User talk:ComSpex/A soapbox of a user

Any hidden is more reviewed than exposed

They are not actually hidden because you all can read them all the time if you want, because Wikipedia does not have such a function as hiding anything once written. You're right. It's misleading because my aim is to lead anonymous users to dissuasion, but anonymous users can write any at any time if they want. --ComSpex 00:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I've already created a new thread on the talk page of SFC9394, namely How user talk page should be. Let's discuss there!--ComSpex 01:41, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Lets not - your post at my talk page is in the wrong place - if you want to encourage wider comment on an issue then post at policy proposals, one of the village pumps, or at a suitable location in the "wikipedia:" namespace - I would encourage you to start a discussion at one of those places. Talk pages are for comments for a specific user, not for general wikipedia policy discussion. If you have anything specifically to say to me you are welcome to post on my talk page - but a users talk page is not a general wikipedia wide discussion forum.

Since you have now decided to move your entire 'hidden' section to a subpage it strikes me that you are trying to hide something. I have restored the hidden section to this page - any editor passing by is even less likely to see the warning if it is in a sub-page than if it is on the main page - I will be keeping this talk page on my watchlist to see if you try to move it again. I have tried to assume good faith with what you are doing comspex, but you just seem desperate to hide the first warning on this page (there was a valid reason for moving my past discussion to a subpage - and I have no complaints about that - there was, however, no reason for moving the hidden section as well.) I also notice you still have "login required", and have yet to offer any reasonable defence for why you are still using misleading text. SFC9394 11:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Final Comments

My final comments and summary on this situation. You don’t seem to have a very good grasp of how wikipedia works. This is a collaboratively built encyclopedia. Collaboration, discussion and debate lie at the heart of this entire organisation. The system falls down if users such as yourself continually remove and hide peoples comments. The failure is on two counts:

• 1 How can any two users enter into useful and productive discourse if one side continually removes the others comments? How can one side create a talk chain when after each post the message is hidden or immediately archived? It makes having or following a discussion difficult – with the only apparent aim of removal/hiding being to actively make discussion difficult.

• 2 This encyclopedia relies on a users past being openly on display - this allows other editors to form opinions on how likely a user is editing in good faith based on their previous editing and reaction to that editing by other users. The talk page forms one of the two key pillars of that feedback process (the other being user contributions).

You seem to show a lack of understanding about the issue. You cite two user pages on my talk page as proof that what you are doing is fine. Frankly I don’t know why you bothered citing them – the two pages have nothing special – most editors have archive pages – if that was the point you were trying to prove then it was misdirected. Unlike the other editors that you cite, however, you created an “archive” page when your talk page was so short that it didn’t need archiving (by any conventional understanding of what archiving is for) – further, you have used div tags within that archive page to hide a friendly warning from another editor. So even if another editor did browse by the archive page they would not see the warning – and since archive pages have no reason to be edited by another user it is highly unlikely that any other editors would ever see the hidden warning that you have there. Thus in summary, it appears to me that you have purposefully archived the page for no other reason than to hide the warning (and obscure my criticism of you hiding it).

You also seem to presume to know what I am doing. You first accused me of POV on the issue – now you have decided to accuse me of stalking you. If I were you I would be very careful about throwing around accusations of stalking on here. If I were a less tolerant editor then I would take your accusation straight to a higher authority and let them deal with it. Your accusation is so wide of the mark that I have to wonder what exactly your motivation was for making it. I was the one that went to 3O to get an outside view on this issue – I did that to ensure I wasn’t overstepping the mark and to ensure that you realised that this was not a personal issue. The 3O response was broadly in line with the points I had already made to you. You don’t seem to have taken that onboard – instead immediately using it as a springboard for an unfounded accusation against me. The whole point of this encyclopedia is for users to discuss and debate – posting 4 times on one issue on someone’s talk page when in discourse with them on that issue is not stalking someone. Please read the wikipedia policy on stalking (as opposed to the wikipedia article on stalking that you linked to) before you go about making accusations against other editors.

Ultimately I can only point out to you as Scott Wilson did in his 3O view, that your actions are likely to be seen by other editors as being in bad faith if you continue on in this vain. If you act in bad faith then you are having an overall negative, not positive, effect on this encyclopedia. If other editors believe you to be acting in bad faith then it makes them far less likely to trust or accept any disagreeable edits you make. Wikipedia editors are, however, happy if a user changes his or her ways – so I will be very interested to see if this comment remains on your talk page or is immediately hidden in an archive page. These are my final thoughts on this issue, I am happy to continue discussing things if you have anything useful to say, but if you are just going to dally around the points and make accusations against me then I have better things to be doing (like helping to build a good encyclopedia). Best wishes for your future editing. SFC9394 22:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC)