User talk:Abd

Notice to IP and newly-registered editors

IP and newly registered editors: due to vandalism, this page is sometimes semiprotected, which may prevent you from leaving a message here. If you cannot edit this page, please leave me messages at User talk:Abd/IP.

WELCOME TO Abd TALK

Before reading User talk:Abd

WARNING: Reading the screeds, tomes, or rants of Abd has been known to cause serious damage to mental health. One editor, a long-time Wikipedian, in spite of warnings from a real-life organization dedicated to protecting the planet from the likes of Abd, actually read Abd's comments and thought he understood them.

After reading User talk:Abd

After reading, his behavior became erratic. He proposed WP:PRX and insisted on promoting it. Continuing after he was unblocked, and in spite of his extensive experience, with many thousands of edits,he created a hoax article and actually made a joke in mainspace. When he was unblocked from that, he created a non-notable article on Easter Bunny Hotline, and was finally considered banned. What had really happened? His brain had turned to Dog vomit slime mold (see illustration).

Caution is advised.

Editing mainstream namespace articles

I thought I'd just drop by to remind you what is involved in editing mainstream namespace articles. I have just completed a first draft of one - The Four Seasons (Poussin), on the extraordinary cycle of paintings that Nicolas Poussin painted at the end of his life when his health was failing. I acquired the two main textbooks by Blunt and Merot and accessed other academic journal articles on the web. I added paintings and drawings to wikimedia commons, having created an account for myself. I used four or five books in writing the article and more journal articles in finding quotes. The editing took about a week and the form of the article evolved as I arranged the material. A similar process is being applied to Handel organ concertos Op.4, which I will resume writing in the next day or two. In that case I might prepare lilypond files for the 6 concertos which allow stave-quotes for each movement and accompanying midi files to listen to the music. Similar methods - gathering sources, arranging material - apply in science articles, e.g. mathematics or mathematical physics. Mathsci (talk) 15:43, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Mathsci, good article writing takes skill, time, patience, and sometimes cash investment. I'm on social security, it covers my rent and little else. Given that, I spent about $150 on books on cold fusion, including the classic critical works, Huizenga and Taubes. I spent five months reading the peer-reviewed literature on-line. I discussed the topic in Talk; with a high discussion/article edit ratio, which is what I do when I'm learning. Then I came to the point where I knew what needed to be added to the article, based on what is in reliable secondary sources, according to our standards. And at that point, Hipocrite showed up and used bald reverts to oppose all of it, I'd spend hours writing a piece and it would be summarily reverted. I didn't edit war, not at first, 0RR. But I would later come back with additional references, after discussion, which isn't edit warring, it's normal editorial process. When I allegedly violated 3RR on May 21, the first edit was not a revert, it was a new assertion with additional reliable source. I did not edit war after that. There were three additional sections that had been added May 21. One of them had been accepted, on hydrino theory -- which is highly speculative, though covered in RS -- after Hipocrite finally did what he should have done in the first place: balanced RS material with other RS material. That his RSs were of lower quality, possibly, wasn't important to me, at this point the priority is getting RS material in the article, not debating what is better than what.

That left two sections. Both were discussed while the article was protected; Hipocrite mostly did not participate in the discussions. These sections, and the one accepted, were about "proposed explanations" for the reported phenomena of cold fusion. There really shouldn't be any controversy over this, there is not a shadow of a doubt that these explanations are not only proposed, they are covered in reliable secondary source. That is not the same as "accepted."

One section was simply a statement from Storms (The Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction, World Scientific, 2007) that various theories had been advanced, but that none explained all the phenomena asserted. It was quite NPOV itself, in the source, and for our article. On June 1, because it had been put up for discussion, and nobody opposed it, I reasserted it.

I also reasserted the B-8 theory as a proposed explanation, because it is also covered in secondary RS. This section had been discussed and there was consensus text that I followed.

It was all reverted by Hipocrite claiming that it had not been discussed. Another editor replaced it, he reverted again, and a different editor replaced it, and he reverted it, then realized what was happening, reverted himself, and went to RfPP to request protection, claiming I was edit warring with him. Was he lying? Maybe. Maybe just deluded, unable to understand what's going on. That is how the article got protected the second time, and that's how I came to be banned.

In other words, prevented from editing mainspace on the topic I had been preparing for five months to edit. Because?

Take a look at Oppenheimer-Phillips process. Look at what Enric Naval did with the article, then what I did, then what ScienceApologist did, then what SA and I did together. That's a mainspace edit, Mathsci. And that's the kind of work I can do. You claim I'm ignorant. Compared to what? The fact is that ignorant editors are a resource, and excluding them damages the project. Teach them about the topic, if you are actually an expert and actually know how to write.

Otherwise, for Wikipedia purposes, you are, in spite of whatever expertise you possess, useless or worse.

By the way, I don't think you can unilaterally remove yourself as a party to an arbitration. But there is a possible question about later additions. Since you are so convinced that I'm a danger to the project, though, what's your problem with being a party; it gives you privileged position in discussions, right at the top; but it does mean that you are laying your right to edit on the line to back up what you say, and it is a place where WMC can't protect you, his support might actually damage you. --Abd (talk) 16:12, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I think 16% namespace editing is low. Oppenheimer-Phillips process is more like a stub than a proper article and you were not the main contributor. You have created New Energy Times and Robert Duncan (physicist), both stubs related to cold fusion. Also European Association for Distance Learning and Center for Range Voting, both rather short stubs. All other articles created were redirects. I have not made any remark about "your ignorance"; I think you might be out of your depth in some of the articles you're attempting to edit. So far there seems to be no evidence that you have extensive experience of editing over a wide range of articles. If you had written articles like Chateau of Vauvenargues, Differential geometry of surfaces, Plancherel theorem for spherical functions, La Vieille Charité, Porte d'Aix, Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, Iphigénie, The Four Seasons (Poussin), etc, your comments on my editing skills might carry some weight. But certainly not at the moment. I am friendly with quite a lot of admins - Slrubenstein, Dougweller, Dbachmann, Arthur Rubin, most of the mathematical admins, MastCell, Nishkid, Alison, Hemlock Martinis, Durova, Caillil, Tim Vickers, etc. There's nothing special about William B. Connolley, except that we both edited River Thames frost fairs a little. Mathsci (talk) 01:34, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring at William M. Connolley rfar

Please refrain from reverting other editors at the William M. Connolley (2nd) arbitration request. In future, if a change is made (for example, Mathsci's adjustment to the list of parties) that is contrary to procedure, please contact a clerk or an arbitrator to have it handled. It is likely that any edit warring in that thread will, as of this notice, be met with a block. AGK 15:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, AGK. I did not deliberately revert any editor there, I would not do that. When I added the names and saved them, I then notified the editors and went back to the request and added the diffs. While I was doing that, I noticed that Mathsci's name was missing. I must have somehow omitted it, I thought, so I replaced it as I was adding the diff for notice. I did not expect, at all, that an experienced editor would remove their name like that. I only saw the original removal and comments afterwards.

I thought, once I saw what was happening, that I might go to AN/I, but then realized that, no, these pages are seen by plenty of editors with tools, they will handle it. I made comments in the arbitration -- this kind of behavior by Mathsci, very aggressive and non-cooperative is not unusual -- and also on the Talk page, but that's it. Thanks again. --Abd (talk) 16:36, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

warned — Rlevse • Talk • 21:15, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: Willy & the poor boys

I don't know if there was an actual case, but the block message made a reference to checkuser, and since Raul is one, I assumed he'd used it. Making disingenuous unblock requests like that one is a trademark of Scibaby's, so I've no reason to doubt the block was accurate here. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:18, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Hersfold. Yeah, though I did ask Raul654 if he'd checked and he didn't to answer. Checkuser policy asserts that checkuser won't be used unless there is disruption, and my understanding is that mere suspicion that an editor is a sock shouldn't be enough (and I didn't see disruption in this editor's contribs). Did Raul654 check? I certainly don't know, but if he had, I do wonder why he didn't simply assert it. There are limitations on checkuser, the original Scibaby sock ID wasn't checkuser based and it's unclear what happened later. Hersfold, I'm not criticizing your decision, but since you made the reference, I was asking if you had more information; it seems you don't. Thanks again. How I read your unblock decision, then, is "I trust Raul654's unconfirmed judgment." I'll assume that is correct unless you correct it, though, if this is true, one of the purposes of an unblock template has been bypassed: an independent decision. I don't necessarily have an answer to the problem. --Abd (talk) 18:44, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, though I did ask Raul654 if he'd checked and he didn't to answer. - I put template:sockpuppetCheckuser on his user page and in the block log. That makes the answer to this question rather obvious.

Checkuser policy asserts that checkuser won't be used unless there is disruption, and my understanding is that mere suspicion that an editor is a sock shouldn't be enough (and I didn't see disruption in this editor's contribs). - Your understanding of policy is wrong. Here's what the policy actually says: The tool is to be used to fight vandalism, to check for sockpuppet activity, to limit disruption or potential disruption of any Wikimedia project, and to investigate legitimate concerns of bad faith editing. -- Wikipedia:CheckUser. We do not have to wait for sockpuppet accounts to become disruptive before checkusering and blocking them as such.

Did Raul654 check? I certainly don't know, but if he had, I do wonder why he didn't simply assert it. - The fact that you missed what was perfectly obvious to everyone else is no one's fault but your own.

There are limitations on checkuser, the original Scibaby sock ID wasn't checkuser based and it's unclear what happened later. - There's nothing unclear about it. Scibaby was blocked in September by WMC as an obvious sockpuppet of somebody. That somebody was later identified in November/December by checkuser evidence as Obedium, who we discovered was using about 17(!) accounts concurrently to edit global warming articles. (See Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Scibaby from September, and Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Obedium from November/December). More were discovered the next month. Raul654 (talk) 19:07, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Raul, of course you have much more experience with this, but I found a different story investigating it specifically, I wrote about it here on this page. It's moot at the moment, but it seems that the Scibaby block/ban may come up in the current RfAr over WMC, who first blocked Scibaby, and the report in September, already, identified Obedium. My sense is that it is possible that Scibaby's extensive socking was caused by the block or by the revert warring that preceded it; there was clearly something odd about Obedium before that, there is some indication of a role account. I'm sure you have better things to do than debate this here, but I continue to find it odd that, instead of simply answering the question, as with "Yes, I used checkuser," you make much longer arguments that imply it without saying it. I may be totally wrong about the Scibaby history, you may deserve the biggest possible barnstar for protecting the project, but .... it's important that we watch the watchers, and if you disagree, you probably shouldn't be a watcher. --Abd (talk) 19:27, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict with below) Okay, this seals it. Raul, you cannot be trusted to present evidence neutrally. In December, yes, 15 new sock puppets were discovered, with many appearing on the 30th or 31st December, the earliest new sock was 17 December. Obedium, as mentioned, was identified back in September, and seems to have been encountering harassment. The other "sock" listed was Scibaby, who had been blocked back in September. The case was filed 31 December, and the only relevant information in it that could related to anything earlier than December is about Scibaby and Obedium; so in November, there was, as far as so far identified, only one account editing, Obedium, who was being harassed. What do people who are harassed do? Some of them create armies of sock puppets, that's one reason why it's so important to have good dispute resolution processes that are broadly perceived as fair, and not allow administrators to dominate content, as was happening at that time in the global warming articles. No question, Scibaby's response was disruptive, long-term disruptive, but disruption leads to disruption, and that's true on all sides. We might be able to fix this one, but one day at a time, one problem at a time. --Abd (talk) 19:50, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll spell it out clearly then: I used checkuser on Willy, as I have with literally hundreds of his other accounts. The result was an extremely conclusive match to Scibaby, the details and analysis of which I will share with other checkusers if they inquire, but will not share with non-checkusers. I tagged his user page accordingly, blocked him (also with a checkuser notation), and proceeded to revert all of his edits. You then reverted me, thus becoming a meatpuppet for Scibaby. Do not do that again. Raul654 (talk) 19:36, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for being clear. Your charge of meat puppetry is preposterous, since, when I reverted that edit, I had no information relating to Scibaby. You didn't bother with an edit summary. I am not obligated to look at user pages when checking edits; and if I had, on the user's talk page, I'd have seen nothing. I'd have seen it if I checked the block log or the user page, I don't routinely do either, and, as a number of other editors have opined, the edit itself was harmless. No, I don't expect you to share checkuser evidence, though when you block based on checkuser, you should so state, and there is a bit of a conflict of interest here, given your original involvement, which was heavy, I'd suggest that it would look better if another checkuser handled Scibaby issues. --Abd (talk) 19:50, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

One more point, Raul. We are involved in a dispute. No, you may not block me for anything short of clear and present danger to the project. Your threat to block is, itself, a violation of recusal policy, you may not legitimately threaten to do what you may not legitimately do. I am not planning on defying your suggestion, but I'd suggest you get out of the habit of bullying users, and fast. It is damaging the project, and, sooner or later, the truth about this will out. Never depend on the community remaining asleep. --Abd (talk) 19:55, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I am not obligated to look at user pages when checking edits; and if I had, on the user's talk page, I'd have seen nothing. - you are obligated to find out the reason for my revert before counter-reverting me. Had you done the least bit of work, like checking my contribs (to see that I was reverting all his edits, and had already tagged his user page), or his user page, or his block log, etc - you would have found out. And in the future, you had better start taking that minimum precaution, because there will not be any further warnings where proxy editing for Scibaby is concerned. (I've now warned you once and GoRight 3 times about it. I'm not issuing any more to either of you)

and there is a bit of a conflict of interest here, given your original involvement, which was heavy, I'd suggest that it would look better if another checkuser handled Scibaby issues. - Being the first person who checkusered Scibaby does not create a conflict of interest, nor do your spurious claims of such. Request denied.

We are involved in a dispute. - Nice try, but you don't get to invent policy out of whole cloth. Issuing someone a warning for violating Wikipedia policy does not involve one in a dispute. Have a nice day. Raul654 (talk) 19:59, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

You too, Raul654, with respect to all of it. The project has moved on. Don't say you weren't warned. Now, please, respect what I asked above, stay away from this talk page absent necessity. --Abd (talk) 20:03, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Just so it's clear: I did not violate policy as you claim. That is a specific dispute. There is no policy against restoring reverted edits of banned or blocked users if the edits themselves are not disruptive or policy violations -- other than being block or ban evasion. You may warn me, but if there is a dispute over whether behavior is a violation or not, the one warning may not block, and if you are going to make an exception, it better be good and the need immediate. --Abd (talk) 20:06, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

There is no policy against restoring reverted edits of banned or blocked users if the edits themselves are not disruptive or policy violations - as usual, what you claim about policy and what it actually says are two different things: Anyone is free to revert any edits made in defiance of a ban. ... Users are generally expected to refrain from reinstating edits made by banned users in violation of the ban, and such edits may be viewed as meatpuppetry. Users who reinstate such edits take complete responsibility for the content by so doing. -- Wikipedia:Banning policy. Also note that that "content" in this context refers exclusively to the content of article edits. (In other words, you cannot take responsibility for talk page edits at all.) You violated policy when you restored his edits to GoRight's page. And you can invent as many claims about policy as you like - you seem to be quite good at it - but if you violate that policy again, there won't be any further warnings. Raul654 (talk) 04:27, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Saith the Raul654, heavily privileged editor (if not for WP:DGAF, and that I'm not an SPA with an agenda to protect, I'd be shaking in my wikiboots), privileges here including oversight and checkuser, long accustomed to "Le Wiki, C'est Moi." What is not prohibited is permitted. I read that policy, cited above, and the claim that "content" solely refers to article edits, and not to Talk, is pure invention, wishful synthesis. If an edit is not disruptive, and is considered useful or potentially useful, an editor may restore it, taking responsibility for it as if the editor had made it himself or herself. We ban disruption, not text or ideas.

Indeed, automatic removal of edits by blocked or banned editor can itself be disruptive and should never be repeated, for a specific edit, when there is objection from an editor in good standing, for, if the edits themselves were disruptive, then, by restoring them or objecting to removal, the editor would be sanctionable for disruption and the meat puppetry charge would be unnecessary. Properly, WP:MEAT refers to true proxying, where an editor literally makes edits as directed by another user, or, perhaps, automatically and without discrimination reverts back in removed edits from a blocked or banned editor.

