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Hey

Long time no talk, how have you been? I'm househunting and haven't been editing much lately. Hope you're well. Peace, delldot ∇. 16:38, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dell, it sure has been awhile. Good luck on the house hunting, we did that a little over a year ago and it is time consuming and hard to find what you will be living in for a long time. We were lucky because my son is a home appraiser so he helped us with a lot of help of his friends in different parts of the business. I am trying to prepare my body for another surgery. If I get everything going in the right direction my surgery looks like I'll have it the beginning of Aug. My spine is degenerating. I have explained a little bit of this on my User:Crohnie user page. I have a lot of damage occurring fast so they hope the surgery will slow things down. The surgery will be through my throat to my spine with the replacement of a disk. I really don't look forward to this at all. If you want to chat more openly, drop me an email. You know you are always welcomed to pop in. I am always happy to hear from friends. As for Misplaced Pages, I do a lot of vandal patroling but I do try to keep a few articles on my watchlist updated. Typing though is very hard for me right now with the pain and nerve damage I have. Anyways that's all I can say here about things. RL is really busting my chops at this time. I have to admit I am a bit worried about the outcome of the upcoming surgery. There are just too many risks not to be. Take care, --CrohnieGal 11:44, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment regarding conduct of User:Frei Hans

I have requested comment on the conduct of User:Frei Hans. As you have been involved in this dispute to some extent, I would appreciate it if you could comment. Papa November (talk) 14:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I did make a response. I hope he is now listening, --CrohnieGal 17:07, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Melcher transcript

Just want to direct your attention to remarks I’ve posted on the talk page of the "Charles Manson" article. They’re headed "Melcher transcript" and have to do with a link that I added to the article and that you reasonably deleted.JohnBonaccorsi (talk) 06:53, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

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Delivered by SoxBot (talk) at 02:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Ryan Postlethwaite 12:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Something odd happened: . Wrong button? William M. Connolley (talk) 13:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Responded at users talk page. Thanks, --CrohnieGal 20:29, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

No need to apologize!

Hi Crohnie: I realized immediately that it was an unintentional mistake - sometimes I accidentally activate the mouse when I don't mean to, so I took no offence at all. In fact it's good that sensible people like you are reading all this stuff, which could easily mushroom out of control. Best regards, Mathsci (talk) 20:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Mathsci, I was just getting ready to stop by and apologize to you too. I made the mistake and didn't fix it myself because it was caught almost as quickly as the button I hit by mistake. Yes I am watching and reading this case. I don't understand why it left the community to a arb case. I thought the community was actually handling things quite well but I guess I missed something though I still haven't figured out what. I am about to leave the computer for the day now but I'll be back reading tomorrow. I will make a comment if and when I see something(s) that I might be able to add to the situation. Right now I am just trying to figure out what this case is actually going to be about. I see they did figure out who is named in the case which was weird in it's own rights. Anyways, thanks for being so gracious with me and my mistake. i think my worse mistake was not coming by your talk page and apologizing after it happened. Thanks, --CrohnieGal 20:37, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

For those who maybe lurking..

Today marks 30 years of marriage! If we can do, you can, really! :) Have a great day everyone. --CrohnieGal 09:44, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations! Given the prevailing culture, what you have done can be seen as an act of rebellion. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I needed a good laugh Boris. :) We just chilled all day. We have family time today at lunch. --CrohnieGal 11:45, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Congrats! momoricks 19:28, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, we just got back from lunch with the family. We had a wonderful time. Thanks again, --CrohnieGal 19:35, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Abd's request for 'mediation'

Long-time lurker, first time caller here. Congratulations on thirty years!

I happened to see your query on Abd's talk page. I'm assuming that he's referring to this message on my talk page: User talk:TenOfAllTrades#Your email response to me regarding William M. Connolley. The post to my talk page was a duplicate of the request that he sent to me by email, to which I had previously replied — and rejected. (The sense of my first response was identical to what appears on my talk page, though both were typed from scratch.)

