User talk:Neutrality/Archive 4

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[edit] Ropers | Username

Hi Neutrality,
I'm writing to say that I consider your user name problematic (to say the least).
Your user name conveys that you are identified with neutrality (as a concept). However, I have seen that you have repeatedly been involved in edit wars.
I have never been in an edit war with you myself and I hope I never will be. But I feel it to be improper to hang on to a user name that conveys to (especially inexperienced) readers that you are/were some kind of authority as regards neutrality and the NPOV. This is very, very misleading and confusing to new users. It will also fire up your opponents in edit wars much more (than without the use of this user name). Please understand that I am not asking you to change your user name because of anything you wrote: In principle, I feel that no one should have such a misleading user name. I might hypothetically be more forgiving with, say, a long term user consistently demonstrating freedom from any bias whatsoever -- but that's in theory and may not even be possible.
The bottom line is this:
A Wikipedia user name of "Neutrality" is pretty much on the same level as an ordinary user having a user name of "Administrator." It's misleading and should be changed.
John Kenney is an administrator who has changed his user name in the past-- maybe he is the right person to ask how to proceed? (I am not asking anyone else on this issue yet -- I will wait a while and give you the chance to respond first.)
No hard feelings, kind regards,
Ropers 22:06, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I use my username as a reminder to me that neutrality is the most important thing in this project, not as a statement that I am always neutral. I doubt anyone has been confused by it, or will ever be. And I disagree with your analogy about my username being as misleading as a user having "Administrator" as their name. While I appreciate your concerns, I must decline your offer — for now, at least. Thanks! Neutrality 22:11, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
By the way, I see you are new here! Welcome to the wiki! :) Neutrality 22:19, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
First of all, thanks for your answer and for welcoming me. :) Regarding your username however, I still have a very uneasy feeling about it: It just doesn't seem right to me. And I for one was confused by your user name when I first encountered it. I did figure things out rather quickly, but it did confuse me first. Also, see for instance item no. 3 on this page. I think I probably will want to seek some advice on this from some senior Wikipedians, administrators or mailing lists in the long run. If everybody here thinks that it's all-rightey for you to have a user name like that, well, I'll certainly accept a democratic decision. But I do think it's a question that should be raised — and I would like to stress that I in no way want to threaten you by writing this, I just think it's fair to discuss this with you in advance. Also consider this: Assuming you were some ordinary user and you got into an animated discussion/argument with somebody, where you'd disagree about what's the NPOV, say, in a political article: wouldn't it drive you nuts if the other guy (who's point of view you totally disagree with and personally consider biased) had a user name of "Neutrality"? Such an imbalance isn't just bad for the side not carrying such a user name. — It's bad for you as well as you carry that name, because it will just be like a red cape to a bull — it will attract unnecessarily strong opposition and raise tempers on both sides. Finally, I found it's apparently not totally uncommon or terribly difficult to change a user name — see this page. I hope I haven't offended. Thanks and regards, Ropers 18:47, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] General discussion | Should we file an RfC?

I've had enough of this. What would you think about filing a RfC? Ambivalenthysteria 12:55, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
And now he's threatened User:Gzornenplatz as well. Ambivalenthysteria 12:56, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I've got Rex ranting on my talk page too. What fun. Gamaliel 21:17, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I say go for it. Bring it up with RfC and/or ArbCom. Neutrality 21:18, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Neutrality, I have explained at great length why the material on VVAW, which I added a balancing sentence to, is relevant. Please do not continue reverting it. -- Cecropia | Talk 22:00, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] General discussion | Thanks

Thanks for the support and encouragement! 172 02:14, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Ditto. By the way, you must be one of very few energetic WPians who have no personal helps such as ToDO and quicklinks on their User pages. I guess at 98% addicted and pretty stressed you don't have time to look at yours! Kind regards Robin Patterson 01:21, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ambi | RfC on Rex

See Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Rex071404. Ambivalenthysteria 07:28, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Can you re-add that last edit? I accidentally wiped it out in reverting Rex's removal of Bkonrad's comment. Ambivalenthysteria 22:00, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Eep. I think you just took out about three people's comments. :P

I think that page really needs archiving somehow. Ambivalenthysteria 22:10, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] General discussion | Mediation Committee membership

Congratulations, Neutrality! You're now a member of the Wikipedia:Mediation Committee! Please add an email address where people can reach you to the list here.
Also, please read the following pages carefully if you haven't yet done so: Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, Wikipedia:Mediation, m:What Mediation is not (including the links at the bottom of that page), m:Incivility, and Wikipedia:Requests for mediation.
And last, but not least, please register at the Wikimedia bulletin board here and familiarize yourself with the mediation section (sometimes it's a bit dodgy, but refreshing the pages usually does the trick there).
And thanks so much for agreeing to help with the work of the committee and of dispute resolution at Wikipedia.
Peace, BCorr|Брайен 16:01, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Welcome to the committee. Could you please confirm here that it was you who registered as "Neutrality" at the bulletin board? Many thanks, sannse (talk) 16:51, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Yes, that was me.--Neutrality 16:52, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Thanks Neutrality, you now have full access on the board. It's not been used much recently, but is available if needed. -- sannse (talk) 17:26, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] PFHLai | List of Major League Baseball mascots

Hello, I have restored the internal link to List of Major League Baseball mascots that you have deleted on Youppi. I would like to keep it there (and on other pages of MLB mascots) till the 'red' links on "List of Major League Baseball mascots" have turned 'blue' (some need to become 'red' first) and the [[Category:Baseball team mascots]] is filled. So far we only have 5 mascots, which is pitifully short, considering there are 30 clubs in MLB and some clubs have more than one mascots. Thanks. -- PFHLai 05:11, 2004 Jul 30 (UTC)

[edit] General discussion | AC and MC elections

Two things. Firstly, I noticed you resigned from the Association of Members' Advocates, citing your election to the Mediation Committee. That's not necessarily a conflict of interest - both Anthere and Ed Poor are on both. Secondly, I notice that you retracted your support of my AC nomination, based on my election to the MC. No big deal, but I did state that I'd resign from the MC if elected to the AC. Ambi 06:41, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I came here to inform you of the same thing. :-) I of course am very grateful for anyone's endorsement, and especially the endorsements of editors I respect (like yourself). I just wanted to make sure you knew about Ambivalenthysteria's intentions -- I will, of course, have absolutely no hard feelings if you retract your change in endorsement, given this information. Jwrosenzweig 15:46, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
You are both right. I'm changing my endorsement. Thanks. :) --Neutrality 15:47, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] 172 | Do you want to be renominated for adminship?

Hi. Do you want to be renominated for admin? It's now been three months since you started contributing, I believe. 172 16:41, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wow! Thanks! That's a great honor.--Neutrality 16:43, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Shoot. I just checked. It's going to be three months starting 8/15 (I can't believe you've gotten so much accomplished in such a short span of time). Many users won't vote for someone who has been here for less than exactly three months. Do you want to play it safe and wait until 8/15 (though, considering how relatively well you did the first time around, you'd likely have a good change of going through now, despite the arbitrary three month threshold), or should I just go ahead and post the nominating statement now? Sorry if was premature. 172 16:58, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Wait, most assuredly. ;) Thanks, 172.--Neutrality 17:03, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
You're welcome. Sorry I didn't have the right date in mind the first time around. 172 17:05, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] General discussion | Guanaco RfC

This is a general question to those endorsing Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Guanaco2. Is anyone prepared to actually certify the complaint along with RickK? If not, RfC policy would call for the page to be deleted soon. If I delete the listing for RickK (which seems likely at this point), I would like to either delete Guanaco's as well, or have a clear basis under existing policy for deleting one and not the other. --Michael Snow 20:13, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think the difference between "endorsing the basis for the dispute" and being "another user who endorses the summary" is semantic.--Neutrality 20:15, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
That's understandable, but if you feel that way, then perhaps you would like to move your statement to the certification section, to prevent the page from being deleted? --Michael Snow 20:46, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Only users who are directly involved in the dispute and have tried to resolve it and failed may certify RfCs. Guanaco 02:50, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)
True. But your actions effected the entire community. Anyone can sign off, then.--Neutrality 02:55, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Assuming that that makes you "directly involved", did you do anything to resolve it and fail? Guanaco 03:07, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] PFHLai | Operation SEALORD now on Template:Opentask

Hello, Thought I should let you know that Operation SEALORD is now on Template:Opentask. I am not quite sure if "SEALORD" should be one word or two, capitalized not, though.

Ever considered nominating this topic at WP:AOTW ?
Have a nice day. :-)

-- PFHLai 20:54, 2004 Aug 4 (UTC)

[edit] Danny | Can you mediate between RK, DanKeshet and Zero0000 with Moink

Hi. Would you be willing to take on a rather challenging case of mediation? RK v. DanKeshet and Zero0000? I am also asking Moink, so if tempers flare, you can each represent one party and work it out between you. Please answer me on my Talk page. Thanks Danny 00:43, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Great. If possible, could you come on the mIRC page or give me some way of contacting you further about this. Danny 00:52, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] General Discussion | Quickpoll on Rex?

I'm interested in pursuing 172's suggestion of a quickpoll instead of the ponderous arbitration process. Are you familiar with quickpoll procedure? In particular, I posted this query to 172:

I don't understand this passage from Wikipedia:Quickpolls policy: A quickpoll should be announced "On Wikipedia:Recentchanges (the text shown atop the 'Recent changes' page)". Does that mean I go to Wikipedia:Recentchanges and insert a notice, such as right under the announcement of the ArbCom election? That seems to give one humble little quickpoll an awful lot of prominence in the community. Thanks for any help you can give, especially given that this didn't really become your prolem just because you did the protection.

