User talk:Tony Sidaway/Archive 2006 01 19

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Contents 1 User:BGC on new revert spree 2 Missing the Forest... 3 Wheel wars 4 Userbox deletion noms 5 Kudos 6 Alternatives to Userboxes 7 Some good grace? 8 Sorry about the refactor 9 More Kudos 10 Hi Tony, I'm back! 11 Curtis Malinowski 12 ArbCom vote 13 I'm puzzled... 13.1 Oh yeah 14 Arbcom vote 15 Lynch mobs 16 You are welcome 17 ArbCom - Nandesuka 18 Withdrawal 19 Well, least I got a chance to chime in 20 Your request 21 Thank you 21.1 Holy crap 22 Apologist's destruction 23 ArbCom 24 your vote on my arbcom nomination 25 user against scientology 26 An apology 27 Apology 28 C6 on templates 29 User GWB 30 Attack speedies 31 You make a very good point 32 Template:User GWB 33 No EU template 34 Aw man, why'd you withdraw? 35 3RR 36 ArbCom 37 Please refrain from making "point of view" edits to my user page 38 Commentary on Templates 39 π ⇒ 3 40 Re:Template:User allow fairuse 40.1 Your comment on my talk page 41 Tony! 42 You know what topic :) 43 Userbox deletion 43.1 Template:User War on drugs 44 Mediation 45 ArbCom withdrawal, part XXIV 46 ArbCom question 47 Disabling section editing 48 Unflagged alteration 49 re-creating box 50 Latin translation 51 Shades of the old MONGO? 52 Semiprotection removed in History of Gibraltar 53 ArbCom Question 54 Wikipedia:Ignore all rules/temp

[edit] User:BGC on new revert spree

User:BGC has again resumed systematically reverting album articles to his preferred text, deleting all recent contributions from other editors and using inappropriate/misleading edit summaries when he uses edit summaries at all. Beyond the usual issues, he is adding various star images back to infoboxes, despite the recently established consensus to remove them. He is also systematically deleting all admin warnings from his talk page, usually no more than a day or so after each is posted. Monicasdude 15:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing the Forest...

I just have to add a comment to this talk page, in light of the ongoing struggle over administrator priviledge and userboxes. I try hard to assume good faith, and I certainly would like to have the same assumed of my actions. Having contributed a number of userboxes, and finding them deleted without notice, I was confused. Upon digging deeper, I saw that the problem was much more serious that a few templates being deleted out of process. There are a number of admins that seem to think that they have the right to dictate to the masses what is and is not acceptable content in the user space. This is wrong. User space is where wikipedians are allowed to express their POV, personal convictions, and interests. Admins do have a responsibility to wikipedia, but first and foremost it should be recognized that wikipedia only exists because of wikipedians. Actions such as mass purges, mass deletions, and mass edits without explanation, are basically the most disruptive possible avenue available. In the grand scheme of things, userboxes are basically unimportant, but they have become the most critical issue on the wikipedia at present because they have been attacked by administrators without comment or explanation, outside of process, and with no regard for the impact this has on the community. I am unhappy with your part in this, Tony, and I expected better. I feel that admins should learn from their mistakes, and the mistakes of others, but I am afraid I see these being repeated. If you feel you have the right, then you are welcome to exercise it - but you will destroy the wikipedia if you destroy the desire of wikipedians to participate. I think you should take some time to admire the forest before you start chopping down the trees that others have planted with love. --Dschor 22:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Dschor, please see: ([1]) -MegamanZero|Talk 22:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The encyclopedia comes before the community, every single time. The encyclopedia is the forest. Sticking silly labels on your user page must not be mistaken for participating in the production of an encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Sidaway, who makes the encyclopedia..? -MegamanZero|Talk 23:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Very true. However, deleting the templates was not related to the production of an encyclopedia - they weren't part of it. The resulting uproar isn't producing an encyclopedia either. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's actively hurting the encyclopedia. Friday (talk) 23:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. Deleting these particular userboxes can never, ever, hurt the enyclopedia, and the resulting uproar is just so much silly shouting. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. It's this kind of dismissive attitude toward legitimate criticism that will surely cause you to lose a lot of respect from your peers. You need to realize that reasonable people can reasonably disagree. Your actions are not above reproach; not everyone who criticizes them is silly or ridiculous. Friday (talk) 01:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's the deal: if arbcom changes from its current universal rejection of the userboxes case to accepting it on the basis that there is something else going on than a ridiculous fuss about userboxes, then I'll agree that the criticism of my actions in deleting lots of userboxes that could be used in pushing points of view was something other than "silly shouting." --02:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps all of this is silly shouting, but the subject is important to the future of the wikipedia. Arbcom is not going to take the case because they would be setting a precedent that would be used against other admins - you can't expect administrators to act responsibly at this point, can you? They are protecting their own rear ends. Just apologize for pissing off hundreds of fellow wikipedians, and we can all get on with the encyclopedia. And next time maybe use the deletion process rather than provoke a shouting match? It's about being civil. --Dschor 11:33, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Not sure about your reasoning here. Administrators are already bound by everything applying to other editors. I don't think any one needs to apologise for acting in the interets of Wikipedia. For instance, deletion of unused fair use images happens every day, as does removal of such images from userspace. This intensely annoys many people, but it still has to go on. Nobody owns any part of Wikipedia, "my" userpage only exists insofar as it advances the project. As one becomes an experienced editor, one must take these facts on board. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:52, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Administrators have the tools to delete pages out of process. Deletion of userbox templates out of process is a very foolish use of your administrative tools. Understand that you will cause more harm than good. Your deletionism is very troubling, and shameful in light of the circumstances. --Dschor 12:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wheel wars

In the light of recent controversies I have done some investigation into wheel warring, and have found you to be one of the three most often involved parties. As I believe wheel warring is disruptive to the Wiki, I have requested the ArbCom to look into this. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Wheel warring. Radiant_>|< 23:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox deletion noms

Man have you stirred up a hornet's nest.Gateman1997 23:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Easily avoided with discussion beforehand. Simple, really. I am inquiring what's so hard about it.-MegamanZero|Talk 23:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Now I'm sure Tony was acting in good faith. I vehemntly disagree with him, as do the majority of Wikipedians by the look of the way the vote is shaping up but that's neither here nor there. I have to agree though that THIS was not the way to go about this. The shit storm that has been generated is doing nothing to improve the project.Gateman1997 23:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. But you're right. This is not the way to handle this situation. -MegamanZero|Talk 23:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily the majority. Just the most vocal. [[Sam Korn]] 23:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

My my last estimation it is 25:1 keep:delete on that vote... that's a pretty strong majority, by any standard. If anything the "vocal" ones are the people this week who keep insisting userboxes are evil.Gateman1997 23:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe that's a majority of those who care, not of Wikipedians. [[Sam Korn]] 23:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Probably not wrong in terms of it's 20:1 or whatever of those who care. But frankly if that's the case then this should be closed lickity split as consensus says keep em.Gateman1997 23:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

That pretty much sums up the fact to me that something is not quite right. 25:1..?! Geez. Just please talk first. -MegamanZero|Talk 23:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

There was enough discussion beforehand. The userboxes I deleted are clearly a problem for Wikipedia. I've no idea where the 25:1 figure comes from. Unless you're counting votes. Um, you're not counting votes, are you? :) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

No just reading the consensus opinion on the TFD you created. Consensus says you are wrong.Gateman1997 23:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. You ignored others viewpoints. Okay, you're up to at least a bazillion situations today regarding inconsideration. This means you're ignoring your own concensus, you're ignoring the reason everyone disagreed with the TFD, you're ignoring that rfc, you're ignoring at least two weeks and probably more of people telling you to stop deleting sans discussion. And yes, I'm aware that the rfar is being turned down by arbcom (thank goodness). This doesn't mean you have carte blanche to delete until they tell you to stop. -MegamanZero|Talk 00:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well do give him credit for going through the proper process. More then one other users has totally bypassed it this week and just outright deleted. We asked that person to follow process and Tony has done just that. And process is now proving that users want the supposed userless userboxes so we were justified in asking for the process to be followed. I'm actually torn on this. On one hand I think Tony has gone off the deep end for doing this, but on the other hand he's actually helping by following process and creating a precedent that we keep userboxes like these.Gateman1997 00:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. This is why I choose him as a mentor. But...this situation still reminds me of bad memories (you know...that rfc)-MegamanZero|Talk 00:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah bad memories indeed. If we can get past the division this has created the people who like the userboxes will actually come out in a stronger position then before this TFD and the detractors will be in the weaker position. So overall I'm not that upset with Tony right now.Gateman1997 00:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't really mind userboxes ethier way. I just want people to be civil in dealing with this situation more. That's all I want. I believe that's all of the people want. -MegamanZero|Talk 00:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually this debate though heated has remained fairly civil. Surely it's no worse then the school debates got at their peak.Gateman1997 00:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

It fundamentally doesn't matter to Wikipedia how many people get upset over their precious userboxes. They exist only insofar as they're useful to Wikipedia. If they prove a liability, then they will die even if a couple of hundred editors of Wikipedia participate in a straw poll demanding them back. Wikipedia editors are here to edit Wikipedia, not to pretend that Wikipedia is a democracy or indeed any kind of government. Shape up or ship out. Adapt to Wikipedia or die. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• You may have to abide by the same sentiments if consensus goes against you.Gateman1997 00:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Following an earlier remark by gateman1997: it's just about possible that the TfD doesn't establish a majority for keeping userboxes, since many of the keep votes were asking for decisions about the fate of the templates to be deferred until after the policy is hammered out. --- Charles Stewart 00:36, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I know all about the "hammering out" that's been going on. That has also been widely in favor of keeping the userboxes. The main bone of contention revolves around the categories attached to userboxes less then the boxes themselves in most other discussions.Gateman1997 00:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I should say that what I wrote hasn't been true for 16 hours or so: my what a hornet's nest. It's been stirred up, I think, by putting TfD notices on the templates themselves, and not the talk page. --- Charles Stewart 02:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

This seems an irresponsible view to have. If Wikipedia editors get upset and LEAVE (as some have already done), then that's BAD for Wikipedia. Your acts in proposing the deletion of those templates and keeping this conflagration going even after the Kelly Martin debacle are causing more strife than the templates ever did. That's BAD for Wikipedia. Wikipedia thrives on consensus; if an overwhelming majority of editors disagree with you, and think that the userboxes are useful, then that is closer to conesnsus than your personal opinion. Anything else is partisanship, which is BAD for Wikipedia. So yes, it does matter. -- Hinotori^{(talk)|(ctrb)} 04:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm looking at the userbox policy discussion and, in all honesty, I see no problems there. There has also been extremely productive discussion on the mailing list. There is a general awareness of the serious problems posed by userboxes that represent points of view, and the need for vigilance and care in handling them. I came back to Wikipedia less than 48 hours ago after a break to celebrate New Year with my family and to work on the vandalism tool, but I count this day-and-a-bit as the most productive times I have exprerienced on Wikipedia in terms of hammering out policy. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• You may be right in that respect. Not much has changed in that policy, but at least there is a more solid sense of one. However I think this policy debate is really starting to eat into productivity.Gateman1997 01:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

It's okay, it's not like I felt like doing any actual editing right now. I'm in a coding mindet right now so I don't want to break the spell. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you for nominating these boxes for deletion. Before it was a small but vocal group of users and admins mass deleting this stuff for POV. But thanks to your use of process, every single person that has a userbox on their page (read everybody) has now been mobilized to stop their user pages from being deleted. Now that everyone is involved in the debate I feel much more confident that the userboxes are safe. You have done a great service to userboxes. Congrats.--God of War 09:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

  I think some policy changes are in order. The userboxes are adolescent and have multiplied tremendously over the past month. Please read WP:NOT especially Wikipedia is not a soapbox and Wikipedia is not a Democracy--MONGO 09:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that your confidence in the mere process is misplaced. It doesn't matter how many people are "mobilized", if those items prove deleterius to Wikipedia they die. Wikipedia is not a democracy. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

What's the problem at all with e.g. Template:user religion interest or Template:user humanist? Would you be so kind to explain why you consider the statement that someone is interested in religios topics (on a userpage) offensive? So why not being consistent and delete all user pages? Regards, --Junyi 論 12:11, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am also curious about Template:User religion interest, as it appears that this is one of the (very few) userboxes that not only is truly NPOV but actually has the potential to help us write articles by making it easier to locate people who are informed on topics related to religion. I'm assuming that you just listed everything that was on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion? - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 11:27, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm just not sure why Tony Sidaway is the sole arbiter of what's "deleterious" to Wikipedia. Grace Note 01:47, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe that anybody had ever suggested that I am--until you did just there. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:36, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Actions speak louder than words, Tony. -- Grace Note.

[edit] Kudos

Congrats to you for taking the bull by the horns and nuking those adolescent userboxes...I can see that they do nothing but help to create polarizations in what is supposed to be a collaborative NPOV effort to write an encyclopedia. By deleting those userboxes, you definitely utilize the defining points of what Wikipedia is not. This isn't a chat room, a gathering place or a blog. It is a serious effort to build a better encyclopedia. I'd give you a barnstar, but you said you hate them...so instead I'll just give you my support.--MONGO 02:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh you can still give me an award. Go to commons and find me a picture of something star-shaped (I've used. starfish etc in the past) and pop it here and I'll be delighted. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh that's perfect! Thank you. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alternatives to Userboxes

I know you have been active in trying to remove 'group identification' userboxes so I'd like to run something past you. This morning I put together {{User Infobox}} as a possible alternative way for people to present this kind of information. Currently it is only used at User:CBDunkerson. Userboxes allow 'standardized' presentation of information... but they aren't the only way to do that. This infobox isn't 'ready for prime time' yet, but I think what I have built so far shows that it can be expanded out to cover most/all of what currently appears in userboxes. Objections that 'group information' lets people know who they are dealing with could be met equally well by this. However, since this is text it wouldn't facilitate 'networking' in the ways we have been seeing lately. Let me know if you think it is worth pursuing. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 03:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not really sure if I can work out what you're trying to do here. Some kind of container for userboxes? Wouldn't it flog the servers to death by its use of double transclusion? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Hrrrm? No, the userboxes are just tagged on at the end there because the infobox will not (and should not) cover every conceivable topic. Calling those user boxes does perform 'double transclusion', but no moreso than all the current 'Babel-#' templates. The general idea here is to put things like 'religion', 'politics', 'interests', et cetera into a text infobox. People can still 'declare their views' (meeting anti-censorship crowd objection), others can still 'understand who they are talking to' (meeting 'defining bias' objection), it is still in a consistent format for easier reference... but since it is text there are no attached categories or templates to check 'What links here' on. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 11:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh I see. I didn't realise that there would be no cats and no "what links here". This does sound good, though I'm not so sure it is likely to catch on. In any case this is excellent work and I hope you have success in promoting this alternative form. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some good grace?

I'm attempting in this, as much as possible, to concern myself with errors that I've made rather than the almost limitless supply of errors that others have made. To this end, can I ask you to refrain from comments like this?
brenneman^(t)(c) 04:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Please do so. -MegamanZero|Talk 05:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I cannot possibly refrain from comments like that. Could you explain why you think that I should? I'm quite utterly baffled. The case was not a trivial one and attempts to depict it as such are simply incorrect. In my comment, I limited myself to a bare, factual recounting of some of the findings of fact, against both you and Snowpinner. How else was I to argue that there was nothing trivial about the findings of fact if I did not mention the very same non-trivial findings of fact? I'm quite good at making arguments for and against, but I cannot make a good argument without mentioning facts. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Ara ara,

Let me explain the reaons why as you put it, you should possibly refrain from comments like that:

I don't care what snowspinner was doing, I don't care what Aaron was doing, I don't care how justified your reason was,I don't care if they called you a poopie-head, I don't care if they insulted your mother. Breaching of civility is not allowed. If you're going to tell someone about behavior, fine, and make sure you be more civil in your dealings and be considerate, but don't bother being disrespectful and nasty concenrning people's actions that they're going to be reprimanded for anyway.

As such, I believe you need to think about what you say, and your previous statements (here) and (here) hit the nail on the head as far as regarding as what you should do in future dealings with your fellow wikipedians(well said), and perhaps a cooling-off period. Please consider that the rules against un-civility apply to you as well as people in the wrong. You are better than that, and I hold you in high regard as a wikipedian and admin. Please stop making me think otherwise with commments such as these. -MegamanZero|Talk 18:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

You lost me there. My statement was in no way, shape or form uncivil. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll take your word for it. If you don't feel it was un-civil then I will assume you were making that comment in good faith. -MegamanZero|Talk 21:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry about the refactor

I just wanted to say I'm sorry about refactoring the TFD on userboxes. I should have waited longer for objections before jumping in and making the change. For what it's worth, after reading Interiot's response I definitely won't do this again (though it makes me wonder why people on AFD do it when it's discouraged so much in the guide to deletion). —Locke Cole • t • c 10:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I absolutely understand why you did it, in the early days I myself was tempted to do so because it seemed to me to make things better. I learned. :) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More Kudos

Thanks for your efforts on the userbox affair. It's not surprising the way things went given the fact that a TfD notice was included on every affected userbox - effectively a call to arms for userbox supporters, which is what you were trying to stop in the first place! It might be worth trying again in the future if the voting reforms are ever worked out. I have awared you the Supernova of Common Sense for your efforts. Qarnos 14:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! You were most considerate in choosing a pretty supernova instead of one of those horrible bits of cast iron. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi Tony, I'm back!

Hi Tony,

It's been ages since I last logged into my Wikipedia account. Hope you've been doing well all this time. I wanted to quickly ask you to unlock my userpage, so that I would make some changes/updates there.

As to the reasons of my long absence, it's pretty much simple: I simply realized that Wikipedia cannot be a reliable source of information as long as there is no clear and strict mechanisms to prevent vandalism and anon user editing.

In July I had lots of work and realized that I won't be able to edit WP as much as earlier. And then, after several weeks, I realized that I am no more a fan of Wikipedia as before.

Nevertheless, today I logged into my account and checked some pages and saw some vandal (most probably that Baku ibne/Osmanoglou vandal) messages alleging that I'm dead, that I'm a "spy" etc etc. (?!) Here are the diff links of some of such postings which I found (maybe there are more: in Caucasus talkpage, in Safavids talkpage (identical), in Nagorno-KArabakh archived talkpage (identical), in Azerbaijan talkpage (identical). I was even more surprised that no editor deleted this nonsense.