I don't know where Abd is getting the idea that he was "solicit mediation", however. He was looking for someone who would repeat and reinforce his own interpretation of the situation and relay his threats to WMC. To wit: "I'm looking for someone whom WMC might trust who would, upon becoming informed more fully about the situation, intercede to prevent him from being take to ArbComm over this." Abd also refers to the recently-concluded Arbitration that involved him and JzG, where he makes the unfounded assertion that JzG escaped desysopping by the skin of his teeth. (I believe that I've corrected that misinterpretation before, but Abd insists on repeating it.) Abd followed up with implicit threats that WMC could be swiftly desysopped if he didn't capitulate immediately and completely.

That isn't a request for mediation; that's saber-rattling. I have a history of criticising Abd's conduct, so I find it rather weakly credible that Abd hoped to receive from me anything but a figleaf to cover his desire for an immediate Arbitration. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:57, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, I "got the idea that I was soliciting mediation" because that is exactly what I was doing. I did it in a diffuse way with JzG, ArbComm did not like how long I took to escalate that, so I was going for something faster. I picked someone who is an experienced administrator and whom I thought would be sympathetic to WMC. It was, perhaps, a long shot.

As to "skin of his teeth," had he been a less popular administrator, the bit would have been lost, other admins have lost it for less. JzG, it was explained to me, was cut a lot of slack because of his monumental work with OTRS. And even with the sanction being only a reprimand, JzG stopped editing entirely. My theory is that he was burned out; that explains the incivility that led to his previous reprimand by ArbComm; and when he couldn't blow off steam by incivility (it was gross), he started using tools in, shall we say, a less patient manner.

Was I looking for someone who would "repeat and reinforce" my own interpretation? Well, that's one possibility. The other is that a second admin might be able to explain to me where I was wrong. TOAT would also not have to agree with my interpretation to recognize that there was a risk, of substantial disruption if nothing else. Consider what has happened already in connection with this. Mathsci and WMC edit warred on the RfAr page, WMC edit warred on Talk:Hipocrite, with an admin who retired, possibly with that being one of the last straws. It's kind of amazing that WMC wasn't blocked; he directly defied promises from two clerks that they would block for any more edit warring. WMC just reverted a clerk. He might get away with it, but these things add up.

One thing is clear: there is nothing wrong with what I did to solicit TOAT's involvement, and I'm quite sure that ArbComm will confirm that. TOAT lost an opportunity. Consider the possibility that ArbComm confirms my claim of action while involved, as it did similarly with JzG. WMC has far more long-standing reputation for administrative abuse, he's been very, very controversial, more than JzG, I'd say. I don't have a crystal ball, but I think it's unlikely that WMC will escape without a reprimand, at least. One might note that I haven't asked for desysopping, at least not yet, but I suspect that others will.

Crohnie, if you look at the ban discussion on AN/I where I was community banned, and then look at those who, at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/JzG 3, back in April, called for me to be banned, you'll see what was going on and why I asked for a speedy close. There are enough editors upset about that case that they will take the opportunities presented to get what they've wanted for some time now. And this is a popular faction; they do not represent a majority of editors, but they can assemble strong local support when they are motivated. What I saw was that enough of them would continue to pile in that true consensus would be unlikely at AN/I, which isn't watched by most editors. That is, an outcome would be "ban" or "no consensus," depending a bit on the quirks of who decides to close, and who was available to comment, and to have continued to contest it would definitely have expanding the disruption. Remember, in the RfC, two-thirds of editors supported me being banned, even though ArbComm did confirm my claims. I decided that a month's topic ban wasn't worth the disruption, and the issue was going to have to go to ArbComm anyway. It's just one article and just one editor. If there were not crucial issues involved which affect many editors, with ongoing damage in many areas, I might have dropped it entirely. Just notice how many editors have been warned for incivility and other misbehavior just in a few days; I didn't create those disruptions; this is a faction which is quite accustomed to getting its way, and which believes that whatever they do to promote their view of Misplaced Pages is legitimate. And it's time that this be confronted. How deeply it will be confronted at this time, I don't know. But this is a start. --Abd (talk) 05:59, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

