User talk:Tony Sidaway/Archive 2006 06 14

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Contents 1 Template: User Christian 2 Hi 3 Please 4 User:OneSixOne 5 Terryeo 6 removing a deletion review?!? 7 Userboxes DRV 8 Thanks 9 Nikitchenko 10 Signature 11 For Aaron 12 Bad idea 13 Cleanup Taskforce 14 Sandifer 15 Deletion 16 My sig 17 Template:User liberty 18 WP:MUPP 19 Template India/US Relations 20 Random Userbox question 21 Userboxes 22 greetingz 23 WP:PP 24 Signature.

[edit] Template: User Christian

I am reverting your change. If you can show me consensus that it should be worded then please keep it the other way. I also want ot let you know I"m taking T2 to policy pump tommorow. It is not wikipedia policy as of yet. Thank you. Falphin 01:48, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the warning, but I was going to stick to the 3RR rule. But thanks again. Falphin 02:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not just the reverts. It's your continued accusations of vandalism. The three-revert rule doesn't give you an automatic right to make three reverts every twenty-four hours. --Tony Sidaway 02:46, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

If you look at my record, I've never been blocked and I've almost never hit the 3RR before. The only time I reach the 3RR is when my arguemnts are ignored and just reverted. Which is what was happening. Anwyway, I apologized to Clyde for the accusation of vanalism, I for some reason thought that stubborness as defined by wikipedia constituted vandalism but I was wrong. Falphin 02:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Cyde is being a bit naughty, too. In my opinion this isn't worth getting into a tizzy about. --Tony Sidaway 03:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi

Hi, can you update this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Zeq

Tnx. Zeq 15:05, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Done, with a note of apology. Sorry I forgot that. --Tony Sidaway 15:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

No problem. Tnx ! -—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zeq (talk • contribs).

[edit] Please

Please don't take the talk link out of my signature. Thanks. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:40, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. I removed a large amount of rubbish from a discussion thread and wasn't particularly discriminating. --Tony Sidaway 00:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:OneSixOne

Just to let you know, he's removed the Michael Jackson image again, without explaination and dispite being asked not to so, surely breaking some 3 revert rule or something. He has also deemed fit to link the word "album" everytime it is used. C'mon, he's clearly a vandal. Will you please say something to him? Or Do something? I've a few choice words for him, but apparenly I'm not allowed.--Crestville 16:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll take a look. --Tony Sidaway 16:36, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I've got a few words for crestville myself, but best kept to myself. I've got some scores to settle. First of all he called me a CUNT. It sounds like it it's O.K. to mount such attacks on 'pedia, cos I got a warning whilst he got nothing what so ever.

Secondly, I removed that image because I don't believe that it serves any purpose on that page. Michael jackson has performed literally hundred's of events, so why that image. What if user A adds another image of MJ performing at wembley, user B adds another image, user C ... adds, and so on and forth. Imagine what the article will look like.

That image wasn't there to start with, he put it there. It is clearly obvious that crestville is nothing more than someone who is there to stop the progress of the article. Dont have to go very far!. Today ... Goes as far as comparing Michael Jackson to Hitler! Talk about launching personal attacks!

It is clear that there are more pressing images that are needed. E.g. Not all images of his albums are present (which is what primarily the article should be about). If it needs to added at all, it belongs to a 'controvesial' article, which have being made for these sort of purposes.

Please remove that image from the page as it dosen't belong there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by OneSixOne (talk • contribs) 17:42, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

He's done it again, despite a lengthly and reasoned message explaining why it should stay. That's 6 times now, twice over the 3-revert-rule.--Crestville 18:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

On your wish to have the article protected, I suggest that instead of adding templates as here you go to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. I have no idea what you are talking about. It was blocked by user:Can't sleep, clown will eat me. He been blocking the article every week for about 4 months now. --OnesixOne 12:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I misread what was happening there. --Tony Sidaway 15:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

He's now messing about with the lead picture. Apparently threatening to "probably maybe block someone if the do something three or four more times" isn't working. Come on mate, you must be able to do something here.--Crestville 14:08, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terryeo

