User talk:ErrantX/Archive/2013/January


Please comment on Talk:Direct2D

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Disruption by a banned user

ErrantX, I just received a long email from you. Previously you wrote this comment at WP:AE: "He is obsessed with these trolls and constantly feeds them." Your analysis of wikihounding seems wholly inaccurate both in your email and on-wiki. It runs against both the findings of arbcom and the actions of SPI clerks and checkusers. To show how off-the-mark your comment was, let me run over the most recent cases of disruption by the banned editor Echigo mole.

A sockpuppet investigation of Frogportion was started by another user with the wrong identification of the puppetmaster. I easily identified the puppetmsater as Echigo mole because he had created content in article space by linking to a subpage temporarily in my user space. With extra evidence of this kind, I opened an SPI case with checkuser after his account had been blocked by Spartaz. In the meantime Frogportion lied on his talk page in an unblock request and afterwards to administrators. The SPI/CU report identified him as Echigo mole and talk page access was removed. On Marseille two IPs and then a recently created account (all the same person) edit warred to add improperly sourced contentious content to the article. The account was reported at WP:AN3 and blocked for 31 hours. Similarly on Europe an editor added new unsourced content, which, after sources were provided, was eventually included in more concise form in the article. The IP 188.30.248.48 then added trolling "Echigo mole"-style messages to the user pages of the editors on Europe and Marseille. I filed an SPI report on the IP, who was blocked as an obvious Echigo mole sock. One of the trolling messages was removed by the blocking administrator. Then the autoconfirmed sleeping sock account The second step started two trolling SPI reports with checkuser. He had already tagged a BLP I created (Caroline Elam) in the process of making the 10 edits required to be autoconfirmed. The reports were on himself (Echigo mole) and on a banned user who has not edited WP for over 8 months. Both mentioned me. I commented on why each SPI report was without merit and why the filer was evidently Echigo mole. I also made an SPI request with CU on the filer. A checkuser agreed with the identification, blocked The second step as a sock of Echigo mole and shut down the two trolling SPI/CU requests.

If you see some problem in how I acted, which I imagine most people would describe as "helpful", then please complain about me now on WP:ANI or WP:AN. Those are the first places to voice whatever concerns might be bugging you. On the other hand, multiple administrators and checkusers were quite happy with the way all of this was handled, in the light of the attempted disruption by this banned user. On this occasion they included Courcelles, DoRD, Cireland, X!, Spartaz, BWilkins, Future Perfect at Sunrise and EdJohnston. Happy New Year, Mathsci (talk) 11:56, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

You simply do not seem to *get* it in the slightest. I give up - screw around with your trolls - there are more interesting things for me to do :) --Errant (chat!) 13:10, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
ErrantX, writing "screw around with your trolls" is a strange thing to write, because it suggests that checkusers are also "screwing around" in dealing with disruptive sockpuppetry which nobody can predict or forestall (eg the two fake SPI/CU requests). In your email, sent on New Year's Eve, you criticize administrators at AE for being given too much power by arbcom. (Some of those administrators are now arbitrators.) You write that editors like me are subject to "favouritism" and are "gaming the system". What exactly do you mean by that and which particular examples are you thinking of? In the email you claim that this is part of a more general trend at AE that you wish arbcom to examine in a new case. Again what are the examples? My understanding is that a few sensible volunteer admins with clue help out at AE and do their best to interpret how to put arbcom decisions into practice on a day-by-day basis. They use common sense, and that's it. My understanding also is that there is some kind of moratorium on arbcom requests related to meta-meta-meta issues that are infinitely separated from content editing or conduct issues and which only deal with the highly artificial world of arbcom-related pages. A new request for a case concerning those meta-meta-meta issues would be the seventh such request since mid-May 2012. I hope that that's not what you mean by "more interesting things for you to do". Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 December 2012

DYK for Noel Wild

 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:31, 6 January 2013 (UTC) 08:03, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Ops (B)

 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:31, 6 January 2013 (UTC) 08:03, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho

ϢereSpielChequers is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Xmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

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Irish Passport

IrishPassportData.JPG on "Irish Passport" page.

It was me that uploaded this photo. After reading the issues involved around this I now consent for it to be deleted.

