User talk:Jclemens

Welcome, correspondents If you're here because I deleted an article you think should be undeleted, please read this first and remember--Most of the time, I didn't write the text that appears in the deletion summary.
N.B. I don't respond well to either fawning or abuse. Talk to me like a peer, assume good faith, and you'll find I reciprocate in my helpfulness.

Functionary Assistance My ability to help as a checkuser, oversighter, or arbitrator in individual matters is currently limited by my positional and non-Wikipedia obligations. For non-trivial assistance, especially that which requires extensive consideration of private correspondence, you will likely get a faster response by asking another functionary.

Position Essays may help you understand my point of view with regard to...

• Notability of Fictional Topics
• Articles for Deletion
• Blocks
• My RfA Standards

Administrator Goals Doing my best to improve the tiny little wedge in the top center:

A cookie for you!

thanks for the barnie ;) (see all lower case) Cerejota (talk) 00:08, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Abortion arbitration case

Hello. You have Concerning Anthony Appleyard as a party at User_talk:Coren#Abortion_case_and_Anthony_Appleyard's talk page. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 15:51, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I expect this to be resolved one way or another within 24 hours. That its taken this long is grossly unacceptable and if it isn't resolved within 24 hours I will escalate the matter. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 13:47, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Note the banner at the top of this page. This was one of those weekends where my Internet access was not reliable. I'll look into this in the next several hours, now that I've got Internet access again. Out of curiosity, to whom would you have escalated should I have remained unable to respond? Jclemens (talk) 01:04, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

So yes, I've looked into this, and indeed, Coren and I were asked by a clerk for an opinion on it, but neither one of us appears to have done anything on it. I don't remember seeing the notice, but a search turned it up in my mailboxes. I'm inclined to add him, but that will cause a case schedule delay which is undesirable but apparently unavoidable. I've emailed Coren, and we'll see what we come up with. Jclemens (talk) 05:05, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. I appreciate your talk page notice, but I did contact both of you and I felt after two weeks that it needed sorting quickly.

With regards to escalation I would have taken it to the arbitration committee as a whole to look at on their talk page. After the MickMacNee case I (along with the other contributors in good standing) had raised concerns about the committee's poor communication, and unfortunately this seems to have been another example. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 15:09, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

You should have an answer tomorrow. As was noted in the Arbcom email leaks, the Arbcom-L mailing list is pretty badly suited for any number of things, including this one. There have been proposals to use a CRM solution or OTRS to keep track of issues like this, where nothing will be skipped by default, and everything not explicitly marked as closed by an arb will stay visible... but those solutions aren't there yet. Jclemens (talk) 02:40, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

You could just use the case talk pages as they were intended ;) - they allow you to close resolved stuff and keep track of what hasn't been done. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:21, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

How the BLP decision may be viewed by some

[1]

Beware the BLP zealot: "The BLP zealot can often be found editing articles on BLPs (unsurprisingly), and roaming the BLP noticeboard looking for articles to subject to his zealotry. He engages in extensive revert-warring to remove any negative material, no matter how well sourced. He reports his enemies to the BLP noticeboard. The BLP zealot himself doesn't add material to the article—he only removes it. If the BLP zealot had his way, the article would say, in its entirety, "John Smith exists". The BLP zealot, while thinking he understands the BLP policy, has never added negative material compliant with the policy—because he has never added negative material at all—showing he only understands the policy in a deconstructive sense."

Is, I fear, the result of the BLP decision. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:11, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I really don't think so. The niche for the BLP zealot, as so termed, was set up years ago. Have you considered volunteering for OTRS? It's a very interesting and eye-opening treatment. You get (for example) emails from housewives who were porn stars years ago who beg you to de-link their real name from the article on their stage name. That sort of thing gives one a different perspective on what BLP is about. On the whole, the "BLP problem" is not fixed, nor going away any time soon. We've just enumerated one more way that it can be exacerbated, and told people to knock that off. Jclemens (talk) 23:08, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I had nigh two decades with contractual responsibilities as a Wizop <g>, so I am unsure how well I would fit in at OTRS. I really would like ArbCom to do what fixing they can, as I fear the number of editors who share Will's, Writegeist's, and Wnt's attitudes apparent opinions as stated in the ArbCom pages will remain too large. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:12, 30 August 2011 (UTC) (emending as "attitudes" appears to have been misaprehended) Collect (talk) 16:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

My perspective may be too far removed to understand exactly what problems you see--what do you want ArbCom to do? Jclemens (talk) 23:22, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

As a minimum - specifically state that contentious claims about any person belong specifically in only the most appropriatr article, that inclusion of such claims in a large number of articles violates Wikipedia principles, and that links to contentious claims should be restricted by the community. Further, that where such claims are used to include a person in any political, religious or social group, that such use be deprecated. (the "cult" issue, in short) And that any categorization or identification of any person as belonging to such a group should not be based on opinions, but that Wikipedia, with regard to living people, uses facts and not opinions, I am sure you could word this more elegantly, but this is in line with the WMF policy, as opposed to those who seem to feel BLPs are not to be strongly protected. Note that none of this is dependent on "SEO" or not. Cheers. Collect (talk) 08:13, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Collect, you claim that several editors, including myself, have "attitudes", and now you say that there are "those who seem to feel BLPs are not to be strongly protected". I hope you are not referring to any of the named individuals. Insinuations like that are close to personal attacks, and I've had enough of them. As for the WMF's BLP policy, it can be found here: [2]. I am sure that all of the people you named fully respect both the WMF and WP policies on living people. If you had evidence to the contrary you should have added it to the recent ArbCom case.   Will Beback  talk  08:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I have emended to "apparent opinions as stated in the ArbCom pages" as I fear you misapprehended the meaning of "attitudes" as I intended it. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Writegeist mentioned this discussion to me. My concern with telling people to knock off "SEO" (if that's what you mean) is that SEO hasn't been defined. In the present talk page discussion about the case some people are starting to stake out the position that merely Wikilinking to an article can be some kind of "SEO", which to me is just ridiculous. I think we have too many policies being used to Wikilawyer against coverage of topics that some people dislike, and unless "SEO" is tightly and technically defined, we will soon claims about it used in the same way. For example, the decision about whether something is "SEO" or not should not be dependent on what the article is about. Wnt (talk) 06:29, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Um -- where in this colloquy did I use any such acronym? Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:27, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Request to restore lrtweetup G11 code.

I wanted to inquire about having the lrtweetup article restored. I'm unsure why it was deleted but as I see many tweetups with similar pages I'd like this article to be a resource of history and documentation of the group. I'll edit the article as needed to comply with expectations.

Thank you for the consideration

Tsudohnimh (talk) 03:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC) @tsudo

Done, moved to User:Tsudohnimh/Lrtweetup. Jclemens (talk) 22:53, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Pineapple doughnut

Dear Jclemens.

I wanted to explain my article on pineapple doughnuts. In Australia pineapple doughnuts have something like iconic status, particularly in the pop culture of the 1950's, 60's and 70's. Many comedians, comics artists, etc made jokes about pineapple doughnuts and it seems to me that these things sometimes need explaining, particularly to non-Australians and younger Australians. Furthermore, Australian pineapple doughnuts are not merely ordinary doughnuts with pineapple icing. The ingredients, texture, size and method of preparation are very different. I would very much like to re-write the article (with a great many more references!) and re-submit it. It seems to me that I can make a case for it's notability. Morandir (talk) 05:35, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure, but you need to give me the complete article name so I can find it. While I'm happy to restore it, I'm less inclined to go searching for it to restore... Jclemens (talk) 22:55, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Franklin Lamb for deletion

As an admin with some experience in AFD's, you may be interested in this case:

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Franklin Lamb is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Franklin Lamb until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. bobrayner (talk) 16:33, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

The only reason given for deletion is that the subject does not meet notability guidelines, a position taken by many in the deletion tally, yet here is an article which appears to have been posted on dozens of major and minor news websites and blogs which says that he a contributor on many notable newsites and television stations which have wikipedia articles about them: intifada-palestine.com ISRAEL WILL NOT COLLAPSE PEACEFULLY BUT IT WILL DISSOLVE: DR. FRANKLIN LAMB Interview by Kourosh Ziabari Dr. Franklin Lamb is Director of the Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Beirut-Washington DC, Board Member of The Sabra Shatila Foundation, and a volunteer with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Lebanon. ... As a Middle East expert and commentator, Dr. Lamb has appeared on Press TV, Al-Manar and several other media outlets. His articles and analyses have been published by Counter Punch, Veterans Today, Intifada Palestine, Electronic Intifada, Opinion Maker, Dissident Voice, Daily Star and Al Ahram....Dr. Franklin Lamb, political commentator, university professor and Middle East expert. Isn't deletion for notability meant for people who are primarily self-published, not authors who primarily appear in the alternative media? In addition, the claim that there is no coverage of him as a news subject is false as there are many stories of his being shot in Libya Redhanker (talk) 04:52, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Re: Veronica Mars episodes

I was just following what WP:Television episodes says. "Articles for individual episodes should assert their notability and be fully verifiable", right? None of them were and they were even tagged as possibly not notable. The guideline point that outstading episoded can/should have individual articles, and that "If the article(s) contain little content, consider merging or redirecting them into another article (e.g. an article about the show itself, an article that is a list of episodes of the show, or an article that summarizes the plot for one season of the show)". I am not saying that it's impossible that every episode is notable enough, but in wp.fr most of them were merged until sources could be provided. In wp.pt the same is happening.

Maddox (talk) 14:56, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't saying you did anything wrong per se--but that if you want to make an issue of it, I can go ahead and source them to that level. Veronica Mars is a very commented upon show, especially the first season, and based on what I found for The Wrath of Con, I'm sure all of them can be sourced adequately. Wp.fr and wp.pt should have the best sources on French and Portugese TV shows, respectively. I think the fact that an English language TV show episode has been redirected in another Wiki is not a particularly good indication that the same outcome should apply here: after all, expect most of the reception and commentary to be in the same language as the show. FWIW, someone has tried nominating House episodes for deletion in order to force a redirect, which was roundly rejected on the basis that each individual episode met the GNG. Veronica Mars is obviously off the air, but the sources in books and scholarly papers have been published by now. I'll tackle the rest of them as I get time, although if you're interested in helping to do so, it needn't be me to do it--I'm sure you or other editors with more time can source them as well as I can. Unfortunately, the mundane tasks of bringing episodes up to current standards tend not to be very appealing to most editors, so those of us who don't mind doing it get slammed with more work that would be better off shared. Jclemens (talk) 02:52, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Senkaku

In response to your diff here, please acknowledge a question here. --Tenmei (talk) 18:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Answered there, thanks for bringing that to my attention. Jclemens (talk) 03:20, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

ArbCom candidacy for Re-election

As many of you know, I was elected to Arbcom in last December's election. At the time, I was both humbled to be selected, and glad that I was only obligated to serve a year, given my other obligations.

At this time, however, I am committing to seek reelection to ArbCom. It has been a very rough year, though probably not atypical among years, with a case of desysoping an individual on the basis of confidential evidence and then dealing with his attacks on us, almost immediately followed by the ArbCom-L leaks which strained the committee's nerves to an extent not displayed in public. This has taught me a couple of things about my performance in this role:

1) I do believe I have demonstrated the temperament needed to handle disputes as a coach and overseer, rather than primarily as a participant and advocate.

2) The stresses involved in serving on ArbCom have not affected my personal, family, educational, or employment to an extent that would cause me to step down at the end of my obligation.

But one of the main reasons I'm committing now to seeking re-election is the number of good arbitrators who are right now making their own decisions whether or not to seek a future term. I have great respect for my colleagues on the arbitration committee, both those veterans who have been serving on the committee before I joined it, and those who became freshman arbitrators alongside me. While it would be entirely possible for me to step down from the "hot seat" on ArbCom and continue to serve the project through functionary roles, I know two more things from firsthand experience:

• The greater the turnover on ArbCom, the longer it takes us to get functioning smoothly again by bringing all the new members up to speed.
• It takes a while to come up to speed on the history, procedures, tools, and expectations needed to be an effective arbitrator.

I believe I have executed exactly what I promised to do in my past candidacy: keep things running smoothly to the greatest extent possible, and serve the community rather than govern it. While I was mocked a bit by a voters' guide or two for my lack of ambition, especially in comparison to the other new candidates, since my election and appointment I've been a part of delivering incremental improvements in the face of serious external challenges. I have also come up to speed on so many things during this first year on the committee that I believe I am finally functioning at an optimum level of knowledge and skill as an arbitrator.

I would welcome the chance to once more serve with as many of the sitting arbitrators up for reelection as choose to run. It has been a pleasure to serve with such dedicated servants of the project. In my candidacy, I will be running alongside rather than against any of them, because the disagreements we have, be they in private or public, pale in comparison to the collaborative working relationship we have.

What you can do

1) If there's an arb up for reelection that you'd like to see continued in office, please drop a note to that effect on the appropriate talk page. The feedback arbs get is rarely supportive, and a few kind words can go a long way toward letting them know that their service is appreciated.

2) If you plan to pose a question to me during the election, feel free to do so now. Due to my studies, my time availability may not be as much as I would like it to be during the election period, and would like to offer everyone the opportunity to have their questions answered and concerns addressed by submitting myself to an extended questioning period in advance of the official timeline. Jclemens (talk) 20:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Requesting your advice.

I think the time’s come for me to request an interaction ban between myself and Mathsci from ArbCom. You approved of this idea when I suggested it to you a little while ago, but I’d like it if you could please give me some advice about how to go about it.

What I’d like to know is, if I want to request this, do I need to start an amendment request for the R&I case? Or is there another way to request something like this from ArbCom? I’m asking because I’m sure starting an amendment request is going to generate a lot of drama, which is something I’d rather avoid, but I’ll do it if it’s the only way this is possible.

I’d also like to make sure you don’t think requesting an amendment to the R&I case would be violating my topic ban. I don’t think my topic ban from that case is intended to prevent me from requesting an amendment to the case itself, but it would be nice to know that for certain before requesting one. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:48, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, a request for amendment to the previous case would be the most appropriate place to ask for an interaction ban from ArbCom. Having said that, you'll want to "show cause" why that would be the best thing for the encyclopedia. Obviously, the threshold is a good bit lower when you're asking for a mutual interaction ban vs. asking for another editor to be unilaterally sanctioned, but you'll still want to make a good case for it. And no, no topic ban ever forbids an editor from requesting good-faith changes to sanctions in previous cases. If such are really not welcome, what we end up with is either an outright ban (with a specified appeal time frame) or an appeals time-table on sanctions (e.g., "may be appealed after one year"). Does that clear things up appropriately? Jclemens (talk) 20:54, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

It does, thanks. I have one other question, though:

Mathsci and I have been in conflict with one another since March or April of 2010, and I think one of the main arguments in favor of an interaction ban is the quantity of conflict there’s been between us. If I try to summarize all of that in an amendment request, though, it’s going to be so long that I don’t think anyone on ArbCom will want to read it all. When I’m trying to demonstrate something like this in an amendment request, what do you think is the best way to do that without it being too long to read easily? --Captain Occam (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

You might provide a few recent example diffs, and then point to the venues where other interactions have taken place. No need to write a novel about it, but "because I want one" isn't any good, either. :-) Jclemens (talk) 21:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Would you say around 1000 words is an appropriate length for something like this, or is that too long? --Captain Occam (talk) 22:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I would recommend being more succinct on words, but finding really good diffs. Jclemens (talk) 22:49, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Would you mind giving me a specific suggestion about what’s an appropriate length? I would really like to be able to do an adequate job describing the extent of this conflict, as well as the failed attempts that I (and a couple of arbitrators) have made at resolving it. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:06, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

No, I really can't. You want to write enough to describe the problems adequately, have enough diffs so that arbs can see your point substantiated, then quit before everyone is bored. I think you're overthinking this, and I'm not going to write your appeal for you. Be sincere, thorough, and terse and you'll be fine. Jclemens (talk) 23:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Maybe I’m not communicating this clearly, but the reason I care so much about making sure I do this the right way is because I really care about the conflict between me and Mathsci being ended, and I view an arbitration amendment as probably my last remaining option to accomplish that. I don’t want to mess up my last chance at this. But you’ve been very helpful with all of this, and I appreciate that a lot. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I’m sorry to bother you about this again, but I guess there’s one more that I need to ask about it.

Mathsci has responded to this request about how I was predicting he would. Almost every sentence of his post contains some sort of misrepresentation, but each example of this would require a whole paragraph from me to explain what’s wrong with it. I’m going to choose an example at random to show what I mean, which is his claim that his involvement in R&I articles is limited to looking for sockpuppets and meatpuppets. Until Miradre was topic banned from these articles, Mathsci was among of the most heavily involved in content disputes with him, such as [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] –I don’t see how he could believe that the Pioneer Fund article is not part of the R&I topic area. As I said, that’s just one example chosen at random.

In order for me to demonstrate this about everything he’s saying there, my post in the amendment thread would have to be around three times as long as it is, and I know arbitrators wouldn’t want to read all of it. Yet if I just leave his post unresponded to, it’s going to create the impression that I have nothing to say in response to any of this. During the R&I arbitration case Mathsci used this strategy against user:Ludwigs2, who called it “wall-of-texting”, and he wasn’t able to figure out how to respond to it either. Can you give me any advice on what the proper way is to respond to something like this? --Captain Occam (talk) 21:58, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

You need to raise objections to his behavior at the request page, not here. Jclemens (talk) 22:04, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

The point I was making is that for the reason I mentioned, I can't figure out how I should respond to something like this. But I guess I can just say more or less the same thing there that I said here. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I’d appreciate you clarifying something that you said in the amendment thread. When you say that you don’t want to see any additional back-and-forth between me and Mathsci, does that mean I shouldn’t comment on the additional responses to me and Ferahgo that he posted earlier today, here and here? As I said in my initial response to him, I worry about what impression it’s going to create if I make it appear as though I have nothing to say in response to these things. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Gusstrand

Hey. I left a question for you over at that case. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 01:24, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Replied there, thanks. Jclemens (talk) 02:06, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Southern Adventist University

Just a quick request, can you restore the text that was removed by Ourlady on the article to put it where it was, so we can take it to the discussion page and decide from there. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Southern_Adventist_University&diff=448127004&oldid=448111091

Thanks...Simbagraphix (talk) 06:35, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Is there some reason you can't copy it out of the article history and put it in the talk page? Everyone autoconfirmed should still be able to edit the talk page. Jclemens (talk) 06:38, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Semiprotection of Talk:Southern Adventist University

Thanks for doing this as an emergency measure. Regards, Mathsci (talk) 06:36, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Whatever it takes to make him bored and go find something else to do with his life. :-) Jclemens (talk) 06:39, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Source classification

I know you're busy, but I'd love to have you read through User:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox_4 and let me know what you think. (Feel free to edit the page directly, or to leave comments on its talk page.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

That looks really good on first blush. My efforts (which I sketched together a bit last night) involve more like a taxonomy of the four aspects, describing various scenarios for the major ones, including thoughts on which would be best for notability or verification. Jclemens (talk) 00:58, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Looking for a resolution.

Hi Jclemens, sorry to bother you again. Hopefully, this’ll be the last time I need to ask you about this issue.

Most of the arbitrators commenting in my amendment thread seem to be hopeful that now that they’ve made it clear Mathsci should not be interacting with me anymore, he’s going to disengage. If the opinion of ArbCom is that an interaction ban isn’t necessary for that reason, I guess that’s okay. But moving forward, I would really like either some assurance that in another few months things aren’t going to go back to the way they were before, or some guidance on what I should do if that happens. I explained in Cool Hand Luke’s user talk here why I think this is a reasonable concern.

Coren suggested in the amendment thread that I be given permission to start an RFC about Mathsci if his behavior towards me doesn’t improve, but none of the other arbitrators have commented on that idea, and at present my topic ban doesn’t allow it. I’ve also tried yet again here to propose that Mathsci and I agree to leave each other alone, but he appears to be ignoring that proposal, and also rejecting a similar suggestion from Charles Matthews. I’m getting a very strong impression that if ArbCom decides to leave this issue alone beyond what they’ve said already, in another few months it’s going to back on their plate yet again.

Is there anything that you or the other arbitrators can do to make it more likely that the issue really will be permanently resolved this time, rather than just subsiding for a few months before it recurs? Requesting that Mathsci agree to my suggestion that we promise to leave each other alone is one thing that would be really helpful, as would following Coren’s suggestion that I be given permission to start an RFC about him if the problem continues. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I've got a better idea. How about you go through the last 6 months of Talk:Abortion archives for me, and email me diffs of every time you think someone has been unreasonably combatative or incivil? That would do me a big help, and I promise that as long as you're just reviewing talk page diffs, MathSci will not bother you. Besides, I'm REALLY not looking forward to doing this 'til my eyes fall out. Jclemens (talk) 00:44, 8 September 2011 (UTC)