropriate and, if repeated, will likely lead to further sanctions. Actually, Brad already did this two months ago ([10], [11]).

    I don't see a lot of upside to a whole new motion, which will just serve as grist for the impressively talented wikilawyers involved in this case. I mean, the amount of editorial time and effort invested in dealing with these editors so far outweighs any conceivable future benefit to the encyclopedia as to boggle the mind. And it seems like we're not even halfway done. MastCell ^Talk 22:51, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

• Fair comment, MastCell. I confess I myself am not persuaded that we need all of these motions, either. I know some of my colleagues feel it is important to demonstrate a majority, unified opinion on various issues. Given how hard it is to develop wording that is genuinely supported by the majority, is not helpful to wikilawyers, and that doesn't turn Wikipedia into even more of a bureaucracy, I'm not sure it's value for time invested. On the other hand, if not even the lot of us can agree on exactly what we're opining on, then perhaps there's some value there. That does, however, give me an idea for the candidates who are brave enough to run in the next arbcom election, though. Risker (talk) 23:34, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

• Interesting comments, Risker. Just a couple from me in response.

  First, you know full well that it's trivially easy to prevent the motion's misuse in unintended contexts. All it needed was a simple copyedit saying that the motion was purely for the purpose of the resolving this amendment alone (policy already says that ArbCom cannot make policy and that ArbCom doesn't create precedent). You could have easily added this yourself, no one was likely to revert you, and it would have saved a great deal of drama.

  Second, you say here, and in your recent support vote, that no motion was necessary, I disagree. Brad and I had already publicly expressed our opinions to parties about how this should be handled and been told we would be ignored. Hence I drafted a motion to give enforcing admins something authoritative from the committee to rely on. The no motion option was really not an option.  Roger Davies ^talk 03:47, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I disagree with you Roger, as we're so often on the same page. I don't think it's "trivially easy" when the motion's emphasis is, in my opinion, wrong; it then requires a complete rewrite and a restart.

If a motion had been made in early August that went somewhere along the lines of "any editor who reinstates an edit of a user banned in relation to this case shall be topic-banned indefinitely from editing anywhere in this project in relation to this topic area, with appeal to the Arbitration Committee", I would gladly have supported it. Something nice and simple, with genuine teeth. Frankly, the fact that some people plan to ignore arbcom decisions is kind of irrelevant; that is exactly what discretionary sanctions are for, so that admins have something in their pockets to reinforce that, yes, it applies to people who don't want it to apply to them. I don't think those editors should be mollycoddled by special amendments just to address their bad behaviour; however, I can understand that sometimes the AE admins want to have black and white. Instead, the first motion didn't seem to be a helpful change from what was already in the decision; you agreed with me on that. Your motion came 3 weeks later. (I'm aware there were reasons that you weren't available.) The motion you posted was not at all what I expected to see, based on your comments and those of others on the mailing list, and I don't think a minor copy edit would have moved it to something that I could have supported, since I felt that it was too generic and that it only danced around the real problem without giving sufficient information for admins to know what kinds of reinstated edits we were talking about. Hence my comment that we need to find a way to wordsmith these things before we start voting on them; we might possibly have come to some middle ground.

The amendment request was made on July 25. It's now September 13. It was apparently clear to some members of the committee that a motion was needed by August 3. I'm embarrassed that this case is still on our board. I don't think the motion currently being voted on is perfect; in fact, I nearly abstained. But because this needs to close, and because I wanted to make it clear to the admins who work at AE that it's entirely fine by me to apply topic bans to anyone who even gets close to this line, I have voted to support. (Who knew I'd wind up being one of the hardliners here!) We need to stop finding ourselves in this position over and over again. It's time for us to pull up our socks. We have no open cases; we need to clean up that clarification/amendment board. Risker (talk) 04:53, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Risker, admins are neither stupid nor children. They don't need things spelt out in excruciating detail. In this instance, the facts of this case are ferociously tangled but the actual issues are extremely straightforward. Furthermore, What's more, long experience of this topic shows that the more complicated something is the more it will be wiki-lawyered to death by the R&I people. Hence, a brief broadstroke motion.

I'm afraid you massively complicated this by pushing proxy-editing to the fore. This has never been a real issue in this amendment and nobody has seriously suggested that the material was restored/reinstated at the direction of the banned user.

Yes, the case has been around a while but hardly any arbitrators have commented on the page or expressed any interest in doing any of the heavy lifting. And even less interest in disentangling the core issues from the wikilawyering. (It was exactly the same story with both the R&I case, and the review.) If its elderliness bothers you that much, you should probably have unrecused earlier and got stuck in end July/early August (about the time I got my alarming blood test results).

At that time, I certainly wouldn't have supported a motion along the lines you suggest as being appropriate (set out in your second paragraph above) largely because (1) Echigo Mole wasn't "banned in relation to this case" and (2) there's no point in topic-banning editors who are already topic-banned.

