User talk:Tony Sidaway/Archive 2006 09 18

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Contents 1 Please cool it 1.1 Disagreement / Disrespect 1.2 Valuing Tony's opinion 1.3 Anger Management 1.4 Battlefields 1.5 Attitude 1.6 Conclusion 2 Block Notice 3 Process is Important has been unprotected 4 Straw poll 5 "Whatever" 6 The Passion of the Alienus 7 This isn't in the spirit of wikipedia 8 Why voting is evil 9 I have a question

[edit] Please cool it

[edit] Disagreement / Disrespect

Tony, I respectfully ask you to cool it off. Your self-righteous, dismissive and defiant attitude to people who disagree with your actions harms not only your opponents. It harms you as well, and, most importantly, it harms an entire Wikipedia because you are one of the most visible admins here doing much of the dirty work. You and 10 other admins do about 90% of admin work overall and we are all indebted to you for that. People who do more tend to make more mistakes as the only way not to make any is to do nothing, clearly not the case for you.

Disagreement with your actions does not mean a personal attack, as you tend to perceive it. Neither such disagreements question your integrity while your reactions suggest you see it as such.

What worked for me best was when I saw something that angered me a lot, I gave it a little time before reacting rather than responding at once. This is an old advise but an easy to forget one.

In no way it is my intention to tell you what to do. Largely thanks to your regning on trolls Wikipedia is the place where people can actually write article together, which is our main job. Please just take my suggestion under advisement as no response, defiant or not, is necessary. OTOH, if you feel like this warrants a discussion, fine with me either way. I will be around, while not 24/7.

Regards, --Irpen 23:19, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I'm really sorry if my comments sound dismissive, That's absolutely not the impression I want to give. I certainly don't regard disagreement as a personal attack. Personal attack I regard as a personal attack, and that alone.

I notice that you mention things that anger you on Wikipedia. I'm sorry if there are things here that anger you. --Tony Sidaway 23:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

At the risk of piling on.. Tony, if you honestly don't intend to come off sounding the way you sound, there are some things you could do to help change it. The best option is to change the way you think. But, forget that- you could also just change the way you talk and nobody but you would know the difference anyway, so one's about as good as the other. By changing the way you talk, what I mean specifically is things like: stop saying "ridiculous" about any opinions that are different from yours. Stop insisting that your way is the only way things could possibly work. Don't call the reasoned opinons of people different from you "the howling of the mob". It's the little things like this that cause people to find you self-righteous and dismissive. Friday (talk) 00:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't say "ridiculous" about opinions that aren't the same as mine. Only ones that appear clearly ridiculous, for instance here, here and here. --Tony Sidaway 00:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid it would not be possible to surgically extract from me my contempt for the howling of the mob. This doesn't mean that I mean ill will to any person who engages in these periodic witch-hunts that I often find myself having to fire-fight, but it does mean I have to confront people with the ugliness of the things they're combining together, as a group, to do.

You couldn't seriously accuse my of being dismissive; I've spent an enormous amount of time and effort explaining my point of view. --Tony Sidaway 00:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony, would you say that you spend more time explaining your point of view than trying to understand the POV of others? Regards, Ben Aveling 04:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

No. I read far, far more than I write. This isn't surprising because there is only one of me and there are many people who are not me. And, I think it has to be said, most people are far more prolix then I am. --Tony Sidaway 04:18, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not asking about number of words, but about time. Do you spend more time thinking about what the other person is trying to say, or more time thinking about how to help them understand. Over to you. Ben Aveling 04:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

It depends. I can express myself well in few words. Others seem to struggle with this and of course it can take a while to wade through a long discussion. --Tony Sidaway 04:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that's true. And yet, there are some good people who come away from a conversation with you, thinking you don't respect them. Ben Aveling 05:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I think you have some very, very serious problems of perception, Irpen. In particular, the allegation that I'm "trying to make " anyone's "life as much troublesome as possible" is appalling and I really do urge you to rethink your contributions to this discussion. --Tony Sidaway 05:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the problem is that I don't think much of the opinion they have expressed. --Tony Sidaway 05:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Why does that cause a problem? Ben Aveling 05:25, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

If I don't agree with their opinion, perhaps they think it's because I don't like them. I've noticed that people whose opinions I agree with seldom complain that I disrespect them, so possibly the two things are linked in some minds. --Tony Sidaway 05:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Possibly because how you express your opinions to those who disagree with you, how you never accept being possibly wrong (even in the retrospect). The whole thing returns to the very issues raised from the beginning: defiant and dismissive self-righteousness as an overall attitude when interacting with others. --Irpen 05:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that's right, and I think people are justified in that belief. My sense of what's happening is that you've had your copper's hat on so long, you've become very ready to assume that anyone who isn't a copper is a villian. Ben Aveling 05:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

That's utter nonsense. --Tony Sidaway 05:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Is it? The people you clash with, they aren't they mostly idiots? Ben Aveling 06:01, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Valuing Tony's opinion

"thinking you don't respect them" isn't really a problem. Other editors care about that no more than Tony cares for their respect. The problem is Tony's turning the Wikipedia into a battleground between himself and editors who, unlike Tony, actually write content but happen to occasionally disagree with him in non-Main space, where Tony spends all of his edits. Tony tries to make their life as much troublesome as possible uses an utter defiance and intimidation, as well as a real treat of blocks, in order to "prevail" so to speak in the issues of disagreement and in the end, makes his own life here troublesome toowikiexperience a nervewrecking ordeal. He gets an overwhelming support from everyone when he deals with those who come here to troll. He gets none of it from his treating anyone who disagrees with him like those trolls. It may be a natural consequence of him spending more than anyone else I know with fending of trolls. After the nerve wrecking experience of doing that Tony starts to perceive everyone who disagree with him like a troll. And understandable reaction but a harmful one. That's why I suggested that Tony return to main space editing for a little. --Irpen 05:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, hi. Tony and I disagree, often stridently, but he's never treated me as a troll. I just thought I'd point out that your generalization about his behavior is inaccurate, it turns out. Tony is a very good communicator, sometimes, even with people with whom he disagrees. It can be difficult to tease that good communicator out, but he's in there. If you know how to talk to him, he's quite reasonable and easy to work with. Otherwise... maybe not so much, 'cause he's not the type to necessarily meet you halfway. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I apologize since that was an overgeneralization. While Tony is prominent enough so that I have heard of him before, I never actually interacted with him so I could not have known and my overgeneralization is unjustified. Actually, while he called me things lately, he never used the term "troll" too. From seeing him applying this term clearly to non-trolls but editors who simply disagreed with him, in the last three days of my interacting with Tony I made this unfair generalization from several occurances that I saw. --Irpen 07:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Irpen. Are you sure you don't care about Tony's opinion of you? Regards, Ben Aveling 05:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Particularly of Tony's? Not much really. Only in one day Tony accused several editors who wrote much content (which is our main job here) and resolved disagreements in hunderds of articles in good faith in a friendly and collegiate way and gained much respect from the community (but not from Tony) recogized through attained adminships, many wikiawards, respect they get in the article's discussions, etc. in trolling, slurring and stupidity due to their disagreements with what he said and what he did. Just minutes earlier he even used an edit summary to allege that I have "problems with perception" while, as per WP:NPA "Abusive edit summaries are particularly ill-regarded." So, no. I apreciate Tony's committment and hard work here but I am not trying to be on his favored side in view of the mentioned above. Nor I am trying to extract any kind of apology from him which, I must say to his credit he occasionally offered with sincerety for his past mistakes which are not directly related to this matter. He did not harm me personally in any way other than the overall, and I am sure unintentional, harm to this project from his lately hardened attitudes. --Irpen 07:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anger Management

Tony, I am sorry to see that your reply was such, especially the second part. "I'm sorry if there are things here that anger you." I am also sorry that things get you angry here. I am even more sorry that Wikipedia in its current form cannot accomodate many good editors and a whole bunch of prolific authors of dozens of FAs left already (hopefully they are replaced by the newcomers): 172, Latinus, Wiglaf and many more who left either because of trolls or because of the disrespecting attitudes they received from Wikipedia's authoritative figures to which you undoubtedly belong. Personally, I can take such attitudes. While I am not putting myself in the same league as those valuable authors, I am not as brittle as them either (perhaps because I am not in the same league).

You say you don't want to leave an impression that your response to constructive criticism is dismissive. Well, I tell you that it is and I am not alone at it[1][2] . When I already clicked "save page" to leave my last message, I noticed the thread above (#Your blocks) which basically repeated my thoughts very closely. Your response was dismissive there and your very response above is dismissive. You bluntly dismissed my complaints about your attitudes stating that this is not your intention to leave this impression. Your intention matters little. You do leave this impression in most all your actions in the last two days (that's all the time I was watching as I did not interact with you in the past and only knew your name as that of one of the most active and committed admins, which I still think is the case).

I will not repeat any of the things I said lately on this as they are available here. I added emphasis there for convenience if you would be so kind to reread this thread and the responses you got from various people there, all established contributors, all known to be non-trolls, most known to write content and all but a few, questioning both your action and your treatment of criticism. Someone was so kind as citing me verbatim at the new ArbCom which while likely to be dismissed, I have no objection to since it may help us all by the ArbCom shedding the light of its judgement to the real problem that endangers Wikipedia now. It used to be trolls being allowed to harm us all unchecked for months due to the admins indecisiveness. This is fixed now. Now it is WP:AN#Hasty blocking by a minority of self-righteous administrators, who do us all a lot of good by 90+% of their blocks being on target but with the loss of the remaining 10% outweighing the benefits not because the number of users that fall under 10% but the quality of those users. I don't know whether you read that post in full but judging by your, again defiant, response to a very related issue you either not read the whole thing or refused to give it a thought. Anyway, I will add my statement to the developing ArbCom case to share my thoughts on it with the community and the ArbCom members. But now I need some WP:TEA --Irpen 00:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
P.S. I sent you a brief note over an email. Nothing big but you will understand why I chose a private method to communicate this small thing

I don't get angry here. My judgement may differ from yours, but I'm pretty much making levelheaded, cool judgements that tend to work and seem to make sense on reflection days and weeks after. I'm sorry if you think otherwise. If by "dismissive" you mean that, when talking to someone else, I sometimes express a different opinion than that expressed by that person, you're right. If I didn't do this we wouldn't be able to distinguish my opinion from yours, would we? --Tony Sidaway 00:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect -- and in general I support what you do -- you don't suffer fools gladly, and you're damn sure about what you know is right; problem is, that can come across as "I'm right so your blather isn't worth listening to." Which, most of the time, it isn't. But I ran into that "dismissiveness" a couple weeks ago, when I squeaked up about that Karl Meier thing. I'm pretty much immune to it -- since I also know I'm right and I also don't suffer fools gladly. But you've decided to take a leadership role in this community, so your tone is more important than you might think it is. I'm not concerned about the reactions of the twits and fools; the quicker they get the point and find a new playground, the better. But the people who are, at worst, slightly misguided, are worth cultivating -- and those are the people who are most likely to be affected by being brushed off by people with more community standing. Feel free to ignore all this and go on exactly as you have been, of course; you're doing great work here, and I certainly appreciate your efforts on Wikipedia's behalf. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 01:15, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how I could have been more conciliatory on the Karl Meier thing. I took it right to the arbitration committee for clarification. --Tony Sidaway 02:27, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, that all worked out well -- I'm just describing my reaction to one of your comments early in the discussion ("gosh, that was dismissive", essentially.) I'm not in any way criticizing your actions, just suggesting that your tone is sometimes perhaps not in Wikipedia's best interests. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 03:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. --Tony Sidaway 03:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Battlefields

Regarding this edit I would not revert it, but I guess you have not got the point - of course you are entitled to have an opinion different from Irpen's or mine and use somehow strong words to express it, but Ghirlandajo has the same rights on these matter (actually more, since the admins are suppose to have higher standards of behavior). That is all abakharev 02:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

What Ghirlandajo doesn't have is the right to treat Wikipedia as a battleground. --Tony Sidaway 03:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, AFAIK he doesn't treat it as such - he just creates content and expresses his opinions (sometimes in stronger word that is necessarily). abakharev 04:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree on that. He openly depicts Wikipedia as being in a state of warfare "between wikilawyering admins and writing editors of WP". He says "[Bureaucrats] know too well that, if their aberrant behaviour is not exposed in ArbCom, all their mistakes will be buried in the archives of this page, as have been in the past. The question is whether the community is willing to trust these [bureaucrats] any more" and refers to the bureaucrats who chose to promote Carnildo as "Carnildo's buds". This is open, naked, belligerence of the worst kind. --Tony Sidaway 11:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to interject, but I have to disagree on that. Expressing his opinion on the state of Wikipedia in a civil tone without resorting to personal attacks is completely acceptable. Questioning the behavior of beauracrats in pushing through a contentious RfA is also well within the bounds of valid discourse. You are more than welcome to disagree with him, argue with him, or ignore him. But honestly, with no disrespect intended, how could you have thought a 3 hour block would improve the situation in any way? You seem like an intelligent and clear thinking person, how could you appraise the situation, see that he has issues with block-prone administrators, and determine that the best way to defuse his comments was a short and arbitrary block? I apologize for jumping in, I just had to respond. Thank you.—Nate Scheffey 19:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Saying a bureaucrat or admin or editor got it wrong is fine. Accusing any of them of malfeasance, without good evidence, and especially doing so habitually and in a bellicose manner, as Ghirlando does, is not. --Tony Sidaway 19:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

My dictionary has malfeasanace as "wrongdoing or misconduct especially by a public official". So yes, Ghirlandajo suggested miscoduct on the part of the beauracrats for pushing through a contentious RfA. So did a lot of editors. That is not incivility, it is not a personal attack, and it should never result in a block. As for the habitual or bellicose nature of Ghirlandajo's comments, in several of the ones cited in his block he advises other editors to "cool off", "ignore it" , and to "stop bickering and start writing articles". This doesn't sound like a person so hell-bent on the total destruction of all admins that the only possible preventative measure is an emergency 3 hour block before they destroy the entire encyclopedia. Nor do I think it is beneficial or constructive to scan the comments in a contentious but winding down RfA, select a bunch by one editor, and post the diffs on his talk page with the advice to "tone it down". Taking that action, especially knowing the nature of his complaints, how did you think he would react? And when he did react as expected, blocked. That should solve that problem.—Nate Scheffey 21:24, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I would rather agree with Nscheffey. How exactly you thought people would react to a decision, which is at best unprecedented and at worst quite controversial. Would Ghirla been alone to react in such a way, your own reaction would be quite understandable and justified, but it was far from being the case.

And incidentally, advising editors to "cool off", "ignore it", and to "stop bickering and start writing articles" is a straightforward lack of tact, bordering on impoliteness. Wikipedia is a community, not a totalitarian state in which people get up to work every day and just have to approve the Party's Hard Line. Therefore, their opinion is very important and should be considered, especially in the case of well-established contributors with tens of thousands of edits. Telling him (and I mean especially him, selected from like 30 users who expressed more or less the same feeling) to "cool down" equals to throw oil into the fire, rather than extinguish it. -- Grafikm_fr 00:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I have no more to say. Nothing you say justifies Ghirlandajo's ongoing problematic behavior. As an administrator I found his behavior grossly inappropriate. He is welcome to edit Wikipedia, but not to use it as a battleground. Nor, for that matter, are any of you. --Tony Sidaway 01:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I'll make a couple observations and get out of your hair. Your remark "You couldn't seriously accuse my of being dismissive; I've spent an enormous amount of time and effort explaining my point of view" was fairly illuminating. Not being dismissive involves listening to other editors even more than it involves explaining your point of view. This is the point you seem to not be getting. Also, you've been dismissive from the very start of this conversation about you being dismissive (see the edit summary here), yet you still say you're not doing it on purpose. I'm still struggling to wrap my brain around that one. Friday (talk) 03:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

There you go again, you see. First I'm dismissive, and then when I remark that I make a huge effort to explain myself to people you say I don't listen. If I didn't listen I obviously wouldn't be able to respond. If you're struggling to make yourself understood it's because you're making statements that are not congruent with the existence of this dialog. --Tony Sidaway 11:46, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Let's try again. We seem to be agreed on the following:

• You perceive my responses to you as dismissive.
• When you elaborate, it appears that this manifests itself in a feeling that I don't agree with you even after you have made an effort to explain your reasoning.
• We know that that feeling is valid. People frequently disagree with one another and you and I are no exception.

So okay. We've established that you and I don't see eye to eye on several issues, including whether or not I listen to you. Having reread this discussion several times now I am convinced that I listened and completely understood your meaning at all times, but I do not agree with your reasoning and I've pointed out several apparent logical inconsistencies in it. If I'm mistaken you could explain in turn how my reasoning is faulty or my perceptions are in error. This would enable the discussion to continue. --Tony Sidaway 12:19, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Attitude

Tony, your continued intolerable attitude you keep demonstrating here as well as just within last hour by two attacks on people whose only fault is disagreeing with you [3][4] prompted me to add more to the above.

It is worrying that you fail to answer the concerns brought to you by many users, not trolls but content editors, admins and not, with the same rights and duties like you, with anything but denial. Everyone is tired of pointing out to this attitude of yours because the only thing everyone gets in response is your self-righteousness and more of the same attitude. I have concerns that both certain things you do and the way you do them harm Wikipedia unnecessarily. Other editors agree, see eg.this "Tony's Attitude" dialog.

You refuse to listen (while you claim you do, several people pointed to you that you don't) and simply dismiss the points brought to you by several users many times. Only within last day and only at your talk page several people from different places, all respected Wikipedians in good standing, told you all the same thing. Here is a non-inclusive set of examples (there is more above):1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Ok, if you disrespect me that would reduce by 1 the number of respected ones within a day per your talk page but there are still plenty and you should take it as some food for thought. Now, I am not counting here basically the same things said to you elsewhere (ArbCom statements, WP:AN, WP talk:RfAdm, etc) during this very same day by many more people who you cannot discount because they are all established editors here, content creators and admins.

Your response to each of the users complaining about your being dismissive and defiant was equally self-righteous, dismissive and defiant. To those concerns cited above your responses were: 1, 2,3, 4, 5, respectively (again, I am talking only those five at your talk page, there are more at this very page and elsewhere).

In two other cases within the same time period and on the very same page of yours you even used an offensive language towards two other admins that gave you an absolutely valid criticism accusing one of them in slurring and another one in trolling. I was also surprised to find out that in the latter case your "response" consisted of censoring your own talk from what you would have said yourself (as you did) had that be you talking to another user and not the other way around like it was this time. When the other user's attitude to your message was equally defiant, you simply blocked him ironically citing "Unreasonable and defiant response to request to tone down". Nevertheless, you obviously do the exact same things for which you block others. I am not requesting you to block yourself for that. And I also think requesting your block would be a poor idea for the very same reason why your block of Ghirla that caused so much stir accompanied by your defiance was an extremely bad move you failed to admit, less apologize.

I just want to reemphasize that several unquestionably reputable wikieditors (not just me regardless of where you put me) are alarmed by the recent developments of your attitude and see it harmful for the climate here. It weighs with heavy costs on the entire project and there are no benefits that somehow justify these costs. I am basically saying this almost merely for the record because I almost have no hope to receive anything from you other than another set of self-righteous statements. If, however, I am wrong, and you take time to analyze the problem with your attitude that several people are trying to convince you to address, you may actually come up with something different and, perhaps, consider changing the way you interact with the community.

As a suggestion, if I may, prompted by your bemusing mention of wikilawyering I notice that in the last two weeks you made less than 50 edits in the mainspace. While each and every of them is a useful small thing for some article (fixing redirs, links, protection, etc.) there are no content creating edits among them. I am not looking any further back (I assume you wrote much at some point) and I don't discount the mopping as a very useful activity. I am saying trying to write for a change may actually ease things up a little as well as cool you off and allow others to work in a better climate. You will also find out that others will step in as effectively to replace you in blocking real trolls who harm us all, a job you do superbly. But concentrating on this job, like you do, tends to harden people up so that they start to perceive everyone around them as such, particularly those who disagree, however in good faith. Please, pretty please with sugar on top, cool it!

In no way this problems take away the enormous good you brought to Wikipedia by your devotion and hard work. People are not infallible, yourself included. I am begging you to please give it a thought rather than responding at once with would would response be if you do.

Sincerely, --Irpen 02:03, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

You're continuing to mistake listening and disagreeing for not listening. Friday does exactly the same. --Tony Sidaway 02:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Friday and others. Now you convinced me. How about other things? Well, never mind. You said it all so superbly! --Irpen 04:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Succinctness is essential, particularly on a wiki. --Tony Sidaway 04:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I find that a good way to let people know that I'm listening is to paraphrase their argument back to them, and then - without yet replying to it - ask them if I did it correctly. That way, I'll either get a clarification, or a grateful acknowledgement that they really do feel understood. Then I can reply to their argument, secure that we're on the same page going into my reply. Not having studied the current situation, I'm not making any claim about how you may have handled it; please understand my comment here as completely general. In general, though, people respond very well to being affirmed by having their own thoughts correctly articulated by another. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I think we've gone around this particular mulberry bush enough times. We all know where we stand. You and I have been here before when I've had to deal with other problem editors. A little splashback is inevitable. --Tony Sidaway 02:21, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, what I just said was not a mulberry bush we've gone around before, and I'm quite explicitly not criticizing you here. I'm just trying to share a very specific strategy for placating upset people. You can take it or leave it, ok? I would take issue with "inevitable", because I've seen people who are quite adept at avoiding it. If my suggestion bothers you, please ignore it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:27, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know you don't agree with my strategy. As I say, we've been around this one before. --Tony Sidaway 02:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Our memories must differ. We've never had an interaction about how to let people know that you're listening to them before. Since you appear unreceptive to any kind of suggestions, I'll just fuck off now. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm very sure that we went through this whole thing during the Alienus affair. I seem to manage to make myself understood and I'm not overly concerned with those who believe that I in turn don't understand them. Understanding what someone is trying to say and agreeing with it are two completely different things. Your mileage may vary. --Tony Sidaway 02:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

No, the topic of showing someone that you're listening never came up then, and it's the only topic I was trying to address here. We disagreed on numerous points over Alienus, but that wasn't one of them. To take this very exchange as an example, you haven't indicated in any way with your words that you know what I said to you in my initial post here. Your sentence "Understanding what someone is trying to say and agreeing with it are two completely different things" seems to imply that you think I was equating those somehow. I wasn't. If you feel it's necessary to recite truisms like that to me, it leads me to strongly believe that you have no idea where I'm coming from. If you can't see the value in finding out where someone else is coming from, in a communication situation, I guess I can't explain it to you. Best of luck to you, Tony. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm sure it did but never mind. What you're asking is that I shouldn't just read, understand and respond to what people say to me, but that I should engage in detailed conversation. "So, X." "Ah, you mean X?" "Yes, X." "Oh, yes, X, but then again Y." "Really? I never thought of that."

A wiki is probably the least suitable medium for that kind of discussion. To take an example, Irpen's latest contribution is an entire essay and goes off on several uninteresting tangents on which I don't feel like bothering to correct him. It would take hours. While it might do his ego a lot of good I don't think it would advance the project.

I get the message that a small and disparate sampling of editors find my interactions problematic. I think this is inevitable given the kind of things I deal with and the role I play in the project, and I do appreciate that you don't agree with me on that.

To go back to the start, I have this "self-righteous, dismissive and defiant attitude to people who disagree with my actions" and when I examine this it seems to boil down to the fact that I don't agree with people who don't agree with me. Well I already knew that. --Tony Sidaway 03:04, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony, my ego has nothing to do with it. I know you don't care about my ego and I care even less about your not caring. I get enough appreciation in life and in Wikipedia and your contempt matters little, especially since I find out that this is all you have to those who disagree with you. I care about the problems that are caused by your actions. It used to be that their overall effect was overly positive. Lately, the net sum is negative. You don't need me to change my opinion on that and I know you can't care less. I simply watched what was going on. What matters is that those who agree with me happen to be many and those are not trolls that you so superbly blocked all the time (no sarcasm and thank you for that) but those, who unlike you (at least lately) write for Wikipedia, which is the goal of this project. --Irpen 04:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony, thank you for your detailed reply. I feel a lot better about this interaction, and that matters to me, because I need to know that I'm working with people with whom I can communicate, when it becomes necessary. If that weren't true, I'd have to quit. Maybe that means I'm psychically weak in some way, if so, I thank you for your patient indulgence. (no sarcasm - seriously I appreciate your patience in giving me more attention than you feel should be necessary.) It's true that it's the question of inevitability on which we disagree: You accept a certain amount of static as unavoidable, while I continue to suggest that you could avoid significantly more than you do. It's true that it would take more effort, and at some point there's diminishing returns. I guess our beef is really over where that point is.

Your last paragraph there is odd. I don't agree with people who don't agree with me either, but I seem to manage to convince them that I've heard and understood their issues, which seems to leave them in a much better mood, and I get basically zero complaints. Maybe it's not your disagreeing with them that upsets them, so much as your unwillingness to do the little things that would dignify them, since what they're really looking for, half the time, is just an affirmation of their individual dignity in what can be a very impersonal and intimidating environment. On the other hand, I'm certain I do less dirty work around here than you do, so maybe it's that. Maybe it's that I'm too lenient with people who show a reluctance to "get it". I will certainly continue to examine my own actions, with an eye to improvement, and I'll reflect on what I can learn from this conversation.

My intent posting here wasn't to get on your case, or to have any of this discussion, really. I thought I was dropping off a fairly benign suggestion, that could be applied to quickly defuse a situation in which someone is accusing you of not listening to them. I think you might be able to incorporate that trick, without significantly changing your "strategy" - it's just a tool. I think you could probably use it very effectively, if you tried.

I wish you peace, Tony. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'm absolutely sure we all have different thresholds at which we feel our communication is being acknowledged adequately. On a wiki it's probably a very good idea to considerably lower one's expectations of interaction. Someone who cannot do that may encounter severe problems. The project isn't about you and me. Really it isn't. The fewer bits wasted stroking egos the better. --Tony Sidaway 03:36, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to accept that what I consider perfectly normal conversation, you consider ego stroking. Sometimes, I manage to help sort out disagreements, and get previously intransigent people to talk with each other productively, so I'm going to keep doing what I do. I'll see you around, I'm sure. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not one of life's mediators. It takes different ingredients to bake a cake. --Tony Sidaway 04:21, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

While some ingredients may actually turn less edible (climate) and less nutritious (content). --Irpen 04:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I'm all for cake. Should you ever desire the assistance of one of life's mediators, please don't hesitate to let me know; I'd be delighted to help. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:25, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conclusion

Look chaps, I think we've all had a good go and said all we can say on this subject. A few people continue to get steamed up and make all kinds of preposterous allegations that I'm absolutely sure they'll think better of in the morning. So I'll leave it there. No hard feelings, but I think some people in this discussion are simply not going to be mollified no matter how calmly and nicely I continue to deal with their concerns. --Tony Sidaway 05:59, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Ready to be archived. --Tony Sidaway 16:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony, do you mean the discussion, or yourself? --71.36.251.182 23:54, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Block Notice

Hi,

You have violated the terms of your arbitration ruling by engaging in wheel warring with multiple sysops over Wikipedia:Process is Important. You will be blocked for one hour, pursuant to that ruling. Please leave the matter of the essay to others. Best wishes, Xoloz 23:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Could be wrong but I don't think I did. No problems. --Tony Sidaway 23:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The log on the page shows Tony deleting the page at 23:00, 12 September 2006 with the summary "Process is only important in the sense that it is an obstacle to the improvement of the encyclopedia." Haukurth then restored it at 23:05 with the unhelpful description "When I want to read a page it's inconvenient for me if you've just deleted it" Tony then deleted it three minutes later with the summary "Seems to have been recreated out of process." It is possible that Tony did not look at the log page and so did not realize that it had been undeleted not recreated. JoshuaZ 23:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

To continue the analysis of the log, Xaosflux then restored it again at 23:24. At 23:25 Tony then blanked the page and protected it as a deleted page with the summary "{{deletedpage}} the toxicity probably merits at least this." While inadvisable and possibly unnecessarily inflammatory this last admin action is not clearly wheel warring. JoshuaZ 00:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I could have said "undeleting page deleted out of process" or something like that and normally I would have but I thought that since this was Tony I'd have a better chance of getting through with a simple personal statement of why I would like the page not to be deleted - there was something there I wanted to check and it's cumbersome to work with deleted pages. As it turned out this didn't have an effect and he deleted it again so my edit summary failed and I regret that. Haukur 00:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Well it was a bit naughty. I shouldn't have done that. Knowing that a few people were annoyed I should have stopped, stepped back and talked to those people, who are Wikipedians and should not be treated in the horrible way I treated them today. My error. --Tony Sidaway 00:23, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

You must have realized how horribly inappropriate this was. You are involved in a discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Snowball clause concerning parallels to WP:PI and so you, without a shred of discussion, delete the one you are arguing against and salt the earth? You honestly thought that would fly? This is beyond inflammatory, as there is no way you thought this would stay deleted. Even knowing your usual behavior, I am amazed at the audacity here. —Nate Scheffey 00:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think it will fly. --Tony Sidaway 01:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Process is Important has been unprotected

To clarify my request above to have it unprotected, I think this is the wrong place to discuss whether the article should stay or should be deleted. If, after all the above discussion, Tony still thinks it should be deleted, I would urge him to put it up for MfD. The right place to hold the debate is on the article's MfD entry. We can then better determine whether the consensus opinion is to Keep or Delete. (I would advertise the MfD in a few choice locations such as Village pump (policy) to help get the opinions of people interested in this king of thing.) --Richard 00:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm really not interested in this. I deleted it and some people decided it shouldn't be deleted. That's okay. --Tony Sidaway

So you are not interested in an actual discussion of whether it should be deleted? Why did you delete it then? —Nate Scheffey 00:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Your premise is incorrect. Obviously the existence of this essay gives many editors a very wrong impression of the nature of Wikipedia. That is a good reason to delete it. Others seem to disagree. I find that surprising and appalling but I can live with it. --Tony Sidaway 01:03, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Straw poll

Um, did you mean to blank this? Your edit summary doesn't seem to make sense in that context. JoshuaZ 01:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

It's like rolling a hand grenade into a kindergarten. --Tony Sidaway 01:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

If it will make the kids shut up and quit fighting... ok, tortured analogies aside it seems clear at this point that this is a) contentious b) has established editors on both sides (although most of the established editors and admins seem to be on the side of WP:DENY being a guideline) c) is not going to get resolved by more edit warring and shouting on the talk page. JoshuaZ 02:01, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

In such situations, a straw poll only makes things worse. --Tony Sidaway 02:03, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Whatever"

Please try to work on that dismissiveness thing. Responses of "whatever" could be viewed by some as dismissive. Let's not actively seek drama, agreed? —Nate Scheffey 04:24, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I was about to say "whatever". :) But seriously if you're trying to persuade people to tread on eggshells you've started with the wrong guy. Meaningless, picky, pointless and personal argumentation tends not to prevail on Wikipedia. It gets "dismissed". --Tony Sidaway 04:28, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

As much as I would like to claim that I decided go on an editor-by-editor crusade to maintain civil discussion and randomly started with you, that ain't the case. But, enjoy your continued dismissiveness and thank you for your appraisal of my "argumentation." I will consider it deeply. —Nate Scheffey 04:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

You're becoming quite tiresome in your trollishness. --Tony Sidaway 16:24, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Passion of the Alienus

Alienus, it seems, has once again risen from the dead; this time, he is editing the Category "Books by Ayn Rand" using anon sockpuppets, per his usual style. LaszloWalrus 14:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Just pop a report on WP:ANI and I'm sure it'll be dealt with. --Tony Sidaway 21:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This isn't in the spirit of wikipedia

I find your edit summary for protecting karmafist's page very alarming. Banned users should be forgiven in time, and protecting his page with the edit summary "Protected User talk:Karmafist: This guy is banned. No reason to provide him with a temptation to come back" is not within the good natured spirit of wikipedia. --Onthost 18:33, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

People who aren't here to improve the encyclopedia and have trodden on our good nature once too often absolutely aren't welcome. --Tony Sidaway 19:06, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why voting is evil

This edit goes a long way to explaining that... [5] >Radiant< 22:53, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I think at this rate, someone will just put the Policy and Guideline templates 'themselves' up for MFD. Would that be Wikianarchy? --InkSplotch 23:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I have a question

--63.207.239.82 07:25, 14 September 2006 (UTC)I have a friend who tells me that he is grandson to Queen Beatrix from her first marriage/relationship.. His name is Wilhelm Johan Delano Van Vollenhoven. Could you please tell me if he is telling me the truth Thank you for your time.. E-mail is simaprincess1@yahoo.com

Sorry but I'm not an oracle. --Tony Sidaway 08:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)