User talk:SilkTork/Archives/Archive 51

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Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat

Hi SilkTork, Really sad to see the deletion of the Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco-Stained_Mountain_Goat), but I guess I saw the writing on the wall. Yep, could you place the contents of the Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat on a subpage of my account - User:Alsation23/Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat? I doubt I'll be frequenting Wikipedia much after this, but it would be nice to have all that effort stored somewhere. Cheers! Alsation23 (talk) 11:13, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Done. See User:Alsation23/Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat. The userfication is done to enable you to work on it, not as an indefinite storage - see WP:STALEDRAFT. If you just wish to have a copy, you'd need to cut and paste the material into something like a Word document on your home PC, or a personal space on a private webpage. How long are you allowed to keep the material on your userpage on Wikipedia? There is no explicit time limit. Though if you don't work on it, and vanish from Wikipedia for more than six months you can reasonably expect the material will be deleted. As long as you are working on it, then it should be OK. It's worth letting you know, though, that if the material does get deleted, and in the future you found some good sources and wished to work on the article again, it can be undeleted again. I can do it, or anyone listed at CAT:RESTORE. We keep most stuff on Wikipedia - a "deletion" simply means the material is moved from public view. I understand that you would be feeling quite low at the moment; however, you may find that you get fun out of contributing to existing articles on Wikipedia. It's worth sticking around to see if you like it. If not, then at least you gave it a good go, and hopefully learned a little bit about how Wikipedia works. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:36, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Hi SilkTork, Happy New Year and congrats on your election to the Committee! (I voted for you.) IMO, you are the most congenial, humble and balanced admin I have ever run across on Wikipedia. Thanks for giving me faith in the process sometimes working as it should! Agadant (talk) 00:10, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

That's very sweet of you to say. Thank you. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:21, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Friendly notification regarding this week's Signpost

Hello. This is an automated message to tell you that, as it stands, you will shortly be mentioned in this week's 'Arbitration Report' (link). The report aims to inform The Signpost's many readers about the activities of the Arbitration Committee in a non-partisan manner. Please review the article, and, if you have any concerns, feel free to leave them in the Comments section directly below the main body of text, where they will be read by a member of the editorial team. Please only edit the article yourself in the case of grievous factual errors (making sure to note such changes in the comments section), as well as refraining from edit-warring or other uncivil behaviour on project pages generally. Thank you. On behalf of The Signpost's editorial team, LivingBot (talk) 00:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

C&P move

hello,

could you perform a cut & paste move at Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin Mary (Moscow)? Thanks.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 13:23, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I moved the page. There was no restriction on the move, you could have done it yourself by using the "move" tab at the top of the page. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 22:38, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I meant histmerge ♫GoP♫_T^C_N 14:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I often get terms mixed up! Which articles need merging? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 14:31, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I now don't know, since you moved the article. But I think User:GreatOrangePumpkin/Sandbox13 to Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin Mary. Can you start from [1] to [2]? I don't know if this is possible, though. Regards. ♫GoP♫_T^C_N 14:38, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

16:45, 8 December 2011‎ to 12:26, 3 January 2012? Yes, that is possible. Gulp! I hate history merges. But the more I do the more confident I will become. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 15:34, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

You will lose the current translation. If you want that, I suggest you do a copy and paste before I delete User:GreatOrangePumpkin/Sandbox13. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 15:43, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

OK. Done. I actually did it the wrong way round so I had to manually delete the wrong edits. It's a learning curve! I put back the last edit on your sandbox page, so you have the text (most of which is commented out, but it's there if you go to edit). Let me know if it all looks as it should. I'm a bit annoyed at the manual deletes. Hope to do it better next time. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:40, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Just one more thing: Can you restore the very latest version of User:GreatOrangePumpkin/Sandbox13? Thanks.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 14:10, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

You're right, it wasn't the final version. I think I have now done the final version. Let me know if it isn't - but I don't see any more edits. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 15:33, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

WP Beer in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Beer for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 23:26, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

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AC procedure-type question

Hi SilkTork, I noticed that you initiated some proposals at the Betacommand 3 Proposed decision page. I realize you are just getting active on the case (and probably on a dizzying and profoundly depressing variety of other things right now), but I'm wondering why you didn't place those ideas first at the /Workshop page? Hasn't the general trend in ArbCases for the last few years been to workshop pretty much everything first, so it can go through general comments? I'm sure you don't mean it that way but starting up at the PD carries a sense of "now that the kids are out of the way". My understanding of PD talk pages for non-functionaries is that we should only be commenting on what's on the PD project page itself, though I could be dead wrong on that. Anyway, just thought I'd ask, oh, and happy Arbship ha ha ha. ;) Franamax (talk) 00:25, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 01:37, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

William Lax

Hi SilkTork. I've finished my work on William Lax. A brief Google search will tell you that there is very little biographical data available on this man. I've literally done some sterling research work to find out all I have. Anyway I was wondering if you could help me bby telling me what I need to do to get it to Good Article status? Or if it seems to be at that level already then could you review it please? Cheers Farrtj (talk) 12:30, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I've just glanced at it and it looks impressive. I'll look more closely later. In the meantime, you might consider taking part in this interview: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/WikiProject desk/Interviews2 - your views would be very welcomed, especially as you are the only person other than myself who has written a beer related Good Article. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:17, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Nice to see someone breaking the group-think impression that ArbCom might otherwise give. Too bad your proposal has been unanimously rejected by your peer Arbs. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 11:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Thankyou. I do like a barnstar. Though I have to also take on board the negative comments I have received on and off Wiki for that proposal. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:47, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration amendment

Thanks for your suggestion in the amendment thread. However, as I said in my initial statement, my topic ban prohibits me from starting an RfC about someone's behavior in R&I. It says "This includes RFC/Us about other editors where the behavior of that user on R&I is one of the major topics." The community has also made it clear that as long as my topic ban stands, they expect me to stay away from the topic entirely. Even if Arbcom made an exception to my topic ban so I can start an RfC, I think the community would react quite negatively to that. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 06:47, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. My feeling at the moment is that the difs used show comments which are unrelated to R&I. I wait comments from others as I am unfamiliar with the case, though I don't see that the restriction applies where the major topic of an RfC is general harassment. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:16, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that you're right in truth, but I've also seen how the community reacts whenever I comment on something that others see as even remotely related to R&I. This actually happened just now. Before I posted the amendment thread, I asked Mathsci here if he would agree to leave me alone (he refused). I did not mention R&I in my request, I only commented on the harassment issue. But because I was replying to a string of accusations against me that tangentially related to R&I, Mathsci has reported my response at AE as itself a topic ban violation. [3] This is the kind of response I will continue to get if I attempt to bring the matter of harassment before the community. Even if this response isn't appropriate, I think it simply isn't possible to comment on something like this without invoking this reaction. My hope is that Arbcom will provide a solution that will result in less drama, not more. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 14:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

It may be that a clarification would have been more appropriate than an amendment request. I'm not entirely familiar with process, and perhaps it might be worth speaking with an ArbCom Clerk, to find out what to do. It may be possible to make the needed clarification within this request, or you may need to withdraw this amendment request and open up a specific clarification request that you are able to open a general harassment RfC. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 14:31, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Δ ArbCom

I just wanted to say you impressed the hell out of me with your recent postings here. In particular, noting that implying people are unable to modify their behavior is improper, looking for actual evidence of communication failures over the recent time period, and opening the possibility that the community may be in part to blame for the failure of the sanctions. This isn't a glad hand because I'm taking these statements by you as support for Δ. It's appreciation of a logical approach to this proceeding which has been distinctly absent from some. To be clear; if it was shown that Δ had abused bot operations with Δbot as he had done in the distant past, I'd be 100% in favor of banning him from running a bot. The same sort of feeling from me applies to other areas as well.

Unfortunately, what I've seen is a lynch mob mentality on the part of the community. Δ is an easy punching bag; nobody's going to get in trouble for insulting him (and indeed to my knowledge nobody has, yet the insults have been rampant), or falsely accusing him of all manner of indiscretions (and again, no one has). The sanctions, well intended as they were, have been a victim of this.

More particularly on the sanctions, the community has utterly failed in its ability to define what "pattern" means within the sanctions. Yet, despite the community's abject failure to define "pattern", a number of people have decided he's in the wrong anyway for violating the unapproved pattern editing prohibition. This culminated in administrator Tristessa de St Ange blocking Δ for this sort of violation. Now, to Tristessa de St Ange's credit, he's no dummy. He's one of the calmer, sharper tools in the shed. Yet, even he defined pattern as "A series of different types of changes in a single edit" (see bottom of this). Effectively, under this paintbrush, ANYthing was a pattern. Since the definition of pattern was so nebulous, any administrator could conceivably find him in violation of the unapproved pattern editing prohibition.

Given my own knowledge of the abject failure by the community with respect to the community written sanctions, I was absolutely stunned when remedy 1.5 was proposed and early on gained five quick supports, though now it thankfully seems to be losing favor. -Hammersoft (talk) 16:40, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

You'll note that I am still undecided on a ban. The outcome of the case shouldn't be fairness to one individual, but what is best for Wikipedia as a whole. If it can be shown that the community would accept lifting all restrictions, and that would result in Betacommand editing without drama, I would go for that option. I'm not convinced, however, that such a position is possible. I've picked up the impression that some people have lost their patience with Betacommand, and would not accept lifting of restrictions and so would make things difficult. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:51, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

2011 Tucson shooting

Hi there. I think I've gotten the lead up to GA standards. Please let me know what you think of it, and if there's anything else we can do. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I've left some comments. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Orartu

Are you aware that Orartu has had been already placed under ArbCom sanctions? [4] A user under ArbCom sanctions can not " seek a clean start account" as his editing is subject to editing restrictions and limitations and should be under public scrutiny by the community. WP:CLEANSTART clearly states "A clean start is permitted only if there are no active sanctions in place against your old account." He also used a sock[5] to evade his block while he was blocked[6], making good on a threat he had made earlier to knowingly engage in socking to evade his block[7], a serious violation of Wikipedia rules that should have resulted in a longer block. Therefore, your unblock constitutes a questionable admin action, and a possible misuse of admin tools. It also appears that you were contacted off-wiki by Orartu through e-mail, to unblock him, which is inappropriate, given the fact that you have a history with this user, he had previously canvassed you to help him, and you were involved in a content dispute involving this user, taking his side. Therefore, I believe you should undo your unblock, publicly identify and log the Orartu's new sock here, in line with Wikipedia AA2 ArbCom sanctions and resolutions, and recuse yourself from further involvement with this user in the role of an administrator. Kurdo777 (talk) 23:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. The block log gives a slightly different story; and, as a member of ArbCom, I can let you know we have not been informed of editing restrictions being placed on Orartu - that is quite interesting. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Your assistance, please?

Bearing in mind that you are very busy, would you care to take a look at Talk:Sima Nan? A couple editors are arguing for the inclusion of content that, to my eye, seems very obviously to be in violation of WP:BLP, WP:V (particularly WP:REDFLAG), and WP:RS (especially quotations). I've seen the same argument drag out at length elsewhere on this encyclopedia, and am hoping for a speedier resolution this time around. I'm not interested in carrying on debates about this again.Homunculus (duihua) 05:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I've just taken a look, and I don't think I have the time to get involved in another Falun Gong related article. You could try asking someone at Wikipedia:Editor assistance to have a look. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 18:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

No worries. I think the issue is probably settled, but will seek additional assistance elsewhere if it again becomes necessary.Homunculus (duihua) 18:46, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

GA Review Mormons

I've responded to all your comments on the review page, and have made modifications to the article for each. I think I'm ready for the review to continue. Thank you for giving me the extra time to fix some of the issues. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I will look as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:41, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I have a question for you here. Thanks. ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Just wanted to say thank you for your thoughtful review, and also for giving me the extra time to fix stuff. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into it, and I hope our paths cross again sometime. ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Personality vs. edits

Re: [8]. Although Δ's persona probably plays a role in stoking the drama, if you look at this ANI thread, you'll see that about the same set of editors that commented on the /Workshop of Betacommand 3 have opinions (one way or the other) about the type of edits that Betacommand and a few others do. Perhaps the role of the BAG should be expanded to deal with disputes surrounding bot operations, not just their initial approval, and the group could possibly be renamed to BotCom or something like that. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 02:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

It's an idea. I'm not certain where, at the moment, complaints/concerns about bots are lodged and considered. Do you know? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I think most such discussion are taking place on owners' talk pages. There is a centralized Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard, but it sees little traffic. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 17:27, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Bot drama not resolved on the owner pages tends to land at ANI like everything else. I have some reservations about putting BAG in charge of bot disputes, since BAG is composed mostly of bot enthusiasts and see too many bots as indispensible, while as a pro-human editor I tend to think of quite a few bot operations as solutions looking for problems. Here is a rant from the date delinking case that I think makes good points. I asked Xeno his opinion of that post during the arb election and he also sympathized with most of it.[9] If you look at some of the annoying personalities visible in the date delinking case, the conduct we see from Δ and RF seem mild by comparison. One issue is there aren't that many editors who aren't into bots themselves, but understand them well enough to be able to contribute usefully to bot DR. 67.122.210.96 (talk) 09:26, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

(e/c, some chgs to the post above, but this is my first reply) A few years ago now, I proposed that BAG should have a split composition between its current bot mavens (who obviously are essential) and some "community" members who would look at how well a proposed task had gained consensus; also, anyone in BAG would be able to halt a botop with a simple stamp, from either a technical or community perspective. Not so much BotCom, more like facilitators for community discussion.Franamax (talk) 09:49, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

mentor

I'd like to help User:SergeWoodzing find a mentor. He is an ANI regular who likes to edit about historical Swedish royalty but has had some problems with sourcing and user interaction, and often gets into disputes with User:Pieter Kuiper, who I'd say is a more accurate editor but who has interaction problems of his own. Mentorship for SergeWoodzing has been brought up a few times in the past, and he's expressed willingness.[10] I thought of asking Angus McLellan (who worked with PHG) and Shell Kinney (who has helped various others), but neither of them are active on Wikipedia these days. I realize that arbcom is an enormous workload and so I'm not suggesting that you take on yet another ongoing task, but since you mentored Mattisse a while back, I figure you have some understanding of SergeWoodzing's type of issues. So I'm wondering if you have any suggestions of other people to approach or how else to go about this. A currently active ANI thread concerning him is (permalink) here. Thanks, 67.122.210.96 (talk) 07:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

You could try approaching User:RegentsPark, User:John Carter, or User:Salix alba. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 18:31, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. 67.122.210.96 (talk) 19:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Trying again (re: Space Beer redirect)

Hi Silk Tork. I thought I'd try again to get the Space Beer redirect to Sapporro undone. I'm not sure why the page I put up was removed, but am happy to correct whatever deficiencies there were. Thanks in advance for (hopefully) helping out this new Wikipedia user. My talk page is here: User_talk:Jheld6557 Jheld6557 (talk) 13:36, 29 January 2012 (UTC)Jheld6557

Hi. The Space beer article was pulling together different ideas to create a concept of a "space beer". We don't accept original research - see WP:Original research. The article seemed mainly designed to promote a beer brand by a little known Australian brewpub, 4 Pines. We don't accept promotion - see WP:NOTPROMOTION. I suspect from your username that you are one of the people involved in the beer. This is not in itself disallowed, though users do get into trouble when their main purpose is to create an account to promote themselves or a product or company they are related to - see WP:COI. The two sources are press releases. We don't accept self-promotion as an indicator of notability - see WP:ORG. If the beer brand (or the brewpub) develops some notability from reliable sources, an article can be created - though it would more likely be under the beer's brand name. RateBeer has 26 reviews for the brand, which is not significant at the moment, though the "space beer" association may draw more attention over time. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:49, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Association for Contextual Behavioral Science

Consensus in this discussion was clearly that the sources available do not meet the requirements of significance of coverage, independence and reliability. Please reconsider you closure. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Comments that there were no sources are disputed by the existence of those sources, which are linked to from the AfD page. Using the links provided in the discussion, I put in three cites to independent sources which provide some information - other sources are available. Sometimes it is possible to miss what is there, and that is what I assumed had happened with those who were saying there were no sources, or that the sources were not dealing sufficiently with the organisation. I feel there may be an argument in how best to present ACT and ACBS, and how our articles on them should be linked, and perhaps some thought can be given to merging Association for Contextual Behavioral Science into a section in Acceptance and commitment therapy; though the argument that there was not enough sources to establish notability for ACBS I didn't think was proven enough to delete the material completely. That people may not have found or looked at all the sources is not in itself sufficient reason for deletion when adequate sources are there. This source, for example, has an entire paragraph in a dedicated section on the organisation, written by two independent authors and published by Oxford University Press. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I suggest you look at the sources you added more carefully. One clearly states that the lead author, James Herbert, is a member of the organization. One of the other articles you added, the one you mention above, just contains a reprint of a paper that was written by several ACBS members, Kelly Wilson and Emily Sandoz. The authors for the other source you added are someone who uses the therapy associated with the organization in his practice and someone who has co-written books on the theory with Wilson. Sources that are independent is key. Unfortunately, given the limited coverage of the group, it can be hard to easily identify people associated with it unless you dig. For instance, one of the sources provided in the AfD directly cited Wikipedia as its only mention of the organization. I noted that alone as reason to discount the source, but upon further examination I just found that the author, Patrick Friman, has also written several papers with various founders of the related therapies like Hayes, Wilson, and Barnes-Holmes. My problem has been that save for a few weak, seemingly independent sources that essentially just have one sentence noting the group being for ACT therapists, the sources have all been from people connected with the group either as members or close associates of members.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

As to the question of merging, I did suggest a merge/redirect to all three editors who voted keep and two of theme expressed support.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:12, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I think a merge proposal might be worthwhile. As regards some (or all) of the authors of the sources being linked with the topic, that shouldn't in itself be cause for concern, as the publications in which they write are independent. We presume that the OUP, for example, wouldn't be a party to inappropriate promotion of an organisation, and will have checked the material before publication. It is sometimes inevitable that for some topics the authors are linked to the topic - this particularly happens in archaeology, where the best sources on a dig come from those who took part in the dig.

I've just seen what you mean in regard to the cite I gave above. I'm not so much concerned that it means the organisation is now non-notable as that it appears I have cited the information incorrectly, as the authors are different to those I gave. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:33, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I have started a merge discussion at Talk:Acceptance_and_commitment_therapy#Merge_discussion, and will inform the participants of the AfD. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:45, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Δ and FoF 3.1

I found your comments to be helpful here. You noted that further analysis of evidence would be required to reach this FoF. I agree. As an example, I reviewed Δ's last 5000 edits. Within those 5000 edits, there are 6 violations of his edit throttle; one for 43 edits in 10 minutes, and three for 41 edits in 10 minutes. That's a 99.88% compliance rate. If you look at his edits only to mainspace, there's been no violations in the last 5000 edits at all.

It is also worth noting that adhering to this restriction is exceptionally difficult. Here's a test; Do you know how many edits you've made today? In effect, there is no speedometer. Δ has to maintain a community placed speed limit without any tool to monitor his speed. When he's caught barely exceeding it, he's found at fault. How many police officers do you think out of 100 would pull someone over for going 41 in a 40 zone? Some rational thought is used; someone at 41 isn't somehow insanely more dangerous than someone at 40. 60? 80? 100? Sure. 41? No. It's wasted effort. But, the community doesn't think so with respect to Δ.

And by the way; the analysis here is false. Sven Manguard comments on this from the angle of how Wikipedia is not supposed to operate. But, there's clear factual mistakes in the presentation of evidence as well. Example:

• "2011-05-18 08:43:06 - 2011-05-18 08:52:23 (max edits in 10 min period: 112)" [11] Claimed 112 edits. Actual edits in time period: 3 Yes, you read that right. 3.

There are violations. But, the analysis is at times flawed. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Once again, adhering to the speed throttle is not exceptionally difficult, just aim for 30 per 10 minutes. Beta is vaunted as an exceptional programmer, I can tell you right now as an ordinary programmer that implementing a rate limit in software is not difficult at all. The only complication is throttling the rate of commits to account for the server lag in actually writing the edits to the database. If you want to hit the exact rate limit, you need to watch &maxlag and monitor your sub-threads to be sure they are completing successfully - or just shoot for a comfortable margin below the limit. This is not rocket science. Franamax (talk) 22:13, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you're both right. I'm comfortable with a finding that the sanctions haven't worked. I'm also comfortable with a finding that concerns have been raised about Betacommand's edits. Where I am not so comfortable is a finding that isolates the problem as though this was entirely Betacommand's fault. I think Betacommand contributes to the situation. His communication is not always as carefully worded as it could be. He has a history of problems with the community. However, he has clearly been attempting to work within difficult sanctions. Are the slips genuine accidents or deliberate attempts to test the boundary? The FoF is stating that they are deliberate violations. I'd like more evidence of that. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 22:40, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

"Clearly attempting"? The original sanction in all of this was to not make automated edits, or edits appearing to be automated, which Beta refused to do. So then we came up with the rate limit, which as I describe above, really should be quite easy to comply with, so "clearly attempting" would be 100% compliance.

It's true though that (beyond "no person, no problem") this is not all Beta's fault, several groups are involved, partly composed of those fighting the old "image wars" to varying degrees. Even leaving aside the previous two AC cases, Beta was a major participant in the 2007-2008 cleansing of non-compliant NF images, which was all done in response to a board resolution and deadline, was absolutely needed, and which gained Beta a crew of long-term haters. Those editors have been minimally active here. Anyone active in NFCC enforcement will also attract haters (mostly lazy people) and good communication skills are essential there, so it turned out to not be a good fit for Beta - but everyone has largely been trying to address evidence from after the AC topic ban motion. On the other side is a small but vocal group of Beta supporters, some ideologically bound to the concept of rapid editing, some bound to the "free means free" mission, many of whom feel that Beta provides an essential service. In the middle are more cautious people looking at the evidence, to which group I would assign myself, and more certainly suggest as members CBM, Fram and Masem at the very least - people who are making a sober analysis. There was no clear mandate at the outset to present evidence to "blame" others, so of necessity this case can only make a finding of fact as to Beta's part in the problem. Franamax (talk) 23:29, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

• Franamax, if it is so easy and not rocket science to develop a tool to count the number of edits you are making within a specified time period, please create one. You do claim to be a programmer, so I imagine this should be trivial, yes? I'd like to see the code when you're done please. That aside, if Δ is operating automated processes as so many claim he is, then why hasn't he included such an easy edit throttle on himself? Unless you just want to either (1) admit he's not using an automated process, or (2) indicate he's too stupid to add one, even though he's written tons of code for this project, or (3) is just being insolent every time he breaks the limit by even a smidgeon. You can't have it all the ways you want it. So, code please. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 00:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I would love to have access to the toolserver, there's any number of content-related SQL queries I could think of running just from the shell, thwn processing the results on my own system. I'm pretty sure that getting a login there is quite difficult though, since if you get a few letters wrong in a query, you tie up the server for hours rather than seconds. What specific code are you asking for since you asked so nicely? Can you give me the specification? What edits do you wish made? On your other point, this whole case is about the possibility of (3) being the most parsimonious explanation. Your (1) ws disproved by Beta himself, long ago, where he linked a (possibly offsite) image of a session screen where he was typing "Y" repeatedly. I actually did look for that, but the vast archives of the AN/I subpages have been partially renamed from Betacommand to triangle, so the search engine is basically useless. Talk about difficulties resulting from the account renaming... Franamax (talk) 01:22, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• You said it should be easy to create a program to monitor the number of edits a user is making, presumably in real time. Please do so. Let me see the code when you're done. Thanks, --Hammersoft (talk) 03:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

In deference to SilkTork, perhaps we should conduct this semi-rhetorical bit of the discussion elsewhere? My talk page is always open for comments if you have a serious request for code. or just want to comment further on what I've already said. Franamax (talk) 03:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• My request is serious, and I believe SilkTork needs to see this. Your assertion is that this can easily be created. Either prove it by creating it, since as you say you are a programmer, or drop the assertion. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either it's easy to do, and Δ is willfully not doing so or stupid, or it's not easy to do some some good faith should be assumed. Since the latter is policy, and you've so far proven incapable of producing this "easy" code, I suspect we already have our answer. --Hammersoft (talk) 03:44, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

{repeat while (tasks exist): {wait 30 seconds}; {perform a task}; } If SilkTork wishes further demonstration, I'm sure they'll indicate so. Otherwise, please let's take this elsewhere. Franamax (talk) 03:54, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Also see here, this function is implemented in every modern programming framework. Franamax (talk) 04:02, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• Please demonstrate how this can be applied to the editing framework within a person's browser. Would this be a plugin? --Hammersoft (talk) 13:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

William Lax

If you're busy right now I will just submit William Lax for general review if that's okay.Farrtj (talk) 23:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, do that Farrtj. I have got the page watchlisted, but I've not been able to do anything. If you end up with another rough review, let me know, and I will commit to a serious review - though my reviews are notoriously slow! SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 08:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)