Basic wikilaw: policies and guidelines are to be interpreted as a whole, so as to be consistent overall, rather than, in each particular application, seeking the possible accidental meanings of words, which is called "wikilawyering." Note that "generally expected" implies, then, the exception which explicitly follows: the taking of responsibility by an editor for the content, and content is a technical term covering all kinds of data hosted by a web site, for if the intention of the policy were to restrict this to only article content, then that would properly be specified. Instead, the policy is correct as it stands.

There are long-term, highly experienced editors whose understanding of wiki principles is deep and truly a wondrous thing to read. And there are others whose radical misunderstanding of these principles, combined with their energetic promotion of their own vision of the wiki, makes them responsible for much of what has gone astray with Wikipedia, and some of these, as a result of such extensive work (much or most of which was highly useful), have been granted high privilege. Incompleteness of the original vision, not its error, is what has made the project vulnerable to this. We simply need to complete the original work, it was brilliant.

For a specific example, which has been alleged by Raul as a problem, I restored certain removed edits of JedRothwell, an indef blocked editor, to Talk:Cold fusion. When I did so, I removed extraneous and unnecessary material that could be read as disparaging Wikipedia editors, and left only the on-point content, which I found useful. JedRothwell is an expert on the topic. Although not a scientist, he is a writer and editor, and does a great deal of editing of papers for publication. Much of the literature on Cold fusion is in Japanese, and he is fluent in that language, so, in some ways, he may know more than even many dedicated scientists in the field. He is highly opinionated, as are most experts, in fact, though he's known for being blunt.

Because the allegations of proxying for banned editors have been raised so many times, I expect this may be considered by ArbComm in the present RfAr, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley. Comments there will be welcome. --Abd (talk) 14:03, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia: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, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 12:20, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The modified naming is fine. It gives me the attention I desperately crave, and, seriously, reflects the fact that my own behavior will come under close scrutiny, and it will help those who may have been offended by it to notice the arbitration, just as will happen with the other major party.

I keep hearing the song, The hour when the ship comes in], but I respond to my imagination that this is a wiki, and they will not "raise their hands, Sayin' we'll meet all your demands," nor is this expected. I have more in mind the celebration of the rocks and the welcome of the sands, the relief and joy that we can all feel when what is hidden becomes openly clear, and deep and long disputes can be settled and vanish like childhood nightmares. Victory is Mine, sayeth the Consensus, apologizing for having napped for too long. --Abd (talk) 13:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Last good-faith attempt to see if the problem can be solved

(this comes from User_talk:Enric_Naval#Anyone_familiar_with_these_papers.3F, posted here since it derived into user behaviour as I wrote it)

For the last time, can you stop throwing bad-faith assumptions in the middle of your posts? Implying that me and others are not discussing anything or that I am misquoting in purpose or that we purposefully disagree because we have a cold fusion POV and not simply because we think that the source is bad. Just in this discussion you have said "That's what I do when I'm learning about a subject, I research it and discuss it. You ought to try it sometime. (...) There is no contradiction of sources involved here that isn't synthesized by you.", "That's what Simons shows, if you were to actually read the book instead of just cherry-picking extracts as it suits you.", "You imagine consensus because you take a position, and a few editors who take consistently anti-cold-fusion positions agree.", "I think I know what contradiction you have in mind, and it is a diffuse one, and it's called "POV." It appears to you to contradict your POV, which you imagine to be scientific consensus. And that's what comes out with detailed discussion." This only gets editors irritated against you and poisons the discussions, and you are doing it all the time.

And don't convert my own arguments into strawmen before throwing them at me "Do you deny that it is a proposed explanation? Again, what contradiction?", "and are you really going to try to challenge the reputation of Naturwissenschaften? "

And don't wikilawyer: "Above you imply that the paper in Frontiers of Physics in China is not reliable source. On what guideline or policy do you base this?" you were already given multiple reasons of why it was a bad source and you refuse to accept them.

And don't treat to me as if was totally clueless "Enric, too often you have no clue as to what sources mean, nor to what editorial comments mean.", you already did that at Oppenheimer-Phillips process calling my edits "nonsense".

Finally, I would like to see how you react to this comment before submitting my evidence to the Arbcom case. Consider this my last good faith attempt at getting you to recognize that there might be a problem with your own editing instead of everything being the fault of someone else (in the case of cold fusion, that someone else being anti-CF POV-pushing editors). As in a last attempt to get you to improve your behaviour, as in "First step: admitting that there is a problem. If this step is not taken, then nothing will work." (note that this has nothing to do at all with the Twelve-step program, which has a similar first step). Just a last-last-last attempt to make sure that you are really not going to change your behaviour if only the problem is explained to you clearly. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:11, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, while there are problems with my editing -- it would be amazing if there were not -- I don't see an explanation of it above, and your edits at O-P process were nonsense. There is no denial of good faith in that, you simply did not understand the topic and sources, or English technical language, one or both. As to bad-faith assumptions, you haven't pointed to one, as far as I noticed. Take what I say literally, try to set aside the "assumptions" you imagine are behind it, and consider.

I'm not Mathsci; I don't deny your right to participate in editing articles, even if you are "clueless," for your cluelessness can actually be helpful. If you are willing to learn, you then become a test of whether or not the text has become clear as well as accurate. And it seems that happened with O-P process, but only because you trust ScienceApologist more than you trust me. If he had not appeared, would you still have revert warred with me to reinsert patent nonsense? (Answer: no, because I wouldn't have revert warred back, I'd have solicited expert comment.)

• I was given reasons why the FPC article was a "bad source," but not reasons why it was not WP:Reliable source. We have policies and procedures and practice for dealing with "bad" reliable source, and you have neglected this alternative. Above, you place in opposition, as if they contradict each other, my assertion that FPC is a "reliable source" by pointing to "multiple reasons of why it was a bad source." It's not necessary, but the writer of that article is an established Chinese physicist, with long research in the field of hot fusion, at a major university where this is a specialty and focus. There are reasons why the review may be criticized, but they don't actually change the fact that it is peer-reviewed secondary source, entitled to a strong presumption of reliability. If I were claiming the source as a reason to claim that "cold fusion has been accepted," i.e., accepted by the "mainstream," which remains blissfully undefined, and which it does not establish, then there would be a point to the objections. But I haven't claimed that, and the source was only asserted, so far, for one thing: that Be-8 theory has sufficient notability to be mentioned. That's all. Don't personalize the dispute, Enric.

While I appreciate your intention to resolve this problem outside ArbComm, isn't it a little late? After all, you have been pushing for me to be blocked for months, warning me for doing things that are perfectly permitted, personalizing disputes, and refusing to understand the science. There is a difference between you and Hipocrite, indeed, you clearly wish to be helpful, and we have been able to cooperate at times. But calling for an editor to be banned is poisonous to cooperation, and you have never followed more than the first stage of WP:DR with me, i.e., direct discussion. The second stage would be involvement of a single additional mediator. At the mediation we have, distorted as it was by Hipocrite's selection of parties (thoroughly and blatantly stacked), progress is being made; so far, my content positions have been confirmed, albeit glacially. It could have been much easier. Go ahead and present evidence to ArbComm, but be careful. Toss shit in the air, it may fall back down on you. --Abd (talk) 18:42, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

@Abd, uffff, so, you think that the examples above don't give any explanation of problems in your editing? And I said nonsense at the OP article but you weren't saying anything wrong? Geeez, I guess I can now safely assume that you really don't intend to learn anything from the input given to you. I would have prepared that it would be different because you ocassionally have good ideas, but now at least I shall feel no remorse when asking for a full ban for you. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:59, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

(EC) @Enric "throwing bad-faith assumptions in the middle of your posts?" - Might I point out that good faith actually goes in both directions. For example, "don't convert my own arguments into strawmen", "And don't wikilawyer", and "you were already given multiple reasons of why it was a bad source and you refuse to accept them." all sound pretty WP:ABF to me. Can it not also be said that you, Enric, have been given multiple reasons why the sources are GOOD and you refuse to accept them? I think a little objectivity might be in order here. There certainly CAN be good faith stalemates on such issues, no? --GoRight (talk) 18:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

@GoRight, what did I tell you about bullshitting me? I give specific examples of each behaviour. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:52, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

No BS, Enric. Those phrases are exact counter examples of everything you are accusing Abd of. You didn't give examples of each behavior, you gave examples of what you assumed each behavior to be. Just because you assume it doesn't mean that's how Abd meant it. Like I said, good faith flows in both directions. You claim Abd is not hearing you. I claim you are not hearing either of us. The difference, of course, is that neither of us is trying to get you banned. You have been working overtime on both fronts to get both of us banned. Sometimes a disagreement is just a disagreement. --GoRight (talk) 02:36, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that I made a reasonable interpretation of what Abd said, and that there isn't much room for other interpretations. Also, I'm commenting in what Abd is actually doing, not in the intent. He is doing those things. --Enric Naval (talk) 03:55, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, last attempt

Enric, I almost just deleted the entire section above, with the summary, A true good-faith effort to resolve a dispute would involve some level of listening, not just more complaints, but I decided to make one more effort myself. I don't see, above, any sign that you have attempted to understand my position; instead, you continue to attack it and complain. Your "last good-faith effort to see if the problem can be solved" appears to be based on a firm belief that my behavior is the problem, and everything I say about that behavior is interpreted through that lens. Instead of demanding what you want, you should offer what you expect from me, that is, you should seek to understand my position and to show that you do. (That does not mean abandoning your own position, it simply means showing understanding -- or if you don't understand, then acknowledging that and seeking understanding.)

So I will turn it around. You obviously have a long-term dispute with me, you have sought to have me banned since April, with plenty of complaint before that. What is it that you think I have not heard? And do you have anyone you could suggest who might be able to mediate this dispute, someone you trust, and, if possible, someone you think I might trust as well? I can assure you that before I'd have taken your behavior to a noticeboard, I'd have been taking this step. With WMC, I attempted to solicit mediation from a supporter of his, and the supporter vehemently rejected it. Think about it. --Abd (talk) 01:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's have this clear: I started asking for your ban because you failed to do anything about all the complaints, both mine and from others.... Indeed, it's evident from above that after months of complaints I can't even get you to acknowledge that the problems exist in the first place, and when pointed at clearly problematic behaviour you don't see anything wrong. You also ask what other expect from you, when this ought to be very clear to you (writing shorter on-topic comments, accepting consensus, not meat-puppeting for Jed, etc, etc, etc. my own comment above includes actual examples of other things I ask you not to do)and you have failed to do any of it during months of complaints and after one page ban. This is has nothing to do with me understanding you, but with you refusing to behave, which is all that was asked from you. Given all this, and given that you don't even give the first step of admitting that there is a problem with your editing in the first place, I don't see how you are going to pay any attention to what a mediator says.

I could make a longer message with more examples and stuff, but it would obviously fall in deaf ears. My attempt was to see if I should ask for a full ban or not, and the answer is clearly yes, since you fail to acknowledge any problem. --Enric Naval (talk) 05:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Briefly, this is what you have stated as a summary, and which I assume we will continue to discuss, if you accept, on the pages set aside for that, see below, where agreement can be filtered out from continued discussion or dispute.

• You believe that I have not responded to complaints.
• You believe that I have not acknowledged that "the problems exist in the first place." Specific problems alleged:
• Comments that are too long or off-topic.
• Not accepting "consensus."
• Reverting to restore comments from JedRothwell, you call it "meat puppetry."

Thanks for responding to that extent. You may, if you wish, flesh these out on those pages, or add other complaints. --Abd (talk) 14:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I'm opening up a personal dispute page at User:Abd/Enric Naval. If we agree on a mediator, that page can be moved to User:[mediator username]/Abd and Enric Naval. Your participation is, of course, voluntary. The user page itself should reflect our consensus; everything there should be demonstrably true and NPOV; that is, if there are opinions there, they should be attributed. The attached talk page should then be used for discussion, and others may discuss there as well, subject to civility and intention to help resolve the dispute, rather than to inflame it. Pending a mediator, the page may be moved, by you, to your user space if you would prefer to be in charge of it. Meanwhile, if I put anything on the user page itself that you do not agree with, feel free to move it to the attached talk page.

I'm personally content to allow ArbComm to handle this, but if we can find some consensus before this goes to AC voting on proposed remedies, it could help improve the outcome. ArbComm very much likes it when editors resolve their disputes directly. --Abd (talk) 14:07, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

What makes you think that restarting the discussion in a separate page will make any difference....? I am disheartened that you didn't list the problems in my initial posting[1] despite my comment saying that the other above had more examples, which would be:

• implying that editors oppose because of their anti-CF POV
• making my arguments into strawmen and throwing them back at them
• wikilawyering
• treating me as if I was clueless

This is the same all the time... when the scope gets big enough, you start leaving things outside.... in a couple of weeks you will refer again to some topic in a way that gives no indication that you took my comment into account... is it the ADHD? is it that you failed to interiorize the advice? who knows, the point is that this happens, and all my effort goes to waste (you can add this to the list of problems) For example, we already discussed the first point in here and I pointed you to WP:TINC there is no cabal, and you said that you were not talking about any cabal while at the same time describing a cabal..... what sort of progress can be made when I can't even get you to agree in the terminology..... trying to get you to center in one specific point is useless because every reply you make wanders into discussion one to three unrelated topics, something even new topics, and this derails the discussions (this is relevant to the third problem on the list you made, if that problem is not solved then solving the other problems becomes much more difficult)..... I understand that your intent is good, but you have failed for months to solve the communication problems that were pointed repeatedly to you.... even now, you say "You believe that I have not acknowledged that "the problems exist in the first place."" as opposed to "OK, I have a problem" or "I think that I don't have a problem, but since people complain so much, it's obvious that I have one"..... and what is this about discussing it.... you are supposed to start solving those problems, like, right here and now, to start making an effort to not have that behaviour again, to start by avoiding them in very your next comment and in every comment after that one..... I'm so tired..... this was a last-last-last attempt to have a clear conscience that it wasn't all a huge misunderstanding and that I couldn't really get you to change and become a productive editor..... back in May I asked you if you would accept a mediation to solve the content issues, with the condition that you would agree in advance to abide to what the mediator decided[2]....it went unanswered.... I suspect that this was because it was lost in the sea of verbiage in Talk:Cold fusion, a sea that, by the way, I blame on you for not making shorter on-topic comments..... which brings us again to you not solving communication problems when they were pointed out to you the first dozen times.... full circle and stuff..... I guess that I have to ask for a temporal full ban so you get a very clear message that you have an actual problem, you are suppposed to acknowledge it and change your behaviour already, you are not supposed to insist in more discussions when so many discussions have already failed, the only alternative now is a full ban..... I'll go later and write up that evidence, it's now in your hands to convince the arbs that you don't deserve the full ban that I will ask for.... sorry that it ends like this..... --Enric Naval (talk) 15:52, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Could you please be more concise? This wall of text hurts my eyes. --GoRight (talk) 01:07, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, tl;dr. If there is something above that you could state briefly, you are welcome to restate it; but it would be better if you simply put what's important on the negotiation page. Mediation is not a process that should involve prior agreement to follow a result; however, if there is a neutral mediation, it would be unwise not to respect it. As you are clearly unwilling, now, from reading your last few words above, to mediate, I'll repeat that I asked you to suggest someone you trust to mediate the personal dispute. The goal is consensus between us, not a specific content decision, and if consensus is not found, the mediation has failed, at that level, so "compliance" with it is meaningless. I took your opening of this discussion as a sincere effort, but you are showing the opposite, an unwillingness to consider the issues, unfortunately. You anticipate that the process would be tedious, so you reject it out-of-hand, being unwilling to even try. Too bad, Enric. I will lay out what I can on the page in question, and your response there remains optional. --Abd (talk) 16:14, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

This was already a problem back in May, and remains a problem now: you have been so picky about neutrality and involvement, that, honestly, I simply fear that all my efforts in the mediation will be thrown overboard because you found some moot flaw in the neutrality. So, prior compromise to abide by the result is required (I'll probably make a proposal in the workshop about a binding mediation or a binding mentorship). Also, hum, I think that you failed to catch the message of "change your behaviour or ban"? It's in italics in my comment. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:42, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Abd. sorry to butt in but I am doing a lot of reading trying to understand all the aspects of the arbcom case with you and Connelley. Would you supply a dif for me to read about the WMC supporter who "vehemently rejected it." I would be interested in reading that conversation if you would be kind enough to point me to the dif. Thank you, --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. Tea? Coffee? Cream? I emailed TenOfAllTrades, I received an email response, which I will not post without permission, except to an arbitrator on request, but I posted the entire email I'd sent to him, and he then replied, et seq. Permanent link to discussion for ease of reading.

Some comments:

• In posting my mail to TOTN TOAT on his Talk page, sure, I was, not exactly "playing to the crowd," but to ArbComm. I edit with a constant awareness that the future is looking over my shoulder, something I've been doing for 25 years on-line, since the future can see, generally, everything I do. However, the email itself wasn't, at all, playing to the crowd, since it was private and an opportunity for TOTN TOAT to have interceded to mediate the dispute.
• If TOTN TOAT had accepted, I would have expected him to be favorable to WMC, but to recognize the real possibility of risk to WMC's bit, and therefore to point out that WMC should recuse from further action. I'm not planning on asking for that bit to be revoked, but only for what was done with JzG; contrary to TOTN TOAT's impression, ArbComm, in that case, essentially agreed with everything I'd asserted of importance. I did end up suggesting that ArbComm suspend the bit until it had received assurances that there would be no further abuse, but A/C decided, I imagine as a result of private discussions, to simply reprimand, which was quite strong enough, JzG has completely stopped editing since before the decision. That's been blamed on me; however, my view is that JzG had already burned out, that is why he'd become grossly uncivil in 2007-2008, and why, when the incivility was reprimanded, he turned to "don't get mad, get even" actions.
• I may suggest what has become clear to me: when ArbComm finds improper admin action, it should suspend the bit unless it has received assurances that the admin understands the problem and will not repeat it; instead it tends to take a more extreme position, one way or the other: revocation or a troutslap, and when an admin clearly doesn't understand the issue, as with Tango or Physchim62, making it clear that the stonewalling and lack of understanding is the problem, not that an admin might have made a mistake. JzG stonewalled. WMC is more voluble than JzG, and appears to frankly admit his motivations, though not with an adequate analysis, as will appear with the evidence yet to be presented except in very compact form in the Request, in the full text hyperlinked from there. --Abd (talk) 13:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I simultaneously posted a response to Crohnie's request on her talk page: User talk:Crohnie#Abd's request for 'mediation'. The brief summary is this: No, Abd did not ask me to mediate the dispute. Instead, he asked me to threaten WMC on his behalf. He has just confirmed above that his unfruitful pursuit of my attention was purely to play to ArbCom, not part of any good-faith attempt to resolve the dispute. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:13, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

That response confirms what I wrote. No, I confirmed nothing of the kind. I find it sad that we have an administrator who cannot assume good faith, even privately. He claims that I wanted him to "threaten" WMC. What I wanted him to do, in fact, was to investigate the situation, independently, and I offered to provide evidence, but I didn't immediately provide it, so as not to prejudice his investigation. Only then would he warn WMC, and probably privately, and only if he found there was actual risk. Properly, if he saw no risk upon investigation, he'd have informed me that he saw no basis. Instead, he ranted about Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Abd and JzG, with a seriously worrisome understanding of what happened there.

There is now, as a result of his rejection of the opportunity, a much more disruptive RfAr which could, indeed, threaten WMC's bit; I'll note that we have an arbitrator who recused, who stated that he may provide evidence. Does TOTN TOAT imagine that this will be evidence supporting WMC's position? I can't anticipate it, for sure, but the arbitrator's recusal was no surprise to me. WMC's cavalier use of tools, supporting a faction of editors and his personal opinions, is unusually well-known, it's been the subject of media reports, and this damages Wikipedia. We should never allow to continue any credible basis for such claims. TOTN TOAT's response is material to the RfAR in process, and will be covered there. What ArbComm will make of it will be up to them.

(I define "disruptive" as the diversion of editor time from improving the project to involved and involving debate that does not improve content. The basic principle is to keep disruption to a minimum, taking disputes only to the level necessary to resolve them, which starts with two editors discussing a dispute, and widens only a little with the involvement of a third.) --Abd (talk) 16:33, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd assume somebody would thus be deemed "disruptive" who spends little time on content, more so on crusade after crusade on behalf of the perceived downtrodden who enjoys interjecting themselves into situations to engineer scenarios to further his crusading agenda? Minkythecat (talk) 16:52, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

That's correct, Minky. However, I'll note, I was working on content, intensively and with a lot of research and prior discussion, when I was banned. In other words, I was forced to pursue a dispute instead of editing the article. As to crusade on behalf of the downtrodden, that's not exactly what I do. I work to unblock and unban, sometimes, editors who have been adding useful content, and when I do this effectively, I'm indirectly responsible for a great deal of content that never accrues to my edit count. A good example would be Wilhelmina Will. Ask her if you doubt this. I see, all the time, questionable blocks and other stuff. I do not intervene unless I consider that it will be, overall, efficient. I would also like to reform our process so that unnecessary blocks and bans happen much less, and I believe I understand how to do that, without endangering the discretion of administrators to follow WP:IAR. If you imagine that Wikipedia will resolve its problems unconsciously, without deliberate discussion, in depth, of reform, you are dreaming. My goal is to essentially shift our discussion habits, to form it into effective discussion, effective in terms of finding true consensus, as distinct from the complete mess we now, too often, have.

ArbComm will decide if the net effect of my work is positive or negative. So far, so good. One never knows the future, though. I trust ArbComm, it's the best process we have, but much of what ArbComm does could be shifted out to the community, through the establishment of similar cautious process elsewhere, with ArbComm reserved for disputes that, even after all the evidence is in, even after all the arguments have been collected and refactored into a clear report, there is no consensus and yet the matter is important enough to warrant attention at the highest level.

You may consider my filing of the RfAr as disruptive, but you should really compare it to the alternatives. I could have gone to a noticeboard with my complaint. I could have filed an RfC. Were I like some editors, I could have had salted away a series of sock puppets; I know how to avoid checkuser, etc, but, quite simply, I believe in consensus and would never try to warp it with socks. What I saw, from prior events and from what happened when, in spite of my efforts to prevent it, I was taken to the noticeboards twice over the ban issues, and the !votes reflected a dedicated faction of editors, easily identified from prior disputes involving other editors, as well as myself. Continuing that would be needless disruption, it was quite clear that it wasn't going to be resolved below ArbComm, so I actually shut it down, accepting a month-long ban as being minimally disruptive, and when I was 24-hour blocked, for a trivial edit that did not challenge the ban but instead acknowledged it -- by being self-reverted as well as by being harmless, I didn't even put up an unblock template. Watch. You'll see. --Abd (talk) 17:22, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

No need to watch. Good captain Abd seems unable to grasp that facing an iceberg, it may be a good idea to steer an alternate course. But then again, your trivial edit, as is pretty obvious, was designed to force the issue. Because, after all, a ban is a ban, not a "ban unless you consider it trivial". After all, if the edit was trivial there was zero need for YOU to do it. Minkythecat (talk) 17:27, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

These are all issues that will be discussed and debated before ArbComm. The edit was not designed to force any issue; at that point, and the record shows this, I had plenty of evidence before me that such edits would be considered to not violate a ban. It was only when I was blocked, in fact, that argument was presented that they should be considered violations. Please read the RfAr evidence carefully, especially my presentation that is there now, which is what was presented with the request. If you look at the "current dispute" link, you will see a diff to WMC's comment on this kind of edit. That's the response I expected: no response. It's not true that there was "zero need." "Trivial" refers to an edit that could not possibly be, in itself, a disruption. With ScienceApologist, it was spelling corrections. Now, the SA edits were designed to disrupt, in fact, but he was not blocked for them. He was blocked for a declared intention to disrupt. Self-reversion was a suggestion I made to him at the time to answer the problem he raised and that others raised against him or for him: on the one hand, spelling corrections undeniably improve the project. Thus they are justified under WP:IAR. The alternative of suggesting the edit is far more cumbersome, for everyone, than simply making an edit. On the other hand, even small edits complicate ban enforcement. How to resolve this? I suggested that if, with the edit, the editor summarizes with "will self-revert per ban," the editor is (1) displaying cooperation with the ban, and (2) has set it up so that any editor can, without any fuss, immediately see the edit and implement it if the editor approves. And that's exactly how I saw these edits work, in the times that they were used. Nobody else but me, as far as I can see, has been blocked for a ban-violating edit of this nature, though Wikipedia is vast and it may have happened. Please remember, as well, at the time, I had cleared this suggestion with an arbitrator before making it to ScienceApologist. Nobody objected, at that point, that such edits would still be ban violations, and since they were clearly less disruptive than "harmless edits," I was quite surprised to be blocked. Your ABF position stinks, Minky. --Abd (talk) 19:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I had already investigated the situation and commented on it at the time of your email to me. I had advised you specifically to demonstrate through the mediation process (which you had agreed to at the time) that you could engage in productive discussion with other editors, and I expressed an expectation that following such a demonstration, WMC would be likely to lift your page ban.

Instead, you chose to ignore that advice. First, you asked me by email to threaten WMC on your behalf, then you repeated the same message on my talk page so you could play to ArbCom. I informed you that your reasoning was faulty, and that in the course of your threats to WMC you had been repeatedly misstating and misinterpreting of the JzG & Abd Arbitration. If you didn't keep bringing up that case, I wouldn't feel compelled to correct your interpretation. (Indeed, as far as I can recall, the only times I've referred to that case since its closure have been in direct response to your statements about it.)

I have posted a copy of my initial email reply to you on my talk page. You keep referring to it as if it were some sort of deep dark secret; there is now a public copy at User talk:TenOfAllTrades#Your email response to me regarding William M. Connolley. (If anything, the email was more temperate than my on-wiki comments, as it was only the first time that I'd had to respond to your message.)

Incidentally, TOTN is a confusing acronym for my pseudonym. I'm not quite sure why you're using it. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:53, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, don't know how I did that, except for general dizziness. I've redacted to TOAT, hope that's okay. "If I didn't keep bringing up the case." Uh, TOAT, there is a pending RfAr. If I've misinterpreted the prior arbitration, surely ArbComm will make that clear. I wrote that you vehemently rejected the attempt, and I was asked for specifics, which I provided. You had no obligation to correct that here. You have, as far as I can tell, confirmed the rejection above. The "deep dark secret" image is entirely yours. Thanks for posting the original response. Yes, it may have been more temperate, I haven't checked yet. I asked you for permission to post it then, which you denied. I'm glad you changed your mind, it would have been slightly simpler if you had simply done this on request. But done is done. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 19:25, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Sekret Kabal

Both User:Short Brigade Harvester Boris and User:Guettarda have expressed disappointment that you haven't included them in the not-so-sekret kabal. Could you rectify this omission, please? William M. Connolley (talk) 18:15, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

No need to thank me [3] William M. Connolley (talk) 18:35, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll thank you anyway. Thanks, my profuse and unrelenting gratitude is due to you for the issues you efficiently raised, for the ultimate benefit of the community. I'll look and attempt to comply with the request. Did either of them !vote in RfC/GoRight? The names I listed were simply those who (1) were in editorial conflict with GoRight and (2) !voted with you and Raul in the RfC. It's neutral. I may have not updated the evidence file, compiled during the RfC, to show all the !votes. I'd give you a barnstar if I didn't anticipate you'd think it was sarcastic. Really. --Abd (talk) 18:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I have a bit of a problem with the method that you used to determine if there was a cabal, see my complete commentary wondering about some points. Did you try to apply your method to the people !voting positively to see if your method concluded also that there was a cabal among them? You know, making a prediction that the method will say that there is no cabal among positive commenters, and then using them as a control group to see if the method still gives the same result as using the negative commenters (also a cabal) or if it gives the predicted result (no cabal).

And notice that this is all about Jason Patton appearing on the list, and the editors supposedly belonging to the same cabal wondering who in heavens is that person that is supposed to be in the same cabal as them. As a good-faith advice, I advice you that you are including too much irrelevant info there, that this confuses people who are getting stuck trying to understand what is that irrelevant info doing there instead of paying attention at the important info (liek those editors wondering about Patton), and that this hurts the argument that you are trying to make. (Then again, you have been given this advice before by other editors, I expect that the list that I made in the evidence page serves the purpose of refreshing your memory.... hopefully this time you will interiorize the advice instead of dismissing it out as incorrect.....well, good luck with your evidence, I just can't resist at least making a try at giving advice to people when I think that this could help them, so I just had to drop by, sorry if I was a nuisance) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:16, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

No, this is not all about Jason Patton. The "list" at the point when the above was placed by WMC, purely for amusement, included Jason Patton because he did what qualified editors for inclusion. If you'd read the evidence there carefully, you'd see that there is no allegation whatever that Jason Patton is a member of any cabal. All that happened was that he participated in revert warring with GoRight, then endorsed the position of the RfC certifiers, WMC and Raul654. If you actually want to understand what's been happening, overall, you should read that RfC carefully, the whole thing. And read the full evidence I presented. And notice the complete absence of crossover, that is, agreement across the factional lines. Notice the editors who supported my evidence; two of them were subsequently elected to ArbComm; that should give you a clue that something has been going on that you have not understood, and you've allowed yourself to become aligned with a fairly difficult faction that has gradually been losing influence. ScienceApologist was tight with this group, as was JzG.

At that point, Enric, I was completely uninvolved with any of these editors, and neither was I involved with the articles. What you've done is give me advice for months that was either (1) obvious, or (2) wrong. I listen to it all anyway. Of course I'm not going to leave all that detail, and if you imagine and expect that I would, you've not been paying attention.

I do understand and believe that you have been trying to help, but there is a possibility you have missed. Given my age and experience, as well as my qualifications, you really should suspect that I might understand things you don't. I generally understood Oppenheimer-Phillips process, I'd been studying stuff like that since I was about twelve years old. I also knew what I didn't know, i.e., the limits of my knowledge; ScienceApologist quite clearly has more knowledge, but not necessarily better ability to express this kind of physics well for a general readership. Together, I think, we were able to to a better job than either of us alone could have accomplished, but, please note: SA had an agenda that relates to Cold fusion. Part of what I was doing was to make sure that he didn't "accidentally" create POV slant to later be used at Cold fusion. That was what some of the back-and-forth was about. This wasn't about the science itself. --Abd (talk) 21:04, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

One more point. The evidence isn't complete. Notice that no conclusion has been put up. All there is are some lists. So what do you think is the "method I used to determine that there was a cabal"? I have not revealed that method, only some pieces of it. --Abd (talk) 21:09, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Good point, I'll look again when you are done. Notice that I have made a motion to get more time to gather evidence, this means that you will also have more time to develop your evidence well and get it finished by when the arbs start making proposals.

I'll just mention that I think you missed an important point of my advice (which you can take or not, of course): humans are falible and they get distracted by things they perceive as out-of-place. So, even if frame very carefully your list, people will still get confused by finding the name of an editor that they don't recognize, and this will distract them and cause them to start side discussions and can damage their perception of your evidence. Your point would be better served by putting some context "two more editors that didn't comment later on the other page: X and Y"

I look at Talk:Oppenheimer–Phillips_process, and I see SA explaining you a few misconceptions and errors that you had. Anyways, you say that the article currently explains the process well to a general readship? Well, doh, I would go and add a "layman summary" section using only the Bohr model and warning that quantum mechanics has made that explanation inaccurate. But that's me, and I should go first and check how the guys at Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics have solved that issue in similar articles, and look if there is a featured article or good article in this topic, to see how the author solved it. Anyways, moot point since I'm not going to be touching that article for a long time, and when I do that I'll be asking SA or some other editor to make sure that I don't botch anything.

And about that thing of watching SA so he couldn't purposefully introduce POV-slanted errors into the article to push his POV in cold fusion.... well, remember AGF and stuff, and don't throw bad-faith assumptions in the middle of comments because it annoys the other editors, and they will be less open to collaborating with you if they know that you do those assumptions when you talk about his actions. (Really, stop doing that, it really hurts your relationship with other editors, others have told you before about this, stop doing it already) --Enric Naval (talk) 14:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

First of all, SA did appear to "explain" misconceptions, but I did not actually hold those misconceptions. He simply assumed them. This is why it's so dangerous for you to be judging such interchanges, you don't understand enough of the physics to follow them with understanding. SA's comments did not revise my understanding of the physics, generally. He'd simply misunderstood my text, assuming that I it implied things. If it was important, we could look in detail. I did discuss this at article Talk, but you seem to have an assumption from the comments of some highly opinionated and attached editors such as Mathsci, who has shown no knowledge at all of the cold fusion field; he's got who may have the math, we may assume, to understand the theoretical work, but the whole point of the cold fusion affair is that established theory was missing something, and math alone wouldn't find it until the mathematicians among the quantum physicists look where they didn't expect to find anything. Math is only as good as the assumptions you feed it. Likewise there is Kirk shanahan, who goes further and actually distorts the experimental record, claiming, for example, that there were no controls when there were, as the literature shows, and generally impugning all evidence by merely showing that he has a possible explanation for some of the results that doesn't involve nuclear reactions. He then simply assumes that the rest of it must be artifact, that's clear. Several editors have tried to pin him down on this, and he simply starts attacking them, he claims that it's obvious and they are too lazy or not bright enough to understand the record. In fact, I do understand Shanahan's objections, generally. And you frequently don't believe me. Why, Enric? If you looked at what underlies your assumptions, you might realize what has been happening. You would be confronting the roots of your feelings, which many people dislike doing, very much.