Nevertheless, elderly amendment or not, my priority has always been to get something fixed rather than get it closed. In fact, most of my case work on the committee has been sorting out (and simplifying) horrible tangled messes that no-one else will look at. I do not much like the present motion though I will not oppose it. It's too complex, has too much process, and it will not stop troublemakers in their tracks.

Incidentally, can you clarify something? I'm puzzled by this "I wanted to make it clear to the admins who work at AE that it's entirely fine by me to apply topic bans to anyone who even gets close to this line". What does it mean? Are there really admins at AE who need to have your blessing for a committee motion before they'll act on it?  Roger Davies ^talk 09:00, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

• As a very minor point, can I say that it is a total PITA for the clerks to implement motions and it would be appreciated if they had a little more substance than reiterating policy? NW (Talk) 23:53, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

First off Mast, I would ask that you refrain from such uncivil commentary. Referring to me as Trev's "full-time defense lawyer" is not only overly personal, but with your subsequent comments and preceding threats is indicative of battleground conduct. It is especially inappropriate for an admin to engage in such conduct when appealing to an Arb on a matter where that admin purports to be uninvolved. As to your claims about the amendment request, I actually presented something incredibly simple to address the problem and I invite Risker to review my initial comment at the top of the request and the suggested wording I have recently provided on that point. Saying that Sight and Trev cannot make any edits relating to Race and Intelligence broadly construed is all that was ever really justified by the evidence presented in the review case.

The restriction on "commenting about conduct" of anyone who has "worked in the topic" has only created a situation where an editor gets threatened with blocks for complaining about things happening in his own userspace. What he was complaining about is an entirely separate discussion, because Trev was not blocked for a month for restoring the comments of banned editors. He was blocked for complaining about Math's conduct when Math was right there practically begging Trev to complain about his conduct. Should Risker and the other Arbs really want to say that restoring Echigo mole's comments falls under the topic ban then so be it, but that will not prevent a situation like what transpired on the talk page of Jclemens. To summarize what transpired, Math repeatedly made combative remarks towards Trev, knowingly misrepresenting Trev's reasons for going to J's talk page, and alluding to the proxy-editing on multiple occasions in an uncivil manner only to basically urge someone to file an AE request when Trev finally responded by complaining about Math's provocations. Now that is not what specifically lead to the block as the AE case was declined on the basis that Jclemens should be allowed to decide on how to proceed, but it clearly points to how that restriction has been abused by Math. Eliminating that restriction will not lead to any problems at R&I as Trev and Sight would still be topic-banned.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 20:59, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I know I will be pilloried for commenting here, but in my experience, narrowly crafted conduct remedies work when applied to editors with substantial bodies of contributions (saying something along the lines of, you do extensive work in these eight topic areas, but you get into fights in two of the topic areas, so don't go near those two areas). When users contribute to one or two areas, I suspect the restriction is put in place with the hope they will find a new area to contribute to, but this is generally not the case. I suppose Arbcom has adopted this general practice in the hopes of aiding editor retention by trying to reform any possible contributor. I would contend that editor retention is not imperiled by over-broad or excessively harsh editing restrictions. Rather, I believe the problem is that Arbcom, in its desire to retain editors, permits too many people to remain in the community with complex editing restrictions. These editors test the limits of their restrictions, drive off other contributors (I was just speaking to a subject-matter expert earlier this week who said he was driven away from the project five years ago in a similar situation), soak up admin and community time, and never re-orient their contributions to a new field. I would encourage arbitrators to adopt a presumption that if a person contributes in a narrow range of topics in which they fail to contribute collaboratively, the default sanction should be a site ban as opposed to an editing restriction. I would also encourage arbitrators to adopt the inverted presumption it is better to be overly-punitive in sanctions than too lenient. I say this because by the time someone is before Arbcom, they have already been subject to community oversight in multiple forums, so to say that a plainly innocent person is being hauled before the Committee is not true; at the very they are unable to manage and resolve problems through the normal processes. I would lastly encourage the greater use of conditional remedies, such as, "X is banned unless he admit that he distorted sources." Requiring a person to admit fault before re-admitting them to the full privileges of the community serves as a valuable check on those who are so attached to their particular interpretation that they are unwilling to admit fault. If he can't even bring himself to lie to regain editing privileges, he is certain to engage in the same behaviors in the future. MBisanz ^talk 21:19, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Bisanz, while your point makes some sense it is not really applicable in this situation. Trev was contributing sporadically to articles well before he got involved in R&I and, prior to this most recent mess, his contributions were pretty evenly split between three topics. Sight has made considerable contributions to articles outside the R&I topic area so your reasoning applies even less to him. The problem with the restriction I am requesting be removed is that it allows editors from R&I to interact with Trev and Sight, but does not allow either of them to complain about the conduct of those editors in such interactions. It should be obvious that this arrangement is a recipe for disruption rather than a remedy for it.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:45, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

TDA has made a number of statements which don't seem quite accurate. Here is the thread on WP:AN posted after problems with hoax/fork articles on Aix-en-Provence created by Echigo mole. [12] I was discussing wikihounding in article space. Before TrevelyanL85A2 intervened there was no reference whatsoever to him. There had been a long AfD about the hoax articles coupled with several SPI reports. TDA wrote above, "He was blocked for complaining about Math's conduct when Math was right there practically begging Trev to complain about his conduct." That is not accurate. The thread was closed by Future Perfact at Sunrise with some helpful advice. TDA also states that TrevelyanL85A2 has only been expressing worries about the use of his user space. TrevelyanL95A2 does in fact seem at the moment to be discussing many other things related to R&I and me: first he started talking about Miradre/Academica Orientalis; and then he has raised a series of objections about the R&I arbcom review. That's doesn't match up with what TDA is writing. Mathsci (talk) 03:57, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

The Devil's Advocate has just been blocked for 2 weeks for violating their own topic ban under [WP:ARB911]], so hopefully things should quieten down now. Mathsci (talk) 06:06, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

TDA, I would have fixed this particular thread by giving Mathsci an interaction ban with respect to the two of them and leaving their restrictions in place. MBisanz ^talk 20:27, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Canadians vs Yanks, and Jesse Washington

Canadians...the people Yanks pretend to be when they're traveling. Jesse Washington's lynching is now on the main page; fireworks starting in 3, 2, 1.... PumpkinSky talk 00:11, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Modification to May PC be applied to pages to protect against violations of the policy on biographies of living persons (WP:BLP)?

Hello. Because the "Yes" section was split between one group in favor of applying protection to all articles and one group in favor of applying protection to articles only when there has been a problem, I have split the section to reflect this difference. Please go back to that page and make sure that your vote is still in the section that most closely reflects your views. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh I've already commented. Risker (talk) 16:20, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

YGM

Hello, Risker. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.— DBaK (talk) 15:28, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

:Hi. I'm sorry to trouble you and I can see you're very busy. I really don't wish to cause you bother. Is there anyone else to whom you think I should take my enquiry? If they are more suitable and/or you are too busy then I would be delighted - whatever works best for you. Thanks and best wishes, DBaK (talk) 15:07, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

In the process of being sorted, please ignore. Thanks and sorry to bother you. Cheers DBaK (talk) 08:47, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Election RFC

One issue that has been discussed, but not included in the RFC so far, is the issue of "parties." It appears that discussion of the "Reform Party" is still going on, so it is possible that there actually will be at least one "party" endorsing candidates in this election. For that reason, I have written up a list of "ground rules" for the treatment of any "parties" that do support candidates. It is still in my user space here and I would appreciate your comments, especially on some of the one or two "technical" questions that I have in the footnotes, before I post it in the RFC. Or if you believe that the whole thing is a bad idea, I would like to know that too. This is intended to be a compromise between having a "nonpartisan" election but also permitting editors to form affiliations and communicate about them to the voters, and to put as much of the "party business" as possible in user space rather than on the Wikiproject that was recently "kept". Anyway, your thoughts would be welcome over the next two or three days while this is still in my user space. I am also going to post this message on two other editors' talk pages. Neutron (talk) 02:07, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Müdigkeit

I've adjusted your block of User:Müdigkeit, as discussed at User talk:Müdigkeit#Blocked. While I normally have a great deal of respect for your decisions, I wonder if you haven't taken this a bit personally? Because an indef-block of an established user, where there was no warning given locally, is more than a bit ... extreme. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 13:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear, Philosopher. You've violated the blocking policy and administrator policy in order to substitute your decision for mine. You have not, prior to changing the block, consulted me as the blocking administrator. You've not taken it to an administrative noticeboard (at which time you would be required to notify me). You've failed to understand that an indefinite block is not the same thing as a permanent block. The indefinite block was applied to prevent further disruption by an account that has now become a cross-wiki disruptive account. Do you have any experience with cross-wiki disruptive accounts? Do you understand that the user has demonstrated escalating disruptive behaviour on German Wikipedia, and then started behaving disruptively and ignoring longstanding community practice on this project within three weeks of coming here? You're not responding in any way to an unblock request. Do you have any reason to expect that I would not have responded favourably to an unblock request from the user that undertook to refrain from attempting draconian action to alter community practices without even discussing these practices with the community? I suggest the following: reinstate the block that was in place, which was intended to be indefinite (and not permanent), and then take it to the admin noticeboard for discussion. I am going to copy this over to your talk page and to the user's talk page as well. Risker (talk) 15:55, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

To avoid the continued replication of this thread, I'm replying at that user's talk page. Multiple duplicate threads ... get confusing fast. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 04:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Review

Can you review the articles I created? They are. Before I Go to Sleep Grace of Monaco — Preceding unsigned comment added by SamGallagherWright (talk • contribs) 22:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay in responding; for the last few weeks, I've only been logging in to address very specific situations. Darn real life. In any case, I am sorry that I cannot help you here. I am already woefully behind in a commitment I made to another editor, which is now my priority. Risker (talk) 02:58, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Voter guides