Tony Sidaway, in blocking Terryeo, I think you are in conflict of interest of Wikipedia's best interest. His congratulation is not personal attacks just because Antaeus say it is and you simply buy Antaeus report. There is no rule against making comments in admin nominations that I know of, but then again I new t Wikipedia's technicalityes. --Nikitchenko 21:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I've seen some bad personal attacks on Wikipedia. These were among the worst. --Tony Sidaway 21:31, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, I think they are borderline but not the worst. --Nikitchenko 21:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

It's the blocking administrator's opinion that counts. Thank for your comment. --Tony Sidaway 22:12, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Opinions are only opinions, not policy. --Nikitchenko 22:24, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

What does that mean? You're aware of Terryeo's personal attack parole, right? --Tony Sidaway 22:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Vaguely, but the folks who specialize in Civility at WP:CCD disagree with you on this. See Wikipedia:Civility noticeboard --Nikitchenko 22:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Opinions are only opinions, not policy means policy is senior to opinions of any administrator. --Nikitchenko 22:41, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

This was a valid block. Terryeo is on an ArbCom civility parole for a reason, people. It's not like he's a totally innocent user and Tony Sidaway is the mean rouge admin throwing around blocks left and right. --Cyde↔Weys 22:42, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with you Cydeweys, its not valid block. --Nikitchenko 22:48, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is your opinion that you share with Tony Sideaway. The folks who specialize in Civility at WP:CCD disagree with both you on this. --Nikitchenko 22:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

"Concordia"? That's the first I've ever heard of them. What makes them better at determining uncivil comments than Tony or I? Because they put their names on a member list? --Cyde↔Weys 22:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Go there and discuss your opinions with them. You and Tony Sideaway. --Nikitchenko 22:48, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'll pass. "Concordia" isn't a part of official policy, it's just a community organization ... which means I can choose to have nothing to do with it. I'm making that choice. --Cyde↔Weys 23:00, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Just because the try to present themselves as "civility experts" doesn't mean they are. And they (the ex community justice now concordia) have serious flaws understanding what wikipedia is and how it works, talking about jurisdictions and councils, etc... -- Drini 23:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Tony Sideaway, please see my comment up Userboxes DRV. I would like to know whats the priorities are. --Nikitchenko 22:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

"Civility Noticeboard" is just a page created just yesterday by a fellow called Computerjoe (talk • contribs • logs), who is currently on his third failed Request for adminship. D-Day (talk • contribs • logs), also a non-administrator, has commented on the issue. D-Day doesn't appear to understand the difference between a personal attack parole and Wikipedia:probation. I don't propose to take his comments seriously. --Tony Sidaway 23:12, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] removing a deletion review?!?

WP:SNOW doesn't apply to my deletion review since the issue is controversial. Raphael1 07:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The current slant of the discussion says otherwise. --Cyde↔Weys 07:48, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Only because the discussions get archived and/or deleted before they have begun. This is ridiculous. --70.213.205.226 06:20, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userboxes DRV

Hi,

It appears you've developed an interesting technique for the rapid dismissal of new DRVs in this area. :) I don't mind, but I wonder if anyone else has noticed. Best wishes, Xoloz 16:01, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Unjustified, wasteful and futile challenges to T1 deletions are common. Such challenges are vehemently opposed. WP:SNOW is not new. Crap dies, who would have known?--Tony Sidaway 21:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Going against consensus without arguments that settle people down, ie. logic, can only stand so far. Challenges which are only vehemently opposed by a small majority dont fall into the consensus model that wikipedia proclaims. Ansell 22:33, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm seeing a small minority opposed to deletion of rubbish. If you suport rubbish on Wikipedia, please go somewhere else. Wikipedia does not want rubbish. --Tony Sidaway 22:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Some users (Antaeus Feldspar who's report you used to block Terry) do want rubbish (not me) by reverting anyone who removes unreliable sources. And then they obfuscate (often with sublte person attacks) and argue WP:RS isn't policy. But WP:V directly refers us to WP:RS for definition of reliable sources. Why don't you address this problem which more directly affects the best interest of WIkipedia than userboxes. --Nikitchenko 21:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