You have mentioned, I think, Scuro and Miamomimi. Same thing happened with them, most provably with Scuro. Take a look at the recent ADHD arbitration, where I was named as a party. It all became pretty obvious. Many of the same kinds of charges you have made against me were made by Scuro, and see how ArbComm dealt with it. Scuro got off easy. I did not support the filing of that case, by the way, it was my judgment that it wasn't necessary.

Bad-faith assumptions about SA? Enric, did you follow his Fringe science ban? SA is known for some rather devious stuff, such as making harmless spelling corrections in order to troll for a block so that he could then, knowing he had a great deal of support, complain loudly about being blocked for making harmless edits. They weren't harmless, for him, because disruption was, in fact, his intention, and when that was shown, and in spite of all the support he had from WMC -- who quite strongly dismissed the idea of blocking someone for harmless edits (even if banned) as "stupid" -- and many others, he was blocked, and is now on a short leash. Don't get me wrong, I assume that SA's purpose is to benefit the project, and I supported SA's efforts to continue to work on articles during his block; he merely believes that his POV is correct and true and that the project is benefited if his POV prevails over all others. Was I "proxying for a banned editor" in doing this, Enric? Remember, I reverted his edit to the article, making a spelling correction, while he was banned? Why was that not "proxying" when my reverts of JedRothwell were? Is it because of the POV of the editor? Please realize, you've been looking at things through a very tinted lens. SA is a "majority POV-pusher," par excellence, he's stated that, in Galileo's time, he'd be solidly on the side of banning his work. Doesn't that give you some pause? Doesn't it worry you that you are aligned with an editor like Mathsci, who is editors who are quite like ScienceApologist in certain ways, only worse? You have jumped on board a sinking ship, Enric, and, yes, given your energy before ArbComm, you could indeed be sanctioned. Is it uncivil of me to warn you about that? On my own Talk page, when I previously asked you not to post here? Why did I ask you that, Enric?

I asked you because I saw that your warnings and questions here had no effect but to further enrage you. I've not been blocked or even warned by neutral administrators about the actions that you are so convinced are so negative. Believe me, I do pay close attention to warnings. --Abd (talk) 15:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Although this may be you talk page, you are not entitled to make personal attacks against other editors as you have just made against me. Please refactor your comments. Mathsci (talk) 16:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Mathsci, if my comments above are "personal attacks," what you have written elsewhere about me, in many places, for a long time, would have to qualify abundantly as such. Ask a neutral editor to warn me or to mediate this if you wish to pursue dispute resolution on this. You edit warred to remove yourself as a party from the case, and you were allowed to get away with that. Have you ever considered why? Let me tell you: it's because being listed as a party is basically unimportant, you were shooting yourself in the foot by trying to be excluded. Your behavior will be examined, where it is relevant to the present case, as it is.

Nevertheless, since you have requested it, I'm striking the comment. Why argue over useless distinctions? --Abd (talk) 16:24, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

@Abd. Meh, too late, that list of editors has already unleashed quite the storm-in-teapot. I understand that one editor notified every single editor that appeared on the list, because of the list being under a header saying "There is a cabal". Oh, well....

Hah, you also made a minor correction to an article that you were banned from, just like SA did (yeah, I know, the details differ). Quite honestly, you can warn me in my talk page about anything you want. I don't think that you can't come up with anything worse than what other people have already posted there XD About me misjuging you due to the influence of other editors, I'll say that there are just too many experts in science saying that you are simply wrong. I see that some actually agree with some of your points, but that this get drowned out by how you insist in upholding stuff that you have been told that is wrong, you should really correct this behaviour if you want those experts to go and support you.

About me jumping on board of a sinking ship, I can't agree with that. Ditto for being sanctioned by Arbcom. It's this sort of statements that made me an evidence section titled "comments out of touch with reality". Anyways, what sort of sanction do you expect Arbcom to give me? A topic ban from cold fusion? An admonishment about a certain editing behaviour that I have? If so, which behaviour? --Enric Naval (talk) 02:10, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

First of all, SBHB did not notify every editor. Just the ones who had not already commented in the RfAr, I think. Whatever he did, it's quite remarkable, his notification list was the editors who I would not have any basis for including in the "cabal," at least not yet. Beetstra, for example, he's obviously not a cabal editor, he doesn't support the cabal positions, at all. The only "hit" is his support for my ban, and he was peeved at me at that point, he's got a temper, but, generally, he calms down and we can then get some serious work done, and quite a bit has been done, overall, he's been very helpful, as you know. (He makes the wall of text argument, but then replies with more text; his evidence in RfAr/Abd and JzG was embarassing, he presented voluminous evidence for moot points, I think he was concerned that ArbComm would demolish the blacklisting process, instead it merely confirmed what I'd been arguing for all along: blacklisting wasn't to be used for content control, a web site shouldn't be blacklisted because it's allegedly "fringe" or "POV," but only for linkspam, which wasn't happening with lenr-canr.org or newenergytimes.com. There are other possible reasons for blacklisting, but they all amount to serious damage being done by allowing links (such as a site hosting malware). Content control is to be left to editors and is not to be the province of administrators, as such. This is an example, Enric, where my position was severely opposed by a series of editors, but was, in the end, quietly confirmed, and accepted as consensus.

If anyone has been actually uncivil to you because of your behavior toward me and I'll check it out and probably ask them to stop. Two wrongs doesn't make a right.

Too many experts in science saying that I am simply wrong? Who? I hope you don't mean Mathsci! He doesn't know cold fusion from a cold beer. Remember, the whole point of cold fusion is that something was found that classical theory, which is what he would know and possibly even be expert on, did not explain. Nothing that he has written provides any clue that he's familiar with the actual research. He's a mathematician, not an experimental scientist. His expertise would be purely with theory. It's possible that one of the early theories was correct, but it is way too soon to tell, Preparata -- I've just seen RS that may be on this, it's now up on lenr-canr.org -- did predict helium proportional to heat and no neutrons, early on. Enric, my claim is, based on many conversations, that you do not understand the physics or the evidence, and that this leaves you with nothing but emotional reactions on which to base your opinions of me. You have no way of discriminating between cogent criticism of my comments and raw POV assumptions and assertions, and, I hate to break your bubble, but real experts sometimes have strong opinions and argue unfairly.

I'm not asking any particular editor to "support me." However, Enric, there are plenty of real scientists who are in quite strong agreement with me, both in direct conversations, mostly off-wiki, and in terms of examples you can see. Try looking at the videos of Robert Duncan (physicist), or the experts who spoke at the seminar he gave on cold fusion at the University of Michigan recently. If you can't find the URLs I could get them for you. How about trying to become more informed?

I've been arguing for the use of RS guidelines to determine due weight, and for the principle that if facts are in reliable source, they should not be excluded from the project, though how they are presented may be subject to caution. And due weight at articles should then be determined by the weight of reliable sources. What ArbComm has been too unclear about is how this is done. I'm promoting the concept of measuring NPOV by degree of consensus obtained. The goal should be to maximize it, but at no point does this mean giving up the rights of the majority or pandering to minorities. Wouldn't it be preposterous to neglect the views of the majority in favor of "maximizing a consensus" where the majority didn't willingly accept it?

This is where my prior organizational experience comes in. I've worked with highly diverse groups of people who could sometimes hardly agree on the time of day, and yet I found, that, with patience, consensus could be found, and all agreed that it was better than what they originally preferred. All. That some of us would imagine this isn't desirable -- even though it might sometimes be difficult -- shows me how seriously deranged some of the community is in some ways. It ought to be obvious.

And the result of that blindness is Scibaby, 300 sock puppets. What motivated this editor to do that? If you think that the editor was simply perverse, you haven't been paying attention. This editor was abused, Enric, and when you abuse people, some of them don't take it lying down, some of them respond in ways you might not like. One can never be sure, but what if Scibaby had been welcomed, perhaps by an editor with similar POV, who explained to him why the article was the way it was, showed him the backstory which had been compiled and where the real consensus that had been worked out, and why this was better than simply pushing this shared POV (if it's a minority POV, and the consensus is broken, the majority POV will prevail and might easily be worse than the status quo.) And then the new editor was invited to review the backstory, the evidence and arguments presented, and if anything was missing, the two of these could discuss it and decide if the backstory needed some work, and, if they could gain consensus on this, based on new evidence and arguments, the consensus might shift. Scibaby might have been converted into a fully cooperative and useful member of the community, being welcomed and respected and not just rejected because of his "ignorance" or "POV pushing." Enric, this was part of Jimbo's vision, and it's been subverted by too many editors and administrators who never understood it.

If a new editor was truly disruptive, the one to call for blocks and sanctions would be someone from the editor's POV! I also worked in San Quentin State Prison and was familiar with how prison gangs worked. It was explained to me by a long-time inmate, a lifer. A Muslim had been stabbed; this was a Muslim who was "white," I forget the actual ethnic background, and the one stabbing him was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood; I was told that it was done because the attacker wanted to make a name for himself. These inmates were in a transitional part of the facility, they would be sent to another state prison. As was normal, the stabbed inmate refused to give the name of his attacker to the prison authorities. I was told that there were ways that the black muslim inmates, who were pretty tightly organized, would find out where the attacker was being sent and a message would be sent to the leader of the black muslims there. And this leader would have a conversation with the Aryan Brotherhood leader there. Nobody wants a race riot in the prison, it makes life seriously unpleasant, for all sides. And the attacker would be punish. By his own people. No race riot, but rough justice. It's actually ancient tribal law. We could derive some lessons from it.

Most of us recognize that we can build a better project if we can cooperate. But how? I think I know how, Enric, and that is why I've been considered disruptive for years. Gradually, I've been demonstrating little pieces of it. Most of these pieces aren't highly visible, they might be as simple as starting up a mediation page in my user space and inviting two editors who have been edit warring to discuss their dispute where I can guide it. I saw two editors seriously headed for blocks from edit warring, one was an expert and one not. Either one or both could have been blocked, easily. Instead, they ended up in complete agreement, Enric. Complete. And they've been able to cooperate ever since. What is the value of that?

Cold fusion is a particularly difficult article because the alleged scientific consensus was formed by abnormal procedures twenty years ago. Originally, the weight of RS was negative, but now the weight of publication in reliable sources favors cold fusion, by a substantial margin. Science moves on, it is not static. I'm not proposing that Wikipedia "right outside wrongs," but only that we follow policies and guidelines instead of synthesizing what amounts to raw personal opinion and POV from obsolete sources, no longer applicable. I came to the conclusion that there are low energy nuclear reactions, all right, though there remain other possibilities. (Hydrino theory, for example, doesn't necessarily involve any nuclear reactions, but only previously undiscovered energy levels for neutrons, at fractional energies of the Bohr minimum.) (It goes all the way up to 1/237, as I recall, in the theory, at which point the electron is in a very small orbit, energy way below normal, quite close to the nucleus, and its velocity would exceed the speed of light if it went to 1/238, i.e., that's the limit.) Do I believe hydrino theory? No, not at all, but, Enric, there is reliable source on it, which is why Hipocrite finally put up contrary reliable source, which I accepted, even though the overall quality of those sources did not necessarily match that for the hydrino side. I'm quite willing to "err" on the side of what seems to be majority opinion among scientists in general, even where I know that specialists have a different opinion.

You'll see, Enric. I assume the mediation will proceed. I'm not a "scientist," Enric, but I understand science, the principle, and, as I've mentioned, I've studied nuclear physics since I was about twelve. What I really am is a writer and editor, mostly a writer, but I was once an editor, professionally.

Ah, yes. The hazards you face at ArbComm. I just wanted to make sure you understood what you are getting into. You want specifics? Well, that would take much more text from me. Yes, you might be banned from cold fusion. Others have been banned for less, actually. It would be a bit of a shame, you are not the worst editor involved. I doubt that I will push for any sanctions against you, I'm far more concerned by admin abuse, which does more damage than individual editors can generally manage. (Note that most administrative actions are just fine, but the exceptions can be doozies, and they can cause permanent harm, very difficult to correct because it's off-wiki, i.e., damage to the general reputation of Wikipedia. Once those opinions are written, the world is not a wiki, it's not just a matter of Undo.) But your evidence presentation, as it is, will be a sign to ArbComm that you are obsessed, that you have personalized the dispute, and you might be subject to a ban, or possibly, some editing restrictions or even just a reprimand or "advice." It can be very difficult to predict what ArbComm will do, specifically, I can only tell you that there is a risk, always. I certainly understand that. You are almost certain, I'd say, to be advised regarding dispute resolution procedures, about which you seem to have little clue. You might try reading WP:DR. Hint: simply warning editors isn't part of DR process, nor are AN or AN/I. Trying to get editors banned is not part of DR process, that is what happens when the process breaks down. More than others, you have to some degree, engaged in direct discussion, but I have seen little sign that you respect what's being said to you. Enric, I suspect I'm twice your age. That gives me no special rights, but it should give you some pause. If I'm correct, I have far more experience with the world than you have. If you want to learn quickly, you'll drop your idea that you understand more than a little. That doesn't mean agreeing with me. It simply means abandoning your own assumption of being right, and becoming open to new possibilities and new ideas. If you can do this, it will benefit you for the rest of your life. If not, well, you will not be able to say that you weren't advised. --Abd (talk) 03:30, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

*sighs* I think that you are wrong in many aspects, and that it would take too long to explain them, and that we have already talked about many of those aspects in relative depth, so I don't think that rehashing my arguments again turns out to be a fruitful use of my time.

I think that we should go back to writing our evidence to the arbcom, since arbs are supposed to read it and reach a decision that is based on it, so the evidence better be well written and convincing. While this discussion is interesting, it is draining me out of time that I need for other stuff on-wiki and off-wiki. Let's use that time in writing that evidence. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I apologize for distracting you. Can we agree on something before you go? Do we agree that we both want ArbComm to make the best decision for the welfare of the project, being appropriately informed and presented with the best arguments? --Abd (talk) 13:29, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we can agree on that. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:01, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Good sign. Fare well. Given time, we could resolve this, but ArbComm may expedite it, and there may be some serious good come out of that. I'll be responding in the case to the claims you make about my behavior, hopefully, all of them, but it will probably not be at the top level, because most of it is moot for the case. But you raise lots of interesting issues, and if it were not for the fact that it would be mooning the jury, I'd love to respond to each. --Abd (talk) 14:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Center for Range Voting (2nd nomination)

Normally one "keep" !vote from an article's creator is not a consensus so initially I relisted this but then started having a deja vu flashback to the whole Garrison Courtney mess so I closed it. However, since this isn't normally something a non-admin closer should do, there's a chance it might be reopened by a neutral admin. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:37, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, it wasn't particularly normal that there was an AfD from an obvious sock of somebody, who registers and, same day, files an MfD in a few minutes. But thanks. I think the other !vote was for merge, and merge to Range voting may be better than leaving it as a separate article; Range voting is a regular can of worms that I'd rather not touch at this point; while I have no COI, I've been pretty involved with the Range voting people; there is stuff in the article that is True (TM registered), but not necessarily sourced, and right now I'm a tad tied up. Looking at the AfD, it would still seem you relisted it, but you would not get any flack from me over that. Given that the Center for Range Voting is notable, covered in RS, there should remain, at least, a redirect to Range voting, hence delete would be inappropriate. You could also have closed as Merge (Keep), which essentially expresses the intention to merge, but doesn't necessarily accomplish it, because it's not just a matter of pushing a button (admin closure to delete) but of actually merging content. Or just as No Consensus, given the low participation.

As to creator, yes, I created this incarnation of the article, but it existed before I was active. It had been AfD'd, with low participation, by the editor who I suspect may be the current nominator.