I decided to resume my activities in Wikipedia. But from now on, I am not going to waste my time by engaging into disputes with either Armenian or Kurdish/Persian or any other (sock-)users. I will simply create new entries and make edits, and if some editor introduces POV or vandalizes, so let be it. I'm not going to bother. However, if other decent editors would need my feedback and comments on any issue, I will gladly help as much as I can. This is going to be my new strategy of activities in Wikipedia from now on. Bests, --Tabib 07:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Curtis Malinowski

Curtis Malinowski : Truth and Facts - Creating a Story – W Five

---

The following is with reference to the W5 story that ran about Curtis Malinowski and MasterBuilders. The text below was extracted direct from the W5 site - response notes are imbedded below as "Response:" W Five: Curtis Malinowski is a master of illusion who has lured hundreds of Canadians into a web of empty promises and business opportunities. Response: “What exactly is he a master of illusion of?” It’s one thing to say this, but how about something to back up the statement? “What exactly are the empty promises?” Again, where’s the evidence in your report? "Where are the hundreds?" Who are the hundreds? Why could you only find two in all of Canada? The “W Five story” below contains a series of innuendos that attempt to answer to these and other questions. We purport that “they” have created “empty accusations” and media innuendos that “create illusion” to spin a story. It is the difference between reporting the news and creating a story. Is it journalism or sensationalism at the expense of people? Unfortunately it creates panic in the public, then businesses fail, and then true victims are created as a result (families of the business, employees, suppliers etc included). W Five: W-FIVE's investigation into Malinowski began with Cheryl Reynen and her husband Duane Holub who finally have a roof over their heads, after a fire last winter left them homeless. Response: The investigation W-Five conducted was ridiculous. What kind of an “investigation” fails to report the many, many hours of interviews they conducted with the senior management and directors of MasterBuilders, staffers, suppliers, and clients that had great things to say? What kind of balanced reporting is that? Not to mention the hour-long interview with Curtis Malinowski himself. The MasterBuilders staff and Management complied with every request for interviews, followed through, and none were even so much as mentioned. The truth is, for every unhappy person that dealt with MasterBuilders there are many very happy. Why did they leave the others out and focus on just the one unhappy client? Anyone could find a few unhappy people to come to a pity party or witch-hunt probing an organization national in scope such as MasterBuilders. No national company has a perfect score, and everyone knows that some customers are just not happy people - period. Or, if the client isn’t unhappy, they become unhappy very quickly when the media begins to spin a story. Unfortunately, during supper hour if a client that is having work done sees a news report that paints a brush that is very negative the cycle then continues. Now the media has more clients (victims) to work with. And you can’t blame the client, the only know what’s in the news. To put MasterBuilders performance record in to perspective, 1/3 of housing clients as reported by the Ontario Home Builders Association reported complaints to the Consumer Protection Branch in recent years. 1/3 formally complained to government industry wide. Why could W5 only find a few unhappy clients? Why is the primary unhappy client in the same industry competing with MasterBuilders? Why did they not report the record of MasterBuilders relative to the industry? The fact is, when the story aired, MasterBuilders had six houses in all of Canada (coast to coast) with a client complaint. Only six complaints for a national builder and the industry standard was 1/3 of the client base. Why did W5 leave out the lies that W5 told interviewees about each other to get a story? Is that a fraud? Lying to interviewees, to spin a story, to be aired on national TV, aired by private industry (CTV) for profit. Let’s get this straight, the lies captured on email from W5 Producers sent to MasterBuilder’s staff, to create a story for the benefit of boosting viewer-ship for financial gain. If that isn’t fraud in the boldest sense of the word I don’t know what is? Lying (the emails in an attempt to create the story) for the sake of profit (viewer-ship as a result of your story) and deceiving the public (who pay their cable bill) is a bold - in the public’s face fraud, that is fact. And they will never be charged. “after a fire last winter left them homeless” The fire mentioned at the beginning of the Holub segment is obviously dramatic media spin to start the story. MasterBuilders had nothing to do with the fire. Cheryl and Duane were not homeless because of MasterBuilders – they were with out house because it burned down prior to their relationship with MasterBuilders. Cheryl and Duane were certainly not homeless with a 100,000.00 RV advertised for sale at the time. Cheryl and Duane had a comprehensive home insurance plan that increased their standard greatly with their new MasterBuilders home. Cheryl and Duane have since attempted to gain profit through their experience in the construction of their home by creating home building guides and contractor software they are marketing on the net. W-Five: "That was pretty traumatic," recalls Cheryl. "I mean everything was just gone in a split second. It's probably about the worst thing that anyone could even try to live through" Response: Again, this had nothing to do with Curtis Malinowski or MasterBuilders. Media drama. The story was about MasterBuilders and Malinowski not about a fire. W-Five: The fire that destroyed their home was bad enough – but things were about to get a whole lot worse. Response: How could your situation with your house “get a whole lot worse”, than having your house burn to the ground? Their house burned to the ground!!! And it wasn’t MasterBuilders. W-Five: With a little girl to worry about, and winter fast approaching, the family was desperate to rebuild on their property near Sundre, Alberta. Response: They forget to mention the 100,000.00 RV sitting for sale. Not to mention, how does this relate to MasterBuilders? The fire and time of year was not MasterBuilders doing. W-Five: And they found just the company to do it, or so they thought - an outfit called MasterBuilders, which promised a new house in just 90 days at a guaranteed low price. And the man making all those promises is the company president, Curtis Malinowski. "We build houses in 90 days. So from the time that we actually have an order to the time that house is done to the time that we break ground it's 90 days later. It's not 91. It's 90 days," says Malinowski, speaking on a video obtained by W-FIVE of one of his recruiting sessions. Response: In the context of the video, Curtis Malinowski is speaking to the RTM (Ready to Move) component of the industry. The Holub home was a stick framed - built on site, custom designed house. It was not an RTM that gets built in a factory compound and shipped. It would be the equivalent of comparing the manufacturing processes of a Semi Truck and a Mini. Of course, W Five didn't note the context. Also, as a matter of recorded and agreed contract (as used by most reputable builders in the industry), the independent Builder is not responsible for delays caused by things such as client changes. There were many client hold ups with the trades and many changes by the client. W Five: But as Cheryl and Duane would soon found out, it was the first of many empty promises. Three months came and went – and no house. In fact the work was so shoddy that building inspector Paul Holmes ordered it stopped. Response: What specifically were the empty promises? Only the three-month time frame was mentioned. A video out of context referencing RTM shipments and not a stick framed house does not constitute empty promises to a specific client. Each client has a contract with an independent builder outlining the agreement for sale. How could Curtis in Ontario on an internal training film (never intended for client viewing – in other words it was not a promotional video) speaking to the RTM sector (that builds factory homes) then constitute a promise to a client in Alberta with a stick framed, built on site, custom built house? Additionally, three months came and went because in on site, custom built - stick framing this is very normal and to be expected. Not to mention the fact that the trades that wouldn’t work on the Holub site after being continuously abused by the Holub’s (letters from trades can be made available). The stop work order referenced is unfortunately common in construction and does not constitute a bad builder. A bad truss design with a framing crew that doesn’t catch the engineering flaw with a project manager that hasn’t been to site yet to check the work is common. W-Five: "They would have had continuous problems with the structure and maybe even collapse," Holmes told W-FIVE. Response: Of course there is the potential for problems if there is an engineering problem, it happens all the time. Problems come when dealing with people and certainly construction is no exception. W-Five: But rather than fixing the problems, the MasterBuilders "approved" contractor simply walked away and never came back. It all took a huge emotional toll on Cheryl who had to spend months in a cold RV trailer with her young daughter while Duane was away working Alberta's gas wells. Response: The builder was not able to work on site because the trades would not go to work on their site. Building trades don’t take well to abusive clients and simply leave the site - rendering the builder / general contractor helpless. Trades are regional, and when they start talking about a “bad deal” it’s really difficult for a client because they will essentially black list the site. The builder was actually a victim of sort. He accounted for every dime spent in perfect detail and didn’t profit at all for his time and effort. He had to abandon because of the client abuse and seen nothing in return for his efforts. Additionally, MasterBuilders was not paid a dime for their efforts. Total facilitation time logged by consultants and staff paid by MasterBuilders was in excess of 800 hours trying to get trades to work on site and settle Holub’s disputes with everyone that worked there. Again, with no compensation. W-Five: "I was unable to parent my daughter. I was put on low dose Valium and anti- depressants," she said. With no help from MasterBuilders, the couple was forced to find other builders to finish their house. Response: MasterBuilders logged over 800 hours with no compensation. W-Five: Not what you'd expect from a company president who makes promises like this: "So if one of our crews is 24 hours behind they get a notice. Right now it's 72 hours. A jet flies in. Pulls up. Trades come off. And they take the builder. They pull him off and they replace him. And they get the job done in 90 days," Malinowski claims on a video. Response: Yes this is true. MasterBuilders does have Builders that fly around the country as required to keep projects on schedule. This is the reason for very few complaints. MasterBuilders sent a corporate expert builder to the site to assess hands on in this scenario also. The year the Holub home was constructed, hundreds of flights were scheduled by MasterBuilders from coast to coast. W-Five: But there was no jet and no new builder for Cheryl and Duane, just a big jump in price of what was supposed to be a $127,000 dollar home. Response: That is a flat out lie. MasterBuilders sent a corporate expert builder to the site to assess hands on. The builder completed all required reports and assisted as required. MasterBuilders did not raise the price of the contract, because they can’t – it isn’t their contract to change. The price of a home will obviously change if you have to deal with a new contractor to complete the house because nobody for hundreds of miles will finish it. A premium is to be expected. Additionally, the original builder recorded diligently every Holub change order that caused price increases. The records kept by the Builder were impeccable. The Holub’s attempted to manipulate a builder through intimidation and other tactics to get a better price and in affect it back fired because the builder walked and the trades followed. As a result, the site became difficult to get trades to it. W-Five: "It cost us just about $40,000 more. It's a huge cost and we're still paying interest," says Cheryl. And they're not alone. Malinowski has managed to convince a long list of unsuspecting Canadians to buy into his illusions - and not just homebuyers, but potential investors as well. Mike Beaman was one of them. Response: How is MasterBuilders an illusion? The company created the first ever - only national residential construction network in Canada consisting of trades, builders, mentors, business development officers, dealers, suppliers, a national parade of homes, advertising, etc. Calling MasterBuilders an illusion is an illusion in itself. Creating an illusion on TV is mastery of illusion and it hurts many. Mike Beaman took on a MasterBuilders Dealership at a low cost of 8995.00. MasterBuilder’s expenses, out of pocket, 30,000.00 to start a dealer, amortized – MasterBuilders invested intensely to get to the point of being able to train new industry recruits like Mike Beaman. Mike Beaman was trained in construction, sales, business, and marketing. Mike Beaman was a function manager at a conference center and prior to MasterBuilders had no construction experience, had no sales knowledge, had no business background, and no marketing expertise. Mike Beaman is now building homes that retail for more than 500,000.00 with margins that exceed 50,000.00. Mike Beaman left the program, and took client contracts and ran. He owes MasterBuilders many tens of thousands of dollars and has never paid the royalties due or the mentoring fees due. Additionally, Mike Beaman paid in to his own name monies from clients that were under contract to be paid to a builder as a matter of record. Mike Beaman has great reason to attempt to discredit MasterBuilders before he is held accountable. W Five: Mike's dream of being a homebuilder almost ended in disaster after he answered an ad. MasterBuilders was looking for dealers to sell its custom-built homes. For Mike it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime and he wanted in. "I thought, that I was getting into a big company, and big backing, to help me," he told W-FIVE. Response: MasterBuilders was Canada’s only national residential builder with a network coast to coast. As above, Mike Beaman was trained in to the industry by MasterBuilders. W Five: Mike was accepted as an official MasterBuilder's dealer and invited to meet with Malinowski himself. "I was in a little bit of a state of awe I guess you'd say. I'm meeting him in his personal suite," recalls Mike. Response: Personal suite? The room they were standing in on the video was a 139.00 room that was used for interviews and meetings in Toronto. One of the least expensive meeting rooms you can find in Toronto. W Five: All that remained was the payment of a $10,000 franchise fee, a small price to pay, Mike thought, for a career – and a company – about to take off. Response: Mike Beaman applied in conjunction with his common law wife. His application was taken in consideration because of her skills in marketing, sales, business, and public relations. Mike Beaman would never have been approved if it were not for her selling the MasterBuilders management an their combined ability. W Five: But it wasn't long after Mike found his first homebuyer that things started going wrong. "I was spending more money than I was making and, and the amount of time and labour that was I putting in didn't ever equal what I was being paid back," he recalls. Response: Mike Beaman was a function manager at a conference center. Mike Beaman made more off his first home with MasterBuilders than he did working six months at his day job as a function manager. Mike Beaman, now as an independent builder outside of the MasterBuilders program, has a territory to protect, has stolen from an Authorized Builder, is now a competitor of MasterBuilders, and owes MasterBuilders very large amounts of money. W Five: Once again, the "approved" builder never finished the home. That job was left to Mike, along with many of the added expenses. Response: Mike Beaman intentionally stone walled the builder and made it very difficult for the builder to finish the last parts of the house because he had a new plan for his enterprise (his dealership). And MasterBuilders wasn’t included in his plan. Once again, Mike Beaman is now building homes that retail for more than 500,000.00 with margins that exceed 50,000.00. Mike Beaman took client contracts and ran and owes MasterBuilders many tens of thousands of dollars and has never paid the royalties due or the mentoring fees due. Mike Beaman paid in to his own name monies from clients that were under contract to be paid to a builder as a matter of record. Mike Beaman has great reason to attempt to discredit MasterBuilders before he is held accountable. W Five: Again, a very different picture painted by Malinowski for new investors on that video obtained by W-FIVE. At one session he tells them about a string of MasterBuilders factories that will soon be churning out ready to move homes. MasterBuilders consolidates supply and trades as it expands according to supply and demand. "Right now we're in Calgary. So it's a fair distance to ship. Um, but we're opening in Edmonton right away. And then very shortly after that, Ontario is opening and then Newfoundland. Kenya, Russia and Germany," Malinowski says. Response: In context, this was not a comment referencing RTM homes built in factories, it was a response to a question posed about shipping Structural Insulated Panels (SIPS) to Ontario. At the time the video was shot, MasterBuilders SIPS supply came through Calgary. The Edmonton plant was on the planning table at the time, Ontario still is in planning as is Newfoundland both through independent ownership, Russia does supply, and Kenya and Germany have not come to fruition as of yet. SIP panel construction is readily available world wide essentially and has various distribution channels and formats. W Five: Again, more empty talk. There are no MasterBuilders factories spitting out pre-fab homes. Response: Lies. At the time the video was shot MasterBuilders SIPS supply came through Calgary. The Edmonton plant was on the planning table at the time, Ontario still is in planning as is Newfoundland both through independent ownership, Russia does supply, and Kenya and Germany have not come to fruition as of yet. Additionally, RTM compounds supplied Dealers product in various areas of the country and stick built construction flourished until the airing of the W5 program. W Five: And MasterBuilders is only one Malinowski company. There's also Joppa Development, World Dream Builders, Shapes for Life, a health club franchise. There's even an airline. His slick websites suggest connections to big companies like Home Depot, which told us they've never heard of MasterBuilders or Malinowski. Response: Home Depot is listed under a category called “Design Links” on the MasterBuilders website (www.masterbuilderscanada.com), the section is used to assist clients with design ideas when planning their home. How does this suggest connections to big companies like Home Depot? Additionally, MasterBuilders independent builders buy from Home Depot every day. Of course nobody could search it in a computer because they are independent builders under the MasterBuilders umbrella. Perhaps the person W5 spoke to was new, or perhaps there was no one at all (they didn’t mention a name or store location). W Five: It's all just an electronic façade used to create the image, the illusion, of a huge conglomerate. Resonse: Liable. W Five: Here's another of Malinowski's whoppers caught on tape: "So it's a big group of companies now and there's it's happening a little faster than I can keep track of but there's something like 70 to 80 on the waiting list now," he claims. Response: Quantify big. At the time of the video there were more than 80 companies on the business development cocooning-list. If the housing industry, land assembly, trades, builders, dealers, suppliers being consolidated nationally, an airline in development stages, construction subsidiaries, etc. isn’t big then W5 is a credible news source and the aren’t just a rag. W-Five: And there's a long line of people ready to believe Malinowski's big promises, like a woman we call Jane, who is now so scared of Malinowski she asked us to hide her identity. Response: Long line? How about the hundreds you mentioned at the beginning of your "news program"? Why only one? Jane is a woman that was a personal family friend of the Malinowski’s. Jane’s sister moved to Saskatoon, attended a Christian college, attended their Church, and Jane was mentored personally for more than 1500 hours by Curtis Malinowski. Jane failed and didn’t perform and made it everyone else’s fault. The media wave created an easy out for Jane to blame her failure on Curtis. Scared of Malinowski? Then why would a readily identifiable woman go on national TV with such a get up? If it was Malinowski she was afraid of – the get up didn’t do it. Perhaps more media drama inserted there? W Five: "It's literally devastated my family and my personal life. It's drained everything from us physically, financially, mentally, emotionally," Jane told W-FIVE. Response: Jane is on record stating exactly the same thing about other things in her past when she entered the corporation. What devastated their family and personal life? How did “it” drain her? Something specific would help. W Five: As a so called Business Development Officer, or BDO, her job was to find recruits – she'd get a commission for each one she signed up - willing to buy into one of Malinowski's franchise schemes. To become one of Malinowski's BDO's Jane had to pay $30,000 up front and promise to pay Malinowski a whole lot more down the road out of future commissions. "The agreement totaled about $650,000 that I had to pay to Joppa Business Development," she says. Response: Industry standard commissions are the same. Business Development Officers are a standard position in a business development firm. Jane's business purchase price is confidential under contract. W Five: But just like Mike Beaman, Jane believed it was a small price to pay for the opportunity to make millions and the chance to be a player in one of Malinowski's games. As one of his senior salespersons, Jane sold a group of investors on another of Malinowski's franchises – health clubs called Shapes for Life. She thought her recruits would get the real thing: a health club franchise, exercise equipment and lots of support for their new business. "I also thought it was very exciting helping them… build their dreams of businesses and business opportunities," says Jane. Again, it all turned out to be an illusion. After dishing out their franchise fees most of her recruits got nothing in return – no equipment, none of the promised support. Instead of making money Jane was out thousands. Response: Jane earned a very healthy income relative to performance. Her owner / operators got exactly what they paid for to the penny. Why is there no substantiation to the claims made? Where are the people that got burned? W Five "In the grand scheme of things you know I was more of a puppet working for Curtis," she says. Even the name – Shapes for Life – was in dispute. Another health club sued Malinowski, claiming he stole their name and just this week a court in Winnipeg issued a temporary injunction ordering Malinowski to stop using that name. Response: There are 14 different entities that use the name Shapes. This is in the courts. The firm they are referring to operate in Manitoba, Shapes for Life never did or have intention to enter the Manitoba market. Companies with similar names from different industries or parts of the country are common. W Five: Investor after investor has been charmed, taken in, by the image of a successful international company and convinced to hand over tens of thousands of dollars for the promise of big bucks down the road. But as W-FIVE looked closer into MasterBuilders and into Curtis Malinowski's other companies what we found were not going concerns, but a series of corporate facades. Response: MasterBuilders coast to coast construction with Parade of Homes and the LandBank with 260 land development files in its WIP consolidating land deals with dealers, builders, trades, staff, BDO’s, mentors, management, etc and real houses being built is no facade. W Five even showed them being built!!! As far as the start up cost to become a dealer, it cost much more than the 9000.00 invested to start a dealer and MasterBuilders was the investor. W Five: In 1999 Malinowski started up a string of hearing aid companies and sent out letters to hundreds of elderly people like Gerald and Jean Herriman of Longview, Alberta. Response: The Hearing Associates sent 10.7 million letters in 1999 and 2000. It changed the industry and sold as a company five times what the industry did all put together in some market areas. Now the industry operates with the business model The Hearing Associates pioneered. They changed the industry almost over night. A few people unhappy in such an environment would be reality not a fraud. W Five: "We thought it was the government," said Jean. "You know from our local health authorities." But it was Malinowski, not health authorities, selling $5,000 hearing aids. Most either broke or didn't work at all. Response: Malinowski did not sell them personally. Yes Hearing aids start at 500.00 and go to 7000.00 in the industry – The Hearing Associates sold them at the same price everyone else did. Most either broke or didn’t work at all? What kind of a statement is that? Do you have any evidence? What an absurd comment. The Hearing Associates sent millions of letters not hundreds, and if you change an industry overnight a few people are going to have problems with their product. W Five: "Actually in the hearing aid itself it had a hole in it. Then the second one went, too," Jean told us. Response: Of course, hearing aids are brittle instruments that require care. W Five: Malinowski was charged under the Alberta Fair Trading Act with misleading consumers. He pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay restitution and a $1,000 fine. Response: Stealing bubble gum is worth a 1000.00 fine. Did W5 check in to how it was that 1000.00 was arrived at and paid? Lets put it this way, if you were prosecuting Malinowski and spent millions chasing someone that wasn’t doing anything wrong and came up with ZERO, well you get the picture. Why would the fine be 1000.00 for almost one hundred charges? Makes you wonder if the charges were valid - no? How can you charge a man with just under one hundred charges and have only ONE guilty plea at the rate of Bubble Gum fraud? Something is wrong with that obviously. The government should admit it. They were uncomfortable with a man that changed an industry over night (the same one the government competes in). The same or similar laws used against Curtis Malinowski have been used for years against corporate leaders and were used against Bill Gates, Air Canada, Donald Trump, and many-many more. In fact, at least 30% of corporate Canada or the US has run in to the Fair Trading Laws or Consumer Protection Laws. It is not only COMMON and NORMAL, it happens every day in industry. Simply pick up the Globe and Mail, look in the business section on any give day and you will find house hold large companies dealing with exactly the same laws. W Five: "I think he should've probably should've went to jail for a while. Think about what he's been doing to the seniors," says Gerald. Response: Go to jail for what? He never sold you the hearing aid. He was busy changing an industry. You bought it from someone Curtis didn’t even know. Think about what he’s been doing to the seniors? Thousands hear better and have a better quality of life because they changed the hearing industry. Put a guy in jail for advancing the hearing of thousands upon thousands? What the heck is that? Put him in jail because there is a whole in your hearing aid? All this toxic-media drama and being charged just shy of one hundred times because of a hole in a hearing aid and the like??? W Five: But Malinowski didn't stop there. By 2000 he'd gone from hearing aids to homes. His first building company, Stetna, supposedly made pre-fabricated houses. Response: Supposedly? Stetna did build pre-fabricated houses – you showed the Stetna building yard right in your clip. Why would you say supposedly if you just showed a clip of its existence? W Five: It was in a corner of a Saskatoon build yard that Malinowski first created the illusion of a reputable builder. According to the police, he took people's money up front, rarely paid his suppliers and never, had any intention of finishing the houses. Response: How do you create the illusion of a reputable builder by starting an RTM factory and investing millions? Isn’t that just what it is? Money was received in to trust on construction draws per the sales agreements like any other builder. Suppliers were paid, that’s how houses got built. And for not having the intent of finishing the houses... he didn’t do bad considering every last house got finished (every last one the clients that allowed them to finish anyway - once again the media created the story based on one compliant and the clients panic and then it must be fraud and the police investigate and then victims are truely created because the business collapses under the stress of the circumstance.) W Five: In March, 2005, Saskatoon police laid 15 fraud charges against Malinowski for bilking his Stetna victims out of half a million dollars. Staff Sgt. Wally Romanuck of the Commercial Crimes unit says Malinowski deserves a lengthy jail term if he's convicted. Response: Bilking? Half a million? It wasn't 2005 it was years prior. Originally, media and police reports were 3.2 million, then it was 2.7 million, then 2.3 million, then 1.2 million, now 500,000.00. Let me guess, if it goes on six more months it will be 250,000.00 or less - much less. W Five: "Because this person is ruthless. He doesn't hurt anybody physically, however financially he creates a real hardship on his victims," says Romanuck. Response: Ruthless? Ruthless is charging someone for a multi million dollar fraud and having nothing to show for it years later – ripping their family apart and having everyone across the country question their morals, ethics, integrity, honesty, etc. Ruthless? What is their definition of rutheless? If there was a fraud then they could show an intent to defraud. In the case of the hearing aids there was nothing shown. Will this be the same? Did all those people have to suffer as a result of ... what? W Five: We wondered how Malinowski does it. How does he convince so many people to put their trust and their money into his hands? With Mike, it was a dream of being a builder. With Jane, it was faith. Response: Mike is a builder now – actually he told MasterBuilders he only wanted to be a Dealer. Of course the Builder part didn’t come out until he was fully trained and he seized his chance. Jane was a close family friend to the Malinowski family. The Malinowski family poured their lives in to Jane’s family. Pure and simple. W Five: "He used religion and he actually insinuated that we were going to be bringing God into the business world," says Jane. He's a chameleon, pretending to be like that person or have similar morals or values or ideals and gains their trust." Response: His faith should have nothing to do with this. Although, if there is a God, then I'm sure he's already in the business world and Malinowski wouldn't have to bring him in. W Five W-FIVE had a lot of questions we wanted to put to the elusive Curtis Malinowski. We reached someone who sounded like him by phone, but we were hung up on. So we dropped by a prestigious Vancouver office building listed on his websites as MasterBuilders world headquarters. But what we found was nothing more than an answering service. Response: It was never listed as a world headquarters – it was listed as the Canadian Corporate Office mailing address and international call center. Vancouver was MasterBuilders international call center (call answering that gets routed to various regional facilities), training center (as many have experienced), and corporate board and management meeting destination. Management work from regionally centered locations coast to coast. Elusive? Malinowski was interviewed for more than an hour and offered W5 a tour of corporate operations and systems through out Canada. W Five: A W-FIVE producer finally caught up with Malinowski in the parking lot of the Christian Centre where he's a well-known regular. But Malinowski slammed his car door on her just as he's done on so many others. Response: If he is a well-known regular at a Church and has time for almost nothing in a life with hundreds of flights per year - is it possible that he may be genuine? He and his children were asked to leave the Church following the w5 “news” program. W Five: "Everything's lies. There's no support for the dealers making contracts. There's no support for homeowners. There's no support for real builders. There's nothing. He sells the name. That's it," says Cheryl Reynen. Cheryl Reynen received thousands upon thousands of invested hours from MasterBuilders with out a dime paid. Response: Yes, MasterBuilders is a name and business system like any other licensing organization. For example: Virgin cellular. They have no cellular towers for their cellular phones, they use/license the industries towers. They are a name and a business system. The business model is common. Summary: This is a story about the heart of entrepreneurship and the result of people being inspired to something greater. It is a story about a gift to inspire, a gift to see something out side of the box and go about re engineering it. Each person or entity in this story has a motivation. • Cheryl and Duane Holub used the legal system to rape a builder and company of profit. • Cheryl and Duane Holub are using the media system (or being used by) to further their enterprise. • Cheryl and Duane Holub are using the situation to come against a perceived faith. • Mike Beaman is driven by greed. He stole a business and profits and is protecting his turf. Mike Beaman does not know how to handle a little bit of knowledge. • Jane is a BDO that was inspired to something greater that failed to perform that blames it on everybody else. Jane is a self-professed person of faith attacking a person of perceived faith. • W5 has spun / created a story for the almighty buck at the expense of those in the story and the hundreds of families affected by the devastating after math of a business collapsing. The media in general has created a public person and continuously tears at his efforts and it affects many. • The justice system have to create a criminal or they were wrong for tearing down a family, blowing millions of tax-payers dollars, and greatly assisted in the demise of a company which ultimately hurt hundreds of people. • Mr. Malinowski “is” someone that “sees” outside of the box and has created and pioneered many efforts that have seen fruit. The end of this story will be a changed industry - whether it is Curtis Malinowski or MasterBuilders that sees it to completion – it is already a foregone conclusion. The model has been re engineered, and that re engineered seed has been planted in to an industry that has no choice but to change because the new model is fundamentally superior and is driven through inspiration to something greater. This is a story consistent with the advancement of the human condition, told time and time again. As the founder of Oracle has said, and many other re engineering minds have reiterated, “be prepared for EVERYONE to tell you that you are nuts.” The real question is whether Malinowski should give in to the pounding and put down the gifts that are given to him to call the dogs of war off? Or... should those really accountable for the facade be brought to task? The same question remains, if Malinowski committed these accused frauds why does just under a hundred charges turn out one guilty plea and why does over 3 million in construction fraud turn in to a tenth or worse a percent? Who is really creating the illusion?

_ _ Hi, Tony. Yeah, this is one reason i don't often execute speedies unless i've just nom'ed one, which makes me feel a need to make up for adding to the burden: we talk abt "claiming notability" as if that were a yes/no, but gosh, claiming it is not much more objective than is being it, which we debate at length on AfD.
_ _ CT just extradited back from NYC a woman w/ many clients, who was taking up to at least $20K a head from people (and accepting jewelry from others w/o sufficient cash) for her unfulfilled promises to do immigration paperwork. CT is also progressing on charging the ring of motor-vehicles employees in Bridgeport who were getting similar figures for providing drivers licenses to ineligibles; they were clearing enough that one of them had hired a storage locker for her 500 pairs of new shoes. -- That's in addition to the governor and two of the mayors of the state's largest 3 cities, who've gone to prison in the last 1-3 yrs behind influence-peddling investigations. (I say "behind ... investigations" bcz the federal wiretaps turned up the Repub. mayor's phone calls to a prostitute, extorting sex with her pre-pubescent daughter, and they kind of forgot about the monetary corruption.) But are the garden-variety scammers and corrupt individual officials notable in a world with the savings-&-loan and Enron scandals? (Not to be so PoV as to mention the apparently legal scam of defunding pensions. Oops, i mentioned it.) I'm inclined to see the fraud rings and influence peddlers as "gyps that pass in the night", by which i mean three-day-wonder stories, and CM as a small-time example of the genre.
_ _ I'm not sure if your focus in writing is to influence my A7 criteria or to promote his having an article. As to the former, i'm not convinced but i'm swayed somewhat by your view: i respect this opinion, especially in light of your others that i recall seeing, and it will no doubt affect my own future decisions on nom'g or exec't'g speedies. As to the latter focus, keep in mind this was a speedy, and IMO as such it bears roughly zero precedential weight against other articles on the same topic, i.e. in this case the same person. If your concern is great enough, IMO you'd make a better author of a replacement than the original author was. If i'm mistaken in thinking you wielded a mop and assuming you still do, i'd be glad to retrieve onto a talk page, as resources, as much as you think helpful of the deleted material.
--Jerzy•t 17:59, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ArbCom vote

Up until a week ago or so you were unquestionably at the top of the list of people I wanted to vote for in the ArbCom elections. I've watched you for a long time doing largely thankless work in unprotecting and undeleting pages, checking blocks and holding other admins accountable. I think you're doing an excellent job under difficult circumstances.

I must admit that I don't quite get where you're going with this userbox thing but I'm going to go by my long term judgment of you rather than making my decision based on the recent uproar :)

So I'm definitely voting for you and I wish you the best of luck in the elections! --Haukur 11:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh the userbox thing is part of the package. I'll always try my best to act in the interests of Wikipedia. If you want to see where this fits in with the current arbitration committee, you might look at the response by arbitrators to an arbitration request that was filed against me and Snowspinner by User:Radiant! recently. Not everybody views the bureaucracy as being that important; indeed many of us see it as something to be ruthlessly smashed and trampled wherever it is necessary to do so. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with sidelining bureaucracy to get things done, the problem is that you didn't actually get anything done :) We have more userboxes than ever and people are more defensive of them than ever. If userboxes are a problem — and your argument that they are seems valid to me — then that problem has become worse and not better. - Haukur 14:27, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

First I had to alter perceptions. Before I deleted them, Kelly Martin's actions were seen by some people as the actions of a rogue administrator, and there was an RfC that turned into a lynch mob. My actions and those of Ambi and Snowspinner have placed the proponents of religion- and belief-based userboxes on the defensive and brought more minds to focus on this, as well as the fair use issue, which is far from trivial. Yes, a lot of people reacted defensively, but if something needs to be done then it is far more likely to be done--it doesn't matter how many people want their userboxes, those that are shown to be damaging to Wikipedia will be deleted (see Jimbo's statement of opinion on this). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... perhaps. But "shown to be damaging" to whose satisfaction? If those who see the damage are in a minority then I don't think they will get anywhere until they can convince the rest. Well, most of the rest, anyhow :) - Haukur 15:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

To whose satisfaction? Oh, a word in Jimmy Wales' ear should be enough if clear damage can be shown. I'd act before that, of course, and leave him and arbcom to pick up the pieces. It's not quite Dirty Harry, but there's some of that "do ya feel lucky, punk?" ethic about the whole thing. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:59, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I can accept that Jimbo's views count for a lot and that he can dictate rules and issue decrees. But it's still really frustrating when he decides something which goes against community consensus - like the voting system we're going to start using in a few hours.

Anyway, I think I've now got a pretty good idea on where you stand in all this so thanks for taking the time to chat :) - Haukur 20:08, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The community exists to produce an encyclopedia, and has no function beyond that. It cannot dictate to the owner. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales exists to produce an encyclopedia, and has no function beyond that. Does that sound reasonable to you? :) Hopefully not. Likewise we must realize that the community consists of people who have all sorts of reasons for existing. Keeping those people happy by providing them with a nice and friendly environment will help produce an encyclopedia. - Haukur 21:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well it's not a very nice environment if it encourages factionalism, which is why I took the trouble of deleting some 70 or 80 templates that had the effect of turning Wikipedia into a population of users indexed by factional allegiance earlier this week. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I understand your reasoning and it's valid. People like to belong to groups and some good editors, like User:Angr, have argued that the userbox groups make a more friendly environment. Others, like you, have put forward good arguments for why they may contribute to a divided and hostile environment. But the point is that it is completely valid to debate the matter from the point of view of what makes for a good community. We can then define a good community as one which is effective in writing an encyclopedia. That would be a useful definition.

And in case there was any doubt I'm certainly all for writing an encyclopedia :) The edit I made before this one was to create a new article. Most of my user space edits are related to book-keeping in a personal missing articles project. I haven't seen any need to put userboxes on my user page, factional or otherwise. But so far it seems to me that trying to stop people from declaring their allegiance to Benedict XVI with a funny little box will either be futile or more damaging to the project than allowing them to use it. - Haukur 21:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Declaring allegiance is not a big deal. Creating categories separating Wikipedians by allegiance (which is what the userboxes in question do) is a very big deal. That's what's divisive. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'm puzzled...

by this. I thought you were against redirects of this nature? - brenneman^(t)(c) 12:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely not. The redirect is from Wikipedia space and is an appropriate use of that space. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Brrr... that sure wasn't obvious. Thanks for that. - brenneman^(t)(c) 12:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

You'd have to have seen the deletion log in which I gave my reasons for deleting the original redirects, which were in article space. We do tolerate article-space shortcuts for policy pages, but I'm not happy about extending this tolerance to individual RfCs. The avoidance of typing the word "Wikipedia" isn't a good enough reason; this is an encyclopedia and we do expect people to occasionally type quite long words. :) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Can't we just say that pages starting with "WP:" belong to the project namespace by policy fiat, even though it contradicts what the mediawiki installation says? No vaid article could ever begin like that and it would make this overfine nuance go away... --- Charles Stewart 01:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Until the WP pages are moved out of article space (which I'm sure you're aware isn't actually difficult to do if you know which file to tweak and which SQL update statements to execute), regrettably we cannot make such a fiat. The WP redirects have no good reason for existence, and if people are starting to make redirects to such ephemera as requests for comment I think it's appropriate to draw the line there. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:38, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why not. From the software POV, the whole point about namespaces is to influence what happens with m:Message substitution, but that doesn't arise with redirects. If we simply said that for the purposes of policy, that we count pages in the article space that begin "WP:" and are redirects to pages in the project space as being project pages, what could be the problem? For the sake of tidiness we can fix the software to handle multiple prefixes as being the same namespace, but there are several ways to do that and the mediawiki gnomes can take their time of deciding which is the neatest. --- Charles Stewart 05:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

You're probably right. I seem to recall seeing RFC stuff, and rather ugly it was too, on google and it seemed to be related to the existence of article-space redirects. A minor point, perhaps, in the scheme of things, but as wikipedia space becomes more cluttered with trivial and minor gripes and trolls I do feel protective toward the brand. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oh yeah

About the edit I complained about (up there). It appeares to me to both innaccurately summarise the proceedings in a manner slanted heavily in favour of critisicim, and to have a sniff of crowing. The second I'll be accused of failing to assume good faith for even mentioning, but that's still how it is. You make it hard to mind my own business with edits like that. - brenneman^(t)(c) 12:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I could have been more complete; actually I only summarised some of the findings of fact in the case, and with (to be scrupulously picky) a slight slant towards findings against Snowspinner. The sole purpose of this was to refute a couple of claims that in my view were somewhat dismissive, claiming as they did that the findings of fact in the case were "trivial". If I could have done it without actually mentioning the findings of fact, I would have, but I'm not a magician. I wasn't crowing, rather I was trying to refute what seemed to me to be an attempt to write off the case--something that was somewhat at odds with the arbitrators' decision to take the case and with their final decision. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I'm well and truly over it, just thought that I'd answer the question while I was here. Thanks. - brenneman^(t)(c) 13:22, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe, above, you actually meant "attempt to refute." I agree with you that the arbitrators final decision, and the fact that they thoroughly rebuffed your attempts to frame the case in terms of policy, should not be written off. Regards, Nandesuka 14:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with this interpretation. If Aaron will forgive me for once again making reference to the proposed decision in this nearly-closed case:

Aaron Brenneman is admonished to be respectful of consensus in creating and altering Wikipedia policy. While boldness in editing is valuable on Wikipedia, it is no use to Wikipedia to have written policies that create dissent.

There is also a factual finding (number 6 in the list) of Aaron's use of inflammatory language in his descriptions of the case (eg: "foaming at the mouth"), and of his dismissal (number 4 in the list) of Snowpinner's argument by saying, in effect that only sock puppets agreed with it [2].

I got the policy affirmations that I was after and the committee took a very high proportion of the proposed decision verbatim from my drafting. I'm very pleased that the committee re-affirmed the primacy of the encyclopedia over the community (principle 7) and an affirmation for the first time that well stated opinions of new users must not be dismissed without good reason (principle 6)

It would have been even better if we could have had a statement on user talk page spamming, but events (in the form of the userbox situation and the Catholic Alliance MD) have overtaken us and I'm happy that campaigning of that kind will have a far higher, and less reputable, profile for the foreseeable future. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

We'll simply have to agree to disagree on this — the committee took only a miniscule percentage of your proposed findings of fact and requested remedies, if one counts those findings of fact that you withdrew when it became clear that your requests, unreasonable on their face as they were, did not merit serious consideration. In any event, as I said on the talk page, it is a happy outcome for Aaron, for you, and for Wikipedia that most of your requests were dismissed or withdrawn, since they would have grossly hurt the project. Nandesuka 15:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy to differ with you on this, by reference to the facts. Looking at the workshop, I currently see six proposed findings of fact drafted by me: 1.2 "Aaron Brenneman edits deletion policy", 3.3 "Webcomics community opinion", 5.1 "Dragonfiend and Aaron Brenneman discuss the deletion of some webcomics articles", 7.2 "Dismissal of AfD results", 9 "Bad faith", and 21 "Aaron Brenneman holds a straw poll". 1.2 became, with some evidence added by arbitrators, proposed finding of fact 1, "Aaron Brenneman's edits to deletion policy." 3.3, shorn of some incidental detail of Eric Burns' career, became proposed finding of fact 2, "Outside opinion on Wikipedia's handling of webcomics". Similarly 5.1 became the basis for the various versions of proposed finding of fact 3, 7.2 is copied almost word-for-word to proposed finding of fact 4.

Of the 6 that are in the current copy of the workshop, only 2 make no appearance in the proposed decision and all four of those that do have substantial support from the arbitrators. In addition, substantial modifications that I made to Snowspinner's workshop proposal 14 "Biting the newbies" by merging from my workshop proposal 6, have found their way directly into proposed finding of fact 6, "Aaron Brenneman's warnings to new users".

Of those workshop proposals on fact that I withdraw, 2 "Assumptions of bad faith by Aaron Brenneman and Dragonfiend", was handled better in subsequent proposals by myself and Snowspinner that made it into the final decision, my workshop proposal 4 "Eric Burns" was merged into 3.2 and is now the first part of proposed finding of fact 2, my 6 was merged into 14 which is now, as previously noted, substantially proposed finding of fact 6. Workshop proposal on fact number 8, "Snowspinner" was withdrawn but the material was merged into 7 and appears in proposed finding of fact 4.

Now it's possible that I may have missed some "unreasonable" workshop proposal on finding of fact, but a due diligence search by me turns none up. The near-unanimity by the active members on this case convinces me that this was an exemplary workshop in which I played an honest role and contributed greatly to Wikipedia by reducing the clerical burden on the committee. Of the eight proposed findings of fact adopted by arbitrators, I contributed all or most of the content to five of them. Without crowing, I can say that this is a remarkably high percentage.

On the proposed remedies, one of the two was originated by me, the other proposed by Snowspinner and adopted as extended (to include myself) by me. Although I had told Aaron that I sought and expected a "waggy finger" for Aaron on this, I also considered and proposed the merits of other remedies. In the sense that these were all alternatives to the one that was selected, it can be said that the others were not selected by the committee, but as they were mutually exclusive proposals you could have said that anyway, no matter which one had been selected. One remedy that I made involving censuring myself for over-eager factoring was summarily removed by an arbitrator.

You say "it is a happy outcome for Aaron, for you, and for Wikipedia that most of your requests were dismissed or withdrawn, since they would have grossly hurt the project." This is clearly factually incorrect. Where they were withdrawn the material was merged, and adoption of four out of six (and the additional material that made its way into proposed finding of fact number 4) is hardly dismissal. I agree that it's a very happy outcome for Wikipedia. I expect that you'll continue to take your own view on the matter, but having performed this exhaustive analysis for my own entertainment I'm happy to say that it is without merit on the facts of the case. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I do encourage anyone who is interested in this tempest in a teapot to visit the workshop page to decide for themselves whether Tony's version of the story is correct. For now, I'll just note that just looking at the remedies supported by Tony that Arbcom didn't adopt, we find: "Aaron Brenneman admonished to seek consensus on policy", "Aaron Brenneman banned from editing Wikipedia policy", "Aaron Brenneman banned from editing deletion-related Wikipedia policy", "Aaron Brenneman on probation", "Dragonfiend not to make webcomics nominations", "Aaron Brenneman to Assume Good faith", "Aaron Brenneman advised to avoid altering deletion debates", and "A Note to the Community." Similar observations could be made about the findings of fact. It is left as the exercise to the reader to decide exactly how due was Tony's diligence in summarizing the issues here. Nandesuka 17:08, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Nandesuka, enough playing to the gallery. This is a personal talk page, so address your comments to me. I have addressed all of the above in my analysis. Also I notice a little sloppiness creeping in. First you were talking about proposals that I originated, and now you extend that to include several proposals that I did not originate but did respond favorably to, and even some (Dragonfiend not to make webcomics nominations and A Note to the Community) which I unequivocally opposed. And, most alarmingly, one "Aaron Brenneman admonished to seek consensus on policy", which was adopted by the committee and was drafted by me.

I notice that my opposition to "A Note to the community" was expressed in wording that I find most poignant and apt: "Let the message to the community be embodied by a strong finding on consensus and policy-formation, which I believe to be at the heart of this case." Which of course is what they did in telling Aaron in words drafted by me: " to be respectful of consensus in creating and altering Wikipedia policy. While boldness in editing is valuable on Wikipedia, it is no use to Wikipedia to have written policies that create dissent.".

You're welcome to your opinion, but I observe only that you don't seem to be able to support it with verifiable fact. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arbcom vote

I'm pretty sure that was the system I put in place. If you mean that the questions should appear on the vote page rather than linked to then I wanted to avoid that due to technical issues. I'm expecting a lot of votes. I want to do what I can to keep the pages as small as posible.Geni 17:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

No problems. I don't mind where it all goes as long as we don't end up with confusion of how, when and where to vote, and I assume you're taking care of that. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:08, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought I had. Which part of the instructions need carifying?.Geni 17:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Probably none. I probably wasn't paying attention and managed to get into a muddle. I have full confidence in your abilities, thanks for your hard work, --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

You are not the only person to have been confused. I've updated it to reflect the current setup. What do you think?Geni 18:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

WRT Everyking I can't see anything too bad. Yes it's a bit of a pile on but that is to be expected in this election. In theory it think it is User:Nightstallion's job to dealing with any problems now the vote has started. It don't want to get involved in the running of the vote unless no one else can be found.Geni 01:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I looked at the election setup and you've done a brilliant job. There are provisions for uninvolved parties to remove lengthy comments, which is all I wanted to see. I've gone through a lot of the pages voting and (although it's madly early) have no problems with any conduct I have seen so far. A good start. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:38, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lynch mobs

Referring to those who disagree with you as a "lynch mob" is a bit rude, and definitely unhelpful. I see you've done it a number of times. Any chance I could convince you to express your opinions with less inflammatory language? Friday (talk) 19:44, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

By sheer coincidence I had a similar thought myself a few minutes ago. I've refactored my comment on Wikipedia:RFC/KM and improved it into the bargain by restoring focus to the encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Curtis Malinowski : Truth and Facts - Creating a Story – W Five

---

The following is with reference to the W5 story that ran about Curtis Malinowski and MasterBuilders. The text below was extracted direct from the W5 site - response notes are imbedded below as "Response:" W Five: Curtis Malinowski is a master of illusion who has lured hundreds of Canadians into a web of empty promises and business opportunities. Response: “What exactly is he a master of illusion of?” It’s one thing to say this, but how about something to back up the statement? “What exactly are the empty promises?” Again, where’s the evidence in your report? "Where are the hundreds?" Who are the hundreds? Why could you only find two in all of Canada? The “W Five story” below contains a series of innuendos that attempt to answer to these and other questions. We purport that “they” have created “empty accusations” and media innuendos that “create illusion” to spin a story. It is the difference between reporting the news and creating a story. Is it journalism or sensationalism at the expense of people? Unfortunately it creates panic in the public, then businesses fail, and then true victims are created as a result (families of the business, employees, suppliers etc included). W Five: W-FIVE's investigation into Malinowski began with Cheryl Reynen and her husband Duane Holub who finally have a roof over their heads, after a fire last winter left them homeless. Response: The investigation W-Five conducted was ridiculous. What kind of an “investigation” fails to report the many, many hours of interviews they conducted with the senior management and directors of MasterBuilders, staffers, suppliers, and clients that had great things to say? What kind of balanced reporting is that? Not to mention the hour-long interview with Curtis Malinowski himself. The MasterBuilders staff and Management complied with every request for interviews, followed through, and none were even so much as mentioned. The truth is, for every unhappy person that dealt with MasterBuilders there are many very happy. Why did they leave the others out and focus on just the one unhappy client? Anyone could find a few unhappy people to come to a pity party or witch-hunt probing an organization national in scope such as MasterBuilders. No national company has a perfect score, and everyone knows that some customers are just not happy people - period. Or, if the client isn’t unhappy, they become unhappy very quickly when the media begins to spin a story. Unfortunately, during supper hour if a client that is having work done sees a news report that paints a brush that is very negative the cycle then continues. Now the media has more clients (victims) to work with. And you can’t blame the client, the only know what’s in the news. To put MasterBuilders performance record in to perspective, 1/3 of housing clients as reported by the Ontario Home Builders Association reported complaints to the Consumer Protection Branch in recent years. 1/3 formally complained to government industry wide. Why could W5 only find a few unhappy clients? Why is the primary unhappy client in the same industry competing with MasterBuilders? Why did they not report the record of MasterBuilders relative to the industry? The fact is, when the story aired, MasterBuilders had six houses in all of Canada (coast to coast) with a client complaint. Only six complaints for a national builder and the industry standard was 1/3 of the client base. Why did W5 leave out the lies that W5 told interviewees about each other to get a story? Is that a fraud? Lying to interviewees, to spin a story, to be aired on national TV, aired by private industry (CTV) for profit. Let’s get this straight, the lies captured on email from W5 Producers sent to MasterBuilder’s staff, to create a story for the benefit of boosting viewer-ship for financial gain. If that isn’t fraud in the boldest sense of the word I don’t know what is? Lying (the emails in an attempt to create the story) for the sake of profit (viewer-ship as a result of your story) and deceiving the public (who pay their cable bill) is a bold - in the public’s face fraud, that is fact. And they will never be charged. “after a fire last winter left them homeless” The fire mentioned at the beginning of the Holub segment is obviously dramatic media spin to start the story. MasterBuilders had nothing to do with the fire. Cheryl and Duane were not homeless because of MasterBuilders – they were with out house because it burned down prior to their relationship with MasterBuilders. Cheryl and Duane were certainly not homeless with a 100,000.00 RV advertised for sale at the time. Cheryl and Duane had a comprehensive home insurance plan that increased their standard greatly with their new MasterBuilders home. Cheryl and Duane have since attempted to gain profit through their experience in the construction of their home by creating home building guides and contractor software they are marketing on the net. W-Five: "That was pretty traumatic," recalls Cheryl. "I mean everything was just gone in a split second. It's probably about the worst thing that anyone could even try to live through" Response: Again, this had nothing to do with Curtis Malinowski or MasterBuilders. Media drama. The story was about MasterBuilders and Malinowski not about a fire. W-Five: The fire that destroyed their home was bad enough – but things were about to get a whole lot worse. Response: How could your situation with your house “get a whole lot worse”, than having your house burn to the ground? Their house burned to the ground!!! And it wasn’t MasterBuilders. W-Five: With a little girl to worry about, and winter fast approaching, the family was desperate to rebuild on their property near Sundre, Alberta. Response: They forget to mention the 100,000.00 RV sitting for sale. Not to mention, how does this relate to MasterBuilders? The fire and time of year was not MasterBuilders doing. W-Five: And they found just the company to do it, or so they thought - an outfit called MasterBuilders, which promised a new house in just 90 days at a guaranteed low price. And the man making all those promises is the company president, Curtis Malinowski. "We build houses in 90 days. So from the time that we actually have an order to the time that house is done to the time that we break ground it's 90 days later. It's not 91. It's 90 days," says Malinowski, speaking on a video obtained by W-FIVE of one of his recruiting sessions. Response: In the context of the video, Curtis Malinowski is speaking to the RTM (Ready to Move) component of the industry. The Holub home was a stick framed - built on site, custom designed house. It was not an RTM that gets built in a factory compound and shipped. It would be the equivalent of comparing the manufacturing processes of a Semi Truck and a Mini. Of course, W Five didn't note the context. Also, as a matter of recorded and agreed contract (as used by most reputable builders in the industry), the independent Builder is not responsible for delays caused by things such as client changes. There were many client hold ups with the trades and many changes by the client. W Five: But as Cheryl and Duane would soon found out, it was the first of many empty promises. Three months came and went – and no house. In fact the work was so shoddy that building inspector Paul Holmes ordered it stopped. Response: What specifically were the empty promises? Only the three-month time frame was mentioned. A video out of context referencing RTM shipments and not a stick framed house does not constitute empty promises to a specific client. Each client has a contract with an independent builder outlining the agreement for sale. How could Curtis in Ontario on an internal training film (never intended for client viewing – in other words it was not a promotional video) speaking to the RTM sector (that builds factory homes) then constitute a promise to a client in Alberta with a stick framed, built on site, custom built house? Additionally, three months came and went because in on site, custom built - stick framing this is very normal and to be expected. Not to mention the fact that the trades that wouldn’t work on the Holub site after being continuously abused by the Holub’s (letters from trades can be made available). The stop work order referenced is unfortunately common in construction and does not constitute a bad builder. A bad truss design with a framing crew that doesn’t catch the engineering flaw with a project manager that hasn’t been to site yet to check the work is common. W-Five: "They would have had continuous problems with the structure and maybe even collapse," Holmes told W-FIVE. Response: Of course there is the potential for problems if there is an engineering problem, it happens all the time. Problems come when dealing with people and certainly construction is no exception. W-Five: But rather than fixing the problems, the MasterBuilders "approved" contractor simply walked away and never came back. It all took a huge emotional toll on Cheryl who had to spend months in a cold RV trailer with her young daughter while Duane was away working Alberta's gas wells. Response: The builder was not able to work on site because the trades would not go to work on their site. Building trades don’t take well to abusive clients and simply leave the site - rendering the builder / general contractor helpless. Trades are regional, and when they start talking about a “bad deal” it’s really difficult for a client because they will essentially black list the site. The builder was actually a victim of sort. He accounted for every dime spent in perfect detail and didn’t profit at all for his time and effort. He had to abandon because of the client abuse and seen nothing in return for his efforts. Additionally, MasterBuilders was not paid a dime for their efforts. Total facilitation time logged by consultants and staff paid by MasterBuilders was in excess of 800 hours trying to get trades to work on site and settle Holub’s disputes with everyone that worked there. Again, with no compensation. W-Five: "I was unable to parent my daughter. I was put on low dose Valium and anti- depressants," she said. With no help from MasterBuilders, the couple was forced to find other builders to finish their house. Response: MasterBuilders logged over 800 hours with no compensation. W-Five: Not what you'd expect from a company president who makes promises like this: "So if one of our crews is 24 hours behind they get a notice. Right now it's 72 hours. A jet flies in. Pulls up. Trades come off. And they take the builder. They pull him off and they replace him. And they get the job done in 90 days," Malinowski claims on a video. Response: Yes this is true. MasterBuilders does have Builders that fly around the country as required to keep projects on schedule. This is the reason for very few complaints. MasterBuilders sent a corporate expert builder to the site to assess hands on in this scenario also. The year the Holub home was constructed, hundreds of flights were scheduled by MasterBuilders from coast to coast. W-Five: But there was no jet and no new builder for Cheryl and Duane, just a big jump in price of what was supposed to be a $127,000 dollar home. Response: That is a flat out lie. MasterBuilders sent a corporate expert builder to the site to assess hands on. The builder completed all required reports and assisted as required. MasterBuilders did not raise the price of the contract, because they can’t – it isn’t their contract to change. The price of a home will obviously change if you have to deal with a new contractor to complete the house because nobody for hundreds of miles will finish it. A premium is to be expected. Additionally, the original builder recorded diligently every Holub change order that caused price increases. The records kept by the Builder were impeccable. The Holub’s attempted to manipulate a builder through intimidation and other tactics to get a better price and in affect it back fired because the builder walked and the trades followed. As a result, the site became difficult to get trades to it. W-Five: "It cost us just about $40,000 more. It's a huge cost and we're still paying interest," says Cheryl. And they're not alone. Malinowski has managed to convince a long list of unsuspecting Canadians to buy into his illusions - and not just homebuyers, but potential investors as well. Mike Beaman was one of them. Response: How is MasterBuilders an illusion? The company created the first ever - only national residential construction network in Canada consisting of trades, builders, mentors, business development officers, dealers, suppliers, a national parade of homes, advertising, etc. Calling MasterBuilders an illusion is an illusion in itself. Creating an illusion on TV is mastery of illusion and it hurts many. Mike Beaman took on a MasterBuilders Dealership at a low cost of 8995.00. MasterBuilder’s expenses, out of pocket, 30,000.00 to start a dealer, amortized – MasterBuilders invested intensely to get to the point of being able to train new industry recruits like Mike Beaman. Mike Beaman was trained in construction, sales, business, and marketing. Mike Beaman was a function manager at a conference center and prior to MasterBuilders had no construction experience, had no sales knowledge, had no business background, and no marketing expertise. Mike Beaman is now building homes that retail for more than 500,000.00 with margins that exceed 50,000.00. Mike Beaman left the program, and took client contracts and ran. He owes MasterBuilders many tens of thousands of dollars and has never paid the royalties due or the mentoring fees due. Additionally, Mike Beaman paid in to his own name monies from clients that were under contract to be paid to a builder as a matter of record. Mike Beaman has great reason to attempt to discredit MasterBuilders before he is held accountable. W Five: Mike's dream of being a homebuilder almost ended in disaster after he answered an ad. MasterBuilders was looking for dealers to sell its custom-built homes. For Mike it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime and he wanted in. "I thought, that I was getting into a big company, and big backing, to help me," he told W-FIVE. Response: MasterBuilders was Canada’s only national residential builder with a network coast to coast. As above, Mike Beaman was trained in to the industry by MasterBuilders. W Five: Mike was accepted as an official MasterBuilder's dealer and invited to meet with Malinowski himself. "I was in a little bit of a state of awe I guess you'd say. I'm meeting him in his personal suite," recalls Mike. Response: Personal suite? The room they were standing in on the video was a 139.00 room that was used for interviews and meetings in Toronto. One of the least expensive meeting rooms you can find in Toronto. W Five: All that remained was the payment of a $10,000 franchise fee, a small price to pay, Mike thought, for a career – and a company – about to take off. Response: Mike Beaman applied in conjunction with his common law wife. His application was taken in consideration because of her skills in marketing, sales, business, and public relations. Mike Beaman would never have been approved if it were not for her selling the MasterBuilders management an their combined ability. W Five: But it wasn't long after Mike found his first homebuyer that things started going wrong. "I was spending more money than I was making and, and the amount of time and labour that was I putting in didn't ever equal what I was being paid back," he recalls. Response: Mike Beaman was a function manager at a conference center. Mike Beaman made more off his first home with MasterBuilders than he did working six months at his day job as a function manager. Mike Beaman, now as an independent builder outside of the MasterBuilders program, has a territory to protect, has stolen from an Authorized Builder, is now a competitor of MasterBuilders, and owes MasterBuilders very large amounts of money. W Five: Once again, the "approved" builder never finished the home. That job was left to Mike, along with many of the added expenses. Response: Mike Beaman intentionally stone walled the builder and made it very difficult for the builder to finish the last parts of the house because he had a new plan for his enterprise (his dealership). And MasterBuilders wasn’t included in his plan. Once again, Mike Beaman is now building homes that retail for more than 500,000.00 with margins that exceed 50,000.00. Mike Beaman took client contracts and ran and owes MasterBuilders many tens of thousands of dollars and has never paid the royalties due or the mentoring fees due. Mike Beaman paid in to his own name monies from clients that were under contract to be paid to a builder as a matter of record. Mike Beaman has great reason to attempt to discredit MasterBuilders before he is held accountable. W Five: Again, a very different picture painted by Malinowski for new investors on that video obtained by W-FIVE. At one session he tells them about a string of MasterBuilders factories that will soon be churning out ready to move homes. MasterBuilders consolidates supply and trades as it expands according to supply and demand. "Right now we're in Calgary. So it's a fair distance to ship. Um, but we're opening in Edmonton right away. And then very shortly after that, Ontario is opening and then Newfoundland. Kenya, Russia and Germany," Malinowski says. Response: In context, this was not a comment referencing RTM homes built in factories, it was a response to a question posed about shipping Structural Insulated Panels (SIPS) to Ontario. At the time the video was shot, MasterBuilders SIPS supply came through Calgary. The Edmonton plant was on the planning table at the time, Ontario still is in planning as is Newfoundland both through independent ownership, Russia does supply, and Kenya and Germany have not come to fruition as of yet. SIP panel construction is readily available world wide essentially and has various distribution channels and formats. W Five: Again, more empty talk. There are no MasterBuilders factories spitting out pre-fab homes. Response: Lies. At the time the video was shot MasterBuilders SIPS supply came through Calgary. The Edmonton plant was on the planning table at the time, Ontario still is in planning as is Newfoundland both through independent ownership, Russia does supply, and Kenya and Germany have not come to fruition as of yet. Additionally, RTM compounds supplied Dealers product in various areas of the country and stick built construction flourished until the airing of the W5 program. W Five: And MasterBuilders is only one Malinowski company. There's also Joppa Development, World Dream Builders, Shapes for Life, a health club franchise. There's even an airline. His slick websites suggest connections to big companies like Home Depot, which told us they've never heard of MasterBuilders or Malinowski. Response: Home Depot is listed under a category called “Design Links” on the MasterBuilders website (www.masterbuilderscanada.com), the section is used to assist clients with design ideas when planning their home. How does this suggest connections to big companies like Home Depot? Additionally, MasterBuilders independent builders buy from Home Depot every day. Of course nobody could search it in a computer because they are independent builders under the MasterBuilders umbrella. Perhaps the person W5 spoke to was new, or perhaps there was no one at all (they didn’t mention a name or store location). W Five: It's all just an electronic façade used to create the image, the illusion, of a huge conglomerate. Resonse: Liable. W Five: Here's another of Malinowski's whoppers caught on tape: "So it's a big group of companies now and there's it's happening a little faster than I can keep track of but there's something like 70 to 80 on the waiting list now," he claims. Response: Quantify big. At the time of the video there were more than 80 companies on the business development cocooning-list. If the housing industry, land assembly, trades, builders, dealers, suppliers being consolidated nationally, an airline in development stages, construction subsidiaries, etc. isn’t big then W5 is a credible news source and the aren’t just a rag. W-Five: And there's a long line of people ready to believe Malinowski's big promises, like a woman we call Jane, who is now so scared of Malinowski she asked us to hide her identity. Response: Long line? How about the hundreds you mentioned at the beginning of your "news program"? Why only one? Jane is a woman that was a personal family friend of the Malinowski’s. Jane’s sister moved to Saskatoon, attended a Christian college, attended their Church, and Jane was mentored personally for more than 1500 hours by Curtis Malinowski. Jane failed and didn’t perform and made it everyone else’s fault. The media wave created an easy out for Jane to blame her failure on Curtis. Scared of Malinowski? Then why would a readily identifiable woman go on national TV with such a get up? If it was Malinowski she was afraid of – the get up didn’t do it. Perhaps more media drama inserted there? W Five: "It's literally devastated my family and my personal life. It's drained everything from us physically, financially, mentally, emotionally," Jane told W-FIVE. Response: Jane is on record stating exactly the same thing about other things in her past when she entered the corporation. What devastated their family and personal life? How did “it” drain her? Something specific would help. W Five: As a so called Business Development Officer, or BDO, her job was to find recruits – she'd get a commission for each one she signed up - willing to buy into one of Malinowski's franchise schemes. To become one of Malinowski's BDO's Jane had to pay $30,000 up front and promise to pay Malinowski a whole lot more down the road out of future commissions. "The agreement totaled about $650,000 that I had to pay to Joppa Business Development," she says. Response: Industry standard commissions are the same. Business Development Officers are a standard position in a business development firm. Jane's business purchase price is confidential under contract. W Five: But just like Mike Beaman, Jane believed it was a small price to pay for the opportunity to make millions and the chance to be a player in one of Malinowski's games. As one of his senior salespersons, Jane sold a group of investors on another of Malinowski's franchises – health clubs called Shapes for Life. She thought her recruits would get the real thing: a health club franchise, exercise equipment and lots of support for their new business. "I also thought it was very exciting helping them… build their dreams of businesses and business opportunities," says Jane. Again, it all turned out to be an illusion. After dishing out their franchise fees most of her recruits got nothing in return – no equipment, none of the promised support. Instead of making money Jane was out thousands. Response: Jane earned a very healthy income relative to performance. Her owner / operators got exactly what they paid for to the penny. Why is there no substantiation to the claims made? Where are the people that got burned? W Five "In the grand scheme of things you know I was more of a puppet working for Curtis," she says. Even the name – Shapes for Life – was in dispute. Another health club sued Malinowski, claiming he stole their name and just this week a court in Winnipeg issued a temporary injunction ordering Malinowski to stop using that name. Response: There are 14 different entities that use the name Shapes. This is in the courts. The firm they are referring to operate in Manitoba, Shapes for Life never did or have intention to enter the Manitoba market. Companies with similar names from different industries or parts of the country are common. W Five: Investor after investor has been charmed, taken in, by the image of a successful international company and convinced to hand over tens of thousands of dollars for the promise of big bucks down the road. But as W-FIVE looked closer into MasterBuilders and into Curtis Malinowski's other companies what we found were not going concerns, but a series of corporate facades. Response: MasterBuilders coast to coast construction with Parade of Homes and the LandBank with 260 land development files in its WIP consolidating land deals with dealers, builders, trades, staff, BDO’s, mentors, management, etc and real houses being built is no facade. W Five even showed them being built!!! As far as the start up cost to become a dealer, it cost much more than the 9000.00 invested to start a dealer and MasterBuilders was the investor. W Five: In 1999 Malinowski started up a string of hearing aid companies and sent out letters to hundreds of elderly people like Gerald and Jean Herriman of Longview, Alberta. Response: The Hearing Associates sent 10.7 million letters in 1999 and 2000. It changed the industry and sold as a company five times what the industry did all put together in some market areas. Now the industry operates with the business model The Hearing Associates pioneered. They changed the industry almost over night. A few people unhappy in such an environment would be reality not a fraud. W Five: "We thought it was the government," said Jean. "You know from our local health authorities." But it was Malinowski, not health authorities, selling $5,000 hearing aids. Most either broke or didn't work at all. Response: Malinowski did not sell them personally. Yes Hearing aids start at 500.00 and go to 7000.00 in the industry – The Hearing Associates sold them at the same price everyone else did. Most either broke or didn’t work at all? What kind of a statement is that? Do you have any evidence? What an absurd comment. The Hearing Associates sent millions of letters not hundreds, and if you change an industry overnight a few people are going to have problems with their product. W Five: "Actually in the hearing aid itself it had a hole in it. Then the second one went, too," Jean told us. Response: Of course, hearing aids are brittle instruments that require care. W Five: Malinowski was charged under the Alberta Fair Trading Act with misleading consumers. He pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay restitution and a $1,000 fine. Response: Stealing bubble gum is worth a 1000.00 fine. Did W5 check in to how it was that 1000.00 was arrived at and paid? Lets put it this way, if you were prosecuting Malinowski and spent millions chasing someone that wasn’t doing anything wrong and came up with ZERO, well you get the picture. Why would the fine be 1000.00 for almost one hundred charges? Makes you wonder if the charges were valid - no? How can you charge a man with just under one hundred charges and have only ONE guilty plea at the rate of Bubble Gum fraud? Something is wrong with that obviously. The government should admit it. They were uncomfortable with a man that changed an industry over night (the same one the government competes in). The same or similar laws used against Curtis Malinowski have been used for years against corporate leaders and were used against Bill Gates, Air Canada, Donald Trump, and many-many more. In fact, at least 30% of corporate Canada or the US has run in to the Fair Trading Laws or Consumer Protection Laws. It is not only COMMON and NORMAL, it happens every day in industry. Simply pick up the Globe and Mail, look in the business section on any give day and you will find house hold large companies dealing with exactly the same laws. W Five: "I think he should've probably should've went to jail for a while. Think about what he's been doing to the seniors," says Gerald. Response: Go to jail for what? He never sold you the hearing aid. He was busy changing an industry. You bought it from someone Curtis didn’t even know. Think about what he’s been doing to the seniors? Thousands hear better and have a better quality of life because they changed the hearing industry. Put a guy in jail for advancing the hearing of thousands upon thousands? What the heck is that? Put him in jail because there is a whole in your hearing aid? All this toxic-media drama and being charged just shy of one hundred times because of a hole in a hearing aid and the like??? W Five: But Malinowski didn't stop there. By 2000 he'd gone from hearing aids to homes. His first building company, Stetna, supposedly made pre-fabricated houses. Response: Supposedly? Stetna did build pre-fabricated houses – you showed the Stetna building yard right in your clip. Why would you say supposedly if you just showed a clip of its existence? W Five: It was in a corner of a Saskatoon build yard that Malinowski first created the illusion of a reputable builder. According to the police, he took people's money up front, rarely paid his suppliers and never, had any intention of finishing the houses. Response: How do you create the illusion of a reputable builder by starting an RTM factory and investing millions? Isn’t that just what it is? Money was received in to trust on construction draws per the sales agreements like any other builder. Suppliers were paid, that’s how houses got built. And for not having the intent of finishing the houses... he didn’t do bad considering every last house got finished (every last one the clients that allowed them to finish anyway - once again the media created the story based on one compliant and the clients panic and then it must be fraud and the police investigate and then victims are truely created because the business collapses under the stress of the circumstance.) W Five: In March, 2005, Saskatoon police laid 15 fraud charges against Malinowski for bilking his Stetna victims out of half a million dollars. Staff Sgt. Wally Romanuck of the Commercial Crimes unit says Malinowski deserves a lengthy jail term if he's convicted. Response: Bilking? Half a million? It wasn't 2005 it was years prior. Originally, media and police reports were 3.2 million, then it was 2.7 million, then 2.3 million, then 1.2 million, now 500,000.00. Let me guess, if it goes on six more months it will be 250,000.00 or less - much less. W Five: "Because this person is ruthless. He doesn't hurt anybody physically, however financially he creates a real hardship on his victims," says Romanuck. Response: Ruthless? Ruthless is charging someone for a multi million dollar fraud and having nothing to show for it years later – ripping their family apart and having everyone across the country question their morals, ethics, integrity, honesty, etc. Ruthless? What is their definition of rutheless? If there was a fraud then they could show an intent to defraud. In the case of the hearing aids there was nothing shown. Will this be the same? Did all those people have to suffer as a result of ... what? W Five: We wondered how Malinowski does it. How does he convince so many people to put their trust and their money into his hands? With Mike, it was a dream of being a builder. With Jane, it was faith. Response: Mike is a builder now – actually he told MasterBuilders he only wanted to be a Dealer. Of course the Builder part didn’t come out until he was fully trained and he seized his chance. Jane was a close family friend to the Malinowski family. The Malinowski family poured their lives in to Jane’s family. Pure and simple. W Five: "He used religion and he actually insinuated that we were going to be bringing God into the business world," says Jane. He's a chameleon, pretending to be like that person or have similar morals or values or ideals and gains their trust." Response: His faith should have nothing to do with this. Although, if there is a God, then I'm sure he's already in the business world and Malinowski wouldn't have to bring him in. W Five W-FIVE had a lot of questions we wanted to put to the elusive Curtis Malinowski. We reached someone who sounded like him by phone, but we were hung up on. So we dropped by a prestigious Vancouver office building listed on his websites as MasterBuilders world headquarters. But what we found was nothing more than an answering service. Response: It was never listed as a world headquarters – it was listed as the Canadian Corporate Office mailing address and international call center. Vancouver was MasterBuilders international call center (call answering that gets routed to various regional facilities), training center (as many have experienced), and corporate board and management meeting destination. Management work from regionally centered locations coast to coast. Elusive? Malinowski was interviewed for more than an hour and offered W5 a tour of corporate operations and systems through out Canada. W Five: A W-FIVE producer finally caught up with Malinowski in the parking lot of the Christian Centre where he's a well-known regular. But Malinowski slammed his car door on her just as he's done on so many others. Response: If he is a well-known regular at a Church and has time for almost nothing in a life with hundreds of flights per year - is it possible that he may be genuine? He and his children were asked to leave the Church following the w5 “news” program. W Five: "Everything's lies. There's no support for the dealers making contracts. There's no support for homeowners. There's no support for real builders. There's nothing. He sells the name. That's it," says Cheryl Reynen. Cheryl Reynen received thousands upon thousands of invested hours from MasterBuilders with out a dime paid. Response: Yes, MasterBuilders is a name and business system like any other licensing organization. For example: Virgin cellular. They have no cellular towers for their cellular phones, they use/license the industries towers. They are a name and a business system. The business model is common. Summary: This is a story about the heart of entrepreneurship and the result of people being inspired to something greater. It is a story about a gift to inspire, a gift to see something out side of the box and go about re engineering it. Each person or entity in this story has a motivation. • Cheryl and Duane Holub used the legal system to rape a builder and company of profit. • Cheryl and Duane Holub are using the media system (or being used by) to further their enterprise. • Cheryl and Duane Holub are using the situation to come against a perceived faith. • Mike Beaman is driven by greed. He stole a business and profits and is protecting his turf. Mike Beaman does not know how to handle a little bit of knowledge. • Jane is a BDO that was inspired to something greater that failed to perform that blames it on everybody else. Jane is a self-professed person of faith attacking a person of perceived faith. • W5 has spun / created a story for the almighty buck at the expense of those in the story and the hundreds of families affected by the devastating after math of a business collapsing. The media in general has created a public person and continuously tears at his efforts and it affects many. • The justice system have to create a criminal or they were wrong for tearing down a family, blowing millions of tax-payers dollars, and greatly assisted in the demise of a company which ultimately hurt hundreds of people. • Mr. Malinowski “is” someone that “sees” outside of the box and has created and pioneered many efforts that have seen fruit. The end of this story will be a changed industry - whether it is Curtis Malinowski or MasterBuilders that sees it to completion – it is already a foregone conclusion. The model has been re engineered, and that re engineered seed has been planted in to an industry that has no choice but to change because the new model is fundamentally superior and is driven through inspiration to something greater. This is a story consistent with the advancement of the human condition, told time and time again. As the founder of Oracle has said, and many other re engineering minds have reiterated, “be prepared for EVERYONE to tell you that you are nuts.” The real question is whether Malinowski should give in to the pounding and put down the gifts that are given to him to call the dogs of war off? Or... should those really accountable for the facade be brought to task? The same question remains, if Malinowski committed these accused frauds why does just under a hundred charges turn out one guilty plea and why does over 3 million in construction fraud turn in to a tenth or worse a percent? Who is really creating the illusion?

[edit] You are welcome

If your message on my Talk Page was a thank you for my vote, you are welcome. I am sorry but I do not really get what you meant. But anyway, best of luck with the rest of the elections. Batmanand 08:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ArbCom - Nandesuka

Out of curiosity, and please do not feel it is rude not to answer, why did you oppose Nandesuka's ArbCom candidacy? --- Charles Stewart 08:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

A series of intentional personal attacks for which he has expressed neither acknowledgement nor remorse [3]. --08:32, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, having looked at his candidacy statement, there's no way I could have supported him. He entered late, skipping any chance for most people to question him, and fielded a couple of tame questions that revealed that he was running on a populist ticket, based on the extraordinary conclusion that arbcom showed timidity in rejecting the "wheel war" case. This would be the one where two of the three arbitrators who had rejected were Fred Bauder and JamesF, both up for re-election and with plenty to lose from making a decision that fails to play to the populists. What, are they supposed to be afraid of little old me? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've asked him what value he thinks hearing the case would serve. --- Charles Stewart 09:52, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Did he respond yet? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Withdrawal

You got a lot of support. Keep up the good work even if it won't be within the committee! :) - Haukur 08:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:32, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a Wikipedia insider and am a sporadic editor so I may be missing something here. You seem like a very strong candidate. Perhaps there are more "Wikipolitics" than an occasional dabbling editor can see. I echo the keep up the good work sentiment. Crunch 13:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Well, least I got a chance to chime in

Sorry to see you withdraw. For the record, there is substantial opposition to a number of candidates and Jimbo may change his mind again anyway.--MONGO 08:51, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

From what I can see, at present we've got some pretty good candidates in the top 10 or so of the running, and these all have thumping great endorsement votes. There are one or two unsuitable candidates in the second ten, particularly among late entries who have leapt on some bandwagon or other. I don't see any reason why Jimbo would want to change his mind, and I don't see any pressing reason to veto any of the top 8 at present, who are (subject to settling):

1. Mindspillage
2. SimonP
3. Filiocht
4. Charles Matthews
5. Dmcdevit
6. Morven
7. James F.
8. Fred Bauder

I opposed one of these, Morven, because of a weak candidate statement but on reading his answers to questions I've decided to switch to support. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony, how did you calculate that these are the top eight so far? Morven, for example, has only 37 supports and JamesF, 69. There are others with more, I believe, as well as more supports than opposes. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 11:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

The calculation is done on percentages of those voting who voted support. So on this calculation, even though mindspillage at one point had 130 support votes to 65 for SimonP, SimonP had the edge because as a proportion of total votes case for or against him, he had the higher percentage.

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/arbcom?

It's also complicated somewhat by the fact that the software doing the calculation is fallible and subject to lag. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Tony. Interesting. I hope the candidates won't be picked that way, though, because it would seem odd to prioritize someone with 36 votes over someone with 125 just because they had fewer people opposing percentage-wise. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:18, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the method is, but I have to admit that I assumed that the method I described would be used. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to see you withdraw myself, even if I did oppose :) - I thought you could "win it" as they say, and I do admire some of the work you do here like afds and catching invalid speedies. I do agree that those are good candidates too, although I opposed half of them and supported Fred and Dmcdevit whom I hope make it in.WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 10:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to say your withdrawal is gracious and does you credit. I abstained on your nom - because although you have the patience of a saint with newbies and problem users (barnstar pending), OTOH you don't cope well with editors with whom you disagree with on policy issues. Tony you are a maverick, and we need mavericks (even if they can be a pain in the ass), but IMO the judicial bench isn't the best place for them. Keep up your good work. You are my benchmark - every time I go to speedy, I think ‘would Tony quibble this’ and, ‘if in doubt, I don’t delete’. --Doc ^ask? 11:16, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tony. I would like to say that I opposed your Arbcom candidacy because I disagree with you on the scope of IAR. With regards to Wikipedia in general, I think you are a good person to have on board. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, the voting started shaping up amazingly fast. I'd planned few votes, but I'm sorry I didn't get there in time to add my support. Demi ^T/_C 18:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well it would have been welcome. I don't mind sitting it out, though. I think it unlikely that my overall vote would have shifted more than three or four percentage points from where it was when I quit. On the talk page I've indicated that I'm prepared to do arbitration duty if required and as I'm probably one of the better qualified candidates this could conceivably come to pass, but this doesn't require me to sit around biting my fingernails for two weeks over it. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:19, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm very sorry I didn't get to record my support before you withdrew. I selfishly hope that next time, you will consider the value of letting the process play out so I may comment on your finer qualities. Unfocused 20:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I really appreciate it. But if I hadn't withdrawn some time back I would not be the calm, cool collected, fun-loving individual I am right now. Despite some pretty tense dealings (everybody seems to be pretty spooked at the moment) I'm relaxed and happy. Now wouldn't you rather have me like that than hunched over the keyboard, my fingernails ruined, my listless eyes anxiously scanning the same page over and over? Nah, I hit the level pretty early and there was no point in continuing. I'm mentally adding all these votes to my tally but of course not many people are dropping by to say "you suck, I wish you had kept your nomination open so I could have voted against you." And believe me, such people exist. I've seen quite a few "Strongest Possible Oppose" votes and the like. ;) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:09, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony, there may be a possible bug...sometimes your talk link is blue lined and others it is black, provding no link to your talk page...kind of on a different line of discussion...maybe it's my system?--MONGO 21:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your request

I've responded you your request on my talk page for examples by providing three. Please do respond there, as I am not watching this page. - brenneman^(t)(c) 19:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

For deleting {{user against scientology}}.--Sean|Black 22:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

As a user who is vehemently against Scientology, I agree with you that this userbox has no place on Wikipedia. --Stormie 22:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I hope it'll stick. In the current climate it's a calculated risk, but I think it had to be done for the sake of the encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Holy crap

Look at this. "Deserve diparegment'"? Jesus.--Sean|Black 01:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Apologist's destruction

Hey Tony Sidaway, I was curious, there are certain people on certain articles who add absolutly nothing to the articles, instead they "nit-pick" the articles, deleting certain portions until there is a skeleton of the former article. I have no respect for these people who choose to destroy to get their own narrow POV across instead of create. Arbitration, as we have seen with WSI is a joke, is there any other option that you know of?

In addition, have you ever tried to find out if someone is a sock puppet before? Is it a difficult task, will they check any name you give them, or do you have to offer some proof?Travb 01:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Given the Foundation privacy policies, you would need to have a good reason for suspicion. Rob Church ^Talk 01:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Rob for your response. Travb 21:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ArbCom

Sad to note your withdrawal. Great loss to ArbCom. Token vote after-the-fact below.

Support

1. Rob Church ^Talk 01:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
2. SchmuckyTheCat 11:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC) same here.
3. Travb 21:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC) Wow, I am disappointed, please take it back...

Regards. Rob Church ^Talk 01:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] your vote on my arbcom nomination

Hi Tony, I saw you voted oppose but didn't give a reason. I respect your right to vote the way you feel is right but I just wanted to let you know that due to the concern by many editors that I did not clearly define my positions I have expanded on my replies to questions already given as well as adding more info into my candidacy statement and answered some new questions. I would be grateful if you could re-read my questions page. If you have any additional questions or inquiries please add them to that page or ask me on my talk page and I will answer them as soon as I possibly can. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 02:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I felt that, although you're one of our best people, you didn't have the right temperament for the arbitration committee. I'm sorry I can't pin it down closer than that. If it's any consolation, many opposers of my application said the same about me, and I have no reason to doubt that their assessments were made in good faith. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] user against scientology

Are you aware that there is a current tfd to delete this template? Why did you delete this before the tfd was concluded?--God of War 05:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was aware that it was languishing on that discussion page rather than being deleted. I deleted it because attack templates have no place on Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought this was WIKI-pedia where such decisions are based on consensus. I haven't carefully counted the Keeps and Deletes but I can see that there isn't anywhere near a consensus that completely supports your interpertation of the situation.--God of War 06:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Consensus isn't a matter of counting votes. There is a consensus on Wikipedia that attacks are not permitted. The template could have, and in my opinion should have, been deleted when the user against jews template was deleted. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• If you are so sure in your belief that the consensus is against NPA for this box, you should not have to worry that the debate at the tfd would produce any other consensus than the one you want it to. Ergo, you would wait until the tfd has been properly closed because admins like pacify confrontations and deleting this out of process would have the opposite effect.--God of War 06:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't follow. A straw poll is an imperfect and is subject to errors introduced by, for instance, unconscious sampling bias, conscious vote packing, inapproprate framing and so on. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and does not facilitate attacks on religions; using user space or template space to do so is an inappropriate use of both. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tony, good call on this one. I thought about speedying it myself, and I should have. As you've no doubt noticed, I often disagree with you on whether to just do what's right or wait for the process to do it; I don't think that's going to change anytime soon, but I've come around to your way of thinking more and more lately as I've watched the process at work. -- SCZenz 06:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This is another example of foolishness. Speedy deletion is not meant to be used to edit opinions from user pages. There is no personal attack here. Speedy Deletion is not a Toy. --Dschor 12:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you appreciate that I never delete material lightly, and that the items I deleted were not on user pages but in template space. If editors are merely concerned that deletion of templates may mess up the layout of the user pages, it's easy enough to replace each instance of {{template}} with {{subst:template}}, which dumps a copy of the wiki code from the template into the user page, and also has the benefit of reducing the quite appreciable load on the servers from expanding all those userbox templates each time a user page is displayed. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This would work wonderfully if you would nominate the templates for deletion. This would give users the opportunity to subst: before the template is deleted. That would be the civil way to remove the templates. Try it, you might be surprised how well it works. --Dschor 11:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An apology

It occurs to me, rather belatedly, that my comment tonight on WP:DRV might be seen as insulting to you. It certainly was not meant as such, and if you saw it that way, I apologize unreservedly. You'll note that, despite being an outspoken proponent of process - process gives the community confidence that administrators are serving consensus, not their own whims - I haven't opposed your deletion. (I'd endorse it if I wasn't doing my utmost to avoid even the appearance of further participation in the Great Userbox Drama.) —Cryptic (talk) 08:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I know we're at opposite ends of the spectrum on one or two issues here, but I found nothing objectionable about your comment. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Apology

I did want to apologize about the things I said about you a while back (I don't know if you even remember, if you don't it is probably better that way :) - one diff ) - I am sorry and it was out of line. It had nothing to do with any of your actions, rather it was a huge personality conflict, which doesn't excuse it at all. I agree with you that I am somewhat poor with people sometimes and probably not interesting at all :). WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 09:39, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I was vaguely aware that we'd met and I'd subsequently opposed your application to the MC. I didn't get offended by the attempt to resolve the situation on IRC, but I was impatient over that because the approach came late on a Friday night. I felt that we were both being cajoled into discussion by a well meaning third party, and I avoided cooperation so as to avoid making things worse by a brusque conversation. I'm sorry if my rejection offended you. Thanks for being so understanding. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] C6 on templates

{{user Anti-UN}} {{user Anti-ACLU}} {{user GWB}} {{user Fear Bush}} {{user illegal-immigration-0}} {{user No EU}} {{user War on drugs}} {{user No Marxism}} {{user Antipope}} The discussion on the deletion of userbox templates perhaps needs to be taken somewhere central. I've had a bit of stick for deleted or TfDing one or two - and the 'policy on userboxes' seems to me like a stitch up of the project folk. But what would you do with the above ant- templates? --Doc ^ask? 10:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The opposition to illegal immigration is an attack on a concept, process or activity. The No Marxism one is an attack on a political ideology or school of philosophy. The Antipope one simply asserts the primacy of one's claim to the shoes of the fisherman and and I don't take it seriously. The others are all attacks on organisations and (in the case of GWB) people. I speedied them and I'll take them to DRV. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:26, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey, for once I love your IAR (indeed I'm envious I wasn't bolder).. although perhaps this isn't IAR - we are testing new rules for new situations. --Doc ^ask? 11:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

When the bureaucracy stalls because votes are being stuffed, then I come into my own. :) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:56, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

You are abusing your administrative tools. None of these templates falls under the criteria you have cited for speedy deletion. Yes, you may have come into your own, but I don't think this is an occasion for pride. You are acting in haste, without justification. Templates intended for use in the user space do not need to adhere to NPOV, and none of these templates violate NPA. Are you feeling bold since withdrawing your ArbCom nomination?? --Dschor 12:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I was also bold while the nomination was live and for the months leading up to it after I announced my candidacy. I take issue with your opinion that I'm abusing my administrator tools. I've deleted fourteen templates and one redirect today, and took every single one to WP:DRV. There is substantial consensus that it is appropriate to delete this kind of template as an attack.

It may be that you think that an administrator mustn't ever do anything that you, or a substantial number of other editors, disagree with. This is not a true reflection of the facts. For instance, one administrator duty is the enforcement of the copyright policy, which is very unpopular with users because it involves removing copyright infringements from user space and in general people like to put up pretty pictures to which they do not own the copyright. It may be that you think that an administrator must never delete anything without discussing it first. Again this is wrong. Many thousands of such deletions are made without discussion during an average week.

It will take longer to get agreement on how and when such templates can be used, but a consensus will be reached. I don't think the kind of jokey or informative templates that you favor are in any danger, as long as they don't infringe the copyright laws, but some of the more inflammatory and divisive ones that are around will probably have to be deleted. The attack templates are being deleted first because there is a very strong consensus that attacks have no place on Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It would be the choice of a wise admin not to act unilaterally to delete when there is a less contentious option. The templates that you speedied were not personal attacks, and none were violating copyright. You have proven conclusively that you are not the sole judge of what constitutes an attack. It would be appreciated if you would act civil, and allow users to contest deletion before the fact, rather than burying these deletions as speedies. Just a thought. --Dschor 11:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User GWB

I have speedy undeleted {{User GWB}} as the ongoing TFD shows a strong consensus for keeping this template. Dragons flight 14:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted again. It's a personal attack and it advocates Wikipedia vandalism. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This may have been better resolved through editing. I read it as "This user can't stand George W. Bush['s article on Wikipedia] and wishes [the vandals would leave it alone so] they did not have to revert vandalism there", though I'm not sure how to express the idea better while staying pithy. The category, and the link to it, are problematic, too. —Cryptic (talk) 17:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, it still looks like an incitement to vandalism. You know, mentioning on lots of user pages the fact that a certain article is vandalised a lot. Might as well paint a big bulls eye. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• I take it you're going to delete these as well, right?--MoVe! 17:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I might do, but not as attack pages. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:33, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Attack speedies

(copied from User talk:DESiegel) I appreciate, and am taking into consideration, your opinions on some of the speedies. I think you have a good point on, say war on drugs and may change my opinion on this in due course. Meanwhile I'm seeing a strong consensus forming here on attack speedies and would like it to be as wide as possible, so perhaps we can discuss our differences on detail. Your talk page or mine. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:07, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that many of the user boxes you deleted are not reasoanbly described as "attack pages" The ones dealign with teh EU might be called attacks on the EU, but I don't think that is the kind of target that needs protection from "attack". Personal attacks on individuals, sure. Atacks on ethnic or religious groups have a long history of causing rancor and trouble. Expressions of disapproval of political or quasi-political organizations (such as the ACLU, of which I am a member, by the way) I do no think should be deleted at this tiem. Indeed at this particualr time, pendign the clear acceptance of a policy on userboxes in general, I am opposed to delting any userbox except those that are most obviously personal, religious, or ethnic attacks. In particular {{User GWB}} 1)has a large keep consensus on TfD, and 2) seems to me far more an attack on vandals and vandalism than on george Bush -- it makes the point tha the GWB articel is a vandfal target, which is surely true, and that even editors who dislike Bish can and will cleanup such vandalism.

I won't get into a whell war on this -- i won't re-restore any that get deelted again. I do think on this one you would be well advised to apply the WP:CSD narrowly and strictly, considering the contraversy this has stirred up. My general views on this are now at Wikipedia:Process is Important. DES ^(talk) 17:17, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Rather than delete Bad EU, I've edited to remove some of the more inflammatory wording. I don't see how anyone could see the GWB template as in any way an attack on vandals--it's clearly not only an attack on George Bush, it's also a sly incitement to vandalism and even gives a link to the article in question. I see no indication that the template shows anything but reluctance to countenance the idea that the article should not be vandalized. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Obviously you read it differently than I do. I read it as a wry acknowledgement that a user is willing to "edit for the enemeny" by cleaning up vandalism on a page about a person s/he dislikes, but wishes this were not needed. See also my comments on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. DES ^(talk) 17:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I do wish you had not re-delted that template, but i am not going to get into a wheel war by re-undeleting. I have, however, raised the matter at [[WP:ANI#Out of process deletion of {{User GWB}}]]. DES ^(talk) 17:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I wouldn't have deleted it if I didn't judge that it needed to be deleted and there was substantial support for doing so as an attack. I do appreciate your different opinion and the strong keep vote in the straw poll on tfd, but the fact that it's an attack outweighs this. The judgement that it's likely to increase vandalism on the article also plays a part. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You make a very good point

Things like Template:User GWB are just asking for trouble, so what if the vote was falling in favor of keep, that whole voting thing is just asking for trouble anyway, I suggest you speedy delete this page, I mean it's obviously just asking for trouble, while you're at it, you should probably do something about this one, in fact, you don't need any more competition, you should probably speedy this one as well, for the good of the wiki --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.188.116.132 (talk • contribs) 17:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I just don't see why we should keep something in the main wiki-template space that has nothing to do with writing an encyclopedia, does not identify wikipedians in a manner helpful to editing, and might cause problems. Problems and discord are unavoidable - and let's not prevent them, where the process helps the project. If folk want to do POV boxes, fine, bu then let them confine it to their userspaces. --Doc ^ask? 17:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I derive a wry amusement from anon's sarcastic suggestion that I delete WP:AFD. Presumably he is not aware that an administrator did exactly that just over four months ago. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Doc's rationale; why make templates of potentially disruptive userpages when you can simply use the javascript to create them independently in your own namespace..? Works for me.. -MegamanZero|Talk 18:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:User GWB

Someone has recreated this troll template again please redelete, protect, and ban, all in that order--Nn-user 20:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• and delete this nonsesne too, thnx--Nn-user 20:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

While I agree this is borderline in our new formulating policy I think it might make sense just to reword it a bit, such as

would this be a speedy in your view? WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 20:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It looked like substantially the same wording. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:32, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I see you deleted this yet again. That makes four deletions by you of this template. I belive that re-deletion counts as a reversion under WP:3RR. Please don't delete/undelete war on this. DES ^(talk) 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree on this. A deletion isn't a revert by any stretch of the imagination.

We've now got a version of the template that is neither an attack nor an incitement, but says in plain words what the advocates have been saying all along--that the user abhors vandalism of the George W. Bush article. Unlike the earlier versions, it is not an attack. Unlike the earlier versions, it does not contain links to the vandalised article (which incidentally is one of the most heavily vandalized articles on Wikipedia). I'm happy with it and I hope everyone else involves is too. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No EU template

What the hell man ? Who gives you the right to say which political views are deemed "right" and "wrong" ? Saying NO to the EU is a fair and unharmful poltical stance and I dont see what the big problem is ! Why did u delete that template from my page ????? Epf 20:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I haven't ever edited your page. If you put references to items in template space on your page and those items are then deleted, then the appearance of your page will change. If you use subst for templates then the page will not be affected by such deletions. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aw man, why'd you withdraw?

I was bummed out to see you withdrew before I got a chance to vote for you! The voting just started too... no chance of unwithdrawing is there?

Sorry, no. There are many other things that need to be done. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I second the disappointment. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh stop moaning, both of you. Go off and vote for Kelly. :) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

She's dropped out too! What is this world coming too.. Halidecyphon 23:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 3RR

(ugly table removed)

You have been blocked from editing Wikipedia for 24 hours for violating the three revert rule by deleting Template:User GWB more than three times within the same 24 hour period (mucho boilerplate removed) Izehar 23:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC

I was blocked twice, actually. And unblocked too. <shrug>.

• Mr. Sidaway, is this true..? Have you really bee blocked..? -MegamanZero|Talk 23:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Not the first time, my dear. You can't bake a cake without smashing some eggs. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The page protection was to stop this new user messing with the TfD tags (check the revision history). Anyhow, maybe I was too involved - I assumed that as I never deleted, nor restored the article, I wasn't involved in that revert war. As for Radiant's alterations to the policy, they will have to be clarified with a consensus poll. If I was wrong, I apologise. Izehar 00:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Cheers. No problems, and I'm sorry if I misread your protection. I do acknowledge that my deletions were excessive, but these are extraordinary circumstances and, although the template clearly isn't vandalism, its status on Wikipedia is in my view barely above vandalism. I did go to quite some lengths today to establish a wide consensus to delete this and the majority of some 14 other templates. No problems, anyhow, as you could not have been expected to be aware of this. We're both on the same side and we're both trying to do the best for the encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

If you want my opinion, no userboxes should not be templates. They should exist on the user's userpage (like mine). I'm sure we're all flustered after this, but people have been putting ridiculous things in them; I have to agree with Kelly Martin on that. Anyway, as long as there are no bitter feelings - they just make Wikipedia an unpleasent place. Cheers. Izehar 00:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No hassle at all. I'm proud to be on the same team. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:57, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ArbCom

I regret your ArbCom cnadidacy was withdrawn; I would have liked to support it. Septentrionalis 23:39, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh believe me you're better off this way. We're going to have a brilliant arbcom team if the first few days' voting is anything to go by, and in addition to that we'll have Snowspinner, Tony Sidaway, Kelly Martin, David Gerard and many other good people out in the wild, making sure that policy works. Arbitrators are too fucking busy to do much of that. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please refrain from making "point of view" edits to my user page

It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that you are being a dick. Stop vandalizing my user page at once. Opposition to ArbCom candidates is not a personal attack. --Dschor 23:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I made no "point of view" edit to your user page. I did, on the other hand, remove an allegation of Cabal membership from it. And I told you as much on the talk page. Your claim that I vandalized your page is false. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

You made a POV edit to my user page against my express wishes, and removed my personal opinion from my user space. No allegation of Cabal membership was involved. You know better, and I expect that you will learn to be WP:CIVIL before editing my page again. --Dschor

I'm being perfectly civil. You did in your exhortation to vote against Kelly Martin add "Beware of the Cabal" and I've no reason to believe that you intended it as anything other than an allegation of secret collusion against the interests of Wikipedia. I told you about this on your own talk page. I also removed a warning from your user page in which you claimed that you had the right to treat edits made to it without your permission as vandalism, because frankly you don't.

Now if it's a web host you're after, I can recommend schtuff.com, which provides up to three different spaces with each of its free accounts. You can add pages using a wiki syntax very similar to that used here, the pages can also be organised as blog entries, and there is provision for pictures. You can decide, on a page-by-page basis or by the use of categories, whether to let others edit, or to allow only invited friends to edit, or to leave the pages closed to editing by anyone except yourself. You can also, if you wish, make pages visible only to yourself and invited friends. Although of course I wish that you would not engage in personal attacks on your fellow editors, you may do so to your heart's content--off wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Editing a user page against the wishes of the user to the detriment of the page is not civil. I state "Beware the cabal" as a general notice that some admins "love" the cabal, and one should be aware of this. I do have the right to presume vandalism if the edit is vandalism. Your edit was vandalism. I have plenty of web space outside wikipedia, but I have the same right to a user page that every other wikipedian has. You would be wise to leave my page alone unless you have something productive to add. --Dschor 12:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you quite understand the deal with user pages. You don't have a right to a user page. If you use it to attack people, as you did, you may find the attacks removed. If you falsely claim that certain kinds of edit are vandalism, then that false claim will be removed. I don't think you're in a position to lecture anyone about civility when you have such attacks and threats on your user page. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Commentary on Templates

Tony, I find your methods on this issue to be disgusting. You claim that there is a strong consensus supporting your deletion of "attack" templates. If that's true you should have no problem writing up a policy that most everyone can agree on defining what attack templates are and when they should be speedied. Instead of prosposing such a policy and submitting it to the community at large for approval, you just decided to start enforcing your view of how things should be done. When I undeleted {{User GWB}} I had assumed it was deleted because you didn't appreciate the wealth of feelings for keeping it, and instead I find that you just didn't care. Your reasons for deleting it do have merit, but they are still just your reasons until you take the time to build and document a consensus supporting them.

I am not above believing that a larger consensus could be formed which would include deleting User GWB and things like it. I have myself contravened the result of "votes" when it went against established Wikipedia policy, but never would I have dreamt of doing so without having very strong ground to stand on. In this case you just don't have that. What you have is a CSD that doesn't technically apply to templates (though perhaps in some form it should) and NPA which historically has only applied to other editors and certainly has never applied to organization like the EU. Rather than fixing the limitations with policy, you decided to act unilaterally in a way you certainly should have known would be disputed (and if you didn't know, you certainly didn't need to delete User GWB five times to find out). The wheel war you have provoked is one of the most absurd things I can recall in recent memory and you must realize that it reflects a profound failure to convince even other admins that your actions are justified and appropriate. Could you please stop messing with templates and take the time to lay before the community a clear policy proposal rather than abusing the policies we do have to try and justify actions that quite clearly are not uniformly accepted as appropriate. Dragons flight 00:39, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

If you're looking for my policy drafting, please go to the talk page of WP:CSD where you will find that there is an embryonic policy already waiting.

Policy isn't what is written down, it's what works. We're looking for what works. We don't find that by sitting around all day waiting for an idea, we actually have to test things out. That's where I come in. Think of me as a crash test dummy if it helps. It doesn't hurt, I assure you, and the speedies are all reversible. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No, policy is what we agree makes sense. We have yet to agree. You are like a cop who one day decided the law is not a sufficient deterent so he'll take matters into his own hands. It is not okay for you to be "testing out" undiscussed policy changes. That way leads to anarchy and disruption on a grand scale. You have been disrupting Wikipedia to advance your point, rather than actually trying to present and argue your point. You say that taking unilateral action "doesn't hurt" simply because it is all reversible, but I must strongly disagree. Would you say that if I blocked people I didn't like "it doesn't hurt" because someone else can reverse it? How about if I delete your user page? That's reversible too. These things foster animosity within the community and make us look as if we don't even adhere to our own agreed upon standards of behavior. Dragons flight 12:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Well now policy seems to be that extreme attacks get speedied and medium ones are fixed to not be attacks, and mild attacks are tolerated. On blocks, I don't claim (nor does anyone on Wikipedia that I know) that blocks are reversible. But I'm not blocking anyone. Please feel free to delete my user page, I honestly cannot imagine getting at all worked up about it. It's only some stuff to say roughly who I am. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This logic somewhat breaks down when you revert resoration of the "speedies" (which is to imply they were somehow speediable), and moreso still when you do it more than three times, no? Given how conscientiously you began your admining career -- or at least gave that appearance, unless my memory is just playing tricks -- I find your current deletion-spree, and what's worse, the IMO weak rationalisations of it, personally very disappointing. Remember halycon days of the admin log? Alai 05:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

thing

I'm not aware of any loss of conscientiousness. I assure you that if you check the relevant discussion forums you will find on my part a continuous process of consultation and refinement of an ongoing strategy for dealing with a novel problem in several relevant forums, and a considerable consensus to delete building up all yesterday. Just check my edit log. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] π ⇒ 3

I don't know how close that was to WP:POINT, but it was a great observation nonetheless.  :) --Interiot 01:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, editing a template that is only intended to be displayed on user pages, and advocates lawbreaking, to say something that is inoffensive and not illegal, isn't disruption. I hope my point was seen by many and made them alll laugh as much as I did. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Template:User allow fairuse

Please stop. If you continue to vandalize pages, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. karmafist 04:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Please be assured that I never, ever vandalize Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your comment on my talk page

Perhaps you can explain how it's illegal then (nobody on your side has yet, other than slinging baseless WP:NLTs), in particular citing legal precedent and/or parts of US Code(most of the servers are in the US) justifying your reasoning. karmafist 04:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not in the US. When I, living in London. look at a Wikipedia user page containing a copyright infringement, WikiMedia becomes liable for a tort under UK law. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tony!

(Various bits of silliness removed) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:01, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tony, you don't know me... Sorry for butting in...I was just looking at your cool tool. Wow it's amazing. I'm scanning all the great work you do here -- very much more than I could ever do, and believe me I appreciate it. Anyway, I had a thought: I bet when you develop software you apply a lot of strict problem-definition and analysis and testing and stuff. You know,like if I change this object what effect will it have on overall performance, that sort of thing. I was thinking of that because (IMO) you have to apply the same kind of rigor to systems that involve people... I was wondering what you thought of that idea, is all... Cheers, Herostratus 08:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. If it helps, think of the technique I've adopted here as an extreme programming strategy with lots of quick iterations and plenty of unit tests. Analysis emerges from interaction with the developing product. Basically I throw a lot of pretty obvious speedies into DRV and see which ones take (most of them). Several iterations later we have substantial agreement on an approach. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I too am pro-agile, and have thought about applying XP to Wikipedia (I even rambled about this concept a while back at User:Friday/XW). However I don't see that this is what you're doing. Feedback and respect are two key values in XP. Wheel warring indicates you're disregarding feedback, and your tendency to dismiss criticism as "ridiculous" shows a lack of respect for other editors. I'm a supporter of being bold and IAR, but I think that the bolder one is, the more sensitive to feedback one must be. I think your unit test light is turning red more often than you realize. Friday (talk) 16:25, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

You could be right, but I'm seeing some useful responses here, and the feedback has been incredibly civil. I've seen theoretical suggestions that what happened yesterday may have been damaging, but no evidence to suggest that it has been.

Now for some reason somebody thought up this software development analogy, but I don't think people are programmable in the same way, so it's incomplete. A lot of people have very strong opinions on this subject, but what makes the project work is our ability to arrive at agreements such as the one we have today. Of about 15 attack templates of various hues, only 3 or 4, the milder, jokier ones still stand as they originally stood yesterday. About 8 have been recreated without any significant attack. The two worst don't exist at all any more. Wikipedia has moved forward and we're all reasonably clear in our minds about what a good user template looks like, how to fix a bad one, and when a template is irretrievably bad. I've no doubt that this process will be repeated in the future, minus the wheel warring, many times, and eventually there may be a speedy criterion if we can pin down what it is that makes an attack particularly bad. That's how Wikipedia works. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Um. A couple comments?
  • Hunh, never heard of XP. Is it recommended to be used on a mission critical app running on a machine which must be live 24/7 and is exremely complex? 'Cause, I don't know actually, maybe in that case they still use the old (and annoyingly slow, I'm sure) way of testing changes by module on an off-line machine first? (You see the analogy I'm making.)
  • It's readily apparent that you are very smart, and I bet you already know that. I bet you're an ace programmer and probably very good at very many other important things. But nobody is good at everything. There's no shame in that, at all. Hell you should see the things I suck at. So... leaving aside any personal egos and just considering it as an abstract case... Is it possible, just possible, that someone who can make the statement "I don't think people are programmable in the same way [as computers]" might not be the very best person to be poking around in the social and organizational machinery?
  • I dispute -- not deny, but certainly dispute -- your statement that your approach has been successful overall. Unintended consequences multiply with system complexity and can be hard to spot early. I've seen at least one valuable editor basically resign over the Kelly Martin thing. I'd be surprised if there haven't been several more I didn't see. Have you quantified that into your calculations. Here's the thing: I don't know what effects all this is going to have. Neither do you. I know that I don't know it. Do you?
  • If -- I'm just saying IF -- you should come to the conclusion that maybe you were a tad hasty, I would be the first to congratulate you on admitting it, I know that's hard to do and that Old Man Ego can be a real bear sometimes!

Respectfully, Herostratus 18:36, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, you're being a little unfair here. When I say that I don't think humans are programmable in the same way as computers I mean just that--that one cannot use programming methodologies on real life, complex situations, and it would be stupid to try. Humans have feelings. However Wikipedia provides us with a basic toolkit for getting along. It cannot cover every eventuality and it doesn't pretend to. Now I suppose you're suggesting that in doing what I did rather than just sitting around talking about what to do, I took a risk. Yes, but even in just sitting around talking there is a risk. The system is complex and behavior is neither predictable nor reproducible. But as an editor of Wikipedia I am not expected to just sit around and hope things work out. I'm supposed to find a solution to the problems that I perceive, and for urgent problems I tend to choose urgent solutions.

If I misstepped and just pissed people off for no good reason, then I'd end up having to scale back and stop taking what would be unjustified risks. But as it happens I don't encounter problems because the guidelines and policies allow me to fail gracefully and I confine my more controversial actions to short bursts after which I take stock (as we're doing now).

On people leaving over the userbox affair: honestly this strikes me as a very oversensitive action. We shouldn't seek to chase people off but if there are people who are unduly affected by quite normal Wikipedia events such as deletions of unwanted material then its inevitable that we will have unexpected departures, just as some editors leave over the presence of pictures of human genitalia in some articles on anatomy and the arts. The process of producing an encyclopedia can be stressful and those who aren't capable of taking this in their stride should perhaps find a gentler community which is not dedicated to an overriding purpose.

And it is this, finally that I want to talk about. The Wikipedia community is not an end in itself. We don't have an automatic right to put whatever we like on our user pages, and we don't have a right to go around doing stuff that isn't, ultimately, useful to the encyclopedia. Quite a few newer editors, and perhaps a few more experienced ones, perhaps think that the community is an end in itself and that userboxes are a free speech issue. They have to learn that these assumptions are false, but meanwile the task of building the encyclopedia goes on.

Yesterday I deleted some attack userboxes, took the deletions to DRV, and got a good consensus. The damage was limited because only a few templates were affected, and by-and-large the revolt has lost momentum and the attempt at vote-packing of the earlier period were detected early and neutralised. Most users don't even know that it happened. I learned from Kelly's mistakes by being proactive in seeking, and obtaining confirmation for my actions. If someone took this to arbitration request I would expect to be praised for my exemplary handling of this affair. I made mistakes but recovered from them well and took successful steps to limit the damage. And now we have a strategy for handling the worst of the attack templates. Of course I don't know whether this could have been handled better another way. There are no dry runs and no second chances. I can only do my best. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Your actions in speedy deleting a number of userboxes were not massively opposed for one simple reason - "Most users don't even know that it happened". You don't seem to have learned a whole lot from Kelly's mistakes, other than to delete userboxes in small batches, and to do so with speedy deletion so that there is no opportunity for debate. I would expect that a reasonable solution would be to post templates to TfD, rather than speedy them based on your POV. Perhaps I am too sensible. --Dschor 23:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not generally interested in deleting userboxes, only in minimising the damage that some of them do to the community. The attack userboxes have proven pretty easy to neutralize. You claim that there's no opportunity for debate over speedies, but I've gone to great lengths to facilitate such debate. See my gallery of templates that I deleted, showing the state they were in when I deleted them, which is linked from the debate on WP:DRV. There is no question in my mind that the start of a good consensus has been reached on WP:DRV precisely because there was no repetition of the vote packing that occurred earlier. The problem there was that most of the people who turned up to vote were those who, having taken the trouble to put extreme political views, copyright infringements and the like, onto their user pages, could not possibly represent the consensus of Wikipedia editors, but rather overweighed the debate with unrealistic aspirations about enabling copyright infringement and divisive political extremism on Wikipedia.

You keep using this term "POV". What do you think it means? Do you seriously think that I'm deleting templates that do not conform to my own political sensibilities? Not so. I'd just like to keep Wikipedia reasonably free of attacks, factionalism, backbiting and the like. That means that we have to establish that some pretty obvious forms of attack can be deleted. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

This is by far your best attempt so far at justifying your actions. - Haukur 00:50, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Apparently Tony Sidaway is personally responsible for establishing what constitutes an attack, regardless of the sentiments of other editors? You deleted the GWB boxes, which clearly involved no attack whatsoever. Moreover, you speedied the templates, without justification. How do these templates constitute an "obvious form of attack"? I think your best attempt still falls far short of supporting your actions. --Dschor 12:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Well there is quite a lot of agreement that the GWB template, in its original form, was intended to attack George W. Bush. The templates were not "speedied without justification". I deleted fifteen templates and one redirect, and took every single one to deletion review, where they were strongly endorsed. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:01, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• Well, thank you for talking the time to reply so thoroughly. Probably, it would be better in future if you explain what you are doing beforehand, I guess. As for the rest... I do take some of your points, but generally I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Anyway, thanks for all your amazing work on the software side and stuff, it really is appreciated, take care. Herostratus 06:07, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You know what topic :)

Tony, when you delete first and ask questions later you're taking non-admins out of the loop. Only admins can see deleted material and so only admins can comment intelligently on whether it should be kept deleted. This is, in my opinion, not a good thing. - Haukur 08:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point. I'll do temp undeletes and produce a gallery. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd still prefer slow deletes but at least that's something. Thank you :) - Haukur 09:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Here they are. I also put this link on WP:DRV.

• User:Tony Sidaway/Attack speedies, 2006-01-10

Well the intention was to test speedies of attack templates, not to sit around discussing whether to remove attacks which in my opinion don't belong on Wikipedia in the first place. :)

Many of the templates have been restored in some form or other, but for the purpose of this exercise I've gone for the version of each template that I actually speedied. In some cases the attacks have been substantially weakened in the current version of the template,and in the case of User GWB the current version is one I produced myself which does not disparage Bush nor incite vandalism, but expresses opposition to the vandalism of that article in straightforward, unambiguous language (and it looks like it may be stable). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:59, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox deletion

Tony,

Your recent actions regarding the deletion of userboxes is troubling. As someone else has stated, speedying is not something to be taken lightly, especially when not taken in the context of a prior discussion and consensus. I'm most notably talking about the Bush, EU and Scientology templates. Whether they constitute personal attacks is subjective. I personally believe they don't, but I respect that others do.

That is what the ongoing TfDs were there to decide, and none had been decided before you ended up speedying them. In fact, at last count, the User_GWB template faced a clear majority to keep and there was no chance for a discussion beforehand on the EU template. The Scientology template was still a controversial subject, which is usually criteria for keeping in the meantime until a better consensus can be found.

This use of admin powers in Wikipedia is causing some major arguments and these kinds of actions risk turning Wikipedia into an anarchy. It may also be worth you bearing in mind that these people who "waste Wikipedia's resources" on these userboxes are, for the most part, the same people that contribute to make it what it is. Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 12:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The scientology box isn't coming back. It should have been speedied when the anti-Jewish box was speedied.

This is a new policy area and, since there is already a strong consensus on Wikipedia that articles that exist solely to disparage their subject can be speedied, it's reasonable to ask why templates should be treated any differently. My actions in deleting the templates mentioned have generate a broad degree support as well as a small amount of criticism. I take both seriously. In my opinion attacks of any kind blacken the reputation of Wikipedia from within, cheapening public perception of the finished product, and unnecessarily dividing the community into factions. Speedy deletion of candidates is a good way of testing the degree of support. For most kinds of attack article that I identified, support for speedy deletion seems to be very high indeed. And why should that be so surprising? Attacks have no place on Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I see what you mean, but the problem is that there was a great deal of disagreement on whether these templates constituted attacks. Let's take the GWB template as an example. Some saw it as an attack, some didn't. Then someone changed the wording very slightly and a lot of people changed their minds. I personally wouldn't mind one that simply says "This user doesn't support George W. Bush", but still people don't want to have any criticism of politicians, religions, government on user pages. It's a contentious issue and one that won't be solved with unilateral actions like this. I disagree that it's a good way of gauging support for the deletion - you only have to look at the recent mass deletion by Kelly Martin to see what an uproar it causes, even from some who advocate wholesale deletion of the boxes. It turns a civil (if indeed rather heated) discussion into an anarchic fiasco.

As you say, the strong consensus on articles that exist solely to attack a person or group of people is there - I am among them. There isn't, however, a consensus on templates, especially not userboxes that are only suited to use on user pages. Most on Wikipedia differentiate greatly between content suitable for a user page and content suitable for an article. I had the GWB box on my user page, but I wouldn't dream of placing it in an article. I've seen a clear consensus that admins should be able to speedy attack articles, but I'm yet to see a majority, let alone a consensus that advocates a policy whereby templates for user pages should be speedied. You claim you have very high support for these kinds of deletions, from pages like this however I see otherwise - more like a split down the middle, which is exactly the problem we are facing. Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 13:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The current wording on the GWB template (which I drafted) is okay with me. If it's okay with everyone else then we've got a solution--which we didn't have yesterday. I daren't say "Mission accomplished" for obvious reasons ;), but I think the bulk of it is over. A lot of the other templates have also been defanged and will be kept because of that, and I'm fine with that. The vast majority of userboxes are completely harmless. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The beauty of consensus, eh? Shows that a slight rewording is preferable to speedying sometimes :) Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 13:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh I don't think you can separate the process from the product. The TfD had a high keep vote but there was a strong endorsement of deletion in DRV. Without speedying the two groups would not have come together and we would have a template that many experienced editors view as unacceptable kept on TfD, and a lot of submerged hard feelings. In the past day or so I've been blocked and unblocked a few times but that was all part of the fun of the thing. You can't bake a cake without beating eggs. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Looking back I'll have to give in there and agree with you :) Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 14:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:User War on drugs

I've reverted due to changes made by you that made it a useless duplication of {{user All Drugs}}. This userbox is for individual users to express concerns on their personal user-pages over the US government's current policy on drugs, which is called, like it or not, the War on Drugs. I don't support the legalization of all drugs. That's just stupid. Stuff like meth is practically pure poison. But throwing people in prison for it is not working. I've let the category off to keep you happy, Tony. -james_anatidae 05:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I see your concerns. I'll leave it as it is, although I do have very, very strong misgivings about use of Wikipedia resources in template space for political campaigning. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:46, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation

As my mentor, I am subject to inquire your opinion on this issue: Why is no one commenting on my mediation request? Its odd, because its been there for several weeks now. I tried an inquery on Redwolf's page, but no response. Happen as it might, I believe mediating would be a very good position for me. -MegamanZero|Talk 20:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. Have you thought of emailing him or contacting him on IRC? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:46, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

• I'll try e-mail, but regarding IRC, that's out of the question because I can't get it to work. However, may I ask your opinion on my attempt to gain this position? I mean, I believe I'd be quite competent at it, and seeing the number of issues between users lately, I'm eager to offer my assistance. -MegamanZero|Talk 20:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you have enough experience yet, and I'm concerned about your communication skills. If you can spend some time just being a good editor and getting along with people, then in time you may be ready to perform mediation. It's a rather more highly skilled activity than administration tasks. Sensitivity is essential, and you have to be able to demonstrate firmness without being heavyhanded. Talk to Redwolf, certainly. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

May I inquire how I've been "hardhanded" in my communication? -MegamanZero|Talk 21:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying that you have been, especially. But diplomacy is something that must usually be learned. It doesn't come naturally to many of us. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was under the impression I got along fairly well and I am pretty diplomatic concerning other users... Of course, I mean not to demean your statement, but could you elaborate on how I'm not justified in my dealings in the community? If I'm not excersisng civilty, or offending someone, I'd like to know about it, so I can rectify the situation. -MegamanZero|Talk 21:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Really the issue is your language skills. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Elaboration, if you will? I'm utterly baffled. -MegamanZero|Talk 22:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to pin down with detail, and I hesitate to choose particular examples because our use of language is so closely bound to our personality and any examples I gave would almost certainly upset you. It would be as if I were saying that you are a bad person. And you're not. You're a good, decent editor, hard working and with a keen wish to be of service to Wikipedia. In the light of that, and because I could well be wrong, I suggest that you contact Redwolf and discuss this with him. I think that the problem here is a small one and will be remedied by experience. You are young and still growing, and the MegamanZero of the coming year will be wiser, more intelligent and more skilled than the MegamanZero of the past year. I just feel that you're not ready yet. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Sidaway, my friend... I selected you as my mentor for a reason-to gain your assistance in learning the ropes in wikipedia, to learn how to communicate between my fellow editors, etc. I've spent hours and then some memorizing policies on wikipedia, and I know have a firm grasp on them (pocessing knowledge regarding policy does not strictly apply to mediating. however). If you can't give me critisism about my actions and justify how you feel I am wrong or unprepared in some way, what's the point? I greatly implore you to share your opinion on why you think I am not ready yet, and I assure you, I won't be offended- after all, if I was so easily offended by critisism, then I wouldn't have considered this posistion. I will contact Redwolf and discuss this issue with him, but as of now I am discussing with you. I understand your reasoning that I will be wiser and more experienced in the future (won't we all?), but I know I am ready to help my fellow wikipedians, and your critisism would be greatly appreciated. I would greatly desire your reasoning concerning your POV.-MegamanZero|Talk 14:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to find examples and present them in a way that will be useful to you. Thanks for being patient, my dear Zero. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I see. -MegamanZero|Talk 18:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Just tell me what's on your mind, Mr. Sidaway. I'll try my hardest to comprehend your thoughts and reasoning; I require no examples and presentation, as I'll take your word for it on whatever you find troubling. -MegamanZero|Talk 19:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry I dragged my feet for so long; I hate to say something that may offend you. Well, let's take as an example your request above. Why did you use the word "comprehend" when the common verb "understand" sounds better? You "greatly implored" me when "beg" and "urge" are shorter and thus more immediate. These are a young person's errors of usage. In other cases I've noticed that you reproduce large blocks of wording that you've noticed me or some other person use, but in a manner that doesn't sound quite right--as if you were copying something you didn't quite understand. Communication is the most important part of mediation. I feel that you won't be ready to mediate until you can master the language and start to have an insight into the nuances of the thought that it represents. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I see. I understand your point- but that's how I communicate. I don't say things to "sound better"; that is just how it is. I'm sorry that you see it that way. On the other hand, I take no offense to your critisism, and I will take it into consideration. Thank you for pointing that out, and I'll (try) to change my habbits. Anything else you wanted to elaborate upon..? I'm open for any and all suggestions. -MegamanZero|Talk 20:30, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but I don't bring these examples up as an example of bad habits that can be unlearned. I think they're an indication that your communications are not yet fully matured. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. You are my mentor, and I accept your commments. I'm simply saying that I think I'm a tad more experinced and competent than you give me credit. All in all, however, I'm glad that it was only my "language" (?) that you found irksome; I was troubled I was in-civil or what-not; I'm relieved that's not the case. I have a strong grip on policy, but as another user pointed out to me, she thought that I "went too much by the book", so to speak. I have since developed somewhat outside that restriction, but I continue to uphold policy quite strictly. Perhaps when I lighten up and "be bold" (as you put it), I'll be ready for administrator. Cheers, -MegamanZero|Talk 22:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ArbCom withdrawal, part XXIV

I just want to apologise for the less than careful message of support I attached to my vote of support on your ArbCom election ("bat-shit crazy"): I feel especially bas since it was the second to last before you withdrew. What I should have said was more along the lines of "reckless disgregard for the anger of the mob". With Charles Matthews, yours were the only candidates I supported without the slightest glimmer of doubt. Shame about the timing, really. --- Charles Stewart 19:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I knew what you meant and was very pleased to have your endorsement, particularly in those terms. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I was just thinking to vote for you, but before I could do that you had withdrawn. Please treat this as my faith in you. --Bhadani 13:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. If you want to help to further the aims that I represent, please reconsider your votes for any candidates who did not declare candidacy until a week or so before the election and have not taken the opportunity to expand on their approach to arbitration. I'd hate to end up with single-issue candidates who don't have much substance and are unlikely to stay the course. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ArbCom question

Thank you for posting a new question on my page. I just wanted to alert you to the fact that I have answered it. I notice you have already registered your support and hope that the answer doesn't cause you to reconsider (although I think that's unlikely). David | Talk 21:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disabling section editing

On several occasions you've expressed the opinion that it is not a good idea to use the NOEDITSECTION directive to fight vandalism (by making it so that everyone editing the page sees the warning at the top of the code). Under what circumstances do you think the use of that directive is appropriate? If it's useless, it should be removed from the software completely. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 01:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any good reason to remove it from the software--there may well be instances where making sections editable would not be a good idea. However disabling section editing in a large article just to try to make people see a message that you could just as well place on the talk page seems to me not a good idea, because it makes bona fide edits on the article much more difficult. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unflagged alteration

Thanks for the note. I genuinely didn't note that the comment had been signed. The guy could have just refactored but he's just stirring the shit because I disagree with him on some issue. It's sad that these days people think the best approach to other editors is to whine to teacher. But when admins block on a whim, this is what happens. Editors expect admins to start blocking on their whims too. Grace Note 02:55, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Now I've read your comment on the noticeboard, I must ask you to retract the personal attack. It's not warranted. I was blocked from removing an image from clitoris by your clique, not banned. Grace Note 02:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. I misremembered. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] re-creating box

Mr. Sidaway, I would like to re-create user fear bush. I feel that it's name is mis-leading which made you believe it was a personal attack, which is not allowed on wikipedia. However, the actual text of the template does not mention bush - it says fear government. While this is a POV, userbox consensus has come out in favor of POV as long as it not extremely offensive. I am going to re-created this template with a less personal name. I am giving you advanced warning so I don't get another ban for re-creating deleted content.--God of War 03:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

It's offensive. It promotes a link between the Bush administration and neo-fascism. If you want to do that kind of thing, go somewhere else. Moreover I strongly dispute the suggestion that there is any consensus the use of template space for the promotion of political points of view is acceptable. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

• That is why I propose to completely eliminate bush from the template. You have no user space policy banning boxes that complain about the government. You can disagree with me, however there is no grounds here for a speedy deletion or banning me. If you don't like it, list it on the tfd page.--God of War 03:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The box was in template space. If you want to say that the adminstration of the US is part of a neofascist conspiracy, feel free to do so on your user page, though I feel that in doing so you would be cheapening your contributions, if any, and would likely lose the respect of many editors. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latin translation

You are the only person who knows some Latin who is currently available, it would seem. Can you please try to translate the two lines at Anagram#Numerical_anagrams. Note that all of the V's are actually U's. Thanks. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 05:06

They're the same letter in classical latin.

"eXorIens DeLphIn aqVILæ CorDIsqVe LeonIs CongressV gaLLos spe LætItIaqVe refeCIt."

A rough translation: On the conjunction of the eagle and the heart of the lion, the new Dauphin brings hope and happiness to the French. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shades of the old MONGO?

It's a joke...obviously...but with all that's going on, I see no reason why we can't get ridiculous...WP:POINT on my part! User:MONGO/Sandbox

Oh the old MONGO was angry and I understood that. I could tell that you cared. And you wrote me such lovely emails. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:11, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Semiprotection removed in History of Gibraltar

Is it realistic? Have you take a look at the talk page of History of Gibraltar? It's attacked on a daily basis so that I'm afraid that your statement " Hopefully the vandal has gotten bored and gone away so I've restored full editing to this article" seem too optimistic. Maybe you could talk about this issue with Woohookitty or Dmcdevit. Best regards --Ecemaml 18:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

It's better to just lift semiprotection regularly to see what happens. Nobody is omniscient. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ArbCom Question

Hi, answered your question. Hope I covered it. If you want it further clarified, let me know! Thanks! Guapovia 19:33, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It clarified your views. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm curious. What exactly do you mean by 'doesn't understand the encyclopedia'? Do you mean the technology, the cultural interchanges behind the scene, the user interaction, or some other factor that I truly don't understand? (Of course, one vote won't make or break this, but I really would like to understand where I seem to be missing the boat.) Sincerely, Guapovia 09:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

You say: "However, starting a 'witch hunt' to make sure that no Wiki user has any such 'hate badge' would be an extremely bad idea." This is wrong. Anything promoting hatred should of course be deleted on sight. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:30, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it should be. However, diverting resources from our ultimate aim of being the 'sum of all human knowledge' is a waste. Why stoop to their level, showing them that they got the attention they wanted? Guapovia 13:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Why revert vandals? Why stoop to their level by reverting their juvenile edits and thus granting them the attention that they wanted? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:15, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Because vandals mess with the encyclopedia content. Userboxes aren't encyclopedia content - if you're not looking to find out about a user, you're not going to see a userbox. As such, they aren't the main face of Wikipedia - the articles are. User pages are simply less of an issue to me, somehow. I was under the impression that the encyclopedia was more of a priority for you, too. Guapovia 22:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Today I deleted the following templates:

• Template:User edit warrior
  • This described the user as an "edit warrior" and said he used editing as a weapon, although at the time I deleted it, it attempted to weasel away the implication of edit warring.

The current version (created by me) says "This user's only connection with edit warring is in the sense that information is at war with ignorance. Edit warring is always wrong", and has been moved to Template:User not edit warrior.

• Template:User exports bad drivers
  • This said that the user "believes stupid, inconsiderate, and/or overly aggressive drivers should be deported to Iran as a war effort" and included an Iranian flag. This was considered by somebody as an improvement on an earlier version that suggested exporting to France.

The environment in which we edit Wikipedia determines the quality of the project. Attacking people of other nations hurts Wikipedia. Comparing editing to a weapon of war hurts Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I see what you're saying. Thanks for the clarification! Cheers, Guapovia 07:40, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Ignore all rules/temp

Have you any opinions on this draft? It's been discussed at WP:VP and at the IAR talk page. --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 20:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it's pretty good. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:49, 13 January 2006 (UTC)