Jump to content

User talk:Kim Bruning/Archive 6

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1←Archive 4Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7Archive 8→Archive 10

Of possible interest

Who Writes Wikipedia? - read the numbers, this supports what you've been saying about contributions. Apologies if you've seen this already. KillerChihuahua?!? 02:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

That article is great! In fact, it's one of the original sources for my statements ;-) --Kim Bruning 03:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah, of course. Old news, then. KillerChihuahua?!? 20:54, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
It was used during the 2006 arbcom elections. And I do really appreciate you finding this. Hope to hear more from you :-) --Kim Bruning 05:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
..and I read a great deal of material presented during those elections, but obviously I either missed this or it failed to adhere to what passes for my memory. thanks - now I feel really rude, but you're handling it graciously. KillerChihuahua?!? 10:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Pending Thoughts on DRV

I was just reading Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship, where you mentioned about 10 days ago that you have a bunch of thoughts about WP:DRV that you'll be getting around to mentioning someday. You might be interested in a few statistics that I posted to deletion review's talk page on December '06 deletion and deletion review activity. Obviously, not knowing your thoughts, I have no idea if the statistics will be irrelevant, confirm, or contradict your thoughts. GRBerry 04:59, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Deletion nomination

Please consider notifying authors of pages you nominate for deletion on the related talk page. I have added additional content, sources and references to Mike Salisbury however building a top quality article takes time. Feel free to comment on the discussion page if you have anything to add to this endeavour. Eulogy4Afriend 07:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Gentle proposal

Thanks for your remarks regarding the above entry. The discussion page has been updated to reflect my rational for including this article. Mr Salisbury is only one of several individuals associated with the emerging natural burial movement in North America. I believe that the multiple, non-trivial, reliable published works, whose sources are independent of the subjects that merit inclusion in Wikipedia of theses individuals.

It is my intention to improve the available information on this topic including the major contributors to the natural burial movement in North America. (please refer to ‘See also’ in the Salisbury article) However this takes time.

Perhaps you could assist me - I inappropriately named one of the articles Dr. Billy Campbell rather than the correct - Billy Campbell (doctor) - I do not know how to change this - could you please helpEulogy4Afriend 14:41, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Billy Campbell

Which is preferable, hot linking to websites in the main body of text or listing the website at the bottom of and article in a "links" section. As an example, in the Campbell article I would like to reference Memorial EcoSystems which is a comercial website run by Mr. Campbell. The article was peer reviewed by User:Yannismarou and I understood that it was preferable to include the reference and or weblink in the body of the article Eulogy4Afriend 20:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

On green burial stuff

I've tried to compile some facts and thoughts at User:Habj/green burial stuff. I feel slightly uneasy about writing something that can be seen as accusations (and to a certain degree are) in my user space, where I expect other people to not comment on the actual page. Should I change anything in it, do you think, with regards to that matter? // habj 10:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

p/g/e

Sure. It's really not that difficult, or at least not intended to be. Wikispace is mindbogglingly large, byzantine and confusing. For most of the pages, that's not actually a problem - e.g. the many bookkeeping pages, Wikiprojects, noticeboards, and how-does-the-software-work-anyway pages. However, many Wikipages describe ideas - e.g. "metadata templates should go on the talk page", "don't put a penis image on the main page", or "articles about schools may not be deleted". Now of course an experienced editor will be able to determine which of these are good ideas, and act accordingly - but a novice editor would not be. Is the idea something that was discussed and that most people agree on, or is it just a rant by some disgruntled user? How would the novice find out? I suppose he could ask, but asking the creator of a page is not going to help. If we know that most people agree that some page is a good idea in most cases, we can put a tag there to indicate that, and that's what {{guideline}} is. {{policy}} is pretty much the same for practical purposes, but is reserved for the Really Important Stuff, if any. The other tags basically say that most people do not agree that this is generally a good idea, so you may want to think twice before doing it. There are probably a few mistagged pages out there (VIE was one), let me know if you see any. >Radiant< 15:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Policy Trifecta

I'm not sure about the purdier version... it's also more complex <snicker> But I didn't mean to remove it [1]

More complex! The same text with some graphics! I'd threaten to take away your browser and make you use lynx and vi, but you'd probably enjoy it. <mutter mutter> Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 15:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC) Also, this.

Hello Kim Bruning, thanks for writing. Radiant!'s right, non-policy pages have got no business with the word "policy" in their titles... there's two reasons for this. 1. It leads to new user confusion as to what pages in fact do constitute officially recognized policy and 2. It lessens the "punch" of actual offically recognized policy pages. My edits are geared towards reducing this. (→Netscott) 19:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I've actually been discussing it all along. As far as edit warring is concerned, your counting of your reverts is a bit telling. I actually would have submitted the page long ago for MfD if Radiant! hadn't moved the name to reflect the page's status as not being policy (and yes not even proposed policy). I see now that there's an additional editor expressing concern regarding this page. If the page isn't moved then I fully intend to submit it for deletion as an unnecessary and confusing fork of Wikipedia:Five pillars (which is what it is now). (→Netscott) 19:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Kim Bruning, you've now got three editors who've been "overwatching" this (technically four with User:JJay's last edit summary on the page) that are expressing disagreeance with the page and/or title of the page... what part are you having difficulty understanding? (→Netscott) 19:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
A Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar for Kim, for his kindness and his patience in the face of technical and various other idiocies. :-) SlimVirgin (talk) 21:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Your edits to Shawn Vulliez

Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia, Kim Bruning! However, your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove spam from Wikipedia. If you were trying to insert a good link, please accept my creator's apologies, but please note that the link you added in is on my spam blacklist and should not be included in Wikipedia. Please read Wikipedia's external links policy for more information. If the link was to an Imageshack or Photobucket image, please read Wikipedia's image tutorial on how to use a more appropriate method to insert the image into an article. If your link was genuine spam, please note that inserting spam into Wikipedia is against policy. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! Shadowbot 06:40, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Sane?

Not at the moment, I'm afraid. I'm feeling hideously depressed, with moments of brightness. It might be why I was busy biting people. I feel bad about that now :-( Ta bu shi da yu 17:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Do I?

Maybe I do. I don't know if he will be, but I do have my reservations. My greater concern is how Raul handled the closing, as Ryulong clearly didn't meet community consensus. – Chacor 08:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I think there's opinion building that Raul mishandled the closing, and that is probably the most important issue that the community will have to discuss - how it was handled. I can't imagine Raul continuing to defend it (even if eventually the closing stands) will help. Next comes the question of whether we should just get rid of numbers totally and let crats make judgement calls all on their own based on comments, I suppose, since it definitely looks like that's the way many RFAs are going. I'm certain there are more issues, but these are probably key, and will probably set some sort of precedent for the future (probably not unlike how Carnildo's set a precedent for similar closures). – Chacor 08:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Like I told Ryulong on his talk page, I'm disappointed that he's actually been asked to resign and wait for a new nomination. I don't see that as necessary unless there is new consensus, especially among crats (and possibly the Arbs), that Raul made a grave error (although quite a few people, myself included, already look at things that way), and the whole promotion is overturned, which I find hiighly unlikely. I'll be happy if Ryulong doesn't do anything stupid with the tools, or even make errors like WP:CIV or WP:BITE (which he was opposed for), really. That includes unilaterally deleting pages he sees on sight he doesn't think meets WP:CSD (that was one contention re. WP:BITE, that he tagged new articles far too quickly). – Chacor 09:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I have no doubt that Ryulong has and will continue to make mistakes, because we all do. I suppose it's how Ryulong handles it. My opinion re. Raul's actions does indeed consider this. I don't think anyone should be closing any debate (be it AFD, RFA, or whatever) even PARTIALLY based on personal opinion. I think Raul understood the flak he'd get for this, and he is getting the flak he (probably) deserves for doing so, I'm disappointed that he continues to defend it behind reasoning a lot of people don't like. – Chacor 09:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there'd be as much uproar over this as if Raul hadn't said that he promoted Ryulong based on personal interactions. Sometimes you have to wonder if we're stretching bureaucrat consensus too far. I have no opinion on how to handle similar situations in the future; indeed I hope and pray there will be no similar situations in the future where a crat does something without thinking about the repercussions. – Chacor 09:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
As for Ryulong's mistakes... well, looking at his three RFAs, you'll sense a common pattern. Part of the uproar is probably that Ryulong still hasn't shown he's able to fix what the opposers want fixed. I just hope he'll learn to fix them as he goes along. – Chacor 09:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there's anything we can do to fix Ryulong's mistakes, he has to learn how to do so himself because it seems to be based around his personality. I think there is a real issue raised regarding acting before thinking. As for similar situations in the future, one can only hope that there's some discussion between bureaucrats before promotion, rather than a unilateral decision based off personal experience. – Chacor 09:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
No, but I do think bureaucrat discussion is needed if one or two crats think there's a reason to overrule the community. Again, I'm not sure how we can directly help Ryulong. I think there's nothing much we can do except watch for when he again does something that he was opposed for, and point it out to him. I'm out of ideas on that front, especially since this is a problem with his attitude towards new users' new articles (indeed, why not even help them improve said articles into something encyclopedic). – Chacor 09:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

RfA for candidates with high edits counts

Over at WT:RFA you said: "an editor with over 10000 edits. Those Never, ever ever pass RFA cleanly (drop by on irc or my talk page if you never heard of this rule of thumb before and are curious as to why)." So I dropped by.

I think that you will find that some wikignomes who used AWB responsibly have ammassed high edit counts by the time they have the experience to pass RfA cleanly. See here for an 18,000+ edit count example. I think your dictum probably only applies to those who rattle around projectspace (Wikipedia namespace) or article talk pages and get into conflicts. Or do you mean something else? And how do you define 'cleanly'? Carcharoth 13:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. That would be another exception then.
It's just statistics really. Say someone makes 1 large mistake per 1000 edits, which is a pretty decent score. After 10000 edits, they'll have made 10 large mistakes. Enough for quite a number of opposes on a Request for adminship. (And cleanly in this case = with few or no opposes ).
--Kim Bruning 15:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

p/g/e

I don't do IRC, really. I'm not quite sure what you're doing, I don't quite grok your approach. Riddle me this: do you know any guidelines that are not a Good Idea? And do you know any Good Ideas that are not guidelines? >Radiant< 16:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Free information

Thanks for your message. I'm aware of that link. It doesn't say that no fair use images are allowed. Nor does it specify how much fair use should be allowed. As long as the foundation allows fair use, then we on .en Wikipedia are free to discuss how best to utilize free use content. If Jimbo ever decides by fiat to remove all fair use, or to specify exactly what fair use is allowed, then on that sad day there will be no more room for discussion. Until then, I will keep trying to make this a better reference work by opening our eyes to the advantages of legally permissible fair use.Johntex\talk 14:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The foundation issues say that all content should be copyleft licenced, if at all possible. Fair use is not copyleft.
To check: do you fully understand what copyleft is, and why people think it's important? --Kim Bruning 15:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
To check, did you leave the link you left for me? It says, "...Copyleft licensing of content; in practice, GFDL (working on changes via GFDL 2.0)". It does not say that only Copyleft licensing is allowed, and we do not run the site with only copyleft licensing allowed. As I said, If Jimbo ever decides by fiat to remove all fair use, or to specify exactly what fair use is allowed, then on that sad day there will be no more room for discussion. Until then, I will keep trying to make this a better reference work by opening our eyes to the advantages of legally permissible fair use.
And yes, I understand what copyleft licensing is, and why people think it is important. I have made significant contributions to the world of free informaiton through my contributions both here and on commons. You can see totally free photos I have uploaded at Johntex' gallery on commons.
Now let me ask you a few questions.:
  1. Do you understand why some people here want to make this the best encyclopedia possible?
  2. Do you understand that appropriate use of fair-use content can help with that?
  3. Do you understand that most contributors here are here out of a desire to build a useful encyclopedia, and not to contribute to a free content crusade?
Thanks for your time. Johntex\talk 15:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, well, I'm really trying to check that our definitions are in sync, so as to prevent us talking past each other.

In the case of fair use, it becomes really hard to copy, distribute, move, print, burn or otherwise use information.

Now fettered encyclopedias already exist. And they sometimes even include very good paid for images, for instance. Wouldn't I be better off just buying a copy of the encyclopedia britannica, rather than working on wikipedia? If not, why not? --Kim Bruning 16:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Oh, I think we have many, many, advantages over Britannica. Three of them (in no particular order) are:
  1. We are free, as in beer;
  2. We are partially free, as in speach - so some of our content can be used verbatim (with attribution) if the reader chooses;
  3. We are comprehensive, covering topics that britannica will probably never get around to covering.

I'm sure you can think of dozens of articles here that Britannica would not have. If you will permit me, I would like to talk about a few of them I have helped with:

  1. Jevan Snead - Britannica would never get around to having an article like this. This article has two free use pictures I took myself. Unfortunately, neither of them are good enough to actually show what the person looks like, which is a shame. We should go back to allowing publicity photos to be used under fair use. It would make an article like this one much better, and it would not hurt anyone.
  2. 2006 Texas Longhorn football team - Britannica would never get around to having an article like this. Note that this article has many free images and only one fair use logo. I took most of the free pictures myself. I really do support free content when it makes sense.
  3. Baby Gender Mentor - this one will hopefully soon be FA. No free images are possible because the test is off the market.

So, to answer your question, we are way better than Britannica as an encyclopedia. We do not have to justify ourselves on the basis of re-use. Our best justification for existence is that we are the best single reference work on the planet.

Now, I've answered your new question, but I can't help but notice that you never answered mine. I would appreciate it if you would answer the three questions I posed to you above. Thanks, and best wishes, Johntex\talk 16:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

A compromise on the username thing

So let me know what you think. pschemp | talk 03:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

FYI

Template:Ceci n'est pas un template. >Radiant< 13:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


MITHenge

Hello! Things are good. Been busy. MITHenge is awesome. Wish you were here. Have looked for you on chat, but keep missing you. Jkbaum 21:27, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

--Aha! The guy who wrote Python is a native Dutch speaker! No wonder you want me to learn Python so much! ; )~ Jkbaum 01:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Embargo

I really don't think that replacing that userbox is a good idea, as it quite obviously violates the policies cited at WP:AN and WP:ANI. Can we ask him to remove it within a week or it will be removed for him? ViridaeTalk 12:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Userpage

Kim, I have been contributing very little to Wikipedia because I can see administrators harrass every pro-Palestinian/Arab wikipedian. My userpage is not offensive. People have "I support the state of Israel" and "Hezbollah=Murder Incorporated" userboxes. From what I see and what other people like Chomsky and Hersh see, Hezbollah is a harmless butterfly compared to Israel. I think even if people were to remove these pro-Israeli userboxes, it wouldn't be right to remove mine, because, at the end, Hezbollah is one of the most respected and most righteous entities in the eyes of the majority of the world population, while Israel.. you saw for yourself.. Ask the administrators, if you will, to leave me unprovoked. Then, we will have peace. Embargo 18:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:VPP

Sorry about that revert. Your former header "This section is useless" and the fact that there was no content suggested to me that it was just harmless vandalism (not worth sending you a warning). You can always use "Show Preview". − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You can use the [+] link at the top of the page to create a new section. Doesn't that work? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Ah, the skins! I was first going to ask whether your browser would support the [+], but if it supports the other links up there ("edit this page", "history", etc.) then it should support the [+] — but different skins! That is probably the culprit. (I don't think it's my time zone). − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Billy Campbell AfD

Please review my comments regarding the proposed deletion of Billy Campbell. I have referenced over 20 non-trivial, reliable published works, whose sources are independent of the subject itself.

Given that numerous independent authors, scholars, or journalists have decided to give attention to both the emerging trend of Natural Burial in North America as well as Mr. Campbell’s role as a pioneer in the natural burial movement I would suggest that the primary notability criterion to determine whether "the world" has judged this individual and topic to be notable has been met.

I would appreciate your supportEulogy4Afriend 18:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:EANP

I've put back the {{essay}} tag, as essays don't need wide consensus. Yes, I know that sucks, but until we get a policy about essays that does have consensus, or we can firm up what an essay is or should contain, my essay is valid! - Ta bu shi da yu 02:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ping!

Hi Kim, slight delay, but I've written up the first, fairly pathetic, draft of the "failures" section for WP:CONSENSUS. I've left a note on the policy talk page but the draft is currently at User:Moreschi/Consensus. Cheers, Moreschi Deletion! 22:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and BTW, have you seen Wikipedia:Notability (news)? Just thought you might be interested if not. Cheers, Moreschi Deletion! 22:14, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Sexual objectification

I submitted a photo to sexual objectification of women in panties heels and nothing else vacuuming; it's of a fashion show by Imitation of Christ, a well-known label. Several editors want NO images on the page, but I think this one is pretty clear: at a fashion show, these topless models vacuuming in heels shows women objectified sexually. Could you interject with your opinion please? Talk:Sexual_objectification#Request_for_Comment--DavidShankBone 04:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

We've got a new one

Template:Policy Summary. Thought you might want to comment on that. >Radiant< 15:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I like. --Kim Bruning 17:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Merge tag on WP:EANP

Whoops! Sorry, my bad! I guess I'm so used to the merge tag that I forgot to click on the right link. Sorry about the mini-revert war Kim :-( Ta bu shi da yu 07:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Drini deleted your comments from the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

[2]

AFAIK, this is disruptive behaviour.

I asked for all the comments (and my original text, rebutting Drini´s defamation against me) to be reposted again [3], and Drini deleted my petition and posted new defamatory (i.e., false) stuff against me [4].

I was receiving good ideas about what to do from other administrators until Drini came and started posting factually false nonsense [5] about me (as Drini recognized [6]). Drini was called to enter the fray from the Spanish Wikipedia [7].

I think that this Drini´s behaviour is outrageous, and I ask you for help. What can I do?.

Randroide 11:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Not so bad. False alarm, maybe

Well, the situation is not so bad as I thought (albeit is neither a good one).

Drini pasted the whole discussion in a different linked page [8].

I missed that pasting. I thought the text was deleted.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Nonetheless, any comment?.

Randroide 12:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

A bouquet!

[9] Smells great! Jkbaum 01:27, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Kim,

This is really not a good time for teasing. Remember that disagreement I told you about? Well, guess what. >Radiant< 11:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ouch, that case, yes. I hadn't realised she'd commented. Well, you are involved in making and spreading those tags.
Now reading those comments by Pschemp on RFAr makes this all the more ironic.^^;; I'll try and tone down my comment on Pschemps page. Yell at me some more if you think I'm still being mean after the change. --Kim Bruning 12:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ceci n'est pas

We're having another one of those tag disputes at WP:CREEP; would you think that maybe {{Template:Ceci n'est pas un template}} is a solution? Please comment. >Radiant< 10:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Patterns

Interesting idea. However, I see three problems. First, adding two "types" of page (P and AP) does not exactly reduce the numbers of different tags and "negotiability qualifiers". Second, this may lead to the same mess we're having now, with people claiming "there is insufficient consensus to tag this as a pattern". And third, it doesn't touch upon the underlying problem, which is that not everybody agrees on what the patterns are. For instance, is voting a pattern or an anti-pattern? What about early closure of AFDs? What about preemptive blocking? >Radiant< 15:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  • In that case - how does that help? Many essays are issues that people (or at least their author) perceive as a pattern - although I suppose that if we have consensus that something is an (anti-) pattern we can make a guideline for or against it. What do you seek to accomplish here, Kim? >Radiant< 15:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Okay, but the problem is that you're assuming new users would actually read your document. With the bewildering amount of pages in Wiki namespace, that isn't particularly likely. I suppose there's something to be said for cleaning out Wikispace, but there is hardly consensus for that.
    • Step one would be to describe how things work. That should be easy, and there's some pages you can start from (WP:PPP </shameless plug>). The second step is seeing if people agree with you. This could be tricky. And the third is linking to it a lot from {{welcome}} and such to get people to read it. I wouldn't worry overly much about people trying to control Wikipedia, because that's not actually possible in the first place. CAT:REJ has a couple of good examples of that not working. >Radiant< 17:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

consensus

Noted the order you just mentioned in an edit summary.

A good order is now described at Wikipedia:Consensus, nice flowchart even.

Failing that, a slightly tweaked order can be found at Bold revert discuss.

First boldly make a change, and then see what happens. Though indeed, a little discussion upfront sometimes makes editing seem a little less confrontational, it's not nescesary. It's somewhat unhelpful to take any action soley for the sake of procedure, however. :-)

--Kim Bruning 16:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I (now) agree that the order I described is only fit for polemic policy pages, like WP:FUC. In general, being bold is a good thing. Thanks for the point. --Abu badali (talk) 16:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I know of no policy they violate. The policies are already ridiculously anti-fair-use. Let's hope they don't become even more so in the future. Johntex\talk 04:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Our most important policy and goal has always been "make a useful encyclopedia". The fervor to delete all fair use images impeeds that goal. Let's hope people at the Foundation wise up and become more open to using legally permissable images to enhance the product we are producing. Johntex\talk 17:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
What makes us better is the number of contributors we have, which allows us to have unsurpassed breadth and unsurpassed timelinesss. As proof, look at the compliments Wikipedia recieves. They are mostly along those lines. Very few third parties portray us as a "free content" play and we get very little praise for such a mission. We have commons to support the totally free image crusade. We don't need that crusade here. The bulk of the contributors don't want that here. Attempts to overly reduce fair use images here are misguided and harmful to the goal of making a useful reference work. Johntex\talk 17:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
You are very welcome. Thank you for listing it. As I mentioned, I did not have any part in starting that RfC. I found it more than 30 days after it had been started and certified. I do not know if it was previously listed or not. Best, Johntex\talk 19:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks for pointing out that RfC. I will read it in detail when I have more time. In the meantime, I will give you my favorite quote from Jimbo:

...as a general rule, I think that almost any argument, on any topic, which has premises beginning with "Jimbo said..." is a pretty weak argument. Surely the merits of the proposal should be primary, not what I happen to think."[10] - Jimbo Wales

Jimbo is mortal and makes mistakes like all the rest of us. Because he believes A is not an automatic reason for you or I or anyone else to also believe A. As I have said many times, if/when he chooses to enforce his will on any particular topic by fiat, then that ends the matter. Until then, any comment he makes is just the comment of a (very) respected user. We should give it its due as such, no more, no less. Johntex\talk 20:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Thank you three times:
Thanks for making me chuckle with the "God-King" comment.
Thanks for the compliment about me staying cool - I do my best. I'm not always successful, but I usually manage
Thanks to you also for keeping your cool and being civil.
Best, Johntex\talk 20:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle

I've nominated the essay for deletion, as I can't see it as being anything other than disruptive and dangerous. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 17:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I am about to publish my first essay WP:ROFL

I think I need some help here. I don't know how to make the second page (WP:ROTFL) to WP:ROFL. I will save the essay as soon as I finish typing here. This will be my first article/essay contributed to Wikipedia. I am sincere in my intent and will let the essay go where it will go and try not to be its owner. Ronbo76 03:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It got moved to Wikipedia:ROFL. I am batting Oh for three tonight. Wah! Ronbo76 04:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
<grin> --Kim Bruning 04:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Logging in

) 70.171.57.254 01:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

ITYM

You wrote, of a potential RFA candidate

disclaimer: Provided otherwise crazy or likely to run amok

I think you mean

disclaimer: Provided not otherwise crazy or likely to run amok

Maybe even

disclaimer: Provided not, by close of polls, demonstrated otherwise crazy or likely to run amok

:-) Regards, Ben Aveling 03:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Huh?

No, I'm not at all making it impossible to document anything. I've heard half a dozen complaints lately that CAT:E is too big and confusing (I mean seriously, have you looked at it lately? 90% of any field is junk, and all that) so I figured some central discussion about pruning it would be in order. That means dumping the poor essays, not the useful ones, and at any rate I don't expect anything much to happen. Oh and lunch? Really don't have time the coming month. >Radiant< 09:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:BS

The vetting of the barnstars that could be listed on the WP:BS page initially developed because of the chaos that was being created. Over time, the awards pages have grown to four classes of awards. Anyone can create any award (as can any wikiproject), but to get listed on the page they had to first be vetted. There are now fifteen pages of archived ideas, most of which haven't made it to the page. The flip side of the vetting was the relative freedom of listing something on the WP:PUA page - anyone can post almost anything there.

Initially, the WP:BS pages were a wikiproject, but that was deleted after the idea was moved to the Wikipedia pages. After some conflicts last year about 'process' Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards was recreated. In any case, if you have any other questions or comments, let me know. --evrik (talk) 03:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Happy Spread-the-funny and-slighty-random-love day!

:) pschemp (talk) 00:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Where are you?

Could really do with talking with you right now. --Durin 20:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


Concerning your Admin Coaching assignments

Your name is still listed at Wikipedia:Admin coaching/Volunteers. The department is heavily backlogged with student's requests for coaches, and we need your help!

Note that the instructions may have changed since the last time you checked, and the department now follows a self-help process...

If you don't currently have a student, or if you believe you can handle another one, please select a student from the request list at Wikipedia:Admin coaching/Requests and contact them. See the instructions on Wikipedia:Admin coaching. Good luck.

If you are no longer available to coach, please, remove yourself from the volunteers list.

Thank you. The Transhumanist    03:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Prod

I noticed your comment (at the Village Pump) referring to prod as the best-working process, and it reminded me that I think so as well. It does not produce the stresses of the other deletion processes--it is easy to fix mistakes--or to improve articles--the Prodsum program makes it easy to sort out the ones of interest to a particular ed.--all that is needed is a program to automatically notify all previous eds., and the opportunity to relist to prolong the discussion time (I know it can be done manually, but nobody seems to do it). Perhaps it might be possible to find a way to specify more exactly--and even automatically--what should be taken there: e.g. all AfDs dealing with RS questions or all AfDs for pages created in the previous month should go there first. And possible that all Speedys involving an established article listed under A7 (as distinct from the new junk), I suppose we could think of many more. But perhaps you have something else in mind. Maybe even a AfD quick-send-to prod procedure. DGG 06:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Requested moves

Kim, the requested moves page has no tag saying that it is a policy, but nor does it have a tag saying that it is mere guideline either. So, it may be a good idea to find out if it is policy.

He listed me as "do not care" (as seen here [11]) , which I clearly do care about having it not moved to 666 Satan.

My point is, should this discussion lead to a serious decision on where to move this page? I feel like it should not. WhisperToMe 23:21, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so, then, if you say WP:RM violates polling guidelines, does that mean you feel like it should be depreciated? Why are people using it, then? WhisperToMe 23:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I shall explain the situation:

  • 666 Satan is the original Japanese title used - Some fans of the title, especially via scanlations on the internet, prefer the title
  • O-Parts Hunter is the title used in the official English-language release in the United States and Canada- currently that release is at Volume 2, with a bimonthly release schedule.

As far as I know, 666 Satan was not that well-known on the internet prior to its US publication. I feel that O-Parts Hunter is more appropriate, as this is the title seen on Amazon.com, bookstores in North America, and on sites like Anime News Network.

Using a google test as a rough yardstick (with English and -WIKIPEDIA switches), so far O-Parts Hunter nets 1/3rd of the google hits that "666 Satan" has. But, if we wait, "O-Parts Hunter" may take more of a share of google hits.

If an anime series is created and is licensed with the new title in English-speaking countries, then that would make using "666 Satan" not as attractive, therefore starting this discussion again.

WhisperToMe 23:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Essays

Hey there, I added a few thoughts and comments (way off topic, mind you) to Wikipedia talk:Don't cite essays or proposals as if they were policy, which seems to be totally dead. I'd greatly appreciate any reply, whenever you have the spare time and feel like it. Or, could you point me to wherever this or something similar is being continued? —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 03:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

RFA thanks

I would like to thank you for your support in my recent RFA. As you may or may not be aware, it passed with approximately 99% support. I ensure you that I will use the tools well, and if I ever disappoint you, I am open to recall. If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to leave me a note on my talkpage. Thanks again, ^demon[omg plz] 20:26, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Request mediation

Kim, I happen to think you are wonderful. I have requested a mediation on Global warming. If you are a mediator, can you pick it up?-- Blue Tie 22:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a note

Thanks for the interest/concern at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-03-24 Attribution. Vassyana closed it (other parties refused mediation), but, in case you didn't see it, I encouraged input at Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Poll, Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Community discussion, and Wikipedia talk:Attribution. Any additional calm pairs of eyes on the situations there would be very excellent. The civility (especially abuse of "disruptive", which actually has a clear WP definition) and ownership issues are pretty unbelievable. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 11:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Global warming

Apart from leaving an incorrect protected flag you just reverted to a version which was from the midst of an edit war. Please don't go making trouble and respect a community view on what starting point to work from. --BozMo talk 09:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, thank you for trying to help. The polling guidelines you refer to are currently status personal essay, and it isn't clear how anything in them wasn't respected anyway. If someone wants to try RFCing the way in which I tried to deal with the issues on this article they are welcome to, I stand by my actions as most appropriate in complicated circumstances.It is always the wrong version (which is what you said in your first edit) for someone: I went way back to avoid either side in the conflict. Please leave off reverting now and try to improve the article. Thanks. --BozMo talk 09:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Best for involved admins, such as yourself, not get caught up in deciding what to do with the page. Let uninvolved and more neutral and levelheaded admins such as Bruning decide. ~ UBeR 18:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Level headed I agree with. Uninvolved, no. Neutral: perhaps I am open minded on this. --BozMo talk 08:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Best practices

To my knowledge we never have any. Surveys have a very strong tendency to backfire (the recent ATT survey is a good example since nobody can even agree on the wording). I can give you a few worst practices if you want. >Radiant< 11:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Yeah, I realize that, but they tend to backfire anyway because people say things like "the poll wasn't binding but we're going to do what the majority wants anyway". I haven't seen any workable consensus-gauging surveys lately. Besides, you seem to be involving yourself in the ATT mess? That is in no way a "small scale". If that comes to a poll, people will use any ~75% majority to enforce that as law, and people will use the lack of such a majority to keep all four pages as policy, which is just about the least useful outcome. Still, Jimbo has mandated a poll, and he tends to react very harshly to people who disagree with him, so let him write the poll he wants and draw his conclusion from the outcome. >Radiant< 11:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
    • m:polling is evil? WP:DEMO? >Radiant< 11:50, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
      • What's your point, Kim? If you want an official way of doing polls, there isn't one, and there never was one either. That one page used to be called "guideline" but that predates the concept of {{guideline}} so that name is meaningless (viz Policy Trifecta). We have several dozen partially-contradictory pages explaining how to do polls, how do to polls differently, how not to do polls, and what to do instead of polls. And to top it all off there is an existing discussion page that has pretty much already resolved the issue you're trying to poll about. I think you're being way too meta on this. >Radiant< 12:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
        • No, we really should not. You're falling into the nomic trap, and assuming people read instructions fully. Which they don't. If we have guidelines on how to hold polls, people can and will assume that they apply in whatever situation they're presently in, and therefore will assume polls are valid in any and all situations where people suggest one. That is harmful. >Radiant< 12:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
  • How about last ArbCom election. Nominations accepted, with supporting statements, then approval voting (support/oppose) to as wide an audience as possible. It proceeded relatively calmly and at the end, some of the appointed candidates had >90% support. This is the only example I can think of on that scale that comes close to "maybe nobody's first choice, but something (very nearly) everyone can live with", which is my idea of (rough) consensus -- as opposed to "consensus" as the word tends to get used around here. Just a random suggestion, --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 21:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, well, try to imagine what it's like for the candidates. The current procedure is why I only ran for arbcom once. ^^;; --Kim Bruning 11:04, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

"Clarifying essays"

You can see my post on the Poll talk, but I'll double-up the comment to be clear: keeping all the pages live is in no way a compromise—it's a complete inversion of what was intended. I don't know anyone who worked on ATT at length that wants to have four pages to watch. Marskell 11:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind asking about "clarifying essays" or "explanatory guidelines" or whatever; we don't want in two weeks to be told that some option was swept under the rug. But when we ask about it we need to be clear that it's not a compromise option, but a radical one. To go over it quickly:
  • We had three P&Gs.
  • ATT reduces it to one.
  • Keeping ATT and the old pages increases it to four.
The last is the opposite of the consolidation intended. Marskell 11:50, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I fully agree with Marskell. Keeping all four is just about the worst possible option here, and nobody who understands the situation would seriously consider that. >Radiant< 12:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
That does seem logical as well. I've heard several different arguments. --Kim Bruning 12:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, one thing you've seemed to understand (that's presently being lost in the shuffle) is that we have polled, here. One option would be to close that thread (we have generic close templates around right?) You could say "The outcome of this discussion is to be decided by Jimbo. The number in support of merging V and NOR is ~55; the number opposed is ~25" or something like that. And Radiant, if you do agree with the merge, why not say so on the Community discussion? Marskell 13:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, that's not lost on me at all. That discussion is great. That needs to be kept alive! So don't stomp over it with close templates ;-) Otherwise it's cool, yeah. And why would the outcome be decided by Jimbo? That's rather unprecedented. As soon as I get a hold of him, I'll ask him what he's really trying to achieve. --Kim Bruning 14:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
  • That would be because he said so. We wouldn't be having this (800kb) discussion in the first place if Jimbo hadn't vetoed the previous consensual outcome. >Radiant< 14:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting tonight! Something to move toward. --Marskell 14:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Closing

Perhaps we could find an uninvolved, you have already commented here. very respectfully, Navou banter / contribs 17:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Um, I am uninvolved. A bunch of people are stampeding, and acting rather contrary to the interests of wikipedia or policy, for some strange reason. I'm trying to get that under control. Can you help? --Kim Bruning 17:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I disagree with your action on a fundamental level, so I do not think I can be much help there, I believe MFD is the appropriate place. However, I will help by not reverting you a second time :P and discussing it instead. Navou banter / contribs 17:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
That's fair enough. I'm listening to folks and replying on the relevant talk page right now. --Kim Bruning 17:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps we should open up discussion on talk of AMA and link those discussions from the talk mfd and the AN so that we can centralize discussion. Navou banter / contribs 17:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Excellent plan. Would you do that? I'd be glad to leave things in capable hands. :-) --Kim Bruning 18:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I would, but I'm in and out today, I don't know if I'll have enough time. Regards, Navou banter / contribs 18:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've already put some links out, which will simply have to do then. SeraphimBlade seems to be taking questions on behalf of the AMA. Thank you very much for your suggestion, and for your patience and ability to stay cool. :-) --Kim Bruning 18:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
As it appears that the AMA MfD is probably going to result in historical tagging (and at this point, I'm not sure that's a bad thing, there are a lot of legitimate complaints), I'd like to try and design something that might provide the benefits of the AMA (one-on-one guidance for newer users) without the harmful side-effects (lawyering, bureaucracy). I'd especially like to get this done as there are still quite a few AMA cases outstanding, and I don't think it'd be fair to the users who signed up in good faith to blow them off. I know we have WP:ADOPT, and that's a great idea, but not quite what I had in mind-usually adoption is intended more to have someone give a newcomer a general introduction, where AMA tends to help someone more that has a specific problem or dispute. Would you be willing to help in drafting it? Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I've started up a proposal, if you're interested in having a look. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:58, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

RE: Belarusian Wikipedia

Hi Kim! Thank you so much for letting me know! I've actually recently been in contact with Zscout370, who has filled me in about the situation on be-wiki (or old-bx-wiki, rather). He is a contributor to both en- and be-wiki, and he has been a great resource in helping me understand the situation. He also has OTRS access and has been working with Belarusian Wikipedians to make sense of what happened. gaillimhConas tá tú? 20:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello

Kim, you're awesome. You manage to stay civil and rational in discussions where others get really heated, and I freakin' love your ^^;; emotes. :-D Cheers to the best, Iamunknown 22:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:ATT

Thanks for taking the time and effort to engage in that mediation (between myself and SlimVirgin; I imagine there were others I wasn't aware of). As you may have noticed, the ATT situation is a bit of a goat-ropin' at this point, what with the pre-emptive launch of the poll and so forth. But the issues I was gnashing my own teeth about were largely resolved and I think SV and I will be much better able to understand each other and avoid conflict in the future. PS: If that actually cost you cash because you initiated the Skype call, I can send you some recompense (I think) via PayPal. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your support.

Dear Kim Bruning,

Thank you very much for your kind words and supportive comments on my recent RfA. I've been shot down again, so it won't be happening this time. I hope, though, that I can hear from you again next time around - and there definitely will be a next time.

Best wishes,

-- Hex [t/c] 21:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Poll

Kim, it has only just started. I wasn't keen on the idea of a poll either, but now that it's running, it needs to be allowed to finish. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see where the problem could lie. We said we'd have a poll to gauge support for the merge, and that it would run until April 6, and that's what we're doing. We want to see what support is out there, and what people's arguments are, and whether some of them oppose the merge of all three, or only of RS, etc. It was never about numbers alone. Please just let it run as we said it would run, and then Jimbo can look at the figures and the comments, and decide how he wants to proceed. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Ping

I posted a comment for you here that supports your views. -- Jreferee 17:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Perennial

Hi there! I saw you using the phrase "perennial proposal" a lot. If you want, you can point people at WP:PEREN, which lists quite a lot of them along with explanations of why we're not doing that. >Radiant< 12:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, that's where it was hiding! Thanks! --Kim Bruning 12:32, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Straw polls

Kim Bruning, I've decided to take on the task of reworking this page back into a descriptive explanation of polling on Wikipedia and I would like to welcome you to join me in formulating this much needed page. Thanks. (→Netscott) 13:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

You know there are a couple of shortcuts that are extremely obviously logical for this page (ie: WP:POLL and WP:POLLS). Radiant! in his "voting is evil" way is doing his best to keep these from directing to their logically corresponding page. Would you take a look at this? Thanks. (→Netscott) 13:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Yawn. Netscott, quit making ad hominems. [[WP:POLL] has traditionally pointed to WP:RFC; an alternative would be to point it to our actual guideline on polls, rather than some POV essay. It's a bad idea to retarget long-standing shortcuts, because this changes the meaning of existing conversation. >Radiant< 13:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
We could probably create a pretty darn good {{descriptive}} guideline. Netscott is actually doing some pretty sane writing so far. Could we redirect to there, at some point?  :-) --Kim Bruning 15:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC) (hey, where'd that template go? I keep losing stuff around here :-/ )
Yes, but the point is we already have one of those. WP:PNSD gives a pretty darn good description of how things work. If you spot any omissions do tell us. >Radiant< 16:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:!VOTE is too much about soapboxery regarding polling. It's just a big nightmare of reverting by "Voting is evil" and "Voting is not evil" folks. It is time to move away from that and get down to business about describing what is actually happening around here. (→Netscott) 16:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If PNSD gives a decent description, I'll eat my hat. --Kim Bruning 16:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC) So I don't actually have a hat atm.... I'll have to get me a new one ^^;;

Well you've been pretty involved there over the last number of months so I would think you know where the page stands. (→Netscott) 16:45, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
There's some odd issues with it. --Kim Bruning 17:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Kim, Kim, Kim...

I think I'm in love... if only I weren't married and you weren't male. :P -- nae'blis 16:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It's always those finicky technical details. --Kim Bruning 16:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Your comment about the AMA

I have to agree with you, and I have proposed on the AMA talk page to do away with the bureaucratic processes that have cropped up and adopt a style like the MEDCAB (=simple and to the point). Hopefully I will gain some consensus on this. Thanks again, for your comments help me refine the idea I wanted to propose. Æon Insanity Now! Give Back Our Membership! 18:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot to add MEDCAB help would be great. Thanks for the offer, and, please, feel free to leap into the discussion and give us a hand. Thanks again Æon Insanity Now! Give Back Our Membership! 21:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: Inkscape template

I saw your comment regarding the Inkscape template. I liked the idea of having such categories (and I went off to actually create one for hugin), and so did Eloquence. Maybe you want to weigh in at meta:Talk:Open Source Toolset. If memory serves, Erik posted the announcement for that particular page on several lists. Rl 18:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, at any rate, I'm emergeing hugin now ;-) --Kim Bruning 19:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I guess that means our program to promote useful free software is already working. Hugin is a great time-waster. Oh, and mind the occasional crashes. Rl 20:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Details and long-term

Hi. Thanks for your interest in my proposal. If you read through my user page and then my talk page, you will have an idea of what I am talking about. But I would not like you to think that therefore I am motivated by some kind of personal slight in making my proposal. I am writing to you here so as not to discuss these details at the Village Pump. The issue I discuss on my user page and talk page is complex, with many editing sequences to follow in order to understand the full context. So I don't want to advise you to read through it all if you have other or better things to do (which seems likely). But if you do feel inclined, most of it is there. Regarding the long-term, in short, I feel that the situation at the Langan entry is symptomatic, and that, if it spread or becomes a generalized phenomenon (in the long long term), this could seriously affect the kind of document Wikipedia might turn out to be. And I do think it is possible that this could happen, and thus that it should be thought about and, if possible, forestalled. Thanks again. FNMF 22:36, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-03-25 Global warming

Re Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-03-25 Global warming - you seem to be mediating on this. It not going to work without some reining in of the junk. There are a number of people there for (it seems to me) nothing but malicious reasons. I'm not participating further until the PA get removed William M. Connolley 07:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually I strongly advise you not to try to do this. I agree you haven't made many edits to this page but having been personally chosen by the person who requested the mediation [12] would seem to me to make you ineligible? We have to wait for someone neutral to pick it up. --BozMo talk 08:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Who says I'm not neutral though? (you'd be surprised at my IRL affiliations, perhaps :-) --Kim Bruning 11:20, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Anyways, thanks for trying. But I suspect this needs an experienced mediator (which you may well be) that can spend a lot of time on it - which you currently seem to be unable to do. So far, this just looks like a less restrained continuation of the various talk page discussions. --Stephan Schulz 11:14, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I archived the medcab page. I agree that this may require an experienced mediator with more time, hence I'll only be keeping an eye on Global warming and try to keep things a bit cooler. I wish I did have more time, since this would be a rather interesting mediation, otherwise. I'll see if I can find a good mediator who is free for you *cross fingers*. The mediation committee does have sufficient good mediators, but I'm not sure if they handle this kind of case, or if they have anyone free at the moment. I can look for you, if you like. --Kim Bruning 11:20, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. I withdraw implication you aren't neutral. I used to think I was pretty neutral too but eventually it is impossible not to develop some opinions of ones own...in some ways getting someone trusted by BT etc has strong positives. --BozMo talk 11:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


Kim, I apologize for compromising your perceived neutrality or integrity by asking for your help. I asked for you because I thought you were gifted in having a cool head, a gentle nature and comprehensive knowledge about wikipedia. I have never, as far as I know, agreed with you completely on anything but you have never made that unpleasant. I had no idea that asking you to participate would be seen as a bad thing. I was simply unaware of how deeply the sense of "us vs them" was ingrained in the editors. I am at a loss on how to proceed with such deep distrust that even inviting a third party to come in to mediate is a matter of deep concern. --Blue Tie 12:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Just want to express my agreement with the thoughts expressed by Blue Tie. I agree with just about all of his concerns and points made during the course of this. thanks. --Sm8900 14:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any reply to my original comment from Kim, and I'd be grateful for one. Also, do you still see yourself as actively mediating this? William M. Connolley 21:51, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all your points. And this is a large case, I'm rather overwhelmed by other work as well. Right now there's not much I can do except keep things a bit cool, until someone else can step in. --Kim Bruning 21:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure I understand you. You agree with my points - OK, a good start. So you agree There are a number of people there for (it seems to me) nothing but malicious reasons. You also agree that I'm not participating further until the PA get removed - errm, but clearly you're not removing any PA, so... you agree I'm not part of the mediation? Sorry, this is hideously like the wiki-lawyering that I hate, but I'm not clear. If I'm out, I'm going to strike my name off. I put it to you that the current talk is pretty well entirely in-talk of the skeptic crowd and unlikely to progress much William M. Connolley 22:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Act as you see fit, for the moment. :-) --Kim Bruning 22:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, I have done William M. Connolley 22:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Fork You!

I thought it was funny :) Borisblue 13:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:ASSIST - on the userbox

Sorry you didn't like my userbox! Btw, concerning the earlier discussion on the talkpage, are we going to have a formal position of co-ordinator? IMHO it might be better to have one or two clerks, who will deal with the backlog of requests and (where necessary) assign them to an assistant, and will serve as a point of contact for the organisation. "Clerk" sounds less status-driven than "co-ordinator" and is less likely to put people off. Just an idea. Walton Vivat Regina! 15:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh a userbox once jumped up and bit my friend at one point, and since then I'm a bit nervous around them. I'm sure yours is nice and friendly.
Hmmm, adding clerks in the manner you suggest is enormously bureaucratic. It would cost time that would be better served helping yet more users. :-)
I do appreciate your taking the time to think things through. Perhaps you can cast your thoughts in the following direction?
What we really need to do is try to make sure our poor overtaxed coordinators have as little to do as possible, even with their current limited workload. (They don't yet know that now, but they'll find out ;-) .
As problems and standard ways of doing things crop up, can we eliminate or automate them as much as possible? At the end of the day, the coordinators should be able to just be lazy, or even be able to quit, and no-one should notice the difference.
People should do as little work as possible on process, and as much as possible on solving problems. This is called the KISS principle. :-)
I'm curious about what you'll be able to come up with over time!
--Kim Bruning 15:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


Walton Vivat Regina! has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

I take your point, and it's certainly true that many existing Wikipedia organisations have been accused of being "hamstrung by process". At the moment, the whole question is fairly academic, as no one's actually filed any requests for assistance. The big question is: is it better to make up the rules and processes as we go along, responding to problems as they arise, or to think ahead and develop a structure for the organisation, predicting potential problems and bottlenecks and taking steps to prevent them? I personally incline towards the latter perspective. But I don't really agree with your suggestion that the co-ordinatorship should be given to someone who actively doesn't want it; surely someone who enjoys dull clerical tasks would be more suited to the position? Just a thought. Walton Vivat Regina! 18:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Starting around 1950, dull clerical tasks have mostly been delegated to these strange machines known as computers ;-) Since that time, reported incidence of psychological stress has gone up, as people took on more and more creatively challenging roles.
Agile process tries not to plan ahead too far. (And someone should really write a book about non-software-engineering variants. :-/ )
--Kim Bruning 22:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
You know, I can't quite tell whether you're laughing at me. :) I get the impression (per your recent posts at WT:ASSIST) that you really, really don't like bureaucracy and process. Which is fair enough. But isn't it inevitable that organisations will have some kind of structure and rulebook? And is that inherently such a bad thing? Walton Vivat Regina! 11:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, how much do you know about what makes organizations (large and small) successful? --Kim Bruning 13:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC) serious question!
Not a lot, I've never really run an organisation in RL (or on-wiki for that matter). I speak only as an interested amateur. :) Walton Vivat Regina! 16:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Majorly's RfB

Hi Kim, thanks for your kind support in my RfB. Sadly, it didn't pass, but I appreciate the support, and I do intend to run again eventually. See you around! Majorly (o rly?) 03:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Straw polls

Good to see you editing back there. It's probably going to be a bit difficult with the likelihood that efforts will be made to thwart what we're doing but I think we just need to persist and stick to it. Cheers. (→Netscott) 16:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

This is the trickiest description I've worked on so far. There's two sections that need merging, and there's some text that needs NPOV-ising.
The main problem is that most people have forgotten (or never learned) the original wikipedia definitions of "vote" and "poll". This is very annoying. At any rate ,Voting (aka majority vote, 51% pass, etc) really sucks, and lots of people rightly hate it. Polling is a survey by means of a straw poll, and can at times be handy to find out if you're not forgetting people, etc.
This confusion is what's making it so hard to edit the page. Perhaps we should make a section on that... --Kim Bruning 16:25, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Well I think I covered a bit of this with my response to User:DennyColt about what polling is about that regardless of what it determines it is niether good nor bad but just shows what the state is on a given issue. That should definitely be included as far as I am concerned... I think a lot of the opposion from folks is stemming from a false notion that a poll is more than that. (→Netscott) 16:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Maybe the original definitions were idiosyncratic and as the population grew standardization had to enter. In most communities a poll is a vote and a vote is a poll. Indeed, you go to the polls to vote. Why not use the terms "vote" and "poll" interchangably and instead, use the term "survey" or "opinion sample" or someting like that for what you call "poll"? --Blue Tie 16:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
On the one hand, us old wikipedians would get confused, of course ;-) . (and older discussions would become quite confusing!). On the other hand, you might have some point. At any rate, I've created a section describing the (old) situation - though granted, it'll need lots of tidying. It might be important to leave a reference to that situation at some location.
If in future you'd like to go through many places on wikipedia and start using clearer wording (if indeed it is clearer) that would be most gratifying. :-) --Kim Bruning 16:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Global warming mediation

Hi, I found this mediation page by extension of a related random article search and fix. I'm not involved, interested, or knowledgeable on the topic and debate, but I had a quick suggestion that might interest you. From a quick read, it appears that the debate you are moderating has people divided on science vs. politics. Why not suggest one article on each, i.e., Global Warming (science) and Global Warming (politics) [or (political)??]? Sundaybrunch 18:20, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Kim, for all the edits on your talk page, but Bart Versieck (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) keeps editing my posts for some reason.[13][14][15] Sundaybrunch 21:14, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Something like politics of global warming perhaps? Oddly, the skeptics seem to want to mix the two up William M. Connolley 21:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Was that suggested in the mediation? As I said, I'm not involved (or interested) in the topic, so I'll back out now. Hope a compromise is found. Sundaybrunch 21:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Dunno. Sorry if I sounded a bit impolite - it was a helpful suggestion. Though the mediation appears to be dead - only one side is talking William M. Connolley 21:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
No worries. Good luck Sundaybrunch 02:14, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Kim, thanks for your attention at the mediation; please don't be offended if we didn't all jump right in after you couldn't find a helping hand. I consider your offer of help to be just that, and look forward to discussions with you in the future. Thanks again, --Skyemoor 12:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Would like your opinion

Being that you are a mediator in all this: [16]. Thanks. The machine512 19:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Original Barnstar
For offering great help and advice during the formation of the Wikipedia:Editor assistance project, I award Kim Bruning the Original Barnstar. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Warning

Your recent edits removing my comments from talk pages may be considered vandalism. This issue is being discussed at WP:ANI#WP:ASSIST. An appology on your behalf would be appreciated. Thank you. --CyclePat 04:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

You have done it again. This is the last warning you will receive for your disruptive edits. If you vandalize Wikipedia again, by removing other peoples comments, you may be blocked from editing. Please stop and discuss your action prior to any future edits to the talk page ofWP:ASSIST--CyclePat 06:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
You are removing other peoples comments. It is plain and simple. You can not do this. You just done it again.

Please stop. If you continue to blank out (or delete portions of) page content, templates or other materials from Wikipedia, as you did to [[:, as you did to [[:{{{1}}}]]]], you will be blocked from editing. --CyclePat 06:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

First incident

  1. 6-7 April: Discussion at WP:ANI demonstrates an overview of vandalism. My comments on a talk page are removed. The user even states "I'm not happy with his behavior, and really was about to do something about it."[17]
  • I revert the vandalism to WP:ASSIST and the vandalism to WP:RM, putting the move request back in place.(referenced later)

Second incident

  1. 7 April. After reverting edits done to WP:ASSIST's talk page, (barelly a couple hours latter) my comments and everyones comments are removed again.(Link to vandalism)(Link to removal of comments at WP:RM)
  2. I give a warning to the user.(link to warning).
  3. 9 April. I reverted the vandalism to WP:ASSIST talk page.[18]

CyclePat is ruleslawyering, edit warring and acting contrary to consensus at Wikipedia:Editor assistance. He would like to usurp the process and make it part of WP:AMA. As you might be aware, AMA is not likely to survive very long, so no one is going to agree with that plan anytime soon. <sigh> --Kim Bruning 06:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Kim. I appologize for my level of frustration from yesterday. I have expressed dissatisfaction with how thing are going. Some comments and concerns regarding the removal of my comments at WP:ASSIST may be found on my talk page. You may wish to see the comments here. I understand what you trying to say. Correct me if I am wrong but you believe that the RM is totally out of process and shouldn't even be there and hence should be removed. I believe that the RM is a first step towards discussing the issue as suggested by concensus from many wikipedians that elaborated the WP:RM page. I believe that despite the fact that many wikipedian have written and agreed to WP:RM, you may be correct. Perhaps the method of which this is going is not correct. Nevertheless, the conversation regarding the issue, the comments, the replies, all the opposes, should remain archived. There should also be enough time to retrieve some external opinions then simply the members of WP:ASSIST. However I am pretty much indiferent to this and flexible specifically if the WP:RM procedure is properly followed for at least 3 full days (usually it's 5). More important to my view is the fact that I believe the comments that where left, not only by me, on WP:ASSIST (now removed by you) are constructive in helping build a stronger better EA as well as figuring out what people believe. I ask you again, can you please return the comments. --CyclePat 18:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Please, take a look at this

Kim,

please, see User:CyclePat2 and related pages.

--Neigel von Teighen | help with arbs? 17:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

That would be the first time someone started an RFC against me. :-/ --Kim Bruning 17:43, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
It wouldn't fly very well.  :-) --Iamunknown 17:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'd act, but I'm still waiting for JzG, really. --Kim Bruning 17:48, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Please, consider waiting a bit more; maybe CyclePat re-thinks this... Do not make anything until an RfC is actually done; if you act before, you don't give CPat a chance to correct himself. (A kind advice of an AMA advocate). --Neigel von Teighen | help with arbs? 17:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh dear. This is bordering on blockable harrassment - if it continues, I'd encourage you to make an ANI report (if not already done), even waiting for JzG's input. Thanks, Martinp23 18:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Meh, me too. I love the claim, "keeps trying to add comments to WP:RM". Since when is that vandalism? Why do you think two accounts now? Just to make it more confusing? --Iamunknown 18:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to calm CyclePat down... wait a bit. --Neigel von Teighen | help with arbs? 18:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Kim, you gonna pitch in at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Reform? --Iamunknown 17:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Also User:Durin/What is wrong with RfA --Iamunknown 18:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Polling?

Kids, you're more interested in fighting than in actually doing anything useful. Now cool it, and take it off of my talk page. --Kim Bruning 15:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to have disturbed you Kim... thanks for your time and input. (→Netscott) 15:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Global warming

Have a look at this. I think you will understand what I'm actually doing. ;-) --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 00:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I already guessed. Way to go, snarfing a spectacular case upfront! :-D --Kim Bruning 02:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

CN update

Kim, apparently CyclePat is now banned from ASSIST. I'm not sure how I feel about this since he finally indicated that he would run the other way. *sigh* I don't up to all this conflict. How do you get through a single wiki day? --Iamunknown 04:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll raise you and say 99.1 ;)

[19] :) --kingboyk 19:00, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

You replied to me at User talk:Rebroad - fair enough. I guess I'm just stuck on WP:SPADE; I have a hard time seeing that the best response to trolling is to call it out as such. I could be wrong about that. -GTBacchus(talk) 19:55, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

BOLD, reverted, now discuss?

Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts was historified after a small discussion at ANI but was reverted with the edit summary, "um... could we get a wider discussion than that before shutting something down please?" by an uninvolved editor. You suggested we not use MfD but instead the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle when attempting to historify things. You ready to discuss? :-) --Iamunknown 21:18, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for going over there. Will you keep the page watchlisted and participate? I thought your idea was novel (I hadn't though to it :-\) when you mentioned, so I thought I should let you know it is happening. Regards, Iamunknown 21:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Small text

Please, don't use small tags on talk pages, since it makes them hard to read. Thank you. Andy Mabbett 18:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I see. Is your browser misconfigured? --Kim Bruning 20:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
No. Andy Mabbett 21:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
That's still odd, I have never had complaints before, and the text appears fine on every system I've viewed it on to date. What is your current browser, skin, screen resolution, and do you have anti-aliasing turned on or off? --Kim Bruning 21:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
All irrelevant. I have my system set to show me text at 100% at a size I comfortable to read. If you set text smaller than that - especially large chunks such a paragraphs - it stops being comfortable to read. Andy Mabbett 21:56, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I use small text for things that are irrelevant or only tangential to my main argument. You can choose not to read it without substantially missing anything, so it's no big loss. Even so, thanks for warning me about the issue. --Kim Bruning 22:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
With all due respect, your browser ought to be configured to display small font text at a readable size too, because small is a perfectly legal tag in XHTML. --kingboyk 13:23, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Global warming has active mediation

If you want a link I will give it to you. Or see the bottom of my talk page. Well.. its active but SLOW compared to the page. I know you are busy... so I thought I would tell you about it and thank you for your previous efforts. --Blue Tie 22:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Straw poll

Kim, exactly which polling guideline are you using as your basis for removing talk page comments? --Tjsynkral 22:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


That is your opinion of the poll. The reason I am posting the poll is to determine consensus quickly. If I instantly got a whole bunch of responses in favor of leaving the article protected I wouldn't bother and it would save everyone a bunch of time.
Posting a straw poll is not disruptive to WP. Removing talk page comments is. If you can't come up with a policy to support your actions, I intend to re-post it. If you continue to delete talk page comments, you will be the one who is WP:POINTing, not me. --Tjsynkral 23:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Global warming

Kim, I'm a bit confused as to why you closed the featured article review for the Global Warming article. The usual period for those reviews had not expired, and you appear to be involved personally with the article (as a mediator perhaps?). Either way, your reasons for defeaturing the article are not clear, an explanation would be nice. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:45, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Eh, what? <blinks> Someone was supposed to follow that up.
No one showed up, did they? Well, so much for that then. I'll revert myself. Apologies for the confusion.
--Kim Bruning 11:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC) Ok, so that wasn't the most enlightening answer I ever gave folks :-P

A question or a thought

I am addressing this to you, because though there are others who seem interested, to me, you appear to be the most person on wikipedia most sincerely interested in Consensus. There maybe others, but I am unaware of them.

As you know, I have my doubts that Consensus scales well. I believe the evidence on wikipedia can actually support my view, but I am not so interested in debating that as I am in thinking about some mechanisms, tools, processes, cultural changes to help.

Fundamentally, I think consensus is elusive in part because it has no workable definition and in part because it requires a degree of "goodness of heart" above and beyond just "good faith".

I wonder if there might not be some sort of "higher standard" to which wikipedians might voluntarily subscribe. An "articles of faith" if you will for editing to achieve consensus. It might be a list of ideals or concepts followed by a distinct set of overt behaviors that will or will not be engaged in.

Off the top of my head I would think of:

  • Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. We are dedicated first to the idea of writing an encyclopedia.
  • We acknowledge that we hold passionate personal views that may differ from the views of other people. We will not allow those views to stand in the way of writing a good encyclopedia article, even if it hurts our sense of values.
    • In particular, even if the fate of the human race depends on the outcome of an issue, and even if we think wikipedia can help save freedom, starving children, the nation I live in, the human race or the entire planet, we will write only to create a good neutral encyclopedia. We will not write with an agenda to save or protect something.
  • We acknowledge that many good editors can not edit this way but we do not judge them for that.
  • If we find ourselves to be editing articles where we are unable to focus on the idea of writing an encyclopedia first, we will leave that article.
  • We desire consensus. This is not so much an event or a conclusion to an issue as much as it is a process for including ideas and viewpoints, with a goal to achieving a well-researched, well written, neutral point of view encyclopedia.
    • We know that achieving consensus sometimes requires extraordinary effort to trust people that one does not agree with. We pledge to assume good faith and to understand the position and views of the other person as we edit.
      • In particular, signatories of this convention will, when working on an article together in which there is conflict, agree to discuss their viewpoints and each person will write from the perspective of an individual with whom they do not naturally agree in the interest of writing a well-written, neutral encyclopedia.
    • We will not revert other good faith editors without putting a clear description in the Edit Summary and typically, also on the talk page for discussion.
    • We will not revert other adherents of this convention without first discussing the issue with them.
    • If we are reverted, and we find the revert to injure the encyclopedia, we will post our concern on the talk page and wait 24 hours before we edit that passage again.
  • We will be patient with other editors and with wikipedia.
  • If it is not possible for two or any number of us to work on an article in harmony, we agree that we will all leave the article to other editors. This may inspire us to work together!
  • We will listen to what other people are saying and try to understand them.
  • We will work to create one good article every six months either by expanding on a stub or by new creation of the article.

People could sign this convention, agree to live to its rules and be able to put some sort of little insignia on their talk page and signing block to identify them as part of the group.

Maybe it is not a workable idea. I am not interested in implementing it at this point as much as I am interested in knowing if the idea has traction with someone like you. Does it seem like it might be an actually good idea or just so-so.. another hard to do work around? --Blue Tie 01:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I will ask some other folks. Seeya round. --Blue Tie 01:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
With a bit of editing, it might be quite interesting. Will you be making a page someplace where more people can look at it? Have you seen the harmonious editing club yet? --Kim Bruning 01:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Notification of concern

Per this I would have expected admins to start taking notice of the slow escalation. Last night people got blocked on one good faith edit. Now reverts are starting without repercussion. Forcing reverters to work with other editors is probably a good thing. (I know you are on the board working from time to time, but I am notifying all the admins that I saw engaged). --Blue Tie 02:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm asking some folks to look. Err which board btw? --Kim Bruning 02:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Global Warming. Its not to its full roar yet. But it bears scrutiny. There have been reverts already which last night would have been absolutely not tolerated. I am editing on the page and trying to be in the spirit of good editing, even when I disagree... taking it to talk as much as possible. --Blue Tie 02:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Ok, some folks are looking in. --Kim Bruning 02:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Consensus and IAR

I actually do support IAR, but I don't support its universal, convenient use, only its use in extreme emergencies were timeliness matters, and with the understanding that the use of the IAR in emergencies will be reviewed later, and any failings addressed then. I see myself as a socialist-anarchist for whom ethics have an extreme amount of say and meaning in my own life. Most of the kinds of folks I've run into in life who support rules like IAR are the NIMBY libertarian politically-inclined people, and while some overlap exists, I often find that those kinds of folks who push for IAR type rules are not to be trusted with the leeway those rules provide. I also don't blame folks for not trusting me with it - I figure you really have to trust someone before you can meaningfully give someone that kind of power and responsibility. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 23:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all the notes and thoughts. I'm talking in e-mail with Xoloz now about consensus and special use meanings in DRV and other decision-making processes. The special meanings here still bother me a lot. I come from a world where the definition of consensus as not being voting ever is especially ironclad (The Society of Friends was the church I attended during formative years). Anyhow, I'm trying to figure a way through it that I can tolerate and that won't ruffle too many feathers, but is something useful for everyone (or most everyone). I will talk with the folks you mention before making any huge waves.
Honestly, right now I need to tend to the real world and the exigencies of my job. I've also left some mini-projects and projects to languish on the Commons while I focused over here, so it may take a few days before you see any meaningful activity from me. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 14:16, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
My own experience is with the atmosphere and style of the Polder Model :). Originally when en.wikipedia was populated with a small number of extremely clueful people, the community was more strictly consensus. However, many people aren't taught consensus decision making in school or anything, so they simply assume, you see. --Kim Bruning 17:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Nice questions. I hypothesize that something happens in the system of men--something like a phase transition of being trapped in the condition of the surrounding group that has nothing to do with individual free will--when you have a have a team of men that see the possibility of becoming alpha over the losers. In a small group of men that have no possibility of becoming alpha, they can actually cooperate in a consensus. The Polder model is a good example. The Society of Friends is another good example as noted above. My favorite model is the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra where decisions are made by what I would characterize as "true consensus"--which is very different from the consensus within any faction that is united to beat the other guys. At this stage of Wikipedia development, the hope of becoming alpha over your own page is very possible, tempting, and rewarding. Hence, "true consensus" becomes a technology problem. How do we overcome natural forces to do it? --Rednblu 18:45, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

"O RLY"

That made my day. *Vendetta* (whois talk edits) 02:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

IRC ping

Check with me on IRC please. Thanks, --Durin 19:56, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Polls

I am not that concerned. I just am worried that the same thing that is probably causing all those polls is happening here, people are jumping without thinking if this new version of RfA will actually work. Also I am worried about the fairness of RfA, the role of the Bureaucrat, voting, and all the other issues. They are the reason there is not consensus on reform, the issue is complicated. Random experimentation is not the answer though. It is not fair, since the RfAs are counting they may be easier or harder, but the format does change peoples thoughts, as much as it shouldn't. Normally this is ok, but once someone is an admin it can't really be undone. We are changing the way we give out rarely revoked privileges without agreement. Normally I am the nuetral person out of the stupid disputes, so I see what you are saying. ;) Prodego talk 01:07, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

No, as long as people agree that the proposal is a plausible option to use. That is, I don't want anyone creating an RfA that is set up so that it can't possibly fail, and then using it to pass. Actually... :) Seriously, I just want to make sure this doesn't become a free for all, with every RfA different, with options that can never work being "tested" ect. Prodego talk 01:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Can we have someone more nuetral? :) Seriously though having someone in change, preferably a crat, would be an improvement. Prodego talk 03:05, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
More nuetral, not nuetral. Just a little less radical as far as changes go. Someone who will listen to the talk discussion, ect. Prodego talk 04:58, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

WOTTA?

You created WOTTA. Per WP:WOTTA, I'm asking you what WOTTA means? :-) Carcharoth 11:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, hang on! It is short for "WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG!" - OK, now I feel silly! LOL! Carcharoth 11:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
It seems a bit pointless to me, because these acronyms should never be appearing in articles anyway. What goes on in project namespace is of trifling importance compared to the real business of writing articles. --kingboyk 13:15, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
I think you've misunderstood. WP:WOTTA is saying not to use abbreviations when talking on Wikipedia and article talk pages, as they WP:BITE. I know you know what those mean, but new editors don't. And can you honestly say you know all the acronyms at (disengaging from WOTTA-mode) Wikipedia:List of shortcuts? Carcharoth 15:35, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
So USE of ABB and CUTS is OK in TALK, PRJ and USER? O:-) --Kim Bruning 15:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Nope, but there's talk of the One Laptop per Child project for example; I very much doubt that we'll be shipping the WP: space on those laptops. blank space for Kim to write me a witty retort in WP: speak, thank you :) --kingboyk 17:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

IARing the RFM

Absolutely not. You may disagree with what I suggested, but un-rejecting the case is unacceptable. ^demon[omg plz] 20:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC) I didn't look at the history well enough before I jumped the gun and shouted. My deepest apologies.

Will you mediate Wikipedia:Straw polls?

You wrote:

Since you'd like to keep, I take it you won't mind hanging out in the war zone helping these fine editors collaborate on consensus? O:-) . Good luck! --Kim Bruning 03:33, 24 April 2007 (UTC) (Full disclosure: Note that should you fail, probably the only resort left is the arbitration committee, who may well also reject)
If kept, i'll at least spend some time there, and will do my best to help keep things civil and productive, for what that's worth. I don't know if that would constitute anything as formal as mediation. But since at the moment it is jsut an wessay, i don't see the need for a "last resort" If the editors can't achieve consensus or at elast reasonable progress, i see no great harm in letting those who chose to keep arguing, as long as they don't disrupt other parts of the project, or try to claim some staus (such as guideline or policy) for this page in the absence of consensus. eventually if the proposal fails, editing will die down and the thing can be marked "historical". No need to delete that I can see. DES (talk) 03:41, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the proposed merge may be a problem, but should be dealable with. i hope it will be less of a problem than WP:ATT was. :} DES (talk) 03:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
What do you see as the "root problem" that was behind the ATT fiasco? I entered that one late, and may well have missed key points. I did oppsoe the merge and policy status for the mrged page on the giant poll, BTW. (The arguments about how to have the poll, and obviousl violations of consensus on procedure there would be funny if they weren't agonizing.) DES (talk) 04:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

MFD withdrawn

You convinced me sufficiently with this comment:

"I don't think that anyone has proposed that Wikipedia:Straw polls be merged in its current form. The idea is to slowly analyze its text (along with previous versions), determine which portions are backed by consensus, merge them into Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion (along with any additional polling information deemed useful) and leave the rest behind. —David Levy 06:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)"

I'm just wondering, if this is the case: Could you not have waited with that proposal until after the Straw polls page settled down? --Kim Bruning 07:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the discussion of a merger is a viable solution to that conflict (or at least a step in the right direction). It's been alleged that Wikipedia:Straw polls was being abused as a POV fork of Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion (and that the latter was unfairly slanted to begin with), so what better way to resolve the dispute than to work toward creating an NPOV combination of the two?
Please note that while the original merger proposal was mine, that was made last year. The new discussion was organized by Netscott, and I perceived (and continue to perceive) this as a good-faith effort to replace the previous bickering with constructive community interaction. —David Levy 07:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Hmph. Well. Do you think we can get Radiant on board on that basis? --Kim Bruning 07:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Radiant seemed open to the general idea, but there was some disagreement regarding the specifics (particularly the title). Hopefully, additional discussion and broader feedback will help to build consensus. —David Levy 08:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


Note that merge tags are typically used to indicate that pages should be merged in the very near future (and presumably in their current form) --Kim Bruning 07:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It helps to read the talk page discussion.  :-) —David Levy 08:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I take it we agree that we should take our time with this? --Kim Bruning 07:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

However long it takes. A rushed merger would be the worst possible move. —David Levy 08:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


It might be wisest to start a fresh page and then bring details over from all other pages. We can then mark the old pages as deprecated. Would that cover your objectives? --Kim Bruning 14:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

My personal preference is to create the proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Polling (currently a redirect to Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion), with the centralized discussion occurring at Wikipedia talk:Polling (currently a redirect to Wikipedia talk:Polling is not a substitute for discussion).
If/when consensus is reached (and it's agreed that the new page is a guideline), I believe that the old pages should be redirected (with the revision histories remaining intact, of course). Perhaps Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion could redirect to a section entitled Polling is not a substitute for discussion and Wikipedia:Straw polls could redirect to a section about the right and wrong ways to conduct a straw poll. —David Levy 16:12, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm fine with what you're saying, except I don't believe in the concept of "proposed guidelines". I've never written a "proposed" page before, and I think the number of "proposed guideline"s that got anywhere can be counted on the fingers on one hand :-P. Can we simply be descriptive? Taggers will play their games no matter what we do anyway. --Kim Bruning 16:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm well aware of the fact that policy/guideline pages are descriptive (not prescriptive). The {{proposed}} tag merely serves to inform people that agreement regarding the page's accuracy and importance have not yet been established via consensus.
Most "proposed" pages fail because they're bad or unnecessary, not because of how they're tagged. But if we didn't apply the {{proposed}} tag, it would be very difficult to discuss and formulate such pages (including the good ones) amid the nonstop complaints from users opposing the apparent adoption of new policies/guidelines without clear consensus. —David Levy 16:45, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
You have ever succeeded at this? Generally I find that pages I make that don't get called proposed or whatever do a lot better, over time. O:-) --Kim Bruning 20:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
I haven't personally initiated the type of page requiring a tag. It certainly is possible to create a descriptive page with no tag at all (such as this one), but if something is intended to serve as a policy or guideline, tagging it {{proposed}} (until consensus is established) is standard procedure. —David Levy 23:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

User:Kim Bruning/Refactoring RFA

With all of the RfA tests, have you considered being bold and try yours? --Iamunknown 10:15, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

The format I came out at is very similar to Durin's RFC style, which didn't work too well when it was recently tested. --Kim Bruning 13:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

A request

You seem to have Ideogram's confidence to the extent anyone does these days. Could you consider advising him that Wikipedia:Editor review/Ideogram is not a good idea right now? Thanks. Feel free to delete this and response off-wiki (or not at all) if you prefer. Regards, Newyorkbrad 03:14, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: WP:BITE

You lost me. Could you possibly expand, to make your reasoning a little bit clearer? // habj 05:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

AAAAARGH! But you are not a newcomer, and so it should be OK to bite you? // habj 11:22, 29 April 2007 (UTC) (checking whether or not I do check my talk, are you?)

hm... my IM bite was just a joke you know... if you did not like it I am truly sorry. // habj 11:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I ain't been bold on the WP:IAR page yet, but I have been on the talk page

You may be interested in this comment. It took me about 2-3 hours to compile/write. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 20:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a very nice essay. Thanks for the pointer! --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 21:43, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
As long as we're thanking each other, I also wanted to thank you for inserting some much-needed sanity into the edits to IAR back in 2005-2006-land. I'm glad you were there to intervene. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 23:10, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Now I've started a village pump discussion. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 01:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Doublepluspolicy

No. I need to get clearence from the devs to have the relivant extenstion turned on. Beyond that well I think they know it exists but thats all.Geni 13:14, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: Your message

You call that a warning? A warning should strike fear into the heart of its target, commanding obedience and worship. It should render even the most self-confident of users nothing more than a pile of shredded confetti. In that respect, a picture of a kiwi seems somewhat lacking .... unless ... is it true that kiwis go straight for the eyes? ;)

All jokes aside, I'd like to make a few points:

First, I appreciate that you were kind enough to actually write out your comment instead of posting a templated warning. It's not happened to me before (well, once ... but that was a recent changes patrol misunderstanding), but I've seen that it can irritate people.

Second, I didn't challenge the "legality" of the experiment, but rather its appropriateness in the absence of consensus and its utility (experimenting in this case seems to be an instance of "process for the sake of process"). You proposed the "experiment" on the talk page and were opposed by three editors in less than 20 minutes.

Third, one edit does not constitue edit warring.

I think your rather mild warning/comment was more than a little premature ... <indignant voice>you could've at least waited until I re-reverted you, posted a case at WP:AN/I, accused of sockpuppetry, submitted a request to WP:RFCU, and appealed to Jimbo to act against your anarchy!</indignant voice>

I do not see what this experiment is intended to accomplish. Experimenting can certainly be informative, but I think it's better to be selective about when one experiments. But, if you're driven by an inner desire to experiment, by all means do so.

Regarding your last statement, the threat of a Jimbovention does not really worry me. First, RfA is just a means to an end and I doubt Jimbo'd interfere in it. Second, I don't see why we'd want to change something that's not broken. Wikipedia is innovative, not masochistic. O:-)

So, I conclude with a <very pious grin>. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 23:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

In rereading my comment, I noticed something that could maybe perhaps be possibly misconstrued a little. Despite all appearances to the contrary, the 7th paragraph is not a pun on "experimenting" in this sense. Any similarity is purley coincidental. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 23:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Darn, now you ruined it. Didn't you know that slightly risqué jokes including bi-curiosity are all the rage these days? :-P --Kim Bruning 23:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
For your defiance, I CONDEMN you to an eternity of torment in the pits of Hades! Prepare to be smited! Prepare to ... Oh, wait that's Zeus.
How about: You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then ... never mind, I can't pull off the accent.
"When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary" ... oh, forget it!
If y'all wants to egshperimint and ain't goan hurt no'un, y'alls go ahead and git that dun. Now if'n y'all'll eckskiese me, I'm'a go an' fine me some grits. Yeehaw! However, be forewarned that the mere execution of your various trials shall not suffice to convince me of their merits in the absence of satisfactory attempts to address to the inadequacies inherent to the idea, which I have incidentally indicated at the venue most suited for continued discourse on the subject. Also, though I may find no cause to object to your pursuit of a harmless experiment, I feel compelled to note, for the honor of England of the Queen, and purely as a precautionary measure, that I do not consider this to be behaviour befitting a citizen of the Empire, but rather of a colonial or a continental. That said, would you perchance care for some tea?
-- Black Falcon (Talk) 00:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC) *Sigh. I've spent years in the US and still haven't mastered the art of the Southern accent. If you were discombobulated by my remarks, please let me know and I will do my utmost to recombobulate you. Also, if I've failed to note any particularly relevant stereotypes, please let me know so that I may incorporate them in the future.
In case that was hopelessly incomprehensible ... I don't object to harmless experimenting. I doubt the results of the experiment will get me to change my mind about proposed adminship in general, but I'd still like to see how it goes. If you do decide to proceed with the experiment, would you please drop a note on my talk page or the proposal's talk page (which I have watchlisted) stating when the experiment begins and where it takes place? Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 07:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I was quite sufficiently combobulated. Nevertheless, thank you for the recombobulation. :-) --Kim Bruning 08:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

An interesting trend I've noticed...

So, I recently went to Luna Santin's userpage, curious to see what such a venerable editor (whose name I see practically everywhere I operate) had on their personal space. I was greeted with a giant gray sheep, which was not quite what I was expecting.

Fast forward to today, where I did the exact same thing with you, and was greeted by not only a kiwi in clogs, but some sort of bling-adored dogish thing.

Well... okay.

Apparently, once you reach a certain level of ubiquity on Wikipedia, you have the compulsion to add random animals to your userpage. Good to know. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh well, the kiwi in clogs is because I told Essjay that that's basically what I am, and he made that picture for me :-). (Grew up in .nz, have .nl nationality ;-) ) --Kim Bruning 05:48, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you!

Hi, Kim Bruning. Thank you a lot for your input on my editor review, and thanks for your suggestion for me to edit the Wikia wikis. I'm sure going to check them and see whether I like them, but I'm not planning on leaving Wikipedia -just for the time being. I like it here! And I'm willing to contribute more to the articles, though I think my work on the talk pages is quite important as well.

Do you really think I'm polite and possibly diplomatic? Why would you say that? What are the fun things you could recruit me for? (if that's something that I should've understood but I haven't, then blame it on my bad English) A.Z. 06:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

How very systematic of you

I'm only challenging its status as policy. I'm fine with it being a guideline, or a guideline AND policy or a guideline AND policy AND metapolicy, or whatever. Taking Jimbo's edit comment as law strikes me as being VERY not good for Wikipedia. And to be honest, if I were Jimbo, I'd be pissed off, because in most cases he's pretty clearly established that he just wants to be like any other editor UNLESS he's invoking an office action. I mean, the alternative to that strategy is that you turn into the King Midas of policies. Which would suck, in my opinion. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 13:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

There, you see? No big! --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 15:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Bot missed

Your recent edit to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (diff) was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to recognize and repair vandalism to Wikipedia articles. If the bot reverted a legitimate edit, please accept my humble creator's apologies – if you bring it to the attention of the bot's owner, we may be able to improve its behavior. Click here for frequently asked questions about the bot and this warning. // MartinBot 20:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

--Self note--- bot got reverted, no action required
Sorry - seems to be a dodgy signature somewhere on the page that's causing this problem! Martinp23 20:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Silly bot.  :-P --Iamunknown 22:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

kerhug

Indenting

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_guidelines#Flat_versus_threaded.2C_.5Bmis.5Duse_of_indents. Cheers! --Flex (talk/contribs) 12:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/User namespace

You wrote that the page "should not actually be deleted as it contains old records. Actually, it just contains transclusions which I have moved to the relevant archive page. Please consider undoing your close ... maybe it's a sign of OCD, but I really dislike having archives scattered in random places. :) Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 02:55, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Umm ... is anyone there? *Wanders into the fog after hearing a noise despite the fact that there's a killer/werewolf/alien on the loose* -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:29, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Great! I've tagged them for speedy deletion per G6 (housekeeping). Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 17:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I read the page you just called to my attention at the time -- inded you will find my commetns on its talk page. It is one fo the pages whose improper deletion (and I still maintain it was highly improper) I was complaining about. I fail to see any "hidden policy" disclosed by that page, or any good reason for the improper deletion of multiple pages on that night long ago, and it still remains in my mind the some of best evidcence of why WP:IAR and the mindset it fosters is ultimately harmful to the project. I am glad to see you chose to uncover it now, but since you did, and since its talk page links to TBDY's policy proposal page, i have uncovered that as well, with a similar historical marker. DES (talk) 14:26, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed Wikipedia:Kick the ass of anyone who renominates GNAA for deletion before 2007 had a lot of support, although it was still new enough and sufficiently under discussion that it might be argued that it didn't yet represent consensus. If soemone had deleted, or better eyet, speedy closed, a new AfD based on that policy page, The action might well have been reasonable. That is not, howeverm any reason fro deleting (or hidign behind a redir) the policy page itslf. Still less is it a reason for deleting TBDY's competing (and IMO much more sensible) policy proposal, which might actually have lead to a more general consensus on how soon pages could be re-proposed for deletion. Still less does it justify deleting discussion at Deletion Review (then still RfU I think) and at RfC and elsewhere. I still see no serious harm that thsoe discussion (almost all by established editors, not by GNAA members or annons) were doing that justifed such prompt, vigourus, and er unusual deletions. re-readign the page you brought to my attention today merely reinforces my views on thsi point. I guess we must simply agree to disagree on the point. DES (talk) 15:13, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Indeed WP:CSD does not trump all other policy, and if I ever claimed thqat it did, I was mistaken. However, few if any othe policies authorize page deletions without discussion. The "Kick the ass" policy, by its own terms, authorized no more than unlisting a VfD nom; untaggimg the page, and notifing the nominator. This might hav involved deletign the VfD sub-page, or it might have simply involved speedy-closing the VfD. It did not, in any case, purport to involve deletimg competing policy or proposal pages, coments at RfU, comments at RfC, commetns on users's talk pages, and IIRC commetns at ANI or AN, all of which were deleted or blanked during the course of "centralizing the discussion" (which seemed to me much more like "suppressign the discussion" at least on-wiki). I don't see any policy that warrented any of those actions except WP:IAR (meatball, not being even a wikimedia project, had no relevance at all), and IAR is what you cited to me at the time. Had TBDY's competing proposal been left undelted, it might have evolved into a sensible policy on when re-noms of articles for deletion were improper, something that is still over-vague in current policy. Describing as a "forest fire" the discussion on, IIRC seven or nine pages on a wiki that even than had over a million pages strikes me as exterme hyperbole, then and now. Had there been an attempt to say "There is one place where we are discussing this issue" and other discussion pointed to that place, and urged to join a single central discussion, provided that such discussion had actually been allowed to procede, would have been a very different matter. In general i am intensely suspicious of any argument that says "X is so dangerous/contentions that it can't even be discussed on-wiki", and this incident only served to cement the view that attempts to suppress on-wiki discsuion of wiki policy or conduct are unwise, unjustified, and counter-productive.
All that said, I was convinced at the time, and i still am, that you were doing what you thought was the right thing, attemtping to avoid harm to the project, with the best will in the world, in total good faith. But it helped to convince me that IAR and the habits of thought IAR encourages ultimately harm the project, and I have not yet seen any reason that pesuades me otherwise. DES (talk) 16:21, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
My argument that meatball etc are irrelevant is not that they were not invented here, but that wikipedia policy ought to be complete on-wiki. If concepts from meatball or other places are relevant to Wikipedia policy, they ought to be copied into the relevant policy pages, or at least linked to on those pages, so that someone reading those pages can have a complete understanding without the benefit of "oral tradition".
You suggest that my actions over the GNAA affair were a case of disrupting wikipedia to make a point. Not at all. in each case I was raising, on a proper forum for such issues, a complaint about what I honestly felt was improper behavior, and a literal reading the then existing policy supported my claim, so even if invalid it was not frivolous. Complaining on RfU about a page deletion was hardly disruption, nor was complaining at RfC about what I saw as improper blanking of RfU discussion. I also didn't and still don't see that any "disruption" resulted, or was likely to result. You say that "The best wiki practice at the time discussed deleting pages, and telling people to go to one central location." but my memory was that you were insistent that the matter not be discussed on-wiki at any location, not even on my user talk page, and insisted on explaining "why" to me over email. That struck me not as "centralizing" discussion, but as trying to suppress discussion, and like many such efforts, it backfired.
You say "Now the thing I'm wondering is how you define consensus. It was pretty obvious to me at the time, that if I did this, that any later test or RFC or what have you would state that I had acted correctly." Well i define consensus (in part) as something that can't be reliably known in advance -- you don't have consensus until you actually have agreement by a significant number of people. You may predict how people will react, and you may be right, but that does not justify extraordinary actions in advance of actually establishing consensus support for them. Had you redirected or linked to a single central on-wiki location, and asked that all further discussion take place there, but permitted discussion to go forward there, I would probably have been less upset at the time, and certainly in hindsight I would feel that your actions had been much more justified. You didn't do that.
I fear that our views on this and related matters are simply not in harmony. This is not because i have not thought about these things at considerable length, both in the Wikipedia context and in much larger and arguably more significant contexts. (I have, for example, been engaged in somewhat similar disputes over unrecorded executive sessions of my municipal government, an issue on which at least one local election has partly turned.) I presume that you have also come to your position over a considerable length of time and through a significant amount of thought, and that a few words from me on a talk page are unlikely to change your views. I do accept that you were (and are) working for the best interests of the project, as you saw them. Please accept that so am I. If you are seriously interested in debating what wiki policy and practice should be now and in future, we might have a worthwhile discussion, or maybe we can't. But I think we have chewed over the events of the GNAA matter about as far as we productively can. DES (talk) 15:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Esperanza

So. Esperanza may have died, and that is what dissapoints me; but I will be sure to pioneer a project to replace it. Eaomatrix 14:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Alphawiki

The replacement of Esperanza is called Alphawiki, I started a proposal for it, and if it succeeds, and I will make sure to defend it from those fickle deletionists, and buearcrats. Thank you for kind comment. Eaomatrix 18:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you add your name to the list, here [20]. I need to start recruiting members. Eaomatrix 18:37, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm asking

[21], please do explain. --Petros471 20:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Inquiring minds want to know. I want to know! :) --ElKevbo 20:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Sure! :-)
  • Requested moves is not policy
  • The admins noticeboard actually is visted by a lot of admins, so doing RM is crazily redundant. (since the point of RM is to request admin attention in the first place ;-) )
  • Requested moves uses majority, not consensus, and therefore does not meet polling guidelines (or in fact Wikipedia:Consensus)
  • Requested moves tries to find binding decisions, and therefore also does not meet the polling guidelines, and does not meet consensus requirements.
  • Such polls can be fairly disruptive.
  • These polls are basically identical across different pages and namespaces, trying to push a particular (false/broken) view of wikipedia policy, and are therefore also spam.
  • There are precedents where people have in fact been blocked for spreading these.
--Kim Bruning 20:33, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I still don't understand. Why was this considered spam and why was the very civil and productive discussion simply deleted without any prior comments, warnings, discussion, etc.? --ElKevbo 20:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Ah I was about to put a ps to explain that better. The poll form is in fact not really the greatest means of holding a discussion, you see...
... Though... hmm, wait a minute... I do see your activity in the discussion section, and the discussion section does seem somewhat useful. Perhaps that one section may yet be useful. Should we unremove that? --Kim Bruning 20:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Done --Kim Bruning 20:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Kim. I don't really care what format the discussion uses but the discussion should be held. I'm not even married to the location. I just want input from other editors on what I perceive to be something of a barrier between editors and admins. --ElKevbo 20:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted you, and I'm sure you'll disagree. Am I right in assuming that you removed this just because you don't like the requested move process at all? --- RockMFR 21:09, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Do not assume.
I'm sure there are locations where requested moves is not disruptive or redundant or in violation of policy somewhere. I'll grant that.
However, in this location it is all three of those things, and replacing it can get you into trouble. Would you care to reconsider? --Kim Bruning 21:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Requested moves aren't disruptive or redundant anywhere. --- RockMFR 21:15, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
This particular poll was disruptive, for the reasons already listed in this section.
I had already come to partial agreement with some of the participants, which you have now undone.
That's fine.
Right now you do need to address why this poll at this location was ok per polling guidelines, consensus rules, and why it was not disruptive. This should be fairly easy, if you are in fact correct :-) --Kim Bruning 21:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Apology accepted

I accept your apology. I hope it will be clear to the other user exactly what you are discussing. DES (talk) 22:37, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

For you

The Resilient Barnstar
For your upbeat and positive attitudes, through whatever fires may provoke. Thanks for making everyone's day better. // Pilotguy radar contact 23:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Executive Sessions

I can give you lots more details, if you are interested. Under the NJ Open Public Meetings Act there are significant limits on when a public body, such as a township council, can meet with the public excluded. The Township Council of West Windsor Township, New Jersey had been meeting in executive session rather frequently, but mostly for clearly allowable purposes. They had been routinely tape-recording these meetings, tapes which were released when there was no longer a need for confidentiality on the particular subjects. Then (in the spring of 2006) a council member resigned. According to the law, the remaining council members can appoint, by majority vote, a person to fill the seat until the next regularly scheduled election. They chose to interview candidates (10 of them) in executive session, on the grounds that this was a "personnel issue" (which is one of the salutatory grounds for such sessions). Many people in the township, including myself, objected on the grounds that the appointment of a public official to what is normally an elective post is not a "personnel issue" in the sense intended. The tapes, when released (after the appointment had been made) proved to be inaudible for much of the sessions. The person appointed had been a political ally of the mayor and of three of the four sitting council members, and her appointment had been widely predicted. Many criticized the public application and interview process as a sham. After her appointment, the council voted to stop taping executive session meetings. In November 2006, one of the applicants who had been rejected by the council ran against the appointee for the remainder of the term, and won, winning in 16 of the 17 election districts. "Open Government" was a significant issue in the campaign. The victory was surprising in the face of the endorsement of the appointee by three of the sitting council members, and the sitting Mayor. After his election, the council reversed its prior decision, and resumed taping executive sessions. The newly elected council member, his chef ally on the council, and his chief opponent, are all three up for re-election today (8 May 2007). I have been a political opponent of the sitting mayor, and was an unsuccessful candidate for Council in 2005. i have endorsed the slate containing the most recently elected council member, and contributed both time and money to his campaign. i am a frequent speaker at the Public Comment section of council meetings, and have been termed a "gadfly" by local newspapers. Was that too much detail for you? DES (talk) 16:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Allies

I am indeed a big proponent of openness. In more purely governmental/legal contexts, I am also a proponent of Free Speech. (Indeed I am a member of the ACLU) but that doesn't apply in quite the same way in a forum such as Wikipedia. But it is also true that in significant part in defense of openness and free speech, and of other values I find important, I have become a strong advocate of process -- I find that due process is one of the strongest protections against abuse and casual elision of rights, often in the name of "efficiency" or "we all know how this will come out anyway". Indeed I've also been called a "process wonk" in political debates. Thus our inital clash -- I saw your actions as opposing openness an as subverting the published process. (I have since learned that the latter was too broad a concept for wikipedia, but i think that informal unpublished process should gradually yield to formal published process here, and that ignoring process in the interests of "getting the right result" is bad in itself, often counterproductive in a specific situation, and should only be done as a very last resort, if at all. See Process is Important.) In our later encounters I have supported your position on a number of occasions, as witness the recent thread on ANI about de-sysoping admins who had their accounts hacked. i notice that we both opposed Tony Sidaway's views on this case, although you have often agreed with him in the past, and i sometimes have. On the "Notification" issue in the talk page of the speedy delete criteria page you disagreed with my position initially, but we have both been discussion, and your later post leaves me room to hope that i have to some extent persuaded you on this issue. While I disagree with you on WP:IAR, i do not in any sense consider you an "enemy", and I would hope that we would often be "allies" -- although I would prefer not to conceptualize Wikipedia as a battlefield or even a political campaign. All too often it does seem to be one, at least in some areas, though. DES (talk) 17:00, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

(you wrote): Alright, so you would like to see more accurate written policy, I would like to see more accurate written policy. Now just to work out how not to work at cross purposes. ;-) --Kim Bruning 18:28, 9 May 2007 (UTC) (commetn copied for clarity of thread)
Indeed I would. I would also like to see less of the "bold, discuss, revert" method of handling, policy, process, and guideline pages, and less of the "try something and if people start doing it, describe it in a written policy" approach, and much more of the method of presenting a written draft of a change or a proposal, discussing that, and eventually coming to a consensus. This worked quite well for the Speedy delete criteria expansions in July 2005 and later. It worked quite well for proposed deletion. It worked quite well for the conversion of Votes for Undeletion to Deletion review, and for the establishment of WP:MFD. IMO it is an inherently better process than the "try it and see" because it allows issues to be addressed and objections to be considered in advance, and it is less subject to the "he who drafts the document rules the day" unfairness. It often doesn't work, simply because most suggested changes, of whatever sort, are not adopted. DES (talk) 18:40, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I am not in the least saying that "Wikis cannot possibly ever work, and we must abolish them". Some things that you seem to think are inherent in the nature of wikis are IMO neither inherent nor desirable in a large wiki-based project. Wikis are tools for collaborative editing. It is perfectly possible to sue this tool to collaboratively edit proposed policy and process documents, and to seek consensus on such changes. Human project have significant social inertia. It is, IME so common as to be inherent that people will often find some problem (or something that is perceived as a problem by one or more people) and propose some change in the way the project works to deal with it. (Look at Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals) after all) In many cases, indeed in the vast majority of cases, either the problem is not perceived as a problem by most people in the project or the proposed solution is perceived as undesirable for some reason. Thus most proposals for change, formal or informal, whether using a show-first or propose-first method, or some variant, will fail. That is simply the nature of human endeavor, and a good thing, as it helps ensure stability and continuity. However, an excess of such resistance leads to rigidity. As in so many things, proper balance is the key, IMO. But this means that any method of suggesting policy changes will be found to fail "in the field" far more often than not, so that test cannot be sensibly used to determine which methods of suggesting or achieving change in how things are done or what things are done actually "work". You would need to compare the success ratios of different methods, and you would need to have good data, including on suggestions abandoned early. I do not have anything like the complete data to provide a meaningful answer to the question of exactly what proportion of proposals are eventually adopted. But you are taking numbers that were intended to demonstrate that it is not easy to change policy or practice at all, and using them to try to demonstrate that one method works less well than another method. The numbers have large enough holes in them that they simply provide no useful evidence for or against that proposition. It would be possible, but tedious, to search through the wikipedia archives to find all the formal "proposals" made in a given time period, and how many of them were eventually adopted in some form. But it is probably impossible to find all the cases where someone "boldly" started trying a new way of doing things, and got nowhere (although XD is a case in point that went nowhere).
In any case, if experienced wikipedians are making formal proposals, they are using that method of advocating change, even if the proposals are not adopted. And I would say that the process succeeds even when the proposal is not adopted, if the proposals merits are reasonably considered and for more or less good reasons, the community does not find it worth while. A process that meant that anyone could make any change to how things are done at any time would leave things far too unstable to be useful, just as one that effectively meant that no one could ever make any change would be far too rigid to be useful.
You mention that some of the adopted proposals are regarded as undesirable by some editors. But they were in fact adopted. That means that they become "how things are done" at the moment, and in your 'descriptivist" view, are therefore policy, and it also means that proposals were made and people adopted them, so that method of accomplishing change in fact describes how at least some changes are made.
If you wanted to edit the document to describe an alternative method along the lines of the Bold,revert,discuss philosophy, and perhaps the pros and cons of each, since each is used at least to some extent, that would IMO be a very different thing. DES (talk) 19:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Moving

Please keep an eye out at User_talk:Dmcdevit#Moving. >Radiant< 14:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Exit trigger

Ah. So. I've thought the same way long before I created this account. I think this may happen, but not in the near future. Do you think this is an imminent possibility? --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 19:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC) Actually, my thoughts were more along the lines of "prepare to fork as it gets close to happening", but since I'm thinking it is still far away, I took only three steps in that direction: hanging around WT:IAR, semi-actively using an account, and now this message.

More eyes

Some people on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) have gotten the idea that changes to the manual of style need to be voted upon, and a select few of those are blocking any improvement of the page until a vote passes to their satisfaction. Perhaps you'd care to weigh in with the cluebat? :) >Radiant< 12:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow

This would be excellent in a game of Nomic... :P >Radiant< 16:00, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Honestly

I'm getting pretty damned sick and tired of Radiant unilaterally doing things that directly affect me. If I were a third party mediator, I'd suggest that he stop directly interfering with me and if he really found refactoring discussions involving me necessary he get an acquaintance to do it. It's the frequency of the interferences, and the fact that he rarely if ever actually communicates his thoughts/opinions about his actions that really put my teeth on edge. I've found that we can discuss things reasonably civilly in most cases, but this unilateral and abrupt crap just pisses me off to no end. In the case of comments he moved from WT:IAR to WT:DRV, he asked to move it, and when I disagreed, he did it anyway. Does that seem respectful to you? Is there any way you can indulge me by asking Radiant to just leaving me alone in editorial action and engage with me in discussion only? --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 18:28, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. On further thinking, am I missing a vital part of Wikipedia ethics? In a fundamental desire to never get into a revert war, I'm really uncomfortable reverting anything, especially in the case of something someone I strongly disagree with does. Should I instead be exercising one free revert and putting the obligation to revert my revert on the other person's shoulders? My inclination is to say that no, if someone does something I disagree with I should first talk it out with them and then maybe revert if I still feel strongly about it. But what I'm really bothered by is the behavior pattern, not the individual actions. What bothers me about the move of comments from WT:IAR to WT:DRV is not categorization but behavior and manners. Reverting wouldn't fix that, just make it worse by having me do the same kind of behavior I'm objecting to in the first place.
What am I doing wrong? --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 18:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Dead link on your page

So there are not success stories in how Wikimedia has improved people's lives? // habj 09:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Someone had apparently done a page move, and deleted the redirect. Fixed. --Kim Bruning 12:31, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Memorable and eloquent advice

Your fine and memorable comment ... May 12th on Talk:WPRFA about how proposals really work.
The post script: this method works for any other process you would like to improve on too :-)
is almost a mantra or bumper sticker. Cheers. -- Yellowdesk 19:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again!

Your opinion means a lot more to me than a barnstar. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 14:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Information

I asked questions in Wikipedia talk:Ignore all rules#One sentence is not good. Please go there and perform your Wikipedia:accountability, which is imitating accountability in developped countries. -- JungianPPP 23:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Deletion thingie :)

I have replied again :) Its on the main page, where this sort of discussion ought to happen. I did note someone (I could not tell who) reverted my edit, so I went ahead and put it back, as there was no response on the talk page) —— Eagle101Need help? 02:49, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

If you did not notice, I did not realize it was you reverting what I said without a similar comment to the talk page. When I looked I did not see anything. (I checked before I put what I said back). I urge you to re-open it, and I'll even let your comment stand. —— Eagle101Need help? 02:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Though I must ask, why does your statement need to have such prominence? Is it not the same as any other editor? Am I free to post below it in reply to you? —— Eagle101Need help? 02:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Two things, one I would like a reply to my question above, secondly I'd like to appologize for my inablilty to read edit-conflicts, if you notice I actually was modifying what I stated, I should have looked a bit closer as to your edit summary and what exactly was happening (I did not notice your edit summary till just now :( ) Again sorry. —— Eagle101Need help? 03:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Will you agree to me reverting myself? (or will that be conflicting with your close?) —— Eagle101Need help? 03:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Mmmm... just so you know... it was not me... this diff is the diff that removed the footer. As I've reverted and have done enough edits about that thing, I'll leave it up to you as to what to do. (Perhaps drop a little chat in to the editor that removed the text, I don't know. In any case, we need not worry about a delete of the guideline for another 3-5 days anyway, so I think its best to just let the conversations go on, and perhaps towards the end you can re-insert it. :) —— Eagle101Need help? 07:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey

File:PeanutButterJellyStar.gif

Thank you for disagreeing with me! What, did you think I was kidding? :) >Radiant< 08:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Polling guidelines

I noticed you deleted the poll around the time we need it most at Talk:AACS encryption key controversy because everyone is entrenched, and the matter is simply whether there is any consensus at this point of not. Can you point me to these guidelines? All I've found is WP:POLL but that's a mere essay. -- Kendrick7talk 22:47, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The other is Polling is not a substitute for discussion. I typically remove most polls on-the-quickdraw, since 99% of them are counterproductive. Let's see what I can whip up though... --Kim Bruning 23:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Talk:AACS_encryption_key_controversy#Summary_of_opinions, is probably something that might even work. Possibly not, but I'm willing to try. --Kim Bruning 23:16, 15 May 2007 (UTC) note that some essays hold more power than some policies. So don't assume based on templates alone
Excellent work. I'll have to remember WP:PNSD; I have seen polls used as an attempt to circumvent like that.... -- Kendrick7talk 19:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

You did that?

I'm confused, I thought Mailer Diablo closed the Esperanza debate? Carcharoth 13:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I closed the first one. :-) --Kim Bruning 13:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC) I think I'd better shush and get a 40 winks before posting again though, lest I go the way of Waerth ^^;;

Proposed format for AACS_encryption_key_controversy -thoughts. . .

Hi I noticed your recent comments on AACS encryption key controversy talk page and I wanted to invite you to comment on a proposed format change for the beginning of the article. The relavent portion on the talk page is here. Thanks. R. Baley 01:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Search engine optimization

Quite a while ago you did some work on this article. It's come a long way and I've nominated it for WP:FA. There's one remaining objection. User:SandyGeorgia has offered to remove this objection if there we can demonstrate community consensus that the references are reliable sources. Would you be willing to have a look at the sources and state your opinion at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Search engine optimization? By the way, back when I was a clueless noob, you gave me a well-deserved spam warning. [22] Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 17:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

usenet etc

This would be the best time to suggest a specific wording of policy, referring to the James D.Nicoll discussion--and perhaps with some quotes from it. Please let me know where you think it should start. DGG 19:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I left a note at WT:RS? There's also an associated examples page. --Kim Bruning 19:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi Kim. I've just chucked in my two cents over there but I have no intent of getting involved in a long-winded debate. Keep fighting the good fight! --Bth 20:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

{{policy}}

Go on. You know you want to... --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 17:12, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Very nice

Your sense of humor is a constant source of amusement. This diff, for one. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 19:22, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

You devil!

--MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 23:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Just so you know, I'm taking a break from IAR for a while. The party crashers pissed me off beyond all reason, and as long as they're there saying "What?" I probably won't be. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 12:23, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Again, even your gentle, reserved compliments are worth a great deal to me, and I thank you. I will take a break from IAR for a little while, where I see myself as the kid building sandcastles on the beach with 10 new friends who just had a couple bullies stomp around and screw up all our beautiful sandcastles, and see if I can find/make more patience. Having my father visiting this week has been lovely. Next week I leave home on Thursday and come back on Tuesday - my partner and I are going to a conference, so perhaps there I can also recharge. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 16:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
A last gasp, or can I just not get enough? Somehow I hope/feel that more cooks will actually improve this pot. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 01:24, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Chatting about guidelines

Kim,

I noticed your comment at IAR that our guidelines suck. I couldn't agree with you more, but maybe we think that they suck for different reasons. I think that we have too many rules and potential for conflict and confusion. I do see the need for some rules to prevent the decay of the quality of WP, but less is more effective in my mind. I know that we are tangling at the help page, but really don't understand why. I would sure like to understand more about your goals and position. I might be wrong, but the tactics of Tony and Radiant are not convincing me, and your comments seem a bit vague. I seriously think that we could work to a better solution, while we just leave the help page intact in the interim. What do you think? Thanks. --Kevin Murray 20:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Also, facts don't seem to convince Kevin, and he's now resorting to calling the people who disagree with him trolls. Now that's a useful approach. >Radiant< 08:33, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Trolling is an act, which does not make one a troll. Please don't take my comment out of context. I have great respect for Radiant in most cases. --Kevin Murray 08:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

AMA

I saw you marked AMA as historical... so thank you, I've entered in history! ;-) Seriously talking, it seems you've taken the most reasonable decision. --Neigel von Teighen 13:15, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

This, and also a call for elections on the message board is quite disturbing. I'm not sure where to go from here, as CyclePat appears to be the only "active" AMA member. What do you think? Martinp23 08:47, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Talk to CyclePat, perhaps? Wait and see if anyone else shows, and then talk to him again? I don't know, I'm fresh out of interest in situations which may prove to be confrontational. KillerChihuahua?!? 19:41, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello

Hello, I was an AMA advocate and I'm considering putting the AMA up for MfD (to basicly fully EA it) you have allready marked it historical I was wondering if it would be a POINT violation to send it up. Æon Insanity Now! 14:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, It would be against MFD guidelines, as opposed to against WP:POINT. But either way, Don't Do That (tm). :-) Use an RFC instead! --Kim Bruning 14:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Kim, I had a feeling it would have been a misstep so I figured I would ask first and save everyone some heartache. Æon Insanity Now! 16:11, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

According to Radiant I can MfD it (and I did) and as a few members of the AMA are disputing the tag I feel this would be the best opition to close down the AMA for good (as well as the one the would ensure than ther would be proper consenus on the issue.) Æon Insanity Now! 17:36, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Radiant missed the part on WP:AN, where I threatened to actually apply MFD policy. I'll assume good faith here though :-) --Kim Bruning 19:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I was lol, also I figure that MfD before tagging hostoric would have been the best way to go there is going to be opposition to closing it down. Æon Insanity Now! 19:09, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Requests for comment is the right place to go. Under Policy and guidelines should be fine. (I think entire organizations is fairly rare) :-) --Kim Bruning 19:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Just as a heads up, AMA is up for MFD again today. As I disagree with your last closing (non admins are only supposed to close in non-ambiguous keep-only cases), I would appreciate it if you would let this one run its course, whatever course that may be. ^demon[omg plz] 02:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

AMA MfD

Hi Kim,

Could you refer me to the AN post in question? I think it's the right decision to close the thing, and would like to cite the example in future. Best wishes, Xoloz 21:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[23]. (this was made shortly after I had intentionally "let an MFD run" for Wikipedia:Spoiler Ugh! Mess!) See also my reply to Demon^, on his talk page. Also just see the MFD guidelines. :-) --Kim Bruning 19:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Uh, what?

Hi,

I'm glad that your VF got an extra user, but I speak no German and the Google translation was awful, so I appear to have missed something.

When Complex (de) asked to use VP, he/she has not been actively editing the en-Wiki for over 1 month, which is a requirement for using VP. Hence the rejection. I couldn't find any relation between Complez (de) and the German page however, and couldn't find any references to VP on the German page either, so if you want to explain to me what you meant, feel free.

Otherwise, good day :). Ale_Jrbtalk 20:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

IAR tradition

One place where I tend to disagree with you in general comes to the process of making policy and guidelines itself. You have definite views on how it has been, is, and ought to be done. My views are basically "meh". It was, in fact, one of my main reasons for being concerned about IAR - so I didn't have to be all that concerned about the rest of projectspace. Originally I never wanted to participate in the "community" or anything like that, and for a few years I think almost all my edits were mainspace and anon. I didn't want to worry about politics, rules, and regulations, and I especialy didn't want to have to make an effort to keep up with them. From where I stood things looked fairly simple.

Of course, I've been a bit of a traitor to my kind the last little while, but I'm sure there are still lots of others out there like I was. Some people might enjoy editing WP:IAR, but I think they will be few (it actually stays pretty stable for the most part, and when it changes, the editors are not newbies.) Education of the participants through BRD on IAR itself is an appealing idea, but it should remain credible to the non-participants, who will be the overwhelming majority.

Cheers, --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 23:47, 26 May 2007 (UTC) (I need to work that first paragraph into WP:WORRY somehow)

Why would you disagree with me? --Kim Bruning 00:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC) Note that my anon edits weren't attributed to this account 'till 2004 :-)
Why? Priorities.
It's commendable to want to simplify. It's not commendable to, for instance, advise others who have broken a rule to take time out of what they are doing to help make descriptive guidelines (except on extreme meta pages like How To Create Policy - if they're reading that, then obviously it's okay to encourage interest in changing policy). I'm pretty sure I'm not just pulling this example out of my arse.
Similarly, some people may take the BRD bait on WP:IAR, and be greatly enlightened. Then again also think about people who may take the BRD bait, and get pummeled. After all it's not just you and me watching that page. Wouldn't that be terrible? But also ALSO think about a person who has read some rules. He sees a link saying "Ignore all rules". His interest is piqued. He clicks on it, and it is not something that gives him confidence that, no, really, he can ignore rules. He goes back to following the rules, never to return. Wouldn't that be a disaster? The enlightenment of the former has to be weighed against the disenlightenment of the others. --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 01:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Just to add: I don't think this is insurmountable, and that what you propose will never work, but NOT in the current state of affairs: most impressive, but you're not a Jedi yet, you see. --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 01:06, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

IRC

That channel really needs to be shut down, or perhaps renamed to #wikipedia-en-backstabbing. The amount of good Wikipedians I've seen attacked in there... it's revolting to be honest. Matthew 17:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

And all Kim has to do is read posts here to get criticism: KIM, did you forget how to archive?!!!! This page is getting too darn long! KillerChihuahua?!? 22:45, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I keep forgetting. ^^;;;
Would there be an archive-bot someplace? --Kim Bruning 23:02, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and in fact I will set it up for you if you wish. KillerChihuahua?!? 23:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, please! Thank you for offering :-) --Kim Bruning 23:30, 26 May 2007 (UTC) and/or just show me where to go to RTFM ,if you like, that way I can teach others to do the same :-)
The manual is here. All done. You may wish to change the config settings: I set it for archiving if a section has no new posts after 14 days. KillerChihuahua?!? 01:02, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Coolness! Thank you very much. :-) --Kim Bruning 16:06, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

On the lighter side of irony...

People keep talking about how edit warring is bad and that it should be avoided at all costs. But from what I've seen from the massive IAR edit wars, we've taken at least one step forward: adding "Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means" into the "See Also" section. This addition came about during the edit wars and has yet to be removed. If we had formally proposed adding that essay to the project page, I guarantee you that some folks would have swung by and clogged things up, stopping it from ever being added. IAR at work? Or maybe just a freak example of how edit warring sometimes works out for the better... Rockstar (T/C) 08:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

There were edit wars at IAR? --Kim Bruning 11:28, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Probably not. Rockstar (T/C) 19:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Vassyana

Well I remembered what you said about all those guys flaking out, and you being mad as a hatter (of course!), so I figured maybe a good idea to listen to what Kim says this time. --Tony Sidaway 01:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Your vandalism

That's what you did at WP:IAR. You vandalised, Kim. Some of us have worked very hard to improve that page (even if we don't fully agree on how to accomplish that), and you transformed it into your personal playground. That was extraordinarily disrespectful. I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm very disappointed in your conduct.
If you choose to reply, please note that including a smiley emoticon in every damn edit doesn't magically justify what you type. —David Levy 00:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, goodness gracious. Assume good faith. :-) Rockstar (T/C) 00:44, 27 May 2007 (UTC) I actually liked the black box. :-|
No, not in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Kim deliberately made a mockery of his fellow Wikipedians' sincere efforts to improve the project. —David Levy 00:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
No, I'm not convinced. Maybe Doc "vandalized" (though I think it was in good faith), but Kim didn't. Kim's been a proponent of consensus in regards to IAR for quite some time, and I think it's a bit dense and far too forward to just outright accuse him of pissing on the project. Rockstar (T/C) 01:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, I am convinced (though I wouldn't use words quite as strong as "pissing on the project"). Kim suggested that we "start a tradition where anyone can change the format of [the] page, but not the actual policy text, and can do so every day, or whenever they have the whim." He than followed through on the idea by performing patently ridiculous edits to the policy (this one and this one).
I believe that Kim did so for his own amusement (not out of malice), but he knew darn well that such behavior constitutes disruptive vandalism.
WP:IAR is a serious policy that many editors (including you, Rockstar) have striven to improve. Kim trivialized all of that by treating it as a complete joke. —David Levy 02:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
You've been here since 2005. I would hope that you have learned the difference between enthusiastic wiki-editing and vandalism by now :-).
No worries;
Either
  1. The page will settle down, and it'll look nicer for it, and perhaps even have better wording.
  2. (my actual preference) : People start viewing it as a challenge to their creativity, at which point there might be no limit to how good the page will look. I'm also hoping that it will attract more people to learn about the subtleties of this rule, as well as the workings of consensus.
--Kim Bruning 12:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC) be especially careful to keep apart styling, refactoring, and actual alteration of content. It's safe to do the two former without causing much harm. It may or may not be safe to do the latter, but does require more work on the consensus front to be certain. This is something I hope more people will learn.
What the hell does any of the above have to do with your disruptive joke edits to a policy page?
Again, appending a smiley emoticon to every reply doesn't legitimize your dismissive attitude. It only accentuates your apparent unwillingness to take people's concerns seriously. —David Levy 13:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I make sure to always prepare specific reasoning for any edit I do in advance , in case my edits are challenged, this includes rationales based on policy, "IAR rationale", design, logic, sourcing, etc... . As you have already provided diffs, I can provide the rationale for each diff.
  • blink. Blinking text certainly stands out, and perhaps it was possible that this was one of those exceptional circumstances where blink might be appropriate. It was not. My next edit was a very quick self-revert indeed. (Should that be insufficient to demonstrate good faith, then at least note that self-reverted edits do not count towards disruption or vandalism)
  • light on dark. Switching only a portion of the page to light on dark attempts to achieve several aims.
    • Light on dark is an alternate color scheme that induces less eye-strain when used with light-emitting displays (ie, practically all monitor hardware). For this reason, I use such color-schemes for my own systems. This edit shows that Mediawiki does support light-on-dark colorschemes, without anything breaking or becoming unreadable. I might want to make a new stylesheet, based on that fact.
    • When drawing on a dark background, you typically have a little more contrast to play with, allowing a wider range of colors. Note the fact that the body-text is not pure white, and that pure RGB colors like (pure) red (#ff0000) stand out more on a dark background, than on a light background. This is demonstrated on the words "ignore them".
    • Because we only make part of the page light-on-dark, it has the effect of emphasizing the policy text, because it appears to be contained in a black box. While this achieves the aim we set out for, the emphasis is admittedly very strong.
I am able to expand on each rationale further. But hopefully this is sufficient to show that my intent was not vandalism. Is that reasonable? --Kim Bruning 14:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
No, it isn't, Kim. Quite frankly, you've insulted my intelligence by concocting rationales for your absurd edits. You plainly stated that you sought to "start a tradition where anyone can change the format of [the] page, but not the actual policy text, and can do so every day, or whenever they have the whim." You then labeled your edits with summaries indicating that you were starting said tradition. This had nothing whatsoever to do with improving Wikipedia and everything to do with fun and games.
Furthermore, I don't know what gives you the idea that "self-reverted edits do not count towards disruption or vandalism." If I were the point-making type, I would deface your user page several times per day and immediately revert. But I'm not the point-making type, so you don't have to worry about that from me. —David Levy 17:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Then you are just looking for reasons to be insulted. I assure you that I do not concoct rationales at the spur of the moment. It is true that I do not write them out every time, as that would cost huge amounts of time. But I do have them. For instance, it took me about an hour to actually bring together all the sources and media* for my previous statement, and then to boil it down so that it looks deceptively simple. I'm spending a lot of time on you, and I regret that you think I'm merely insulting you.
You are quite correct that I said I want to start a tradition, but the intent of the tradition is that it must follow the rules and common practices associated with WP:IAR and WP:Consensus. If I did not say that out loud, it was only because I assume that to be a given.
If an established wikipedian makes an edit and claims Ignore All Rules, they must provide a reasoning as to how and why their edits improve the encyclopedia (or at very least, do not harm it). I think I have done so above. I hope other people will emulate my example.
The edits do display some wilder and out-of-the-box approaches to IAR, but then again, IAR is intended for exactly that kind of purpose.
This discussion does uncover an interesting point, where it might indeed be very useful for people to provide a full, well-formed rationale before their IAR edit. This would allow people to learn much more rapidly, both by being forced to formulate their thoughts, and for readers because they can read the thoughts, and comment on them. This would not be a good idea to promote in regular practice on articles though, as talk pages would become much too long. Better to have "only provide if challenged" as the general rule.
Finally, feel free to do whatever you like with my user page, within the same constraints as we have just been discussing. It's a wiki, be BOLD. See if you can make it nicer! Or if you do self-revert each time, no one will notice. :-) --Kim Bruning 18:10, 27 May 2007 (UTC) * this includes such things as finding the relevant edit to IAR, and installing appropriate syntax highlighting for vi, in the case of the screenshot; to confirming RGB theory to be sure I wasn't making things up; to learning new css syntax. Like I said, I can expand my rationale considerably. I try to act lighthearted and accessible, and try to make things look effortless, but at the end of the day I never just do anything on the spur of the moment.
1. This is very simple, Kim. You expressed a desire to "start a tradition where anyone can change the format of [the] page, but not the actual policy text, and can do so every day, or whenever they have the whim" (emphasis mine). How "whenever they have the whim" substantially differs from "on the spur of the moment" is beyond me.
You then proceeded to perform edits that you knew were ludicrous. JzG was reasonable enough to acknowledge that he was fooling around, but you have the audacity to claim that you actually sought to improve the page through those preposterous changes.
2. I have no desire to edit your user page. My point is that your claim that "self-reverted edits do not count towards disruption or vandalism" is flagrantly false. By that logic, someone could deface any article 100 times a day without having done anything wrong. —David Levy 19:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
1. This whim thing does assume the turning on of the brain, and application of IAR and consensus. Like I said, I take that as a given. Sorry to hear that you don't. I have clearly shown my reasoning. I don't have any other reasoning for you. You can assume that my reasoning is intended to be solid. Your options now are to either discuss that reasoning, or to stop wasting our mutual time.
2. The invitation stands. Also, as long as someone reverts themselves, there is no net change to the article, so that's fine.
--Kim Bruning 20:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
1. Whim: "an odd or capricious notion or desire; a sudden or freakish fancy" [24]
You can attempt to rationalize your edits ad infinitum, but you know darn well that you were having some fun by deliberately screwing up the page. A simple apology for you poor judgement would have sufficed, but you decided to waste our time with your absurd claim that your edits were intended to be constructive.
2. Rubbish. Whether done once or 1,000 times, it is not "fine" to intentionally deface an article and self-revert. That's called "deliberate disruption." —David Levy 20:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
1. I have coded on a whim often enough. The whim part refers to the initiation of the action, not the execution.
You fail to address my reasoning. Does this mean you choose to go away?
2. Some might argue there is a slight difference between the numbers 1, 100, and 1000. Which value do you wish to discuss? --Kim Bruning 20:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
1. You stated that you "never just do anything on the spur of the moment." Again, how does this substantially differ from doing something "on a whim"?
I have continually addressed your reasoning by noting that it's nothing more than an attempt to rationalize indefensible (albeit relatively mild) vandalism.
The number is contextually irrelevant (which is my point). Any deliberate defacement of an article is vandalism, even if it's immediately self-reverted. —David Levy 21:21, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
You are making serious accusations, but you have not yet adequately explained why my position is indefensible, or in fact referenced my arguments (to wit: blink and light-on-dark) at all; nor have you explained how my position constitutes vandalism as per policy. Can you please do so now? --Kim Bruning 22:08, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
1. Please answer my question. How does doing something "on the spur of the moment" substantially differ from doing something "on a whim"?
2. I don't know how I can be any clearer. You deliberately performed ridiculous edits, accompanied by your nonchalant "starting a tradition" summary. I know that you were aware of the edits' absurdity because you aren't stupid. Upon reverting the first one, you commented that it "kills even ME" (meaning you), an acknowledgment that you set out to do something silly but couldn't even tolerate the result yourself. You simultaneously noted that you'd been "hoist by [your] own petard," which means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall in one's own trap."
I have referenced your arguments by continually noting my disappointment that you would attempt to rationalize your (relatively minor) misconduct instead of simply apologizing for fooling around on a policy page (thereby trivializing the efforts of those of us who took the situation seriously). —David Levy 01:14, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
If you wish to accuse me of violating policy, you will first need to substantiate how my edits violate policy. You can't first decide on the facts, and then try to bend the evidence to match. :-P --Kim Bruning 11:44, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
What the hell are you talking about?! You performed obvious joke edits to a policy page. Performing joke edits to a policy page is a form of vandalism. Vandalism violates policy.
And I'm still waiting for you to explain how doing something "on the spur of the moment" substantially differs from doing something "on a whim." —David Levy 16:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
←(kerindent)

(keroutdent)→ We seem to have some amount of disagreement about the actual interpretation of events, as you might already have gathered. Perhaps we could stick to that before drawing conclusions, as opposed to the other way around? --Kim Bruning 17:10, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

And ruin the fun? Rockstar (T/C) 19:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not having fun, though perhaps Kim is. —David Levy (still waiting for Kim to explain how doing something "on the spur of the moment" substantially differs from doing something "on a whim") 19:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Denied, sorry. You have made a serious accusation, and it would be most unwise of me to discuss anything else with you until you substantiate it. --Kim Bruning 20:18, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Again, what the hell are you talking about? I've cited the diffs in which you announced that you intended to "start a tradition where anyone can change the format of [the] page, but not the actual policy text, and can do so every day, or whenever they have the whim," followed through by performing patently ludicrous edits to the policy page in question, and reverted one of them with the explanation that you'd been "hoist by [your] own petard" (which means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall in one's own trap"). Then you claimed that you "never just do anything on the spur of the moment," but you refuse to explain how this substantially differs from doing something "on a whim." —David Levy 23:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
The edits are not ludicrous, and are in fact intended to be quite reasonable. What would they be otherwise? --Kim Bruning 23:52, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Your continual claim that the edits were "intended to be quite reasonable" is far more disconcerting than the vandalism itself. As I noted earlier, it's downright insulting. —David Levy 02:06, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
My apologies and regrets for having given rise to feelings of insult.
Now, what is obvious to one person need not be obvious to another. Could you please explain what was unreasonable about those edits, if taken by themselves, according to you? How did they damage the encyclopedia? --Kim Bruning 12:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC) And why do you repeat that they are vandalism? Aren't we supposed to establish if that was indeed the case first?
Kim, you know that those edits were absurd. I've already cited the comments that establish your mindset at the time, and I shouldn't even have had to do that. If a penis vandal were to claim that he/she was attempting to edit constructively and ask me to prove otherwise, I wouldn't take so much time out of my day to respond. Your edits weren't anywhere near as bad as penis vandalism (and I trust that you were merely having some fun, not seeking to harm the project), but the obviousness of their illegitimacy is comparable. If it weren't, the aforementioned comments would erase any doubt. —David Levy 17:43, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Dude, what will it take to convince you? Me releasing a light-on-dark skin? :-P --Kim Bruning 23:43, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
m:Gallery_of_user_styles, hmm, looks like some people beat me to it. On the other hand, I don't yet see a light-on-dark layout there that I really like. <scratches head> --Kim Bruning 23:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Wow, Kim, you're a vandal, and I'm failing to assume good faith, according to my talk page. Wikipedia must be melting down; we should simply close the place and go out for a beer. KillerChihuahua?!? 19:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Beer good. Where can I buy you a round? --Kim Bruning 20:07, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Kim's not a vandal, he just loses sight of certain things at certain times. For instance, you just don't give a whole pint to a small dog, no matter how nicely she asks. --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 22:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
rofl! Half a pint? I'm a good puppy! KillerChihuahua?!? 23:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Hey, I don't drink (yet still fun!), so I'd be fine with being the designated driver. Call it my penance for costing Kim a second keyboard... EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:06, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
That offer is for real btw. Maybe I'll see some of you in Taipei? :-) --Kim Bruning 00:10, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
You know, I don't know how other systems work, but whenever my computer wants to get my attention, it blinks things at me. This naturally draws the eye towards the blinking, and when it also inverts the color scheme of the object, it accents the importance. I personally would like a blinking, inverted-color Wikipedia. --Milton 17:12, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
<shudder>. Hmmm, slightly more seriously, I probably would want to make a light-on-dark skin...(plain reverse color is fugly)... might be nifty! (and sort of handy to reduce eyestrain too) ... it's now officially on my copious-free-time list. :-) --Kim Bruning 17:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC) But I definitely say no to the blinking. That's frightening stuff
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Kim_Bruning/Archive_6&oldid=1145848103"