User talk:Richwales/Archives/2014-03

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Richwales. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Providence (Religious Movement)

Hey Rich,

Can you help out with the Providence page? I added more than 7 third party reliable news sources, included quotes along with translations, but the same two editors keep insisting on an ancient version of the article and removing every newly added source as well as old ones that don't match their opinion of the subject. Macauthor (talk) 03:53, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but I really don't think there is anything I can do at the present time. I doubt I can successfully mediate the content disputes here, and I'm too involved to be allowed to exercise any admin functions on this topic anymore. You need to bring up the issue on an appropriate noticeboard — and if people fail to respond, you need to keep trying. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:02, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Why would you be considered involved? You are the only admin who has any idea of the history of this page which makes you uniquely able to help without having to do a few days worth of research to get up to speed. The policy that appears to me to apply to this case reads as follows,

"One important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role, or whose prior involvements are minor or obvious edits which do not speak to bias, is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area. This is because one of the roles of administrators is precisely to deal with such matters, at length if necessary. Warnings, calm and reasonable discussion and explanation of those warnings, advice about community norms, and suggestions on possible wordings and approaches do not make an administrator 'involved'.

In straightforward cases (e.g. blatant vandalism), the community has historically endorsed the obvious action of any administrator – even if involved – on the basis that any reasonable administrator would have probably come to the same conclusion."

I've been very patient over the years, respected the different opinions offered including yours and followed every suggestion. I've even asked admins to respond on the appropriate board more than once. What good are wikipedia policies if its admins won't take up the responsibility to enforce them? Why should other admins take action if you won't? Macauthor (talk) 00:56, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

See WP:INVOLVED. At this point, I've contributed too much to efforts to edit this article, and per Wikipedia policy, I can no longer exercise admin functions there. If I were to try, I would be severely chastised (and probably lose my admin rights), regardless of the merits of my actions. You need to get an "uninvolved" admin to act here. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 01:12, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

edit warring on JMS again!

Rich

I thought you might way in on the current situation on JMS. Macauthor added a great deal of material from non providence sources that seemed legitimate to me based on wiki standards.(IMO) Sam Sailor reverted everything with little or no explanation with the exception of claims about JMS military record which was sourced to providence sources.MrTownCar (talk) 18:28, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi. I really must decline to get involved with this page/topic anymore. My ability to mediate successfully in this area has turned out to be limited at best, and as someone who has become involved with the article's content, I am prohibited by the "involved administrators" policy (WP:INVOLVED) from taking any sort of admin actions (such as blocking editors or protecting the page). If you believe edit warring is going on, you should report it on the Edit Warring noticeboard (WP:ANEW), along with enough evidence (diffs) to make it clear to any uninvolved admin that the issue is truly one of edit warring and not simply an honest content dispute. I'm sorry I can't do anything more to help here. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 20:45, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I understand your position but I am sorry you can no longer contribute. Mechanical question. what is the authority of a rollbacker? can they block editors? Is their sole purpose to roll back articles?BestMrTownCar (talk) 01:48, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

A "rollbacker" is a user who has been granted the ability to undo the most recent user's edits on a given page with a single mouse click. See WP:ROLLBACK.

The rollback function is supposed to be used only to revert obvious vandalism and other problem edits, where the reason is crystal clear, and where any reasonable editor would have agreed that the edit in question should be undone. Using the rollback function does not leave any detailed edit summary — just a generic statement that a given user's edit(s) to the article has/have been reverted. If there is any real question of whether a given change to an article was obviously inappropriate, it is better to use the "undo" function and provide a reasonably informative edit summary. The rollback function is intended for use only when a change was so blatantly wrong that no reasonable editor would require any explanation to understand why the rollback was done.

Only the most recent revision of a given page can be rolled back. If a single editor has made several changes in a row (including the most recent change), a rollback will undo that editor's entire set of consecutive changes.

