User talk:Apteva/Archive 9

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Blocked indefinitely

Per the unanimous consensus reflected here [1] I have indefinitely blocked this account. While I expect this will fall on deaf ears, I would advise you to be very careful in formulating an unblock request. You have exhausted the community's patience already, so you are on pretty thin ice and could easily see your talk page access revoked if you do not make a compelling argument in any unblock requests. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:52, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

You will obviously need to undo that and request an uninvolved administrator to review the thread before closing it. I have not violated any policy or guideline, and there is absolutely no reason for anyone to support a block. You have previously and without warrant indicated that you personally wanted to see me blocked. That personal view is not supported by any facts. Apteva (talk) 17:56, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
This is exactly the type of lame wikilawyering that will lead to your talk page being revoked. WP:INVOLVED reads, in part "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.". Consensus for blocking you could not be any more clear. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:01, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
Absolutely agree with Beeblebrox's comments and action above. I have reverted several of your recent "edits", including D.B. Cooper, which contained duplicate information and were poorly worded. David J Johnson (talk) 18:43, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
Here is one of the edits you reverted.[2] How by any stretch of the imagination is a bare URL a better title than the actual title? Apteva (talk) 19:06, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
  • To alley any concerns: I am an uninvolved administrator and had the intention of carrying out the same action Beeblebrox did. I was going to give the discussion an extra 24 hours, but I see no problem with a close now and this subsequent block. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 18:47, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
    • On what basis? What evidence of impropriety was presented? Apteva (talk) 19:01, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
      The reasons for your restrictions and blocks have been explained to you again and again. The fact that you don't agree with the resoning is no longer relevant, and there is no need to rehash them again. I would add that this is not a unilateral action by me, it is a community imposed block, and only the community can undo it. So, either make your case coherently or just go away. There is no third option.
      In case you still had not noticed, nobody has taken your side. Nobody. Every single person who commented was in favor of an immediate indefinite block. You had every chance in the world to avoid this block, but your apparent inability to learn from or even acknowledge your own errors, combined with your incessent wikilawyering and need to have the last word in all discussions have led you to this point. This block is your fault and nobody else's. If you can't see that and won't acknowledge it then there is truly no hope for you. You are at the absolute end of the rope here, but what happens next is still entirely up to you. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:16, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
      I am not seeing that. What I see is an edit that you made some time ago stating that you expected me to be blocked and eagerly voted to do so, despite there being absolutely no basis for that. Sure if I had not edited at all for a month I would not have been blocked, but that is ridiculous. There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone making useful edits and taking positions on issues, and not in any way a basis for a block. You want me to avoid discussing the use of punctuation and capital letters? Done. Blocks are preventative, not punitive. What does this block prevent other than useful edits? Nothing. Apteva (talk) 20:14, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
      • (ec) The evidence that you have been disruptive and repeatedly continued to "nibble the edges" of your topic ban instead of leaving the area. Your continued attempts to legalistically nitpick at the ban to stay in the area where your participation was disruptive and unhelpful, instead of going and finding something else to do, exhausted the community's patience with you, as I warned you that you were extremely close to doing at the last discussion. That is true whether or not you thought you were helping or were sure you were right. At this point, you may make an effort to actually understand the concerns brought up, and address them if you wish to ask to return. If you're unable or unwilling to do that, you won't be able to participate here anymore, which is your other option. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:21, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
        See above. I have already agreed to a voluntary topic ban for six months on discussing punctuation and capital letters. Anything else anyone wants? Just name it. I am very responsive to constructive criticism. Apteva (talk) 20:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I find it worrying that you can ask "on what basis" a block might be imposed, when you are fully aware of the discussion that led to this. You appear to have reached a point where you consider any opinion with which you disagree completely invisible. Amongst many other things, you need to remind yourself that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and the "rules" as you interpret them are not relevant. The fact that there is a consensus amongst the editors on this project to block you is reason enough in itself to block - there is no "court" where "offences" have to be "proved". This absolute adherence to the idea that your interpretation of the rules is paramount and everyone else's input is merely an obstacle to overcome is an accurate summary of how you ended up in this position. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 19:27, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
    • I am genuinely interested in finding out what the basis is for asking for a block. I see none. I see an editor who minds their own business, who fixes things that need to be fixed, who adds content that they see, and discusses issues where there are disagreements. And yes, AN and ANI are "courts" where offenses need to be proved. We always ask for diffs so that we can determine if the concern is valid or not. This is not my interpretation of the rules, this is what we always always do. But as to "consensus amongst the editors" we have about 3200 active editors and ten times that many who make 5 or more edits each month. No one has polled them to ask for a "consensus". No one who looks at my edits can say that I do anything other than fix problems, add useful content, and discuss disputes. What we can say though, is that someone on the other side of a dispute that I am no longer taking a position on would like to make me go away so that there would be one less editor opposing their ideas, ideas that are not well supported, and tend to be pointy. Not mine, theirs. As to someone coming along here and saying "I reverted three of your so called edits", that is laughable when you look at the edits reverted. Fixing dead and broken links,[3] (this one is particularly absurd) replacing dead references with live ones, adding titles in place of bare URLs, replacing an obscure term that none of the references used and that serves no purpose other than to make the article less understandable,[4] and adding information.[5] From reading the article it sounds like these were all passenger doors that could have been opened "accidentally", when in fact all four were cargo doors that no one even has access to. Apteva (talk) 20:03, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
I see no one saying you are not capable of constructive edits. The problem is that your perception of the disruption you cause does is at odds with that part of the community that has expressed an opinion. Now, you can tell yourself that this condition is not based in reality and continue to express disbelief WRT to the result but if you desire different results different actions are required. Tiderolls 20:34, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Due to the continued WP:IDHT behavior, I have revoked access to this talk page. Give that there have been past abuses of email I have revoked that as well. You already know what your remaining avenues of appeal are. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:24, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Talk page access restored by AGK after a BASC request in December 2013. EdChem (talk) 05:46, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

FYI

Thanks for unblocking talk page access. In the meantime, to quote the blocking admin, "and move along to something that less pointless", I have been working on other areas of the project. I think that was supposed to be "is not as" instead of "less". I will be appealing when I have time, and when I am certain it is appropriate (there is no specific date specified, just "February"). To not rattle any chains I will not reply to any posts here until the unblock request is made. Lame or not. Apteva (talk) 05:23, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions for proposals are welcome. Being unable to edit freely for over a year is too long. Clearly Wikipedia loses up to or over 1,000 valuable edits each month this continues. Apteva (talk) 20:55, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Unblock request

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Apteva (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

I am only here to help the encyclopedia. I have created over 100 articles, and made over 10,000 valuable edits, and request that all restrictions be removed so that I can fix errors, update articles, and add contributions. A simple example, is the article Perovo Solar Park, created in March 2012. The article had a redlink image that was removed in December, but a one second search reveals a replacement File:Perovosolarstation.jpg that has been available since July 2012. It takes a lot of work to build and maintain an encyclopedia so that it is useful and accurate, and Wikipedia needs all of the help that it can get and will still have errors that need fixing. I am willing and able to help, and a one year "time out" is more than too much, and I hope that someone will see that and let me get back to fixing broken links, correcting grammar and spelling, and adding content. Thanks in advance. Apteva (talk) 18:34, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Decline reason:

Your unblock request gives no indication that you understand why you were blocked and provides no assurance that things will be different now if you're unblocked. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 18:55, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes it would be different. I am going to stay as far away from what got me blocked as is humanly possible. I want only to fix errors and provide contributions. There are some people who when blocked focus only on the reason they were blocked, and lash out at those who blocked them. I am not one of them. I am only here to contribute in a positive manner. I do understand the reason for the block, and it is too ugly to bring up. Wikipedia has a lot of Wiki drama that has nothing to do with maintaining and building an encyclopedia. I am not here for the drama-rama, I am only here to fix errors and provide contributions. Nothing else. Yes I disagree with some people about a subject that has been expressed in an essay. My view is that Wikipedia does not create content, Wikipedia reflects the usage of the rest of the world. So, for example, since 98% of the books and encyclopedias on the subject use Mexican War, Wikipedia would too. Who knew. But none of the wikidrama has any interest to me. I am just a humble servant of the readers. Others who enjoy annoying people can participate in drama. As an admin I would use blocks correctly. Not to block good editors like myself. Apteva (talk) 19:10, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

What I have been doing is making a list of errors that need to be corrected, and over the last year almost none of them have been picked up by someone else. Those are the edits that I am going to be working on, not the wiki drama stuff. I was blocked to resolve a content dispute that I had already recused myself from. How stupid is that? Apteva (talk) 19:18, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Is that the assurances you are looking for? It should be. Apteva (talk) 19:26, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Here is another one, but a little more subtle, that requires someone who understands Electricity generation. It is impossible to generate electricity from a "disc of copper". You need to use a coil with at least one turn, a disk would just short out the generation. Disks are never used in electricity generation. But has Wikipedia been a victim of its own success, relegated to a few rogue editors and admins who just make things up, or is it going to return to being useful. The choice is yours. Apteva (talk) 19:57, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Please stop telling the rest of the world (again) that they're all doing it wrong and that only you understand the science properly. See Faraday disc. I have some sympathy for your long block, but I have yet to see any indication that WP suffers by not having your contributions in such vein. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:37, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Consider this re-declined. In this very unblock request you're displaying the exact same attitude which led to your block in the first place, "everyone else was wrong, everyone who disagreed with me was stupid" etc. etc. I think you should spend your time off away from the project rather than nurturing bad feeling by building up a list of reasons why Wikipedia is worse off without you. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 10:45, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
You have to be joking. None of us says, this is what it is. But no, it is not appropriate to say, "or a disk" even if a disk can and has been used. This, though, is a detail that gets worked out on the talk page of that article. I say that generation of electricity by disk represents 0.00000000000001% of generation or less and has no place in the article. None of us owns any article and every article is decided by consensus what should go into that article. I have worked on thousands of articles, and have created over 100 articles. I do not spend a lot of time on each one, and look for things that need to be changed and change them. On this talk page someone else made a moronic suggestion that some of my changes were, well moronic. Look at them and judge for yourself. I replaced a broken link with a valid link, and they carefully reverted it. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I do not have any bad feelings about anyone editing wikipedia. Wikipedia is written by everyone from brilliant people to morons, and works solely by coming to consensus as to what each article should say. If you think I have the "exact same attitude", you would be right if you thought that I was one of Wikipedia's better editors, and wrong if you thought that I ever did anything that ever deserved being blocked for. I was blocked solely to resolve a content dispute that I had already recused myself from, meaning that I was not going to vote on or express any opinion on, so far from helping resolve the content dispute by blocking someone they knew disagreed with them, the block had absolutely no effect.
You need to recognize what I am here for - to fix things that need to be fixed, and to add things that need to be added. I am not here for content disputes and do not even care about them. It is not important that Wikipedia comes to idiotic results, and I tried and failed to fix that. I am moving on to simply working on content. I will leave it to others to decide what is right and what is wrong. Be brave and unblock me for a week and see. Check my edits at the end of that time and if there is even one that damages the encyclopedia in any way feel free to reblock me. But tell me why it damaged the encyclopedia too. The fact is that you will not find any, not this week, not next week, not this year, and not next year or any year. You are in a no-lose position. You can not hurt the encyclopedia by finding out that I am a good editor, and can hurt the encyclopedia by thinking that I might hurt the encyclopedia. The only way you can lose, is by not unblocking me, because then Wikipedia loses thousands of valuable edits. Apteva (talk) 00:20, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Dumb, dumb, dumb
Thanks for that. Makes me miss you all the more. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:07, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Good for you. Some of the edits that I have been listing have been corrected. For example a deletion that was not warranted that I noticed the day it was done, on November 20, was reverted on the 24th. I would like to be able to say that someone else has done all of the edits that I noticed, but that is not the case. The case is that most of them have not been done, and the world is either seeing wrong or not seeing information that could be added if anyone took the time to research the subject and add it to the article. WP had a peak of maybe 4,800 active editors and it has been asymptotically declining to maybe 3,000 active editors - not enough to keep up with all of the changes that need to be made. But yes it is dumb to say that someone's edits are no good and give examples where broken links were replaced with good links and revert them. Not one of the examples they gave, nor any of the other edits they reverted until they got tired of reverting my edits were improvements, and every one of them made the encyclopedia worse by undoing them. Brilliant. I have no problem with someone showing diffs of edits that should not be done, and I do RCP and see tons of those, but when someone says that edits that should be done, should not, and reverts them, they are just making a fool of themself. Apteva (talk) 02:25, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Make no mistake though, there is never any shortage of work to do. I am never going to say, gee, I guess I have nothing to do this hour because I can not edit Wikipedia. But others are going to look something up and not have as good information as they could have if we had more editors like myself, and Andy. So the choice is yours, help or hurt the encyclopedia. Unblocking helps, leaving me blocked hurts. It is not rocket science to be a good administrator or a bad one. Apteva (talk) 04:15, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
A review of the fixes that I noticed six months ago shows that six months later only 20% of them have been corrected. This, in case anyone is not sure, is not good. I suspect that any editor could do the same thing - make a list of ten edits, just to keep it simple, not do them, and come back in six months and see how many had been fixed by someone else. With millions of articles, needed corrections are easily unnoticed. Many of the articles that I noticed needed edits to, and were not done, have less than 1000 views a month, but some had over 100,000 views each month. We have never been able to convince everyone to just click edit when they see something wrong. When they do we are more likely to criticize them for not fixing it properly, and they come away not wanting to ever do that again. And the number of experienced editors that we do have is declining each year. Not good. How to fix that? Quit blocking good editors for starters. Apteva (talk) 01:46, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

This is what started the controversy. Here is a list of the busiest airports in the world, as published today:[6]

  1. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (USA)
  2. Bejing Capital International (China)
  3. London Heathrow (United Kingdom)
  4. Tokyo International (Japan)
  5. Chicago O'Hare International (USA)
  6. Los Angeles International (USA)
  7. Dubai International (United Arab Emirates)
  8. Paris Charles De Gaulle (France)
  9. Dallas/Fort Worth International (USA)
  10. Soekarno-Hatta International, Jakarta (Indonesia)

Are these the names that we use? No. In fact 8/10 are red links. Why is that? Do we think we know better than the rest of the world? That is not what our rules say. Our rules say that we must never do original research, yet that is exactly what we are doing by using different names than these for our articles. Now in some or even all cases, there could be a better name for the article, but all of these redlinks should be redirects when that happens.

These are the names that we do use.

  1. Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport adds airport, uses different punctuation
  2. Beijing Capital International Airport adds airport
  3. London Heathrow Airport adds airport
  4. Narita International Airport the link above is unrelated
  5. O'Hare International Airport leaves off city, adds airport
  6. Los Angeles International Airport adds airport
  7. Dubai International Airport adds airport
  8. Charles de Gaulle Airport leaves off city, adds airport
  9. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport adds airport
  10. Soekarno–Hatta International Airport adds airport, different punctuation

Nine out of ten of the above need to at least have redirects added (or in one case either a hatnote or change the redirect to go to a disambiguation page) to be able to find the article. As I stated, I am not interested in this battle. I fought to make this a better encyclopedia and lost. What I am interested in doing is fixing errors, and adding information. These are non-controversial needed changes. Someone else can fix the problem that we use funny names for articles. I am done with that battle. Blocking me because I wanted to fix it is idiotic. We resolve content questions by consensus, not by blocking everyone who disagrees with one side. Do I know how to help yes, do I help? Yes. Does blocking me help? No.

Here is a quote from the archives:

This absolute adherence to the idea that your interpretation of the rules is paramount and everyone else's input is merely an obstacle to overcome is an accurate summary of how you ended up in this position.

The problem with that is that it is false. I have no allegiance to any interpretation of the rules, and I have no obstacles that I am trying to overcome. I see problems, I fix them. My interest in helping Wikipedia has never changed. I see an article that is either inaccurate, wrong, or could be improved in some way, and I fix it and move on to another article. If someone disagrees, we talk it out on the talk page. Decisions are always made by consensus. When we do not reach consensus we listen to the concerns of the other editor, and sometimes add the disputes to the article. But the idea that I am not helping the same as anyone else is nonsense. A lot of people watchlist this page. Need something to do? Fix the see also links on Narita International Airport to say Haneda Airport instead of Tokyo International Airport, and Transport in Greater Tokyo instead of Transportation in Greater Tokyo. Or remove them if they are not needed. Apteva (talk) 00:11, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

The following editors request that user Apteva have all restrictions removed:

  1. Apteva (talk) 00:11, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Jesus Christ, I cannot believe that even now, after everything, you are STILL bleating on about those bloody dashes. I literally don't know where you go from here Apteva. I'm starting to think this is all a complex piss take. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 00:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Read what I said. I do not care about the dashes. I tried to fix them and failed. I just want to move on. I care about fixing redlinks and uncontroversial fixes that need to be made. Why are you keeping me from doing that? Apteva (talk) 02:36, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
One website is not indicative of the "rest of the world". As a matter of fact, LAX uses Los Angeles International Airport on their website. I'd really like to see you unblocked, and I've been watching your talk page since you regained access hoping you'd post a rational appeal, but you need to understand that your attitude is disruptive. You've reduced your argument to 'the encyclopedia needs me or it'll be damaged'. Please, please think this through before posting more. Ishdarian 05:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
My attitude is that Wikipedia has a lot of things that need fixing, and daily I list things that I could fix if I was unblocked, and am looking forward to the day that I am unblocked so that I can go back and fix those - if someone else has not already done them, and look for more things that need fixing, and fix them. It is not as simple as unblocking me. I need all restrictions removed so that I am just like any other editor. It is not a matter that Wikipedia needs me or anyone else. Wikipedia just needs more editors than we have and we are not attracting them, we are losing them. We reached a peak of active editors in 2007 and have been declining since then. What we need is more good editors who will make lots of quality edits. That is what I want to be, one of those, and year in and year out I have been one, too, with one nasty exception that is long gone as an issue, and never even should have been made an issue either. I fully understand the issue and have more than enough things to keep me busy without getting into trouble. We have a page for perennial issues, and the appropriate way to handle any issue like that is to just list it there, not get all hot and bothered that someone else brought it up again.
As an admin wannabe, the only thing that I am interested in if I see an unblock request is is this person going to do what caused them to be blocked? In my case the answer is a resounding no. When I hear that I unblock them. But I check some of their edits to see if that is the case too. Blocks are preventative, they are not punitive. And they are never used to resolve content issues. WP:Block "Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users". Blocking me is simply not appropriate and serves only a negative purpose - it stops quality edits from being made, nothing else. The honest truth is that if I was unblocked and all restrictions removed I can not promise that I would make even one edit. But it is likely that I would make thousands of edits. And it is extremely unlikely that anyone would have any reason to be concerned about any of them. And I am certain that I would go on being thanked for edits just like always. So I have not reduced my argument to "Wikipedia needs me", I have reduced it to "Wikipedia would benefit from my being unblocked, and all restrictions removed." Wikipedia will be largely unchanged with our without me. With me I am simply one of 3,000 active editors, and not even in the top 4,000 most active editors by total edit count. And Wikipedia does fine with or without any or even all of the top ten most active editors, so no that is not what I am saying, I am saying that Wikipedia is losing quality edits. Wikipedia is edited by millions of editors, most of whom make less than five edits. And some of Wikipedia is done by about 500 very active editors, who have each done over 70,000 edits. I should remind anyone reading this that this is an indef block - it can be removed in an hour, a week, or whenever whatever caused it is corrected. It has been corrected. A long time ago. I recused myself from the discussion before I was even proposed being blocked. Apteva (talk) 09:05, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
  • "daily I list things that I could fix if I was unblocked,"
You're not blocked because there are no things that need fixing. You're blocked because you are completely clueless as to why you were blocked in the first place. Until you work that one out, you're most unlikely to ever be unblocked.
Continually whining (for that's how it's seen by others) about irrelevant issues just annoys the few people still reading what you write on the wall of your oubliette. That's not a productive route either.
If you really want to be unblocked, go back to the start and try to work out why you were blocked and what the real problem is. If you can fix that, a matter of serious WP:COMPETENCE in your ability to work with others, then you might possibly see some progress. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:00, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Been there done that. I even put all the gory details into one file. I was blocked because a small number of editors did not want me to keep insisting that the majority of books use Mexican-American War instead of Mexican–American War. Now after that I discovered that as many more use Mexican War than use Mexican-American War instead of Mexican–American War, making the situation even more comical. I recognize that. I tried to fix that and failed. I get that. That war was fought without my knowledge, and I only stumbled into it when I discovered that some people were using funny names for airports, like Soekarno–Hatta International Airport instead of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. The hornets nest that I stumbled into when I brought it up had been fighting that battle for a year, in the great endash war, where a small number of editors basically thought that endashes look prettier than dashes, and had meaning. That is false. Proper nouns in English are proper nouns. Their meaning is the noun itself. English is not like other languages where you can break down phrases into words to find their meaning. In English you just have to memorize the meaning of phrases and proper nouns because we often use words in funny ways. We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway. What happened is I made a perfectly polite request to bring it up, and perfectly rationally laid out the evidence. I was met instead with the block all dissenters tactic. As to not working well with others that is nonsense. Nor is that ever a reason for blocking anyone. We use topic blocks for that. We make people go edit non-controversial areas, and most have no interest in doing that - if they can not fight about their own personal black/white issue, they prefer to make no edits at all. I am not like that. I am only here to fix things that need to be fixed. Like I said the reason that I was blocked is too ugly to mention. It is an example of Wikipedia at its worst. Any experienced admin should have seen what was going on and put a stop to the nonsense. Not by blocking me but by simply addressing my concerns and moving on. What disrupted Wikipedia was not me, but the response to my concern - that Wikipedia does not spell things the same way that the rest of the world does, and is breaking its own rules of not doing original research by doing that. It gets even worse when you get into comets, which actually do have a governing body that names all of them, and very specifically states that hyphens are used to name them, like Comet Hale-Bopp. But what punctuation to use is a minor point and not worth wasting any time over. Use whatever we find in the literature for each article. We always do that, why would we treat punctuation differently? But I am not here to fix punctuation. I am here to fix everything that I see that needs to be fixed, and out of 10,000 edits, dashes was likely less than a dozen of those edits. The way to move forward is to simply put the punctuation issue onto the perennial issue page and move on. Sooner rather than later. Apteva (talk) 15:28, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
TL;DR (That in itself is an important clue)
"I was blocked because a small number of editors did not want me to keep insisting that the majority of books use Mexican-American War instead of Mexican–American War. "
No you weren't. You were blocked because a community (a Thoroughly Evil Community) had decided (In its Thoroughly Evil Stupidity) to do it wrong (and Evilly). Then you kept insisting on banging on about the same issue regardless. I have no idea if you were right or wrong. I care just about as little as I know. Your behaviour though was to continue banging on about it in a disruptive manner. You couldn't win this one (a Cabal of Evil Grammarians is against you), yet you kept on wasting everyone else's time despite. You were blocked for disruption, not for grammar. You will not be unblocked for arguing that your grammatical point was right all along. The more you perseverate over it, the more entrenched your block becomes. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:06, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
That is just plain silly. No one is against anyone. No one is evil. Everyone is doing their best in their own way to improve the encyclopedia. But in this case the fall out is a good editor for over a year and counting. And that is not something that anyone needs to accept. Time to end that and move on. Apteva (talk) 16:52, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
What happened is I made a perfectly polite request to bring it up, and perfectly rationally laid out the evidence. I was met instead with the block all dissenters tactic. — This isn't really a fair description of what happened. You made a perfectly polite request and rationally laid out the evidence, it was discussed, and you didn't convince many people; IOW you didn't change consensus on the matter. That's fine. But then you brought it up, politely, with rational evidence, again, and again, and AGAIN, and AGAIN so many times. I explained this to you here, others did too, and yet you continued. The problem is not that you were impolite, or irrational, or anything like that. You weren't. You were disruptive. And in these unblock requests here, it is still not clear that you understand that: What disrupted Wikipedia was not me, but the response to my concern. Note: I'm sympathetic to the argument (not a point you are making) that a blocked editor doesn't have to "repent" or agree that the behavior was bad as long as the blocked editor agrees to stop engaging in it, so in some sense this thread of discussion is a bit of a sideshow to me. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:16, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Correct, and which I have. The fact is that 99% of the people in my position would just create a new username and go on happily editing, and forever be hunted down. I am the 1% who will wait until I am unblocked. Apteva (talk) 17:24, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

In the meantime if anyone has any questions about any edits I can now freely answer those questions (other than questions about punctuation). As to why I was blocked though, it is solely due to the culture of Wikipedia, makes no sense at all, and that culture needs to change. Eleven minutes after this unblock request was made it was rejected, without even one question, which is absurd. Where Wikipedia gets into trouble is not by having someone bring something up a million times, but by someone not bringing something up at all. It is very much like students in a classroom - there are no dumb questions, and the problem that teachers face is not too many students asking questions, but students not asking enough questions. We are not constrained by bandwidth or disk space. Where we have trouble is not by having too many people bringing things up but by not enough people contributing. The graph above shows the number of active editors, making over 100 edits in a month. At the peak in 2007 as many as over 10% of all edits were made by these active editors, but that has declined now to only about 0.3% of edits are made by those active editors. The one thing that has been constant since 2007 is that about 10% of the editors who make over 5 edits each month, make over 100 edits that month. We need those active editors, because those are the ones who understand the nuances about how Wikipedia works, and understand how articles are formatted and structured. But we do not need those active editors bullying other editors, as is the case with myself. We all need to respect and appreciate the contributions of everyone. Apteva (talk) 21:11, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Lamest discussions

Wikipedia:Lamest discussions, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Lamest discussions and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:Lamest discussions during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. KonveyorBelt 16:16, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

If you have any article-relevant comments to add to that MfD, I'd be happy to copy them across on your behalf.
I trust that you aren't one of those editors who'd see that as a soapbox opportunity, in which case I'd obviously have to withdraw such an offer. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:30, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks but not necessary. Whatever the community decides is fine. I have no reason to offer any advice. The page in the discussion listed has already been renamed, and there is a new convention adopted last year that will result in it eventually being renamed again. So much to do, so little time... Apteva (talk) 22:20, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
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