User talk:Rivertorch/Archive9
Violation
[edit]You accuse me of violating the NPA policy against R-41, but you remain absolutely silent on R-41's clear violation. Why is that? --ChristianHistory (talk) 07:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
- I saw no violation on R-41's part, but you were namecalling. Did I miss something? Rivertorch (talk) 07:35, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
- He accused me of being a racist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic, neo-Nazi. --ChristianHistory (talk) 07:37, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
- No, R-41 said your proposal was xenophobic and that you appear to be a neo-Nazi or other anti-Semitic fascist. That may be sailing a bit close to the wind, but it's not equivalent to "It's people like you, R-41, who are the real racists and full of hate" or "What a hypocrite you are". In any event, if you believe someone has maligned you, does that give you license to malign them back? Doing so is either extremely juvenile or wildly foolish, and I can guarantee you that neither of those qualities is appreciated by the Wikipedia community.
A friendly word of advice to you now. You've been here just over one week and are already embroiled in conflict with multiple long-term editors. That's not a good sign. We're here to build and maintain an encyclopedia, and we have policies and guidelines established and fine-tuned over the course of many years to facilitate that. Your comments at Talk:Fascism and your refusal to acknowledge policy suggest you're here for other reasons. If that's true, you can either beat your head against an unyielding wall until you finally get booted out of here, or you can just leave voluntarily and with dignity. If it's not true, then I'd strongly suggest you study three core policies—WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV—very carefully and then find less contentious topics to work on. Good luck. Rivertorch (talk) 08:12, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
- If I had said R-41's proposals were hypocritical, and that he appeared to be a real racist and full of hate, that would have escaped violation? I don't need to read the policies, I've been here for over four years. I know the game, and I know the weasels. And no, I've never been banned, and no I've never received any violations. And no, I'm not a sock puppet. The policy taken by most editors on the Fascism article is an admitted violation of NPOV, and is hypocritical in that they wouldn't apply those same principles to an article on Judaism.--ChristianHistory (talk) 08:50, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
- You do seem to know your way around pretty well for a brand-new editor. But your account is nine days old and your talk page has a welcome template, so you're presenting yourself to the community as a new editor, which is misleading at the very least.
If you have been here over four years, then we either have a WP:COMPETENCE issue or a WP:DICK issue. Whichever it is, the advice I gave above still applies. Here it is again, more succinctly: follow policies and guidelines, respect consensus, don't use talk pages as a soapbox or otherwise edit tendentiously, and never call another editor names—or just get lost. And now you've exhausted my AGF quota for the day. Please go away. Rivertorch (talk) 09:13, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
- You do seem to know your way around pretty well for a brand-new editor. But your account is nine days old and your talk page has a welcome template, so you're presenting yourself to the community as a new editor, which is misleading at the very least.
- If I had said R-41's proposals were hypocritical, and that he appeared to be a real racist and full of hate, that would have escaped violation? I don't need to read the policies, I've been here for over four years. I know the game, and I know the weasels. And no, I've never been banned, and no I've never received any violations. And no, I'm not a sock puppet. The policy taken by most editors on the Fascism article is an admitted violation of NPOV, and is hypocritical in that they wouldn't apply those same principles to an article on Judaism.--ChristianHistory (talk) 08:50, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
- No, R-41 said your proposal was xenophobic and that you appear to be a neo-Nazi or other anti-Semitic fascist. That may be sailing a bit close to the wind, but it's not equivalent to "It's people like you, R-41, who are the real racists and full of hate" or "What a hypocrite you are". In any event, if you believe someone has maligned you, does that give you license to malign them back? Doing so is either extremely juvenile or wildly foolish, and I can guarantee you that neither of those qualities is appreciated by the Wikipedia community.
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The thread was marked "closed". Let's keep it so. |
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Could you testify to User:ChristianHistory's early personal attacks against me on the Fascism talk page?
[edit]I have reported User:ChristianHistory for personal attacks on the Wikipedia Administrator's noticeboard here: [1]. You were the one who informed me of ChristianHistory's early personal attacks and you recognized these as personal attacks before I was made aware of them and you warned her/him to cease this, which he/she has not. Could you testify to ChristianHistory's personal attacks against me at the noticeboard?--R-41 (talk) 18:30, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
- Ah, crap. I think making an ANI report at this time is unlikely to help things. I drew a distinction between what you said to ChristianHistory and what he or she said to you, but it was a fine distinction and ANI is rarely friendly to subtlety. ChristianHistory is digging a large hole for himself or herself without any help from others, and you'd do better to disengage, imho. I'll take a look at your ANI report now, but I rather dread it. Rivertorch (talk) 19:37, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Mr Rogers Convicted
[edit]I found the Mr Rogers convicted of child molestation rumors on snopes.com and it is false. I didn't make out the facts! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Malikishak1991 (talk • contribs) 01:05, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
- Uh, I think you mean making up, not making out. In any case, no one has accused you of that. WP articles aren't all-inclusive; we have policies to determine what gets included. You should familiarize yourself with those and follow them. Rivertorch (talk) 01:18, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
- Further thought: you say you're aware that the rumors are false, and yet you're effectively spreading them. Don't do that, okay? And let's return this discussion to its rightful home (should you have anything else to say on the subject, that is). Rivertorch (talk) 01:25, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Sigh, I will calm down, but I have already reported AndyTheGrump and even myself to the AfN for Wikipedia etiquette issues
[edit]If you could tell the Administrator's Noticeboard how stressed out I have become I would appreciate it, I made it here [2]. I acknowledged that I swore and stated that I would accept responsibility for whatever reprimand they may deem necessary. I just cannot accept that kind of attitude by a user exhibited by AndyTheGrump. You are right, I do need a rest from this debate on the East Germany article, I'm worn out on it.--R-41 (talk) 01:38, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
- Problem is, WP is chock-full of the "kind of attitude" you object to. If you can't calmly object to it and move on or just ignore it in the first place, you're liable to be in perpetual conflict with an ever-shifting array of characters. I see that Jayron has very properly suggested this is a Wikiquette issue, not an ANI one, and that the thread be closed. I concur with that and tried to say so, but I keep getting edit conflicts and need to go offline now. Why not just drop it for now? If you really want to, you can do WQA later. Rivertorch (talk) 02:04, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
There is now complete evidence that East Germany was a satellite state of the Soviet Union: User:Collect has found an article of an East German leader in court stating it was so
[edit]I think you should consider retracting the compromise proposal on the East Germany article: User:Collect has found an article where East German head of state Egon Krenz in the European Court of Human Rights admitted that East Germany was a satellite state of the Soviet Union in his testimony, saying: '"'He testified that he had been unable to influence the shoot-to-kill policy because East Germany had been a satellite of the former Soviet Union.", here is the source, it is BBC: [3].--R-41 (talk) 13:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
- I'll check it out, but I rather dread it. People are talking past one another. For instance, I can't imagine why finding a source detailing Krenz's use of the term would change anyone's mind—the objections to the term don't hinge on difficulty in verifying its usage. Rivertorch (talk) 18:05, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
- . . . and having checked it out, I see no reason to withdraw my proposal. Why is the wording "widely considered" unacceptable to you? It's verifiably factual and anything but dismissive of the diverse array of sources you've found. And it's cautious. Perhaps overly cautious (WP can seem silly that way sometimes), but better that extreme than the other one. As far as the infobox goes, meh: if a line of infobox content proves at all controversial, better to just leave it out. Rivertorch (talk) 18:29, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Your input is needed on the SOPA initiative
[edit]Hi Rivertorch,
You are receiving this message either because you expressed an opinion about the proposed SOPA blackout before full blackout and soft blackout were adequately differentiated, or because you expressed general support without specifying a preference. Please ensure that your voice is heard by clarifying your position accordingly.
Thank you. Message delivered as per request on ANI. -- The Helpful Bot 16:41, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi. I apologize for re-spacing the em dashes as you indicate in your edit summary. I was not aware of the importance of the matter and will read up about dashes in MOS. Yours, Quis separabit? 21:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
- Theoretically, either spaced en dashes or unspaced em dashes are okay in such contexts, although most articles seem to use the latter. Anyway, no worries; it's not hugely important. (Some editors think it isn't important at all.) Your substantive edits have improved the article, and that is certainly important. Rivertorch (talk) 21:40, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
- Ah, "en" or "em"; funny, that was also a Christie mystery. Quis separabit? 21:48, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
- That never occurred to me, but of course you're right. It's a damn sight better book than ATTWN, too! Rivertorch (talk) 22:04, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
- Ah, "en" or "em"; funny, that was also a Christie mystery. Quis separabit? 21:48, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Talkback
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Nuvola_apps_edu_languages.svg/40px-Nuvola_apps_edu_languages.svg.png)
Message added 12:17, 22 January 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Emanuel Xavier
[edit]I think you've done a great job with the article. Thanks for all of the references and additions, including the section tags requesting further sourcing. Because of your efforts, I think the article is moving in the right direction now. Please let me know if I can ever be of assistance to you on any WP matter. All the best, Qworty (talk) 20:41, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
- I am always grateful for sincere praise, and yours is no exception. Thank you. I hope it won't seem churlish of me to add that I remain puzzled by your edits there and at related articles, which seemed needlessly disruptve, and by your failure to respond to my question (asked on your talk page and reiterated at Talk:Emanuel Xavier) about your failure to restore Xavier's entry in various "List of" articles from which you removed it. Rivertorch (talk) 07:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, to be frank, I consider him to be a barely notable--and perhaps indeed non-notable (not tested at AfD at this point)--self-published poet whose extensive attempts, through a variety of IPs directly traceable to his workplace, to insert himself into every possible WP article are disruptive, detrimental, and even destructive to the project. Those efforts are nothing more than WP:ADVERT and the epitome of bad faith. As for my own edits on the article being "disruptive," you know as well as I do that according to WP policy, material that has stood unsourced for years on end can be challenged and removed by any editor at any time without warning. And I am certainly not the only editor around here who does not believe that we are a free web-hosting service for every barely notable self-promoter who comes down the virtual pike. Where you and I differ is that you very strongly believe that I am the bad guy here, and I very strongly believe that he is. However, I refuse to edit war over anything on the project. I believe it's counterproductive to any hope of consensus. So if you truly believe that this article should be linked to every possible other article, no matter how marginal the connection, then I will not interfere with your working toward that goal. But I myself cannot comply with your request that I put his name into every possibly relevant article. That is, as he has been demonstrating for years, his job. Qworty (talk) 03:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Sigh. I'm deeply preoccupied right now and am barely "here" tonight, so I don't know how coherent this will be, but here goes. I did not request that you put his name in every possibly relevant article or anything like that at all. I simply wondered why you were allowing edits you'd made based on perceived lack of notability to stand when you had since conceded that the man is notable. You've now clarified that you think he's borderline notable, so I guess I've got my answer. If you had said so three days ago, it would have been really helpful, but it seemed that we were talking past each other.
I rarely think of Wikipedia in terms of good guys and bad guys, and I do not believe, strongly or otherwise, that you're "the bad guy here". You made edits I disagreed with, I said so, you replied, I found your reply lacking certain critical elements, and I said so. I stand by what I said, but if I said it awkwardly and somehow made you think I was questioning your motives, I'm sorry. I don't doubt that you were acting with the best of intentions.
For the record, in case I've been unclear, I do decline to make assumptions about the identity of editors with apparent COI problems; unless they've explicitly identified themselves, I don't presume to know who they are, regardless of their IP or username. Actually, it's hard to be sure they are who they claim to be even if they do explicitly identify themselves, but it doesn't really matter, imo: even if they are who they say they are, I do not believe it automatically follows that all of the content they've added should be summarily axed if much of it can be salvaged to form a satisfactory article. Blanking people's articles and removing all mention of their names across en.wp because they likely made edits about themselves seems really extreme. You know, truly famous people sometimes get caught red-handed messing with their own articles, and we don't pursue a scorched-earth approach and scrub all mention of them from the wiki. If you disagree, fine; that doesn't make you a bad guy in my book. I share your stated concerns about proper sourcing, COI edits, and—I'm willing to bet—lots of other matters. That you and I choose to respond in very different ways to similar concerns shouldn't be a source of friction as long as we're both willing to communicate what we're doing and why.
The irony here is that for years I have consciously avoided editing articles about contemporary poets or poetry, and I only wound up at the Xavier article because of a related edit you made to a "List of" article that was lurking in my ridiculously bloated watchlist. As it happened, I'd never heard of this poet so, silly me, I made an exception and got involved.
Fwiw, here's my take on his notability. Sure he has self-published some of his work, but he's in good company there; we can't hold it against him. Besides, he's also had works published by independent small presses (like virtually every poet in the modern world, even the really major ones). Shrug. But he has also been anthologized multiple times in collections published by well-known publishers and written a novel that won a prize at the most prestigious gay literary awards in the U.S. If that doesn't make him notable for WP purposes, then I'm at a complete loss and had better just remind myself to steer clear of poet articles without exception.
Finally, I have no intention of mass-reverting your edits; I find many WP "List of" articles unnecessary, unhelpful, and ridiculously hard to maintain, so it would be pointless. But it doesn't have to be all or nothing; I have considered making some judicious restorations, and I may get around to doing that yet. If you have any concerns about that, I'd be glad to hear them. (I didn't suppose you'd edit war, btw.) Rivertorch (talk) 09:59, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for this. As I said in my previous response, I have no problem at all with your adding his name to some lists, and I'm not going to go around reverting your additions. I'll also reiterate that you've done a great job tracking down sources to buttress much of what's in the article. I understand that you feel I butchered the article, but please try to understand it from my POV--or at least have a look at the archived version BEFORE I touched it. It was nothing more than hundreds and hundreds of words of unsupported material, and it had remained unsupported for years. I had never heard of the guy either, and there were no WP:RS provided to even argue for notability. I took a look at the edit history, and noted several IPs that all resolved to his workplace by name. I thought it rather incredible that multiple people at this obscure poet's workplace would be taking it upon themselves over the years to build an unsourced, completely laudatory Wikipedia article about him, and that no one else in the world would be interested in helping to write it. So I started hacking away at everything that was unsourced, and soon there was hardly anything left. If it had been my bad-faith intention to gut the article by 90+%, I would have merely blanked the page at one swipe. But that's not what I did. Frankly, I see cases like this one on the project all the time--very long bios with little to no sourcing, written by WP:SPA editors. I believe the project has grown too big for "deletionists" such as me to stay on top of these kinds of things anymore--I came across this article completely by accident and couldn't believe it when I saw it, especially after I saw how many years it had existed. Another such article which has been here for years and which is several thousand words long lacks any sourcing at all, but I don't have the heart to take the knife to it because it is by, and about, a professional colleague of mine who happens to be a very nice man. I discovered it by Googling him one day. Yet every time I look at that article, I know that its current form goes against everything WP stands for. But as much as I believe that article should be reduced down to about a paragraph of verifiable fact, I cannot bring myself to do the job. It seems that if I wanted to, I could spend 16 hours a day doing nothing but paring down unsourced glowing autobiographies around here, and even so, they would still probably continue to appear at a faster rate than anyone can deal with them. Anyway, that's more than my two cents. Thanks for listening, and thanks again for your noble efforts in rescuing the article in question. Qworty (talk) 10:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Hey, I'm happy to listen. What you say makes sense, and I'll keep it in mind as I try to finish what tidying I can do on the article. (I'm taking a break for a few days—I've stared at it so many times that I'm not really seeing it anymore.) I do know just what you mean about some of the bios around here. Total avoidance is the only way I know to avoid ethical conundrums when it comes to articles about people I know: I won't even glance at such an article. Incidentally, if you ever find your deletionist outlook (you said it—I didn't!) waning, there's always this. :) Rivertorch (talk) 10:01, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for this. As I said in my previous response, I have no problem at all with your adding his name to some lists, and I'm not going to go around reverting your additions. I'll also reiterate that you've done a great job tracking down sources to buttress much of what's in the article. I understand that you feel I butchered the article, but please try to understand it from my POV--or at least have a look at the archived version BEFORE I touched it. It was nothing more than hundreds and hundreds of words of unsupported material, and it had remained unsupported for years. I had never heard of the guy either, and there were no WP:RS provided to even argue for notability. I took a look at the edit history, and noted several IPs that all resolved to his workplace by name. I thought it rather incredible that multiple people at this obscure poet's workplace would be taking it upon themselves over the years to build an unsourced, completely laudatory Wikipedia article about him, and that no one else in the world would be interested in helping to write it. So I started hacking away at everything that was unsourced, and soon there was hardly anything left. If it had been my bad-faith intention to gut the article by 90+%, I would have merely blanked the page at one swipe. But that's not what I did. Frankly, I see cases like this one on the project all the time--very long bios with little to no sourcing, written by WP:SPA editors. I believe the project has grown too big for "deletionists" such as me to stay on top of these kinds of things anymore--I came across this article completely by accident and couldn't believe it when I saw it, especially after I saw how many years it had existed. Another such article which has been here for years and which is several thousand words long lacks any sourcing at all, but I don't have the heart to take the knife to it because it is by, and about, a professional colleague of mine who happens to be a very nice man. I discovered it by Googling him one day. Yet every time I look at that article, I know that its current form goes against everything WP stands for. But as much as I believe that article should be reduced down to about a paragraph of verifiable fact, I cannot bring myself to do the job. It seems that if I wanted to, I could spend 16 hours a day doing nothing but paring down unsourced glowing autobiographies around here, and even so, they would still probably continue to appear at a faster rate than anyone can deal with them. Anyway, that's more than my two cents. Thanks for listening, and thanks again for your noble efforts in rescuing the article in question. Qworty (talk) 10:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Sigh. I'm deeply preoccupied right now and am barely "here" tonight, so I don't know how coherent this will be, but here goes. I did not request that you put his name in every possibly relevant article or anything like that at all. I simply wondered why you were allowing edits you'd made based on perceived lack of notability to stand when you had since conceded that the man is notable. You've now clarified that you think he's borderline notable, so I guess I've got my answer. If you had said so three days ago, it would have been really helpful, but it seemed that we were talking past each other.
Rename at Campaign for "santorum" neologism
[edit]Hello, since you recently participated in an RfC at Campaign for "santorum" neologism, I thought you might be interested in this proposal for renaming the article, or perhaps another of the rename proposals on the page. Best, Be——Critical 22:08, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, I took a quick look and decided my input wouldn't be constructive. I'd be !voting to oppose some proposals per the opposing comments of editors whose comments I disagreed with in other proposals. A convoluted, silly mess, with the same arguments and the same divisions that were there a few megabytes ago. Does the title of the article matter that much? It will never satisfy everyone, least of all those who object to the very existence of the article and, denied the opportunity to delete it outright, are determined to inflict on it a lingering, painful death by a thousand cuts. It's all variations on a theme, and the theme goes way beyond the scope of any one renaming proposal or one article or even one topic. Perhaps the community will wake up one day and recognize BLP panic for what it is: well-intentioned but specious argument at best, smokescreen to hide POV pushing and hidden agendas at worst, and always, always a colossal waste of time and a source of negative energy with the potential to do deep damage to the project. More likely, the fun and games will continue indefinitely—but it's Wednesday, so I have my pessimism hat on. (Sorry for ranting at the messenger. Thanks for the heads-up!) Rivertorch (talk) 06:08, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification
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- Fixed. Pats helpful bot on head and offers bottie biscuit. Rivertorch (talk) 05:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
RfC/COI
[edit]Nice try. May I suggest you take a look at WP:Paid Operatives which may provide a broader forum for your thoughts. Paid editong is too wide-ranging. ```Buster Seven Talk 08:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for the link. Rivertorch (talk) 10:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks
[edit]...for the kind words in the now-hatted section of Talk:Suicide of Tyler Clementi. I appreciate very much your role as, in effect, the voice of sanity there. Happy editing! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:52, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
- I sympathize with much of what Fae was saying in general, but I just don't see how it applies to that talk page. In my experience, subtle homophobia is fairly widespread on Wikipedia but is extraordinarily difficult to address with any specificity without outraged cries of "Personal attack!" ensuing. And sometimes those outraged cries are justified. It's terribly awkward: one inevitably draws inferences from observed patterns of other users' behavior, but unless there's a smoking gun, one feels unable to say anything. All of which has nothing to do with either you or LedRush, as far as I know. Anyway, thanks for your kind words; it's not every day that the phrase "voice of sanity" is applied to me. Rivertorch (talk) 23:05, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, I was initially quite unsure what to say about the whole thing. By the way, the matter has found its way to WP:WQA; I've offered some comments about it there. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
- Ugh. An overreaction based on an overreaction based on a series of misunderstandings. I hope it will all just blow over. Rivertorch (talk) 06:15, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks
[edit]For giving the UBC students over at American Bison some guidance. The Interior (Talk) 17:18, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
- Sure. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep an eye on things there, too. Rivertorch (talk) 19:04, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
- Definitely. This course is really ambitious and is planning major expansions to 8 or so articles. It's great to have some help in oversight. The Interior (Talk) 20:16, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah. Similar things are happening in various places on Wikipedia. In theory, it's a nice way to build content and recruit new Wikipedians. In practice, I've seen a disturbing lack of communication and seriously inadequate advance planning, with the effect that established editors are getting blindsided and newby editors are feeling frustrated. I'm glad that things are going more smoothly in this case. Rivertorch (talk) 06:30, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
- Definitely. This course is really ambitious and is planning major expansions to 8 or so articles. It's great to have some help in oversight. The Interior (Talk) 20:16, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
If you're annoyed, I apologize
[edit]Your post on the Clementi talk page seemed quite annoyed with me for distorting your views. I think I correctly summarized your views on Above the Law (at least for the purposes of the discussion), so I'm not sure why that one bothers you (unless it's because your view was based on the WP article). However, I did miss what you were saying about which comments we should include. I simply missed it and I'm sorry. I did not do it to twist your views or mischaracterize anything you said, and I'm very sorry that you feel that way.LedRush (talk) 19:01, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for coming to my talk page. I accept your apology and hasten to assure you that I'm less annoyed than concerned (and frustrated because I'm trying to juggle five different tasks—this is one of those days when I really shouldn't even log in because Wikipedia is like a black hole that sucks you in). Misunderstandings always concern me because they make me wonder if I didn't express myself clearly. In this case, I really think I did, and you just missed it. I said that according to its WP article Above the Law is "not a particular authority on criminal law" but rather a blog "specializing in gossip about corporate law firms". You then said my understanding was that Above the Law is "only concerned with corporate law", which I absolutely didn't say. That was not a correct summary of my understanding for the purposes of the discussion or otherwise; it was a mischaracterization. I don't suppose you did it deliberately, and any annoyance I felt was fleeting.
Fwiw, I'd very much like to see more editors get actively involved in improving the article. I'm sick to death of the whole topic, to be honest, but am hesitant about leaving it to you and Tryptofish when there are so many unresolved issues and it's such a target for drive-by POV-pushers of various stripes. Rivertorch (talk) 22:04, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
- I'm glad that you accept my apology and aren't too annoyed. Hopefully both are true when I confess that I still don't understand how what I said was substantially different than what you did. However, I don't see the need to get to the bottom of this as I really don't believe it has any bearing on the conversation, especially now that you know what the site actually is. Cheers.LedRush (talk) 00:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
- Forgive me, but I think it's better that we get to the bottom of it, since the content is still disputed. The difference between what I said and what you said I said (!) lies in the word "specialize". While "specialize" can be used to indicate that an entity confines itself to one thing to the exclusion of all others (e.g., Specializing in pediatrics, the practice of Drs. Brown and Green treats only children), it often is used to indicate that an entity concentrates especially on one thing (e.g., Specializing in simple Northern Italian cuisine, Trattoria Milano offers a wide range of dishes, including pizza, stromboli, and fried chicken). I was using the word in the latter sense. In hindsight, I guess I could have been clearer, although I do think the context should have provided a clue: obviously a blog that never says anything about criminal law isn't going to say something about criminal law! I still don't think a blogger with no article is a very good source for an opinion on the verdict, but that's a topic best left to the talk page. I'll see if I want to comment further there. Rivertorch (talk) 05:29, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
- And I guess I don't see that as a substantial difference from what I've said. I'm sorry, I just don't see it. Yes, you said "specialize" and I said "only concerned" (which doesn't exclude everything else, BTW). To me, these do not indicate substantially different views of the focus of the website. Either phrase can be used to mean anything from "exclusively deals with" to "primarily deals with", and, most importantly, either phrase incorrectly describes the blog. My original response to your statement remains true and still corrects your understanding of the blog.LedRush (talk) 11:18, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
- Nope. "Only concerned with" means "concerned with to the exclusion of all else." The word "only" doesn't leave any wiggle room. Rivertorch (talk) 19:54, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
- Even if one were to read my phrase in such an absolutest way despite the context of the discussion and popular usage of the word, I don't see how anything I wrote with regards to the nature of Above the Law changes. Your understanding of the website was still inaccurate (based on the WP stub) and I still presented an accurate view of the article and Mystal to inform your opinion. I still do not understand your fixation on this point as it seems tangential to the discussion of Above the Law's notability. By focusing on what you deem as my "mischaracterization" rather than the crux of my points, the important discussion is sidetracked. However, we seem to have gotten to the crux of the semantic disagreement, and it appears that we will not agree on this. Let's hope we will have more success finding common ground on whether Above the Law and Elie Mystal's opinions are notable.LedRush (talk) 21:07, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
- Nope. "Only concerned with" means "concerned with to the exclusion of all else." The word "only" doesn't leave any wiggle room. Rivertorch (talk) 19:54, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
- And I guess I don't see that as a substantial difference from what I've said. I'm sorry, I just don't see it. Yes, you said "specialize" and I said "only concerned" (which doesn't exclude everything else, BTW). To me, these do not indicate substantially different views of the focus of the website. Either phrase can be used to mean anything from "exclusively deals with" to "primarily deals with", and, most importantly, either phrase incorrectly describes the blog. My original response to your statement remains true and still corrects your understanding of the blog.LedRush (talk) 11:18, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
- Forgive me, but I think it's better that we get to the bottom of it, since the content is still disputed. The difference between what I said and what you said I said (!) lies in the word "specialize". While "specialize" can be used to indicate that an entity confines itself to one thing to the exclusion of all others (e.g., Specializing in pediatrics, the practice of Drs. Brown and Green treats only children), it often is used to indicate that an entity concentrates especially on one thing (e.g., Specializing in simple Northern Italian cuisine, Trattoria Milano offers a wide range of dishes, including pizza, stromboli, and fried chicken). I was using the word in the latter sense. In hindsight, I guess I could have been clearer, although I do think the context should have provided a clue: obviously a blog that never says anything about criminal law isn't going to say something about criminal law! I still don't think a blogger with no article is a very good source for an opinion on the verdict, but that's a topic best left to the talk page. I'll see if I want to comment further there. Rivertorch (talk) 05:29, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
- I'm glad that you accept my apology and aren't too annoyed. Hopefully both are true when I confess that I still don't understand how what I said was substantially different than what you did. However, I don't see the need to get to the bottom of this as I really don't believe it has any bearing on the conversation, especially now that you know what the site actually is. Cheers.LedRush (talk) 00:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Talkback
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Apology
[edit]Sorry Rivertorch I reverted you edit to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents by accident, should be back now. MilborneOne (talk) 20:13, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- No problem. Thanks! Rivertorch (talk) 20:29, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
Dispute resolution survey
[edit]![]() Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite Hello Rivertorch. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released. Please click HERE to participate. You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang DR goes to Wikimania! 01:42, 6 April 2012 (UTC) |