If you happen to know about this, please enlighten me. JamesMLane 05:22, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Quickpolls seem to have fallen out of disuse, but by looking at the page histories, I can see that they were once quite popular. As far as the notice on top of Recent Changes — why not? --Neutrality 05:25, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

See User talk:JamesMLane for 172's reply. He suggests a different course that seems good to me. JamesMLane 05:27, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Rex is still reverting on Kerry. Perhaps you want to take a look at the edits before the page is protected again. Regarding quickpolls, while they have fallen out of favor, this seems to be a particularly urgent situation and a case where a page will likely be protected indefinitely without resorting to a quickpoll or a block. 172 05:30, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Duncharris | Template:Cleanup

Neutrality, why did you revert my changes to the cleanup template? I put a link in directly into editing the third section of the Wikipedia:Cleanup page which is always today's list. This IMHO speeds up the process of listing cleanup by taking 2-3 clicks out of the process. Dunc_Harris|☺ 09:03, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Some more info (I'm not trying to be patronising or anything like that ☺ ). the url I used was
If you look at the cleanup page you will notice that the first heading section 1 is the lead paragraph, section 2 is entitled Front Matter, and section 3 is always today's list. Dunc_Harris|☺ 10:36, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ambi | Troll policy

I noticed you supported the latest troll policy proposal. Since that was posted, however, there's been a much simplified proposal put up at Wikipedia:Dealing_with_disruptive_or_antisocial_editors/simplified_draft.

Would you be prepared to consider changing your vote? It'd only take a couple of people doing so to send this back to the drawing board, and though I didn't write it, I think the simplified proposal would fix many of the problems with the current one. If the current one fails to pass now, then we don't have to wait two months to improve on it. Ambi 11:16, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I guess the mediation can begin. Good luck. If you have any questions, please let me know. Danny 23:04, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] General Discussion | Mediation

Hi Neutrality. I sent you an email, to your aol address, because I figured it would be a good idea to discuss mediation in private to start out. Let me know what you think. moink 01:44, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Nichalp | Mumbai

I'm interested in improving the Mumbai page. You mentioned that the table is 1980-esq. What do you mean by that? The data there is 2000+. Also what do you find POV in religion section? Please let me know on my talk page (plus any suggestions you might have in mind). [[User:Nichalp|¶ nichalp | Talk]] 19:56, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] ffirehorse | Kudos on Porter J. Goss

Kudos on your additions to the Porter Goss bio and CIA career section. Very well-put. (I also love the photo of Skyline Boulevard at the top of your page ..... makes me very homesick.) ffirehorse 16:20, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Mbecker | You don't have to be so negative

I know your experiences on John Kerry have been exceptionally bad. However, it is not too late for you to turn things around. You appear to have a great interest in the article, and it would be sad for you to give up on it. I too had given up on it, but came back after a couple of days of cooling down. I realize that Rex's past behavior has been way out of line, and you are probably upset with him, which is justified. However, as responsible wikipedians, it is our responsibility not to persecute him, but to try and work out our differences, in the interest of a superior article. To this end, I would hope that you continue to contribute to the article, and I hope that you and Rex can avoid any confrontation in the future. If you do decide to give up on the article, I understand and respect your choice. However, I hope that you decide instead to help make this article as good as it can be. I hope you also know that I am not trying to treat either you, or Rex unfairly. I came along fairly late in this dispute, so I clearly don't have the same POV as you or him about the situation. However, at the moment, it appears that Rex is willing to act properly, and all I ask is that if you do take part in editing this article, you do the same. His actions, have never been, and never will be a justification for the poor actions you took. I realize that you felt you were doing the right thing, and I don't blame you. We all make mistakes sometimes. Anyways, I think that you clearly have something to offer to the article, and I'd be deeply disappointed if you stop contributing to it. Thank you for your time. — マイケル ₪ 21:44, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Everyking | Thanks for the Barnstar!

Thank you! I really appreciate it. And my user page needed some color! Everyking 11:07, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'm glad you like it, because you truly deserve it. Neutrality 00:25, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Dysprosia | Category:Mathmatics

Please don't put things in the top-level [[Category:Mathematics]] - it's only suppsed to be a parent for all it's subcategories! Thanks Dysprosia 00:17, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I only put that article in top-level [[Category:Mathematics]] because I had no idea which sub-category to put it in — the jargon is somewhat hard to understand, and I figured that someone more knowledgeable would be able to place it in the more correct category at a later time. :) Neutrality 00:19, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
It's okay... I just remember "fondly" spending a long afternoon sorting out erroneous categorizations into Cat:Math and it seems that the number of erroneous cat's has ballooned out again ;) Dysprosia 00:22, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I've nominated you for adminship now that you've been here for 3 months. If you'd like to accept, please see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. 172 02:52, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)