I will respond to messages on this page. Please check your contributions list ("My contributions") for responses. If there is a response, your edit is no longer the "top" edit in the list.
Unlike other Wikipedians I don't archive Talk pages since old contents are automatically archived anyway - if you want to access previous comments use the "Older versions" function. But I keep a log of the removals:
- Removed all comments prior to Jan 2003. --Eloquence 04:42 Jan 1, 2003 (UTC)
- Removed all comments prior to Feb 2003. --Eloquence 10:19 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)
- Removed all comments prior to March 2003. --Eloquence 21:19 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)
- Removed all comments prior to April 2003. --Eloquence 08:14 25 May 2003 (UTC)
- Removed all comments up to May 31 2003. -Eloquence 19:14 31 May 2003 (UTC)
- Removed all comments up to June 21, 2003. --Eloquence 18:58 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- Removed all comments up to July 3, 2003. --Eloquence 21:51 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- Removed all comments up to July 22, 2003. --Eloquence 09:07 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
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Thanks for the flowers -- I thought we were only supposed to give those to women? ;-) Now, if you could isolate one of those sunflowers, you could implement my logo suggestion .. --Eloquence
- KingTurtle seemed to imply that was not fair...so my offer of wikimoney for flowers switched to WikiMen some time ago. Anyway, I rarely follow these kind of sexist conventions. No pb to isolate a sunflower, I have about ... 20 picts of those I made 2 weeks ago. I can apply a filter to make it appear more designed than pict. But, only when I am back, which would require that the date limit is slightly pushed further. Or I could make a quick hack ? However, who said sunflowers were not a very good idea perhaps, because of some political smell ? :-) Some one will then say I am pushing my political ideology...:-§
I am going to protect the page once again. I have already received support for this decision since I am not an antagonist in this conflict, never having edited the page other than to restore the version supported by every user but Nostrum. Please see the talk page for the reasons why measures have to be taken against adding the content at question.
His charges that I'm somehow "biased" are slanderous. I could care less about the raging controversy on Wiki over the sex abuse scandal. I have never touched that topic before tonight. I'm only biased against irrelevant, poorly written, and non-encyclopedic content being added to a very important article. 172
I fail to see how someone can say himself not an antagonist in a conflict when he restore one version over the other before protecting the page again. Even if 172 does not contribute in the article (in adding stuff to it), reverting to a particular version is definitly "an active support" of one side over the other. This removes any credibility in the neutrality claim. Perhaps the definition of active contribution, active support and passive support need to be defined.
In any case, I think the page has to be protected. However, the way it was done, actively suppressing one version over the other, was not done proper imho. Actively choosing the other version would have been perhaps not neutral either. I missed a coin to flip ! So, I did an bihead solution. Not pretty, but less offensive. I already did similar things on the fr wiki, I don't know if practiced here. But I just could not let that be. ant
Thank you for unprotecting the catholicism page. Your words were enlightening and I deeply envy your unbiased conceptualization process. Thank you for allowing me to express the truth in the best manner I can. Don't allow this comment to prevent you from criticizing my work. I enjoy the criticism of others just as much as their approval. Nostrum 09:45 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- I think your edits definitely need to be reworked and possibly moved elsewhere, but I don't like how the matter has been handled so far. Let's see if we can come up with a diplomatic solution. Welcome to Wikipedia, by the way. --Eloquence 12:05 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- My respect for you increased by a third of a point following your actions regarding 172. Pizza Puzzle
- Damn. That sounds like I made a mistake. --Eloquence
- Well, now it dropped about 5 points. Pizza Puzzle
- Mmmh. With all those pseudonyms, that's gotta add up. --Eloquence 14:31 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
As for the nice and fun things in Wikipedia, such as creating new admins, CYD has accepted on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship, and Zippy applied, by the way. כסיף Cyp 12:57 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I'm not apologizing. My protection of the page was justified. It received support beforehand and I have since noticed that it has been defended.
BTW, this comment on the mailing list by Jimmy Wales seems to support my action: "Sysops should generally not edit a page that has been protected due to a dispute, whether or not they were involved in the edit war to start with. I say "generally not" because of course there can be exceptions, for example rolling back to a version before the edit war might be useful in some cases, or attempting a one-shot temporary compromise."
What I did followed the guidelines, according to the exceptions Mr. Wales explained above. My edits only rolled back to a version before the edit war, the version without the incoherent, poorly written essay. Before the edit war, I had not even read the page, let alone edit it.
When my sysop privileges are reinstated, I promise to continue following the protected page guidelines. 172
and me, me and him and anthere and the two vandals... Pizza Puzzle
- Sorry 172. But what you did was neither reverting to a version *previous* to the edit war (which was 51 edits ago [1]) nor an attempt in compromise in any way (since it just consisted in reverting all the other editor edits). What you did was not following these two guidelines Jimbo mentionned. Don't try to mislead us here. We can all make mistakes from time to time. Especially in an edit war with heated spirits. That is no big deal in the end.user:Anthere
Even all this aside, what about protecting Imperialism and Talk: New Imperialism? Pizza Puzzle
- It was the last version not containing the content that caused the edit war. I opted to restore the last version by Jtdril so that the restoration wouldn't be so drastic. My actions were completely correct. Perhaps, however, I should have better explained my actions. But I was doing too many things at once, such as writing several in-depth articles yet to be posted, searching for news online, watching cable news on television, and the research activities that I'm actually supposed to be doing. 172
- Nod. You should have explained. And take more time to ponder perhaps. It is not as if having a bad article 2 hours instead of 10 mn is gonna change the world :-) In particular if you put a warning banner at the top to indicate readers that the article is contencious Eh, most of us react too strongly one time or another, in search of our own vision of perfection. This is *so* painful to see what we consider crap inserted in articles. If you can't assume all these activities, consider taking a break in some of them. And in the time gained, after cooling, consider carefully what Erik wrote on ML.
- I am feeling in a philosophical mood today, perhaps am I gonna do that sunflower after all...or write a political rant on the fr wiki...hum
Something odd - QANTAS redirects to Qantas but isn't listed on BackLinks:Qantas. Also, a link to QANTAS seems to be stub-coloured, rather than article-coloured like normal redirects... Evercat 19:43 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- QANTAS was deleted at one point, and I restored it. Probably related to that, somehow. The Undeletion didn't show on the deletion log as I expected, and the deletion didn't disappear, either. Doesn't explain why something is strange though, just why the strange things decided to happen to that particular redirect. כסיף Cyp 22:23 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I'd like to respond to more guidelines that Mr. Wales laid out. I am certain that I acted according to those guidelines.
"Q1. Have I been involved in the edit war?
A1. Yes --> don't protect the page, and it's probably best to let the other person win for today to end the edit war, and if the remaining participants keep having an edit war, ask another uninvolved sysop to protect the page."
- I had never edited the page prior to this edit war and I have never added content to the page. The article's history demonstrates that I only restored versions, which were to be protected, that did not contain the content responsible for the edit wars. Personally, I was the ideal person to stabilize the page, being of no faith and never having participated in topics pertaining to the sex-abuse scandal. I have not contributed a word to the article.
A2. No --> protect the page, proceed to Q2.
Q2. Is there some edit that needs to be urgently made to fix the page, or is there some very cautious thing I could do that's likely to help for now?
- Yes, there was an urgent need to edit the page. Due to Nostrum's repeated refusals to cooperate with the other contributors, I was forced to restore the latest version not to include the unacceptable content.
A2. Cautiously make the edit.
- And that's what I did until you overreacted, probably unaware at the time that I was not involved in the edit war, have never expressed any strong feelings about the subject, had been asked to protect the page, have read requests to protect the page, waited cautiously while the article was stable before protecting the page, warning all involved contributors that I'd be willing to protect the page, and finally unaware of the unacceptable quality of the text. 172
I acknowledge that as a sysop I should relegate the protection of pages in these cases to other sysops who were not substantially involved in the dispute. I maintain that I acted within these boundaries when protecting Catholicism, especially after Jimbo twice clarified some exceptions on the mailing list today. Since I have acknowledged that I will continue to follow these guidelines, you should live up to what you declared earlier: that when I make this acknowledgement you will restore my sysop status "immediately". To placate you, I will adhere to a more conservative interpretation of the guidelines in the future and better articulate reasons for protection. 172
- When you say that you will adhere to a more conservative interpretation of the guidelines, do you mean that you would not protect a page like Catholicism in a situation like the one yesterday, where you clearly took position against the page and then protected it? What about the protection of New Imperialism which several people were uncomfortable with? Note that I am not accusing you of anything -- I just want to be sure that we are talking the same language. --Eloquence 09:07 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- While I agree with much of the sentiment posted on the mailing list arguing that your actions were far more of an abuse of power than my protection of Catholicism and that your actions were frankly unprecedented when considering past disputes of sysop powers, for the sake of avoiding a protracted dispute, I won't press this issue. As much as I dislike dealing with such hypothetical questions as the ones you're asking above, I will contend that while a looser (and perhaps legitimate and justified) interpretation of the guidelines would support all of the actions at question, including those pertaining to New Imperialism, I will in the future adhere to a more conservative one, which would have entailed only protecting the New Imperialism page in case of blatant vandalism and would have entailed me being more communicative before protecting Catholicism. Concerning the latter, being more communicative and convincing when explaining that I am not a participant would have enabled me to build up enough of a clear consensus behind the protection to avoid the kind of controversy that we're dealing with right now.
- By the way, I think that there is some kind of ulterior motive behind your demands that I answer you hypothetical questions in a certain way before you revoke your actions suspending my sysop status. You came under considerable criticism for your heavy-handed actions regarding my sysop status. Perhaps you want a contrite "I was wrong and you were right" response from me to counter your own criticism. Yesterday, after all, you stated that you would reinstate my admin status once I acknowledged the guidelines. Now you're turning it effectively into acknowledging that your actions were justified. In short, if I were acting according to this "more conservative interpretation," the New Imperialism protections would not have occurred. But the Catholicism protection would have occurred in context of having mediated the situation more effectively and better conveyed before the fact that I was in a proper position to protect the page. 172
- Actually, you are incorrect that such action is unprecedented, see e.g. the case of my removal of Kils' sysop status. You are also incorrect that I came under "considerable criticism" -- the only person to criticize my actions besides yourself was Jtdirl, which should be obvious since you two were on the same side from the beginning in the Talk:Catholicism dispute. On the other hand I received support from Anthere, Pizza Puzzle, Camembert and Michael Becker, and Jimbo emailed me privately saying that he agreed with my actions but that it might have been better to let him do it. So it's quite clear that my actions were widely supported, although perhaps I should have given you more time to react to my criticism.
- I don't care about any admission of guilt or "I was wrong and you were right" type apologies. Your promise to respect the guidelines as we discussed them is good enough for me. I do hope that future exchanges will be less unpleasant. --Eloquence 11:26 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Work done, I put Greek religion on the list of Wikipedia:duplicate articles and left a message to User:Ihcoyc to merge the articles. Notified about your advice to keep a log of my removals when I do it. Many thanks. The Warlock 05:45 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)