There a lot to absorb here because I don't usually follow arbcom cases. To me those are usually the drama fest in big time. What I don't get here is what is it you, Abd are trying to accomplish? You say you aren't going for WMC administrators bits in one breath and then say you are. It can't be both ways. I think the community is upset with you for a lot of different reasons that you are not acknowledging. JzG has stopped editing but you feel it wasn't because of you. Well I know you chased him for a long time with threats to him to lose his bit or more. Your over analyzing others in my opinion. So. what is it you are trying to accomplish with this arbcom case because to be honest with you, this should never have left the community and I don't understand why the arbs were in such a rush, they started voting really fast to accept. I got to say something there but I had already known that it was going to a case. Something is fishy here. I don't know if things are being said outside this project but if it is it sure makes it hard for people like me who want to be involved but doesn't have all the information. Thanks to both of you though, I will be still trying to understand all of this. --CrohnieGal 11:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

While that might have been what you were thinking, none of those things are what you wrote. You didn't ask for a "mediator" or "mediation" anywhere in your email; you explicitly stated that you were "looking for someone...who would...intercede to prevent from being take to ArbComm over this." I believe that the plain language of your message speaks for itself, and that your after-the-fact interpretation of it reads things into the text that just aren't there. At the time, the email looked to me like it was heavy on self-justification for your jump direct to Arbitration, and very thin indeed on interest in mediation or open to any change in your own conduct. I'm not sure that Crohnie's talk page is the proper venue for this, however. Make your arguments at the Arbitration, and let the Arbs sort it out. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:38, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Sure, but Crohnie asked. I also believe the plain text speaks for itself; I guess it depends on who is listening to it, and what assumptions they hold, and I certainly don't deny your experience, nor do I assume anything but good faith on your part. --Abd (talk) 18:53, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind the chatter here at all. What I still don't understand is this, what is this case about? I just commented on one proposal about WP:Meat puppets. What I've read on the evidence page so far is a lot of small bickering and a lot of wiki talk. Where's the beef in this case? I still don't see it, maybe I'm not looking at it correctly. But I sure would appreciate someone explaining exactly what this case is supposed to accomplish. --CrohnieGal 19:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

What it's about is controversial! I'll try to explain some, but it will be explained in my evidence and proposals on the workshop page. Right now I've got two little girls to take care of. However, to set your mind in the proper frame, notice how quickly the arbitrators accepted the case. Essentially, there is a deep conflict, much deeper than meets the eye at first; there are arbitrators who are quite aware of it. That's why you are having difficulty understanding it. From one side, the case is about or will be about getting rid of Abd or at least restricting him to prevent further alleged disruption. From the other side, the case is about long-term administrative abuse and factional POV-pushing, with a number of administrators supporting it. If you look at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/JzG 3, you'll see that I presented, civilly and evenly, a practically airtight case of administrative use of tools while involved both in content and in dispute with editors blocked or banned. Very simple case, in fact, much simpler than the present one. However, you can easily see, two-thirds of editors !voting called for or supported calls for me to be banned. Let me translate this: I was supporting policy, as I had seen ArbComm make clear on many occasions. And the policy supported is very unpopular with a substantial faction of editors. Most of the editors !voting at AN/I for my ban, recently, were the same editors who had been calling for me to be banned long before. This made it impossible for the dispute to be resolved below ArbComm; sufficient disruption would arise that consensus would not be found, just possibly some majority view, which can be increasingly divisive. WMC is the specific administrator involved, but, in fact, it's larger than that; still the focus will be on WMC and myself; Enric Naval also made himself a party. I've found it necessary to show the existence of the faction, the "cabal," because to understand the actions of the parties (and Hipocrite and some others) without this knowledge will be largely impossible. That showing has only begun. So far, I've just explained how, over a year ago, I became aware of this tight grouping of editors and administrators. That story continues, and the patterns that will be shown are far too extensive to be mere coincidence.