When it comes to userbox rubbish, it's kind of a "define the terms" thing, as I see it. By defining userboxes as rubbish, discussion about their merits, & hence what to do with them, is short-circuited. Instead of the observation that a small minority are opposed to deletion of rubbish, it may be more accurate to describe the disagreement as being about whether they are rubbish. I'd ask that consideration be given to the potential for the first way to be taken as belittling the reasoning of those opposed to these userbox deletions, and, as such, to get in the way of discussion & consensus building.--Ssbohio 12:15, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for cooling the debate off with user:KAS. You did a great job. --User:Xyrael|^T 19:19, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

No worries. --Tony Sidaway 19:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nikitchenko

Following on from above, you might be interested to know that Nikitchenko is currently linking to those colourful characters at Wikipedia Review from his userpage. I think that at the very least it should be removed, but don't feel comfortable doing it myself - Nikitchenko claims he's going to file a complaint against me. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:21, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not Wikipedia Review, but a somewhat more toxic site known as Hivemind. I won't ask him to remove it, but I think it's enough to make me want to investigate him very closely. --Tony Sidaway 00:34, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I clicked the link and despite the domain, it took me to wikipediareview.com. Am I missing something? And anything involved with real-life harassment of admins should not be linked to from this site anywhere, in my opinion. I admit that my knowledge of Wikipedia Review and other off-wiki stuff is fairly limited, though. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:39, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, very odd. When I went there earlier this evening it was some kind or hate site called "Hivemind". --Tony Sidaway 00:49, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I removed it, and will remove it everytime I find it on wikipedia, and block anyone who puts it back up.--MONGO 01:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Tony, thanks for blocking Nikitchenko. From observing the volume and frequency of his personal attacks and off policy editing, I have to agree with you that he is a troll and should be banned indefinitely. --Fahrenheit451 19:44, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

No problem. We do find malicious people abusing our encyclopedia every now and then, and they need to be stopped as quickly and painlessly as possible. Letting a troll hang around spreading nastiness around doesn't do any good. --Tony Sidaway 23:09, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Signature

Please avoid removing parts of other people's signatures. It comes off as control-freakish and could be considered rude. Thanks. --User:D-Day 15:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm just refactoring the discussion to make it easier to edit. It's actually incredibly rude to inflict that monstrosity on shared areas of the wiki. --Tony Sidaway 15:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

If you must remove the sig, then cut it, edit what you want, then paste it back in. But do not remove them. people think that is annoying. --User:D-Day 15:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

While I by no means agree with everything Tony does, I must admit that he has a point about your signature. Particularly for our editors who are working at lower resolution, your signature does take up an awfully large portion of the edit window. As a rule of thumb, I'd suggest that any signature that is usually larger than your comments is much too large. Respectfully, people also think that extremely large signatures are annoying. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:21, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what D-Day means by removing a signature. I didn't mean to completely remove any signatures and I apologise if that is what has happened. --Tony Sidaway 15:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The length of many signatures are a result of added functionality the editor has added as a courtesy, like linking to their contributions or talk pages, or the green 'e' badges of Esperanza. In my case, my signature is also symbolic for me. Please don't edit it. Thanks, and happy editing!--AySz88 16:18, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Talk pages are public space provided for discussion. They may occasionally be refactored for readability. --Tony Sidaway 16:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, please be careful about not cutting off pieces of comments; you fixed it when it happened on this talk page, but not when it happened on the CSD talk page. Thanks. AySz88 20:13, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that. But you do see from this I hope, the difficulties. It's very, very difficult to spot comments amid signature in all that gobbledygook. --Tony Sidaway 22:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Please stop It's Very Rude to alter other people's signed comments. To put it off to "refactoring" is very poor indeed. --User:Aaron Brenneman 23:19, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh stuff and nonsense! Fiddlesticks, even! If a talk page is messed up with all kinds of silly and unnecessary html formatting, it's a good idea to refactor it. Though of course it's decidedly bad form to change the wording, and I'll apologist if I ever mess up. But really the change to sections that are refactored in this way is so beneficial that I'm hardly likely to stop. It's as if all the signature silliness of the past year had been evaporated. Suddenly the entire section can be read from beginning to end, even in edit mode. Which to be frank, was a very useful benefit that I'd quite forgotten about. --Tony Sidaway 23:32, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Than at least have the courtesy to leave an informative edit summary whenever you do so. In fact, please attempt to leave more helpful edit summaries in general. You might refer to Help:Edit summary. Oh, yes, and -> Civility warning 4 To refer to other editor's contributions as "stuff and nonsense" is uncivil. Please do recall that the Arbitration Committee has asked you to be civil.
User:Aaron Brenneman 03:00, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

You do recall, I hope, that the arbitration committee has asked you to be civil. That probably includes, I suggest, not harping on matters of such piddling silliness.

I apologise for describing your comments on my refactoring of signatures as "Stuff and nonsense" and "fiddlesticks". I continue to regard your suggestion as quite unacceptable.

I disagree with the suggestion that edits to remove disfiguring html, etc, when performed in the course of another edit, must be marked. This would only draw unmerited attention to trivial edits. It can safely be assumed that any conscientious editor will try to perform such good housekeeping as might be necessary on a talk page. --Tony Sidaway 03:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I find it difficult to understand argument for not using clear edit summaries. I'd refer you to Refactoring talk pages where it states, "Make it explicit that you have refactored something" quite plainly. It also states "[b]e aware that not every editor will agree with your refactoring" something that is clearly the case here. In the event that you have been made aware that disagreement over some edits may occur, to choose to not label those edits is at best rude and worst duplicitous, per ArbCom past decisions on edit summaries

I also find it difficult to understand how I am meant to accept an apology for the use of the words "Stuff and nonsense" that begins with "piddling silliness." As for me, if ever you perceive me to be uncivil, a neutrally worded comment to that effect is always welcome.

User:Aaron Brenneman 03:37, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I admit, you find it easy to drag me to the edge of civility by piling on an endless deluge of utterly trivial complaints. Now go forth and try out your newfound technique on others, if you must. But off this wiki and well out of this editor's face. --Tony Sidaway 03:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Tony, surely no one has ever dragged you to any place that you haven't walked — or, in this case, "rushed headlong" — yourself. Nandesuka 04:30, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] For Aaron

I just noticed this [1]. I think it's excellent advice. Please keep off my talk page, I'll keep off yours. You know we both trust Doc Glasgow and Mark Gallagher, Kat and Greg, so you're not short of people to complain to, and I'm sure I'll get to hear of it should you ever make a complaint to them about me. --Tony Sidaway 04:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Trusting those folks could get you into trouble, Tony. Be careful. --Ridgard 05:07, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bad idea

Tony, why are you deleting Jay Maynard's arguments? I think that's a really bad idea; you should be incorporating his ideas, not giving the appearance of trying to silence him. We're trying to build consensus, not swing hammers around. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:32, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

It's a free-form pure-wiki style collaboration. If I delete crap, I've no idea whose crap I'm deleting. I delete crap in the hope that we'll end up with a more sensible summary of the issues than we have at present. I'm sorry if my deletion of crap seems to always hit the same guy's arguments. --Tony Sidaway 17:49, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Your lack of willingness to interact with people in this dispute as human beings deserving of respect is making things worse. You are prolonging the userbox controversy by your discourtesy. For the sake of Wikipedia, please find a way to avoid alienating quite so many contributors. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:02, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

In the same vein, and in reply to your edit summary, "The suggestion that administrators are just acting rogue here is insuppportable," I hope you realize that what I was suggesting by asking for your input is that your addressing this point frankly rather than ignoring it is more helpful to the goal of ending all this bullshit drama. I hope you understand where I'm coming from. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:02, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not really that concerned about that. Once a person becomes acculturated to Wikipedia, these things make sense. I don't have to bear the full weight of educating every single new Wikipedia editor, although sometimes I get the impression that some people think that I should. --Tony Sidaway 22:45, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup Taskforce

Greetings. You are receiving this boilerplate notice because you have a task on your Cleanup Taskforce desk that has not been updated for over 30 days. If you do not wish to complete this task please assign it to another active Cleanup Taskforce member who has space on their desk. If you do not wish to receive cleanup requests on your desk any more, you may remove yourself from the membership list. If you or someone else has completed the task, you can close it by adding {{cleanup taskforce closed|ARTICLE NAME HERE}} to the article's talk page and removing it from Wikipedia:Cleanup Taskforce. If you have a status update (e.g. you intend to work on it in the future) or need help, you can update the collaboration page (which is linked from your desk). Also feel free to reply to the person who left you this message. --Randy 19:45, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Replied. --Tony Sidaway 22:43, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sandifer

