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July 2014

Please comment on Talk:The Shock Doctrine

Resolved

– Decline – I don't know enough about the book in question to answer the RfC question.

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Retirement over letter case

Acknowledged You may be interested in these discussions. You might not wish to contribute comments to either of these discussions, but if you do, then please let at least one night pass before you post them. (http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/05/01/thinking-during-sleep/)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds#I'm out (version of 20:43, 3 July 2014)
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention#WikiProject Birds‎ and "downcasing" imposition (version of 01:47, 4 July 2014)

—Wavelength (talk) 03:07, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I've commented at the talk page of the Signpost, where some of the same people are agitating for a one-sided editorial, because that would be a bad thing for our community e-newspaper to do. Not sure I'll comment more directly. Have sat on it a day, will sit on it longer. The number of irrationalities in these rants is quite high, and quite transparent. I think they may be so self-evidently fallacious that they don't need any rebuttal, but that depends on how much like-minded people in a mood to vent with false accusations and to call for witch-hunting decide to pile on. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:32, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Blue Army (Poland)

Resolved

– Done.

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TfD nom of Suggest incubation

Resolved

– Responded at the TfD.

Hello, Stanton. I've nom'd {{Suggest incubation}} for deletion. It seemed appropriate given its status as part of a project that soundly sleeps. This is to let you, as one of the few editors who've edited the template, know of this development. Be still your beating heart. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the templates for discussion page, should you wish. Be well. –91.125.182.5 (talk) 04:07, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

July 2014

Resolved

– Fixed both.

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*''[[FYI Daily]]'', a short entertainment news bulletin on UK television channel ITV2], shown with the midway-point advert break during film airings

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after hitting the white with the red cue ball (i.e. a {{Cuegloss|combination}} ball-to-pin shot}). The other is by making "red", that is to have the cue ball hit both object balls, which gives 4

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s sister. In Courtney's final appearance on the show, Marsh portrayed the villainous Morgaine] in the [[Arthurian]]-inspired '"Battlefield". Marsh also appeared in the earlier story "The

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Please comment on Template talk:Geographic reference

Resolved

– Done.

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Undiscussed page moves

Resolved

– Responded to this frivolous case at ANI.

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:49, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Any chance of a negotiated close?

Resolved

– Moot; it was administratively closed before negotiation completed.

WP:ANI#Undiscussed page moves by SMcCandlish. In my opinion this ANI might easily be closed if you would make any kind of a counteroffer such as a proposal for discussion of certain kinds of moves. Since I often close move discussions I'm aware that your actions are often in accord with current standards, but the strong tone of your answers at ANI seem to be working against your interests. Any kind of a solution that User:Jenks24 would agree with seems worth considering. I can't predict what Jenks24 would find acceptable, but he seems like a source of 'mainstream' opinion regarding article moves. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 16:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

This seems like a good idea to me. From my last reading of the ANI it seems like there is a real possibility that you could be banned from moving pages altogether and, though it probably didn't come through in the comment I made there, I do actually agree with your opinion that "I think ANI and some other noticeboards issue too many non-trivial sanctions against editors who are not habitually disruptive". You do a lot of good work and I wouldn't want to see a move ban happen. I don't think you are habitually disruptive, but there's not doubt to me that these recent moves of yours have been disruptive. If you could acknowledge that and, as Ed suggests, make some form of offer about discussing via RM (for a certain type of moves only) instead of making these unilateral moves. Anyway, it's your call and you can take this suggestion for whatever you think it's worth. Best, Jenks24 (talk) 10:18, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Who will monitor to see if they are "certain kinds of moves" or if they have been discussed by this user at RM and the respective WikiProjects? What's the penalty if SMcCandlish violates any of this? I think we'd need at least a penalty and a mentor here. Basically, I don't see any need for SMcCandlish to be performing any moves on their own, there are plenty of editors to do that task - until SMcC proves to be trustworthy in this area. Dreadstar ☥ 21:52, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

I endorse this suggestion. If it's any help I can offer to mediate/monitor/mentor/whatever. --John (talk) 22:48, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

New comment: SMcCandlish initiated a discussion about capitalization of species names, so "undiscussed page moves" is incorrect. The discussion is archived at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 156#Bird common name decapitalisation (WP:BIRDCON). Please see also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds#Bird names in lower case (version of 19:36, 11 July 2014).

—Wavelength (talk) 23:14, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

@EdJohnston, Wavelength, John, and Jenks24:: Indeed. The current plain wording of MOS:LIFE would actually completely decapitalize all breed name except where they contain proper names ("German", etc.), and I've actually done more than anyone else (see archives at WT:MOS, WT:AT, etc.) to dissuade any moves to decapitalize them, because some of the arguments for capitalization of breed names differ from those relating to species names, and few people at MOS/AT understand this. Even most breed editors don't. But back on topic: Not only am I not really engaging in undiscussed moves, in the broad sense, the demonstrable facts are that:

WP:BOLD is policy, WP:BRD is not, and says explicitly that it cannot trump BOLD and that editors cannot be forced to engage in BRD. "That edit was undiscussed" is not actually a policy basis for anything, much less vindictive sanctions.
My actions have in fact lead to a widespread BRD round anyway, which is what I and anyone would expect should one or more of the moves accidentally turn out to raise controversy for some reason. I'm a big fan of BRD being used normally and as it was actually intended. Moves are just edits; they are not something magical.
The moves were made in an entirely good-faith attempt to bring a radically chaotic mess in and between animal breed categories into the beginnings of conformity with WP:AT and WP:MOS (and only in the most basic and obvious ways - I intentionally avoided various "arguable" moves, and only did those that should have been uncontroversial by the plain wording of WP:AT. I was not bucking some established consensus, I was using WP:BOLD (that B in BRD) to take the first steps toward standardization and cleanup. Every wikiproject that deals with breeds was doing completely different things, and not even doing them consistently with "their" "own" articles, much less communicating with each other. Now they'll start, finally.
It is generally assumed (see WP:BOLD, WP:CONSENSUS, etc.) that no discussion and consensus-building is needed to enforce extant policies and guidelines because they already represent consensus arrived at by precisely such discussions (wikiproject demurrers notwithstanding, per policy at WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and WP:OWN).
And, the entire matter is moot anyway, since that was the last of the breed categories I've been cleaning up – any further moves after those were already ones that would have to go to WP:RM because they're more complicated cases than "do not unnecessarily disambiguate", "use natural disambiguation over parenthetical" and "do not improperly capitalize"; all the remaining cases raise issues that have to be addressed on the case by case basis.
Me being curmudgeonly is not a policy matter. Civility does not mean being "nice" and "agreeable". Ever since returning from my fairly long hiatus, I've been studiously avoiding making any personal attacks or assumptions of bad faith (though almost every single day I'm subjected to both sorts of invective from others; I could have had at least two dozen editors administratively warned and/or restrained under the MOS/AT discretionary sanctions at WP:AE, but I've never taken a single punitive step of this sort. I may be grumpy, but I'm not a WP:DICK.

There is, ergo, no basis on which to try to remove or restrain my page-moving abilities. I'm not alone in seeing this as abuse of admin noticeboards to bully another MOS/AT regular, a disturbing and increasing pattern (due to the number of anti-MOS admins, and their concentration in these noticeboards). Thank you for the heads-up that I'm really being considered for excessive sanctioning simply because I'm standing up for myself vocally, and some people want to shut me up. At least we're clear about that, and that would be valuable should I have to appeal any bogus sanctions.

@Jenks24:: I'll be happy to agree to something, as long as it:

is highly specific to this topic area;
follows the actual facts as laid out here, not the complainant's exaggerations and misconstruals, nor his most vocal supporter's wildly novel re/mis-interpretations of WP:AT;
assumes good faith;
makes no allegation other than being mistaken with regard to likelihood of some moves being noncontroversial;
involves no blocks, topic bans, formal warnings, or other imposed restrictions or sanctions.
cautions the complainant and any others to abide by the MOS/AT discretionary sanctions warnings, and stop "personalizing style and naming disputes", including the casting of vague conspiratorial aspersions, and assumptions or accusations of bad faith, against me or other editors discussing such matters.

Any vague and over-broad demands on me like my agreeing to never move a page without RM will not be acceptable (it would amount to the same thing as removal of filemover ability), nor will anything attacking my character or motivations, nor anything clearly punitive or wikipolitical. I also decline to agree that the moves were disruptive in and of themselves, by their nature, nor of course that they were by intent or incompetence; they simply incidentally happened to raise concerns that were not anticipated, because my interpretation of the relevant policy and guideline, while well defended, did not turn out to be the only allegedly plausible interpretation.

Those concerns that were raised are noted by me, and while I disagree with their reasoning, I accept that reasonable people can disagree rationally, and I thus recognize that further page moves with regard to breed articles are likely to not be considered non-controversial and thus should naturally go through RM. I'll also drop my insistence that the complainant be BOOMERANG admonished or sanctioned, although this was clearly a stellar example of how not to do ANI (or any other noticeboard), due to its vexatiousness, the narrowly averted intent to canvass, and other problems raised by it. Finally, my goal here is not sport argument much less WP:WINNING at it. Rather, it is WP having consistent, policy/guideline-compliant article names in this topic space, that all editors and readers can understand. I anticipate having to work with these other editors in arriving at this standardization, and consider this dispute very temporary as well as unfortunate, but in a week I would hope that it's essentially forgotten and collaboration is back in full swing. I'm already conceding about 5 things I would rather not, so I expect notable compromise, calmness and reason from the other side of the dispute, too. The personal attacks against me and other MOS/AT regulars have to stop, or we may as well just to straight to RFARB and skip all this stuff. Anyway, I'll be happy to entertain any reasonable draft. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 14:18, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Charming

Acknowledged

Your response to my comment was a delightful read, and your continued defensive wining about your victory just reinforces my decision to leave. But I thought I should explain something before I did, since you are labouring under a lot of misconceptions and seem happy to read stuff into my sarcastic farewell note that wasn't there. Mostly, you are claiming that people like me are claiming to have left because of a style rule.

A few years ago some editors thought it would be funny to make me an admin, and as part of the process I was asked to explain IAR. My reply was "There are times, however, when rigidly obeying rules can make for unproductive editors. WP:IAR is essentially a consequentialist counterbalance to the swathes of policy and guidelines, and it exists to remind everyone that the rules exist to serve the goals (knowledge) and means (everyone writes), not just so that they can be followed for themselves'.

I bring this up because it cuts to the essence of the problem. You are a champion of rules, and in championing rules you have not advanced the goals of wikipedia. For a long time there were somewhat inconsistent rules that allowed stability to flourish and maintained, for the most part, the peace. In ramming through this change you have alienated longstanding contributors, created bad feelings, and accepted these losses as th price to pay for consistency. And the consistency you have won has been Pyrrhic.Thousands of pages seem to have been moved, and the editors doing it have not, in many cases, bothered to make the changes in the articles, beyond the first line. The net inconsistency in Wikipedia has gone up and many previously fine articles are now inconsistent with themselves!

People aren't leaving Wikipedia because of a style issue. People are leaving because they are sick of fighting and dealing with editors like you. You have used the rules to make Wikipedia worse that it was before you started, and you have elevated the rules, and your own style preferences, above the general health of the Wiki. And I have no intention of wasting my time here if the general concensus is that wrapping everything up in red tape is more important than the wiki or the community that serves it. 122.59.232.157 (talk) 22:16, 12 July 2014 (UTC) (Sabine's Sunbird)

I actually appreciate that clarification, but it's not me making the claim that you're leaving because of a style rule or a dispute over one; your own WP:BIRDS fellows and their anti-MOS allies are making this claim, frequently and loudly. I'm actually doggedly making the opposite observation: that the few of you who have left / are leaving have expressed multiple reasons for doing so, and that some of these basically boil down to a change over the last several years in Wikipedia's character, to be more consistent and with rules that are more codified, and aimed at reader needs rather than editor needs. It's important that you say "editors like [me]", not me in particular, because if I were abducted by space aliens tomorrow and never heard from again, someone else would pop up taking the same positions I do, for the same reasons. What you're experiencing is a mismatch of organizational direction/management expectations, and it is a well-documented effect of organizations entering their third stage of development. There are quite literally entire books about this. Anyway, I, too, am dismayed that some anti-capitalizers, more insistent and impatient than me or any other MOS regulars, have downcased most or all of the bird article's titles without doing much to fix the in-article content to match. This is not how I would have done it, and I've done the full-text conversion on the some bird articles myself, so I know how much work it is to do it properly. I know that you feel that MOS overturning what BIRDS was doing, style-wise, "created bad feeling", but you've been ignoring that the BIRDS project's own decisions in this regard have been creating bad feeling and many other problems for 9 years. People have always objected to it, and instead of listening, various members of your project (they really were called members back then, not participants, a change that CfD made, with my support several years ago, to reduce the OWNishness and cliquishness of wikiprojects, with almost no success) went on the offensive and created an un-f'ing-believable mess throughout all the biology articles, pushing capitalization on everything, from cetaceans to big cats to primates, on a blatantly falsified basis (turns out there are explicit conventions against capitalizing mammal names). You're steaming mad about a reversal of your own project's "blind conformity enforcement" putsch, which had precisely the same piecemeal capitalization effect, and long, slow, messy cleanup that is actually still ongoing (I was decapitalizing mouse and monkey articles still, this very year). The peace and stability you think was there before was not at all; you think there was because the birds project was insulated from it. The mess you all made was so sprawling it took years to even get through it all and finally reach the birds project, and even then you all fought tooth and nail against it for six straight years. It's the very definition of tendentiousness and IDHT. I really am sorry to see you go, I hope it will just be a wikibreak. I hope we can also just agree to disagree on our interpretations of the history of this issue, and agree no to demonize each other over it. Most of the individuals responsible for the mess that WP:BIRDS created in pushing its pro-caps stance all throughout biology pages, from at least as early as 2004 through and beyond 2008, haven't actually been regular or at-all editors in several years. It's not your fault. People outside WP:BIRDS rejecting imposition of your capitalization scheme isn't something I made happen either. It was going on before I was even an editor, was a hotbed issue before I ever commented on it, and the ultimate RM, MR and RFC that resolved this were all filed by other people. I've just been more vocal than most others. Scapegoating me isn't useful. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 14:43, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I moved all the bird articles first because hundreds of them required an admin to do so. It was far too time-consuming for a non-admin to do, and forcing the admins who deal with WP:RM to do it wasn't a good option. If you're concerned with the speed it's taking me and a handful of others to fully downcase tens of thousands of articles then you are welcome to help out. —Xezbeth (talk) 19:11, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

As noted, I had been helping out. At this point I'm so frequently and viciously personally attacked by [a certain cadre of] bird editors that I've backed away slowly from erupting volcano of hate. I'm not the one bringing the criticism about the move-the-articles-now-and-clean-them-up-later plan, but many are, including other admins (e.g. User:Fuhghettaboutit, who commented to this effect at WT:BIRDS). Personally, I don't consider it a huge deal, intrinsically, since the exact same thing happened when tens of thousands of the mammal, shellfish, reptile, etc. articles were moved (more piecemeal) to upper case over a few years and then back again over a few years; there was nothing at all programmatic and organized about either, yet WP did not fall apart. Anyway, the idea seems to be that it would have been better to, perhaps, pic a genus, change their text, then move them. Precisely the repeat RM hassle you were trying to avoid. I'm not advocating that, but some clearly are. <shrug>. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:10, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

My reply was aimed at Sabine's Sunbird, I dislike using the talk pages of IP hoppers. Though I did just notice this diff: [1]. Charming. —Xezbeth (talk) 20:39, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

The complaint about birders going out there to impose our system is probably bullshit, I'd need to see evidence of that. I did defend the mammal people, but that was about letting the people who knew best decide, and we already know your opinion of that. I also defended the plant people who wanted to use binomials. But if you need a villain, what-the-fuck-ever. History is written by winner, and you're the winner, so knock yourself out. And enjoy all the good feeling your campaign for sorta-conformity is reaping while you do so. Maybe you could tackle American versus English next, since conformity is so sodding important and editors feelings aren't. And Xezbeth, if you think that fixing your half-arsed rollout of a contentious decision is something people pissed at this decision would find soothing...... 122.59.232.157 (talk) 05:16, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I think you'll find plover was incorrectly capitalised way back in 2007, at the time of your edit here: [2]. Yet when I miss it seven years later that makes me a fucking imbecile? —Xezbeth (talk) 07:32, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@Xezbeth: Note also the "damned if you do, damned if you don't", here. Everyone in favor of lower case is being slammed by Sabine's Sunbird and co., in multiple forums, for not rolling it out (yet) from top to bottom in every article, yet here we're sarcastically told that actually doing so will be the furthest thing from "soothing" to the birds editors. We're told people are quitting over lower case and the attitudes of those favoring it, yet Sunbird sure is active as an IP-hopping pseudo-anon now that he's "quit" and returned to make a big show of "quitting" again. [I would actually like to see him not quit, of course, but being an anon anklebiter effectively immune to civility rules isn't helpful to the project.] Meanwhile, I, and you, and various AT/MOS regulars, and people who aren't but who don't agree with capitalizing non-proper nouns, are lashed out at for supposedly being political/campaigners and wasting time in argument and style nitpicking instead of working on content. But let's see my actual editing stats, to use me as the guinea pig here, in which 39% of my edits across all namespaces are to articles (mainspace); if you include Talk, i.e. collaboration on improvement of specific mainspace articles, my content-facing edits are almost exactly 50%, and exceed that mark when you factor in category and template work that are content related, not WP-internal. Yet I'm also one of the most frequent MOS editors; most MOS/AT people have even higher ratios of actual content editing. But to hell with us; we're not really content editors according to these wikiproject isolationists; we're just a bunch of style wonks disrupting their content editing, which only reflects what the community needs, not geeky, academic ornithology insider wants, right? <rolling eyes> — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 19:09, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@Sabine's Sunbird and 122.59.232.157: I'm not sure what you're on about. Neither I nor anyone I know of in the capitalization of common names debate has raised any concerns about use of binomials for plant article titles. There is an argument, infrequently advanced by others, that this violates WP:COMMONNAME, but I for one have often noted that COMMONNAME like everything else here has to be moderated by WP:COMMONSENSE. Many plants do not actually have a common name, or have a bewildering array of them none of which are actually very common. The horticulture/botany people have not been waging an all-out "style war" (that's a term coined by KvdL, not by any MOS people) about this for 9 years against other editors from all over the system, not just MOS regulars.

Bad feeling? Where do you think that's coming from? How about from one wikiproject's "style warriors"? No other project on the system is engaging in histrionics like that one, despite just as long a "tradition" of capitalizing common names in journals and other insider literature in some other biology fields, such as herpetology. Did you know that when I first arrived at WP, I was in favor of capitalization of common names of species, because I was used to it from my herpetological background (it's not what my degree is in, but it's deep and long experience), and it was so common, even in mammal articles and other inappropriate places, that I thought it was already a formal WP style rule? Everyone else but some birds editors refrains from pretending they're incapable of understanding that different publication venues have different style guides to which one's submissions must use (or will be edited to use). Everyone else refrains from pretending that what they're used to and what they prefer in specialist works are necessarily what is best for a general-purpose encyclopedia. This brouhaha has been entirely about the overly-emotional debate investment of a handful of charismatic, activistic editors in a single zoology wikiproject.

I've documented the extensive history of this debate, including WP:BIRDS participants' pushing their Aves "convention" on other orders, in enough detail a book could be written about it, at User:SMcCandlish/Capitalization of organism names. I decline to put together a diff'd timeline for you; that would be an obsessive waste of editing and research time for what is now a dead issue.