I'm perfectly aware of WP:TINC. I will either succeed, here, or I'll probably be history, as those laughing about how ridiculous this all is are predicting, see User talk:William M. Connolley as of late. However, Crohnie, it might not be at all difficult for you to understand, in your position, why Misplaced Pages is not the center of my life; it is, rather, a project that I set out to assist with a substantial investment of time, based on extensive related experience, and some of these things work out and some don't. I have seven children and five grandchildren, the two youngest children are 6, from Ethiopia, and almost 8, from China, and I'd like to leave them all a better world, and Misplaced Pages is one possible piece of that, but there are many others, so many causes, so little time. I'm 65 and have prostate cancer, which will probably be symptom-free for a long time, detected very early, and, even with no treatment, I'm probably more likely to die from something else. Yet my mother died recently at 96, and the prostate cancer was a wake-up call: I'm not going to live forever. So every day is important to me. And thanks for asking about the "beef."

The cabal believes that it is acting in the best interests of Misplaced Pages, but the problem is that, in general, in spite of the extensive experience of some, it has a poor understanding of what the best interests are. By using blocks and bans to repress dissent, they have been gradually fouling the nest, building up reservoirs of ill-will. Consider that Scibaby, who gets mentioned in this case because of one single revert I made at Talk:GoRight, was blocked and banned by involved administrators, and that Scibaby, as a result, has created probably over 300 sock puppets. If the action was necessary, perhaps this could be justified. But there never was the discussion, in fact. So we have huge disruption being set up, building over time. WMC has been the subject of media reports over his alleged biased use of tools. The reports are not without foundation, if not always based on an understanding of how Misplaced Pages works.

If there is a charge of involvement, recusal should, in fact, be immediate. It does not matter if the charges are true or not, and the claims that the bad guys will then charge involvement are actually irrelevant. Someone who is claiming that many administrators are "against him" had better be able to defend this charge before ArbComm, or else there will be a community ban, and quickly. Recusal does not mean reversal of actions. Recusal actually avoids unnecessary conflict. WMC blocked me, let's assume that the block was legitimate for a moment. I charged involvement. He should immediately recuse, withdrawing from further action. I'm still blocked! All that recusal means is that the particular administrator abstains from further action with that user; but because the admin may have special knowledge, recusal doesn't necessarily mean that the admin does nothing; involved editors may present charges and evidence, and involved administrators are expected to request admin assistance at a noticeboard like anyone else; the big flap over uninvolved editors and community bans is over the necessary "consensus of uninvolved editors," which is a separate matter from who can comment in a discussion or make a report. --Abd (talk) 21:21, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Ok so to try to sum this up this is what I think you are saying here, please correct me if I am incorrect. First you are claiming there is a cabel of editors that support and back each other up. How do you come to this conclusion since I am not aware of any cabals being active at the project as WP:CABAL are not allowed. When I do a search of the word cabal or even WP:CABAL it goes on to describe users that have experience and on and on, not a group of controllers like this sounds. Basically, I think it hurts you to shout out cabal in any form.

You are still upset about your block from Cold fusion and hope this case gets you unblocked and WMC sanctioned in some way for some percieved involvement you claim he has but he denies. Is this correct? I just know that your block from C.F. and t.c.f. was heartily agreed to by many editors, including myself, at AN/I. I saw you list those of us who voted for your ban with bolding of the supposed cabal. The count was something like 9 of them had voted or spoke up at the Abd/JzG case for you to banned along with this AN/I vote to ban you. Now couldn't all these times of iVoting to ban you mean that maybe you are exhausting a community of editors good faith in your contributions and that the time has come for you to evaluate what it is you do here at the project and make adjustments accordingly? I don't know if WMC was involved or not, but if he was, I'm not seeing it. When is an administrator involved with another editor too much that the administrator should recuse themselves. Well I know this call for an administrator being involved is activated a lot esp. in cases where someone has been sanctioned. From what I have read from you and others, there aren't too many who can give you sanctioned if you are correct because they have had contact with you over the years. Enric for example, I believe it's him, shows you accuse many administrators of involvement and then threaten them in a cloaked way that they could lose their bit if they dear try to take any actions against you in anyway. I have to say the list of administrators you have done this to is impressive, Raul, Jehrocho, WMC, JzG and on and on. You can't expect to play this way and not get fallout esp. from said editors. There are going to be editors who agree with each other a lot when editing in specific areas of this project, in this case, pseudoscience.

And finally, there is back door type conversations going on, apparently for some time, with information about all of this that editors like myself are not aware of, is this correct? Because if there is off site communications going on that someone like me should know about, how do I go about getting the informations so that I can make an informed opinion on this case? I am new pretty much to the workings of the arbcom so I would be interested in knowing how I can be active in this if a good portion of this case has been taken off this site. I don't go to other locations so this is not right to have this case in the open but having some of the facts taken off site out of sight for me. Ok these are my thoughts from what you said above, your thoughts? --CrohnieGal 10:36, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

First of all, the cabal evidence is far from complete. Trying to judge it based on what's there right now would be premature. There are many editors who are quite aware of the cabal I'm writing about, it is not a formally organized cabal, and I'm using the term to refer to a group of editors who have acted in concert for a long time, in ways that are actually contrary to policy and guidelines. To give you an example, revert warring is prohibited. In fact, the edit warring guideline strongly discourages reverts as an editing technique, but recommends constant attempts to improve consensus by working out compromises. We have 3RR as a bright line, but here is where a cabal comes in. If there is a group of editors who cooperate -- which, by the way, I support, *if* the cooperation is legitimate in its actions -- and who oppose minority POV editors (who have just as much right to put RS'd material in articles as editors with a majority POV), they can easily overcome any such editor, with only one of them doing a revert, they often don't need to do two. Combine that with uncivil "welcome," and it's a formula for creating more and more blocked editors, and, sometimes, long term puppet masters who, amazingly, refuse to be brutally suppressed. Scibaby: 300 sock puppets and counting. Why? Review the history carefully, you'll see it.

Nothing is being "taken" off-site to my knowledge, but there are always private conversations. Editors are people who have the right to talk to each other. Are you aware that when material is deleted it is still readable in history (usually)? It's very difficult to actually take something "off." Raul654 could do it, he has the oversight privilege, as do some others. But I'm not aware of any relevant example, I just mention the bare possibility.

I'd suggest simply reading the case when it appears that sections have settled. Reading and responding to an incomplete section is largely a waste of time. There will probably be another two weeks for evidence to be compiled. Lots of people are starting to make proposals before the evidence is complete, which is a typical Misplaced Pages practice of "verdict first, trial later." I've tried to stay, so far, with proposals that are about basic policy and practice, so evidence isn't so important.

ArbComm process is quite different from the rest of Misplaced Pages; my opinion is that we should have more structured discussion, that this will be necessary to quiet the controversies that have been raging for a long time. --Abd (talk) 16:23, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Case summary

I'm pretty badly swamped with a couple of projects at work right now. I'm not sure to what extent I'll even have time to participate in the Arbitration case, so I'm afraid that I almost certainly won't be able to prepare a summary for you. (I appreciate the invitation, though, and under other circumstances I'd normally be pleased to take you up on it.)

In any event, one of the reasons why I cut Abd off of posting his arguments on my talk page was because there's an awful tendency on his part to start multiple arguments in multiple forums. I really don't have the time or energy to get sidetracked by another debate with Abd on yet another page. Cheers! TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, have a good day! :) --CrohnieGal 15:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC)