It's common for the anti-userbox crowd to say stuff like
"stop stressing out over it, it's just userboxes, not
real encyclopedia content". Well, the reason that I don't
follow that line of thinking is that it never stops at
just one abuse. It keeps building and building. We
currently have about half a dozen admins who show
repeated and blatant defiance for Wikipedia's community
and the consensus of that community. They are not large
in number, but they have a disproportionate amount of
influence, almost entirely malign. They are a living
argument for why we need a working desysopping process.
Our project's most destructive administrator, Kelly
Martin, has now stepped into the realm of voter
intimidation, by *blocking* [[User:Grue]] for a support
vote on [[User:Djr xi]]'s Request for Adminship. The
excuse was "personal attacks", even though the vote in
question did not mention anyone by name. This is a
blatant attempt to intimidate voters on this request
for adminship.
Kelly Martin has done far more to harm Wikipedia than
Willy on Wheels ever could. By firing the first shot
in the userbox wars, she is basically the Gavrilo
Princip of Wikipedia. Frankly, even if you gave
Willy sysop powers, I doubt that he could do more
damage than our worst sysops are doing right now. These
people are like hyperactive children given a machine
gun and it is time to take their toys away before more
people get hurt.
I'm more disgusted by all of this than I can possibly
express.
FYI:
I have never used your site before and have not subscribed to it in any way.
I happened upon your site when I was looking up a woodworking term. By
mistake I think I hit a tab called discussion and up popped the following
message:
. Your user name or IP address has been blocked from editing
You were blocked by Hall Monitor
Reason given: returning vandal, long term vandalism, warned repeatedly,
third block (see our blocking policy)
Your IP address is 64.136.26.235. Please include this address, along with
your username (if you are a registered user), in any queries you make. .
Perhaps someone has high jacked my computer somehow and used it to mess up
your site? Any comment you have regarding this issue would be welcome. Thank
you.
Stop worrying about userboxes and write an encyclopedia already. If
and when userboxes interfere with encyclopedia-writing activities,
react in an appropriately minimalist fashion and proceed with the
encyclopedia-writing.
Quite frankly, the userbox fans are *not* the people disrupting
Wikipedia with an unhealthy fixation with userboxes. This isn't to
say that they don't *have* an unhealthy userbox fixation, but rather,
that they engage in that fixation in a way that doesn't really
prevent the rest of us from writing an encyclopedia.
The people disrupting Wikipedia—that would be us, writing dozens of
messages to this listserv about them. Aren't we the people who
actually care about writing an encyclopedia? Then why don't we do
that, instead of wasting our time compiling statistics about
userboxes, trying to delete them, and debating the right way to do that?
You want to end the userbox war peacefully without screwing up the
community? Repeat after me: "It's not worth it, and I should go
mediate an NPOV dispute or do some research and write one of our
requested articles, or bring an article to FA status instead of
jousting with userbox-happy newbies."
And then actually do it.
--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
What's the worst thing that could happen if we got rid of userpages
altogether? Wikipedia would grind to a halt because most of the users would
probably leave. Not because they're hugely attached to their userpages, but
because it would be a ringing endorsement of the conduct of certain admins
(deleting inflammatory userboxes without a policy for it, and then when
there IS a policy for it they abuse THAT, and block people who disagree with
them, etcetera) in this whole userbox mess.
Cynical
> From: "The Cunctator" <cunctator(a)gmail.com>
> What makes Wikipedia great is that it doesn't make the arbitrary and
> elitist distinction between high and low culture, but democratically
> includes information that its audience thinks is of interest.
Agreed.
But part of not making that distinction involves setting the same
standards for verifiability regardless of whether the information is
about high or low culture.
> People should be *VERY HESITANT* about removing information that
> others have added.
By calling it "information" you're begging the question.
If it's not sourced there's no way to make a reliable judgement about
whether it IS "information."
My opinion is that it would be a good thing if people were a little
hesitant about _adding_ unsourced material.
