Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by CyclePat (talk | contribs) at 08:20, 28 December 2007 (→Your comment at WP:ANI: fx indent). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

I am currently busy in real life. I will check here and respond to questions about my own actions and edits, but I may or may not respond to requests for assistance on other matters. Please see the appropriate noticeboard for assistance. Thank you for your understanding.

My request for help

Dear Thatcher,

I began asking you for help with the issue of Pigman, Kathryn and Mattisse on the 15th. Back on the 19th, you said you were going to address my concerns that night. It is now the 22nd, and I only now found out you were engaged in a long conversation here ] with Pigman and Kathryn since the 16th. I feel a little like I was not invited to my hanging. Not that I consider you the hangman; on the contrary, you did not seem to agree with them.

However, I still have not gotten any guidance, and Pigman is proceeding to rally editors against me in this one-sided situation. I have found this User:Pigman/Starwood-Rosencomet Watchlist, this Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard, and there are others.

In the past week, 18 articles I either created or regularly edit have been edited by these three. I know they have the right, but when does it become stalking to tag 20% of the articles an editor's created, and have a watchlist of all his work? When is it called creating a hostile environment? Some have had sections chopped out. A few have had scolding messages placed on their talk pages and/or edit summaries. One editor is being confronted for daring to support me. Three articles I've written have been nominated for deletion; one deleted MINUTES after I created it. (One nomination included posts from a User:Whpq, but the posts were signed by Mattisse ]. Is this a sock?) These edited articles include ones with no connection to Starwood or ACE. Third-party citations found to replace ones that link to the ACE website are now being challenged by Pigman. This feels like a multi-front attack, and I don't think Pigman will be satisfied until he gets me blocked completely.

I have not edited agressively or been in contention with editors for months. This seems to me to be a campaign to, as I've said, provoke me into anything that he can blow up into "agressive editing", and claim I've broken rules that either I have not broken or do not exist. In fact, on the Conflict of Interest noticeboard, he says, "Despite an Arbcom caution (here), he has extensively edited these articles (please see the histories of the articles.) I interpret these extensive revisions as "aggressive" editing as well as an autobio violation on the Jeff Rosenbaum article." He redefines editing or what he calls "extensive revisions" (which they are NOT) as "aggressive"; no revert war or conflict with an editor necessary! If you review them, except for such edits as typos, grammar, linking names to their own Wiki articles, fixing links, and fixing or making new headings, all I've done for months on those and what he calls "Starwood-related" articles is add references and citations (usually because a tag was placed saying one was needed, or to support notability and avoid nomination for deletion or merging).

I seem to be all alone here, with Pigman opening discussions about me here and there, rallying folks, and the threat of a long contentious bout of interaction with Mattisse to anyone who sympathizes with me. What am I to do? Should I request an advocate? Is there such a thing anymore? Am I talking to the wrong person, and if so, who do I talk to?Rosencomet (talk) 21:59, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Still no response on this, 8 days after first request.

Please read this: 19:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• Rosencomet, I can answer your questions but I don't think I can solve your problems. The majority of my conversation with Kathryn and Pigman was to explain why the caution given to you in the first arbitration case is not enforceable, and to suggest a Request for comment as a means of having the larger community review your edits. The first problem here is that you edit in a narrow area (modern paganism) that does not seem to attract much interest from other editors except for Mattisse, Pigman and Kathryn. While Mattisse has been a problem in the past, Pigman and Kathryn have been approved by the community as administrators, which is generally an indication that they are viewed with some respect, are seen to have broad experience in editing articles, and do not have behavioral concerns. Because you edit within this narrow topic area, you encounter these editors over and over again. As I explained to them, the preferred way of dealing with this sort of conflict is to bring in additional editors to review the situation, either through content or user content RFCs. Bringing in outside editors create the opportunity for non-involved editors to either tell you that they agree with Pigman and Kathryn about their concerns (demonstrating that their concerns are not personal) or to tell Pigman and Kathryn that they agree with you.

