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Archive 72

I recognize that this user page belongs to the Wikipedia project and not to me personally. As such, I recognize that I am expected to respectfully abide by community standards as to the presentation and content of this page, and that if I do not like these guidelines, I am welcome either to engage in reasonable discussion about it, to publish my material elsewhere, or to leave the project.


This is an archive of User talk:Lar from about 1 November 2010 through about 1 December 2010. Please do not comment here, use my current talk page for that, thanks. It is part of a series of archives, see the box at right for the list and to navigate to others.

An index to all my talk page archives, automatically maintained by User:HBC Archive Indexerbot can be found at User:Lar/TalkArchiveIndex.

Talk Page Archives
My post 2012 archived talk
Archive 79 1 December 2012 through 1 December 2013
Archive 80 1 December 2013 through 1 December 2016
Archive 81 1 December 2016 through 1 December 2018
Archive 82 1 December 2018 through 1 January 2021
Archive 83 1 January 2021 through 1 January 2023
Archive 84 1 January 2023 through 1 January 2025 ??
RfA Thank Yous
RFA Archive Howcheng (27 Dec 2005) through present
All dates approximate, conversations organised by thread start date


Questions to candidates

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Hi, I noticed you said "as well as asking my questions again this year". The election arrangements limit individual questions to per per voter per candidate, with a size limit of 75 words. The same question should not be pasted into every candidate's individual question page. You are free, of course, to ask as many questions as you wish at every candidate's discussion page, and at their user talk page. Tony (talk) 16:29, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I'm aware of your restrictions, yes. I note that you've incorporated none of my questions into the standard list. ++Lar: t/c 23:23, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia DC Meetup 13

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You are invited to Wikipedia DC Meetup #13 on Wednesday, November 17, from 7 to 9 pm, location to be determined (but near a Metro station in DC).

To keep up-to-date on local events, you can join the mailing list.

You can remove your name from future notifications of Washington DC Meetups by editing this page: Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/Invite/List.
BrownBot (talk) 13:43, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Outing others

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I believe I know what you are referring to when you claim I was "involved" in outing. However, you definitely do NOT have the facts of that situation. If you'd like to e-mail me about it, since it is extremely sensitive, feel free. But making false accusations is really below the belt and illustrates just how low you've sunk. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:45, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You've been mailed as you suggested. I await your answer. But you really should disengage from further contact with that user. ++Lar: t/c 18:25, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WQA

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I have filed a Wikiquette alert against you for your refusal to stay off my talkpage which is in violation of the WP:USER policy. Please find it here: Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#User:Lar. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:55, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It would appear that your mischaracterization didn't work. ++Lar: t/c 18:26, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Per your request

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IIRC, you once asked me to let you know if this ever happened.SPhilbrickT 19:07, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. You have my full support. ++Lar: t/c 19:57, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Concerns about Ombuds

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I have raised concerns about the lack of responsiveness of the Ombuds Commission at Jimbo's talk page. Please see User talk:Jimbo Wales#Ombudsman Commission unwilling to communicate with me. I felt that you should be notified, as I have specifically mentioned issues with your conduct in your role as an Ombuds. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:16, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Where can I raise a concern about how you go about raising concerns? I think your approach is not helpful. Even after you got an answer from Jimbo you didn't let go. ++Lar: t/c 16:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

an invitation

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For you to look at WP:Josh Billings (redirect from WP:KNOW. Thanks. Collect (talk) 22:07, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I don't think questioning TFD's motives, in that particular venue, is such a good idea though. It may be better suited for raising elsewhere. ++Lar: t/c 03:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your questions, I have them