> Sourcing is critical but the "I'm going to kill it if it isn't
> sourced" is a philosophy that should be wielded with UTMOST care.
"Kill" is a rather strong term for "adding a {{fact}} tag, waiting a
week or so, then moving it to the Talk page."
David Gerard wrote:
> The problem is it's horribly subjective. Check [[WP:WEB]]'s recent
> edit history and the attempts of arbitrary notability bar partisans to
> make it policy by assertion, despite strong opposition.
Sorry, could I ask you to clarify or expand on that comment. I
advertised my rewrite of [[WP:WEB]] across wikipedia, at the pump and on
the CENT template. There was no strong opposition. And I am certainly
not an arbitrary notability bar partisan, take a look at [[Wikipedia
talk:Notability]], namely
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ANotability&diff=…
and my comments to Radiant at
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ARadiant%21&diff=35188…
Fair play, I don't mind discussion, but let's be balanced in our
presentation of situations.
Steve Block
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.0/269 - Release Date: 24/02/06
I moved and got this account December 8, 2005. I keep on getting banned
because a vandal previously had this IP. My ISP's tech tells me I get a new
IP every couple days. They lie. I told them they lie. They say it is not
necessary to force me to a new IP (because this will be done automatically).
I have tried releasing/renewing my IP on my machine, this does not force a
new IP. I am pretty sure every time I edit, I am logged in. account:
geekybroad, error: You were blocked by Hall Monitor Reason given: returning
vandal, long term vandalism, warned repeatedly, *12th block*; have your
system administrator contact me (see our blocking policy), IP address
wikipedia says I have: 24.66.94.140, IP address whatismpip.com says I have:
24.79.228.12. PLEASE DO NOT BAN ME SIMPLY BECAUSE I HAVE EDITED A PAGE! Take
a look at my contributions, I am obviously not a vandal. --geekyßroad. meow?
23:30, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
The last two times I have been banned, I saw nothing that could have caused
this. I know the last time for sure, I had just made a simple typo edit on
two different pages. WHAM! Banned.
I've emailed Hall Monitor about the last two incidents but have not received
replies. I am still currently banned.
Please, please please tell me what to do to stop this from happening again.
This has happened a few times, and I am getting really frustrated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Geekybroad
For those of you that haven't yet seen it, [[Wikipedia:Article assessment]]
is now up and running, currently assessing articles about natural disasters
and accepting submissions for next weeks topic: extinct mammals.
~~~~ Violet/Riga
Herr Goebbles wrote:
> The Wikipedia user: HerrGoebbles, has been blocked by Wiki Admin
>MarkSweep, whose reasons given were dislike of my user name ( because I
>am German?) maybe due to MarkSweep claiming to be a former US Marine, he
>considers me to be an enemy.
I blocked one username of [[User:DrMengele]], offering to unblock if
he could offer proof of his name and his doctorate ... instead, he
picked another name and (as far as I know) is editing happily. I'm
afraid names of famous Nazis or names close to those are too popular
with pranksters and tend to get blocked on sight.
- d.
On 22 Feb 2006 at 19:13, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
> Joshua Griisser wrote:
> > I'm almost speechless with rage at Jimbo's unilateral deletion of the
> > encyclopedia article [[Brian Peppers]]
>
> It wasn't unilateral. It was an in-process deletion of recreated AfD'd
> content. Read FCYTravis' history of the article on the talk page.
>From the history, I see that, while the first few AfDs were indeed
overwhelmingly in favor of deletion, and from what I hear about the
content of the article at that time, it almost certainly deserved it.
However, later versions became much more balanced and reasonable, and
sentiment in the AfDs was turning more toward keeping. So, unless
you hold to the view that "AfD is Forever", etched in stone and
unchangeable for all time, there is some cause for rethinking the
deletion at this point. After all, you yourself reopened the AfD for
[[Jeremy Rosenfeld]] after a "Keep" result you disagreed with, so you
clearly *don't* hold the opinion that AfDs are infallible or
irreversible.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
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