User:Geogre/Talk archive 22

YAA: Yet another archive. This covers a period of time, no doubt.

ArbCom elections

Looks like Jimbo will be appointing tomorrow. I'd like to thank you for answering my questions, and all those other questions, and for running. For me these elections were an intensive Wikieducation. I am disappointed that it looks unlikely that you will be appointed, but I am heartened that the likely successful candidates are, on the whole, stable, serious main space editors, many of whom share parts of your skills, outlook, and inclinations. You spoke clearly. Your voice mattered. I am proud to have cast this first vote. Again, thank you. Jd2718 04:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I was glad to support too, although Support #179 was probably more surprising. Newyorkbrad 01:07, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I suppose the annointing will occur tomorrow (the smell of chrism in the air). Frankly, you're the first person who has seemed to know when it will occur. For myself, it was inevitable that some people would vote on the basis of rumor as often as experience and because people they trusted said so. That's the nature of a democracy: voters have to be educated. There is a segment of the population that genuinely disagrees with my outlook, but it's not that large a segment (and by no means the same as the oppose voters). I'm very encouraged by many of the top percentage getters and the top vote getters (really, a person with 90% who has a total of 50 votes is nothing like a person with 50% who has a total of 150 votes, but, fortunately, that's for Jimbo to work out). I worry that the voting structure may soon give us milquetoasts as the only ones unable to generate vocal opposition and support, because the lack of opposition is not the same thing as the presence of trust, but the people in this case do not cause me any concern (generally...there are some I've never seen before, and I've been here ages). I look forward to a change and the new folks. Geogre 01:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I am pleased by the votes. I hadn't thought myself controversial (but I suppose that's always the way), as generally low key and low profile as I am, and that's why I nattered on up there, mumbling to myself. I'm proud to have gathered your votes and hope that I can continue to be the sort of Wikipedian that you both can support. I'll go on, writing my little essays, putting them in bottles, and tossing them into the surf. Sometimes they turn into ships. Geogre 01:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

On when the results are/were to be announced, the timing was given at User talk:Jimbo Wales. But I foolishly thought he meant Sunday GMT. I guess over in the USA, it is Sunday now... Christmas here though. Time for bed. Carcharoth 01:15, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't envy the new arbitrators. I believe the ArbCom has just set a record for most new cases accepted in a week (I don't mean they set it volitionally, just that a bunch of cases came up at the same time), and the new arbs are going to start out with a horrendous backlog to work off. I'll see on on the candidates' page next November, although I know a year is forever in Wikitime. Regards, Newyorkbrad 01:24, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

My default is "not running." It took Fred Bauder writing poorly, reasoning worse, and advocating from the bench, while everyone else followed behind as if writing a proposed remedy was beyond them, that got me to run this time. This is because I have a strong interest in policy and a moderate interest in persons butting heads. If I see bad policy and bad actions, I'll speak up. Fred's performance has been disappointing, but the rest of the committee had to conspire by silence to allow such strange things to go on. Geogre 03:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Considering IRC considered

I think a good rule of thumb is that of the courts, where one always has a right to face one's accuser. By that I mean that nothing injunctive or punitive should take place without both sides having equal access to the judge. Thus, if you go to get me blocked on IRC (and you can just do it, I know), then you shouldn't unless I'm there, too, and have equal access to whoever is pushing the button. If you're going to do it by the mailing list, then I have to be on the same mailing list. If you're going to do it on e-mail reasoning, then I need to be able to e-mail you, too. I'm not sure this is an item for "IRC" talk as much as it is something that should be brought into the blocking policy. Crowbait 19:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

That's my first "Conclusion." The problem is that the logic of the argument is suggesting that IRC simply never discuss Wikipedia, which would be unpopular and unprofitable and unnecessary. As with most things, the problem is in people and not the medium, and in particular in human nature, generalizations, and folks not thinking clearly and thoroughly before they act. Geogre 01:02, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Quite interesting page! I hope you don't mind dropping in a hello and an invitation to peek at a page, as I've actually been playing with a related idea. If you have the time and inclination, feel free to look, though I doubt I've thought of anything that you haven't. Happy Holidays to you and yours! ~Kylu (u|t) 04:56, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Kylu. I've been thinking about this stuff, piecemeal, for a long time, and I thought, before going into "what is best practice," it was worth examining the basis of the medium and what limitations and expansions it offered to other forms of communication. Feel free to use whatever is of use, and I will look in. I'm still working on "conclusions," though (i.e. "best practice suggestions"). Geogre 05:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I imagine a simple statement of "Please do not discuss blocking editors on IRC" on WP:BP would solve a lot of problems. I'll leave it to others to determine what exceptions (emergency blocks and vandalism?) might be allowable. ~Kylu (u|t) 00:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I just posted the following paragraph into the middle of WP:ANI#Chairboy's block, where it will no doubt be lost in the clutter, but I thought perhaps it might be of use or interest to you. (I think you've already seen User talk:Irpen#Transparency vs. Opacity.)

How often has the point been made about articles, that Wikipedia needs not merely truth but verifiability? The same should apply to accusations and disciplinary actions. It may be true that umpteen dozen admins on IRC endorsed my blocking you indefinitely for death threats (and protecting your talk page so you can't even post an "unblock" appeal); and it may even be true that "all the lurkers support me in email"; but you have no way to verify either of those claims, so you'll just have to take my word for it. However, since you know first-hand that you never uttered any death threats, my word on the matter is unlikely to satisfy you. So isn't it convenient for me that I've just prevented you from publicly defending yourself or denying the charges? And that if you try to do so from different accounts, I can just keep blocking you as a sockpuppet? Under those circumstances, you might want to have open process, with all assertions proven by citations of an open and verifiable record. As an abusive admin, I have just as strong a motive to keep everything secret and unverifiable, off the record, and avoid having to prove anything, or even specify (let alone cite) what threats you supposedly made. (With that in mind, see this and this.) This scenario is why the whole IRC issue is raising people's hackles. It brings up memories of the Vehmgericht and other "secret tribunals" of the past, and of stories by Kafka and Orwell. Secrecy destroys trust, because people will always wonder (and worry) about what you're hiding and why. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 02:13, 26 Dec 2006 (UTC).

That is very, very like what I was getting at in my first Conclusion. If a person can't face the charges, then what you're doing is lynching, not prosecuting. Wikipedia may not be a democracy, but it's not Guantanamo Bay, either. It's fine to call for a block by IRC, if everything pertaining to it is documented on the wiki and there is a delay and consideration on the wiki. I.e. all a call should do is provoke people to go to wiki and investigate, and not conclude. Geogre 03:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Geogre. $Deity knows why, but we had a white Christmas, which would be very nice, except that this is supposed to be summer. I think it's time to moveGlobal Warming to Global Wierding. All the best to you and yours. Ben Aveling 12:33, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Ben! ("An exclamation point should only be used in direct discourse, and then only when one of the parties is on fire" -- Fowler, I think.) I don't know that I've ever seen a snowing Christmas. Oh, in New York City and Baltimore, there was snow on the ground at Christmas a couple of times, but snow on Christmas Day? That seems to be something from Irving Berlin's imagination. Trust me, though, it's not just Globally Weirdness: I'm in a bit of the US that's supposed to be temperate, and I could swear that it's now tropical. 24 C and rain is not Christmas weather. Geogre 13:35, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess it happens. And I don't know that it is unusual enough to really qualify as wierd. That would take maths, and more data than I have. But it sure feels wierd.

The discussion further down this page is sad. Lots of people trying to score points, and only a few trying to understand where the others are coming from. The anger (maybe justified, maybe not) is getting in the way of progress. :-(

Ah well, Happy New Year to all. Ben Aveling 05:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

You're right about what is below. I am forbidden from making public what had gotten me furious. I can characterize it, though. On Christmas Eve, as they began to celebrate the Prince of Peace, the en.admins IRC channel took time to meditate on how the people (that would be me, Bishonen, Giano, Ghrila, and Slim Virgin) who were demanding that people not organize blocks of users on IRC (the topic is on WP:AN/I, re the block of Giano and on the block of Irpen by Betacommand) were whiners. They took the wrong side of the stick entirely, as is the way with any IRC discussion, and started raging about the need for administrators to talk about blocks on the administrator's channel. Oddly, two of the people talking about the need are not administrators, and another is rarely involved in blocking. The subject then turned to Giano, and it was like chum in the water. All agreed that Giano was bad, bad, bad (though never for what, what, what) and that only his friends kept issuing free passes for him (that would be me and Bishonen, I guess).
Jimbo came in, and all was sweetness and light. All of the maligning of people ceased. Jimbo left, and it picked back up, along with characterizing Jimbo's unblock of Giano as "stupid" and "his way is appeasement." Then Bishonen began to tell those folks to stop all of their horrible speech.
The response was to deny that they had ever said anything mean at all. Kelly Martin even claimed that she had never called anyone names. She wanted diffs and proofs of every single thing. (A level of proof they never seek when painting other users black. After all, Giano is bad, bad, bad, and no one asks why, why, why, or where, where, where.) When Kelly's blog (pasted in as "evidence" in the "Giano" RFAR) was given as the source of some truly wretched comments, while Kelly's farewell messages on her talk page were offered as the source of others, Kelly quickly pointed out another user's blog as being worse than hers (and therefore excusing her own in toto). Meanwhile, it was 4 vs. 1, with no one standing for ceasing maligning absent users except Bishonen, and all four trying to prove to her that they'd never, ever, in their whole lives, said anything mean about anyone and that she was...guess!...whining. She was also "hurting herself." (Implied threat, but what the hey.)
Bishonen left. Guess what the topic went back to? How stupid, bad, and whiney everyone is except them.
When I read that, I actually got enraged. I considered it not only hypocritical (whining about whiners, building up their own importance by talking about how powerful they are) but cowardly. They would not, do not, will not speak this way on Wikipedia, and therefore they do not spend time on Wikipedia. The restrictions are too great, and the satisfaction of the echo chamber of a private IRC channel must be too strong, and so they go there. I went to the open Wikipedia IRC channel and began shouting. When private tabs began popping up all over my browser, I said that I have a talk page, and there should be no more, "Prove I said that, and if you do I'll have you blocked."
So it was inevitable that anger would come here. As bad as it is, at least it's not hidden behind the coward's screen of IRC.
I calmed down after a day, and I've gone back to doing exactly what I was doing before -- writing articles and working out essays. They have, too, I gather, if recent logs are any indication, only now I'm a featured subject. Talking with me present might be dangerous, I guess, or might not generate instant agreement, so it's much safer to talk behind my back.
Despite that, I plan to have a good New Year. Ira furor brevis est, Horace said, but he forgot to add, "for people who aren't crazy." Geogre 15:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. We have an off-wiki clique, and various people who subscribe to it, to various degrees. That's bad, because it potentially accelerates the politicisation of wikipedia. But I'm not sure what can be done about it, unless there is evidence that it is impacting on-wiki. Even then, it's hard to know what can be done on-wiki, unless they are breaking wiki-rules. Certainly, getting mad doesn't help, probably the contrary.

BTW, I don't understand why it's 'illegal' to take a log of IRC.

Gotta go. More thoughts on this to follow. Regards, Ben Aveling 22:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Please don't read this as my putting on the "wise old veteran" voice, because it's not meant that way. My former belief was that the users themselves would stand up to any clique trying to run a private room or private space. However, there have been, I am convinced, on-wiki actions stemming solely from that one particular private world. The other users there tend to be afraid, quite literally, of the abusive individuals.

Now, of course there can be a fork. Of course there can be e-mail. Of course there can be any number of things. However, they won't have any claim to even a shadow of the name of official. Additionally, they won't gather in new members to the clique. Part of the problem is the same old faces who continue to "get a free pass from their friends" for their "contributions," people who would have been blocked long ago without their friends. But the problem that worries me much more is that people see these abusive individuals as role models. They aspire to run roughshod over others, aspire to sneer at "process wonks" and "wiki lawyers" too. They get infected by the notion that Wikipedia is ruled by the "clueful" and that the "clueless" should not be heard. If there is no private room like that, there will be less chance of contagion.

Now, if they are the center of the project (if not the universe), they won't be bothered by the loss of that channel at all. Their wonderfulness will continue to shine, and "thousands every day" will continue to look to them "for opinions." If they're not right, then what bothers me will be ameliorated considerably by the loss of a channel that they own that yet promises to be "for administrators."

Yes, I do want that particular channel gone. Even more, though, I want there to be some code of conduct for all IRC use pertaining to Wikipedia. Nothing restrictive, but a set of best practices. That's why I wrote user:Geogre/IRC considered. That page was not meant to be an attack. It was meant to be a logical construction of a set of good do's and don't's for IRC. It's designed to help. Anyway, I'd rather, if I'm going to be maligned anyway, to have it be where the world can see the sorts of people my accusers are, and not, say, in the middle of a vote or IRC, where I cannot reply. Geogre 22:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess the problem is that we have a quasi-offical channel. That's wrong. Either it should be official, and subject to the usual rules of Wikipedia, or it must be completely clear that it is unofficial. If the community here is strong, then lensing shouldn't matter much, for the same reasons that AFD is not a vote. But if large numbers of people are using any forum to Caucus, then there is a big problem. Do we have some examples where something important had a different outcome because of IRC? Later, Ben Aveling 01:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

You had mail

I wrote to you many hours ago, before you logged off. I suppose you've been busy today like most people. I'm taking a break. Back in a few days, I expect (not willingly, but addictively). Bishonen | talk 23:33, 25 December 2006 (UTC).

Ping.

[Geogre([email protected])] You are welcome to speak on-wiki, coward.

Greetings. What, sir, have I ever done to you? --Gmaxwell 02:46, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, you, specifically, have, specifically, advocated, and I think you believed it to be funny, "blocking idiots" who "whine" about admins.irc being used to "talk about blocking." That was aimed, presumably, at those who have opposed blocking via IRC without on-wiki rationale. That would be, principally, me. Now, the fact that you could completely forget "without on-wiki rationale" is not surprising. After all, you were going for caricature, not truth. And such humor, too! The efforts of people like me to get us to behave transparently, fairly, and openly with our users, being reduced to "idiots" (nice PA, there) who "whine" was quite nice.
Of course, you do refine the whining idiot to all those who are "not friends" with Bishonen, Giano, or SlimVirgin. I'm glad I wasn't on the list in that case and that you feel you can block my friends (provided I have any). You justify this by saying that talking about blocking Willy on Wheels was useful (and therefore Giano, Bishonen and SlimVirgin are on a par with WoW). Amazing insults, and such humor! Have you had the courage to post in any of the places where I "whine" and state your view on Wikipedia's blocking policy and defend it?
Then we get a comparison of Giano to Everyking, but with friends. And such friends, too!
Well, I invite you here to explain, in detail, why such personal attacks were justifiable on the admins IRC channel, where admins should be upholding rather high standards. (Note: I do not assert that these were quotes from that channel, nor that I have a log. I may well be making everything up.) Geogre 03:08, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for talking to me.

I had no idea who complained. JamesF came in and asked us not to talk about blocking, my exact response was, in part:

Dec 24 16:11:08 <NullC> James_F|Busy: Well can we discuss blocking in the general? 
Dec 24 16:11:19 <NullC> For example "blocking idiots who whine about us talking about blocking" ?

I do believe that it is foolish to the point of idiocy to try to demand that any group of wiki administrators not talk about blocking. I did not know who made the request of JamesF, and I certainly wasn't directing my comment to you or anyone else specifically. It seems above that your position is more nuanced than "no discussion of blocking", and I'd have to understand it more and consider it more before drawing any conclusions about it... at least it is not patent nonsense like a general ban on blocking discussions.

As far as blocking people without on-wiki rationale, I've not seen such discussions on IRC, but I wasn't actually in the room when the conversation of interest occurred as far as I know.

I don't know why you think I'm some big advocate of "my friends". Your illicit log should include me pointing out that Kelly Martin has been a whiny brat at times herself... I think I'd be far more likely to tell a friend than a non-friend that they were being an idiot for seriously expecting that an admins group shouldn't discuss blocking.

My comment WRT Giano and Everyking was this:

Dec 24 16:20:14 <NullC> So it seems that with Giano we've created another everyking.. Although this time with a few more friends. :(
Dec 24 16:20:29 <NullC> His reply to Jimbo is.. saddening.

This makes more sense if you know the history of my thoughts on Everyking, as most of the people who were in the room at the time know very well. I have the utmost respect for Everyking and I think he's done a lot of good for the project, but we of the community failed him by not protecting him from the stresses and challenges presented by day-to-day life on the Wiki. As a result of our failure Everyking is nearly friendless, and his every interaction with the community seems to make his hatred grow even greater and greater. I and just about everyone else think that Everyking is far beyond salvation because no matter how much good he does, we just can't take the hostility. I think this is very unfortunate. In my somewhat uninformed view, Giano (and you as well, frankly) are on a similar path. In your cases you do have a network of friends who are defending you even when your actions are wrong. I expect this will make the situation even more difficult to repair than Everyking's and that makes me sad.

These are my views. They are not intended to hurt you or anyone. I may very well be wrong, and if I am I'd like to be corrected... but I can't promise that I will change my position. I honestly do want to be your friend. I think you've been making a lot of mistakes, but my idea of friendship doesn't preclude people who make mistakes... in fact, all my friends make mistakes. --Gmaxwell 04:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

So, I have an illicit log? Does that mean that yours is licit? I thought public logging of any sort was prohibited, and therefore quoting it, as you have done, should mean a permanent ban from IRC. As for mine, you must never assume that I wasn't there. That would be naive. You must not assume that I was there. You must not assume that "someone complained," either, as you clearly know who "complained." You know that the reference is to both Kylu's and my work on IRC and blocking, and if you don't know my thoughts on the matter, you have no reason to be passing judgment. Your pretence that you knew none of this is betrayed later on when you specify "friends with Giano, Bishonen, and SlimVirgin." Presumably, you'd have to be thinking of "idiots" and "whiners" who have been defended by these three. Who would that be? Irpen and Giano are the only two I can think of. Apparently, you weren't thinking of anyone?
And you believe that it's a great joke to say that you should be able to discuss blocking the idiots who whine? You don't know who they are, but it's good fun to talk about blocking them? And, when the subject shifts very clearly to Giano, you, not knowing at all that AN/I has been riven with a discussion of Chairboy's illicit block of Giano, despite commenting on it yourself in the channel, still think that comparing blocking him to WoW is just dandy?
So, your defense is that you haven't a clue who James was talking about, but you were happy to go along? That's feeble. The characterization of Giano, SlimVirgin, and Bishonen as trouble makers is silently accepted.
I'm delighted to know that you like Everyking and think that the project failed him. I don't suppose you remember the people involved in that and the venue by which most of their actions occurred? Never mind that, though, as I see you meant to compliment Giano by comparing him to Everyking, even though, of course, Giano has only had sharp words for people slapping templates on his page (oh noes, don't say mean words! we can't take that!). That leaves the comparison to Willy, the characterizations of Bishonen, SlimVirgin, and the designation of all their friends as people who are annoying to some degree. I can't imagine why anyone could regard those statements as insulting. I can't imagine why they wouldn't be positively expected on the IRC channel for administrators only.
As for the bad road I'm on, I certainly thank you for the gratuitous judgment from the empyrean heights. I don't suppose you'd care to actually discuss with me the bad actions I've been making? You wouldn't, for example, want to help in any way? You wouldn't, perchance, have any policy that you believe I have violated? You are not, for example, going to suggest that tenaciously holding to a view is wrong, the way Fred Bauder did, are you? (He cited WP:NOT, which is about article writing.) (In fact, the reason "haha they're blaming cyde" comes up is that Cyde was involved in blocking someone who was trying to stop an actual, real violation of Battleground. The real one pertains to using Wikipedia articles (remember those?) to fight political battles, such as goes on with the Poles, Russians, Ukranians, and Germans every day.) If not, then you won't mind if I doubt your sincerity or goodwill and reject the judgment, I hope. After all, Slim Virgin, Bishonen and Giano are "friends" of mine, so I'm bound to be trouble.
You asked what you, specifically, had done, and I have told you. You have responded evasively. You should know, if you can read your own words clearly, that you said a great deal more, engaged in many malicious statements, but all behind the protective screen of "private" communication. What bothers me most is that: the lack of courage to speak on the wiki, the joy of malice in private channels ("for admins only, except Kelly Martin and Tony Sidaway"), where admin work is done. (And it's done without most of the administrators, who don't go to it. And, while you congratulate yourself for welcoming dissenting opinions, you tell a person daring to dissent that that person is not welcome. Great stuff!)
So, the central irony of thinking that Giano is just terrible for "personal attacks" and "incivility" and complaining of it with incivil, insulting, banter, never once giving pause to the worst and most malicious comments, remains. One would think that, after the use of that channel for "killing" a user came up in the "Giano" RFAR, folks there would have learned that there is no impugnity, that they should be civil, that they should not plot, that their snide, vile "humor" (ask yourself this: is the comment for something or against something? if it's at someone's expense, is it at the expense of someone there to defend him or herself?) is not going to go unexamined, but I guess not. It's business as usual in the "private" admins IRC channel "admins and none others except some others who are favorites but not admins." Geogre 04:18, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Help you? Okay. Lets start with this.. Why on earth was your response to me here so hostile? My intention was to be both friendly and honest with you... it hurts that you continue to attack me. I don't know why you are doing this, but it's this exact sort of behavior that has caused me to think that you hate a large amount of the community around you and that you are losing your ability to interact with civility. A lot of your anger above is about people who aren't me.. some of whom I haven't even spoken to in MONTHS, it just doesn't make sense. I'm sorry that I don't understand. --Gmaxwell 05:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

<nose poking> I think that a good deal of good could come from extending to Greg good faith, and taking his responses utterly at face value. While he and I have crossed swords in the past (not in the fun porn-movie kind of way, either) and he's aften said things that make me pull at the roots of my three remaining hairs, little harm can come hitting the "reset ire" button. No comment of course on if the ire is justified just that it may be unproductive right now. - brenneman 06:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
</nose poking>

I've said what I needed to say. Greg should know what I'm talking about, since he quotes from a log that has him, Kelly Martin (not an admin, but what the hey...how could she not be on the admins.irc channel), and Jim Forrester going on and on about how stupid, whining, and ridiculous other Wikipedians are. Here's a general guide, Greg: if you find that the conversation is about "us" and "we," you're probably fine. If you find that it's about "them" and "they" and how "they" are (e.g. your ability to know my intentions just there without asking), it's not fit. If you find that the conversation is about people not present in the channel, it's probably not a great idea to go attacking their characters, intelligence, and desires. I'm sorry that he is now either genuinely unable to see the sneering in his comments from the log or feigning innocence, but, despite what Greg may believe (based on report, of course, and not actions), I have not been angry until now. I have not had "hatred" until now. Also, it isn't many: it's about four people without the courage to speak in the open, without the courage to post on Wikipedia, who will fight to their last breaths for a "private" IRC, who oppose transparency, who oppose the need to confer with others, who insist upon their own rights and judgments being so unindictable that anyone who questions them simply has to be "on the road to a ban."

Aaron, if you had read what I have read, and what Greg has said, you'd know that this is far beyond the pale. Disgusting.

Greg, maybe I'm "hostile" because you compare my friends to Willy on Wheels. Maybe I'm "hostile" because you are derisive. Maybe I'm unpleasant because you presume to judge everyone and reason with none. Maybe I have had one issue from the start: no unilateralism. Geogre 13:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Geogre;

I believe I have asked you this before, but I do so again. Please do not call me "Jim" - it is not my name now, it has not been by name ever, it will never be my name, it is not a standard variation of my name. It is most annoying; please cease. :-)

James F. (talk) 20:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

No, actually, we've never discussed your name before. In fact, we haven't discussed much of anything, ever, on Wikipedia. However, if you are willing to go at least a week without making fun of anyone on any IRC format, or even to confine your comments about any Wikipedian or Wikipedia matter solely to Wikipedia's pages themselves, then you can avoid annoying me much more than I can avoid annoying you by calling you Jim. If you can't manage that, if you can't manage to avoid maligning characters for a bit, or at least making fun of people, then please understand that your own annoyance is just the smallest price to pay for that luxury. Geogre 23:56, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, Greg, I would be happy if you'd read the two most recent essays (listed at the top of the page), as they address the issues that would get me pretty ticked off at reading a log where :30 are spent talking trash about users not present on the channel and another :20 trying to tell the one person defending the subject of the mugging that she or he is "not doing yourself any favors" and attacking, non-stop, while saying, "Who, me? I've never said anything insulting at all!" despite saying viciously insulting things no more than five minutes earlier. There are ways to avoid these horrors, but not so long as there is a private he-man-user-hater's club on IRC and people living there whose psychopathology is a need to build themselves up by dragging others down. Geogre 13:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I have never enjoyed arguing with people, never enjoyed speaking ill of them, never enjoyed reductio ad absurdum, and I have a low tolerance for people who enjoy all of those things. I have no desire to meet my fellow Wikipedians in real life, and therefore can't imagine what the point is of "he's driving my family to SC" of someone you pretend to be objective about is. I do not want to be angry, but I have less and less patience for sniping, less and less stomach for self-importance, less and less desire to look the other way when people desperate for any social interaction at all glom onto Wikipedia to try to turn it into a web forum. If people would concentrate on the project and on themselves on IRC, I doubt I'd have any "hostility" at all. Geogre 13:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand how you could be confused enough to claim that I compared anyone to Willy on Wheels. Such claims are completely outside of my comprehension. I really wish you'd stop attacking me and help me understand. Without your help I'm left to see no other answer than the unpleasent idea that you are just willing to lie and claim anything that will make you look victimized. --Gmaxwell 19:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

You cannot see it in the quotes? You cannot read, above? If I quote it, then I will be breaking policy, so I will have to quote only my summary: "Of course, you do refine the whining idiot to all those who are "not friends" with Bishonen, Giano, or SlimVirgin. I'm glad I wasn't on the list in that case and that you feel you can block my friends (provided I have any). You justify this by saying that talking about blocking Willy on Wheels was useful (and therefore Giano, Bishonen and SlimVirgin are on a par with WoW). " Look at the sequence of your comments: 1. can't we talk about blocking people who whine about our talking about blocking? 2. I suppose we shouldn't block people who are friends with Giano, Bishonen, or SlimVirgin. 3. Talking about blocking was great for Willy on Wheels. I.e. it would be good to ignore J|Forrest's (got to be careful with those names...much more important to sweat a name or pronoun than maligning a long time contributor's entire work) suggestion, which he should refine to "not those friends with those people," because chatting to block was good for Willy (and therefore these friends of those three are, like Willy, people who need coordinated controlling).
Here is another one for you, though. You are not an administrator, and yet you speak of the need to discuss blocking. Even though you cannot block, you believe it is important enough that you say that you will fork the IRC channel if you are ever disallowed from it. So, not an admin, but on admins.irc, with ops, and going to fork it rather than have to use on-wiki resources?
Here is a question, though. I know you "welcome dissenting opinions," so here is a dissenting question: what is the advantage of admins.irc over WP:AN/I? You and others rattle on and on about your (even though the people rattling most aren't actually administrators, such as Kelly) needing to discuss private matters, but does that mean that those administrators like me who only use AN/I aren't functioning administrators? We only respond (often in less than 2 minutes) by AN/I. What intensely private communication is it that we miss? How are we handicapping ourselves and failing Wikipedia by insisting on public discourse and no secrets? Geogre 23:56, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for observing my request (if you're going to be snarky about it, fine, though from personal experience I would recomend being careful not to take irritation with me and let it alter the prism through which you see and react to others' actions). I really don't particularly care what you say about me, and I was moved to post just because it's just irritating that I have to read my name writ-wrongly in all of this nonsense that I need to wade through. And, why yes, it actually is my job, so for all your being "sorry [I'm] using [my] time that way", nevertheless some of us actually do have to read through this dross. Whilst I'm asking for concessions of you (;-)), feel free to make it politer, terser, and more directed to a point.

Yes, this is sarcasm. :-)

James F. (talk) 00:29, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

So, and this should help clear up that "logging" business, when "James_F|Away" says that he "considers blocking Geogre" for being "snarky," he is DOING HIS JOB. When he reads user pages where he is not in discussion, he is doing his job. What a poor, pitiful administrator all the others are, for not reading every page and growing sarcastic and nasty when their names are not preferred! What a horrible performance that they do not go to a private room where they can rant to friends who will only concur or tremble in fear! I love it, "JamesF|Away" when you talk on the Wikipedia, because you always cut your own feet out from under you beautifully. I'm considering blocking you for "snarky comments," too. How would that be? Geogre 01:00, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

You really are right. I'm terribly sorry. I had completely forgotten your access to the logs (both (a) illegal - by which I mean criminal - and (b) banned). In future I will prefix anything and everything I say with "[WARNING TO GEOGRE: THE FOLLOWING IS MEANT IN JEST, AND IS IN NO WAY AN ATTACK ON YOU]"; though I fear that the efficacy of communication will suffer somewhat, obviously nothing is anything like as important as ensuring that we bypass your sense-of-humour failure. :-)

Obviously, were you to block me, I'm sure one of The Thousand would reverse the block (hopefully after discussion with you, of course), per Policy; vice versa holds - or it really should: there is no place for elitism in wheel-warring. The point of my comment was that some sysops actually would block you, on which I would of course come down very strongly, as I have done before; it was an ironic contrasting of the sad position we find ourselves in with our colleagues acting outside of policy with my own actions. It wasn't merely a chasm, but in fact an abyss of sar. :-)

I'm sorry that you seem to be under a lot a strain and stress right now, and hope that you relax and bathe in the respect wikilove that I, even if no-one else, wishes you. Reading into everything anyone else says an attack on you doesn't help your stress levels, I'm sure, and it doesn't make Wikipedia better (and of course, those who aren't here expressly to make Wikipedia better are to be shown the door - that's one of the things I like about your attitude).

Have a great run-up to the New Year, and "chill out". :-)

James F. (talk) 09:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Presuming the humor ends with the paragraph breaks would be to AGF. My log is not illegal, as "public logging" is forbidden by Freenode, and the comment above was posted a few moments after you made it (which, of course, would have been earlier if Wikipedia were loading more quickly). It was not from a log. Notice this: if there are "sides," then "my side," such as it is, has been involved in protesting blocks, not blocking. It has been involved in protesting hypocrites who block for "NPA" while going on to insult and deride where they cannot be prosecuted. It has not blocked, it has not banned, it has not "start" a "pool on when X will be banned" (that's banned, not blocked). It does not go to talk pages to inform users that they are heading for bans (as if the speaker had the real power, was superior, could judge). In fact, if people were not going about screeching "NPA NPA!" and blocking people, and if they were not insulting people non-stop in private media, I doubt those people would ever encounter me in any context except AN/I, AN, and DRV. If I'm a pain in the butt, it's because people are using their butts to make decisions for them. Young Cyde, for example, has announced that I am on crusades and paranoid. Oddly, I'd say the same of him, except that I don't go to his talk page to inform him of it. I would consider it unnecessay and unhelpful to try to pass judgments like that. What others praise (writing essays to help us hash out good practices), he blasts as a crusade. What others think is uniquely helpful -- an "insightful" and "intelligent" (their words) analysis and constant effort to help the project function -- he considers paranoid. And yet, because I will not go to the playground of en.administrators.irc, I must not be a very good administrator. I'm not privvy to the private conversation integral to being an admin., the way Cyde is. Then again, I'm not reversed much. Geogre 11:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The more I read your words the more I think of the Red Scare era and Joseph McCarthy. Please, Geogre, Kelly and James are not nearly as evil as you make them out to be, and in the mean time your harsh and inaccurate invective is causing a lot more problems than it is solving. Stop turning every little dispute into a battleground and stop acting like IRC is the worst thing since Hitler. Every time I run into you you're on a crusade against something, and now it appears that you've set your sights on IRC. --Cyde Weys 05:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

And what are these "muggings" you speak of? I swear, you're making up new uses for words now in an effort to attribute even more insidious actions to us. --Cyde Weys 05:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

"Mug - (transitive verb) 2 : to attack suddenly : BUSHWHACK <got mugged in the press by his colleagues>" From Mirriam-Webster on-line Jill Hemphill 20:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Please do not engage in mischaracterization, ridicule, and other forms of personal attack. You might wish to review WP:NPA, as it is pertinent. You were driving your family to SC when the conversation in question took place, but you have engaged in many like it. That you see nothing wrong with anything you have ever done is an indictment of yourself more than of me, and pretending that this is all nothing or that I am on a crusade is an illustration of your ignorance concerning my stances. You are a new user, and so you cannot possibly know me very well, and I am quite sure that you haven't paid any attention to the discussions on Wikipedia concerning these ridiculous private clubhouses, so you would do well to keep your judgments to yourself (and I mean that, not "to IRC, where you can insult without having to answer for it"). Try to moderate your intemperate speech, please. If you cannot, please do not come here to tell me what you think of me. There is a difference between announcing your views and discussing. You do not discuss, at least with me. I do not feel any poorer for that. Geogre 11:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I wasn't driving anyone anywhere. I guess this is what happens when you rely on illicit logs that shouldn't have been shared in the first place — you have no idea what's going on. And speaking of mischaracterization, ridicule, and personal attack, what exactly do you call the following choice quotes from your above response? "You are a new user", "I am quite sure that you haven't paid any attention to the discussions on Wikipedia concerning these ridiculous private clubhouses", "so you would do well to keep your judgments to yourself (and I mean that, not "to IRC, where you can insult without having to answer for it")", "Try to moderate your intemperate speech", "I do not feel any poorer for that.", etc. You're not helping anyone by violating the exact same rules you just told me to follow. --Cyde Weys 16:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Those weren't insults, Cyde: those are my views. You are a new user compared to me. You do not know my views and have shown no signs of educating yourself on them, if your words are any indication. You do not seem to have awareness of what is being said on most of the noticeboards, and you would, indeed, do very well to keep your judgments to yourself and not slander people on IRC. What part of that do you consider an insult? It's all true, so far as I know. Geogre 20:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

":::*"illicit logs that shouldn't have been shared in the first place" Oh come come Cyde - half of Wikipedia is devouring them, they are fascinating" Giano 16:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, no! I've been hoodwinked by the lies of Cyde's friends! I'm upset. I should have gotten a legal log like Cyde's! Then I could search my vast database of logs to find out when the last time was that I had said X or Y or Z. You see, it's illegal to have a log....unless it's not...and then it's illegal to tell anyone anything from it...unless it isn't...and you have to have them because...you...uh? Gosh, I can't quite follow the pretzel all the way around, but Mobius Strip logic has never been my specialty, and special pleading has never been convincing to me. Geogre 20:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Geogre, you're a hypocrite. You like to say that "established users" such as Giano shouldn't be blocked, but at the drop of a hat, you call me a "new user"? You do realize my account dates back to 2002? And even if I hadn't been on Wikipedia longer than you, and my account really was just a year old, you don't see how insulting it is to call a well-established user a "new user"? You're hopeless. You make all of these insults, and then you try to backpedal with nonsense when you're called out for it. "Ohhh, I wasn't calling you a new user, just newer than I." No you weren't Geogre. Stop lying. You were calling me a new user in a futile ad hominem attempt to discredit my views by saying I'm new and thus know nothing, even when everyone knows that I am nothing remotely close to a new user. Your persistently inaccurate invective is one of the most annoying things I've run across on Wikipedia. Knock it off. I won't be reading or replying further here because I don't see any point in responding to your persistent lies and misrepresentations. --Cyde Weys 21:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

My, my. Screaming, "liar," etc. You are certainly a new user. I don't know why you care what I think. Does it harm you in some way? You consider someone being wrong someone attacking you? I'm not back pedalling at all. I consider you a new user. You can have an account dating back to the late bronze age: you're still behaving childishly, and you certainly haven't the vaguest idea what my points of view are. Despite that, you will caricature them, I'm sure. I consider you gratuitously insulting (and you would match "new user" with "liar" and consider yourself the loser, no doubt). I am delighted that you won't be replying here any more, and I do not feel impoverished by that loss at all. I have never seen you contribute to the further harmony, good spirit, or temperance of Wikipedia in any form. I have never heard you offer a good idea for furthering our work. I have never seen an article you've written. I have, on the other hand, seen you on AN/I being accused of hasty blocks. I have seen you there proposing that every possible thing be a "personal attack" and that that be a blocking offense. I have seen you reversed, and I consider you hasty, if not juvenile. Again, I've never gotten any profit from what you call a "conversation" from you, ever. Therefore, I will not mourn having fewer occasions to have them. Again, though, ask yourself this, Why do you care? What's it to you? Why are you personally threatened? Why can you tolerate no dissent, no difference, no checks? Why must you have unilateral action? Why can you never listen to what anyone says, read what they link, or think about what their points of view may be? The man who quoted me calling Kelly Martin a "wolf," then "dog," and never understanding common English or feeling the need to be accurate is not one who can lecture me on accuracy or fairness. Bye, Cyde. Please do not use IRC for maligning people. Talk about good things. Talk about building. Talk about things you like, so long as they are not causing harm and annoyance to others, and see how much better that makes you feel. It's just a suggestion. Geogre 22:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

(Not part of the foregoing.)

There are people probably reading now with a magnifying glass looking for "evidence." I'm sorry you're using your time that way, but it's your time to do with as you choose. However, it would be dandy if you would take a look up at the top of the page to the section entitled "Essays." There are two recent ones that concern the so-called IRC cabal. They're both worked out to try to accomodate both the good and bad of IRC and to try to limit the damage done by its misuse. Then, if you decide that you need to complain about my "political" views and "coup d'etat" and other things, you'll know what my views actually are. As always, I invite input. Geogre 13:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Confusing edit-conflict indent - this is a reply to Geogre.

Oi vey. I can agree utterly with the general disdain for IRC, the utter disgust for the admin channel, and even the righteous anger with regards to the god-forbid-we-copy-it-here discussion above, while still thinking that there is room for a more amicable discussion.

I'd begin by harking back to Greg telling me to stay out of Wikipedia space, then fast-forward a bit to me suggesting arbitration after a bot-related blanking spree. Just to make sure that my history with Greg is clear and all.
Now I'll venture into the realm of pop psychology and ponder the mental dynamic of the more vocal participants in the admin channel. I believe that in addition to feeling well buffered by the presence of like minds, the contributors there feel they are in a "safe space" where they can vent without recrimination: That things that are said there are so out-of-bounds that they are often careless, and frequently frighteningly cruel. But to my mind this does not in of itself display any large scale character flaws with the participants, simply shortsightedness. It's like a racist joke after a boozy work meeting, where it passed unnoticed at the time but sticks out like a dog's balls when repeated the next morning: "Did you hear what Frank said last night?"

There's a large gap, no wait a yawning chasm between the standards for on-wiki and off-wiki communication. Some people take the license too far, but I think that by further polarising debate we only exacerbate the problem. I'm privy to at least part of the IRC chat in question, and it's not something I like, it's not nice. But I do believe that everyone involved has the long-term goals of the project very close to their heart, and that when someone known to be intemperate (No, I don't mean me, although I am, I mean Greg!) makes some effort at reconciliation, that trying again can't go to far wrong. Even if it doesn't work. As long as we keep trying, there's some hope that we'll work things out. </me wipes tear> Or perhaps I've just had too much nog and am feeling weepy.

brenneman 00:47, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for moving your comment, Aaron. I wish I could agree with you. About the general Wikipedia channel, I do. I used to go there to blow off steam, too. The reason I stopped going at all was when something like this was going on and I was proposing something or other. Three or four people who were convinced that I had to be talking about them wanted to argue with me at the same time on IRC. Yee-haw! I type at about 110 wpm, but that doesn't matter if you get in the middle of a mugging. My conclusion from that was that IRC was fine for playing about, but it absolutely stunk if you were trying to present an argument of any sort. Since I have other pastimes, I just felt no need to go there and listen to 15 year olds talk about how they loved penises (their own or other people's) just to have a chance for a bright person to banter with.

That's different, though, with en.admins.irc. That particular channel was spearheaded by only a few people who insisted that there was a great need for a place to pass private information. Many administrators disagreed, including me. It didn't matter, though, because the people who wanted it just did it. There was no official approval process. After all, the people who were in favor of it strongly disapprove of "process wonkery." Fine. What they do there is their own business.

However, I started to see some real actions (i.e. ones on Wikipedia) coming out of the echo chamber of en.admins. In the "Giano RFAR," we found folks overtly planning illicit actions. We also found a person passing checkuser data OPENLY to the channel. We also found one person talking about how "we need to kill Irpen" and "slowly." The thing is, the same speakers began to actually try it. That's not licit. None of it was. However, the idea that they had the "safe place" was instrumental to their not realizing that they needed to work through channels. Some of the people involved were on ArbCom. Some still are.

I have narrowed my focus considerably. My new essay proposes only that one speak one's own mind, that one speak for things rather than against them, that one concentrate on Wikipedia and not people. I have said bad things about users on IRC in the dim past, but there is an enormous difference between, "One more piece of crap from X, and I'm going to hit somebody" and "We need to find a way to ban X." One is, "I am frustrated." The other is, "We as a club must find an excuse to stop another user." I have seen, with my own eyes, plotting to find a way to block Giano, Irpen, Ghirla, and Slim Virgin. So, if Giano begins to suppose that every template is coming from such a plot, is it really ridiculous? He's wrong some of the time, but the fact that such things have taken place without dissent in the past and the fact that such things cannot be reported, cannot be indicted, and cannot be stopped except by people "invited" to join gives more credence than there should have ever been. It should never have been possible for him to have a legitimate complaint.

However, instead of anyone taking any measure to stop the mugging, we have, "Prove it!" and "I do not ever recall calling Giano a prima donna, you must provide a diff of exactly where" and "have you seen RDH's blog? it's worse than mine" (and therefore mine is ok) and "boo hoo the whiners don't want us to talk about blocking people anymore" and the like. They show no awareness of the impropriety, and therefore they cannot be trusted to internalize the rules of proper and improper discourse, to know the difference between venting (fine) and conspiring (bad). The toy must be taken away. Geogre 01:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I know there's a lot to follow here, and that much of it is complicated by the Byzantine social contructs we have where we discuss things that can't be repeated and often ignore actions that can, but the phrase "driving your family to SC" is so wonderfully opaque, and I am so blissfully ignorant of its cachet, that I now appropiate it for my own ends. Example usage:

<George> Whoah. brenneman! Did you _see_ the way Radiant! closed the List of songs that are lists of songs afd?

<brenn_cooking> Geogre-> Indeed I did! "Keep, useful?" He is clearly driving his family to SC.

I'd encourage you to also take up this shiny addition to the lexicon, but since you probably know what it is actually about I fear it would be taken amiss.

brenneman 12:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

ROFL. That's good! In fact, when I have driven to SC, it has inevitably been surreal. When I was a musician, lo those many years ago, we'd play in NC and TN and various places around the SE. Whenever we'd go through SC, though, we'd have the best time noticing the weirdness. For example, there was one Icon that was unignorable. There were bridges over vast inland seas where birds dropped from the sky, diving at the highway. There were friendly people with first class venues to play. When we sent out our e.p. back in 1984, we put in cardboard, and we'd write personal mesages on the sheets. (We were drunk, and it was late.) Many of them were things about driving to SC ("Help Save the Diving Highway Bird!" "Eat the Gaffney Peach!"). In all that time, though, I've never driven my family to or through SC. Geogre 13:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

A comment

I know that lots of people whom I wiki-care about are watching this page. A few months back, as a relative newbie, I tried to mediate or tame a quarrel between several of our more prominent editors. That didn't work out so well, and I am afraid that perhaps I don't have either the guts or the energy to slog through all the current round of contentious issues and try again. Suffice it to say that I really would consider it a fine New Year's present if we could get through whatever is currently being argued about without losing any contributors and without any more blood on the floor. Newyorkbrad 00:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Gosh, I didn't see this until the next year! Drat. Too late now. (starts mopping blood up off the floor, grumbling) – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 00:05, 1 Jan 2007 (UTC).

I'm pleased to make peace with GMaxwell. He was taking the brunt of my fury, and he rightly understood that its primary objects were otherwise. I have gone to his talk page (foolishly thinking it would load more quickly than this) to offer some grudging separate peace. My rage is directed, as always (and I mean always), at private clubs who see the users as cattle to deride, at people who spend their time on little IRC worlds where they can spit at article authors. JamesF|Away, for example, has already said that he views article authors as somewhat unimportant (on Wikipedia he has), so I doubt there is a way to reach him with reason or satire. His own sarcasm is generally two dimensional and entirely uninflected, showing less a sense of irony than bitterness. I'm not interested in getting along with him. He is irrelevant to me, and I, as a mere cog, am certainly unimportant to him, but I should be ever so happy if he and Kelly Martin and others did not use Wikipedia's resources as their private desmense to belittle everyone who questions them. That would be enough for me. They can think what they wish. They can call me names, if they want. (I suggest "frumpy intellectual" or even "frumpy pseudo-intellectual.") What they should not do, ethically or morally, is go off to private spaces where they can be sure that they cannot answer for their words and spend hours trying to drag down everyone else. That is simply a question of morality and justice. If they can promise me that, I'll be content. If they recognized that what they're doing is wrong, that would be a happy day indeed. I do not consider it "my job" to go looking for JamesF|Away and his opinions so that I may regulate them. (I thought his job was making the servers load faster? Shows what I know!) Geogre 01:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I have absolutely nothing to do with the servers; it does, indeed, raise questions about what else you "know".

James F. (talk) 19:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Or, of course, how integral you are to the project, or how famous you are, or how much time I spend worrying about you. Really, there are multiple choices. Geogre 20:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Well would you like to talk us through what exactly it is you do do - apart that is from making false statements about running IRC on IRC; because I for one would love to know. Giano 20:02, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

See, I never have. I know that makes me unfit as a person, not having a score card, not blogging about Wikipedia, not developing an Avatar, etc., but I have never really worried about how important JamesF|Away is or NotACow or anyone else, much, as I am stupid enough to believe that we're all equals. Thousands do not look to me every day for opinions. Geogre 20:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Scientific_citation_guidelines#Question_on_relationship_to_GA.2FFAC

I have been thinking for some time about your remarks regarding GA. It is difficult to arrange my thoughts, but I can say that I was cut to my soul... my civil servant's soul, that is.

All I can say is this: I am deeply, deeply grateful that you were not elected to ArbCom. Anyone who can belittle others simply because you disagree with their means of improving Wikipedia does not even have the right to self-nom or accept nomination. I deeply hope that your conscience will prick you and prevent you from accepting nom or self-nom again. In a word, you are simply mean.

I do not understand you. There are legions of vandals and trolls, and you attack people who only want the best for Wikipedia? I wonder if you felt satisfied after typing that. Did the world feel a little better, a little brighter to you? Did it satisfy you to belittle those who simply differ with you in their approach?

Pleased drop a line on my talkpage if you ever nom or self-nom for ArbCom again. I will happily vote "oppose" again.

Very sincerely, Ling.Nut 17:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

You don't understand that, but you feel motivated to go to people's talk pages to taunt them? Well, such is your pleasure, and hopefully you are satisfied now. Indeed, I do criticize and hold low opinions of people who, not writing a darned thing themselves, seek to overlay vast, picayune, templates of self-satisfaction. It is not improving Wikipedia to say, "Reject! Does not employ my citational style!" It is improving one's own self-satisfaction only. Oh, and one more very important thing: I have never been to the GA pages. I don't believe that there should even be such a thing as a "GA classification," so you are both inaccurate, misplaced, and hypocritical in your pretense to wounded soul, but it is your business to conduct yourself as you please. I do hope that you can be happy now and actually try to write something and, what would be better, understand what you read. Geogre 17:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

And I see that you count yourself as a person I described? Well, if you think the shoe fits, that's your own choice. I'm surprised that you regard yourself as that sort of unreasonable, unhelpful, pedestrian, mindless jackanapes, but the application is by your hand, not mine. Geogre 17:56, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Not taunting! Truly. Expressing myself openly and fairly. Was sort of hoping that someone who feels worthy of ArbCom would take a reasonable complaint by a reasonable editor (not a vandal, etc.) seriously. You don't. You don't bother to see any side but your own. Again, this is the precise opposite of what ArbCom needs.
Not gonna argue. Waste of time. --Ling.Nut 18:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, wait I see! You thought I was taunting you because of your ArbCom loss; rubbing salt in your wounds, etc.! Nope. For that tiny section, given that you misunderstood me, I apologize. I didn't mean to rub salt in any wounds; I was hoping you might consider other viewpoints. --Ling.Nut 18:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

So let me get this straight. I oppose the people who pick at articles for citational styles. I argue for months about the uselessness of people who, not having any research skills or knowledge of the area, decide that they can be superior by demanding Xref style instead of CiteXref style. I go on to say that these people have been camping out at FAC (and GA, I see now) and basically being parasites upon the people who are writing articles. You see that, and you say, "Hey, that's me!" You then cry yourself to sleep and decide that, instead of speaking up for your side or explaining your position, the person who had enough commitment to the FA and GA process to have a view had to be wrong for ArbCom, and you'd get even some day. So, my vote comes along, you vote, and then ... then ... I'm supposed to have noticed you? I'm supposed to feel bad? I'm supposed to have learned my lesson, that I need to fear the big dog and his insistence that articles meet his preferred citational style instead of demonstrating knowledge of the current field? I see. Well, if you think that I now feel horribly bad, the way that you did when you decided, on your own, to take my words as an application to you, then perhaps you'll know peace. That's what's important: that you get to elevate yourself. Don't worry: I will continue to denigrate the uneducated, inexperienced, petty, and childish views, to the degree necessary when necessary, if it means that we get some decent articles, and you can go right on thinking it's about people and your ego. Sheesh. Correct me if I have the narrative wrong, or, um, don't. Geogre 18:58, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Nah. You're not supposed to have noticed me. You're not supposed to fear anyone. I have no desire to elevate myself (?). I wasn't saying I was gonna get even (nor was I trying to rub salt in your wounds). I have no desire to do either of those. I have no problem with the fact that you disagree with me, not in itself. I was saying:

You are insulting to people who are trying to help the encyclopedia rather than hurt it.
You have no desire to hear any side other than your own.
Yes, I felt hurt.
You don't care. In the grand scheme of things, that's OK, but not for Arbcom folks.
All of the above are precisely the opposite of the characteristics of what an ArbCom person should have. You are simply too one-sided & too willing to belittle others. Therefore, I would vote to oppose you. Not out of revenge; out of reasoned deliberation.
Yes, I came here looking for an apology. Not gonna get one. We should call it a day.
However, if it is true that you were hurt by not getting ArbCom, and if it is true that my remarks rubbed salt in your wounds (rather than causing you to reflect...), then for that and that alone I do apologize.
That's all! I don't think I have anything else to say. Good luck with all you do. --Ling.Nut 20:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

And, um, when you felt so insulted, felt that there was some other side (which you didn't feel like pointing out to anyone), you figured that, instead of expressing it and seeking dispute resolution then, you'd wait a bit, get revenge, and then satisfy yourself? I'm sorry that I didn't worry about your feewings, but part of making Wikipedia better is the free flow of ideas and vigorous debate. It is not lying in wait. It is not nursing wounds. It is not revenge. It is not holding silent when the interests of the project are at stake. In fact, I consider the pickayune to be the death of good articles and featured articles. I consider the people who, demonstrating neither expertise on the subjects under discussion nor on professional standards nor on academic standards nor on encyclopedia editing, demand that all things conform to their Procrustean bed to be, like Procrustes himself, bandits. They are coming along at the end to hijack, not help. Show me any way whatsoever that X style vs. Y style, over-noting common facts, and lifting your left leg on articles is helpful.
On second thought, don't. You wouldn't when the discussion was underway, and doing so here, now, would do absolutely nothing.
I think you have such a profound misunderstanding of what dispute resolution is, as well as the health of intellectual conversation, that your vote's import diminishes by the second. I am happy, though, if you feel all better. Geogre 16:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Now, if I may, I think that we need editor coaching much more than we need admin coaching. If the best editors and experts were to hold forth on their styles, on the reasons why citations are different in different fields, on the way in which different topics require different approaches, not the "one citation style" or "one infobox (or any infoboxes) style" fits all, then that would be really good. There are plenty of editors who need to be brought up to the next level, to learn these things, and then go and undo what they've done in the past. And to educate the next wave of "wow, I can do this, I understand this, I... <splat> Huh? Why are you objecting to what I've been doing? <lesson> Oh, I see now! I really understand now. Thanks!" editors. The trouble is, there needs to be two things: (a) the will to be taught, and (b) the will to be patient and teach without caustically and metaphorically snapping people's heads off. Does that make sense? Carcharoth 18:52, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Crimes against civility

I couldn't agree more with this:

If you want Wikipedia to have a society and community of editors, then that means having one where people are occasionally snippy, occasionally unpleasant. No, you don't get to block them for that.

One thing that surprises me about Wikipedia is the obsession with civility here. The only other place I've heard of such verbal-slight policing is the House of Commons (perhaps there's good reason there), not somewhere we should be emulating. "Civility Parole"! Why the prison metaphor, for goodness sake? Maybe it's the family I come from, or the jobs I've done, but verbal attacks go in one ear and out the other with me—throw in a few basic assertiveness techniques ("let the attack run dry", "focus on the substance" etc.), and I get through life largely without the need of a high horse. If someone doesn't like me, I leave the problem with them.

I don't know Giano, but he has been bullied (maybe not directly, but by many small cuts, an accumulation of petty patronisations, jobsworth blocks, and passive-aggressive tickings off, and by a wholesale failure to attend to what he's actually been saying, all of which start to smell a bit like ganging up); and right now I'd like to give him a big hug (and of course he'd tell me f-off, LOL); but I've come across similarly highly strung, high-level contributors on history articles, like Ghirlandajo, an extraordinary article-worker and scholar, who has bitten mine and other peoples' heads off countless times, and dismissed the occasional unobjectionable edit with snappish summaries that do somewhat sting for a moment, but whom I admire enormously and who should, like Giano, be cut more slack (to use Fred's expression) for all his good work, in my opinion.

In Giano's case, should Wikipedia really be making "an example" of someone capable of expressions like "Oh, goody" and "the thread is so long it makes my eyes go funny", when there are so many truly nasty people attacking us from without, vandalising Wikipedia with their swearwords, insults, and stalking, damaging articles instead of contributing to them with hours, countless, countless hours, of loving, painstaking work (blockers should maybe have a look at the barnstar gallery before they press nuke). I know many people won't agree with this, but I'd like to see more slack being cut for heat-of-the-moment indiscretions on admin pages and user:talk pages, where the atmosphere gets disorientatingly newsgroupy at times and where it's so easy for people to run off at the mouth and splutter forth the odd stray mal mot. It's handbags at dawn, mostly, no more, from people trying to help the project. Wikipedia's civility policies are all very well, but I suggest we use them as advice for us to follow ourselves, not as rules to push in other people's faces.

Anyway, keep up your campaign. I suspect it's already having an effect, on the quiet. Gurch, who I'm sure is one of the good guys, says some people have stopped using the IRC channels. I predict that a degree of moderation will evolve as a result of the present talk, in every sense of the word. (Sorry about the Geogre-length missive.) qp10qp 20:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Seconded! -- Hoary 05:41, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Thirded! Example: Sarcasm isn't a personal attack. Usually. Oh, but YOU know what I'm talking about, DON'T YOU? Ha. -- weirdoactor ^t^|^c 05:48, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

You know, I'm thinking of making a graphic novel to explain the Giano situation. With the right images from Commons, it might be possible. :-) Here's the plot, though: "Look, there is a bulldog. I bet it's vicious." "No, it seems to be digging and eating right now." "Still, it's a vicious dog. Watch as I throw this rock at it." <dog growls> "That was a growl, not an attack. Get over yourself." "No, no, it's vicious, I'm telling you! It's just going to take another rock." "You should really stop that, you know." "It's a vicious dog!" "That's twelve rocks you've thrown, now." "This one will prove my point." <throws rock, hits dog on the head. dog bites at the man throwing rocks.> "Oh, no, you were right! I had better throw a bigger rock at it." "I told you!" <third person walks by> "That dog is absolutely crazy! I'm going to go get my gun." "It's a vicious dog. I always said so." "Maybe it wasn't, but it is biting, and we need to keep throwing rocks at it." <third and now fourth show up with guns> "We have to shoot it. It's a crazy dog and a public menace!"
Meanwhile, the others, who know the dog, are trying to get everyone to stop throwing rocks, but, by now, it's a public Shooting an Elephant situation.
I apologize to Giano for comparing him to a bulldog. It should have been a Neapolitan Mastiff, I know. Geogre 16:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I posted today about the Giano situation at RfAr talk (under the heading of UninvitedCompany's proposal, but with broader application). I happen to like, very much, the idea of a project where maintaining civility and avoiding personal attacks are core policies, and do my best to follow those guidelines myself, but the current situation is a mess, and I find myself out of suggestions. Newyorkbrad 16:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I very much try never to be impolite to people, but I also reserve the right, as we all should, to assess the motivations of the person speaking to me. For example, above, I thought, "Just another pile on, or someone who really missed the boat?" When I concluded that it was a cheap shot, I could have done nothing, could have tugged a forelock, or could have sneered. Being civil is not the same thing as being a milquetoast. Now, if someone misunderstands my intent, I will be at pains to correct them. If someone perceives as a "personal attack" a thing I meant as a philosophical point, I will usually be very pleasant about apologizing.
The thing is, we're in continual three-way tension. On the one hand, we have the principle of openness to all editors. This inevitably brings people with very strong points of view. So long as they do not insert these into articles, we should be unconcerned, but we are always going to have people of opposing and strong points of view who will see racist, ethnic, religious, or political slurs everywhere in the other "camp's" statements. On the other hand, we have the need to remain alive only so long as we can, without intimidation or hesitation, express our opinions freely to one another. My own rule of thumb on this matter has been to ask myself whether I am talking about Wikipedia and its way forward, our processes and how they can improve, and never the other person. I'm sure I've failed more often than I know in this, but it's the guideline I use. On the other other hand, we have the need to forbid intimidation by preserving "civility" and avoiding "personal attacks."
Each of these things, each of them, is impossible to determine solus. I cannot tell you that "Ling Nut" is not making a personal attack on me. He is talking about me as a person quite a bit, while I am generally talking about "people who do X and Y" and not even saying that he is one, except through self-identification. I would need a community to assess that. If there is no consensus in the community, then the default should be, "If you feel attacked, don't talk to him." "If you feel like you're being dragged through the mud because you blocked him after looking at a diff, which is a clip of a conversation, then use the noticeboards rather than your own judgment." Are these two going at each other for political reasons? How should I know? I have to get an RFC. Are these people so rude to me that the civility of the project is threatened, instead of merely my feelings? I need to ask the community.
I have one issue, only one: no unilateralism. No "conferring" where no one can have input or assessment follows from that. Related to unilateralism is speed -- which is the frequent justification for unilateral action. Is my insult to Ling Nut, if there is one, going to cause him to leave the project? Is it going to cause several to leave? Is your block of Giano going to make him leave? Is it going to cause several to leave? What, exactly, are your wounded feelings worth? The cesation of editing of three or four users? That's too high a price to pay for your pique.
Anyway, that's how I view the whole "insulting people" thing. John Milton, in Areopagitica, said it: "I cannot praise a private and cloistered virtue." Geogre 17:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm sure people with more experience with the facets of Wikipedia I avoid (tables and boxes and...things) would do it better, but my webcomic on this affair is now at user:Geogre/Comic. It's meant to amuse, and I'll delete it myself in a few days. Geogre 18:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  - Using <gallery tags works wonders. Hbdragon88 08:22, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

- I got experience with tables in HTML (anyone who authors pages should use tables for nearly everything...can't stand blob pages) because it was the Right Thing to do. On Wikipedia, I never have figured it out (or tried, actually). I thought about a gallery, but I didn't know that the images would have been legible. As it turns out, that was the answer, after all. It looks much better, now. Also, I'm getting feedback that the comic is working and explaining my position for me better than my screens. Perhaps I have a future in art! Geogre 14:11, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice webcomic, Geogre! Don't delete it. If this all blows over, there will be a place to immortalise it. Like WP:LAME (the dispute, not the comic). Carcharoth 19:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. What occurs to me, at the risk of saying here what I plan to repeat elsewhere tomorrow, is that no one talked to Giano. Oh, they talked at him. They put templates on his page. They assumed official voices and gave stentorian lectures, but no one filled with "concern" decided to listen to him. When we get irate and odd Bigfoot or Holocaust authors, we're supposed to take the time as administrators and go to their talk pages and shower them with "wiki-love" and try to turn them to good. We're supposed to find out what's bugging them. We're supposed to try to find out what compromise is possible. I've seen people talk to Bishonen about Giano. Some have even talked to me about Giano. People have asked me why Giano did X or said Y. No one went over to his talk page and said, "I really want to understand what's bothering you. User A and User B think that you've been insulting, and your comments look pretty harsh. What's the context here?" No, none of that. Warnings! Templates! Blocks to "cool off." (Blocks to cool off?) Threats every time the guy even uses flavorful language. Everything a threat, everything a repeated gesture of "I have power. I can determine your life and death. Speak to me from a position of pleading." Knowing what I do about the real person behind the screen name "Giano," that's such an amazing, outrageous thing as to simply beggar the imagination. While all of these people fear for their own dignity, they insist that the little regular user, Giano, have none. This is not a Bigfoot Believer, a holocaust denier, an anarchism = libertarianism spokesman, a religion is myth caller, or any of the nationalist/nativist battlers we are plagued with by the score. No. This is a guy who doesn't like three or four users who don't like him, either. He doesn't like them partly because they're incapable of living and letting live, and, of course, that is intolerable to them, and now there are even more who have learned from them to never allow anyone to live. That's why it's so despicable. (Uh...I didn't mean to go on a tirade.) Geogre 04:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Actual encyclopedia stuff

Hi Geogre. I'm expanding Serge Voronoff, and was wondering if you knew anything about Chateau Grimaldi. We don't have an article on it (I don't think), but look at the links I've put at the bottom of the Voronoff article, and at the bottom of the House of Grimaldi article. I vaguely remember someone round here doing architectural stuff - was that you? Carcharoth 18:41, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

PS. Any idea if I was right to equate Voronej with Voronezh? Carcharoth 18:43, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The answers, of course, would come from Giano. My architectural expertise is limited to knowing where to find the door and the toilet. Giano knew estates, manorial houses, and architectural history, and he did the best job of writing up the architecture with just enough of the history to go in to illuminate without sidetracking the thing. It's a rare skill, despite what anyone will tell you. Any fool can crib from a reference work. Any fool with a library can compile the data from multiple references. An actual author, an actually good author, can balance information, synthesize points of view, and manage to present a cogent argument that is NPOV and representative of contemporary scholarship. That's what Giano did. It's what Bishonen has done with elements of British history, Swedish history, and theatrical history. I'd like to think I hit that a few times, too. A good article is not Frankenstein wiki-itis, where, like a sticky bun in the trash can, bits are sticking out in all directions. Ghirla would help with the family names, I guess. It's too bad that these editors don't have what really counts: the ability to take a hundred templates dropped on them from new admins without the courtesy to converse with nothing but smiles. Geogre 04:27, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

- Is there a chance Giano is reading his talk page? Or even this talk page? What if I mangle together a 'sticky-bun' article on Chateau Grimaldi - would that horrific sight have an effect? :-) I'm still picking at the edges of Serge Voronoff, but I like the sources I've found (currently listed under external links) so I might summon up the energy to finish that off tonight. Carcharoth 12:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

You could try his talk page. It's one of those things, though: the entire project of "civility patrol" brings at least one editor to a grinding halt in defense and exoneration, if not in disgust and departure. It's possible that Giano looks in. I honestly don't know, one way or the other. When people who have been here ages say that we can't afford to keep losing our experienced editors, I don't think they're just being pleasant, while "vandal" hunters and "PAIN" sniffers will never know and cannot believe. Geogre 13:02, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. Carcharoth 13:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear. I've just seen his talk page. He's dumped it on me! :-) I think that's a compliment! Now, I have to find some sex scandel story about one of the Grimaldi cardinals... Carcharoth 18:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

See? It's absolutely invaluable to have folks like that. I've honestly not seen him be rude to anyone who goes to talk with him, but going to talk about him or at him may get a rude response. Why aren't more people interested in the world we're supposed to be writing about, I wonder. Geogre 23:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, looking at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Motions_in_prior_cases, the arbs can't agree on what to do either. I know it was the principle of the thing that led Giano to exit, but I think this latest episode has got through to some people that their actions were not helpful. Talking of other things, I ran into a brick wall on the Grimaldi chateau, though I did learn some interesting things about the geography of Provence. Mcginnly was kind enough to help out. The problem was that there seem to be lots of Chateau Grimaldis (both formally named and informally named). Serge Voronoff is coming on a bit though - I have to do a rewrite though, as I'm parrotting the sources a bit too much. Carcharoth 03:17, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Wetman might be the guy to approach - he seems to have a copy of half of the British Library in his study relating to architecture. --Mcginnly | Natter 03:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Not really, but I'm a genius Googler! Happy New Year, tovarich. --Wetman 06:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Spaceba, tavarich Irpen. (I don't know if that's how it's transliterated or not.) I certainly hope the year brings us what brought us to Wikipedia: adding to the sum of free information available to the world. Geogre 13:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

My failing memory

Special:Contributions/Buffywinchester

There was something about some Winchester-esque sockpuppets who claimed to be a bevy of lovely women who all lived together, but I can't remember what. Since of course my mental model hops straight from "harem" to "Geogre" and I faintly recall you being involved in said previous drama can you:

A) Tell me what it is I'm on about? And

B) Tell me if this winchester is related?

Cheers big ears,
brenneman 05:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeesh. I'm not recalling. Not exactly. Bells are ringing, and not for New Year's Day, but exact issues are evading me. Did we ever find the B-Movie Bandit? Hmmm. Not a Wolfster.... Was it a squat-and-run supersubstub dropper? No...my memory fails me, and therefore I fail you. Geogre 13:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

While I'm worrying your user page...

I've waxed lyrical in a somewhat philosophical manner on Cyde's talk. While urging him to allow mental space for viewpoints other than his own, I'd like to gaurd against my own shortsightedness: Can you point me to someone you strongly disagree with while respecting the manner in which they present their opinions? My mental model seems to be "people I agree with mostly" vs "rude and dismissive" and I want someone alien to triangulate for me.
brenneman 07:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, my yes. User:Badlydrawnjeff and I couldn't agree on much. He dislikes most deletions, and I think "deleted" is the natural state of all articles. At the same time, he is concerned with increasing rather than decreasing our debate, with showing care over our decisions. He gets a fit of pique, like I do, but I genuinely respect the fact that he works hard for his point of view without ever losing respect for common rules for all. User:Sjakkalle and I similarly disagree on many issues, but he thinks, remains calm, and respects thoughtfulness and the position a person takes. I've been honored to support him and be supported by him, even though, on philosophy, we're not in sync at all about the include/exclude standards. Now, in case "deletionism" and "inclusionism" seems like no big deal (and it can only seem that way, I think, if you really have never seen one of the arguments), user:Kim Bruning and I disagree on major points of philosophy on Wikipedia, and yet, even though we have debated vigorously, he and I get along well. User:Everyking has been very angry with me in the past, and I have with him, and yet I am pleased to say that we still talk to one another with respect. I have no doubts at all in his intelligence and ability.
The list is actually kind of long. That may be because I disagree with loads of people and reflect badly on me, but I think it reflects well on Wikipedia, to tell the truth. We need disagreement. We need respectful debate. We need people who can tell the difference between the desirability or undesirability of a philosophy or action and the desirability or undesirability of a person. We also need to avoid the dangers of monoculture. The moment we agree, we stop talking, and when we stop talking, we stop altogether. The moment we agree with each other entirely, we are ossified.
The whole idea of limited on-wiki debate while revelling in the lack of standards for off-wiki debate is poisonous, at least to me. Geogre 13:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Something we can agree on....

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Personal attack intervention noticeboard--Doc^g 20:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

... although I'm not sure Geogre or anyone else agrees on soliciting for votes... —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

....I'm not, we conspired ........ on IRC...--Doc^g 21:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

No we didn't! We conspired right out in the open! opps i dint mean to say that I'm so there. Geogre 21:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't be concerned about soliciting !votes in this context. The idea of discontinuing the "PAIN" page actually started as a thread on ANI, and no one would raise an eyebrow about one admin bringing a discussion on that board to another's attention. The fact that the discussion about changing the procedure for dealing with these types of reports migrated to MfD for basically a procedural reason (since it could involve deleting a project page) doesn't, to me, change the essential nature of the discussion. Comparatively few people watch MfD and I've never understood why only those who become aware of the discussions there by basically random chance should be the only ones whose input is to be considered. Newyorkbrad 22:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Dude, I think he was joking. I wasn't joking, though, when I said that we did conspire in the open. AN/I was clear on the subject, and I'm very, very vocal on the subject. I'd be an "interested party" and "involved party" in any case. Geogre 22:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
My remarks were supposed to be light-hearted. I normally find that breaks the ice with people you often seem to disagree with. IRC discussions on things like this should not be problematic, even if people on IRC do come to a mind (and they normally don't in my experience) the decision will be made on-wiki, at MfD.--Doc^g 22:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

We all agree; I was merely (over)reacting to Bunchofgrapes' small comment. Overapplication of the anti-"solicitation" guideline so as to constitute a barrier legitimate discussion is one of my own pet peeves and I had just posted to ANI on the same general subject (but in a completely different context) before seeing and commenting in this thread. Newyorkbrad 22:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I made it small because I knew it was stupid, even if I wasn't exactly joking. I felt pretty sure Geogre would catch it on AN/I before it was too late anyway. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Mine too Brad. I once tried to make a point on this on this very page, and got summarily shot down by Geogre. So I can see where B of G was comming from. Paul August ☎ 04:26, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, for what it is worth, even though I've always felt strongly that that page was counterproductive, I would probably never have noticed that MfD, if Doc had not posted here. Paul August ☎ 04:32, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

It's interesting. I think we all would have missed it for the very reason that we are all agreeing with deletion: long time administrators generally don't go there. I.e. the people who have the ostensible trust of the community don't go to PAIN, for whatever reason. I suspect that our reasons differ, but I'm certainly not alone in avoiding the page because, quite frankly, "intervening" against "personal attacks" strikes me as very, very un-wikipedia. I remember back in my youth the model was "talk and love up on them until your face is blue and your fingers fall off," and this was with people who were pushing POV and fighting their civil wars on our pages. The idea that we'd rush in to slap someone for saying, "I hate you and hope you die" but not when someone goes along and changes the spelling of place names with a nativist point of view is moronic. This is even without what actually happened at WP:PAIN recently, where a group of people had set themselves up as masters of manners. It had gone from a bad idea, IMO, to a haven for wanna be Donald Wildmons. Geogre 05:20, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

May I point you to this discussion, Geogre? People want to build a bot to count the number of warning templates people have received. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:14, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I think while we we've been slogging it out on other issues, we failed to notice that the Wikipedia silly season has begun. I assumed that bot was a joke.--Doc^g 02:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Bots are remarkably humorless. I'm uneasy with all of them, and they seem to be multiplying faster than bunnies. Some of them are running for admin. President Bot is coming soon. :-( If such a bot were to ever be used, I'd issue myself as many warnings as I had time for and encourage every other "respected" Wikipedian of like mind to do the same. The least I could do would be to make the data as useless as a template that has been slapped via squat & run tactics. (Ask me how I feel about "Some part of this article may need to be improved" templates shot at an article by some reader who, if you can pin him against a rock and force him to confess, couldn't understand the big words in one sentence and didn't bother to tell anyone and thought that templates were as much communication as was due.) Geogre 04:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

That would be a rather pointed response, though. If you look at the ANI thread you will see that I was the first to express any reservations about this bot, but let's see if it is technically feasible, clears bot approvals (where one can object to a proposed bot if one feels it's counterproductive), and see how it works out. Newyorkbrad 04:23, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Saying we should wait until another venue to express our reservations is a bit more process-centric than makes sense to me. Besides, as I understand it, it's not technically a bot: it wouldn't make any on-wiki changes. It's more like a toolserver script or something. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

No, no; sorry if I wasn't clear; tonight's discussion on ANI is a perfectly appropriate venue and I see that Geogre has posted his concerns there. It's the suggestion of deliberately issuing bogus warnings to (further) impair the usefulness of the bot I was objecting to, while simultaneously pointing out that there would be an additional forum (not an exclusive forum) in which to raise any concerns. Newyorkbrad 04:39, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it would be POINT at all, actually. POINT applies to disrupting stuff to make a statement. In my view, there are no rules about how much justification you need to apply a warning template, so there would be nothing wrong with warning myself not to use Omer Englebert for hagiographies, warning myself that the Charlotte Charke article needs to be modified, warning myself that I haven't added anything to the John Arbuthnott article about the Treatise on Political Lying, despite getting the only in-print book with it in it a few weeks ago, etc. In other words, the reason we have a brouhaha about templates and their removal is that there is no justification one needs to offer before employing them. If we were sure that each template were applied justly, then we could conclude that there was some natural function to watching their removal. In the absence of such, though, there is nothing good or bad about warning you, warning bish, warning myself, and warning Jimbo.

You'll be relieved to know, though, that the argument I actually made was very strongly worded, perhaps a little irrascible, but not so POINTy. Geogre 04:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I can tell that if I am thinking of taking myself to an RfA I'd better do it soon before you start deluging my page with these things. :) Newyorkbrad 04:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of RfAs, have you seen the discussion at WT:RFA, where the idea of expanded portfolios is considered. I've always wanted to do that, but my best attempt so far is at User:Carcharoth/Contributions, and is woefully incomplete. Carcharoth 04:56, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Though I do see several worrying trends in my edit count summary: (1) My Wikipedia namespace contributions are now more than 50% of my mainspace contributions; (2) WP:AN and WP:ANI are 2nd and 4th respectively in my WP edits tally; (3) I spend nearly as much time on this talk page as on my own! :-) The 'good' points are 3864 unique articles and 12494 edits (though are third of those are probably tweaks or typos not picked up by previews). I can proudly say that I have never confessed... but I am unfortunately on this list. Oooh! Very interesting!! Am I going to delete what I've written here? Hell, no. :-) Am I going to do this again? Probably. :-) Carcharoth 05:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Huh? Oh, here we go. Carcharoth 05:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Omphalos means navel? Uhh...hmmm.... Granted, it never showed up in Homer and so never in the Greek I took, but I always thought the omphalos was a weenie, and, although most of us men do meditate upon ours, I've not known such meditation to bring peace or mystical revelations. To me, and I will speak only for myself, breadth is the most important thing in an RFA. There is, however, one specialization where I'd support a person, and that's a specialization on AN and AN/I, esp. if the person is giving sage and/or helpful advice. I suppose, given recent events, I am lucky that I went up in the early days, before vote totals routinely went to 150. The big thing is just to know the rules and processes of the site. A person can be utterly disagreeable to me, but if that person wants to stay between the lines, that's what counts. Talk page edits...well...my user:Geogre/People People sounds like the "...is a MMPORG." The various projects are like the "islands" that the Ultima people go to. "Get something deleted/kept" and "Get someone blocked" would be the missions. Yeah, I don't like that game. Geogre 13:42, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Your comment on my RFA

Hi Geogre, thanks for your comment, albeit an oppose, in my RFA. I was hoping you could clarify exactly where it is I fall short in your opinion as I found your remarks somewhat cryptic! Cheers! Budgiekiller 22:57, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for being vague, as I wanted to avoid giving offense. Essentially, it was the same concern voiced by others -- article space edits. My own view is that we, as administrators, can specialize -- indeed, we almost invariably must -- but, at the same time, we should try to get experience in as many parts of the ongoing project as we are able. For example, few things are more alien to me than images, and yet I have tried to get some experience with uploading, tagging, and negotiating them. The larger the portion of Wikipedia a thing is, the more we need to know its ins and outs, and I think writing and editing articles is the largest part of Wikipedia. Protecting them, for example, gets a very high profile among administrators, but defending against vandals is a largely invisible and less common part of the project than writing and pruning and clarifying articles. My advice, for my own outlook, is simply more editing. You can take a particular interest, as you already have done, but it's good to try to work up and out somewhat.

At any rate, it was not intended to be a condemnation, just a demurral at this point in time. Geogre 02:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks very much for you clarification. All the best! Budgiekiller 10:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Of frumenty, salt cellars and fire-breathing swans

Greetings, Geogre.

The subtlety has a-risen from its source-barren slumber and spawned not just a main article, but a new-found interest in (if not obsession of) food and medieval history alike. I'm pushing medieval cuisine towards an FAC, but I feel it would benefit from a close scrutiny by an experienced writer like yourself. Would you be interested in some qualified copyediting?

Peter ^Isotalo 13:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Fantastic! I am looking forward to looking over it. No guarantees that we'll pass by the bridgekeepers at the Bridge of Death that FAC has become ("What is your name? What is your quest? Why did you use an adverb when my style guide suggests that adverbs are too difficult to understand and everyone should know to remove all adverbs before trying for FA?"), but I will give it a poke. Geogre 13:51, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
- Maaahvellous. There are still a few sections that need to be written or re-written (see the underlined comments in the to do-list on the talkpage), but I'm fairly optimistic about the FAC since the topic seems to be a very pleasant crowd-pleaser. Your copyediting will probably help somewhat against the hair-splitters, and I even had a genu-wine expert on the subject, Andrew Dalby, help out. Besides, few people seem to know that much about medieval food and are only happy to learn more about it. / Peter ^Isotalo 15:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I've looked, but I need to get my mind right, tune my ears, and try to help without hurting. Mainly, I see some issues in the lead where the language is a little ... obstructed. It shows signs of too frequent editing, in other words, which is a natural development in leads heading for FAC. (Hell, "my" Augustan literature omnibus articles have leads I still don't like.) I will edit with the clear understanding that you may rollback, revert, or ignore any change I make, exactly at your pleasure, with no need to consider my feelings. I will usually have a reason for a change, but everything is optional. If there is something that's an actual error instead of a preference, I'll be sure to let you know on the talk page. Geogre 04:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello

Hi Geogre - I've noticed you around alot in the time i've been here, and respect your work enormously. You seem very fluent in this medium, and able to communicate complex ideas and opinions clearly - no mean feat.

So i thought i'd canvas your opinion on the Intelligent_Design article, which for some reason has been on my watchlist for ages, thows up issues that crop up all over the wiki, and bothers me occasionally. There's a very active group that do a great job of defending the article from the many nonsense peddlers attracted to the article, but i sometimes find them entrenched in defending what isn't actually a very good article.

I find the opening particularly weak - in particular the definition of ID as a concept, then the connection with every proponent to the DI. Does this seem flawed to you? I've had many goes at prodding the group, but it's very hard to push for change without a very strong alternative proposal (for my part I would simply say that ID is a teleological argument at the opening, not a concept). Your first-glance appraisal would be valued.....

oh, and nice to meet you!

Petesmiles 08:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right that it's a teleological argument. Philosophically, it is teleological and a deductive theory, but culturally the thing is something so unlike what it is philosophically that I can understand why no one can say an uncontroversial word. The other thing is that it's a really, really, really old argument, one that, by itself, doesn't fit with all the appropriation people have been doing.
It's made worse by the fact that some of the biggest supporters of it are hostile to philosophy and, and this is where it bites us, theology. I could survive their being anti-"seckalirism," but the fact that they're emerging from congregational churches and don't realize that, buffet style, they're picking up pieces of theology without sitting down for a full meal bugs me.
Shoot, I think Bede argued that a thing in the Bible could be literally untrue and be theologically, spiritually, and apocalyptically entirely true. I'll look at the article -- a thing that might necessitate goggles and a welder's mask -- and see how the lead looks.
Nice to meet you, too. Geogre 13:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me. --the Duke of Wellington. I'm not fond of the current page, and I've tried to improve it without success. Its defenders tend to assume that any proposed change is an ID plot. At the same time, I'm glad for their presence. Much as I disagree them on many things, I'd much rather have them in control than the ID believers. But, if you're going to stick your head into the lion's den, I'll happily join you if I may. Regards, Ben Aveling 21:54, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I like the Wellington quote. The people on patrol for "POV pushers" don't need to be all that well informed, but they shouldn't be patrolling for The Right Version. If they're there to keep the ID down, that's the job of the superego, and one can hope that they're able to see sense. If they're not, then they have become as much of a problem as the Jesus Camp people. Geogre 12:11, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Pardon me for butting in, but is ID properly described as an argument or concept? Looking from the outside, its proponents seem to flourish mainly in the US, and the vast majority of subscribers are found there as well. To me it looks like a social and political phenomenon that got started when Young Earth Creationism found political backers.

Am I incorrect to say that in that regard (influential backers of a silly idea) there are similarities to Ayn Rand's Objectivism, which no one outside the US takes serious? Dr Zak 18:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I won't willingly stick my hand in the wasp's nest of "how silly is Objectivism," but the analogy is apt in that both get their primary boost from external political fears and tensions. Randianism, for example, got a big shove from the anti-Communist paranoia in the US in the early 1950's. "ID" is getting its juice from ... well, it's controversial, but I think "permanent underclass" plus "agrarianism eroding gracelessly" plus "community destruction by the displacement of workers from their towns" would be a start to explain the peculiar flavor of fundamentalism in the US right now. At any rate, I do think, yes, that there is intelligent design, which was a compromise position with geology, and "Intelligent Design," which is a movement to get creationism back into the curriculum. Basically, the people who had been defeated with "Creation Science" grabbed an old and respectable philosophical position and began to wave it like a banner. "See? We're not morons! We are philosophers!" Well, the philosophers are philosophers, but the users of the philosophy are no more rational than the appropriators of Nietzsche in Nazi Germany were. Whenever something mellow and dusty gets in the news, there is something other than thinking going on. Geogre 18:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

In other nations, when society is coming apart, a dose of socialist ideas would be demanded by the populace and politicians would offer those up. Now why is it that just in the US a substantial part of the electorate feels that it's the Word of God (or rather what they call "Word of God") that will provide security for themselves? Dr Zak 12:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I could be wrong, of course, but what I see much more consistently through history is a retreat into communalism more than Communism during times of social stress. The US isn't coming apart, exactly: it is being evacuated like a corpse at the funeral home. Its center is getting taken away, while its work load increases, its productivity skyrockets, and its wealth keeps flowing. In all externals, the US is doing great. However, since the turn of the last century, it has had a lot of trouble with capitalism's moving of people away from home and into "work" and "work's" ability to tell people where they should make their homes. Why did people migrate before? Now they migrate 3 times in their adult lives, on average, because "work" tells them to. That makes the village green a bit hard to know, to touch, to feel. Unlike the Unabomber, I don't think it's a simple matter of killing the machine, but what happens when stresses like this reinforce one another is that anything that promises certainty, and especially certainty that can be ported from place to place like work, is going to get pretty sexy. If that also gives hierarchies of small communities that can be instantly dissolved and reestablished, it's better still. Most important of all, though, is the ability to tell good from bad, and I do not mean Betty Bowers-styled finger wagging: I mean the ability to tell good from bad within yourself. It isn't that you need to condemn the foreigners and gays, but that you need to know how you're doing, need to know that you're ok, need to know that you're important. Marxism used to offer some of this, and it's no surprise that its zealous practitioners are in places where the industrial machine is chewing up the agrarian world, but fundamentalism does all of these things better, much, much better. Geogre 12:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I need to point it out, but I say this as a religious person who will be going to church in a couple of hours. I.e. I truly believe in Christianity, but I think Christianity is being attacked by fundamentalism more than it's helped. There is a wonderful poem by Robert Lowell that I recommend to everyone. It's about a town after Jonathan Edwards comes through and has a great revival. It's called After the Surprising Conversions, originally in Lord Weary's Castle. The poem can be found for free on the Poetry Foundation website, so everyone can read it. What happens after the scary Calvinism of fundamentalist "conversion?" What happens after the utter depravity gets preached? Well, Lowell explains what used to happen pretty well: people slit throats. Geogre 12:48, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Happy new year

Hello - just back. I hope all is well with you. Commiserations on the election result. I see there are - ahem - other recent events to catch up upon.

While I compose myself, would you or another interested person please review the speedy deletion of boudoir. It claimed to be an "exact replica of an article previously deleted" but it was not - my new article was stubby, and included the old deleted information, but it also had a new paragraph, and an image, and but not . Compare this and this (hope these undeletion links work). -- ALoan (Talk) 12:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right, of course. The deleted version was a supersubstub and should have been deleted. It could have been speedy deleted A1, for that matter. However, there was editing after you made the article. The place to go is DRV. It's going to be a slam dunk. I'll list it, if you'd like. Geogre 14:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Despite being an old hand at "voting" on DRV, this is the first time I've listed something. I also posted to the guy who did the speedy delete. I'm sure all involved were just mistaken. Geogre 14:13, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - that seems to be the right thing. In the old days, I would just have been bold and undeleted it, but...

What on earth happened on Christmas Eve? -- ALoan (Talk) 15:17, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Lots of main page vandalism, that's what! Where are you looking at the moment? Do you want more links? Carcharoth 15:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I think ALoan is referring to the Christmas Eve welcoming of peace that went on on the en.admins.irc channel. What happened was actually not very unusual, which is all the worse. The usual persons were congratulating themselves on being wonderful and complaining that everyone else is clueless and annoying and an "idiot." You know: the people who are cooooool were hanging out with each other and assuring each other that they are cool because everyone else is stupid and should be blocked/banned/sent away so that they could no longer hinder the coooooool people. In other words, our High School Confidential crew were holding court and holding forth. Seeing it, I decided that what bothered me most was not the self-deception they live by but the utter cowardice necessary for hiding in an invitation-only sub-channel to spread their lies. If they want to spend their time telling each other how wonderful they are, it's no skin off my nose, but they're not able to be good without denigrating others. Some rise by merit, others by trying to drag the worthy down. Geogre 16:47, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I entirely follow the intricate ins and outs of the situation, nor that this is the best place for a blow-by-blow account, but thanks. I am trying to catvh up on 3 weeks! -- ALoan (Talk) 17:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

On-Wiki, Christmas Eve developments included a wheel war over whether to block Santa Claus, resulting in threats of an arbitration case. Newyorkbrad 18:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Seriously? Carcharoth 18:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, most seriously. When I get home from my trip I can dig out the links. Newyorkbrad 20:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Faff! That was nothing. :-) There were giant penises springing up at left and right:

That was my Christmas Eve. Though I do remember seeing Santa Claus as well. Carcharoth 18:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

And the endgame is playing out at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ProtectionBot. Carcharoth 18:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Bots is stupid. Just because we're all stupid some of the time and forget to protect stuff, that's no justification for using something guaranteed to be even more stupid. Geogre 18:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Everybody knows this is where all the cool kids hang out anyways... All the best to ya this year Geogre, me old trout! Hamster Sandwich 19:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not cool. I'm hip! (As the sage who turns 60 today said, "It's cool to be hip, but it's not hip to be cool.") I just throw rocks at the kids who toss their frisbees in my yard and rattle my cane at the life passing me by. Geogre 19:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Funny you should have mentioned him, I've been listening to Low on more or less a loop for the past week. Great music to house-clean by... Regards, Hamster Sandwich 20:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I still think that Scary Monsters and Heroes are the greatest, but Low is a masterpiece. Stuck in my CD player has been Vashti Bunyan's Lookaftering. It replaced the new Yo La Tengo record, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass. I tend to have one intense and one thoughtful record in rotation, so, before that, it was Drive-By Truckers alternating with Discreet Music. Geogre 11:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I have been enjoying the company of the Wompom and its friends (It's a triumph, it's a treasure, Oh there's nothing that a Wompom cannot do).. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

That would be the comedy album, right? A Bestiary? Geogre 14:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The comedy album?! But yes, Flanders and Swann. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Just for you.

I found this, enjoy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-newton/ -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 11:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Tortorous but really interesting. The problems they're hitting are the problems of the 18th century and skepticism. "Satire is a sort of glass wherein people see every body's face but their own," as Swift said, but the same can be said in reverse of skepticism. It's a sort of universally reflecting mirror: everyone agrees with the questioning and sees it motivated by his own point of view. Contextualizing Hume, really reading him as a skeptic, is an important project, and the prior views of Hume are all correct and all incomplete. Good article, if thick. Geogre 13:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, and in my humble view, the article begins to grasp the nettle much ignored in past viewings and reviewings of past philosophers like both Hume and Newton is the essential ahistoricity and dare I say it rampant presentism of the treatements. Seeing the past through the present and only the present, or at best through what came after, and not the foundations afore and contemporaneus to the subjects. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 15:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, but I forgive Hume scholars more than I ever would Newtonians, because Hume is writing in a skeptical and satirical mode, and therefore determinations of intent are slippery. We get his positive values by their stated negatives, and that makes people imagine things that are not so. I prefer always to see writers of all stripes, and especially philosophers, in a constant dialog. That kind of approach can get nutty, but it's a good corrective to the Immortal Ideas wafting down views and the teleological assessments. Geogre 15:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's put it this way: is all history, including history of philosophy, doomed to teleology? E.g. the best history of the novel out there remains Rise of the Novel. We've all shot holes in it, but, damn it, no one can really see anything being better. "Oh, he missed Hellenistic novels!" Yes. "Oh, he pays too little attention to women!" Yes. "Oh, but he misses the formal intertextuality!" Sort of. However, the one stopper to it is that it's inherently teleological: it sees the history as leading to the present, and therefore, almost genetically, the traits that would continue to the next generation of novelists get valued over those that went extinct. This family-tree approach to history means that the past is measured by its utility to the present, and they are correct who say that all history is a history of the present day. However, can we ever break that? Can we ever look at Hume and not see ourselves? We're a nervous age, an age of questions. We dislike answers and hate dogmatism of all sorts, so we like Hume, but do we like him as Hume or as a father? If it's not possible to shed the teleological bias of history entirely, is it even worth the effort? I believe that it is worth the effort, because approaches like the dialogic method show us things -- maybe things about ourselves, and maybe I only think I'm seeing things because I'm nervous and dislike dogmatism -- but I cannot gleefully or ruefully abandon the quest to extinguish bias of the present on history, and yet I cannot be sure that anything can accomplish it. Geogre 16:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, nuff said. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 16:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Nataliya Dmytruk

Take a look at Nataliya Dmytruk after this edit. Also look who uploaded Image:Nataliya Dmytruk.jpg. The change between a free use image and a fair use image took place here. I found this free image while going through User:Irpen's upload log.

We could all have saved ourselves a lot of trouble by simply switching back to the free image instead of debating the issue of replaceability. I also entertained the idea of leaving a message at User talk:Irpen about why it is wrong to substitute a free image with a fair use image, but I think that he or she already knows this. --Oden 16:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

My RFA

Hey, thanks for participating in my recent RFA. You were amongst a number of editors who considered that I wasn't ready for the mop yet and as a consequence the RFA did not succeed (69/26/11). I am extremely grateful that you took the time to advise me on to improve as a Wikipedian and I'd like to assure you that I'll do my level best to develop my skills here to a point where you may feel you could trust me with the mop.

I've been blown away by the level of interest taken in my RFA and appreciate the time and energy dedicated by all the editors who have contributed to it, support, oppose and neutral alike. I hope to bump into you again soon and look forward to serving you and Wikipedia in any way I can. Cheers! The Rambling Man 19:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC) (the non-admin, formerly known as Budgiekiller)

Saint Lazarus

Thanks for your message. Looks like it is indeed Lazarus from the parable that's the saint.[1] My understanding of the Catholic understanding, however, is that the parable shows Lazarus to be not seen in heaven but in the limbo of the fathers (=bosom of Abraham in Catholicism). Jonathan Tweet 15:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

True, and sloppy of me. However, I still don't think that the limbo of the fathers is quite not-Heaven, even if it can't be heaven, so I tend to slip up and say that it's heaven. I know, though, that the scholastics figured it to their satisfaction. At any rate, there was another "leper Lazarus," later, but the subject of early saints gets really obscure (cf. Pudentiana. Geogre 18:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Think about it...

Geogre, I've given up on this debate. It will have no outcome that is good for the encyclopedia. And none that will satisfy you, or from a very different perspective me. At the moment, it looks like you are either feeding trolls, or (from where I'm standing) demanding food yourself. If you can't say anything that's realistically likely to make things better, consider unwatching AN for a while. I find a stiff whisky helps. --Doc^g 00:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Seconded, with great lashings of double cream. I'm urging everyone who is, err, passionate about this to try stepping back a bit. - brenneman 00:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

That's actually not true, now that I think about it: I'm urging those I think are both correct and not presenting it well to do so. Still mean it about the cream. - brenneman 00:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Whisky and cream? Yuck.--Doc^g 00:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

You may have given up on it, but I've been pretty reasonable. I have asked what good an elite IRC channel could do. David Gerrard says that it's for Jimbo and Danny to speak to trusted admins. Well, it has non-admins there, so what good is it? Others have said it's for speed, but I think we've established that it's no faster and certainly less effective than AN/I, because it depends on the channel being populated at the time and needs them to care and be informed. So, what use is it? Chatting? Ok, so why an elite place to chat? Because the regular channel is too full? What's wrong with those people, and why not try to fix it?
No good can come from its existence that anyone can demonstrate, really. So what harm can come? Well, we've established that with evidence already.
So, if no good can come from it above what is available by better media, and if bad has come from it, and if the bad actors are in power and, as David Gerrard gleefully asserts, can tell ArbCom to go flip itself, then how is being quiet the proper response?
You may not believe that the bad actors are bad actors. Fine. Imagine that you were the subject of their in absentia trials. Imagine that a new user you like were their victim. Imagine that an abrasive user you knew were their target. Who would slam on the brakes, if the ops were intent on threatening (proven) the people who urge them to sanity? Again, how is this balanced by a good that can't be obtained in a better venue and by a better method?
Most of all, though, I do not think that you have the right, nor Cowman, nor anyone else, to tell me when the issue is done. You may have found it useless to continue, but that does not mean that I have to agree. I do not demand that other people agree with me, after all. That is critical: none of us should decide for all the others that the discussion is fruitless. Let people make up their own minds. Trust them to stop talking when they feel like there's nothing to say.
I regard "archiving" discussions like that to be ultimately paternalistic and patronizing, if not a little aggressive, and so I thoroughly disagree with anyone, including me, telling everyone else to shut up. Shutting up, after all, is our death. Geogre 00:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Aye, here's the rub: I agree with all of the above.

If I may apparently digress for a moment, imagine that I became aware (the details how are unimportant) that Tony Sidaway was in fact Willy on Wheels. Would it be a good idea for me to post the information on Tony's talk and/or ANI, for all the world to see? Or might it be better if I passed the standard on to someone else, someone able to deliver the message without becoming a lightning rod?

I think we're well past the point that you (or Giano) can contribute anything constructive to these discussions regardless of how right you are. On the one hand a core of dissenters will ignore you anyway. On the other hand some neutral spectators may be dissafected by your, *ahem* emphatic oratorical style. On the gripping hand, I'd rather have you writing articles.

I'm not asking, by any stretch, that this issue be left to wither on the vine. Despite the occasional peccadillo of e-mail cabal-hood on my part, you cannot doubt that I agree with the concept of an open and transparent decision making process. Nor would I hope that you doubt my tenacity.

But I find, to my suprise, that I'm developing patience in my dotage. I believe that the solution here is not more passionate discourse, nor a repeated airing of past grievances, but a rather more stately debate. Something that the noticeboard is a poor fit for providing.

brenneman 01:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Aaron, I would have no problem being patient if I thought the bad behavior weren't having on-wiki consequences. I really don't care if five people want to congratulate each other all night long, but I do have a problem with them doing so only by degrading everyone else. What happens is that all the new administrators hear your name or mine or Giano's or Bishonen's always with an epithet. I've insisted on building my reputation solely by my work and my ideas and never promoting myself. However, ensuring that no one listens to a particular voice is easy, if you have friends and time on IRC.

Part of the problem is, of course, with the gullible me-too kids who come along. They don't think independently, but we all, sooner or later, realize that few people on Wikipedia are mature, secure, or wise enough to think very independently. When no "other side" is even allowed, the chance for free, independent, and careful assessment gets slimmer.

Again, even that wouldn't bother me except for the targeting and persecution of users. Mainly it has been Giano, but the fact that the people behind it are unrepentent and insistent that they should bear no bridle on the IRC channel while all others must only "think happy thoughts" on Wikipedia is an atrocity of intellect. If they behaved as they expect others to behave, all would be well. If they expected others to behave as they behave, we'd be in a mess, but an honest one.

Finally, though, it's about blocking. I don't block people who disagree with me or call me names. These people coordinate blocks and encourage blocks. It used to be one of the greatest sins an administrator could committ, to drive away a contributor. Now, we have frank discussions on IRC about how everything would be better without the contributions of this or that editor. By 2003 standards, that's simply unthinkable. By their standards, it seems to be the way to beauty and harmony. I don't care what they say to themselves. I care what they do to others. Geogre 04:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

- I'm not going to debate with you. You are utterly convinced you are right. Others (including me) think otherwise. Nothing is going to be resolved.
- You think the channel should be shut down, or the folk you don't like should be removed. You are utterly convinced that such actions would be justified and in Wikipedia's best interests. I understand that. But it is obviously not going to happen. I understand your frustration and sense of injustice. Because, similarly, I think Giano should reprimanded/restricted for gross incivility, and those who have fed off his nastiness put back in their boxes. I am utterly convinced that would be justified and in the best interests of Wikipedia. I find arbcom's failure to do so totally bewildering and unfair. But I recognise that this is also not going to happen. There is a time to quit. There is a time to say 'me being right here is not helping things', 'I need to learn to get over the stupidity I am witnessing'. Because, there is only one end-game here, and that is we all drop it, and learn to live with it. We can't solve it, and the continuing attempt to do so is disrupting wikipedia. The debate needs to close without consensus, unless one 'side', in their righteous indignation, pushes it to the point that the community comes down on them like a ton of bricks.--Doc^g 01:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagreed with the creation of that channel. Why is that important? It's important because I did "let it drop." I thought it was inherently corrupt, inherently anti-Wikipedia. The "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" shouldn't have private inner sanctums for selected priests. If we're open and free, then we're open and free. We managed to run nicely without the damned thing for years, so it's pretty obvious that it's possible. However, I figured, "the people who like to congratulate themselves on their importance and be famous for being famous will have their little room where they can feel superior, and no one will care." If I believed that the behavior, and it's not Giano at all, were going to end, I could go back to bemused indifference to what people do there. However, what I see is entrenchment and insistence that they be allowed to trash anyone and everyone (see how my name is treated there) without there being any allowed defense. It's the behavior. In all of this stuff about the IRC channel, I defy you or anyone to find me talking about Giano or defending. What you will find is an absolutely clear and unrelenting attack on destroying character, the use of templates, and the lack of accountability for nasty language in IRC. Don't try to make this "you give me Giano and I'll give you trash talkers (4 or 5 of them) on IRC." That's not what it's about.
If Fred had been right that admins are supposed to be more golden throated and saintly than regular users, then I should remind you that Giano is not and has not been an administrator. However, James F ("you're all idiots") is. Of course Tony Sidaway and Kelly Martin aren't, but they were. Inexplicably, Cyde is. When someone in the channel said, "I can't believe all of this trash talking you're doing" the response was to THREATEN to kickban the speaker and threats that "you'll regret" what you're saying! Good Lord, doesn't that bother you at all?
I see a huge difference between someone being ornery and foul tempered toward someone else and someone being "incivil." One is about a person, and the other is about a society. If I call you a name, I'm being a jackass toward you. You can get over it. If, on the other hand, I devote time and energy to destroying you, undermining you, and encouraging others to do the same, if I never say your name without "incivil" next to it, then I will be working to disrupt and destroy the community. There is no law against being a jerk. If there were, Betacommand would be in jail for his block. There is a law against vendettas.
Finally, note that when the "Giano RFAR" of September came up, Kelly said that she would drop her bit if Bishonen and I asked her to. Note that I never did. I said one thing and one thing only: that she cease to use IRC and secret communications to forge power. She wouldn't even consider that. In fact, she did give up her administrator status but with no question about en.admins.irc. The point I'm making is that this is not a vendetta by me. I believed and believe still that she has been wildly inappropriate there. I think she rarely used her administrative powers against policy and never thought that was a problem, but she did use "I have secret knowledge and am at the center of all power" quite a bit. I regarded that as disgusting, as you know, because, as you know, I reject the idea that any of us has power. We are equals. I volunteer my time, like all the other people do, and I do not volunteer to have a boss. Geogre 03:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

You miss my point. I know you think you're right, and can argue your case. I think Arbcom have completely failed to deal with rank nastiness by Giano et al. I could argue that case too. Would it help if I kept repeating my reasoning angrily ad nauseam all over the wiki? I think not. You've made your case, those that wish to be convinced are. Others think you are wrong. There is no consensus. In Wikipedia when there is no consensus nothing changes. Frustrating, isn't it? Makes it tempting to muster our arguments and repeat our case again, with even more righteous indication. Or to presume that our argument must be self-evident, so it is just a bloody minded clique that are impeding its logic. Maybe so, but you're not going to convince any more people. Unfortunately, heating up old porridge repeatedly will only disrupt wikipedia.--Doc^g 09:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

No, I got your point. Here's the question: Is Giano triumphantly running about being "incivil" now? Is en.admins.irc going about triumphantly saying, "ArbCom can't do anything?" The difference is that whatever specific thing it is that Giano is supposed to have done is in the past. The use of IRC for abuse is in the present. It's a lot easier to let the past drop than the present and future. Geogre 13:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:AN

Hi, there, could you please revert your addition to the 'closed' discussion on WP:AN? I closed it for a reason, no offense intended, but your addition only serves to further inflame matters and it would do everyone a good deal of good to simply walk away. It's clear that the discussion is getting nowhere which is why I put the big shiny border and background around it :D. Thanks. Cowman109^Talk 00:38, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with you. Historically and currently I oppose "archiving" ongoing discussions like that. If the community is significantly split over an issue, it needs space to discuss and argue coherently. It's better to do this on a namespace page than on an ephemeral page or, worse yet, IRC. When the entire project is actually riven the way it has been for a goodly while now, with really a few persons on one side and many on the other, it really does us no good to pretend that the matter is either solved or intractable.

I also think it's good if people are educated on this particular issue, myself, although I expect others disagree with me. So I'm afraid that I disagree on principle here. Geogre 00:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, with your principle in mind, perhaps WP:AN is not the place. It really isn't meant for dispute resolution and I feel that the last section break has consisted of users simply talking back and forth to each other with either snide remarks or some sort of general hostility towards one another. Perhaps something in dispute resolution, whether it be an RFC or some such would be more beneficial? I do agree at least that it's unhealthy for people to continue holding these grudges and there should be some way to solve them, but by looking at the last section break it feels more hostility is coming out than resolution. Do you think there is some way that this mess of people being upset and each other can be solved in some way? It's clearly been going on for a long time, and I'm at a loss of ideas now. Cowman109^Talk 01:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, Fred's removed the tags anyway, so I guess this discussion is moot. I won't push it any further :P. Cowman109^Talk 01:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The discussion seems to have been shuffled off to a less visible page. --Duk 04:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Cruelty

If you have a spare moment, can I interest you in having a look over The Four Stages of Cruelty? It started a redlink filler a few days ago and is coming along nicely, but I'm sure you can add some flair. Cheers, Yomangani ^talk 01:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I went to look at it as soon as I heard about it. I have an edition of the engravings and will be happy to add whatever information I can from there. My problem is that the most ... not definitive, I guess, but the least arguable ... text is probably Ronald Paulson's, and my library doesn't have it. Paulson misses things, mind you, and he has some interpretations that seem odd to me, but I wouldn't want to argue with his readings. Hogarth studies are still open enough that there isn't a single magnum opus that settles the questions and, what's cooler for us, where a lot of good books are still being written.
My problem is that the plates themselves disgust me. I find them really hard to look at, viscerally so. It probably says something bad about my character that I can watch a poor country girl destroyed and find the plates fascinating or a wastrel heir kill himself and not be bothered, but when it's a cruel boy torturing animals, I can't look. Geogre 04:05, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
- I have Paulson's biography on order, although it appears his comments on this series are among his more controversial. The plates are indeed rather revolting which is one of the reasons I haven't bought copies. If you can make out the details, I'd be interested in the text (address?) on the note next to the lantern in Plate III and that of the posters in Plate II. Yomangani ^talk 09:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

This article by Yomangani is really raising the bar for articles on the Hogarth's engravings. I have just finished one (short) biography (Bindman, 1981 - I would recommend it as a short primer - around 160 illustrations in about as many pages) and am about to start another much longer one (Uglow, 1997, 700 pages). I am sorely tempted to start expanding William Hogarth. There seem to be a couple of more recent ones by Hallett, but Paulson's 3 volumes are the must-have work - but I can't get hold of a copy either, unfortunately.

The bottom poster in Plate II seems to be advertising cockfighting (with an illustration of two fighting cocks), but I can't make out the rest of the text. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to hear what you think of the Uglow bio when you've finished it, I read her The Lunar Men which was interesting but a little disjointed. The bottom poster does advertise cockfighting and the top one a boxing match featuring James Field (who has met a nasty end by the last plate), but I'd like to know what other details (if any) are on them, as I'm sure there are some moral lessons implicit in them. Yomangani ^talk 12:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Aha, well, I think I might be able to help. I have the folio set of engravings prints from Dover Thrift (still available, and, as with all other Dover Thrifts, an absolute steal), and I have a flat bed scanner. Therefore, a very, very high resolution scan is possible. The Dover folks did good printing from good negatives, and it's surprising how much detail they preserve.
I will do a scan and drop a note on you both when the scans are done and uploaded
I agree with you, ALoan. One reason I didn't do anything with the article was that I couldn't think of anything to say to improve it. It was already first class. Geogre 13:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you take requests? You did the Harlot already, but could you also do the Rake (there are some nasty jpegs there currently), Marriage (currently no engravings) and Industry and Idleness (currently largely bereft of illustration)?

As I said to Yomangani a few days ago, it would be nice to do articles on Tailpiece, or The Bathos/The Bathos/Bathos and The March to Finchley/March to Finchley and Four Times of Day/The Four Times of Day and Before and After (not the film) too. I'm sure there are deserving others too - The Distressed Poet? The Times (not the newspaper)? Calais Gate? The Lady's Last Stake? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, yeah, I can scan all those. I had wanted to avoid being a completist, but they are Hogarth, and Hogarth is a very Wikipedia-ready painter, because every painting is a story, a satire, a political statement, and an artwork. We haven't had very many like him. Oh, your Cruikshanks, perhaps, Isaac and George, and maybe some late 19th c. French dudes, but there aren't very many. Geogre 14:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Completist? That list is barely started! -- ALoan (Talk) 15:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

If you are doing requests can you push The Four Times of Day up the list - I have an article on that series more or less ready, despite saying I was leaving Hogarth for a while, but it needs the images (although I suppose I could get some small bad scans from the web). Nice article on Restoration literature by the way, wasted(?) some time on that over lunch. Yomangani ^talk 16:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Sorry to spam you like this but I want to thanks for all your support. I'm planning to say little more on the subject unless I'm attacked again. I have proved my point about the IRC admin channel, and many people (whose opinion matters to me) now seem to believe all I have ben saying was true. The channel is now thoroughly discredited and will never be a source of power again, and used by anyone of Wikipedian value - it is now basically finished - no one will ever believe a word that emanates from it again. So I think that is rather that, no doubt a few little firecrackers will continue to pop on admins notice boards and such places but I think people can now evaluate such comments for themselves and see them for what they are dying embers of a former power base. Once again thanks for your support in this. I have appreciated it. Giano 10:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

For me, the case surrounding you was merely a prophecy coming true. Actually, it was several prophecies. I'm glad that you're going to step back from the matter, but, for me, true is true and wrong is wrong. The fact that the people doing wrong are unrepentent is bothersome, that they're delighted with themselves is galling, that they would resort to "you can't touch me" nose thumbing is the only comic relief. Indeed, we have now to wait for another case, another example, and more recidivism. It will come, because the medium forces it and the people are inclined. Geogre 13:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Your advice and comment solicited

Hello, You seem very well informed about 18th Century Anglicanism. I am involved in a content dispute at Talk:George Washington and religion‎ and could use your input. While not stating it outright, the article heavily implies that Washington was a deist... I do not have a problem with that. However, I do have a problem with some of the evidence used to present that implication. I feel that much of it is (also?) consistant with Washington simply being a Latitudinarian Anglican... typical of his time. Unfortunately, I am not conversant enough with Anglican beliefs and practices to effectively present this option. I would very much appreciate your swinging by and commenting. Thanks Blueboar 16:38, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

There are a ton of problems with "Deist" at the time and this particular case.

We have to know what "deist" means.
1. Problem: There are two substantial currents of deism -- natural religion and universalist religion (i.e. the project to find what men will worship if there are no "corrupting" influences of education, the religion built into the soul, vs. the idea that there is a single religion that can be deduced by finding all common elements between religions), and these compete with a new deism of the 1760's whereby God is removed.
2. Problem: Is universalism deism? Washington was more universalist, to my knowledge, than anything else, but one can take that position and believe that Jesus is the incarnate God who rose from the dead for the remission of sins.
3. There is no Deist World Church or Council to delineate what is and is not within the borders of it, so being definitive about it is really, really hard.
4. "Deism" was a pejorative in the pens of some people, so we have to watch out for people being called deist and people who call themselves deist. Some lattitudinarians would have been shocked to hear themselves compared to deists.
We have to know whether GW was one.
1. People develop, change, and grow more and less orthodox. Saying that any man is X or Y is hard, because all we can ever really do is say, "At this point in his life, he enunciated X and Y positions."
2. The argument over GW's religion, in particular, remains politically charged.

Better than my simply generalizing, I'll grab a reference before weighing in. I'm not much of an Americanist, but I know as much about 18th c. deism as a casual reader can. Geogre 17:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds great... references would be very helpful. FYI the real issue isn't so much "is the evidence consistant with the possibility that Washington could have been a Deist", but rather "is the evidence consistant with the possibility that he could have been a Latitudinarian Anglican?" Of particular interest is a statement that Washington was never recorded as taking communion and what can be implied from this fact? Thanks again for being willing to opine. Blueboar 19:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, heck, that last doesn't mean much, by itself. He could have been a non-juror for that. A deist might or might not take communion -- it just depends. Most latitudinarians would, but the edges blur together. Geogre 21:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like any insite you can give, especially if referenced, would probably help calm the flames (on both sides) at that page. Thanks again. Blueboar 22:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

A suggestion

Geogre, you and I are going to go round and round without agreeing, probably, but let me just make a couple points, and then, if you want.. I'll let it drop. (and BTW, if you don't want me using your talk page, I won't bother you again).

I am NOT trying to say "The Channel is great! Doesn't need any oversight". I'm saying, the ArbCom has worked with the ChanOps in there to try to curb any incivility that has happened... including the point that issue, and Giano specifically has been banned from discussion because it only feeds the issue.

What I am saying is to give it a chance to work. Don't dismiss it out of hand and call anyone who wants to give it a chance names. No matter how right you are, and I can't answer that, I can only go by what I see.. you are actively harming your case with the confrontational, over the top way you and Giano are handling this. It's been mentioned several times above how the attitude he takes (and yourself to a great part), goes so far over the top that you are coming off very badly in exchange.

For example, Mackensen, one of the new Channel Ops appointed by the ArbCom decision, tries working with both sides, and it appeared that when he wasn't going to give you what you wanted (the immediate removal of the people you disagreed with, such as Kelly Martin), you decided since he wasn't with you, he was OBVIOUSLY with the enemy and should be treated as such. Then one of your group starts using open proxies to interject "humorous" comments to try to belittle the other side. (No, I can't prove it, again, I can only go by what I saw, and that no one supporting your arguments bothered to deny it)

When someone who has never dealt with either side before sees that, it doesn't win any support for your arguments, Geogre. It looks like an attempt to disrupt Wikipedia until you get the action you want. If you want to create a RfC or RfA on them, fine, I wish you all the best. But constantly and tendentiously arguing does nothing to help your side, especially with the unnecessarily personal and inflammatory attacks that were common in that thread.

Anyway, I've said my bit. Feel free to reply here, or on my talk page, or not, as you see fit. Have a good evening.

David. SirFozzie 23:29, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, wait a minute! Did he just say "your group" there? The cabal calendar says this is your week to be Groom of the Back Stairs, you know. I'm wearing the fez and the sparkly underpants, so that should read "my group" dang-nabbit!
brenneman 02:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

See? I have to answer for Giano and "my side," and I'm "over the top" with personal attacks OBVIOUSLY but not specifically. Gee willikers. Blanket generalizations to attack to stop attacks, dismissals out of hand to stop people dismissing, and all of this from what appears to be a secondary account. Wow. I can't imagine why I wouldn't want to reply in detail or be more polite. Geogre 20:46, 18 January 2007 (UTC)