I am confused by your position on voting guides here. In your own statement you seem to be saying that the traditional "guides" should be included in the election template, and only the "summary of guides" pages should be excluded. Yet you also support Jehochman's statement which says "there should be no 'official' list of guides on the election pages." And you say in your comment, "It's not necessary to link to voter guides from main election pages." Are you drawing a distinction between the "election template" and the "main election pages"? And are you assuming Jehochman is drawing a distinction between "election template" and "election pages." I don't think there is such a distinction. The template IS the way the voter guides have been linked from the election pages. Please note I have not yet "voted" on this issue; in the past I have favored linking the voter guides from the election template, but I am beginning to see things potentially getting out of hand and am wondering if there is a better way to do all this. But for now, I just want to understand what positions people are taking and hopefully head off a confusing situation for whatever admin(s) are unfortunate enough to volunteer to close this RfC. Neutron (talk) 21:10, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)Those positions are not mutually exclusive. It's entirely possible to prefer that election guides not be part of the template and that "summaries" not be included if they are. — Coren ^(talk) 23:14, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Apologies Neutron for the delay in responding. Realworld commitments have left me participating in a very limited way, and when I've been logging in the last two weeks it's been to address specific issues. Coren's pretty much got it right, though. Risker (talk) 03:00, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Copyediting

Hi. I understand you may be busy, but I haven't heard from you in over a month. Can you please confirm that you're still working on the article? Thanks, TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 02:20, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Canadian dogs

How are my canine Cannuck cousins? WOOF WOOF — Puppy of Dog The Teddy Bear • ^WOOF • 22:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Education program burden metric

Since you commented at the Education Program RfC talk page, I thought you might be interested in this attempt (ongoing) to measure the burden placed on the community by the education program. Is this the sort of thing you were looking for to answer questions about burden? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:10, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

This is not a newsletter

This is just a tribute.

Anyway. You're getting this note because you've participated in discussion and/or asked for updates to either the Article Feedback Tool or Page Curation. This isn't about either of those things, I'm afraid ;p. We've recently started working on yet another project: Echo, a notifications system to augment the watchlist. There's not much information at the moment, because we're still working out the scope and the concepts, but if you're interested in further updates you can sign up here.

In addition, we'll be holding an office hours session at 21:00 UTC on Wednesday, 14 November in #wikimedia-office - hope to see you all there :). I appreciate it's an annoying time for non-Europeans: if you're interested in chatting about the project but can't make it, give me a shout and I can set up another session if there's enough interest in one particular timezone or a skype call if there isn't. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:44, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Clarification

I've responded to your comment. I'm a little taken aback by your suggestion that my conduct has been "disingenuous" and your statement that I was involved in a "deletion debate", suggesting that I had a view on the underlying content dispute, rather than simply calling an admin out for what was unarguably a flagrant misuse of user rights. Please consider refactoring your comment, which I confess to have found needlessly aggressive. WJBscribe (talk) 01:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

One of the situations I've noticed from time to time is that good-faith editors sometimes have a hard time seeing when they have a conflict of interest. You have a conflict of interest here when it comes to acting as a bureaucrat, and I think you had a responsibility to specifically mention your prior contact with FCYTravis at the time that you entered the discussion on the Bureaucrat noticeboard. It is clear from the unusually strong language (for you) in your post at the original ANI (where FCYTravis' deletion was debated) that you had already made a decision about the actions of the user and, instead of your usual method of trying to find the middle ground, your only position was to denounce the administrator who was trying to follow the edict of the AfD and was being actively thwarted. Keep in mind that the person complaining at ANI had been edit warring to keep information in the article that had been deemed to be questionable even in the closure of the AfD; I do not see you expressing any concern about the behaviour of the other editors who were involved in that situation. That, by itself, is out of character for you; certainly I had always observed you to be even-handed in attempting to resolve issues. For the record, no I don't think that deletion was an acceptable course of action, but given the validated concerns about the article outlined at the AfD, I also don't think edit-warring to re-include unsourced text was an acceptable course either.

Having said all this, I think you are probably right that my own comment was too strong for the situation, and I will modify it. Risker (talk) 04:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

CheckUser for suspected Sock puppetry - Help Required

Hi Risker, I am Tahir Mahmood as Administrator on Urdu Wikipedia. We dont have a local CheckUser.

Can you please confirm the following as a Sock puppetry account of User:S.M.Samee (User has been blocked previously for the on English Wikipedia for the Same)

• User:S.M.Samee
• User:Sahlay (Suspected Sock puppetry)
• User:Sahlay (User is on Urdu Wikipedia)

--Tahir Mahmood (talk) 09:09, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Risker is a checkuser for the English Wikipedia only. You will need to contact the m:Stewards if you want to make a check spanning multiple Wikipedias. --Rschen7754 09:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Marianna Yarovskaya‎

• Hi Risker,

I am not sure what brought you to this article, but please note that I opened the topic about it on the COI noticeborad more than a week ago, and so far did not get any useful reaction. In the meanwhile, the subject of the article, also using socks, continues to remove info she does not like and treats my warnings on her user page as a personal attack. I am actually desperate and I am not sure what can be done about this article, which looks like borderline notable.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:33, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

• • Tut tut. When it was determined that Marianna is using several accounts, she has deleted the appripriate CheckUser pages.[13][14] The lady is determined to promote herself in Wikipedia by hook or by crook. --Ghirla^-трёп- 12:56, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

    This is truly unbelievable. I do not recollect any other user who ever attempted to blank CU reports.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:08, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

• Dear Risekr, allow me please to join the conversation as well, and mention that I have started a discussion here to make it easier to decide in which form we should include the information (if at all). I have seen prior interactions on Russian Wiki (on the same subject; which I haven't participated yet) and I didn't like at all what I have seen. It includes strong pushing which is wasting time of several editors and doesn't have any productive outcome. I had to revert the questionable edit until we decide what should be done with the change (and if we indeed need to remove it). I'd welcome your comments on the comments page. Thank you. With regards, Oleg. Y. (talk). 06:56, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
• Okay, first. Do not re-add questionably sourced material to biographical articles. This is covered under WP:BLP. Don't re-add coatrack material - whether or not Al Gore has certain financial interests is not relevant to the biography of Maria Yarovskaya. It is probably relevant to the Al Gore article, and that is where it should be.

  Secondly, this is English Wikipedia, and it does have some significant variances in policy and practice from Russian Wikipedia. One of the keys here is that we are expected to take seriously concerns expressed by article subjects. In this case, the concern is entirely relevant: blog posts are not suitable for questioning someone's researching credentials (you'd be looking for something in a scientific journal for that), and adding information about a third party that are unrelated to the article subject is inappropriate.

  Now, let's take this to the talk page of the article itself. Risker (talk) 15:52, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

AFT5 newsletter

Hey all :). A couple of quick updates (one small, one large)

First, we're continuing to work on some ways to increase the quality of feedback and make it easier to eliminate and deal with non-useful feedback: hopefully I'll have more news for you on this soon :).

Second, we're looking at ways to increase the actual number of users patrolling and take off some of the workload from you lot. Part of this is increasing the prominence of the feedback page, which we're going to try to do with a link at the top of each article to the relevant page. This should be deployed on Tuesday (touch wood!) and we'll be closely monitoring what happens. Let me know if you have any questions or issues :). Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Removal of a large number of edits from Jimbo's talk page

I noticed you removed a large number of edits from Jimbo's talk page. I think you need to go back and review those. Based on the reasoning in the edit summary about half didn't apply to that and I see no valid reason for their removal. 138.162.0.44 (talk) 15:57, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

When we oversight or delete a revision, we often have to OS/delete many surrounding revisions as well. It's not intuitive to someone looking at the history, but each entry in the history of a page contains the entire content of the page at that time. So if I insert something in revision N, and it's removed in revision N+50, revisions N through N+50 all contain that text I inserted, and if we need to make the text I inserted unviewable, it means we'd have to delete every revision between N and N+50. Not because the people who made those revisions did anything wrong, but because they had the bad luck of editing the page while my bad insertion was still on it. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:09, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I kinda though that but wanted to double check. When this is done it seems like the non intrusive text should be replaced. Doing this could, and it seems like would, potentially damage important points made in a discussion. I think if the text does not get replaced, the other users affected should be notified that their comments were deleted and they may need to readd them. The problem with this is that in many cases they may not remember what they were. So really to me, whomeber "oversights" the change, should restore non disruptive comments as a followup edit to the removal. 138.162.0.43 (talk) 16:44, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I believe their text was left in place and that Risker merely removed the offending text and the historical revisions containing it. The present version should reflect all non-offending text previously added to the page. MBisanz ^talk 16:56, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Nope, take a look at the history. Several other edits were removed, many of which were in other discussions on the page and not even a part of the ones he reverted. Just to clarify I do understand that most of the time the comments removed are specific and this really is more the exception than the rule but I think some procedures need to be implemented due to the possible effects that removing text from a discussion could have, that non intrusive text is added back to the appropriate discussions in a follow on edit. 138.162.0.42 (talk) 17:20, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

The revisions were removed, but the content remains on the final version. See this diff for the content added by the removed revisions. MBisanz ^talk 17:44, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

That's a great link, however it doesn't really show me anything I didn't already know. The problem is that discussion threads that weren't associated to the ones Risker removed were lost at the same time. There was an edit for example where an IP other than me made a statement about Bold editing that should be above the comment made by resolute that was removed with Riskers edit. There were a couple more. Please look at the history of the page and at the chunk of edits that were removed. They are plain as day. I cannot add links because I do not have access to see deleted content (becase the Encyclopedia anyone can edit really isn't) as an IP but if you look at the history of the page with your access I am confident you will see what I am talking about. Just look at the edit summeries for the changes in the deleted ones and you will see that a lot of other edits outside the scope of the ones Risker removed were also affected. I have noticed this before but never said anything and I finally got tired of seeing this happeneing and decided to say something this time and yes I used to edit but stopped largely because every suggestion required a long and drawn out discussion. The end result here should be common sense really. When an edit is removed, as was done here, the removing admin must put back any edits that were deleted and not a part of the desired deletion. They usually don't, occassionally they do. We shouldn't be blaming a bad tool because we are too lazy to do the right thing. 138.162.0.42 (talk) 18:33, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