• There are definitely aspects of your editing that concern me. I'm not willing to ascribe them to malice or deliberate attempts to mislead or to use Misplaced Pages for your own purposes, or even to lack of acculturation. But some of the things Kathryn has pointed out I agree with. On the subjects of references, you complain about this comment. The main purpose of references is to support the text of the articles. To some extent, references can also provide additional information on the topic; sometimes they are labeled "for further information" or "external links" in that case. On Starwood Festival you have a long list labeled "references." I agree with Kathryn that the list looks padded, in that some of the references merely mention the existence of the festival and do not contain any information that either support the text of the article or would give an interested reader more information about the topic. Misplaced Pages is not merely a collection of links; the references should either support the text or they should provide additional encyclopedic-quality information that is not appropriate for the main article. Also, blogs and personal web sites are generally not acceptable either as external links or as reference citations, except in limited circumstances. For example, with respect to the book The Necronomicon Files: The Truth Behind Lovecraft's Legend. , neither author is mentioned in the article, and Starwood is only briefly mentioned as a place where they met other people. As a reference, it's padding, and it's not suitable as an external link or a "for more information see" because of the limited mention. Both end-listed references and in-line citations are acceptable under the manual of style, but Kathryn's request to change the references to citations is a reasonable request to demonstrate which references are truly relevant to text of the article, which are suitable "for further reading" and which are padding. References are also context specific; per this search, the book The Necronomicon Files is not an appropriate reference for the article Starwood Festival because it says nothing encyclopedic about the festival and does not add to the article, but it might be an acceptable reference for the article Daniel Harms to prove that he presented his word there.

• On the issue of extensive linking to festival artists raised here, you need to be aware that new editors join all the time, or take interest in new topics, and will not be aware of past discussions. A simple polite pointer to the archived discussion will serve better than a long defensive response. Also, consensus can change, and new editors may take a different view of a topic; plus the prior discussion was influenced by the presence of multiple sock puppets on both sides of the issue. Questions like this about article content will typically come up more than once as new editors become involved. I recall a user page essay by a frustrated physician who complained about spending hours and hours working on an article only to have to re-argue the same issues because some high school kid with one health class thought it needed to be changed. This is the wiki process, there really is no such thing as a stable or permanent article; articles are never "finished." There is a huge difference between Woodstock, with attendence of 250,000, and WinterStar, with attendance of 250. There is also a big difference in the importance of the presenters; compare the "What links here" list for Margot Adler and Steve Blamires; one is clearly more important than the other and this may affect how linking to them is viewed.

• This type of editing is also of great concern, as you are in a position to profit from the sale of these lecture tapes as a principle of ACE. Major recording artists do usually list a complete discography, but I am not sure that is equally appropriate for a minor author. It is certainly not appropriate for you, as a beneficiary of those links, to add them yourself.

• Your comment (I do not vandalize others' work, nor have I EVER touched anything you have written), displays either a failure to understand the wiki editing process or an assumption that Kathryn is targeting you for reasons other than improving article quality. Editors do not own articles they start or edit heavily, Misplaced Pages is a collaborative process. I believe Kathryn has legitimate concerns about your editing and she has been trying to raise these concerns in a reasonable manner. You have already been cautioned to avoid editing where you have a conflict of interest and edit the talk pages but not the articles in such cases.

