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Hello and welcome to my talk page! If you have a question, ask me. If I know the answer, I'll tell you; if I don't, I'll find out (or one of my talk-page stalkers might know!), then we'll both have learned something! Please don't leave {{YGM}} or {{Tb}} templates here—there is a very good chance I will see your message before I see the template.

Admins: If I have erred in one of my admin actions, or my rationale for the action no longer applies, please don't hesitate to reverse it. I have no objection to my actions being reversed, as long you leave me a polite note explaining what you did and why. Thanks.

A list of archives of this talk page may be viewed here. Those in Roman numerals come first chronologically

If you have a query about my alternate accounts, please see this page.

Accusations of Ad Hom [ edit ]

Respectfully, I do not believe that my comment on AE was irrelevant. It may be considered ad hom, but was not intended to be absusive and arguments against the accusers character are implicitly allowed by several WP policies, including WP:Boomerang. It is my argument that the high amount of investment by this particular editor in the subject area has been causing an extreme battlefield mentality in the editor in question. He has personally been the reason I left the page, the way he edits is needlessly confrontational and he flaunts the line of civility which makes it hard to assume good faith for his edits. While these may be considered ad hom, and I would not completely disagree with you there, they are very relevant to a discussion when he brings cases for enforcement. Specifically, the two previous cases I cited are important because they show how the editor is not here to build an encyclopedia. He is being confrontational and toeing the line of civility intentionally to frustrate who he views as opponents in order to immediately push for their topic bans if they misstep, instead of trying to find common ground with them.

I respectfully ask that you allow me to unhat my section. I will remove the portions about the banned editor. I apologize, I did not realize these issues had been previously litigated. I do not agree with your conclusion, I believe he is toeing the letter of the rule but violating the spirit with his conduct, but I will respectfully defer. Ries42 talk ) 16:09, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

If you want to gather diffs that show Hipocrite misconducting himself (and yes, creating a hostile atmosphere is misconduct, and I have sanctioned editors for that before, but I don't see evidence of it in your comments) and file an enforcement request, please do. But your comments at AE boil down to the proxying for Ryulong (which has been discussed at length and the conclusion has been that it wasn't against policy; indeed, see my remarks a few sections up), an enforcement request against you which resulted in no action, and an enforcement request at AE which was essentially a request for an interaction ban but was closed as premature. None of that is evidence of misconduct, and I hatted it because none of it had anything to do with the matter at hand. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:37, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

My 0.02. I am concerned that sympathy for a banned editor receiving an "unjust" sanction is driving certain behavior. There should be no quarter given for editors acting in sympathy. The ban is what it is and proxying for that person should be construed as a violation of the ban. --DHeyward (talk) 03:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC) But it isn't. Acting on behalf of a banned editor is not, in and of itself, in violation of any policy currently written. Besides, there's no way to tell the difference between sympathetic editors who have put a given article on their watchlist while its maintainer serves out his ban and editors who are acting on a direct requests from the banned editor. As I said above, if they're disruptive, follow the normal channels for disruptive editing; if somebody disagrees with them, follow the normal content dispute resolution procedures. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:47, 1 February 2015 (UTC) It is covered explicitly by policy in WP:MEAT A new user who engages in the same behavior as another user in the same context, and who appears to be editing Wikipedia solely for that purpose, may be subject to the remedies applied to the user whose behavior they are joining. Sanctions have been applied to editors of longer standing who have not, in the opinion of Wikipedia's administrative bodies, consistently exercised independent judgement. A new user isn't new to wikipedia, rather, new to the topic as the policy states. It seems obvious on its face that editors that edit within the findings of fact for the banned or t-banned editor are by definition disruptive. It's the very definition of meat puppetry and sanctions should be equivalent (i.e. behavior of a banned editor is a ban, behavior of a t-ban editor is a t-ban). It's why ArbCom has findings of facts and remedies that go with them. Why do you the the WP:MEAT policy does not apply to editors acting on behalf of banned and t-banned editors when ArbCom has already ruled the behavior is disruptive? --DHeyward (talk) 20:17, 1 February 2015 (UTC) That bit of policy doesn't really apply to this situation—MEAT is about (usually brand new) editors recruited off-wiki, normally to give the impression that multiple independent voices share the same opinion—but even it doesn't prohibit making an edit on behalf of somebody else (even a banned somebody else). The bit of policy that does apply to the immediate situation is WP:PROXYING, which says Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor [...] unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits. Hipocrite has sated that he believes he has independent reasons for the edits and that he has independently verified their content, so there's certainly nothing I, as a single admin, can do. Unless of course the edits are disruptive in their own right, but nobody sees to be arguing that. The other option is to start an RfC and attempt to gain consensus to 'outlaw' (so to speak) this sort of thing in future. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Another unblock [ edit ]