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I took my stab at them... I figured it would be best to throw down something for people to peruse, rather than leave them hanging as the nomination period comes to a close. At least I hit your main points, I think—if anything begs elaboration, let me know. There were a few toughies in there, but I much prefer some of your specifics to the generals. Cheers, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 05:32, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know, and they're supposed to be tough :) ... I quite agree about specifics, as well. Cheers. ++Lar: t/c 18:17, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lar, may I suggest that the restrictions on quetsions are there for a reason, and that the candidates should give much higher priority to the questions on the official question pages. There is no harm in answering your questions; however my feeling is that your questions may distract them from answering questions on the official page. That's my opinion anyway. Cheers. - BorisG (talk) 05:37, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You may suggest that, yes, and thanks for sharing your view. However, it's not universally held that "the restrictions on questions are there for a" (good) "reason". Yet I've nevertheless complied with the restrictions, and set no expectation that my questions, noted as "some of the deepest and most thought-provoking questions" (by NYB, no less, in response to a thread you participated in on his talk) [start added] should be answered first, or even at all [end added]. I would remind you that this is the third year these questions have been used, (I note that you seem to have been relatively inactive since this year) and that they have been analysed by others in the past. Finally, if my questions "distract" folk from editing the "official" questions, one has to wonder if the official questions are actually any good. If they were good, the candidates would obviously all have declined to answer mine. (Note that the thread you're participating in was started by a candidate praising my questions) Most candidates have committed to answer all of them. I hope you find this different perspective helpful. ++Lar: t/c 15:45, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Lar, I also agree that your questions are excellent, and I myself would like to see the answers. I am not even sure myself that the current restrictions are wise, but I assume (I haven't checked) they reflect the community consensus. I just thought it is also important to give a wider community a possibility to ask questions - and get answers. And yes, you complied with the letter of these rules, but I felt you've been a bit pushy in trying to get the candidates to answer your questions. And yes, I am not a prolific editor at all, and never have been, though I am not sure how this is relevant. Anyway, I don't think there is a big gap between our positions. Cheers. - BorisG (talk) 15:59, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect the restrictions do not reflect true consensus, merely a temporary local consensus among the election volunteers, or worse, Tony1's personal view pushed through by force of personality. My point about your contribution history was to explain why you perhaps are not aware that these questions have been asked multiple years now, or how well they were received previously, including at external criticism sites and by the candidates themselves. Finally, if there is not a big gap between our positions, I guess I'm not clear what you wanted to convey, because nothing is preventing the wider community from asking questions or getting answers (well, except the restriction on asking more than one question per person on the "official" page). ++Lar: t/c 16:26, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, the gap is not big but it exists in that I would have preferred if you did not push the candidates to answer your questions but instead stressed that the priority needs to be given to quetsions on the official page (including the ones by ordinary editors). But I agree this is not a big deal. A also apoligise for being unclear. Let's leave it at that. Cheers. - BorisG (talk) 16:45, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what you mean by "push". Perhaps you could clarify. You've come here with some concern or another and I'm still not clear what it really is. ++Lar: t/c 17:09, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I just felt that in your exchanges with the candidates you have been pushing them to answer your questions, and this can be at the expence to questions from other editors on the official question page. I think I made it quite clear above. Sorry if it wasn't clear. Bye (it is 1:30 am here). - BorisG (talk) 17:30, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Barring a very good explanation, I shall be opposing candidates who don't answer Lar's questions. I imagine that I will not be alone in this. It is too late to do anything about this now, but a proper consensus must be had on why it is too much for candidates to take the time to answer the questions posed to them, as this is the one real time we will have to see their opinions on many serious issues before they are elected. As all I saw to support this rule were Tony1/Skomorokh's comments & a number of comments about dissatisfaction from a sparsely attended RFC in January and as there was a great deal of dissent, a more well-attended RFC must be set up well before next year's election. NW (Talk) 18:09, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just to let you know, I went back and tweaked some of the questions on Monday, because I didn't think I'd properly hit all your points. No big changes, just more explicit rather than leaving it up to your imagination :P Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 14:58, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I need to go through your answers and get your evaluation done, sorry... ++Lar: t/c 07:09, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Bugle: Issue LVI, October 2010

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To stop receiving this newsletter, please list yourself in the appropriate section here. To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. BrownBot (talk) 23:15, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Guide

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Just wanted to let you know that I borrowed your code for User:NuclearWarfare/ACE2010 and User:NuclearWarfare/ACE2010/row. I hope you don't have a problem with that. Best, NW (Talk) 04:05, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not. (it's a wiki!) ... thanks for letting me know and if you run into any snags, please holler. Glad to see you started one, we need more I think... In fact I was about 5 minutes away from popping over to your page and encouraging you to write a guide. ++Lar: t/c 04:07, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Very nice. :) Would you happen to know how to expand width of the "Statement & Questions" column? I am pretty clueless when it comes to that stuff. NW (Talk) 05:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not offhand, I thought it was automatic based on content. However I think there might be a width parameter in the table head row that forces percentage widths? I bet Jack Merridew knows, ask him. (if he doesn't instantly see this) ++Lar: t/c 19:31, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, there is. I changed the width of that col to 20%. I think it also takes an absolute PX parm instead if desired. revert me back if that's not what you had in mind. ++Lar: t/c 19:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent; thank you. Tweaked it down to 10%, which should suffice nicely. NW (Talk) 21:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Finished!

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I have answered all of your questions. I understand that you and I have differences of opinions, so understand that I did not pander to you. Please enjoy, and feel free to ask for clarifications where necessary. harej 04:49, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can usually tell when people pander to me, and it hardly ever works so no worries on that score. Thanks for letting me know, and more importantly, thanks for spending the time. I am not your only audience for those answers. ++Lar: t/c 04:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
PS you are at least the third candidate who professes purple as a favorite. I had no idea. hmm.... Purple haze? Purple mountain's majesty? Royal Purple? er, that last one better not be what it is... ++Lar: t/c 04:54, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Purple Rain. :P harej 05:44, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User:Lar/ACE2010

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Very interested in what you have to say. I would like to know which questions you would like a more detailed answer for. I will be happy to provide it. Thank you. N419BH 06:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I hope N419BH doesn't mind me butting in here. I didn't want to start a new section, I just wanted to say that that's an interesting (if rather exhaustive) list of questions. I'm glad someone brought BLP up. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:19, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Naturally, I think they're good questions... I'm not asking them merely to be difficult or to make life harder for candidates. ++Lar: t/c 19:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your questions

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I'm about two-thirds done now, and hope to finish up tonight. Newyorkbrad (talk) 12:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Revdel of user page?

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Hi Lar,

I decided a while back to make my real name public. I still think this is a good idea. Unfortunately, in my user page history, there are some stupid jokes about me (and by me) that have now caused me some minor personal hassles. Of course, this is entirely my fault... but I'd like to clean it up.

I'm not sure if it's allowed to request revision deletion on your own user page, but if it is, and you'd be prepared to do it, would you please consider deleting this revision and all prior revisions of my user page? Or alternatively, just delete the page entirely and restore only the current revision? In fact the latter would be my preference.

Thanks for your time - Thparkth (talk) 20:48, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just so you know, I don't have oversight so any revdel I do is still visible to other admins. If that's not far enough you may want to write to the oversighters and ask for more specific action. I've deleted the page and restored only the last revision. Advise of any questions or concerns. ++Lar: t/c 21:47, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much Lar, much appreciated. Unless I get into a romantic relationship with an admin, I think I'm safe ;) Thparkth (talk) 22:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Stolen questions

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I just stole your BLP question and placed it on Sandstein question page, hopefully you don't mind, as I think Sandstein is a good candiate its just his refusal to answer your questions are keeping me from supporting. Secret account 21:22, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No I don't mind. If anyone else wants to do the same with a different one, that's fine by me. ++Lar: t/c 21:49, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Lar Inquisition

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I answered most ofyour questions, just too many to do in one sitting. This means that I probably won't finish them until after THanksgiving. One point related to rights, I currently don't have any rights, but I voluntarily relinquished my adminship and could regain it without any issue.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 07:39, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK. ++Lar: t/c 15:07, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your questions

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I've seen them and am intrigued. Would you be so kind as to post them to user:jc37/Sandbox/Arbcom questions?

Though I am not running this year, I'd like to answer them myself and (presuming you were willing) have you assess them (though after the candidates' question period has ended, out of decorum, etc.)

If you would rather not, please let me know that as well. Thanks : ) - jc37 10:10, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That would be fine by me. Feel free to copy them whenever you're ready, or I can, I guess, although it's your userspace. ++Lar: t/c 14:59, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You were welcome to do so : )
Anyway, I subst'd them.
Thanks : ) - jc37 18:16, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ACE2010

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I need your clarification at the question page. I'm nearly done with your batch :-) Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 13:54, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clarified and a followup added elsewhere. ++Lar: t/c 15:07, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Illiterate fool

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That's me! I've seen your row template, and still can't figure it out. I want to copy your setup, including *your* questions, to a table in my User:SandyGeorgia/ArbVotes2010, but can't figure out how. Could I trouble you to ask you to set up that Table in my page, identical to yours including the link to your questions, and then I can clean out your comments and votes and replace them with mine? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:52, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind ... I figured out a (half-assed) way around my confusion. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:27, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What would you like "mine" to link to, if anything? Or do you want "mine" to say "Lar's", or ? I think I can fix it for you if you let me know what you have in mind. ++Lar: t/c 22:09, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Took a shot. I changed "mine" to "Lar's" so your page now doesn't say "mine" but not point to your questions. If you want the link to my questions suppressed entirely I can do that too... LMK. ++Lar: t/c 23:58, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A question about dispute resolution tools

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While looking at the dispute resolution section of New Admin school, I was thinking about the tools that admins have to deal with disputes. In addition to verbal persuasion, there are protection tools and blocking tools. All have some shortcomings

Imagine a dispute, headed toward an edit war, involving a dozen editors, half of whom are editing fine, the other half of whom are crossing boundaries to varying degrees.

Semi-protection can help, but it catches some innocents in the net. Full protection is even worse. I'm not saying it isn't warranted, but it does have unfortunate consequences to many innocent parties. Blocks can be targeted to the offending parties, but may be overkill if the dispute is merely "warm" and not "hot". The dispute resolution section tells us we should be encouraging talk page discussion. Why shouldn't we do this with software? (I know it isn't a technical capability, I'm trying to determine if it is a useful technical capability to add.)

In this situation, imagine we had something I'll call a semi-block. An editor who is semi-blocked can edit an article talk page, but not an article. They are forced to make their case for inclusion/exclusion/rewrite to others, just as they would (assuming they are not admins) if full protection were added, but no innocent party is caught up in the net?


My experience with ideas I think up is that I'm almost never the first to think it up, so I'm betting it has been discussed and rejected. I did a search in a couple logical places, but identifying the right search terms isn't trivial, so while I did not find such a discussion, it's possible I'm not searching in the right place.

I'm not so naive as to be unable to identify potential problems; the semi-block would understandably be viewed as less serious than a full block, but that might encourage its overuse.

In summary, when some editors are being problematic, we want them to stop editing the article, and start discussing edits at the talk page. Why don't we find a way to enforce this. It is effectively full protection but only for a selected list of editors.

I know the proper place to discuss this is WP:VPP (or start at WP:VPI), but I thought I'd run it by you first, in case there's a major reason why it isn't feasible.

(BTW, nice job on arbcom questions: I'm exhausted just reading them.)--SPhilbrickT 19:20, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We now have the notion of restricting contributions to talk only, some topic bans already do this. But the enforcement is via admins noticing and taking action, not apriori technical restriction. What you generically want is a block that's namespace specific... For most generic applicability the UI should be done so that you choose which namespaces to allow and which to disallow, via a series of checkboxes or whatever. I think you'd have to search bugzilla (https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ ) to see if it's been proposed before. I can't recall one way or the other. But I'd be surprised if it hasn't been suggested somewhere, just as you indicated you would be. ++Lar: t/c 00:03, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I'll check there.--SPhilbrickT 03:21, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Arbcom template

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The template you created to record your views on the arbcom elections may be widely useful. I've made an adaptation of it at User:Geometry guy/arbcand. I welcome your thoughts and suggestions. Geometry guy 22:54, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd been thinking of doing the same thing, actually. There are a few things that could stand better parameterization in mine as it stands (each year so far I've copied last years, and then thought about making it more standardized, and then got busy). Probably the most important one is to not link to "my" questions by default since they are not necessarily what everyone else would want to link to. ++Lar: t/c 01:40, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is a nice template. The approach I have taken is to get the username from where the template is used (as the template is almost always employed in userspace), but it could also be a parameter (such as "U"!). Geometry guy 01:51, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes but where should the username parm be used? That is, what pages or sections does it point to? Other than me and my questions I think most other folks don't have special questions sections to point to so it's not necessarily needful to even have it. Which is why I was thinking of suppressing it. If you look at NW's use of (a copy of) the template he points to the entire questions talk page instead which may be a better generic approach. ++Lar: t/c 07:08, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate questions

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On the (probably slight) chance you haven't already seen it, just noting that I've now answered your two specific-to-me questions, as well as finished your general set. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:31, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know. I was away from wiki all day, Black Friday... ++Lar: t/c 00:29, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto, actually, since early this morning. If you have any follow-up questions tonight, I'll respond to them tomorrow. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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