Nothing wrong with non-admin closures for AfDs that have run the term. Frankly, I'd allow non-admin delete closures, with a speedy tag then placed on the article, and a category created for it. There already is a category, I think, AfD'd pages can be speedied if recreated, why not the first time? Thanks for your work maintaining the project. --Abd (talk) 20:44, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I had originally relisted it and then closed it. However, as I suspected it might, it was reopened and re-relisted by a neutral admin. Also, lately it is not unusual for brand new editors to drop out of the sky and nominate articles for deletion. In your case, it almost looked like a repeat of the Garrison Courtney mess. When this happens I wonder the same things. Where did this guy come from? How did he know about AFD so quick? However, I usually try to assume good faith and say "well, it might be a long time IP editor who created an account to make the nomination. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:14, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley/Evidence

Hello Abd. I've just done a word count for your evidence and it currently stands at over 1500 words, more than the 1000 word maximum limit. Please cut your evidence down to the 1000 word maximum within 24 hours. You can use a subpage in your userspace if to collate evidence if you wish and link to it from the main evidence page. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 17:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I certainly would not intend to leave it how it is, even without restrictions. I've started using references to history to hold hypertext, it's slightly safer than user space, since I've had user space evidence presented to ArbComm be MfD'd, though that was a rejected case, that evidence may have been part of the reason why it was rejected.... In any case, it shall be done as requested. 1000 words should be plenty enough room, unless I need to start responding in detail to laundry lists of complaints; we'll cross that bridge if we come to it.. --Abd (talk) 20:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

In reference to your comment here, could you give a link to the arbitration case where WMC's block was discussed? --Enric Naval (talk) 10:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC) I tried to search the existing cases for "connolley" and WMC appears in a lot of cases, so you should point at the specific case. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

And, topic apart, in your response to my evidence "Enric had cited sources where the source did not support the text cited. I'm not here to prove that this is true, but Enric doesn't deny the claim, he is, here, denying the bare possibility that such behavior could get him banned" (emphasis added). I didn't think it was necessary to explicitely deny the claim. I thought that anyone reading it would inmediately see that it was wrong. For all it's worth, I deny it right here: I haven't cited sources where they didn't support the text cited. You think that the sources don't support the text, and you even completely dismissed the sources, but you did it using only your own personal OR. There were several instances of that, but I specially remember the long OR-filled disputes about Padley here and here. After you were banned the matter arised again and it was quickly dispatched here, and an improvement was made to the article with no disruption. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Enric, one of the first things I'd suggest you learn about seeking consensus would be to develop your ability to try on ideas for size, to see things as others see them and see if they, at least, make sense from that point of view. I stated that I wasn't going to try to prove the claim about sources. But could you at least understand and accept that it appeared so to me? Now, if it became necessary to prove this, and suppose that I succeeded, you could, indeed, be in hot water, especially if it were shown that you were reckless in your disregard. That's the only point here, you were claiming that it was preposterous that your right to edit might be restricted. You might review the AC case for PHG. Highly active, excellent editor, many truly beautiful articles created. Banned from his favorite topic because it was alleged that he had fabricated a source. In fact, reviewing this case, I found that he probably made one of a number of possible interpretations of that source, and the real problem was likely incivility and stubborn insistence, something I tried to work with him on.

I fail to see the connection between Padley and the later branching ratio discussion and, indeed, with the claim about sources, which was a very general one. If necessary, we could go over all that, and if you want to go over it with a resolution, we should do so with a mediator. If it's about content, it could be the present mediation, if it's about behavior, we should find a mediator for that purpose. It might all be moot, we'll see what happens with the RfAr.

Little example above. "Anyone reading it would immediately see that it was wrong." How could they see that if there were no specific examples alleged? No, this is your own opinion projected onto "anyone." You know your own history, and you believe that you have never done this. That does not mean that you have never done it, your belief and intention is mistaken for the reality of your result. --Abd (talk) 16:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

On the "quickly dispatched" discussion recently, I know the literature much better than anyone participating in that discussion except possibly for Shanahan, and Shanahan is highly selective about what he presents. EdChem took out something which is clearly established in the literature, and it's discussed, I believe I could show, in secondary source. Neutrons and tritium were detected, early on. The Fleishmann reports were artifact, an error. However, one of the arguments at the time was that the levels of neutrons reported by Fleischmann were too low to explain the excess heat, given accepted branching ratios. This is really well-known; later work, with much more care and much more highly sensitive equipment, and massive shielding precautions underground, showed low levels of neutrons, close to background, but considered statistically significant. However, this had very little effect on the acceptance of cold fusion, because the levels were too low to explain the heat. Sure, that may not have been, at that point, specifically sourced, and that's what should have been requested at the time, and it would have been easily resolved then, I assume. As it was, my text was accepted because it was really not controversial. This was not the same issue as had been raised in the Padley flap.

Coppertwig is learning about cold fusion, and so may not be aware that tritium was detected and reported by many research groups, peer-review published. Again, the levels were too low, so this was actually considered negative to the idea of cold fusion, i.e., contradictory, which is odd, because detection of tritium, if properly done, would be conclusive as to nuclear reactions, but everyone was focusing on theory and there was an implicit theory that there was one very unusual reaction, nuclear, which would then produce neutrons or tritium. In hindsight, it's obviously an error. If there is an unknown fusion reaction (such as 4D ->Be8 fusion), it would then produce hot reaction products which would be expected to produce low levels of reactions with standard branching ratio products. And that is what the SPAWAR group has published. Secondary reactions. --Abd (talk) 16:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd, you present interesting questions, but I'll have to repeat my original question: could you give me the link to the case where Arbcom "reviewed one block in detail and found that WMC had violated recusal policy and had edit warred."[4]? Or at least tell me the name of the case, or the name of the blocked editor, so I can try to find it?

And, if you can't recall any detail from the case, then please say so. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Makes me wonder, Enric, have you read the evidence I provided and followed the links? Because it's there: RfAr/Georgre-William M. Connolley. As to edit warring, perhaps I'll provide evidence, certainly he has participated in edit wars, and that may have been a part of the old case that resulted in sanctions (2006?) for a while. As to edit warring, during this case, he hit 4RR on the Workshop page, I believe, he edit warred at Talk:Hipocrite. Perhaps you should also read the definition of edit warring, if you have any doubt about this. --Abd (talk) 22:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I had seen that case, but I thought that it wasn't the correct one because I couldn't find anywhere in the case where Arbcom said anything about WMC violating recusal policy or edit warring. They do say that he extended a block inapropiatedly, looking at here it doesn't look like they considered it a grievous violation of policy or something. (Also, your sentence implied that the case had a decision or a proposed decision saying that had WMC edit warred, not that he had edit-warred in this case. Could you correct your statement in the workshop page?) --Enric Naval (talk) 01:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Sure, however, what the decision found was that he had "wheel-warred," not "edit warred." It's in the actual decision, "reapplied his block after it was reversed." It's FoF 1. For an admin to block an editor for incivility directed at the administrator is a violation of recusal policy. "Grievous violation"? Violation is enough, Enric. --Abd (talk) 03:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: Apologies

Abd, first off, I do not appreciate your insinuations that I am not acting neutrally in my role as a clerk in this case in such a public manner. If you have an issue with how I am performing my duties, it would be far more appropriate for you to approach me directly rather than openly state that you "hope I will grow into the role". I do find this highly insulting and ask that you at the very least remove that portion of your comment. There were details surrounding the Arkady situation that you were not made privy to due to the privacy policy; I was only told very little myself, but enough to realize that the actions Raul took were appropriate, albeit a bit hastily done and/or best left to someone less involved in the case. I was not "begging" anyone to behave; it was a friendly notice thanking him for his efforts whilst asking him to take a step back should it happen again. If you are wondering why my comment to Raul was made in such a different tone to, say, this one, it's because you have been asked multiple times to be more careful about how you word your statements so as to not offend others, whereas that's the first time to my knowledge Raul has taken such an active role in case management.

The "statements" I was referring to, requesting you reconsider their wording, do include your evidence where you mention a cabal. If you have already reworded it to attempt to avoid making unfounded accusations, or have provided additional evidence to back it up, then that is fine; that was the main concern in that discussion. To be honest, with all the incidents springing up all over the case, I haven't had much time to read much of the evidence properly myself.

As for your question about notifications, I'm not entirely clear on what you are asking, but if you mention a user in your evidence, and you feel that they play a major enough part in said evidence to merit notification, you are welcome to post a notice to their talk page letting them know that they have been mentioned and they may wish to comment as well. Notices posted to non-user talk pages are probably inappropriate as being too general. Any notices given out should more or less stick to the points I mentioned so as to avoid being biased in any way (basically, "I mentioned you in my evidence here (link), you may want to comment, kthxai", with more diplomacy and less lolspeak).

I hope this answers your questions and addresses (at least somewhat) your concerns about my conduct in this case. Should it not to either, please feel free to contact me, particularly if you have an issue with my actions. Again, I would ask that you remove the section of your statement where you call my actions into question; the rest of it I don't particularly care about whether it stays or not, since it sounds as thought it was largely accidental, and (aside from the one section) your comment was mostly constructive. See you around the case. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:25, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll admit that I continue to be concerned about the clerking in this case, and some aspects of your comment raise rather than reduce the concern. I've never before seen a clerking problem in the various cases in which I've commented, nor in the three recent cases in which I've actually been a party, except for this one; however, "concern" doesn't mean that I'm ready to formally complain. For one thing, it seems to me that you are being severely tried, by editors who are really not paying any attention to warnings, or who conveniently interpret warnings such as "Do not edit other's comments," as referring to others but not to them.

This case is being watched rather intently by some, and will be reviewed by others in the future, and if one set of editors is warned for violations of procedure, and another set for violations of procedure, but one set of warnings is relatively harsh and the other set is obsequious, it can present an appearance of partiality.

I recommend that you not particularly study the evidence, that's not your job, and if you form a strong opinion from it, it might affect your work as a clerk. As soon as you have a strong opinion from the evidence, you might have an obligation to recuse! But you are responsible to the Committee, not to me.

I will review the statement, I assume it's the one you closed, and redact anything regarding you that isn't necessary.

I do not believe that evidence from Raul654 should be trusted in cases where he is involved, and it's become quite clear he's involved here. It is blatantly obvious that his interpretations of evidence are self-serving, where I know the situation he's describing, so why should I trust that his secret evaluations are more neutral? Because of all the charges of "meat puppeting," I'm probably going to have to present evidence on Raul's activities, which, in my view, have seriously damaged the project, in almost incalculable ways, long-term. So that Raul is allowed to interfere with this case is of great concern, I hope that you can understand that. That's why I requested assurances from an arbitrator.

No suggestion was made that Raul or you should reveal specific checkuser information, but I only asked that you verify the names of checkusers who have confirmed an identification, which is perfectly appropriate, and, indeed, necessary. Unless there are very good -- and very unusual -- reasons, checkuser results should be documented, i.e., the privileged admin should take responsibility, and others should not report and rely on the evidence without attributing it, if possible. Otherwise, without any actual verification, the testimony of one becomes the testimony of many.

The most amazing thing about this case to me is the number of times that editors other than clerks have altered the statements of others, even after being warned; likewise, I can't recall an editor openly edit warring on case pages; WMC actually hit 4RR today. What was done? How many "last warnings" are necessary? This exchange is mind-boggling to me. He had been warned before. I have no doubt that I'd have been blocked for this kind of behavior.

His Talk page responses are so outrageous that I've just now realized he may be trolling, to try to make a point about adminstrative recusal, which is central to this case. It's been the position of certain admins, including WMC, that it's preposterous to consider that an admin should recuse from further action against an editor if the editor insults the admin or claims that the admin is involved. However a clerk isn't an ordinary administrator, and is charged with a duty which should be performed, a clerk is subject to continual supervision by ArbComm; the bailiff in a court would not resign if insulted, they would simply continue to do their job. Recusal of a clerk is up to the clerk and Arbcomm, which is immediately available if there is a dispute over clerk involvement. An ordinary admin would never properly block an editor because the editor insults the admin, but a clerk might have the opposite duty, because disrespect for the clerk is disrespect for ArbComm and can constitute direct defiance of the Committee.

However, I do appreciate, as I mentioned above, how severely you are being tested. I'm not disturbed, personally, by WMC's disruption, it greatly simplifies my job, making the issues behind my complaint more clear. So I apologize for any improper aspersions regarding your conduct, and my comment about "growing into the job" was intended as a confident prediction that ultimately you either are or will be properly dealing with the difficulties. Yes, you are a volunteer, and it's appreciated. --Abd (talk) 23:48, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I did redact. If there is anything else that you believe I should redact, please let me know. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 23:58, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Notice to all users involved in Abd/WMC

This is a general notice to all users involved in the Abd/WMC arbitration case that further disruptive conduct within the case will not be tolerated and will result in blocks being issued by Clerks or Arbitrators as needed. More information is available at the announcement here; please be sure to read that post in full. Receipt of this message does not necessarily imply that you are at risk of a block or have been acting in a disruptive manner; it is a general notice to all that the Clerks and ArbCom are aware of issues in the case and will not be tolerating them any longer. If you have any questions, please post them to the linked section. Thank you. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:55, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I approve. I highly encourage the clerks and arbitrators to be strict about this, with all editors. If you are too strict and, say, short-block me for some real, minor, or imagined offense, no harm. It's your job. I will, however, try to be careful, I dislike making the same mistake more than once. A short-block for the purpose of restoring order should be easily made; if a bailiff ejects someone from a court, it may possibly delay a case, if the participant was crucial to it, but it should not prejudice it, i.e., the fact of the ejection shouldn't be relevant, though the behavior that caused it might in some cases. --Abd (talk) 00:06, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Thought

I stumbled across the arbitration between you and William M. Connolley. While I have no desire to become involved, it sounds like several contributors find the length of your comments unwieldy. I've often found that it takes me longer to write well and briefly, but it overall speeds communication and makes it more useful. So if you can find a way to cut things down to just the main points, I think it would be seen as an act of good faith and would result in a more productive conclusion to the arbitration. Just my two cents, Awickert (talk) 07:48, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Try using bullet points or numbered points. Even if the same amount of text is produced, people can find navigating it a little easier and it might even help keep your thoughts focused. This ain't literature. --Wfaxon (talk) 09:38, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant!

Wall-o-Text (TM)

Always a good idea to protect your interests from those who might seek to profit from your loss!  :) --GoRight (talk) 01:33, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Look, there is an obvious problem with Wall-o-Text. It irritates the hell out of some editors. The issue is what to do about it. Not writing it can mean, effectively, self-censorship; if nobody is interested in it, that could be appropriate, but I know that the charge that nobody reads it is self-serving deception. What should an editor do if the editor thinks that a long post is, say, driving editors away, filling up a Talk page with useless garbage?

To me it is obvious. Delete it if it's truly useless and off-topic, or collapse it if there might be something in there useful, but it was just too damn long. Do so civilly, and don't edit war over it. If someone deletes my Talk, what do I do? It's been done many times, you know. I don't use undo except perhaps very rarely. Sometimes I just accept it, big deal. Sometimes I'll put back a link to history. Sometimes I'll summarize it with the body in collapse.

Someone who truly thinks it doesn't belong there, and if they are trying to ban me from Talk, they must think that, can just delete it, it's fast, it's easy. It can be done with undo. If nobody reads it, nobody should respond to it, because once someone has responded, it's more difficult to delete, though collapse can still be used.

The reality: the length isn't the issue. The real issue in the RfAr is that I challenged the cabal, twice, with RfCs. And it worked, both times. Yeah, I have to establish this cabal business or they will have me for lunch. Nuisance, I didn't want to go there, it is a lot more work than just the plain WMC use-of-tools-while-involved thingy, but it was made necessary by the pile-in. I think you recognize the names, you know them well. It's a little broader than I'd expected; editors who, I thought, were neutral, merely sucked-in, when I look at positions in ArbComm cases, weren't.

There is a lot of newspeak language control going on. Cabal doesn't require secret conspiracy, such that cabal members would be conscious of it. The cabal is easily visible from the outside, that is why all the quotation of WP:TINC is so nuts. It's "the emperor has no clothes." So many people see it, and, as you know, those who are stepped on by the cabal are very aware of it. However, there are cabal members who are do understand who is in the faction, they know what they are doing.