Unblock request vs. five-year-old VOA block at Niemasd . Good request, and details match personal information given in deleted materials. Objections to rolling the dice? Kuru (talk) 21:52, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

None at all. In fact I've done it myself. If I'm asleep next time you get a request like that, it's safe to assume I don't object. :) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:32, 1 February 2015 (UTC) Si - understood. Kuru (talk) 23:00, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Question [ edit ]

If an article contains misleading or probably false information about a wikipedian, is that a BLP violation? -- DSA510 Pls No Pineapple 22:10, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedians are assumed to be alive, yes. ✉ ☺ · Salvidrim!

Ban of Mark Bernstein [ edit ]

You're banning Bernstein for him participating in a user talk page which discussed a blog post by him? Andjam talk ) 06:18, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

No. He's not banned, he's blocked. And he's blocked because another admin imposed a topic ban on him, prohibiting from discussing GamerGate. He breached the topic ban (for the second time), so he got blocked. I just happened to be the first admin to see it. And all this happened before I even know he had a block. Personally think life is far too short to be petty or vindictive enough to go round blocking people in Wikipedia for saying things I only partially disagree with on their own blog. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:16, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Ryulong's talkpage acess [ edit ]

new practice by Arbcom? Why was Ryulong banned from his own talkpage, upon his siteban? Is this apractice by Arbcom? GoodDay talk ) 16:40, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I think it's normal for people sitebanned by ArbCom to have talk page access revoked for the duration of the ban (the rationale, I suppose, being that we don't want them to edit anywhere on Wikipedia, not even on their own talk page). But it wasn't my doing, Callanecc: HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:49, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There is the question of NE Ent 16:50, 2 February 2015 (UTC) There is the question of edit ... you (HJ) going to revert that?16:50, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Me personally? No. It's not even on my watchlist. I have no intention of editing the page unless I need to interact with Ryulong if/when he's unbanned unless possibly Ryulong makes a reasonable request for something to be added or removed, in which case I'd at least consider it. I made the protection to prevent the immediate disruption; I don't see it as my place, as an individual admin, to revert another admin's edit through the protection. If that was appropriate, I would suggest that it would be better coming from an arbitrator or a clerk using the authority of that position (thus reducing the likelihood of an edit war and more drama). Or you could ask The Wordsmith to self-revert. Or I suppose you could start a noticeboard thread (I just worry that that would re-open wounds that are just beginning to close). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:12, 2 February 2015 (UTC) I think asking The Wordsmith to self-revert may be a good idea - they may simply be unaware about the protection. It's certainly not worth going to ANI for though, because all that will happen is yet more mudslinging and drama over an issue that has had way too much of that already. Luke no 94 (tell Luke off here) 17:15, 2 February 2015 (UTC) Just wondering, as my talkpage privillages weren't revoked at the moment I was sitebanned on April 22, 2013. GoodDay (talk) 17:02, 2 February 2015 (UTC) Interesting, though I see your talk page access was later revoked. It's above my pay grade, anyway. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:12, 2 February 2015 (UTC) Okie Dokie :) GoodDay (talk) 17:15, 2 February 2015 (UTC) I don't think the clerk operation manual specifies that explicitly so it varies: I've asked them to standardize Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Clerks#site_banned_editors_blocking NE Ent 17:20, 2 February 2015 (UTC) Bbb23 already started discussion User_talk:The_Wordsmith#Ryulong. NE Ent 17:20, 2 February 2015 (UTC)