LukeL (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:47, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Effective method

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Race and intelligence

I noticed your comments last month that you intended to request arbitration about the race and intelligence topic early this year. Do you still plan to do that? Following Cla68's request last month I've considered paying more attention to these articles, but the articles probably will be less of a minefield after the arbitration committee has had the opportunity to examine them. --Mors Martell (talk) 17:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I suggest you read ErrantX's comment here. His request was going to be about Mathsci's gaming and battleground behaviour, not R&I articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.108.168.166 (talk) 19:28, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
I understand that, but the gaming and battleground conduct has been directed at people he disagreed with on Race and intelligence articles ("editors he perceives as ideological opponents"), correct? --Mors Martell (talk) 19:42, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm afraid you don't seem particularly familiar with Mathsci's history. Cla68 never participated in the race and intelligence topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.108.168.166 (talk) 20:04, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the information, I suppose. I had assumed I could avoid becoming part of these disputes simply by not becoming significantly involved in race and intelligence, but reality is never as simple as we'd like. What I should do is make myself more informed about the history, as you said. --Mors Martell (talk) 21:14, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
My stance on R&I has consistently been that Arbcom have looked into it, and enacted sanctions. I haven't explored anything except the major areas of dispute, but I don't particularly see anything that needs further Arbcom intervention. --Errant (chat!) 09:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm afraid I misremembered your meaning. I was asking about your statement "Certainly there is a wealth of evidence for the latter case, which I will probably bring first for the committee consideration." As the IP mentioned above, you were describing an intention to bring a case about Mathsci, not about race and intelligence.
Certainly there seems to be a problem with admin involvement in respect to Mathsci. There has already been one arbitration request about Future Perfect performing admin actions while involved, and he is continuing to do so, most recently logging a warning for me on the case page for undoing his own removal of my comments. Another uninvolved editor has criticized Future Perfect for this in my user talk. I believe this situation should have the committee's attention, but it may take a long time for me to gather enough evidence to present a request about it. As you previously offered to make such a request, I'm asking now if you could please do so. --Mors Martell (talk) 10:18, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Look; it's probably a good idea to ignore the fact that I think a case (or two) needs to be looked at - especially in terms of R&I - especially if the query is "when will you start this case" (apologies for being a little short here, by the way, I've been inundated with such questions in the last couple of weeks, as well as vague threats about what will happen to me if I do open one). If you have looked into the matter and find items of concern for you then, as an editor in good standing, bring them up in appropriate venues. And I will do the same.
As an admin and editor I have two roles here; firstly to write content for Wikipedia, and secondly to contribute to administrating and protecting the site. The former always comes first, and I plan to spend time on my article content this month because I enjoy it. In terms of the latter, I believe that there are broad matters in relation to Arbitration Enforcement that need examining - not to punish or criticise anyone, but to bring clearer guidance and oversight for that arena. When I bring that matter to attention is a matter for me, and pressure to do so tends to put me off... the first port of call will be to discuss this at a non-Arbcom level, when I feel I can bring cogent arguments, and hopefully obtain agreement to ask a series of questions of Arbcom to clarify the AE area.
If you want to take part in the R&I topic area then I think that's great. But I'm not sure you've taken the most successful route to date :) From experience of navigating contentious topics, you need kid gloves - or to build the moral authority to stamp hard on misbehaviour. If your aim is not related to improving R&I "topics" then I reiterate my suggestion; rather than sitting to the side adding to conversations as they emerge, bring valid and cogent concerns to the proper venue in a rational manner. Although it's unfair, the fact you are a new account (despite being Clean Start) means you lack a lot of standing within the administrative areas of our community, so my advice would be to let things lie :)
Perhaps this can be the last word on this topic for the moment. Thanks for being polite & rational in this discussion. --Errant (chat!) 15:53, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Mors Martell has received a logged warning about reinstating posts of banned harassment socks.[1] Now, having restored the reverted edits, they are citing that banned harassment sock to support their own attempt to harass me. Mathsci (talk) 12:44, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Not everyone is out to harass you Mathsci. I'm really struggling to communicate with you; walls of text and so forth soak up time and I don't feel I've been able to communicate anything to you in terms of advice. Which is why I was first motivated to ask Arbcom to do so, as you seem to hold them in high regard. But, frankly, this is likely to be a waste of my time. I am disappointed to see you haranguing Mors Martell today, including posted an AE filing when you know you are not supposed to, which only serves to build drama yet again. I'm less and less inclined to bother trying to help you here, because every time I mention you I get inundated with emails from your long list of supporters and enemies (the former, ironically, being the longer list). Whichever move I make it seems I will make enemies of my own, which simply does not interest me. All I see in the future is more drama, and more blocks and bans - which is sad. I've been successfully hounded off of this matter, which is disappointing, so please lets just let it lie. --Errant (chat!) 15:53, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 January 2013

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194.83.69.17

You have unblocked 194.83.69.17 (talk · contribs) for a training event in December. I assumed that the event is over and reblocked the IP. Correct me at will if I'm wrong. Regards. Materialscientist (talk) 12:44, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Damn. Yes the even ended on the day... apologies, what with the rush at the end of the day I forgot to reblock it. Thanks for sorting that out! --Errant (chat!) 12:45, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:List of common misconceptions

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Wild

Great work, well done!! A brilliant read. Cheers DBaK (talk) 12:34, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm slowly plodding my way through the WW2 decievers :) Glad you enjoyed it. --Errant (chat!) 19:01, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Orde Wingate‎

Hi, we're struggling to cope with a guy who claims to have family knowledge about how brilliant Wingate was with his Chindits. Cd you take a quick look and see what ought to be done? I think rewrite the lead... we seem to have steered him away from outright edit-warring, but... -- Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:49, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Yep, happy to take a look. I'm out this morning but stay tuned! Congrats on Op. Bertram making GA! I've been including it in my deception tracking page, with a appropriate credit, I hope you don't mind. --Errant (chat!) 09:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Thank you! And of course not. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:27, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi

I have a few months back started two interesting murder/disappearance articles that you might find interesting concerning April Jones and Tia Sharp.--BabbaQ (talk) 13:07, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I have also just created the article Murder of Gerd Johansson that might interest you for a read trough. Cheers.--BabbaQ (talk) 16:04, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Main page appearance: Dudley Clarke

This is a note to let the main editors of Dudley Clarke know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on January 16, 2013. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 16, 2013. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director Raul654 (talk · contribs) or his delegates Dabomb87 (talk · contribs), Gimmetoo (talk · contribs), and Bencherlite (talk · contribs), or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you can change it—following the instructions at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/instructions. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. The blurb as it stands now is below:

Dudley Clarke (1899–1974) was an officer in the British Army, known as a pioneer of military deception operations during the Second World War. His ideas for combining fictional orders of battle, visual deception and double agents helped define Allied deception strategy during the war. Clarke trained with the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, and then led a varied career doing intelligence work in the Middle East. In 1936 he was posted to Palestine, where he helped organise the British response to the 1936 Arab uprising. Early in the Second World War, Clarke proposed, and helped implement, an idea for commando raids into France. In 1940, he was placed in charge of strategic deception in Cairo, and was called to London in 1941 as his deception work had come to the attention of Allied high command. Throughout 1942 Clarke implemented Operation Cascade, an order of battle deception which added many fictional units to the Allied formations; by the end of the war the enemy accepted most of the formations as real. From 1942 to 1945, Clarke continued to organise deception in North Africa and southern Europe. He retired in 1947 and lived the rest of his life in relative obscurity. (Full article...)

UcuchaBot (talk) 23:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

And thanks for finding and adding the image, too. Interesting chap, that Clarke fellow! BencherliteTalk 17:36, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Template

Hi ErrantX, I see you're working on the template. Do you think that Barkas's Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate (and any other real units that worked on camouflage and dummies - but I think it was mainly just the Royal Engineers in Normandy etc, see Sykes's book) should go in there somewhere? Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:56, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd say so, given their direct involvement in so many deceptions. :) I suppose at some point that template will become "full", but I don't think we are there yet :D --Errant (chat!) 16:07, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Looks good; I also added some of the names I recognise from that list (I put Maskelyne in a separate section as he seems to flit about doing nothing much) and created a Camouflage sub-section. Take a look and see if it looks OK. I didn't add the rest of the names as I wasn't sure how involved they were, but I see no reason not to add them if relevant! --Errant (chat!) 09:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Change to Wikipedia:General sanctions/Mixed martial arts log

Did you really intend for the 3rd entry in the log to mention Johnny Bones Jones again? The diff link says MtKing and I don't think that notice is correct. Hasteur (talk) 16:33, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Good catch; I've fixed it :) --Errant (chat!) 16:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Precious

military deception
Thank you for quality articles on digital forensics and military deception, including people such as Dudley Clarke, for running a helpful bot, for reviewing and fighting vandalism, for assuming good faith, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:23, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Very well-deserved! I'd have awarded one myself, if I had a suitable collection of precious stones to give away! Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:26, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! I'm glad to see Clarke on the main page, he's already had some good little copyedits :) --Errant (chat!) 09:50, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
That's nice and helpful! - About the sapphire: it can be shared generously, click on the link. I miss the photographer, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:59, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Classic deception trick - Clarke's only pretending to be on the main page in Germany (which is why Gerda can see him) and mainland Europe; the rest of the world is reading about a hurricane. BencherliteTalk 10:39, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
can't be a hurricane, too similar to 16 December. - Do I get my points? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 January 2013

Your GA review of Battle of Torrence's Tavern

Errant, thank you for your comments! I believe I have responded to all of your concerns. If you wouldn't mind giving it another look, I would appreciate it, and I'm free to answer any more questions or concerns you may have! Cdtew (talk) 15:34, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Work on the Deception articles resumes

Hi,

I've resumed expanding your sandbox User:ErrantX/Sandbox/List of Allied fictional units during World War II by adding some of the US deceptive Corps level units.

Another user has created a Phantom World War II Divisions (United States) article which seems to be drawing on the grossly incorrect information hosted by Globalsecurity which assigns all 'Ghost Divisions' to the ETO, I've taken the step of linking my articles on individual divisions to that list to prevent unneeded duplication.Graham1973 (talk) 00:59, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Hard to know exactly what to do with an article like that; probably ignore it and complete the other articles - then see if there is a sensible direction to take it, or redirect. PS if you feel the sandbox article is "complete" enough for main space at any point feel free to move it :) (give me a heads up when/if you do). I'll try to work on it more myself later. --Errant (chat!) 10:05, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't think it's complete enough yet. Working on 18th Airborne & XXXV Airborne Corps articles. Also I've found Phantom World War II Divisions (United States) is a copy-paste from a forum post dating back to 2005 so I've flagged it accordingly.Graham1973 (talk) 09:50, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Good spot; I've also found that the other paragraph was a copyvio - so I've cut all the prose and deleted the history. I'd suggest letting it sit as-is and then merge to an appropriate place in the future. --Errant (chat!) 10:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
The XXXV Airborne Corps (United States) is up and I've added a description to the relevant entry on the sandbox article. Also added Operation Pastel which someone created as a stub article some years ago to the Deception operations listing.Graham1973 (talk) 08:46, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Still tweaking the XXXV Airborne Corps article. Added another piece of deception equipment that originated in WWII to the WWII Deception article template.Graham1973 (talk) 01:48, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I was cleaning up the references for the British 12th Army article and stumbled across another case of a real operation being run to support a deceptive operation. The codename was "Animals". It involved an SOE team in Greece which comitted various acts of sabotage designed to convince the Germans they were preparing the way for an invasion. I'm happy to write up a stub article once I've got the 18th Airborne out of the way.Graham1973 (talk) 08:25, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Training event for UK Wikimedians

Hi ErrantX, as you commented on the talk page of the WMUK training event I thought you might like to know that the venue has changed. The response from the community is that a different location would be easier for volunteers to get to. As such the training session will be held in Manchester on the same dates. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 15:14, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:History of video game consoles (eighth generation)

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Request checkuser

Do you have the checkuser ability? AGK's comment here suggests he will block me if I cannot find a way to demonstrate my identity, so I need someone to run a checkuser on me to determine who I am. I know very few admins, so I don't know to whom I should make this request, but you appear to be someone who cares about getting to the bottom of these situations. Please run a checkuser on me if you are able to do that. --Mors Martell (talk) 04:17, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXXXII, January 2013

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The Signpost: 21 January 2013

Please comment on Talk:Organic milk

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The Signpost: 28 January 2013

Please comment on Talk:Neuro-linguistic programming

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