Administrators automatically have the rollback ability. Other users may request this right, provided their editing contribution history demonstrates that they have the ability to distinguish unconstructive vandalism from well-intentioned, but possibly questionable editing.

The rollback right absolutely must not be used to facilitate edit-warring. Users with a history of getting involved in edit wars are unlikely to succeed in requesting rollback rights, and rollbackers who persistently misuse this feature may have the right removed. In theory, an admin who persistently misuses the rollback feature may also lose it — though this would require revocation of his/her administrator status, something that only the Arbitration Committee is allowed to do.

It's important to understand that the ability to do a rollback doesn't give a user any greater ability to undo a given bit of editing. Anyone can use the "undo" feature (albeit with more steps) to accomplish the same effect as a rollback. The only thing the rollback function does is to allow a clearly inappropriate edit to be undone very quickly. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:19, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

delete

Hi Rich, please delete my pages I don't need any more:

Also please delete the pages which redirect to them. Thanks. Jaqeli (talk) 10:16, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I've deleted all the above pages. I didn't find any redirect links pointing to any of them. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:43, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Here are the redirects so please also delete these. Jaqeli (talk) 11:32, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay. I've taken care of the above. Let me know if there are any other subpages in your user space that you need me to delete. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 01:57, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Rich. I think there are no more but I was just thinking, I really hate this archive things and can I just not use it at all? I have 1 archived page and I was thinking if I should have at all and wanted to delete it. What would you suggest? Jaqeli (talk) 09:45, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Dreams from My Real Father

If you have a moment, if you could look over the recent edits/reverts on the Dreams from My Real Father article, it would be appreciated. Thanks. --Weazie (talk) 01:29, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me about this. I've made a comment on the article's talk page, and the article is now on my watch list. I considered tagging the talk page with a notice about the community-enacted Obama article probation, but I decided that such a move might be seen as overly inflammatory for the time being. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:47, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment and watchlist addition. Although I disagree with that editor's assessment, I don't think it is an attempt to WP:COATRACK the birther agenda, so at this point I don't feel there is a need to escalate. --Weazie (talk) 02:58, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Assuming the issue dies down, I agree. I would suggest that if the other editor persists, appropriate dispute resolution measures should be brought into play in an effort to settle this disagreement. One other thing: please be judicious in using the edit summary "rvv" — per WP:VANDAL, as long as someone is making a good-faith effort to improve Wikipedia, their editing should not be labelled as vandalism, even if "misguided, willfully against consensus, or disruptive". — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:10, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I was unaware of that quoted language in WP:VANDAL; thanks. --Weazie (talk) 17:58, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

No problem. I've become especially sensitive to this issue because a similar misstep on my own part helped torpedo my first (unsuccessful) administrator bid three years ago.

At this point, BTW, I would approach the pros/cons of this "preposterous" matter with great caution. Repeated reversion of another person's good-faith editing — even if the other person is clearly acting in defiance of consensus — could be seen as edit warring on your part (that is, both you and the other person could end up being blocked). The situation is kind of like when the school bully taunted you or beat you up, and you swung back, and you ended up being disciplined because a teacher only saw your actions and failed (or refused) to recognize the context.

See WP:3RRNO (a subsection of the edit warring policy) for a list of the kinds of actions which are not subject to the 3RR/EW rules; but even in these situations, it's almost always better to seek outside assistance rather than fight the battle all by yourself and open yourself up to accusations that you are the real problem. I'd strongly suggest taking this particular dispute to one of the appropriate noticeboard pages now (see WP:SEEKHELP); and if the other editor reverts your last revert, let it go for the moment — the matter will get settled eventually, but there's no good reason for you to take collateral damage. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 19:03, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I took a break from the article, and in the interim, I see "preposterous" was modified to "improbable" by a third editor. That's also sufficiently accurate for a lead. --Weazie (talk) 20:18, 19 March 2014 (UTC)