Tony, why did you close the Sandifer AfD? Is it not supposed to stay up for five days? Also, as someone who voted in it, are you allowed to close it? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Whatever. I think it was better to close it now and get on with things. --Tony Sidaway 22:43, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't get involved much with AfD and so I don't know what the accepted practises are. Does your decision mean the article should be deleted or not? It seems to have left things hanging, and I couldn't see any reason to close early (though, as I said, I'm not familiar with how AfDs are usually conducted). SlimVirgin (talk) 23:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

My actions means that I think the decision has been made. The article probably shouldn't exist on its own but there is something to this and it probably belongs somewhere. If someone strongly disagrees this may go back to review or just be re-opened. When I do this kind of thing it depends a lot on people accepting my closing argument, and thinking "yeah, that makes a kind of sense" even if they don't personally agree on the precise details of the close. In short, I've tried to take everybody's opinion into account and if I've failed badly then someone else will come in and fix it. --Tony Sidaway 23:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the decision makes some sense, but it's still not clear there was a need to make it before the five days was up. In any event, anyone can add information about what happened to Phil to another article (e.g. Criticism of Wikipedia), so that doesn't require the decision of an admin, which is why I'm confused. SlimVirgin|(talk)23:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The community runs best, I've found, when editors feel free to make bold decisions. In my opinion the "five days" thing is a bit unnecessary when practically everybody has a go and comments in the first day or two. --Tony Sidaway 23:53, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I rather think you've taken no-ones views into account, and so I've reopened the debate. -Splash^talk 00:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

No worries. --Tony Sidaway 01:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion

Please do me a favor and delete my userpage and talkpage. I'm departing the project as its obvious this editor is stepping on more toes than doing the productive work I wish to do. -Zero^Talk 10:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Get some sleep. See you in the morning. --Tony Sidaway 12:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Its in the afternoon here.

As one of my best friends on this site it would be very appreciated if you'd take it seriously. You know I don't joke about things such as this. -Zero^Talk 12:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I do take it seriously. I see that you have been editing continuously, with one or two short breaks, for ten hours, and conclude that you are upset mainly because you need sleep. --Tony Sidaway 13:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh but you don't. I didn't go to work today so I could sleep in. I'm absolutely fine. Please just do as I ask of you. The various editors who don't respect this position are already being very uncooperative. Please reconsider. The project will perfom just fine without me. -Zero^Talk 13:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

You probably need a wikibreak. --Tony Sidaway 13:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

An indefinite one. Please do as I ask. Look, if you desire, you have my e-mail. Save the explanations for there. Per the speedy policy and "right to leave" meta entry this is not really a difficult of request. -Zero^Talk 13:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. There's a list of subpages over at User:MegamanZero/TopNav as well. And please block the account indefinitely. -Zero^Talk 16:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Woah, well, can we offer you the right to return too? :) That and permanent blocks are technically somewhat problematic, as it might prevent others from editing too. Kim Bruning 16:40, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My sig

Tony,

I appreciate your thought and respect in writing your comment. I have gotten a few comments here and there in the past about it, as well. However,

1. Most of that wikicode is a result of coloring, not the images
2. The two images I use are _very_ important to myself and my identity, and I would like to keep them there. I believe that they are small enough to not create a nuisance.

Blessed Be :) --User:Search4Lancer 01:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Well they create a huge nuisance for me. Please knock it off. --Tony Sidaway 01:46, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, since you put it that way, I won't even think of it. User:Search4Lancer 04:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:User liberty

Since you closed this DRVU as keep deleted. I am not going to tag it g4 again even if I do believe it qualifies, but maybe it needs to be revisted given the current frankenstate of T2. Kotepho 01:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Lost me there. T2 is basically T1, and this was a unanimous endorsement. --Tony Sidaway 01:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I may agree with you, but it certainly is being debated (and edit warred over) still. Kotepho 01:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Could you show me where the related edit warring is occurring? I only see a G4 recreation that seems to have resulted from a premature, or erroneous, unprotecting of the deletedpage template. --Tony Sidaway 01:54, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I meant the edit warring on Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion itself over T2, which apparently died down when someone protected the page. Kotepho 02:00, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, people edit war over written policy all the time. It doesn't stop us doing things. We work according to Wikipedia policy, and in a certain sense we create it, while the written policy struggles to catch up. --Tony Sidaway 02:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

My take on it is that policy is whatever you can do without people making too big of a fuss over it (outside of the immutable policies that are the foundation). Operating without Hammurabi's code does have the problem of people disagreeing over what is policy though; and certainly has scaling problems in a community of this size.

