BothHandsBlack

Your recent edits

Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You could also click on the signature button or located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when they said it. Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 20:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

NGO Monitor

I have done a rollback of your recent edits to the article, and stated so at the talk page. With such a controversial subject, you need to bring matters to the talk page. Adding 'West' to Jerusalem, for example, could be seen as agenda-driven POV. In addition, as some editors may be in a different part of the world from you, leave a little time for other editors to respond at the talk page before making multiple edits that could be construed as contentious. Best, A Sniper (talk) 18:27, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, regarding your last edit to the page [1]. there is a possibility that it could be regarded as breaching the 1rr rules. I'll admit I'm not very good at assessing what is a breach and what is not, so I may very well be wrong. On the other hand I would rather be discussing the content issues of the page than get embroiled in another AE case, which are started with the slightest pretext in the IP topic area. Maybe it would be pertinent just to self revert, as it will make very little difference to end state of the article which will be decided by consensus and not who made the last edit. Feel free to ignore the advice, I only made the comment as I'm getting sick of seeing good faith editors getting sanctioned and taking the focus in the topic area away from improving content. Dlv999 (talk) 13:43, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. It didn't occur to me at the time that restoring some deleted material is a revert in the same way as deleting some added material but, on reflection, I suppose it is obvious. BothHandsBlack (talk) 14:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Welcome

Hello & welcome. I see you describe yourself as a "newbie," who is "just getting started." How did you acquaint yourself so well with the opinions of so many other editors? You seemed well-versed with their views and knew exactly where to find them. Also, you stated that you made a "hand full of pre-account edits." Are you at liberty to disclose what articles you edited? Best,--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 22:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi! To be honest, it didn't really take much effort to get a sense of peoples' views in this area. I've been a fan of reading wikipedia for a while now and noticed, and then started reading, talk pages perhaps six months ago. Now I always read the talk page behind any article and once I got interested in learning more about the Israel/Palestine subject it rapidly became clear that the people on each talk page were almost always the same bunch. Just before Christmas I read through a (very!) long centralised discussion on ... a topic a can't now remember for the life of me; it ended with a kind of forced consensus provided by an admin whose name began with G but the precise topic has fled my mind ... and that, in particular, gave me a strong sense of the general trends in editors' views amongst those working in this area. It also drew my attention to a bunch of names. As to knowing where to find people, I just invited everyone I remembered from previous discussions plus anyone who had contributed to any of the current discussions on the collaboration page. To be honest, I still don't actually know how to find people or non-article pages, so if you know how to search for users (I just manually clicked 'talk' for each one I found) or how to search for the policy or project pages please let me know, as, at the moment, I have to find a link provided by someone else. With regard to the pre-account edits, I would rather not say. My very first edit has a talk page contribution justifying it but it is written like a letter and I sign off with my real name. One of the other edits implies the city I live in on the talk page contribution. Given that I've seen quite a few threats of physical violence being posted on the talk pages of editors working on IP I would really rather not draw attention to my name, IP, and city of residence! But if you want to know the general area, I made one significant edit on a page concerned with the British Raj in India, two on a page concerned with censorship and a couple of minor typo corrections on various middle ages history pages. I'm guessing that your concern is that I'm the reincarnation of some banned user or other as I know too much for my claimed newness :-). If so, I would be happy to give details of the relevant pages to an admin if necessary. But the truth is, I've just had too much time to burn over the Christmas holidays and found the IP talk page debates to provide fascinating reading. BothHandsBlack (talk) 13:28, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Obviously if you feel uncomfortable divulging your "pre-account edits," you're under no obligation to do so. However, you mentioned that you've "seen quite a few threats of physical violence being posted on the talk pages of editors working on I-P." This is a very serious allegation and there is certainly no room for this type of aberrant behavior on Wikipedia. Can you please point out editors who edit within I-P who have threatened "physical violence?" I will bring it to the immediate attention of the community and have these editors blocked.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 17:35, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't mean threats by any of the 'regulars' but a couple of userpages I was watching after posting the invites to the discussion on naming conventions were repeatedly vandalised with threats of broken bones. Sean.hoyland's talk page was one (see this diff http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ASean.hoyland&action=historysubmit&diff=470410702&oldid=470123953 and the history page for the volume of vandalism) and the same threats appeared on another I was watching (I forget whose (possibly Nableezy?) as I stopped watching when I realised that I was going to get swamped by regular updates about vandalism), as well as some other highly unpleasant comments. Given that I was only watching four or so pages and two or three of them have received such threats in the short time I've been editing, I'm sure you'll understand why I wouldn't want to make my name, I.P. address and city of residence available to such individuals. If you have an email address I could mail you the links to my earlier edits but I really wouldn't want to connect all that data together in a publicly accessible space. BothHandsBlack (talk) 18:20, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi and welcome BHB. Sean.holyland and Nableezy's pages were vandalized yesterday around the same time, back to back. I saw no others since you notified editors about the discussion and apparently began watching their talk pages. Is this what you meant by "Given that I've seen quite a few threats of physical violence being posted on the talk pages of editors working on IP"? Because that sounds like you've seen a lot more than these two incidents that happened at the same time, only yesterday. Have you seen more or was it just a mis-phrasing? --MichaelNetzer (talk) 19:23, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

As stated, I was just referring to those. I don't see a problem with the phrasing - the threats were posted repeatedly and certainly amounted to 'quite a few'. Given how long I've been around, seeing threats appear within the first couple of days of watching user talk pages suggested a frequency that seemed enough to me to justify not wanting to publicise my personal details. But perhaps this has never happened before and I was just caught out by a freak event? BothHandsBlack (talk) 19:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Guys, if you have questions about the charming supporters of Israel who leave messages on my page you can ask me. But for the record, yes, I'm fairly often threatened with violence here or via emails by supporters of Israel. Others are too. The email aspect has been raised at ANI several times. The people often use anonymizing proxies, throw away accounts and certain mail servers to distribute hundreds of messages. Some people who support Israel are profoundly stupid, misinformed, morally corrupt, neofacist, despicable racist scum, who I assume have been indoctrinated and radicalized by the immense amount of hateful and dishonest nonsense available on the internet written by astoundingly unethical hate filled ultranationalists and ethnoreligious crazies. Israel doesn't have exclusive rights to those kind of supporters of course and the abuse is part of the nature of editing in the topic area. It's also irrelevant and counterproductive. Admins or others kindly remove the edits most of the time and revdel them sometimes as you can see here. Sean.hoyland - talk 11:14, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

How do you know these are "supporters of Israel"? How do you know they aren't "supporters of Palestine and hateful incitement" or "extremist liberal haters" trying to make Israel supporters look bad? How do you know they aren't Sean.holyland and Nableezy supporters giving editors an excuse to make assumptions they have no way of verifying, in order to make such inflammatory weasel hate comments in the P/I talk-space? How do we know these vandals aren't Sean.holyland or Nableezy themselves trying to gain sympathy for their uncivil battleground behavior against Israel supporters, as the presumptuous weasel hateful comment above shows? --MichaelNetzer (talk) 14:25, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

This section seems to be spattered with implicit and explicit assumptions of bad faith. Can't we all just get along guys? BothHandsBlack (talk) 15:47, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

This is how everyone gets along here. C'mon BHB, you aught to know that by now. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 19:58, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll answer Michael since he asked. Michael, you do yourself a disservice. Setting aside conspiracy theories, it's obvious they are supporters of Israel from the message contents, the emails addresses, the timing of the attacks following reversions of vandalism of articles and so on. It's not your fault, it's not my fault and neither of us can fix it. These incidents aren't relevant to efforts to build an encyclopedia but you asked about it so you have now been informed about it. What you think about it doesn't really matter because you can't stop it. Nor is sympathy of any interest or use because the abuse causes no suffering on my part (apparently you know nothing about me) and has no lasting impact on content. I'm not here to convince you of anything because what you think about it and how you feel about it are of no interest to me. There's nothing weasel in my words. I said what I meant and I meant what I said. I really do despise extremist idiots like these and the people that generate the material that feeds them. I'm quite happy to be open about that. I don't have an uncivil battleground behavior against Israel supporters, I'm not sure where that is coming from but your opinion of me doesn't matter, content matters. There's nothing wrong with being an Israel supporter and I collaborate quite happily with Israel supporters here. Israel supporters and batshit crazy racist fuckers are two independent sets that can and do intersect. It's a fact. The world keeps turning and building Wikipedia carries on. Sean.hoyland - talk 16:53, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Sean. It's coming from the content of your comment, and is not a personal remark about you. I think you got a little carried away here but happy to see things settling down on your talk page. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 19:58, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Wow

We need dispute resolution? I thought we were just trying to get our heads around our positions. That seems a bit drastic - and I'm saying that as a mediator myself. Best, A Sniper (talk) 21:51, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

And progress! In future, though, please just float your suggestion straightaway rather than spending three days commenting on mine :-). BothHandsBlack (talk) 22:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

sock puppet issues

bothhandsblack - care to elaborate on the sock puppet issues you are having? Soosim (talk) 13:07, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Basically, four regular IP area editors have come to the firm conclusion that I'm a sock-puppet (see their discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Brewcrewer#User:BothHandsBlack) on the grounds that a) I know too much about wikipedia to be a new editor, and b) that my comments on my user page constitute 'acting' :-). You can see part of the inquisition in the section at the top of my talkpage ironically titled 'Welcome'. Unfortunately, at least one of these editors is involved in the discussion on naming conventions and another editor has called into question my motives for starting the discussion. This has led yet another regular editor, not involved in the accusations, to state that he expects me to edit in a certain way in the collaboration so as not to encourage those accusing me. In short, the claims make it impossible for me to continue editing until they are sorted out as they assume bad faith in all my editing and are obviously influential enough to cause other editors to question my integrity, or at least the way I present myself. I look forward to continuing to work with you on the NGOM article once all this is resolved! BothHandsBlack (talk) 13:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You could also click on the signature button or located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when they said it. Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 12:05, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

diffs

Your long ANI post was made longer by the way you formatted diffs -- here we use square brackets [ ] instead of parentheses. I did the reformatting for you on ANI, which can reasonably interpreted as violating WP:TPO but perfectly consistent with WP:IAR, which I note as example of Wikipedia's incoherence. Also, if you going to edit Wikipedia:ECCN areas lots of patience will be required. See User:Nobody Ent/Other Duck Nobody Ent 13:08, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Rgr - thanks for fixing those and for the useful advice on the ANI page. I realised from the start that editing in this area would be tricky. I just didn't expect that the fact that actively trying to be polite and conciliatory would bring accusations that this attitude must be hiding some other nefarious purpose. If you can be labelled as a problem editor BECAUSE you attempt to seek consensus and bend over backwards to respond politely to impolite questions then the environment has become hopelessly corrupted. I guess, as you suggest, just ignoring such things is probably the only way forward but when these accusations get raised in the context of discussions seeking consensus it just seems very difficult to make any progress. BothHandsBlack (talk) 13:25, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

It definitely is. Frankly I neither edit in these areas or rely on them for information (the internet is a big place and there are other sources of information besides Wikipedia). I value Wikipedia for its articles on general topics, as its editing model works very well there. I don't see it as corrupt so much as immature. The dispute resolution end of line on English Wikipedia is the Arbitration Committee, and they are currently tackling the general incivility issue, so hopefully there will be improvement in the future. Nobody Ent 13:40, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

It's good to hear that there might be some progress on this issue. My big attraction to the IP pages was that I have learned a huge amount from them. In some ways they benefit from the partisan conflict as it means that whilst huge amounts of time are wasted on insignificant issues the chances of gross factual errors creeping onto the articles for very long is pretty minimal. The talk pages are also great for finding out what the contentious issues in the study of the subject are so, as a whole, I find wikipedia to be a valuable resource in this area. I probably overestimated, however, the chances of helping to keep the positives of this environment whilst minimising the negatives. BothHandsBlack (talk) 14:01, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Formatting

Hi. I fixed your format error at User talk:Brewcrewer for you, regarding your ANI notice. I hope that's ok with you. Caden ^cool 16:55, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem at all. I was wondering why it came out differently there to on some of the other pages! BothHandsBlack (talk) 16:58, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Glad to help. And good luck with editing. Caden ^cool 17:04, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

formatting

Three single quotes ''' for bold, two ''' for italics Nobody Ent 16:55, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to tell me. BothHandsBlack (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

• Awwwww ... come on now - any experienced sock would surely know that. :P (let me know if you do get into the philosophical stuff, I enjoy that area) — Ched :  ?  17:01, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Obviously, it's a double bluff on my behalf :-). I was planning on doing some work on the Plato article fairly soon as I think that, whilst it does a good job as a kind of equivalent first lecture to an undergrad class it needs to be a bit broader in order to be encyclopaedic. Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, pretty much no one actually subscribes to the simple early/middle/late distinction in its fullest form with a lot of scholars treating it as a convenient framework that can be used until something better comes along. I'm not sure quite how to approach this, though, as it may be difficult to source since it is often unspoken. I'd also like to see the Tubingen/Milan view get a bit more space, along with Leo Strauss and the more recent movement in more mainstream scholarship to take the dialogue form as seriously as the content (which I don't think gets referred to at the moment) BothHandsBlack (talk) 17:09, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi: chiming in as I wonder whether you've seen Wikipedia:The Missing Manual? The actual book is linked at the bottom in downloadable form. I actually started editing Wikipedia because I wanted to learn the markup language '-) Oh and . . . Wikipedia:Emoticons. Anyway, welcome to Wikipedia; we really are glad to have you aboard. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:10, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

That is enormously helpful! Downloading the book now and the emoticon page is great. Until a couple of years ago when I got involved in my first internet forum I was very dismissive of emoticons but I find it hard to live without them now. BothHandsBlack (talk) 09:12, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Very brief and partial explantion for some of the reactions you have received

Hi BothHandsBlack!
I'm not sure whether you are familiar with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but anyways. I happened to be wearing a pair of Peril Sensitive Sunglasses[2] while reading your Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents post that started "I'm a new editor on Wikipedia." Everything was fine until I got to "... in the Israel/Palestine topic area, the subject on which I intend to primarily work", at which point the Peril Sensitive Sunglasses became completely opaque.
--Shirt58 (talk) 01:07, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

SPI and length of comments

Please don't make 9kbytes comments. "I'm not X" would have sufficed. Remember, if you're not X, then that is what the outcome of the SPI will be. You don't know me, but I can tell you this based on own experience. --Frederico1234 (talk) 19:34, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Whilst I'm working on being more concise (honest!) I thought this genuinely needed a comprehensive rebuttal after finding on ANI that about half the admins did indeed think I was an obvious puppet (on the same grounds as Biosketch). Given that you have some experience in these matters, could you explain to me how the investigation works and how they would arrive at the correct conclusion without my comments? Is the case presented against me just very weak or are there other ways for them to get at the truth?BothHandsBlack (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Heh - ok, I've looked over the other live cases and I take your point. I had misunderstood what was involved and thought that because Biosketch had not requested a checkuser the decision would be made entirely on the cohesiveness of our submissions but it looks like they have access to all sorts of technical info I wasn't aware of. BothHandsBlack (talk) 20:14, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Correct. (More info here btw.) SPIs are really nothing to worry about. --Frederico1234 (talk) 20:48, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

funding question

Hi there, I was just passing through your NGO Monitor article, and noticed that the funding section looks like the original one that was there before our little DRN chat, I was just wondering if there was any reason for that, decided it wasn't needed/wasn't right/hadn't got around to it/forgot about it/other more pressing issues? Just wondering. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:13, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Hah! After all that I was desperate to move onto a new article and I assumed that Soosim would change it as he had the problem with the previous wording. He must have assumed I would do it! I'll get it sorted out now :-). Thanks for pointing that out and thanks again for all your help with the DR. 15:20, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Happy to help. Carry on! -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 17:15, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

oops, wrong comment

I accidentally put a wrong comment when I undid your last edit. The right comment is "Still, any claiming of connection with human rights would be an original research." Unfortunately, comments can't be edited. --Yms (talk) 20:01, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Bold edits atheism

Hi, I have reverted your bold edits on Atheism, the next step is to discuss the issue on the atheism talk page. Read WP:BRD about this editing pattern. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:50, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

More bold edits

Hi I have reverted a couple of your edits in History of atheism, pending talk page discussion. Mcewan (talk) 13:12, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit summaries, please

Remember to leave an edit summary, you forgot to in Atheism. It helps to tie your edit summary to the talk page too. Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 17:57, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Oops - apologies. Didn't occur to me because it came after the talk page discussion but I'll do my best to remember next time. BothHandsBlack (talk) 18:00, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Atheism

According to this diff, you removed a sourced passage from the article, and did so without comment as to the reason. While its generally more noble to write than to remove text, its understood that some things may need pruning. However its necessary to comment in detail as to why the removal is needed, and its highly desirable to make a new section on the talk page to explain your removal and discuss with others its necessity. Regards, -Stevertigo (t | c) 21:22, 14 June 2012 (UTC)