The other edits are all there. You cannot directly access the diff for them because those edits also contained the suppressed material, but everything save the material that was suppressed is on the page. This is just how the edit history looks on a very busy page when an edit more than 24 hours old needs to be suppressed. Risker (talk) 18:43, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

So what you are telling me is that if I went to the most current version of Jimbo's page, and read though the discussion marked Wikipedia:Bold, I would see the comment made by IP 108.28.162.125 or the one they made to Electoral Commission RfC Closure: a few lines above that or the comments made by Conti, Jayen, or especially Jimbo? Because if that is what you are trying to say then no they are not. The only way to see them is to view the diff and try and decifer the mess. Which no one is going to do. 138.162.0.42 (talk) 19:26, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Seems we're talking past each other here. Those edits are all clearly visible on Jimbo's talk page right now. All of them. They're entirely visible. Sooner or later they'll move to the current archive, where they will still be visible. I really don't get how you say that the only way to see those edits is by viewing the diff. The way to see the edits is to read the page. Risker (talk) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Umm, no they are not there. Again, if you look at the discussion titled bold, between the bottom comment posted by Resolute and the comment left by Francophonie&Androphilie (Je vous invite à me parler) there should be another one that was left by an IP. The IP comment is gone, as are comments from Jimbo and others. I saw them there earlier today and now they are gone and I see this quite often so now I am saying something. Since you seem unwilling to fix the problem I left a note in Jimbo's page letting everyone know that content was removed and that some discussions are incomplete. I'm just an IP editor and not an Admin, oversigher, etc. so I don't have any rights on WP and its generally assumed that anyone who isn't an admin doesn't know what they are talking about and can't be trusted but I thought that perhaps I might leave a comment and see if my assumptions were wrong. It appears they were not and were indeed warranted. Its clear at this point that you have no interest in fixing this problem or taking it seriously so there is no longer a reason for me to continue to comment. 138.162.0.41 (talk) 19:45, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm genuinely baffled at why you cannot see edits that I most definitely can see, even when logged out. There were 3 edits by that IP that are in the suppressed edits on the page history. Those three edits by that IP are all visible on the page. Try clearing your cache. This is clearly your technical problem and has nothing to do with any suppressions. Risker (talk) 19:52, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, ma'am

Just when I thought I'd been careful to never assume someone's gender on here... Oops! For some reason I was under the impression that I'd read your userpage at some point in the past. Or perhaps it was an underlying bias on my part, associating decisive action with testosterone. Either way, my apologies. :) — Francophonie&Androphilie (Je vous invite à me parler) 22:02, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

As User:Tvoz would attest, making statements about testosterone brings sexists out of the woodwork, so be careful. :p Sceptre ^(talk) 23:37, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

A SPI you might want to look at

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Shaz0t. You seem familiar with one of the users there, namely User:Chutznik. Tijfo098 (talk) 09:33, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution volunteer survey

Dispute Resolution – Volunteer Survey Invite Hello Risker. To follow up on the first survey in April, I am conducting a second survey to learn more about dispute resolution volunteers - their motivations for resolving disputes, the experiences they've had, and their ideas for the future. I would appreciate your thoughts. I hope that with the results of this survey, we will learn how to increase the amount of active, engaged volunteers, and further improve dispute resolution processes. The survey takes around five to ten minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released. Please click HERE to participate. Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts. You are receiving this invitation because you have either listed yourself as a volunteer at a dispute resolution forum, or are a member of a dispute resolution committee. For more information, please see the page that describes my fellowship work which can be found here. Szhang (WMF) (talk) 02:46, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Courtesy notice

I'm just letting you know that I referenced a statement you made back in 2010. I used it in an RFC over the recent conduct of Rhode Island Red. No response necessary, just letting you know. Andrew (talk) 18:01, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

User talk:PatW

Regarding your block of this user for outing another editor, there seems to have been some not-getting-it. He is still trying to tell everyone who he thinks the editor is on his talk page. [15] Rumiton (talk) 02:12, 30 November 2012 (UTC) F3 "organisation" to avoid a pompous rant. Rumiton (talk) 16:03, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I see he is now describing the other editor's alleged activities as a "theoretical" situation. Rumiton (talk) 13:03, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

ACN

I believe my comment makes a valid point, demonstrating how ridiculous Pesky's argument that users should be able to maintain a certain edit count to incivility ratio is. I fail to see that I have been uncivil in doing so. Blunt, yes, but not uncivil. The last time I checked, it was possible to call other users "fucking cunts" and get away with a slap on the wrist. Now the mere frank discussion of such things is uncivil? I will not be reinstating my comment, as I do appreciate the topic on ACN is not really the right venue for such a discussion, however I resent the removal of my comment on the ground that it is "uncivil". Remove it on the grounds that it is irrelevant, by all means, but if that's the case you really should also remove Pesky's comments, which are in the same vein. Best wishes, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 23:48, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, I agree with the action Risker took, removing that post. - jc37 23:51, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Spitfire, what was uncivil was the fact that you're linking bad behaviour with edit counts. It implies that *all* editors with a 30,000 edit count use these terms, or fit into these classifications. It's irresponsible. As to Pesky's comments, they're just incomprehensible. I can't tell what vein they're in, and I'm pretty sure whatever anyone guesses, we'll be told we misunderstand. Risker (talk) 00:22, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I understood Pesky's comment exactly the way Spitfire did: that misbehaviour should be evaluated as a proportion of mainspace editing and not in absolute terms (i.e.: you actually do get to buy indulgences with mainspace editing). — Coren ^(talk) 00:31, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Precisely. This is what I understood Pesky to be saying, and I was merely breaking this down to the bare bones of her argument, which demonstrates how ridiculous the notion is. (Albeit, Coren has done so more eloquently than I, while still getting across just how ridiculous the idea is)

I am not trying to claim that all editors with X number of edits have made Y number of transgressions, just bringing to attention the fact that Pesky is saying that they should be able to get away with Y if they do it. Spitfire^Tally-ho! 14:16, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm closely involved with monitoring responses to the civility questionnaire and one point that is strongly apparent is that editors feel that "context matters". The context here is that it was in fact Spitfire who was called a "fucking cunt" only to find that a significant portion of editors rallied to support the comment. It is exacerbated by how quickly her own participation in a discussion was censured. The civility conundrum seems to become more and more entrenched every time an editor attempts to engage the discussion. Lamentable regards, My76Strat (talk) 00:41, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

ANI thread about Antonio Pizzigati article

Just a quick note on the ANI thread - I know PB and others have been looking at this already. Looks like this was the result of a series of unfortunate misunderstandings (how talk pages work, which tools are admin tools, how copyright permission processes work). We've done a lot more Wikipedia on-boarding with recent hires but there's clearly some internal coaching still to be done. We'll handle it -- sorry for the confusion.--Eloquence* 23:19, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Erik: that is exactly what I would have hoped for. Education is far more valuable than castigation, whether it's with respect to a relatively inexperienced editor (which Preilly is) or with a WMF staff member with legitimate access to advanced tools who isn't familiar with the community's expectations for those tools. Let me know if there is something I can do to help bring staff up to speed on these sorts of things. Risker (talk) 23:28, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Amused

"But if there's a constant (and I do mean constant) threat hanging over every arbitrator's head that they're going to have to spend days and weeks fighting off recall motions every time they do something that someone doesn't like, then they can't do their job."

One might equally say:

"But if there's a constant (and I do mean constant) threat hanging over every editor's head that they're going to have to spend days and weeks fighting off ANI threads and Arbcom cases every time they do something that someone doesn't like, then they can't do their job."

Rich Farmbrough, 13:57, 14 December 2012 (UTC).

Really, Rich? Every editor is constantly brought to ANI and Arbcom for just about every edit that they make? Their opinions and actions constantly result in complaints that require high level dispute resolution or attention from administrators? Oddly enough, when I look at the names of editors who've voted in the most recent Arbcom election, I don't even recognize a good 50% of them, because their work here has never come to my attention in any way, either as an editor, an administrator or an arbitrator. The fact that your activities have frequently been brought forward is not representative of the experiences of the vast majority of Wikipedians, most of whom have never heard of Arbcom, and may not ever have accessed the administrator noticeboards. Meanwhile, you're proving my point by quoting a I made two weeks ago with respect to the threatening behaviours directed at arbitrators from people on different sides of a case. Risker (talk) 20:29, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

People didn't recognise my name before September 2010. Even as an administrator, I was low profile, I blocked persistent vandals, deleted valid speedies, closed a few AfDs, fixed and created complex templates, protected important pages and the like. I had a constant low level stream of queries, almost all of which were dealt with by a short polite answer, requests for assistance which I provided more often than not. On that fateful day all hell broke loose, and certainly had I made a few decisions differently it could have been avoided, but nonetheless I was dragged unwillingly into the unsavoury world which you inhabit, and found out that what I had assumed was a reasonably well oiled and motivated system (and indeed it had been when I had last looked at it years before) was corrupt, clique ridden and incredibly inefficient. And if you believe that I am the only one this has happened too you are very wrong, I might cite Bobblewick, persecuted by Rebecca who became an arbitrator. Geo Swan, persecuted by Fram (an administrator, heaven help us) and another editor (since banned). Betacommand, persecuted by Xeno and others, though the dubious machinery of Arbcom. Penyulap, blocked by an arbitrator who he had complained to the Ombudsman about. And as someone who has never regularly followed AN/I, ANB, Arbcom etc, the fact that I am aware of all these cases would tend to indicate they are the tip of the iceberg - Rlevse of course is another, banned for being married. Rich Farmbrough, 23:29, 15 December 2012 (UTC).

Just to jump back to the thrust (somewhat irritated that you didn't take my point, and went into combat mode) your response is a total non-sequitur "Every editor is constantly brought to ANI and Arbcom for just about every edit that they make?" that is not what I was saying, nor does it reflect what you were saying. The point is that there is a constant (and I do mean constant) threat. And indeed EncycloPetey (to name but one) simply walked of the project rather than deal with all that entails. Probably the wisest thing he did. Rich Farmbrough, 23:39, 15 December 2012 (UTC).

The difference, Rich, is that 95% (and more) of editors will never have their actions disputed and brought to AN/I, let alone threatened with arbitration. Whereas arbitrators have 95% of their actions disputed and criticized, often with accusations of malfeasance; it's part and parcel of the job – any decision in a long-lasting dispute will be taken badly by at least on of the parties – but it's something you need to take into account when drawing comparisons. — Coren ^(talk) 20:41, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely it's part and parcel of the job. As an editor it shouldn't be it is not something that as editors we sign up for. And yet it happens. And Risker apparently can imagine what it's like and at least the logistic nightmare it creates, if not what eventually becomes a psychological nightmare - as another editor said (from memory) "Every time I saw the orange "you have messages" bar it was like I'd been punched in the stomach." I certainly went through that exact stage, some time in late 2010, as the theatre of the absurd played out. Now I am effectively banned from contributing to the project I can at least try and ensure that we move the culture towards doing the right thing, rather than the convenient one. Rich Farmbrough, 14:40, 20 December 2012 (UTC).

My point is simply that when you said "One might equally say", one might actually not equally say this at all. The comparison is entirely invalid and is nothing but hyperbole. There is a world of difference in how you manage an improbable hypothetical scenario and a known repeat occurence.

And, by the way, where do you get that "effectively banned from contributing to the project" thing from? — Coren ^(talk) 15:32, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

On your first point, you are partly right. Risker's scenario is the hypothetical, albeit not entirely improbable implementation of an arbitrator recall procedure. My scenario is what has actually happened to me and a significant number of other editors.

On your question I am specifically allowed only to edit by "typing in the edit window". Recent edits like creating User:Rich Farmbrough/sandbox1, like fixing the typos in my post to reference desk, like my planned post List of OBCs, all break this restriction. This is due to two misclicks. At the time I was too mortified at making this error to object, but with hindsight I have more sympathy with my former self, and think this is something that should have been ignored, or at the most been noted, certainly not "punished."

Even prior to this I was forbidden from doing "what I do" on Wikipedia, that is non-contentious admin tasks, (not because I'm afraid of contentious ones, but because by the time I have given them due consideration, someone else has always acted - often precipitously) edits that affect many pages, creation of new articles, bot runs, building complex templates, template maintenance. I forget the exact number but something like 5 or 6 million edits I think have been mostly in this vein. Even now I can't believe that replying to someone's intention to open an AN/I thread and request an editing restriction with "<sigh>" is reason to take my admin bit away - it seems like scraping the bottom of the barrel to call that "gratuitous incivility".

Nevertheless these are the resolutions that were passed, and while I hope no-one is going to be petty minded enough to take action on the type of breaches I have mentioned above, so far I have always been wrong when I have thought that. I have held off creating any more virus pages or genetic code pages because I know that people would complain about that.

We will see what the future holds. (Illegal sig =>) Rich Farmbrough, 19:24, 20 December 2012 (UTC).

Desysops

I don't see the purpose in even considering a de-sysop of SchuminWeb without an actual case. He's not randomly deleting articles nor issuing blocks from an undisclosed location. We did desysop Henrygb while he was inactive but we'd nailed him for sockpuppetry and he refused to answer the case against him. We also banned him at the end of the case for all that, though I imagine he wandered back under a new name. I'm sad that it came to this; he and I have had our differences but he's doing an absolutely thankless job and I have some sympathy for what that does to a user. I gave FFD a look today and shuddered at the thought of implementing our policies there. De-sysopping without a case sends the wrong message and guarantees the eventual outcome. This case is at least as important as the yearly Christmas Civility Clusterf--- and there's actual encyclopedic content at stake, for once. Cheers, Mackensen (talk) 19:20, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

TheGeneralUser (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Hello Risker! Wishing you a very Happy Merry Christmas :) TheGeneralUser (talk) 13:28, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

..

Seasons greetings to you and yours
Dougweller (talk) 13:55, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Happy holidays to all my Talk Page Watchers

Some Christmas traditions are very difficult to explain. Kind of like Wikipedia policies.

Wishing you and yours a joyous holiday season, and happiness, health and hopefulness in 2013. I trust you'll enjoy this little token, a favourite performance of Baby, it's Cold Outside, for your holiday amusement. For those of a more traditional inclination, I offer this rendition of my favourite carol.
Best, Risker (talk) 02:57, 25 December 2012 (UTC)