User talk:Chaser/Archive 23

Archives
2006: Mar—Jun 19 | Jun 20—Jul | Aug—Sep | Oct—Dec 17 | Dec 17—31 2007: Jan | Feb—May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec 2008: Jan—May | Jun—Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec 2009: Jan—Apr | May—Aug | Sep | Oct—Nov | Dec 2010: Jan—Jun | Jul—Oct | Nov—Dec 2011: Jan—Mar | Apr—Jul 2012: Jul—Aug | Sep—Dec 2013: Jan—Dec 2014: Jan—Dec 2015: Jan—Dec

Greetings, from a sockpuppet ;)

Hi there,

I don't think we've really met before. I see you're keeping an eye on some the pages involved in the wiki-drama that's kicked-up *again*. You seem to be taking an even hand. I have no issue with your having trimmed my flashy sigs on Pablo's page; he might, though. He's a friend and has used bits of code of mine before. I've helped him with bits of his user space, too.

So I thought I'd say hi, and open the lines a bit. I like the bit on your user page about your being here since before the dawn of time. When you joined, I had already been through an arb case; the other party was banned and over the next few years his socks were, too. The road did get bumpier after that, but conflict, and appropriate resolution, has always been a part of the wiki. I suppose it always will, too.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:35, 28 November 2009 (UTC) (real name's David; many know that, now;)

For the record, I have no issue with either your sigs (butt-ugly though they were!) or Chaser's amendment thereof. A knee-jerk reaction was to revert, but on reflection, it was a good-faith edit and may be better this way. So if no-one has any strong feelings, let's leave it as is. The only info lost was your enquiry as to the whereabouts of your ARS welcome; don't hold your breath waiting for that.   pablo_hablo. 10:58, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

No problemo; we all know they're not really gone. I know source code control systems *well* and they are the core technology underpinning the wiki page history concept. Seeing the wikis this way is key to seeing things properly. It's simply not about the version on top. Oh, it is quite possible that Ikip simply missed offering me an ARS welcome, so I'll keep the faith. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Jack.--Chaser (talk) 18:12, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Tea

Hi. Please do not edit my comments on pages; my above comments were specific license re the sigs on Pablo's page only. There was no consensus in that insipid discussion that I was being disruptive, but I view your edit there as disruptive. You cut-in to my post with a link to your userspace to a copy of the sig with an different timestamp and effectively inserted your opinion into my post. You are free, of course, to have an opinion and I suggest you offer it using a normal post over your own sig. Jack Merridew 02:33, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Jack, I take your point about ANI, where I guess you were just demonstrating it. But no one needs your permission or license to change it just about anywhere else. It's distracting in the edit window, it doesn't follow WP:SIG, and so anyone can change it. If you don't like people changing your signature, then use one that's three lines long instead of 15 or whatever it is.--Chaser (talk) 02:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

On my page you did refer to my above comment. Look, I'm not intending to be pointy here. I know the sig guidelines; I've opined on them. This is just an occasional thing and a few shouters are stirring-up shit for other reasons. My use of it on ANI *was* a demo and I think things would have been clearer if you had not done your subpage thing. I'm not going to fuss over it, though. I looked the other day and found 13 of that (or similar) sig. It's no big deal. The 'first class' moniker came from the 'vandalism patrol' where they were making up military ranks for the whac-a-vandal game. I didn't want to be a lieutenant general or whatever, so I made up my own rank Sock FC. That's all gone and for the best. See these:

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Programmer13/Vandalism Patrol
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Drew R. Smith/Vandalism Patrol
• User talk:Programmer13/Vandalism Patrol

These, too:

• [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

I'm good at code; that sig uses some advanced styling and correct markup. People who have poor skills and aesthetics are filling talk pages with crap and it is annoying and is about attention seeking and insecurities. If I were doing this as my regular sig, it would be a clear point. Since it's occasional, it's merely humour. If the shit-stirrers would get a clue, we'd be having a talk about tightening-up the sig guidelines. They don't really care about the sig length; they care about dinging Jack and their core objection is that the AC has allowed a sock account to edit. And some fear my criticism.

tip

in prefs (under editing), set "Editbox dimensions: Rows" to 40 or so and "Widen the edit box to fill the entire screen" to on. The defaults result in a cramped edit window and warp peoples' sense of space. Do most editing in an external editor.

I said before that I saw you as taking an even hand, and mostly you are. Before you form much of an opinion of me, please be sure you see the whole picture. I'll be glad to help with that. Cheers. Jack Merridew 03:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Jack, I appreciate your saying you think I'm being fair. Often the perception of fairness is more important than the reality of it.

I agree with your second point here, but it's not my call. I can't speak to their motivations, but yes, the people at ANI were dramatizing something trivial, in one case hypocritically. On-wiki, like everywhere else, sometimes only the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I'd hoped that my just changing your sig would provide everyone with an easy compromise. I relied initially on your words in an attempt to get you to buy into that; I guess it didn't work. Maybe during the next shit-storm I'll more explicitly suggest that others just quietly change your signature. Hopefully it will either make it die down or illuminate everyone's motivations for what they are. I hope I'm being clear about mine. I don't think your signature is funny; perhaps I'm humor impaired. I know you didn't cause the shit-storm, but parodying stupid signatures is a good way to produce another drama-fest, which distracts everyone from mainspace and from the valid criticisms you make. The point you're making is lost on the editor whose signature you just changed on your talk page. Maybe that's due to willful deafness. Maybe he should have more clue. I don't see how your occasional absurd signature helps with either. It just makes it less likely you'll be taken seriously. I'll probably take you seriously regardless, but I'm not the only person editing here.

Thanks for the editbox tip. I implemented it.--Chaser (talk) 05:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Glad you like the better editbox; mebbe the peanut gallery will benefit from the tip, too.

I would ask you to not edit my occasional sigs; I'd be fine talking about it further. This would be about you remaining uninvolved. There is always the possibility that someone will need to be in that position — and I don't just mean re myself. I'm more interested in who does the dead horse thing about this and tries again. And again. If you suggest that others just edit my sigs, they *will* per WP:BEANS. Anyway, this is all a minor sideshow in the larger scheme of things. The motion is due to land. There is also the Gerard drama that's major-sucking-time. The sig is funny to me and I know some others enjoy it. I'll marinate on the whole notion and not be provocative. I'm sure Dae would not be amused to see it on his talk page, for example. It's a part of my wiki-history. If there's a point here, it's that some need to accept the notion of unbanned.

I've no idea who that other fellow with the garish sig is; he was, I believe, confused on the ANI thread about what sig was even being discussed. Thanks for viewing me seriously; I am serious about these projects and enough people know that, now. I've not much noticed you and don't know how or when I first came to your attention. There have been the obvious incidents, of course. I'm glad to have met you and believe we can get along just fine. I see that you're serious about this place, so we should be able to find plenty of common ground. I'm going to use another sig I've occasionally used; it's not too long or boxy, not so in your face. An offset it uses is rather empirically arrived at and may result on the layout being a bit inconsistent on some browsers; feedback welcome.

Cheers, Jack Merridew aka david 08:08, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

"aka david" renders much like subscript in Chrome. I noticed you when I was directed to Pablo by my former adoptee, A Nobody (having returned from an indef block is one of the few things you two have in common). It was mostly your mocking AN that prompted me to change your signature the first time. Anyway, I'll also marinate on not changing the other long version. I'm happy to have met you, Jack. It's good to meet editors who are serious about wiki, at least part of the time. ;-) Cheers.--Chaser (talk) 16:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I wrote a reply here earlier and it seems to have not saved, and I'm trying to remember what I wrote; something about masala chai...

I missed that you had some sort of mentoring arrangement with A Nobody, although I'm am aware of Durova's role; so much for my involved comments. I had not seen that you had removed parts of my comments on Pablo's page; what you viewed as mocking, no doubt. A salutation is really not ever part of a sig; Cas had "Cheers, " in his pref-sig and it proved awkward. I believe we're mostly on the same page here, even if you don't always like my humour; mebbe next lulz. The "aka david" sig was used for about a month while I was en:blocked and can wildly misbehave on older version of Opera; the "subscript", which is positioned relativity, could appear wildly off due to the browser being confused about what the text was being positioned relative to; it somehow got the idea the the origin was the bottom-right of the screen. Most uses of that were refactored by me. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC) (ah, I have also cut the text-shadow from my standard sig as too-copied, at this point. This became supported in Firefox at v3.5 and off the anyones went.

much lulz; maor. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

The "Sincerely" is part of AN's signature, so when I saw your "salutation" twice, I mistakenly thought it was the same deal. I don't think I'm involved with AN. Despite our long history, most of my interactions with him in the last year and a half have been in an administrative capacity (example), though I will still sometimes defend him.--Chaser (talk) 03:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I really was unaware of your prior interactions with him. I see a few bits and find it amusing that you are "Roi" in the sense that it was you that recreated the account; I knew that had occurred, but had not connected it to whom I've been chatting with. The whole 'involved' bit is moot as there are several recent consensuses that I'm really not disruptive and that the definitions some were attempting to apply were laughably low; "conduct that is seen every day in many discussions."

The various salutations are not part of anyone's sig per se, they are part of the post itself. I have a local text file with some sigs in it and copypasta them occasionally. Sometimes, however, I copy from some recent post of mine and replace the old timestamp with five tildes; and sometimes I mess up. I had seen the two example you just gave. I was vaguely aware of him back in 2007, but it wasn't until the E&C cases that he really got my attention. I made a statement about this somewhere and need to get that process finished.

The sig I'm using here is:

• Cheers, ~~~ <sup>(sock;)</sup> ~~~~~

It's typed into the editbox and everything other than what the tildes cause MediaWiki to generate are my 'post' not my 'sig'.

Cheers, Jack Merridew ^(sock;) 05:03, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply that I disbelieved you about not having known that I was AN's adopter. I believed you the first time. Sorry if I was unclear.--Chaser (talk) 05:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Nah, I wasn't doubting it, I just meant to be saying that I'd not even bothered to look in the last few days since you mentioned it. I did just look, lightly, and what I see is all re issues and time periods that did not involve me. Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Live merging

Hello Chaser. I replied to your comment about SNOW consensus for merges, over at User talk:EdJohnston. Is #4 truly a more permissive rule than #3? Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 23:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm unconvinced that you can parse a clear verdict on what 'extreme caution' means, from the comments in the current RfC. People seemed to want to craft *some* escape clause, so they would not be merely saying 'Never ever do a live merge, for any reason.' So in a sense they were just trying to find a suitable form of WP:IAR that seemed to match the problem. If you want the WP:GD live-merging language to be tightened up further, I think you'd have to launch a new discussion and be very specific in your question. In my personal opinion, the issue may not be profound enough to deserve that amount of detailed study. (Cases of bad-faith editing will probably be discernible even if the rules aren't completely watertight). EdJohnston (talk) 02:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, if it will save running another RfC, I'll support further revision of the paragraph for WP:GD. See the latest at User talk:EdJohnston#Third version for your comments. I hope this version is less ambiguous. EdJohnston (talk) 16:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I'm waiting for a comment by at least one editor on my final version before closing the RfC. It would be tricky to contact the discussion participants for their views, since I don't want to appear to be canvassing any particular voters, and I am reluctant to spam all 28 people. EdJohnston (talk) 18:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

ITN for Uruguayan general election, 2009

On 1 December 2009, In the news was updated with a news item that involved the article Uruguayan general election, 2009, which you substantially updated. If you know of another interesting news item involving a recently created or updated article, then please suggest it on the candidates page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 09:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

FYI

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Jack_Merridew_is_back_to_his_disruptive.2Fannoying_signature Ikip (talk) 18:13, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm deferring to Fut.Perf on this one.--Chaser (talk) 18:31, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Update

Chaser, regarding User_talk:A_Nobody/Archive_23#Canvassing_thread, it has turned out per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Bravedog#Conclusions that in addition to canvassing and incivility these accounts were actually the same guy who also had another account going (these accounts have been going since I think 2006!). THREE of the accounts who said to redirect in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Una Healy (Bravedog = GaGaOohLaLa, and also Dalejenkins) were actually the same person (including the nominator) and therefore may have unduly influenced the discussion by giving a false consensus, the nominator and first "voter" in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cherub (TV series) are actually the same person, and in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chronology of Star Wars (2nd nomination), which closed as "no consensus," it has turned out that the nominator as well as the first delete "voter" (both of whom made multiple comments to others in the discussion) are actually the same person. I have already notified the respective closing admins in case if the vote stacking (especially in the case where all three accounts commented) presented a false consensus and in the various other discussions in which two or three of them commented (always all three saying to delete...), the AfDs closed as solid "keep"s so nothing to change there. Anyway, thought you might be curious whatever happened with this one. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 05:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

If you disagree with the result, you should take Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cherub (TV series) to WP:DRV. The closing admin has not edited in months.--Chaser (talk) 06:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Edwin P. Morrow

Thanks for your comments on my FA nom of Edwin P. Morrow. Though I've been out of town for several days, I don't see that anyone else has weighed in on your suggestion for rearranging the headings in the article as we had hoped. Would you like me to declare us a consensus of two and make the change? Also, could you strike out the concerns you feel have been sufficiently addressed? It'll help me and the eventual closing admin to keep track of what is still actionable. I'm hoping to wrap up the nomination this week. Acdixon ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 13:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Certainly. I've done so. I don't know how actionable the other issues will be according to the FA criteria, but I've crossed out most of them.--Chaser (talk) 14:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Tiger Woods

Your recent revisions based on your personal preferences are getting a little bit annoying. As an admin you should know better, use the talk-page before deleting right away. --Hapsala (talk) 17:42, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we've got a clear consensus now at Talk:Tiger_Woods#Dispute.--Chaser (talk) 16:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

COI

Benjiboi is the first editor to have mentioned "X" on Wikipedia, writing an entire article about the personality. He fought to have the article kept when it was nominated for deletion, twice. I really think he's being extremely hypocritical to file complaints about other editors for connecting him to that personality when he's admitted it himself in the past. There are 3 million articles on Wikipedia, yet he keeps coming back to those with which he has an apparent COI. Folks have tried more discrete ways of discussing the problem but he rebuffs them all. I think this problem is entirely of his own creation and he's blocking any resolution. It's not helping Wikipedia.   Will Beback  talk  23:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't seen the request for the Oversight. But it's not a "memory hole". BB's identity has been the subject of his own editing. That he refuses to deal with the issue in a straightforward manner shows the weakness of the WP:COI guideline: anyone with a conflict of interest can ignore it and those who try to enforce it are accused harassment. It's not a good situation and it directly affects both the encyclopedia's inherent neutrality and its reputation as a reference work.   Will Beback  talk  23:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

There's more to it than what has been presented and I already explained that "admission" posted a few years ago. There remains no excuse to harass other editors and tellingly, no evidence of COI editing. Additionally I regularly work on dozens if not hundreds of articles and that COI connection was rendered rather moot when those two articles were deleted. So your effort to connect me to the subject of either article and then try to use a press release to further connect me to someone I've never even met let alone barely heard of before Wikipedia? Ridiculous. I could write up a list of likely a hundred very well known celebrities I have met yet I really don't edit their articles either. Seriously, we have well known problems and breaking civility to make a point isn't helping anything. -- Banjeboi 00:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Alex Jacobowitz

Well, that was embarrassing, but it's gone now. I'll start on the sources soon though. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Best of Luck

I wish you the best of luck in whatever you do in the future. Since we probably won't "run into" each other before then, have a Happy Holiday season (whatever holiday you celebrate). Take Care...NeutralHomer • Talk • 20:10, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

^ This. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:33, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

^^ Thirded. Have a good whatever you're having.   pablo_hablo. 23:00, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I wish you all the best in your future endeavors and I hope you are finding more happiness than I... Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 21:54, 15 December 2009 (UTC)