Why not just "faction"? Because faction is neutral. I wouldn't be using the term "cabal" if I weren't defining it by a set of negative common characteristics that violate fundamental Wikipedia principles. I'm not going to be proposing sanctions against cabal members, per se, at least not in this case, but I do need to make plain what's going on in the RfAr, and how the proposals and reactions there are absolutely predictable. Otherwise it can easily look like I'm defying consensus. I'm not. We are seeing typical cabal activity, even more than usual, resulting in severe participation bias. Unfortunately, it will take many hours to put this together, and I'm in New York this weekend, and I have business to take care of tonight and tomorrow.

Yeah, I'm making comments here and there, but those comments I can make in squeezed-in minutes; for example, this evening the kids were eating dessert and I made a comment on Wikipedia Review, before putting them to bed. No research. Just text written off the top of my head, which I'm certainly not going to do in an RfAr. That's what I can do here on my Talk page, also. I can do it quickly. --Abd (talk) 02:09, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Offering you the same as I have WMC

See this discussion for details.

You probably expected this...

...and I know you just posted it, but your new evidence is well over the 1,000 word limit. If you wouldn't mind shortening, that'd be good. Moving it to a subpage is fine as well. Thanks. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 20:59, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I expected it. That was a tad fast! I'm in the middle of refactoring that. --Abd (talk) 21:03, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Notice

I have added diffs to my evidence and might change it. Therefore you should make sure that your lengthy responses on your user subpage are in fact to the most current version. You have chosen an unhelpful way of presenting evidence. That was your choice. It's now up to you to make sure your subpages are coherent. Mathsci (talk) 22:27, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice, though I can certainly read History myself. I've responded to a version that is cited by permanent link. I may or many not update it, just as you may continue to update or alter your evidence. The evidence is not exactly a discussion, it is preparation of case material, and you are completely free to alter it to improve it as you see fit. The audience is ArbComm, and the goal is for it to be as complete as possible at the point at which they read it. Some might be reading early, but that's not what I'd recommend, precisely because evidence might change.

And I'm free to respond to your evidence from permanent links; I'm not obligated to respond to it at all, much less to later revisions, which could create an endless loop. If you wrote something you wish to retract, say so, and I'll make sure that's reflected in my response; in some cases I might even withdraw my response.

Thanks also for the good, if obvious, advice about coherence. --Abd (talk) 22:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Rejoining the editing community

Hi there, you probably don't remember doing so, but a while back you stated that if I wanted to rejoin the editing community then I should contact you. My account that was blocked was user:macromonkey, for POV pushing amongst other things. You said that I should contact me as part of your comment in a sockpuppet investigation against me. I would like to rejoin, as I have made good contributions and could continue to do so again: I did apply for Wikiproject Rehab but for some reason the lines of commmunication went dead. It probably didn't help that the user who founded this Wikiproject was one of the key users in getting me blocked. But that doesn't matter now: the past is the past. If you would be willing to help me I would be very grateful, and if not, then I can understand and that is fine. Thank you for your time, 217.42.67.57 (talk) 23:05, 30 July 2009 (UTC) (Macromonkey)

Well, I'm a tad tied up at the moment, having gone to ArbComm for a review of the actions of an administrator, and these things are almost always risky, so I can't guarantee that I'll be able to help. However, you may email me, my email address, directly, is abd AT lomaxdesign POINTY THING com. I may not have time for as much as a few weeks, but when I can, I'll look into this further and see what I can do. I take your request as being made in good faith, and I will pursue it that way. Meanwhile, I'd urge you to see if you can reopen the Wikiproject case, and especially approach the editor who helped get you blocked. Be nice, assume good faith, thank that editor for whatever you can figure out to be thankful for, try to heal the dispute by respecting the editor. Set aside mistakes the editor might have made, and do not accuse anyone of anything, unless and until you've become sufficiently uninvolved to be able to see the matter clearly. Usually it doesn't help. Point me or inform me as to how you applied for help with the WikiProject. And good luck.--Abd (talk) 23:13, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't understand the email address. (pointy thing?). And thank you for at least considering my request. I think that reapplying to the wikiproject would be flogging a dead horse a little however, so do you have any other advice on how to go about being unblocked? I suspect a direct unblock template on my talk page would be unsuccessful as the situation would not be thoroughly investigated and considered. Thanks, 217.42.67.57 (talk) 18:30, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I have started a discussion at WP:AN regarding this issue. Please see [5]. --Jayron32 19:24, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

You are a leader.

This is yet another example of a situation where you seemed to be the only one expressing a position, but it was later found to have broad consensus. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Duncan (physicist) It's an AfD where it seemed to be snowing "delete", but shortly after you commented, it was snowing "keep". Of course, it wasn't just you: one person can't create consensus singlehanded. Others added information to the article, checked the notability guideline etc. Still, I think your comment was a major factor. Admirable!

No wonder you're not fazed by situations where everyone present disagrees with you. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:27, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Look, I've been in situations where almost all my friends have been horrified by my actions. I remember when I decided to found the Arizona School of Midwifery. I had previously, with my wife at the time, founded the Committee for Arizona Midwifery, and we ran informal training, but the state regulations -- which I helped write -- were going to start requiring schooling, after certain practicing midwives were grandfathered in (by exam), as was my wife and another woman who was a Nurse-Practitioner. (I delivered some babies, about thirty, but worked mostly on organizational issues.) For what we were doing to become fully legal, we had to have that school going, so I hired a British nurse-midwife as an instructor -- that took some paperwork! -- and set up the program. The existing members of COMFAM thought that there were already too many students for the number of cases we were handling, and didn't want the school advertising that it was open, and they acted to seize the equipment, they actually broke a lock on the clinic door. I called the police. I didn't want anyone to get into trouble, but I was proceeding with what I saw was the ultimate welfare of all involved. Some years later, one of the women ran into me and said, "We couldn't see it at the time, but you were right." It was really hard on my wife, these were all her friends, this might have contributed to our divorce not long after. In the end, almost all of them joined the school program, and several of them graduated and got licensed, and then, there being more trained midwives than the market could bear, the School shut down gracefully, so, for a time anyway, the future of lay midwifery in Tucson, Arizona, was assured. These midwives could practice independently, but the regulations required that midwives make sure that women got adequate prenatal care and screening. We had very good outcomes, as was normal for practice like this. The risks of home birth were balanced by the risks of hospital birth (mostly increased infection risk).

U

(My position was that I was founding the School independently, and that I had the right to do that, I wasn't demanding that any of them help. Only one person actually left the activities because of that sequence, and started doing births on her own -- and I think she got into trouble -- the rest did accept it. But this was a community where consensus was expected, almost all women, and being so assertive, as I can be, wasn't liked. Maybe there is a reason why there are men and woman, instead of everyone being as nice as most women are! Sometimes a barrier must be broken. On the other hand, maybe there would have been a way to do it without disruption, had I been more skilled.)

Thanks. --Abd (talk) 23:55, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

You're very welcome. That's cool that you were involved in midwifery! I've added another quote of you on my user page: User:Coppertwig#Neutral point of view ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:26, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I have a suggestion for you, Abd: at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley/Workshop#Don't debate proposals with no support where you say "When a proposal or article talk page comment is made, editors should not argue against it or reject it until it has received support from at least one other editor, beyond noting objection if needed. That objection need not be explained, and often should not. "I'd object to that, but if anyone else supports it, we can discuss it," is civil and sufficient." I suggest that you strike out "should" in "editors should not" and replace it with "need" (i.e. "need not"), and possibly also strike out "and often should not", possibly replacing it with something softer such as "and often it's a good idea not to" or "and often it saves time not to". I think this would better capture what you mean if I understand correctly from your later comment, "This is not proposed as a rule to be enforced, not a "requirement," but a suggestion,...". Regards, ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:22, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think the proposal needs further explaining. How does it fit in with BRD? Are you suggesting that if someone does a bold edit, someone else can revert it with no explanation, and it can't be reinstated until a second person supports it? (Actually, I think that's more-or-less how things work on articles with the {{controversial}} template, in my experience.) Anyway, if that's what you're suggesting, you could make that clear. I think there's the seed of a good idea there, but it needs to be explained and perhaps tweaked a bit. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:27, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Excellent. I'll make it so. I'm on my i-phone. Later. --Abd (talk) 23:59, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

There's a discussion you may be interested in at Wikipedia talk:Edit filter#Edit warring enforcement. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:02, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for taking the time to comment on the latest meat puppet accusation by Raul. I know you are pressed for time right now.

On a separate topic what do you make of the circumstances surrounding this edit by SS. Am I reading that wrong or does that show him restoring the page to his preferred version AFTER the page was protected? The timestamp indicates that he may have been editing simultaneously with Cbrown but I would have thought that since the page protection occurred first that upon submission SS would have been asked to confirm that he actually wanted to override a protected page. Obviously I have no way to know if that is how the tools work, or not. I am pretty sure that as a normal user if the page had been protected while I was in the middle of the edit that it would not have let me save my changes. The permissions may be such that admins can just save over protected content without a warning. --GoRight (talk) 05:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so but I'll test it on the beyondpolitics.org wiki, which is a MediaWiki installation. --Abd (talk) 06:48, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, here is what I saw. I opened up an edit window for a sandbox. I set up an edit to the page. I opened up another window and protected the page. Then I save the edit. It took, no warning. If I then try to edit the page, I get a warning that it's a protected page, it's just a notice at the top. No, there is no confirmation notice that I can see. It's always possible that there is some configuration option set differently, or that I missed something. But editors are allowed to edit protected pages and apparently they don't get a special warning, just a message that the page is protected when they load it for edit. --Abd (talk) 07:06, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Admins get a pink background to the edit window when they try to edit a fully protected page and there is a link to the protection log in a pink box over the edit window. That obviously doesn't show if the edit window is opened before the protection is applied. For a semi protected page there is just the pink warning box over the top of a white edit window. Spartaz ^Humbug! 07:13, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, given all this the WP:AGF position seems to be that it was unintentional, so that is what I shall assume.  :) Thanks for your inputs. --GoRight (talk) 17:48, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

One of the things that the cabal does that makes it a cabal instead of a mere faction is to consistently interpret every action through a lens that seeks to find what is wrong with it. WP:ABF It's obvious that you, myself, and Coppertwig are functioning, to some degree, as a faction with mutual support. But, hopefully, we don't share that extreme fault-finding trait, at least not collectively!

Some of the editors I've named as "cabal" do also AGF, at least some of the time. They are not all alike, they do not always "sign on" to the negative actions. Indeed, the extent to which they are different is used to deny the existence of the cabal, but that denial is based on an extreme interpretation of "cabal." All it means in the current RfAr is a group of editors who, with sufficient frequency for it to be a matter of concern, act together in ways that frustrate policy. An obvious example would be tag-team reversion. What one editor cannot legitimately do, remains questionable when done by a collection of editors. It's obvious that if the action is deliberately coordinated, it's meat puppetry and prohibited. But even without deliberate coordination, the effect is the same. Hence if our concern is the project, we must take notice of it.

Again, it will be assume that the goal of identifying the cabal would be to ban it. That is not at all the case; quite the opposite, actually. Banning cabals is their business, though they tend to do it one editor at a time, they do it because of the kind of general agreement that, when exercised with power and disregard for our process, we call "cabal." They'd like to ban all the "pov-pushers," which basically means people who push a POV different from their own. And that is very, very dangerous to the neutrality of the project, as I pointed out in User:Abd/Majority POV-pushing, it's actually more pernicious than minority POV-pushing, because it's more difficult to detect and address. To the majority of those involved in a local decision, it seems like just plain good sense! However, when the issue is addressed on a broad scale, among the most experienced editors, the basic values of the project, including neutrality, generally prevail. --Abd (talk) 15:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The Quick and the Undead

I know you're involved in a much larger dispute, but thanks for all your input on mine over the last day and a half. Much appreciated!

(You were right on all the largest points.)

162.6.97.3 (talk) 22:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

And thanks for signing it! That is soooo much better. --Abd (talk) 22:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Let's just see if the world can bear the new edit!  : )

162.6.97.3 (talk) 23:08, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Sure. I made the edit. See, whoever you are, it's not necessarily over. When you pull a fish out of the water, it might flop around for a while, but the fact that the source was already in the article for the claim that the husband was a computer programmer iced it so cleanly that I went ahead and made the edit. Given that there is only one editor who has been acting to remove this, except for the present husband once back in May, that editor would be practically committing wikisuicide to remove it. But people do that sometimes! So be patient, watch. There are some experienced editors involved now, who know how to deal with this crap. Usually. Wikipedia is not perfect, and it is damn inefficient, you can be sure about that, but, little by little, we go far.

I suggest registering an account. You'd gain some anonymity, actually, if you don't use your real name, but at the same time a shred of credibility. It's slightly harder to block a registered editor. While you are rummaging around with whatever interests you, you will see Stuff you can fix in a matter of seconds. And then you are making yourself useful here, and that can be seen, if you have been logged in. If all you do, as IP or as a registered editor, is work on one article pushing one particular point, you will be seen as disruptive, even if your point is 100% TRUE (tm). Even if you have all the reliable source in the world. Politics. That's Wikipedia, it's a human community, not a collection of robots. Even though there are quite a few 'bots active, the humans are still in charge. Good luck.--Abd (talk) 23:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Excellent work

You took the time to look into the dispute (here) at the Rebecca Quick article, (e.g. as seen in your message here), with a broader understanding of the underlying issues and a deeper investigation than (apparently) any of the rest of us who responded. And now there's consensus, in what had been an ongoing edit war. Good work! And reminiscent of other situations you've helped resolve. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

As I wrote, it's amazing how stupid the whole thing was. I think I know what happened. KMF had an agenda, we can speculate, but the effect of it was that KMF was going to find whatever reason could be asserted to justify taking it out, supporting the new husband who had done that previously. I looked at the history, helped by the sources the IP had asserted, this is a WP dispute that got some minor media attention.

What really iced it was discovering that the fact that was allegedly unsourced was covered by the NY Times source already being used. We didn't need to make the more complex judgments about quality of sources. The IP editor had, in fact, made the text conform to what was clearly established in multiple sources, but didn't have the skill to point it out, nor to handle the tendentious objection from KMF. KMF bears some watching, this is an editor who appears to be serving an external agenda, and who has developed a little manipulative skill, knowing what arguments might fly with a typical WP admin, who doesn't have the time to investigate deeply. It took a few hours to do that! (In the end, though, it took a moment to simply read the sources for what was already there. Quick lives in New Jersey? Really? KMF would have read the source, would have known that the former husband was mentioned, that the text KMF was taking out was true and sourced, but was acting based on a knowledge of what arguments might succeed with our typical distracted administrator, in order to erase that disliked fact. It started before any issues were raised about sources.

Yeah, there is a human aspect to all this, which I addressed, as you know. Real people are involved, who have real and understandable feelings (on both sides of this one, by the way). Thanks for your comment. --Abd (talk) 13:38, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

KMF bears watching? Apparently!! [6] By the way, WMC's indef block of 162.6.97.3 was apparently just a mistake: apparently he intended to change block settings to allow account creation, and accidentally put it to indef in the process. [7] ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:46, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Rebecca Quick and KeltieMartinFan

Warning copied from User talk:KeltieMartinFan

August 2009 You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Rebecca Quick. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. You appear to be engaged in long-term edit warring. 3RR is not an entitlement, repeated reversion, removing basically the same content, repeating the same arguments,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14] is prohibited without consensus. Discuss changes in Talk. Do not use reversion to control the article. Abd (talk) 21:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I find it rather questionable how...

A. you consider my one single revert a violation of the 3RR.

B. you did not place the exact same red flag on my opposer of this so-called "edit war" and your partner in crime on this matter, Elen of the Roads. That is completely one-sided and hypocritcal on your part. Which now makes me question the type of editor you are.

I know what the 3RR states. What I did was in not a 3RR violation. On top of that, I dealt with people like 162.6.97.3 who had been keen on their ways here no matter how absurd they are. People like them tried to intimidate me, and it never works because in the end, the truth eventually comes out. I've been around long enough to know what to do and what not to do. Don't think for a moment you're talking to an amateur. KeltieMartinFan (talk) 12:04, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

No, I consider the whole sequence a violation of the rule against edit warring. If you read the policy and the notice, 3RR is a bright line, a point at which even edits justifiable by guidelines can result in a block. The notice was explicit and clear and with diffs.

Your "opposer" was an editor with one edit in the sequence, not many. I didn't see a warning as necessary.

You were not accused of violating 3RR. You were warned about edit warring, that your behavior, if continued, could result in a block. And that is, quite simply, true, and if you continue, I predict that you will be blocked. We'll see if it comes to that. While I might take a small role, not that I'm not an admin. I'm not personally threatening you, it says "warning" and that is exactly what it is. Ignore it if you prefer, but you will not be able to claim you were not warned.

What was "absurd" about the IP editor's behavior? It wasn't proper -- that IP also edit warred -- but it certainly was not absurd, it was merely unsophisticated.

In short, Keltie, you are correct. Truth comes out, and it is coming out, and you should be aware that you are visible. It's possible to pass unnoticed for a long time here. That's over. --Abd (talk) 15:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd, I think giving a warning to KeltieMartinFan at this time was excessive. The most recent revert removed only a reference, did not change the text, and left one of two references present to support the statement. The other reverts were all July 20 or earlier: some time ago. Removing the reference only, once, was not a bald revert and may have been a step towards arriving at consensus on the references. It may be that your edit to the article was overly hasty after all, since KeltieMartinFan had not yet replied to my question about what KMF thought was the best reference, so discussion had not been finished.

KeltieMartinFan, I think what Abd meant was that reverts can be considered editwarring even if they don't surpass 3RR, and that your removal of the reference repeated your removal of the same reference earlier. I don't agree with Abd that that would be considered editwarring at that point, although we all need to be careful not to escalate to the point where it would be considered editwarring. It's also possible that Abd simply made a mistake and didn't notice that when you removed the reference you didn't also remove the statement about the marriage.

Everyone, giving that reverts related to this material on this article has received (minor) media attention, I think we need to be especially careful to avoid repeated reverts.

I think we're arriving at consensus on the article, anyway. Let's try to also get along with each other. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 12:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Coppertwig, the warning was necessary. Did you look at those diffs? Have you looked at the long-term behavior of this editor? I disagree: this editor has attempted, long term, at this article, to remove all reference to the previous husband, often with no variation at all in argument, and the argument simply got a little more sophisticated. In any case, an administrator I am not; the warning was issued so that administrative decision, later, could be asserted if needed. If Keltie is not edit warring now, fine. Yes, I was aware that this time the mention of the marriage was not removed. However, the reference leads to more information about that marriage, specifically the name of the husband. It's simply a variation. It is very odd that there was no prior warning like this, back when there was very clear, repeated edit warring hitting 3RR. The IP was also edit warring, and it was the two of them back and forth many times.

Keltie, I am not talking to an amateur. I think it quite likely, indeed, that I'm talking to a professional. A conflict of interest professional. Are you employed by NBC? You are correct that removal of the reference alone was not a bald revert. However, it was a partial reversion, and bald with respect to the reference itself. The reference is usable, and consensus should be established on this before there is any more edit warring. I limit myself to 1RR, generally, and I will support emerging consensus with that, pending, sometimes. What, precisely, is the "truth" that should come out here? You have been removing what appears to be solid, reference to the former marriage. You first, until it became unsustainable, removed all reference. Now you appear to want to remove the link that would allow a reader to easily find the name of the former husband.

what truth will come out? What I see is you removing what is apparently true, and you have not asserted anything positive. So that claim appears to be deceptive, intended to present yourself as fighting for truth, when you are not asserting any truth at all, only opinion and judgment, i.e., that this is "gossip" or "poorly sourced." You are doing the opposite of fighting for truth, you are trying to cover it up. This doesn't apply to Bilby, for example, who appears to be simply looking for the strongest sources. It certainly doesn't apply to Coppertwig. It also doesn't apply to the IP editor, who may also have a conflict of interest, for sure, but who was, indeed, pushing for "truth," and simply didn't know how to source it properly. --Abd (talk) 15:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help this weekend (considering all your other Wikipedia activity)!

162.6.97.3 (talk) 13:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Workshop page

I hope you don't mind. I'm replacing some collapse boxes of your comments on the workshop page with diff links instead. This is because a user said on workshop talk that they were having trouble loading the page into their browser. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

mmm.... not sure. Diff links are not as accessible. Maybe. Also what is in collapse is editable, diffs aren't (And neither are links to history, as I used in my primary evidence.) Diffs are much less readable, and the use of bolding disappears, for example. If a summary is left behind, it might be okay. Care to do any summarizing? I'm not sure how far we should go to satisfy bugs in browsers -- or in MediaWiki (?). The page is huge, and it might not load anyway. I'll look when I have time. --Abd (talk) 19:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'm writing some summaries. I put in a link to one here; the summaries are at User:Coppertwig/Sandbox3. I'm using page history links and don't expect to leave them displayed there permanently. Feel free to move them; perhaps I should have created a page in your userspace. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:30, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I put links from the workshop page to these summaries. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Note Crohnie's messages on my talk page about continuing browser problems. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Notice regarding the editing of Cold fusion and its talk page.

In order to avoid disruption, I voluntarily continued a ban against editing CF and its talk page, beyond the expiration of the community ban that had been closed by Heimstern. I asked Heimstern about the expiration of the one-month ban, as he had set the length, as a courtesy; he did not suggest that it continued, but he did not wish to be a part of the controversy and I fully respect and understand that. I now withdraw that voluntary ban extension. I have no intention of making any disruptive edits, and will exercise caution about unnecessary violation of the sensibilities of other editors; I will limit my Talk page discussion to that necessary to explain edits. No more walls of text, at least not there! I will, if needed, use user pages for detailed discussions, proposals, and other such. --Abd (talk) 22:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I've blocked you for 24h for violation of the ban, and reverted your edit. If you want to edit there, you need to get someone other than yourself to overturn the ban. You could, for example, ask for an injunction at the Arbcomm case - that would be a fairly obvious remedy. Or you could have asked me. But instead you chose to test the limits; well, now you know William M. Connolley (talk) 08:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Can someone provide the link to the original ban and Adb's selfban? — Rlevse • Talk • 13:54, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

As onlooking admin, this is the message left by William M. Connolley regarding this: diff. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:08, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Heimstern's review of the ban (I believe that was while the ANI-thred was active), is before that (I link the discussion permanently; it is still on the talkpage of Heimstern). Abd there says: "If I edit the article or its Talk page, I can be blocked, by any administrator desiring to enforce the ban, with no warning" (perm. link). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:14, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Slightly adapted my second post. I don't see anything after that, but may be mistaken, until the (unilateral?) decision by Abd that he unbanned himself (first post in this thread), yesterday evening. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:19, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Beetstra, I'm disappointed in you. Sure, I said that. That was with reference to the community ban based on the closure by Heimsterm, who set the ban at one month. That expired almost a month ago. I had then said that I was voluntarily extending the ban to avoid disruption. However, WMC claimed that his original, unilateral ban was still in place, and continued to claim that. I did not violate the community ban -- except for that misunderstanding about self-reverted edits, a matter which is under active consideration before ArbComm. The edit last night was the first edit that violated, not the community ban, but WMC's invalid unilateral ban, and the edit itself was not disruptive, and it was brief. Before that, I placed notice in the RfAr (on talk:Workshop) and here on my Talk page. Yes, just as my continuation of abstinence was unilateral, so too was my notice of withdrawal of that and my edit last night.

I have claimed on RfAr that an administrative ban, not based on a discussion and a consensus of uninvolved editors (and not an ArbComm ban) does not create any right to block on the basis of edits that would not otherwise be blockable. The block tool is not to be used to punish.

In this case, WMC declared the ban not based on any stated edit, though later there were hints that the basis was walls of text. To block me for a non-wall of text edit (and not disruptive in any other way, except for "violating the ban") is simply punitive, not preventative, and, in this case, blatantly defiant of recusal policy. Can anyone claim that WMC is "not involved in a dispute with me"? --Abd (talk) 15:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd, I am sorry if you read it that way, Rlevse was asking for banning discussion links, those are, to my best knowledge, the two last threads for that (I am now thinking that you may have responded to the thread initiated by WMC, I should have linked that whole section, my mistake). I did not mean to take any side in this, it was merely linking the discussions as requested. I am not, and will not, take any side in the WMC-Abd-dispute, I do however comment (in the ongoing ArbCom) on how I perceive your reading of policy and guideline (where I also here do not agree with all that you say, and do not agree with your reading of (parts of) policies and guidelines). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Let me put it as (hopefully) good advice, all this drama would not have been necessary, Abd, if you would have also notified WMC, as he suggested in his 'ban' post. To me, that is even completely separate from the point if you agree with the ban, if it is a ban, if the ban is appropriate or whatever. I mean, I am there not even using a policy or guideline to oppose the ban or to discuss my way out of it (what to some may read as wikilaywer). Its just not necessary then. I hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

P.S., I did not see the post on the workshop, so you did say more about it (my apologies), though also that I would not see as the optimal venue either (just as your own talkpage). I hope this also explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Beetstra, I think you should take responsibility for how what you posted above would look, taken out of its original context. As to notifying WMC, he had just, in that discussion, claimed the right to block me, ongoing. I had notified him before and he simply denied it. He has a strong tendency to respond dismissively to whatever I post to his Talk, including friendly comments, so .... I thought of notifying him on his Talk, but, this time, the "promise" wasn't made to him, as far as I recall, so withdrawal of it wasn't necessarily due to him. I didn't owe him anything. I did assume that he would read my notice on the RfAr talk page, though. --Abd (talk) 16:12, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Responsibility? Well, I did link the diffs, and I do not believe that there was any immediate decision made on that. I don't see any reason to take responsibility for anything, Abd. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

WMC claims to have imposed a ban on his own authority; that's much of what the arb case is about. See for example Ban reviewed, an earlier thread on this talk page. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

WMC's original announcement that he was imposing a ban was here. See also A Basic Chronology of Relevant Events in GoRight's evidence. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Unblocked. (Prepares for cries of wheel warring and requests for me to be added to the case). Viridae^Talk 14:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is where Heimstern, the admin who closed the community discussion reviewing the ban, confirms that it was for one month. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:33, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

As WMC is involved up to his ears in this, I don't consider the WMC "ban" as very weighty. Heimstern's ban was for a month and he's not what I'd call involved. Abd banned himself and as far as I am concerned can unban himself. Therefore, I consider the block by WMC invalid and as for Viridae, I do not consider the unblock as wheel warring. You all may want to see my post on WMC's talk page. Thanks to all for the info. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Rlevse. WMC also deleted Abd's article talk page comment: [15]. Abd's post to the article talk page is an informative, on-topic and non-disruptive contribution in reply to a question from another editor. I think Abd's comment should be restored to the article talk page. Who would like to have the honours? ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Done. Viridae^Talk 14:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

@Viridae. (replied here to keep the discussion in one place) Abd was suggesting the same sources that he has been pumping up endelessly in that talk page, after multiple editors told him why they were of very low or of unknown quality, and all the problems that the sources had. That is not a helpful edit to help that IP, that's a continuation of the same promotional campaign that he has been carrying out for months. Since you haven't been involved in Talk:Cold fusion, you were probably not aware of these circumstances that make Abd's edit a pure continuation of part of the behaviour that got him banned (aka, not listening to consensus that he disagress with, in this case the consensus about the sources). And I'm not even going into how he ignored other better-quality mainstream sources. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:08, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I want to make this very clear, this is about the sources: he promoted again the damned chinese paper which is of very low quality, written by an author with no notability of his own, published in a relatively new journal with no impact factor. And the sourcebook is a compilation of conference papers, and it seems that those don't get the same peer-review process as "normal" books from Oxford university press. The arguments are more complicated, but those are the core issues. He has been proclamating those sources as the end-all of all sources in the matter, throwing WP:WEIGHT and WP:FRINGE throught the window. Those sources were discussed before and bringing them up again is not helpful. If Abd is going to keep insisting with the same low-quality sources still after being banned and in the middle of an arb case about the matter then it's frigging crystal clear that he is Not Getting It and his input is no longer welcome at that page. Talk pages are not to make advocacy-like promotion of bad sources to anyone passing by (not even good sources!!!), they are to write that articles. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:19, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Mmm I know you don't Rlevse - history tells me that WMC won't see it that same way though. Viridae^Talk 14:48, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict with above) Thanks, Viridae. Pleased to meet you. I must be getting old, I wasn't aware that you had joined the Abd Cabal, I really do need to keep better records. In any case, make yourself at home. I doubt that, under the circumstances, you are any danger of troutslapping. I'm assuming that the block by WMC was so bad that, unbidden, you magically appeared. I didn't even put up an unblock template; I'm not sure that I would have. (But don't repeat your unblock if WMC insists by reblocking, or another admin jumps in, not that I think you would. Let them wheel-war if they want, it will only speed things up.) I just got up, I don't know if there has been discussion of this on AN/I yet. --Abd (talk) 15:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

WMC, I only test limits when I believe that doing so is less disruptive than more complex bureaucratic process, such as you suggested. Yes, I could have asked for an injunction, if I thought being blocked was a serious harm to me, or that there was some necessity beyond the ordinary worth troubling ArbComm about. It is for some editors, not for me, and I suppose it might be for some editing, but not last night's edit. We returned to the original condition; I had declared your original ban void, and would have edited Cold fusion, eventually, if not for Enric's popping it to AN/I. You insisted on your right to maintain the ban in spite of reasonable claims of involvement, not with the article, the one revert to May 14 did not establish that, but in dispute with me. The RfAr has made the claim of dispute completely obvious and undeniable. Yet you continued on your course. It was not unexpected, and, I believe, it will be beneficial, causing the RfAr to become cleaner and to proceed more swiftly to a decision. Thanks. On Wikipedia Review, I've extensively commented how much I appreciate your frankness and willingness to act boldly and directly, but it's essential, for that to be not, in the long run, seriously damaging, that you recognize limits. You just ran into one that had big red blinking lights and warning signs all over it. As before, I've suggested that you may avoid losing your admin bit by showing ArbComm that you understand your error. Do it promptly and profusely, so that they can reasonably conclude that it won't happen again, with me or with anyone else. I'm not trying to humiliate you, I'm actually trying to save your adminship. You haven't believed me in the past, and you may not believe me now, but it's the truth.

Nobody else but you would have written that it looks like "I nailed my colors to the yard-arm." Frankly, I'd rather keep you around.

Short version: I was not testing my limits, but WMC's. Had my edit been disruptive, and the whole issue not already massively discussed, it could have been a WP:POINT violation. However, the IP editor had asked for information about sources, I had a ready answer, so I answered it. That was my reason for the edit. I ignored WMC's threats, and ignoring threats is commonly the most non-disruptive course.

Rlevse, et tu? Thanks. I'll look around. Once I know what I'm doing -- it takes time and discussion! -- I aim for minimum splash. So far, so good. --Abd (talk) 15:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, while people are debating whether the ban was one month or indef on my talkpage, Heimstern's onemonth confirmation was clear to me, but I can see why people are confused. That being said, to Adb I say, do yourself a favor and don't post to the CF article or its talk til the case is over. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd, I'm reenacting your ban on Cold fusion and its talk page until I hear from Heimstern. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I will respect this, of course, it is clearly designed to avoid disruption. I assume I may request of you that it be lifted, but we will cross that bridge as we come to it. As to Heimstern, I assume you know I asked him about the ban expiration already? He had, in response to query (from editors who wanted it to be indef), explicitly set the ban at one month, but I did approach him to confirm it was no longer in effect, after the time had expired. He did not wish to be involved in the conflict -- very understandable! -- and essentially declined to respond, and, as can be seen from my complete conversation with him, I did not wish to lay any serious burden on him, he'd already done his job as closing administrator, which, by the way, explicitly respected my wish, in his comment at the end fo the ban discussion, to have a close by a neutral admin in order that WMC no longer be the supervising administrator for the ban. It was in expectation of that result that I requested speedy close. --Abd (talk) 16:06, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Thanks, Rlevse. "People" is two highly involved editors I've identified in my evidence as "cabal." It's utterly unsurprising that Mathsci would present you with such a blatantly distorted history. As to the issue of involvement raised by Verbal, here is my opinion. You are not required to recuse from the ArbComm case because you take an action to maintain order during the case, that is part of the duties of an arbitrator. Verbal also raises a question, "if WMC complains about your action will you no longer be able to block him?" My opinion: not with respect to the same issue, you would, absent emergency, like WMC should have done if he considered my edit disruptive, go to a noticeboard, and an exception would be if his behavior was so damaging, with ongoing damage likely, that you would block anyway and immediately inform the community through a noticeboard. Recusal rules are, in essence, very simple, and the cabal has consistently tried to confuse them, this is one of the more serious aspects of the current RfAr.

By the way, autoblock seems to still be up. I will discuss the matter of continuing a voluntary ban on Cold fusion, pending the outcome of the case, later, but, briefly, I would prefer to edit, but with some clear restrictions that address the reasonable aspects to the complaints about me there. WMC declared the ban based on something, and the most obvious reason, in spite of his lack of specificity, is "walls of text." As I noted when stating I was ending the voluntary ban I will keep my Talk page discussion brief. I see that I didn't do what I said I'd do above, about limiting my discussion to that necessary to explain edits. I forgot about making brief informative comments in response to questions. That's what IAR does to you, and that's why we have IAR, because all the possible contingencies cannot be anticipated. There won't be any walls of text, I can guarantee that, because if I need to write much, I'll use a user page or link to my Sandbox history, or the like. No walls of text on Talk.

I don't want to have a big discussion on this, for the obvious reason: we don't have a big discussion to avoid having a big discussion. There are restrictions proposed by TS that are way too complicated, but, later, maybe I'll set up something that could be simple to decide. --Abd (talk) 15:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Re autoblock: there are instructions at Template:Autoblock. See also Wikipedia:Autoblock. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I think I got the autoblock. Can you edit again, Abd? Steve Smith (talk) (formerly Sarcasticidealist) 16:15, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. Nice to know that your eyes are on my Talk page. --Abd (talk) 21:06, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

• To reiterate and ensure there are no misunderstandings. Do not edit Cold fusion or its talk page. This is in effect until the arb case has a final decision. If the final ruling in the case covers this particular issue, that of course will then take effect. If the final ruling does not cover this particular issue, the status of the CF ban is then left to the community. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:25, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks, Rlevse, it was clear, and I do not object. Under the circumstances, it's obvious, any edit I make to those pages will cause disruption, until the case is closed, and whose "fault" it is is actually irrelevant. If I decide that I do want to edit the pages pending, I would ask for permission from you, and not proceed without that permission. --Abd (talk) 22:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggest discussion is moved to case pages

Someone above said it would be better to keep all the discussion in one place. Can I suggest that the arbitration case pages are a better place to discuss what happened here? I've said so at Rlevse's talk page, and will go and so so at other user talk pages as well. Carcharoth (talk) 16:32, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree, Carcharoth. It will be done from my end. Little by little, we go far. Some stuff became very visible here. --Abd (talk) 20:44, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

August 2009

About your comment in Talk:Cold fusion. Since you say above that your edits shouldn't have been reverted because they were not disruptive, it's obvious that you need to be reminded again about the same problem. Those sources have been examined before in the talk page and they were found to be of very low quality. You are aware of this because you participated in the discussions and I have reminded you of them when you decided to bring up again the same sources as if they had never been discussed before in the talk pages and being found full of flaws, and you have done this several times, every time refusing to acknowledge the problems. You have had more than enough warnings that you were bringing up low-quality sources and giving them undue weight respect other better-quality and/or more notable and/or more representative of mainstream ones. I warn you for making advocacy via promotion of bad sources that happen to be positive towards the topic. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I participated in some of those discussions and I was not convinced that the sources were not usable. Disagreements are to be worked out by discussion and consensus, not by warning users not to repeat ideas you disagree with. Essentially, the argument as I understand it was that a book from what would normally be considered a respectable publisher could not be used as a source for describing fringe theories because the ideas presented in the source were fringe theories. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:34, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

You understood it wrong. I posted at the workshop's talk page explaining further why the sources were bad. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:12, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

There was no consensus on those sources, Enric. This has been the problem all along. A few editors agree on something, they claim it's consensus. Your argument is strange because, if you read the post you diff'd, I didn't even name the alleged weak sources, rather, I pointed to the old discussions in the archive. The question was asked about reviews of the topic. Given that this is science, with ongoing publication, a review twenty years ago isn't the same as a recent one. In any case, we now have, thanks to your argument here, during the case, a very clear example of what I faced at Cold fusion, which makes discussion much easier.

What is the rejected source that I advocated or promoted, and how did I advocate it? I mentioned two sources directly: The ACS Sourcebook and Kalman. Kalman had already been brought up and I think my comment about it is solid and standard RS. That leaves the Sourcebook. What about this source makes it not RS? Be specific. It's published by a cooperation between the largest scientific society in the world, the American Chemical Society, and Oxford University Press. You have a problem with this source?

I did not "say above that [my] edits shouldn't have been reverted," I didn't address the revert at all, others did that, to my recollection, and, in fact, I may be proposing that I be either self-reverted or revertible on sight by any editor offended. We'll see.

Note to others: The edit I made can be considered more or less typical of what I'd do in the absence of a ban. It was a simple, short answer to a question and, in fact, it referred to the old discussions where the alleged consensus for rejection was formed, instead of actually naming the sources. In other words, my "advocacy via promotion of bad sources," was simply pointing to the old discussions so the IP could judge for himself or herself.

Enric, I've previously requested you not post to my Talk page. While, when this case is closed, it is possible that we can again work together, I'd suggest that now is not the time to debate content with me. After all, I'm banned from the article and talk now, by Rlevse. (Thanks, Rlevse, I approve and accept, especially now that it looks like this case may be headed for speedy resolution.) --Abd (talk) 21:04, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Funny

This comment: " okay, to make this even, desysop me too, okay?" made me laugh. thanks. Ikip (talk) 19:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Glad to hear it. That was the idea. I'm hoping that the cabal members can also laugh. They certainly laugh a lot when they watch someone they've blocked squirming and fuming! There was an actual point there. I don't have a special privilege to remove. Removing WMC's sysop bit makes us equal. If he and I misbehaved equally, for purposes of argument, then our resulting condition might appropriately be the same. We expect administrators to behave in an exemplary fashion; but WMC was already admonished by admins during the RfAr, and he ignored it, as usual. We'll see what happens. Those proposals, I don't know if they have preliminary consensus and NYBrad is an outlier, or if Bainer is more out on a limb. I could still see some sanctions, perhaps, as to myself, but if the mentor option is seriously flying, probably not. Cool, eh? I've always wanted a mentor.

I had other more complex proposals to make, such as "banned from Cold fusion and only allowed to edit Talk:Cold fusion with self-reverted edits. It totally addresses almost every complaint made, so it would theoretically enjoy complete consensus, right?

Wrong. Because the cabal's problem is that I express my views and the products of my research into sources, at all. The problem with my patented Wall-o-Text is a smokescreen, easily handled in other ways, and with my cooperation. And it had basically stopped, it was nothing like before. (There is a real problem with long text, but it takes much more work to address it than many realize.)

But it would confront those arguments, and, I assume, neutral editors would back it, if they were inclined to back a ban at all. --Abd (talk) 20:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Personal Attack Removed

Abd, I am sorry that your page was vandalized to include a personal attack. I have removed the attack & cannot even imagine why someone would have to bring ethnic opinions (accurate or not) onto Wikipedia. Freedomlinux (talk) 15:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This refers to what is restored below. This has been added repeatedly for a long time, so, this once, I'm putting it back and responding. I appreciate your effort, and, normally, I'd leave it there. The IP is probably a block editor who believes that I was responsible for that. Since I have no power to ban or block, it's a serious error, and if the editor is upset about the ban, the editor should address the actual cause. This is not actually an ethnic opinion, below, it is simply an angry editor saying what he imagines would upset me. It doesn't work, I'm not upset, I'm grateful, and I'll now get to think of this every time this editor tries it again, if he does. Carry on. --Abd (talk) 15:23, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Muslim scum

User:abd is Muslim Scum —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.68.200.252 (talk) 15:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Usually these comments are promptly deleted, but this has been repeated over and over, and perhaps it's time to allow the banned editor to say it. And to respond. If this gets out of hand, it can all be deleted, no harm.

Yes. I am Muslim scum. That is, I'm definitely scum, and I seek to be "muslim" scum, which means scum that abandons attachment, accepts Reality, and serves ("Abd" means "servant" or "lover"). "Scum" is the allegation of Satan, voiced through those who buy it, about humanity in general, i.e., that we are worthless. Literally, life itself is a scum on the surface of the earth. But what a beautiful, wonderful, scum, in which there is great possibility for mischief and harm (as the angels complain in the Qur'an), but something else that justifies it all (as God replies.)

Thanks for providing the opportunity to say this, IP. --Abd (talk) 15:23, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Scibaby Impacts

Since Raul has made Scibaby such a central figure in the current ArbCom case I was thinking that I should document some of the impacts Raul's obsession is creating. Do you think this might be appropriate fair for the current case? If so do you have any pointers to where I can find information on things like the extent and impact of the range blocks Raul has implemented? If one assumes that a puppet master seeks to create disruption of some sort, it occurs to me that Raul may have become an unwitting tool of Scibaby. Thanks to Raul and his ego driven obsession to control this one puppet master Scibaby is creating far more havoc and damage to the project than he otherwise could as a regular editor. Raul has, in effect, made Scibaby an administrator, a checkuser, an oversighter, etc by allowing himself to be manipulated so easily. Do you agree?

If so I can certainly take a crack at pulling some of this information together but I don't even know where to begin to look for the relevant pieces. Do you have any ideas? --GoRight (talk) 20:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

There was a noticeboard discussion or the like recently. I'll look for it. I do agree with your analysis, it is entirely possible that the whole Scibaby affair could have been dealt with much more effectively. The "rock 'em, block 'em" approach leads to "sock 'em" in response. I'm certain we would have less disruption if we dealt more fairly with POV pushers, and we could do it without at all sacrificing article quality, in fact, done properly, article quality would improve.

That's what real consensus does, you know. Ideally, everyone accepts that the article is neutral, and, for a minority POV-pusher, that is a major advance over what they will get if pushing comes to shoving and whoever had the most editors to hit 1RR wins. Hence at least some of those POV-pushers will help maintain the status quo. That's the theory anyway. Give some of the POV-pushers admin tools, the ones who "get it" about site policy, and, when needed, they will block the unruly ones, who refuse to cooperate even with those who agree with them on "truth." But they will go much further to educate these editors than will editors who strongly disagree with them. Think about it. If we have true consensus process running continuously -- with only a few editors participating, but expandable as needed, and kept in order, so that there is "backstory" for the article readily accessible that explains why the article is where it is, and with the backstory also rigorously neutral and sourced, but about Wikipedia history, not the outside world as such, there is a place for new editors to enter. Read the backstory, and if something seems off about it, discuss that on an attached talk page. There, with the backstory, not with the article. And if some consensus appears among the editors following the backstory, then can then bring it to the article itself and make or propose a change. Nobody who wasn't watching the backstory is left out, they simply enter any implementation discussion later, when the positions, if there remains any controversy, are clearer, sourced, etc. etc. All this crap about endless discussion is just that, crap, depending upon a very constricted view of how we can use the wiki without changes in guidelines and policies. Right now, sure, there may be way too much discussion for too little effect. But it does not have to be that way.

Where do we put the backstory? In user space, a user volunteers to serve as "chair." The chair is "unfair?" Another user starts up another backstory page, you get to read both of them if you want. I can tell you what will happen. The "live" backstory pages will be the most neutral ones, and there will be far less dissension there. If you were hosting a backstory page and editors started flaming each other there, what would you do? I can tell you what I'd do! My goal in hosting a page like that would be to find consensus, and editors who are fighting with each other are not likely to find consensus, so I'd tell them to Go Away until they can behave, and it would be my damn user space and I should be able to run some consensus process there and make sure, according to my own lights, that it's fair. And I wouldn't need admin tools to do it. Personally, I'd be faster to do this with someone who agrees with me as to content, but if I was the unfair one, the other editors would just go somewhere else and do it. There is nothing wrong with multiple links to backstory pages in an article talk, where consensus hasn't settled on one as being particularly useful. But when we are documenting why the article is the way it is, in the end, that really shouldn't be controversial; where there are divergent points of view, we simply report all of them and describe how the debate, edit wars, the whole nine yards, went. Backstory in many ways should be easier to write than articles because we have a total, practically perfect, reliable source for it. Our own history. We could debate what things mean, but .... that's OR! So writing backstory might be a good training ground for editors.... Give a new POV-pusher something to do....

With some articles, backstory would key into a broader view of the article topic than one would get in the article itself. In quite a number of topics, there is consensus among experts in mailing lists and other irregular sources, but we can't even mention it in mainspace. Backstory might be popular among students because students are frequently using Wikipedia to find sources, and often what they are writing can use those irregular sources....

Ah! You got me started. Sorry.

GoRight, you might suspect FA/DP principles at work here, and you would be right. --Abd (talk) 21:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I found this from July 2008, but this is not the recent discussion I had in mind. Still, it's worth reading. --Abd (talk) 21:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Off topic: "Assholes on wikipedia are a dime a dozen" --Mary Spicuzza

And, from 2008, Wikipedia Idiots: The Edit Wars of San Francisco. There is some link having to do with Scibaby that links there, haven't found it yet, but here we go with genuine reliable source, published: "Assholes on wikipedia are a dime a dozen." Actually, this should be attributed, "According to Mary Spicuzza, writing in The San Francisco Weekly, February 12, 2008 ...." --Abd (talk) 21:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed before that WMC was edit warring with Scibaby at global warming before blocking. Raul654 was also edit warring on that article before blocking Obedium. See User:Raul654/archive14#Edit_warring_on_Global_warming. --Abd (talk) 22:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Man I had no idea how extensive these range blocks were. I pulled a bunch of data out of Raul's block log, filtered it for just the IP Range blocks (i.e. this is not all of his Scibaby blocks) and put it into a table. Check this out! Whoa momma. --GoRight (talk) 06:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Requesting clerk action

If you would like clerk attention on a matter, it's usually better to contact one of us directly or leave a note at WP:AC/CN. Edit summaries and bold print are not guaranteed to attract our attention; most of the clerks are probably not watchlisting case pages, and if I'm not online I can very easily miss notes such as that. I have removed the comment in question, and will be speaking to Skinwalker.

He does, however, make a good point. If you do not want your conduct called into question, it may be advisable to avoid WR for the remainder of the case. Your posts there have been called into question already during this case. While your conduct there is not actionable here, poor behavior there is not likely to help you either. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Noted. This wasn't an example of poor behavior, though. The metaphor I used is an expression of how easy something was. And it was easy, editing that page accomplished what a megabyte of text might not have accomplished, a clear demonstration of the problem to the community and ArbComm, and it cut through all the factional affiliations. We should not disrupt wikipedia to make a point, for sure. but what I see as the effect is not disruption, but clarity. Suddenly, on one crucial point, a point which is the foundation of the entire case, everyone, including editors who had been tendentiously arguing that I was the entire problem, is roughly in agreement. So I looked bad. It may have been worth it, I'm just one editor, I'm not an administrator, and Wikipedia will not fall if I can't edit. An abusive administrator can do tremendous damage, and it can be very difficult to address. My purpose in filing the case was not to "punish" WMC, but to make it very clear that failure to recuse when involved is serious, and must stop. I did not do this to preserve my own right to edit the project or any particular article. Indeed, if that were all, I'd simply have started editing Cold fusion after the community ban expired, I would not have allowed the massive disruption of this RfAr, which was reasonably expected, just for such a trivial purpose. If I were blocked, I'd have followed ordinary unblock procedure, and, if necessary, a discussion at AN/I that I didn't request early close on. --Abd (talk) 03:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I will severely restrict my posting to Wikipedia Review for the remainder of this case, quite simply, because you have requested it and suggested it. Nicely, in fact. Thanks.

talkback

Hello, Abd. You have new messages at Coppertwig's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

[NEW] Ikip (talk) 03:54, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions in arbcom

1. Delete or rename the cabal section. Just to show the double standard of Mat and Raul, change your section name to "mutual trolling society" or "small tag team"
2. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley/Evidence#The_immediate_sequence you need edit diffs. Ikip (talk) 19:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

As to the second point, the diffs and links are in the reference, I think, but I'll check. --Abd (talk) 19:26, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

How do you spell relief?

Apology to the Committee. Thanks, folks, for all your support. The case is not over, but my participation in it largely is, for reasons explained in the apology. I will answer questions from arbitrators that are asked here or by email, and I will try to answer questions from others, but, please be patient, I will be very busy with RL over the next weeks, trying desperately to make up for all the time poured into this case.

You spell relief R E C U S A L. Letting someone else make decisions, providing advice on request but not trying to control. --Abd (talk) 14:31, 13 August 2009 (UTC)