User talk:Georgewilliamherbert/Archives/2014/May


The Signpost: 23 April 2014

Thanks and followup on closing CFD

Thank you for closing the CFD on categories of rivers by mountain ranges and for your other good participation in bringing down the contention going on. I notice that some or all of the categories that were targeted have not been updated to remove the CFD-ongoing tags on them. Do you know how to close them properly or efficiently? I would be glad to help. But the instruction Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#closing doesn't give much guidance. Is there a bot which would do any necessary removing of tags plus adding mention of the closed CFD at the Talk page of the category? I could ask elsewhere if you don't know. Either way, thank you. --doncram 12:55, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I think you just remove the tags, but am not sure. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:28, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  • It appears that your efforts to provide user:Skookum1 with room to work on content creation without constant interruption at Wikipedia have not accomplished this goal, sigh... It appears that some editors/admins just won't let this happen. Just my $.02. XOttawahitech (talk) 10:09, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 April 2014

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The Signpost: 07 May 2014

Super-spreader

As always WP:AGF first. However, with min. 3* tried and failed to communicate dispute on their user talk page: (covered by [1] [2]) by you, User:henrik, and myself, I'd now be ok to support WP:DR escalation, should this user continue editing at super-spreader --Kim Bruning (talk) 13:03, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

OTOH I wouldn't want Malke to leave either. I hope you guys sort things out. :-/ --Kim Bruning (talk)
Right. I am of the opinion there was a problem and have said so privately to Malke, and we are communicating (intermittently but calmly and constructively). I'm trying not to drive her away, and also not paint too broad a brush for hounding against editors who are being constructive and feel there's a legitimate problem. I think a hounding happened, and the one person who was criticizing who keeps crossing the line I have talked to, but not everyone involved personally crossed the line into abusive behavior. I think you were fine, based on what I remember seeing.
I am hopeful that calm discussion will win out. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Hello George, I agree not everyone crossed the line, but certainly this seems abusive. And I'd point out that Kim Bruning seemed more intent on stirring the pot than anybody else on the Super-spreader talk page as well as forum shopping the idea here.

Regarding the student's edits. Medical/science articles get vandalized as much as any other topic on Wikipedia. But the problem with these articles is that the average editor doing vandal patrol might not recognize the vandalism. Some instances of vandalism remain in the articles for years because of this. When I came across Dballouz's edit, whose user name does not identify her as a female, I checked her contribs. Using the sandbox seemed like a plus to me. It read like a rough draft of an essay with some dubious sources, including the BBC. I reverted because of that. When she mentioned on the talk page that it was her opinion about the asymptomatic carriers, and made a false statement about controversy in the field over AC's and super-spreaders, I started thinking vandal.

I asked her to show her sources, but she never did. That also reinforced that this was likely a vandal seeking to load into an article dubious claims. I'd just recently reverted someone on Egyptian tomb bat who had changed an edit using that edit's RS. I've seen this a lot in medical articles. It's easy to fool an editor on vandal patrol with an edit like that.

With Dballouz, I tried the usual remedies: welcome template, edit summaries, talk page. Nothing worked. And the editor's parting edit was another revert. That seemed like someone not here to build an encyclopedia. Next I know, I'm getting IP's and admins on my talk page.

The Wikipedia community should be aware that I made several attempts to post on Meghan Duffy's blog explaining my rationale about spotting a vandal, the need for communication on the talk page, and that I am a female and had no bias against her student. She refused to allow the post. She also refused to allow posts from several of my work colleagues vouching for my professional credentials, as well as supporting comments from several editors here at Wikipedia. The communication failure was their's not mine, and was certainly not due to any perceived gender bias on Wikipedia. And note well, neither the student nor the professor (who also has a registered Wikipedia account and has edited articles) availed themselves of the Wiki dispute resolution process. They did not register the course with the WikiEd program, and they made no effort to announce this was a student. Instead, the 'complaint' went straight to the blog. Meghan Duffy has stopped accepting comments on her blog due to "unusual circumstances" related to the blog content, and announced on Twitter that she won't be blogging for a while. Malke 2010 (talk) 17:19, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm very glad to finally hear from you in detail, and I'm glad you're talking with Georgewilliamherbert. :-)
Sorry to hear you throw some fire my way, but I'm a big kid, I can take it. I'm certainly open to reviewing my behavior to see if I can improve it further.
I came to the page in question and asked some basic opening questions wrt diffs, which is pretty much what you do when starting to investigate a dispute . I got no answer, and several other folks didn't either, so I escalated pretty quickly. Was escalation preventable in this case? What could I have done better? --Kim Bruning (talk) 23:54, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok, this weirds me out a little. What was the purpose of this edit? --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:01, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

revert-warring the title for my own comments? really?. %-/ Well, I'll WP:1RR; but it'd sure be be nice if they could re-prioritize their time to productively answer my questions instead. :-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:51, 11 May 2014 (UTC) especially since I'm not really asking any hard or non-routine questions or anything ^^;;

The Signpost: 14 May 2014

The Bugle: Issue XCVIII, May 2014

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The Signpost: 21 May 2014

User:Douglas Cotton

I could file an SPI, but it might be quicker for you to take a look at the edit by User:Googolplexbyte on User talk:Venus, which is very reminiscent of Douglas Cotton's tendentious commentary. (DC is indef blocked.) The odd contrib history of Googleplexbytes - 2 edits in April 2013, and then the current comment on Venus' albedo - adds to my suspicion that this is DC evading his block with a sleeper sock, perhaps an account he borrowed from someone. BMK (talk) 19:15, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

I see you haven't edited since May 9th, so I've going to bring this to the attention of another admin. BMK (talk) 20:45, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment

Hello there, a proposal regarding pre-adminship review has been raised at Village pump by Anna Frodesiak. Your comments here is very much appreciated. Many thanks. Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:47, 28 May 2014 (UTC)