The current state of T2 really does not affect the deletion of this template. It showed up on my watchlist with an N, so I tagged it. When that failed I came here. I'm sorry if I misled you with my comment about the possibily ambiguous state of T2. Kotepho 02:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course, reverting all comments on the fact that the DRV was closed early helps minimize dissent. --70.218.3.206 05:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)!

[edit] WP:MUPP

The voting on WP:MUPP ended earlier today. I crossed out your comment based on Xolatron's edit so that your comments were kept. —David618 ^t 01:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay. But I hope you don't imagine that policy can be made if proposals are so inadequately polled that the poll isn't properly advertised and only lasts for seven days. --Tony Sidaway 01:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Yea, I have problems with how it was done, too. I'm just following what it said. I think that it will need another straw poll that is listed as you said. —David618 ^t 02:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

It isn't going to happen. Even this poll gave a pretty inadequate degree of support, and it seems to have been deliberately packed by the userboxers. --Tony Sidaway 04:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template India/US Relations

Hello, I am User: Bmaganti, and I have created the userpage template that advocated USA and Indian relations. I have noticed that you deleted this template, and frankly, it is very upsetting that it was done. This is even more upsetting by the fact that if you looked at the Regional Politics sections of userbox templates, you would find that there are very similar templates advocating US relations with those countries, namely China, Germany, and Bosnia, notice, that none of these have been deleted. This leads me to the conclusion that this template has been deleted without much thought, and is definitely discriminatory. I would like to kindly ask you to undelete the template, or if it really has been deleted because it went against any of the rules of Wikipedia, at least, have the consideration to delete the other templates that have the same message but of different countries. I have already marked the template for deletion review in the talk page of the template. --Bmaganti 02:59, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It isn't a place to campaign for international relations. I'll get around to deleting the others in my own good time. --Tony Sidaway 04:01, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Random Userbox question

Hi, just before you closed the UK political party template DRV, I asked you a question. Referring to the diff link you gave from Jimbo. Are userboxes of this nature (political/beliefs) still allowed in the User namespace? Just not the Template one? - Hahnchen 04:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for coming back to me on that one. The content of the user page is covered by Wikipedia:User page. You can create (or copy) a box there saying you're a member of X or Y party, or going into a fair degree of depth about your political opinions. Expression of personal opinions in user space is somewhat deprecated, but tolerated. Remember that the user page isn't a homepage. It's assumed that you're perfectly capable of obtaining a free or paid-for blog elsewhere. --Tony Sidaway 05:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I've only taken a look at the Userbox issue today, and the proposed policy seemed to be a lot more lax then the CSD category. It's not like I'm going to use any userboxes, I just wanted to know what the score was. Cheers. - Hahnchen 05:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

There are quite a lot of proposed userbox policies. None of them have a hope, in my opinion, of gaining consensus. The last one that got anywhere near consensus was deliberately sabotaged; the culprit was arbcommed but by then the damage was done. --Tony Sidaway 05:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the simplest solution at this point might be to transclude boxes directly from userspace. Any thoughts? --70.218.3.206 05:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Not ideal. Code copying is better. --Tony Sidaway 05:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The german wiki got a User named de:Benutzer:Vorlage ... where all the the userboxes went. Agathoclea 08:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userboxes

Hi! FWIW, I think the consensus on userboxes has moved from your position. I have outlined some risks in my the risks section, as I think userboxes are a huge influence on Wikipedia because of the way they affect new users' expectations. I don't understand how you can have such strong opinions about them and still think that text is just as effective. But either way, I'm glad you have made your opinions felt in this debate, and I hope you are around to influence the consensus when it is determined. Stephen B Streater 17:43, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

You havee been seriously misled. Nearly every single experienced Wikipedian is strongly against these, and T1 is backed by arbcom and Jimbo. Just look at the May poll. The heavyweights are almost universally against the proposal. Consensus is moving so heavily in my direction that we've already wiped out the worst of the belief-based userboxes and they'll be dead and gone for the most part in a few months time. And good riddance. --Tony Sidaway 17:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

More experienced users may be against, but newer users are more in favour (partly because of expectations raised by seeing legions of user boxes). So consensus has been moving against you. This great battle will decide how far it moves: if POV user boxes are kept, old users will get swamped by ever larger legions of userboxians; if userboxes are tidied up, current users will be brought into line and new users will expect the same without a fight. A lot hangs on this debate. This is why it's important you hang around. Stephen B Streater 18:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Talking about "new users" isn't going to impress me, is it? These editors are not acculturated and they won't be permitted to make changes that effectively negate our fundamental policies. The bad userboxes will be wiped out, it's just a matter of how we do it. T1 deletion has become so much more powerful over the past few months that we're successfully deleting religion-based boxes that were previously thought too difficult to delete. New users in time will come to realise that Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway 18:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

How can I help? Where can I sound off and/or vote?

Also, what is your opinion of barnstars? Beyond being basically useless, some of these go beyond "thanks for hard work" to approach belief-based userboxes - e.g. the newly-created "Islamic barnstar". Can't the intent of many deleted userboxes be approximated by a barnstar? E.g., "The Green Energy barnstar?"Timothy Usher 18:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Barstars are just little gifts from one user to another expressing appreciation. Not generally controversial. --Tony Sidaway 18:38, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Generally, no. I was just pointing out how they might be subverted to mark userpages according to the logic of POV userboxes.

Anyhow, where can I go to get involved in the userbox discussion? I'd delete the vast majority of them if I could - any that don't directly relate to creating a respectable encyclopedia.Timothy Usher 19:05, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The discussions are hard to avoid. You could start here, where I will continue and leave Tony in peace for a while. Stephen B Streater 19:24, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] greetingz

prob heard this 9000 times, but I heard you have the deleted content from brian peppers (or at least it's talk page) preserved somewhere? WɔlkUnseen 20:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not distrubuting any material on that subject at present. --Tony Sidaway 20:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:PP

Sorry to be thorn, but you listed User Aethiest in the wrong section. Note that all you have to do is protect it and put in a good summary. User:VoABot will paste it on WP:PP durings its sweeps. Thanks.Voice-of-All^Talk 23:27, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll remember that. --Tony Sidaway 23:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Signature.

I don't want to seem rude, offensive or incivil (and I don't want us to butt heads again) but I'm asking very nicely: Could you please not tamper with my signature when I'm posting to someone else's talk page? I've changed my signature a few times and it doesn't in any way breach Wikipedia policy. Also, it is my signature and I happen to like it the way it is. To me, it is not anything even remotely approaching "huge and unsightly". (Also, for the record, I prefer my username with a small n)

If you see something wrong with my signature, I would really appreciate it if you would post a comment on my talk page and let me know exactly what you disagree with and why. If phrased acceptably (WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, phrased as a request, etc), I will consider changing it.

Thank you for your time. — User:nathanrdotcom ^(talk) 10:38, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

See my response to User:Chcknwnm. It's probably a good idea to aggressively refactor talk pages to remove unnecessary and intrusive material from the end of comments, as this makes the page much easier for others to edit. --Tony Sidaway 10:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Tony. I can't believe you are changing people's signatures on decision review pages [2]. When I first joined, the much missed JzG mentioned you, and WP is certainly more interesting as a result of your actions. But please relax a little. Much loved as you are, by talking on so much at once single handed, you risk burning out and/or coming unstuck. There are 1,000,000 users here after all. Stephen B Streater 11:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I only fix the signature where it's a serious obstacle to editing. This is pretty normal refactoring. I don't prevent the editor using the signature; I only do something to alleviate the worst of the damage caused by large and unnecessary amounts of html/wikitext gibberish in discussion areas. --Tony Sidaway 11:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Keep up the good work, Tony. Some of those signatures are just awful ;-).
User:NoSeptember 31 May 2006 (UTC)

No worries. :) --Tony Sidaway 11:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC)