Revision as of 16:57, 24 September 2005

BREAKING NEWS: Open Letter to Admins, Bureaucrats:

I am blocked for accidentally violating a consensus agreement (to limit edits to 5/day) that I thought had been superceded by the more recent consensus to go all out and fix the article size problem. (See my talk page.) This block against me may be in violation of Misplaced Pages policy, Misplaced Pages:Consensus, which says in part that "Consensus should not trump NPOV (or any other official policy)," which I read to mean that the our consensus to limit edits to 5 per day did not Trump User:Jimbo_Wales/Statement_of_principles, which says in point three that "3. "You can edit this page right now" is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred." However, I should have made note of this policy more clearly when breaking the agreement, and I do not ask you to reverse my 12-hour block or take any action against Taxman (the blocking admin). He acted in good faith. I am contacting to let you know that FuelWagon has made a series of edits to the article, which have violently messed up the references section. The last version that I touched was stable. Please take a look at Terri Schiavo. She is sick and needs your help.

PS: I shall contact 2 other admins who are familiar with the FA-nom, in case you are busy when I send this email.

Gordon Wayne Watts, Lakeland, Florida, U.S.A. --GordonWatts 16:55, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikibreak

NOTICE: I am now taking a "Wiki-break," because I am spending too much time online currently and too little in "real-life" responsibilities and rights. However, before I go, if anybody is concerned whether I am mad at you for any recent disagreement or misunderstanding, let me assure you, I am not mad, and wish you the best. If you post a message to my page, I may or may not see it. If you really need to get in touch with me, then search the archives or history and see my contact information, which has the likes of my name, address, phone number, and email address. Thank you for all the feedback I have received of recent relating to my Featured Article and Requests for Admin nominations and related matters. (PS: I may hang around on a Wiki gnome basis to try and tweak things, including a last-minute FA-nomination I just submitted.)--GordonWatts 13:49, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Archives

1. Archive 1:The approximately 67 kb archive of my first talk page.
2. Archive 2:The 2nd archive of my first talk page is of unknown length, since the edit dialogue doesn't tell me the KB length (probably less than 40 or 45Kb, or whatever is the cutoff minimum), but it appears smaller than the (67 kb) 1st archive.
3. Archive 3:The 3rd archive, 47 Kb in length.
4. Archive 4:The 4th archive, which is about 97 kilobytes long.--GordonWatts 13:34, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Note: If you post a message to my page, and I delete it, it is likely because I did read it and added to the archives. As others sometimes do, I also sometimes delete or archive messages. This is not meant to offend you, but I like my page neat and clean.--GordonWatts 10:16, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Mess'ge rec'd

Plz plz don't mark your edits as minor. You just cut the article in half and marked it minor! Also, do bear in mind the agreement: 5 edits right? You've made 33. I was in the middle of making an edit myself but couldn't do it because of your editing. I will make a comment on the FA request. Plz you can answer on my talk page but keep it short. Marskell 17:56, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

The "Short" version: I had competing themes: Limited numbers of edits (I had forgotten about that, since it seemed related to the edit war, which fizzled out), and the reduction to the article size.

I had decided to not edit, so the limitations on editing 4-5 times/ day were forgotten, but your buddies did not like Mark's analysis that the article length was OK -and voted me and him down by consensus.

So, I had to address it. I did not change anything substantively except some abbreviation of words to numbers, and some contractions. (EG, instead of "two years" it became "blah blah blah for 2 years" and instead of "said that Terri could not do this" is became "said that Terri couldn't do this")

OK, Taxman said that if it was constructive edits, we could exceed --and this was "constructive."

Let's meet on the Terri talk page --and-- the Featured Article nomination talk page, OK?--GordonWatts 18:08, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

PS: The reduction in size was a "minor edit" because it did not change the substance of the article."--GordonWatts 18:10, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you misunderstand what a minor edit is. People will actually miss the fact that you have split the article in two if they are not watching minors on their watchlist. This is a far from a minor change as I can imagine. You should've brought it up on talk. Marskell 18:13, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I didn't need to bring it up in talk, since "talk" brought it up to me -eg, the "Featured Article" talk brought it up to me and was quite clear. I did the only logical thing Mr. Spock could've done: REduced the article size by a split.--GordonWatts 18:21, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

But they were not minor edits and marking them as such is very bad form. They were also far more in number than the agreement called for. I certainly don't recall saying constructive edits could exceed the agreed limit, in fact I recall saying we should stick strictly to the limit. I'm not interested in blocking you, but please follow the agreement. And the way you misquote and misrepresent people is quite annoying. There is a lot more to go on the article, see my most recent comments on the FAC entry. - Taxman 16:19, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

"And the way you misquote and misrepresent people is quite annoying." As I've said before, if I misquote or misrepresent (it happens; we're all human), please cite the exact diff and quote me. Thx.--GordonWatts 16:23, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I think I see where you think I misquoted you. Yes, I did say somewhere that I didn't think you'd mind me going over the agreed upon limit since you say here in the Revision as of 11:32, 13 September 2005 that "I'll agree to it, and 2 edits a day is probably too little if someone is actually improving, but we can expand that if the article is improving." Now, I also saw later where you said that five edits was the absolute maximum, but I had forgotten that -selective memory due to the fact that I thought that I would not ever need to edit the article again extensively (except for occasional typos) --so I forgot that. Sorry. I think that I never fully agreed to that, but I don't know. In any case, when the new situation developed (I was monkey-jumped with complaints of article length), then I reacted logically; I reduced the article size, and I did it little by little (by the inch, it's a cinch; My the mile, takes a while) --so I did not edit it all at once, because I didn't want to overload my poor brain, lol.--GordonWatts 16:32, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Watts

I know you're on a "wikibreak", well I just came back from my short one. I'd like to thank you for all you've done. I've dropped my fascist ideals, and now love and respect Democracy. Also I'm slowly becoming a Christian. You've been extremely helpful to me. I've quit my job, and I'm completely fixing my life now. I'm going to get my daughter back, and I'm going to leave Washington D.C, a city which I have much hatred towards. Thank you again. The Fascist Chicken 21:23, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Welcome to the family! Yes, I'm taking time off now, and I realize I've overextended myself sometimes. Seeing many other people (you and others) take a "wikibreak" reminded me that maybe I should too. Thank you for inadvertently helping me here. I looked up the dictionary definition of Facism, and see that it is quite authoritarian, usually a bad thing, but we do need discipline and order in our lives. There is good in all ideals, and weaknesses too.

By the way, if you don't mind, what type of job did you have, and why are you quitting it? To move back closer to family and friends. I'm glad to hear things are going well. Lastly, did you take a look at the research pages I mentioned last time? Take care,--GordonWatts 11:54, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

The job that I used to have was well I was a Software Engineer, I know putting my college major to good use, ha ha? I quit the job, because I never really liked it, and I know that their has to be a better job for me out there. I'm thinking I'm going to move into Maryland, then I'll find a job there. Finally yes, I did read those research pages you mentioned, they helped a lot. Thanks again. The Fascist Chicken 22:16, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

"...they helped a lot. Thanks again." No problemo.--GordonWatts 23:53, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Limiting number of edits

Hi, Gordon, do be careful not to go over the number of edits agreed on the Terri Schiavo talk page, even if it's not a violation of official Misplaced Pages policy. I'd hate to see you getting blocked. Hope all is well with you. Ann Heneghan 00:29, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

And I've been away from the Terri Schiavo article for a while, but isn't there an agreement about the number of posts to the talk page as well? I don't think you've gone above it, but just in case you're about to . . . Ann Heneghan 00:42, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you need to use the "preview" button more. Then you wouldn't need to fix the formatting after posting. Anyway, do be careful. Would it have been so terrible if the bad formatting had stayed there for a few hours? :-) Ann Heneghan 01:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Would it have been so terrible if the bad formatting had stayed there for a few hours? :-) Yes. It would not have been readable. On the one hand, I was misled by the larger consensus of the Featured Article page, and also I mis-interpreted some of Taxman's comments and forgot others of his -and either forgot or thought the new consensus over-rode the past word that I had given. On the other hand: Misplaced Pages:Consensus says that "Consensus should not trump NPOV (or any other official policy)," which included making constructive edits according to the recent consensus in the Featured Article project page for Terri's article. I gave a more detailed explanation above -and in Schiavo-talk.

PS: I try to use the "preview" button: Your idea is 100% correct and excellent, --however, one can only do so much -and can not anticipate every edit in advance -that is why it is best to incrementally work so you "Save your work," and don't get confused.--GordonWatts 01:41, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Well I have blocked you per the agreement. If we're to keep it going in the future, we need to stick to it now. It's only for 12 hours, so go get something else done that you need to. Sorry if it was an inconvenient time. - Taxman 15:18, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to see this has happened, Gordon. You know that you can still edit your talk page, but not any other page. (I could be wrong, but I think that if you attempt to edit any other page, the twelve-hour block resets itself.) If you leave a message here at your talk page, people will probably see it. Oh, and I'm sending a message of complaint to Blogger, so hopefully the site will be taken down. Ann Heneghan 16:11, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback Ann. You are right that I can edit my own page; I have never been blocked before, so this will be a "new learning experience." Anyhow, I did indeed broke the agreement because I thought that the consensus of the larger group (to reduce article length) over-rode that of the smaller group (to limit edits) and "changed consensus." (I couldn't reasonably reduce article length with only 5 edits per day. However, the Misplaced Pages policy, Misplaced Pages:Consensus, says in part that "Consensus should not trump NPOV (or any other official policy)," which I read to mean that the our consensus to limit edits to 5 per day did not Trump User:Jimbo_Wales/Statement_of_principles, which says in point three that "3. "You can edit this page right now" is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred." While I should have made note of this more clearly when breaking the agreement, I simply thought that consensus had changed.

That being said, FuelWagon has messed up the references section by inserting text and "ref" tags without the proper "note" tags. Also, the article length is far too great to qualify as a Featured Article, and in this, he went against the consensus in the Featured Article talk page, which was a much larger consensus than we have here in our talk page. Those editors may not edit Terri Schiavo on a daily basis, but their voice counts here in Misplaced Pages too, for consensus, doesn't it?--GordonWatts 16:30, 24 September 2005 (UTC)