This makes me wonder what your intent is, and what would actually satisfy you. Once you've gotten this anger out of your system, then what? Do you want to see MOS destroyed? Do you want some formal policy that WP articles must obey the stylistic preferences of the majority of academic journals in the field in question, no matter what the general-audience sources usually do? Do you just want birds and birds alone to have an exception? Do you want WP's entire governance structure to change so that all wikiprojects are autonomous authorities that generate their own manuals of style? Like, seriously, what would actually mollify you, other than me being hit by a bus in cosmic justice for everything obviously being entirely my personal fault? :-/ — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 19:45, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I seriously doubt you will ever understand how angry the following comment made me Personally, I don't consider it a huge deal, intrinsically, since the exact same thing happened when tens of thousands of the mammal, shellfish, reptile, etc. articles were moved (more piecemeal) to upper case over a few years and then back again over a few years; there was nothing at all programmatic and organized about either, yet WP did not fall apart. It reads like, yeah, we made a mess of thousands of articles you've spent years working on, but it doesn't matter, cause someone (READ: YOU) will fix them eventually. Unfair? Probably. But it at least helps clarify the issue as being one of rules, not style. We were breaking the rules by doing our own thing and ignoring a guideline, I mean a rule, we were defying the rules and had to be put in place. Now that we've been put in place the actual repercussions of that are no big deal, because the important thing is the rules have won. The sedition has been crushed. So, yeah. I guess I remember when rules existed to serve the wiki, rather than themselves. No matter. Not my problem anymore. I'm crushed. I need to stay away from here because this makes me so unbelievably angry it's stupid. You make me unbelievably angry, but it isn't just you and I apologise for making it so personal. I guess I love what Wikipedia was, and you are the epitome (and defender) of what it has become. That's not an excuse, so, for what it is worth, I'm sorry for the personal attacks. Goodbye. 122.59.232.157 (talk) 05:09, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I've been trying not to take it too personally, and I really am trying to understand where you're coming from on this. I actually tried quite earnestly to address this, over at the editor retention page, by referencing organizational lifecycle stages. It demonstrably is a predictable, natural part of organizational growth and change that rules/structure implemented for one legitimate goal or another, as an organization's mission and processes become more defined internally and in the world around it, are felt to be intolerable by some individuals within the organization who were not used to the rules/structure in question. And it really often is the case that they leave the organization angrily, and are certain that it's completely going to Hell in a handbasket. Whether they're actually right is a subjective matter, regardless who's asking or looking. I've been through all of this professionally more than once, and it's always unpleasant (no matter which "side" of it you're on), but it just happens, pretty much automatically. In all organizations, from private clubs to nation-states, from corporations to churches. As for the statement of mine you're quoting, I'm still not sure why that in particular has set you on edge. Pro-caps activists (most of them long gone now) from the birds project over half a decade ago lobbied the other bio projects (and the RM process, and everywhere else, pretty much) to adopt the upper-casing scheme to be consistent with the birds articles. And did so over numerous, vociferous and well-sourced objections. And kept doing it. And did jack to get the actual article text to comply with the title changes, leaving it to everyone else to clean up the mess. When this began to be undone in 2008, the birds project's active participants (many of them, at that time, the same people as before) again did nothing useful to help clean up. So, I don't understand why you expect people who today !vote for lower case, on their honest perceptions of the merits of the arguments, in an RfC or in RMs, to either do all the work or change their position (or remain silent), and why it makes you angry, just because it's "your" articles being affected this time. And some of us actually are working here and there on the article content, while several of your WP:BIRDS fellows are effectively on editorial strike and refuse to lift a finger, and two are apparently just quitting along with you. I don't even see where this 'you can't have or express such an opinion unless all the work to make it happen is yours' idea is coming from anyway. There is nothing at all on WP that works on this basis. Even most of real life doesn't, unless it's a real "who'll bell the cat?" problem. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:19, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

The inconsistency in the moves toward consistency

Just a comment: maybe it's the selection I look at (mostly British or European), but almost all the moth articles I've seen have capitalized English names, at least in their content. So do a high proportion of articles on Australian plants and of those on fungi. For the record, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the activities of the birders; rather there are autonomous traditions in these areas to capitalize English species names. I wonder how long it will really take to "clean up"? Peter coxhead (talk) 21:34, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

No one claimed that every capitalized organism common name on the system was capitalized as a result of activism by WP:BIRDS members. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 14:54, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Um... It's a plausible reading of your comments above: pushing capitalization on everything, the mess that WP:BIRDS created in pushing its pro-caps stance all throughout biology pages. Anyway, that wasn't actually my point. I still wonder who is going to "clean up" areas other than birds (as well as the new articles with capitalized species names which appear regularly – at least for plants, which is all that I monitor). If the focus remains entirely on birds, it does feed the feeling of persecution which significant numbers of bird editors obviously feel, whether justified or not. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:29, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Sure. I have always opposed this "being about birds". Throughout the 2012 debate I was adamantly opposed to bird-related exceptionalism language at MOS:LIFE, but the birds project canvassed that in, and despite a clear finding at ANI of canvassing (by KvdL) to stack that poll, it somehow was not administratively closed as invalid and restarted clean. It's a real shame, as a lot of continued strife would have been avoided. The birds editors persecuted themselves by always bending every species capitalization to birds, birds, birds, IOC, IOC, IOC, even in response to explicit requests to not drag birds into discussions to which they weren't the focus. Even the recent-ish RFC they're so bummed about was all about birds despite my and others' objections to that, and it was started by one of their own supporters. Not my fault, not MOS regulars' fault, but WP:BIRDS activists' own fault. A canard about a petard comes to mind. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 15:48, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, as I trust is clear from previous discussions, we are entirely in agreement about the illogicality of only capitalizing the English species names of birds in articles, and some of the WP:BIRDS activists were indeed their own worst enemy. I continue to think that the debate, as it was conducted, was harmful to the English Wikipedia, and that responsibility for the conduct must be shared by both "sides". However, this is history. Now I'm concerned that:

"clean-up" of bird pages has resulted in greater internal inconsistency
there's no obvious interest or activity in "cleaning up" other areas.

Surely those who worked for and supported the current outcome have a strong moral responsibility to implement it? Peter coxhead (talk) 09:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I have no disagreement with a word of that (other than than to substitute the word "ethical" for "moral"). For my part, I would like to see the plants and insects articles decapitalized too, but doing this right now while bird articles are still a mess would be contraindicated. And I'm not sure I want to start the move debates about those articles; I have enough enemies already. I knew I'd be setting myself up as the poster boy to attack when I wrote SSF, but the river of hate gets more intense than I'm comfortable with sometimes, e.g. the canvassed character assassination at ANI over the last few days (fortunately resolved in a less one-sided way). Anyway, I'll try to remember to set aside some volunteer time to consistent-ize some bird articles. Tentatively. I'm still not convinced I won't be attacked for doing so in the very process. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 17:33, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Application of the "Observations on Wikipedia behavior" essay to this

Here's some pertinent essay material that's been around a long time: User:Antandrus/observations on Wikipedia behavior. Much of its 74 succinct points are about vandals and trolls, but quite a few points pertain to disputes of this sort. Item #2 is especially pertinent; I'm hardly being novel in pointing out that people leaving WP over time, and doing so in a huff, is simply normal – it's what people do with regard to just about everything, given enough time. This is of course compounded by #20 - it really is true that most of the important articles already exist, in good shape, and there's very little "exciting" work to do, so people are naturally drawn to generating conflict. But point 29 is also true - while we lose editors all the time we also gain new ones. Antandrus's essay doesn't spell this out, but I will: The idea that editorial conficts are driving editors away at an increasing pace, and discouraging new replacements is a silly illusion. What's really happening is that WP has become tedious and librarian-ish rote work, for the most part, so early-adopter editors are getting other kinds of lives, and the lack of anything but really, really specialized material to write is the actual deterrent to new editors joining. WP only needs and only attracts a relative skeleton crew at this point. The gee-whiz days were over 5 years ago. Anyway, back to the essay. See next point 61, on the seeking out of conflict here leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy of disappointment, as well as an incorrect assumption that the project is going to Hell in a handbasket. "We're a pretty good encyclopedia, and you will notice it once you back away from the conflict zones." No. 62 observes: "That bad editors seem to be as large and troublesome a group as they are is a form of selection bias, and the more time you spend [in policy and behavior disputes], the worse it seems." See #70 for why attempts to appease "I quit" editors and get them to come back are a waste of time. If you've already decided to vilify and abandon the project, the love is already lost, and that's something that happens inside you – no one magically does that to you, or can erase it from you.

Let's get down to brass tacks. Item #15 also seems relevant, with regard to not just Sabine's Sunbird, but also KvdL who departed a couple of years ago in a similar storm of remonstrances that said editor's expertise (= "moderate notability" in this essay's terms) has been disrespected. Some of #15 isn't on-target, as it's mostly about subjects of articles or people with a COI, but still: Wounded vanity is clearly a major part of this fiasco. Definitely on-point is #18, the "attacks the community, or any portion of it, by writing a rant" bit, which every single outgoing WP:BIRDS editor who cites the capitalization debate as a reason for leaving has engaged in. Next jump to #31 for the inherent hypocrisy in these actions (and the first half of #40, which describes these I'm-not-really-leaving rants by the anonymized Sabine's Sunbird, and similar reappearances by KvdL over many years of quit-and-return cycles). No. 64: "Playing the victim ... does not make them rise in importance: it shrinks them, diminishes them ... on each iteration." Number 53 really should also be quoted at length: "[W]hen more than half of that editor's contributions are in conflicts, either beginning or prolonging them, then that editor is very close to departure. As with stars ... some departures are shrinkings into dwarf states, with ever diminishing contributions, giving little light, and with a long decay; and other departures are violent supernova explosions, spewing waste matter and hot gas in all directions." Point 60 elucidates what the trap is: If you demand special recognition and professional respect for your writing here, you will almost certainly burn out in one of those two ways. Lastly in this vein, #68 is directly relevant to all those "we should leave and go start a BirdPedia that's vastly better than this stupid Wikipedia place" sentiments expressed by about 50% of the "I quit over bird-caps" departees, but I'll leave the interested to go read that one in its original setting.

It takes two to argue, right? Yes, it does. Point #3 (which begins "Troublesome editors waste far more of the community's time than vandals") surely describes exactly how some WP:BIRDS participants feel about many WP:MOS regulars and vice versa. For every "all you're doing is arguing about trivia and pushing some stupid rule" argument a BIRDS editor makes against MOS editors, precisely the same argument applies in the other direction. (flip the order around in that sentence if it makes you feel better, but A=B : B=C :: A=C). This is why the debate has been labeled WP:LAME by so many uninvolved parties. Point 34 illustrates more hypocrisy in this approach, and 35 & 36 seem to describe why it got so bad. One of the most important factors of WP actually working – established editors being good to other established editors (point 38) – is too often forgotten by everyone. See also #55 on becoming too like that which one opposes. Number 58, on the failure to recognize when one's own virtue and eloquence have become a vice, also pertains to both "camps" in this dispute.

Finally, see point #23 and really absorb it; it concludes: "Anyone who runs from the community because they cannot tolerate its vices, divisions, and politics, will have to face the same vices, divisions, and politics again elsewhere in life." Nothing could be more true of this particular debate. I've demonstrated via copious documentation that the activistic cadre of editors at WP:BIRDS promoting Intl. Orn. Congress (IOC) naming "conventions" have been misrepresenting the IOC World Bird List's acceptance as authoritative within ornithology, and they have thus brought a dispute from ornithology academia and forced it onto Wikipedia, front-loaded with their preferred viewpoint and desired outcome. This is an off-wiki, international academic political struggle being imported to and waged on Wikipedia with almost no one realizing it. It was a blatant PoV-pushing exercise and a conflict of interest. Even real-world ornithologists are frequently opposed to IOC's particular capitalization rules and "common" names (sometimes made up out of nowhere, on the fly), while outside of ornithology virtually no journals, including the most prestigious biology and science publications in the world, will accept any bird common name capitalization scheme at all. Succeed in convincing the off-WP world to use IOC names over the next decade or so, then come and show us actual proof it's a world-wide accepted standard, and then maybe the consensus will change, and agree that such a counter-intuitive scheme's problems are outweighed by its benefits, here on WP for our audience. This is a simple WP:V and WP:NOR policy matter, at its heart. "Violent zeal for truth hath an hundred to one odds to be either petulancy, ambition, or pride." Jonathan Swift, "Thoughts on Religion". Here, it was ambition on the part of IOC boosters who thought that if only they could get IOC naming more or less officially adopted by Wikipedia that it would really become a globally accepted, real-world standard. IOC's own "Adoptions and Applications" page not only lists WikiProject Birds but Wikipedia itself as adopters (to this day), and quotes now-retired WP:BIRDS activist KvdL as promoting IOC names as a de facto standard here. It's worth reading the rest of that page. You'll see that virtually no ornithology journals (three total, maybe?), and no international ornithology organizations at all buy into IOC conventions (the British national one explicitly rejects their hyphenation system, i.e. is not using their naming scheme despite being listed on that page). The adoption list is almost all online and offline checklists and field guides, all of which were already prone to capitalizing anyway, as a visual scanning aid. No encyclopedias, no dictionaries, and no mainstream, non-specialist publishers of any kind at all are IOC-compliant. IOC's own website, listing their naming scheme's very poor level and rate of acceptance in their field, should have been the end of the debate, 9 damned years ago. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:14, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Great power

Resolved

– Done.

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Great power. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:00, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Community move ban

Disregard

– Invalid, pre-emptive, non-admin closure. See User talk:Mdann52#WP:CBAN.

Please note that, per this AN/I thread, you are indefinitely banned from moving any page on Wikipedia, apart from when the usual exemptions apply. You may request a review in no less than 6 months time. If you violate the ban, you will be blocked for escalating lengths of time, and eventually indefinitely. --Mdann52talk to me! 06:25, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Of course, you are still free to request any moves per WP:RM, ~~but I would advise you consult with appropriate WikiProjects (when applicible) first.~~ --Mdann52talk to me! 07:08, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I would advise you to read WP:OWN and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. I'll be appealing this on several grounds. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 13:22, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Struck the bit about Wikiprojects; It was a suggsestion someone else made, but it would have little use in reality. However, RM is the best process to go through for moves in any case; It allows input from others, and stops situations like this from developing, where the community have handed out a ban. --Mdann52talk to me! 13:38, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

And you're not even an admin; you can't close admin noticeboard discussions, nor any discussions anywhere that are ongoing, nor any that are contentious. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 13:50, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Actually, per WP:NOTBURO, that is incorrect. Nothing here required the admin bit, so I can close it. The ban was decided by the community as a whole, and I am just acting as a neutral party to pass the message along. Additionally, WP:BAN does not state non-admins can not close discussions that are to do with community bans; Feel free to submit an RfC if you feel differently. --Mdann52talk to me! 14:06, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Non-admins cannot close controversial or ongoing discussions. You're mistaking for a SNOWBALL what is actually a contentious, active discussion in which many parties have unclean hands. You're clearly not actually paying attention to what's happening in the ANI debate in question, much less fully aware of the background of it, or even what's happening on my own talk page in relation to it. And non-admins cannot impose sanctions. I decline to argue with you about this further. I've asked that actual admins at ANI clarify this matter for you. See WP:Non-admin closure in the interim. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 14:52, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Banned from page moves for three months

Resolved

– Moot.

I've just closed this discussion on AN/I. You are now banned from any page moves for three months. You may comment on requested moves, propose them or participate in discussions on move/title policy but you may not move pages for the next three months. I've closed the discussion this way for a few reasons:

Your moves were viewed as controversial in hindsight by other editors and as multiple editors have pointed out a reasonable person in your position would've viewed your moves as controversial before the fact, meaning that you should've engaged in discussion before undertaking the move. This isn't the first time the issue has come up and you had ample information to determine that moving a large number of pages unilaterally would cause issues and you did it anyway.

Your participation in the discussion left a lot to be desired and leads me to believe that a ban on page moves is necessary in order to prevent future disruption. Multiple editors brought up issues with the moves you made and your response to nearly all of them was to accuse them of conflicts of interest or continually pettifog over the margins of AT/OWN/etc. A collaborative environment is not improved by actions taken at scale which presume narrow and conflicting policies grant a license to ignore your fellow contributors.

The proposed page move ban was unanimously supported by editors in the discussion. With the exception of one editor who later struck their comment, every editor supported some page move ban at least. It's difficult to interpret the consensus any differently and likewise difficult to imagine (given the direction the discussion was headed) that a longer discussion would result in a dramatically different outcome.
I'm not entertaining the negotiated close. I've looked at your three policy proposals and all three seem either overly broad, insufficient or tactical in nature. A universal moratorium on moves would be a great idea if the issue were multiple editors making disputed moves across a number of articles. The case at hand is one editor making moves which are widely objected to by a group of editors. The suggestion that all participants agree to undertake moves or discuss move policy on centralized noticeboards is a variant on the first offer with the added problem that your proposed solution to your disruptive moves is to enforce your preferred policy outcome. The second offer doesn't speak to the issue at hand.

~~Given the above, I can't see a less restrictive outcome than banning you from moving pages for 3 months. Protonk (talk) 19:15, 14 July 2014 (UTC)~~

@Protonk: Thanks for taking the time to lay out your reasoning. Without getting into every point I could dispute in it, I have to ask that you self-revert your close, or at very least modify your close statement to be an acceptance of my own proposal of a 3-month voluntary abstention from page moves relating to animal breeds, since I already proposed that in response to the ANI filer's 6-month proposal (also voluntary), and had several times stated clearly that I would not make any more such moves (which were not disruptive, simply not uncontroversial). You stated in the actual close that "seem to miss what's problematic about [these moves] entirely", but that's clearly false. ANI is preventative, not punitive, but by assuming bad faith and seeking to take retributive action you've inverted its purpose, a created a misleading, biased and easily gamed close.

Your first bullet point, entirely past tense and based on "hindsight" and what "would've" and "should've" happened, clearly indicates that your action is punitive, not preventative. Your second bullet point assumes "that a ban on [all] page moves is necessary to prevent future disruption", yet no moves other than these related to breed names were even claimed by anyone to be problematic in any way, I already agreed I wouldn't be doing more of them, and no one actually demonstrated that they were actually disruptive, simply not uncontroversial (WP:Disruptive editing is an accusation of bad faith editing by definition, and as an admin you should know this). Keep in mind, this is even after an totally unrelated wikiproject (birds), full of editors who detest me personally for disputes relating to bird species nomenclature (nothing to do with domestic animal breeds at all) was provably canvassed to poll-stack ANI against me with irrelevant commentary and unsupportable attacks and accusations. You seem only to have considered responses that were negative and against me. Multiple parties raised multiple concerns, even citing WP:BOOMERANG with regard to several commenters' input there, but you disregarded all of that. ANI, like all other consensus discussions, is closed by actually examining the relative merits of the !votes and their backgrounds and rationales, not by doing a head-count. Your finding of "consensus" is not really tenable, as is the suggestion that I must be restrained because my defending myself against canvassed and mostly off-topic hostility and lies "left a lot to be desired". The "unanimous support" you see is a kangaroo court made up mostly of editors who have personal axes to grind with me in particular. There was virtually no participation from neutral parties, and the little there was were "me too" responses that indicated no awareness of the underlying relationships between the parties.

You also short-circuited a negotiation in progress, in which the other party had not yet responded, and in which the differences between our positions would have been easily resolvable (agreement to also abide by the same civility rules, 3 months not 6, and dropping of the off-topic censorship the other party sought, after I'd already conceded I was dropping any demands for ARBATC or BOOMERANG sanctions). Negotiated closes are a process people have faith in only when they know they'll be entertained in good faith, not shut down by admins who don't like the settlement they may reach (and who seemingly don't understand that compromise is something arrived at between two positions – you shut down the negotiation because you didn't like my opening position, from which I was prepared to negotiate toward a middle ground). I think we would have had an agreeable negotiated close already by now if you had not jumped the gun, for no defensible reason. This outcome was not "difficult to imagine" at all; it was actually almost certain.

I can think of several more points I could raise, but this should be enough for you to reconsider the punitive wording of the close, so I don't have to formally appeal it. I certainly have no problem not making breed-related moves for three months, as I proposed myself, but I've logged over 2,500 page moves in my career here, and only a vanishingly small number of them have ever been controverted. The fact that I voluntarily agreed to the three month moratorium should be noted in the close, but instead you've made it look like it had to be forced on me. That's grossly misleading and unfair. Every administrative imposition of the sort you've made will be dug up and used as a weapon to increase the heat and noise in other debates, a year, 5 years, 10 years later, and you know this. Given the above, it's clear that anyone could in fact see a less restrictive outcome than formally banning me from moving any pages for 3 months. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 15:11, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

A few things. As I read it, "I don't have any problem with a voluntary 3-month moratorium on breed-related moves, provides the relevant wikiprojects also understand that more such moves would be controversial and requires WP:RM." (assuming provides -> provided) not as a move moratorium but a conditional offer that you'll refrain from moving pages iff other editors involved essentially agree to the same restriction. If I'm misreading that grossly please let me know (but the non-bolded explanation of the offer is relatively clear to me, specifically "Even if someone doesn't agree they actually conflict, it's clear that I and many other MOS/AT regulars are certain that they do, or these protracted debates would not happen (nor usually close in favor of MOS/AT, by the way). Ergo, any such moves by anyone at this point would clearly be controversial."). If not, the condition is either moot (as other editor in the topic area may already see reverting the moves as controversial) or it preserves the status quo ante following a large number of moves. Further, if editors in the topic areas don't see reverting the moves as controversial (which may be the case for many of them) it now forces me to bind their actions simply because you undertook a large number of controversial moves. The offer would then be more restrictive than simply asking you not to move pages. The third offer suffers from the same problem whereby I'm then forced to yolk an entire project to a process which stands at the heart of the dispute (local versus MOS/central consensus) in order to accept it.

Many of the editors participating in the discussion were from the projects stirred up by the moves in question, that's for sure. But just as I assume you're acting in good faith I likewise have to assume that an editor who works primarily on birds or horses isn't (by way of that revealed interest) necessarily predisposed to feel one way or another about your actions. Some of them may be, but that's something to take into account when reading the discussion, not grounds to disregard their input entirely. I should also point out that Dreadstar, Baseball Bugs, Softlavender, Serialjoepsycho, etc. are all relatively uninvolved and all came to the same conclusion. Mendaliv and Black Kite edit in the topic area but neither were (to the best of my knowledge) animated by some animus toward you and I don't treat edits in a topic area by themselves as reason enough to discount their opinion. I'm willing to discount Justlettersandnumbers ~~and maybe Montanabw's comments~~ as their support for an indef block might be an indication that they're acting out of frustration or that they're trying to neutralize a discussion in the future, but even then there's still substantial support for a page move ban. My apparent disregard for comments in support of your actions or against a move ban in general stems from the fact that apart from your comments in the thread, such sentiments are pretty thin on the ground.

The distinction between past and present tense in my first two bullet point was deliberate. The first point was an attempt to summarize the move disputes, which all occurred prior to the AN/I thread so they're necessarily in the past tense. The second was to give you my sense of what's happening now, specifically that you seem to feel that your moves in the past were in accordance with policy (specifically MOS/AT) and therefore justified and that opposition to your actions was driven by parochialism or animus. That's your prerogative, of course, but it leads me to believe (as it did a number of people in the thread) that you haven't grappled with what was problematic about the moves in the first place and might continue doing so in the future. None of us has a crystal ball so the best we can do is look at past actions and present sentiments and make a guess as to where the combination of those two will lead us. Taking those two things into account isn't an accusation of bad faith.

If you want to voluntarily agree to a move moratorium in the topic area with no conditions then I'll be happy to reword the close on AN/I and strike/edit my comments above. Otherwise, we can continue discussing it here or you can seek input from other editors formally or informally as you desire. Protonk (talk) 16:25, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@Protonk: If you want to voluntarily agree to a move moratorium in the topic area with no conditions - Yes, I will certainly do that. I would also ask that you replace "disruptive" with "controversial" (WP:DE is a form of bad faith editing, not an error), or just remove the editorializing in general, as it unecessarily imputes incorrect motives to me: It's simply not true that I did not acknowledge or understand the concerns raised; you've confused my certainty that my interpretation of AT/DAB is correct and will prevail in the upcoming discussions about how to name these articles, categorically, with some kind of refusal to acknowledge that the moves were controversial, and mistaken my insistence that assuming the moves wouldn't be controversial wasn't a bad faith move, with some kind of insistence that the controversy doesn't exist or that those raising it are idiots. I do ack the controversy and have said repeatedly I won't make any more such moves. PS: It's not that some of the respondents were here and there involved topically in animals and style matters, is that these editors (incl. Black Kite, but not Mendaliv) have been individually, directly, personally involved in protracted disputes with me, some going back over 5 years, which these wikiprojects have been strongly wiki-politicizing, e.g. with calls for editorial boycotts and walkouts, etc. WP:SSF explains what is going on, and I'm the #1 target of their ire because I wrote most of that essay. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 17:08, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

"Yes, I will certainly do that." Can do. Protonk (talk) 17:11, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Huzzah! — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 17:13, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I've struck both closing comments here and at AN/I rather than litigate the wording itself (disruptive as term of art or not, etc.). The AN/I page should remain that way until it's archived but you're of course free to archive/hat/remove this discussion here if you see fit. Protonk (talk) 17:19, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that's fine by me. If anyone pitches a huge fit about it, please let me know. I'd rather work for some other compromise than get into some weird "put back, no leave it alone" debate. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:09, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I guess this has been re-opened. Sorry. Protonk (talk) 23:05, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Figures. I just opened a proper discussion of the naming conventions issues, as should have been done a long time ago, but I guess some people are determined to use ANI against me punitively no matter what. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:22, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Re-close: Banned from page moves for three months

Resolved

– Noted. It's absurd that I was "banned" from doing something I voluntarily agreed not to do, and that this decision was based on a blatantly canvassed false consensus, but whatever. Like I said, I already agreed I wouldn't move pages for three months anyway.

Nothing punitive, but the original close wording by Protonk has been re-instituted and re-closed. The time for negotiations was much, much earlier (indeed, long before the ANI was ever filed). My advice: participate in page move discussions. In a couple of months, show a positive history on those discussions the panda ₯’ 23:33, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@DangerousPanda: The fact that you've used mandatory rather than voluntary wording despite my agreeing to the voluntary is by definition punitive. Your finding of a "consensus" for making this mandatory is based on a pure head-count of !votes, and ignores that they were canvassed from a wikiproject full to bursting with editors who are out for my blood over an unrelated MOS:CAPS matter. I would be entirely mollified if the "SMcCandlish is banned from making page moves for 3 months" wording were changed to "SMcCandlish voluntarily agree to refrain from making page moves for 3 months". I was actually launching, at WT:AT, the very consensus discussion about how to disambiguate breed article names that this ANI case indicates we need (and which no one else, despite their invective, stepped up to do), when you pulled this run out from under me. I already regularly and productively participate in RM discussions; it's one of my most frequent WP activities, but why don't you know that already if you're actually looking at the background of what's going on here in evaluating whether the consensus the vote count might suggest is actually real? I agree that negotiations should have happened even before ANI, but the filer did not bother to even contact me on my talk page to raise concerns. While I agree retrospectively that I might have been able to predict controversy and should have used RM, that doesn't make my moves actions of bad faith requiring a mandatory move ban. I'm being treated like a vandal. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:22, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Consensus was actually for longer than 3 months, but I was kind enough to keep the original. All you're doing is ensuring that you now will not be able to appeal it before its natural end. You proved nothing about improper canvassing, and you of all people know that a single admin CANNOT overturn consensus. You got off pretty easy on this one, considering the disruption shown as I re-read all the arguments and links prior to re-closing the panda ₯’ 00:26, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

@DangerousPanda: Why would I appeal it when I already agreed to a voluntary moratorium of the same duration? That would be hypocritical, and I'm sure I'd be soundly condemned for it. I'm not talking about some clever appeal-gaming crap, I'm talking about there being no consensus at all to be found in a pile of editors who have long-standing axes to grind against me. There is absolutely no connection between WP:BIRDS (in which a lot o people are angry at me over MOS matters) where Montanabw from WP:EQUINE (also angry at me over MOS matters) canvassed, and the moves at issue in the ANI (sheep article disambiguation under AT/DAB), other than unrelated bad feeling toward me personally and MOS/AT regulars generally. It's the very definition of canvassing. It's exactly the same as an Azerbaijani canvassing WP:TURKEY for Turk editors to come to a Canada-related dispute (or whatever) to help dogpile an Armenian editor, just because they both are angry with him over unrelated edits. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:49, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

WTF? It doesn't matter if you got in shit in the past for moving articles about goldfish improperly, and then went off and started moving articles about Trinidadian politicians improperly - the simple fact is that is shows you don't a) know when to move articles, and b) have any desire to listen to extensive criticism/concerns the first time. This isn't about axes, it's about YOUR behaviour, simple as that the panda ₯’ 00:53, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

@DangerousPanda: You're not quite understanding the analogy. The WP:BIRDS people and I have never had any issues relating to page moves, but content styling; their issues with me are, again, unrelated. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:08, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

No, it's the same issue—should being right overrule collaboration? Johnuniq (talk) 02:27, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

That's even less related, not even sensible in the context. The WP:BIRDS issue was a problem of their own making, their insular refusal to <ahem> collaborate and come to consensus with everyone else on the system, instead of insisting they were right and trying to force everyone to go along with their jargonistic way of changing English language writing rules. Tendentious participants in that project launched an RfC themselves, and even after they tag-team dominated it, it was was closed by one of their own sympathetic admins, reluctantly, against the position they were advocating (in one of the most carefully written closes, ever), because nothing - not the sourced facts, not the policy rationale, and not the community - were supporting them. And now months later they're still throwing public fits about it. They scapegoat me for it because I wrote an essay, WP:SSF, that's been unexpectedly influential, and I was the main (not sole) party debunking their claims in the RfC. I was actually on wikibreak for a whole year leading up to this, and the MR case that set off their RfC was already in motion before I returned, and had nothing to do with me at all. That was a huge RfC; there was no lack of collaboration, no lack of community input and deliberation, no unilateral action. At any rate, to just take your comment as a generality, "being right" often does overrule collaboration. It depends on what it is that we're being right about. For example, collaborative consensus to include something controversial or questionable is frequently overruled by administrative or community application of WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:NOT, or other policies and guidelines; a local consensus being wrong about something under WP policy doesn't magically give them the right to violate it just because they're doing so "collaboratively". But this is a side point; there isn't such a case at issue here. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 18:00, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

A beer for you!

In the spirit of good faith...! Giant Snowman 09:21, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Back atcha, and here's to less MOS/AT drama. :-) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:13, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Blessing

Just a chat.

I have been restricted by the arbitration committee to two comments in a discussion. I came to love it as a true blessing and do it voluntarily now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:06, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm reminded of Abélard's letters to Héloïse. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:40, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

From our article: Héloïse "writes the fifth letter, declaring that she will no longer speak of the hurt that Abelard has caused her." - From my talk: "I translated the Invisible Rail, not the invisible rail (which becomes almost invisible in prose), but believe that readers actually understand both. I wrote A Boy was Born, and am disgusted every time I look at it." --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:30, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Wasn't my point. Abélard later claimed that being castrated was the best thing to ever happen to him. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Heh

Just a chat.

Sorry to have sounded grumpy and thanks for clarifying your comment. I was overly snippy from other things yesterday, and didn't have the alternative obvious meaning of what you said occur to me - I saw it and was just like "Really? I thought this line of argument died in a basement somewhere years ago." I can't imagine you haven't seen it before, but Meatballwiki is always neat. Many (though certainly not all) earlier books about Wikipedia written more than a little bit ago present incredibly overly idealized models of how it works, and parts of them make for really good introductory about Wikipedia (which I do assign them for pretty often,) but will be of less interest to anyone who has been around for a longer period of time.

My direct interest in the recent past is mostly stuff that is more explicitly critical of ourselves or the ideas behind us than we generally are ourselves - the next couple on my to-read list are Critical Point of View: a Wikipedia Reader which I had managed to miss the first go-about, as well as the recently released Virtual Unreality: Just Because the Internet Told You, How Do You Know It’s True. The first is available freely online; the second isn't, but is supposed to be quite interesting. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:59, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

No worries; miscommunications like that are very amusing if people don't take them seriously. As for books/papers, I've been wondering if there's been anything like a serious anthropological or sociological analysis of the WP community itself. It's been around long enough and WP is important enough, the time would seem ripe to do one. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:20, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia is supposed to be pretty interesting and is also on my to-read list for the summer - I've heard significantly positive things about it, and Dariusz does have the background to write I think a rather more solid ethnography of Wikipedia than most other people do, as he's both an academic active in closely related areas, and a global steward. There's a huge number of papers dealing with Wikipedia (and their publication rate is increasingly rapidly,) many of which deal with one particular area in a quite interesting way, but I've never come across a serious, broad anthropological analysis of the community itself that I've really been happy with, although there's quite a few that deal with specific community related questions quite interestingly. (I'm currently in the process of getting ready to help teach a couple graduate classes that will partially directly be /about/ Wikipedia, instead of just using Wikipedia-based assignments, so I'm spending a good chunk of the next little while catching up on backlogged reading, so I can figure out appropriate papers/excerpts of books to use in building course material.) Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:45, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Cyberchiefs: Autonomy and Authority in Online Tribes has a number of case studies across various authority structures on the net (old usenet, early DailyKos, etc.) as well as coverage of a specific dispute on wikipedia (As a window into how authority is manifested). Some people don't like it because it paints a particular editor in a negative light, but it's worth a read (if you are interested in social elements of american politics it's worth it for the daily kos part alone). There are a few other ethnographies or attempts to talk about types of contributor networks. I could dig them up if you really need them. Kevin Gorman, if you're teaching a class take a look at Cyberchiefs. Protonk (talk) 16:19, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you

Acknowledged

I want to express my thanks that in spite of our other disagreements you and I are able to collaborate on the same side of the issue at Mustang horse. I appreciate your input and am glad we have found some common ground. Montanabw ^(talk) 21:18, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Same here, and it's not the first time. We collaborated quite well back in the day on cleaning up the donkey breed category and the like; our issues have been principally over capitalization, that seeming sworn enemy of all Wikipedians. Heh. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 21:25, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Looks like we may also have some difference of opinion on the breed/feral/landrace issue as applied to horses, but I think we can try to keep that one civil as well. WP:NAM and all that. Montanabw ^(talk) 23:39, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, no need for histrionics on anyone's part. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:43, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Article One of the United States Bill of Rights

Done

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Ten days ago you chided, no upbraided me...

Moved to User talk:Manytexts#Do not delete "citation needed" and other maintenance templates without resolving the issues they've flagged|User talk:Manytexts § Do not delete "citation needed" and other maintenance templates without resolving the issues they've flagged]]]]

for deleting citation needed tags - as it was some time ago, I can only recall that it was not violating the terms you quote, but because they were in confetti status when they could have been served a) by a template overall, or b) one at the end of a para or section. Hope your nappies are not still in knots and WP has not ground to a halt over this heinous crime to publishing. Manytexts (talk) 06:36, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Refactoring this back to your page. This is about your edits, not mine. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:56, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:List of aircraft accidents and incidents resulting in at least 50 fatalities

Resolved

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Please comment on Talk:Iraqi Kurdistan

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Please comment on Talk:The Edge

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Informal note

Hey, I notice that you have HighBeam access and you seem to have a few topicons. That being said, if you are interested, I've created {{Wikipedia:HighBeam/Topicon}}. No reply to this message is necessary (and I won't see it unless you ping me), just wanted to let you know it was available. Happy editing! — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:46, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Credo

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Hello! You have received preliminary approval for access to Credo. Please fill out this short form so that your access can be processed. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:50, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Royal Society Access

Resolved

Hey SMcCandlish, please make sure to follow the instructions in the email I sent nearly 2 weeks ago to ensure that you can get WP:RSUK access, Sadads (talk) 16:55, 21 July 2014 (UTC)