• Ultimately, we come back again to the fact that you are writing about minor topics in a narrow field of expertise that does not have many other interested editors. If there were many interested editors, there would be many opinions on the discographies, and other editors to add them if they agreed with you that they were appropriate. There would be other editors (not involved with ACE or Starwood) to agree or disagree that lists of presenters at WinterStar Symposium and Starwood were appropriate along the same lines as lists of presenters as Woodstock. (The examples you list had 10,000 to 500,000 attendence, WinterStar has 150-250.) There is of course no way to force other editors to develop an interest in your articles, and at present, there are really only 4 people interested in your content; yourself, and Kathryn, Pigman and Mattisse. Unless you can show deliberate bad faith on the part of these people (for example, deprecating your own articles and links while creating articles and links about a rival minor pagan festival) you need to try and work with them, take their concerns seriously, and use the dispute resolution processes (third opinion, request for comment, and mediation) to try and find other editors to support you (or who will agree that Kathryn et al are correct and not just picking on you for personal reasons). Above all you need to take the Arbitration committee's caution seriously; if another case is brought and accepted, it is likely that you will be banned from editing any articles related to Starwood, ACE, or Starwood-related topics, and restricted to talk pages only. Thatcher131 01:44, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

At least I believe these things should be said:

1. I have not been "editing aggressively" nor have I "violated the terms of the arbitration". I immediately sought advice from you about the issue, though none was forthcoming until now, nine days later. And to reinterpret any editing as aggressive editing is unfair, as is talking about 16 months of activity when refering to adhering to an arbitration that took place seven months ago. I should not be blocked for something I'm not doing.

2. Since the arbitration, most of the articles by far that I've created have been non-Starwood related, and my edits have been for the most part non-controversial. Even during the arbitration there was a recognition that my editing has improved.

3. I am not a "beneficiary" of the products ACE sells, nor am I "in a position to profit from the sale of these lecture tapes". I make absolutely nothing from them, nor from the totally voluntary work I do with ACE. I've explained this many times.

4. Yes, I know that editors do not own the articles they write or heavily edit. I was just trying to emphasize that, in the midst of all the accusations of aggressive this and hostile that and being "attacked", I (unlike other editors I have observed on Misplaced Pages) have not engaged in that sort of behavior, and should not be treated as if I have.

5. I do not "hire" speakers or entertainers for ACE events. ACE hires them, based on committee-of-the-whole vote. They hire people I never heard from, and turn down people I'd like to see there. To say that the article of any artist who appears at Starwood is a "Starwood-related article" is like saying no one who volunteer works for the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon may write or edit an article about anyone who has appeared on it over the decades; a sizable list indeed. (Yes, I know, Starwood is smaller; but the principle is the same. I'm using famliar examples.) Or if Domino's Pizza uses UPS, no one who works (much less a volunteer) at Domino's may edit an article about UPS. Or if you ever worked on an MGM movie, you can't edit an article about any actor, writer, choreographer, producer, director, dancer, musician, composer, etc etc who worked on an MGM picture. Rosencomet (talk) 17:18, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Thatcher131

Is it you or an impersonator? Merry Christmas, Snowolf 01:48, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Me, recreating to prevent impersonation. Thanks for checking. Thatcher 01:50, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings

Ban of User:Zanthalon

"We have a policy. Advocacy of pedophilia is not tolerated, nor is trolling for partners.

Fred"

This user didn't do any of that, nor is there any evidence that they were even aware that they did anything wrong. This ban comes almost a full year after this user was regularly active, and the statement on their userpage was made before the arbcom case. It is absolutely inappropriate to treat this user this way. It was made very clear in the arbcom case that blocking people simply because they were known pedophiles was not acceptable, and that is exactly what has happened. -- Ned Scott 05:19, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

And talking about this issue on-wiki was not banned from that arbcom case. Advocacy of pedophilia was. Don't confuse the two. -- Ned Scott 05:20, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

We don't know what edits have been removed by oversight, or whether the user had used sockpuppets for some inappropriate reason, and the block log is very clear that questions about the block should go through the Arbitration committee. Thatcher 13:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement Armenia-Azerbaijan

I really think something isn't working. Perhaps a 3rd rfar is necesary? How long will this nonsense continue? People are just gaming the system to its fullest. -- Cat 17:26, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Well, Arbcom has indicated that it would like to review all ongoing sanctions once the new arbitrators are appointed. I don't know if this will be public or private process or whether they will take evidence, but it would be something to look for. Thatcher 22:18, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/IRC/Proposed decision

Very nice way to deal with the scheduling issue; thanks for coming up with that! Kirill 00:27, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Good to see someone with a head on their shoulders is keeping things under control there. I don't envy you the job, but am glad to see you doing it. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:19, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Fedayee and John.

You need to do something, or else the credibility of the admins will go out of the window. John's block of Fedayee is too inappropriate. Even assuming John is innocent, it does look suspicious, and that's bad enough. He didn't as much as chastise Ehud for the insults that he made, he went as far as to justify them. Noone is blocked for not assuming good faith. Especially when Fedayee has some basis for believing Ehud to be a sockpuppet. And noone is blocked without an official warning on the page of the user--simple requests on the ArbCom page don't count. Fedayee's block needs to be lifted, unless you want members to think of administrators as a joke and tools for some users.--TigranTheGreat (talk) 09:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

"Even assuming John is innocent"? Way to go WP:AGF. Orderinchaos 11:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi again, Thatcher. Just to make some things clear. WP:AGF is not a policy. It is a guideline which "is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." (WP:AGF). Saying that someone is a sockpuppet is not a violation of AGF--someone may engage in sockpuppetry with good faith (i.e. believing that he is making Misplaced Pages better).

Furthermore, a penalty should be applied after an official warning is placed on a user's talk page, and the user is told that continued violation will result in blocking. It's spelled out in the ArbCom decision: "Before any penalty is applied, a warning placed on the editor's user talk page by an administrator shall serve as notice to the user that these remedies apply to them." http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan_2. Thank you.--TigranTheGreat (talk) 10:15, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/IRC/Workshop

Feedback is requested on what to do with Giano's deleted talk page, since there's evidence included in the history of the page. Users are debating on m:vanish issues, while Jehochman has suggested an alternative regarding the clerk of the case, I guess that means you. :-) Thanks. - Mtmelendez 02:44, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Responded on the workshop talk page. Thatcher 04:41, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Your comment at WP:ANI

Hi Thatcher, I find you comments at WP:ANI where quite rude. :( Also, could you please explain to me why you believe the conversation should be archived so quickly? --CyclePat (talk) 07:59, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

It was a close call between archiving and simply blanking it, as per recent practice in similar cases. It's really not a good idea to be taking up advocacy for banned users when you don't know why they were banned. There have been a number of recent cases of editors who take the position that adult-child sex is normal, even going so far as to put pedophile userboxes on their user pages. It may even be an organized campaign, since the approach is the same across many articles and by a number of editors. We don't know if they are really pedophiles, or law enforcement running a sting, or just plain trolls. We ban them and ask them to deal directly with Arbcom via private email. If they move on to other topics, they can be unbanned. But most don't--I suspect they are single purpose throwaway advocacy accounts. There is a recent long discussion of this on the wikipedia mailing list as well. We most emphatically do not want to call attention to it with a lot of hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth over "bad blocks" and "arbcom abuse." There are about 40 million preteens in the US alone, all of whom have mothers, fathers, or guardians. If they think of Misplaced Pages at all, it's as a mostly accurate encyclopedia that kids use to do their homework. We do not want them getting the idea that Misplaced Pages promotes or encourages pedophilia; having 80 million parents and guardians thinking that their children are not safe on our web site would just about kill us for good. This user made a number of article edits pushing the point of view that sex between adults and children is normal, and that adult-child sex relationships are not molestation if the child consents. We don't need to entertain that sort of editor. Thatcher 08:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi again Thatcher, as you are probably aware, I removed the archive template (edit here). I also find that action, of adding the archive, to be a little rude. The explanation is within the edit summary and discussed on that page (i.e.: reference to WP:Censor). Thank you again for your WP:AGF in my abilities to manage this question. --CyclePat (talk) 08:20, 28 December 2007 (UTC)