User talk:Rhobite

Libertarian theory

Rhobite: You made an edit to Libertarian theory which appeared to endorse the revert made by User:Chuck F. This surprised me as I know you're familiar with him. There is no justification for his blanket deletion of those paragraphs. I have shown that his notion, that the term "libertarian capitalism" was invented by Wikipedians/socialists, is wrong (see Libertarian Capitalism versus Libertarian Socialism by Brian Micklethwait & Terry Liddle, 1983, or Nozick's Argument for Libertarian Capitalism by William Terry, 1998 - none of those writers are socialists, indeed they appear to be libertarian capitalists, and the term clearly pre-dates Wikipedia). 195.92.67.76 15:22, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I endorse that revert. That paragraph (and the one following it) was self-referential, poorly-worded, and useless. Rhobite 19:04, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

I wrote the entire article, and the material to which you refer was an attempt at compromise with the ideologues (on both sides) who have wasted a great deal of other people's time on this and other pages. Poorly-written, useless, unnecessary, self-referential...all arguable and I defer. Nonsense, however, seems inappropriate (incorrect and nonsensical are not synonyms) and, further, inflammatory. icut4u

3RR Breach

Please could you deal with the 3RR breaches of Mrfunkygenius/24.184.199.202 on Medical_analysis_of_circumcision. Thanks. - Robert the Bruce 00:56, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention. You said: "... it would be much better if you tried to come to a consensus rather than overwhelming your opponents with tag-team reverts." I recently made a similar complaint when confronted by tag-team reverting by Theresa Knott and Exploding Boy but was told that it was acceptable and only a problem when done by one person. We really need to develop some consistency on policy here on Wikipedia. - Robert the Bruce 01:39, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, the policy is consistent. Just because the 3RR only punishes individual people who revert, does not mean it endorses tag-team reverting. This kind of behavior is detrimental to articles. It's good that you're against big revert wars, but in this instance you have engaged in them yourself. Rhobite 01:49, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

OK, so the policy is laid down but the enforcement is inconsistent. As the big-man said: "The nice thing about 3RR is that there is really no ambiguity about it." Now no sooner had the ink dried than we had renegade sysops deciding that they would "interpret" the intentions of the editors to see whether a revert was hidden in with an edit or whatever ... so out the window goes JW's supposition about there being no ambiguity. That said until such time as Wikipedians address the challenges as presented by committed POV pushers (see the emails at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robert_the_Bruce) and start to enforce that "Wikipedia is not a vehicle for propaganda or advocacy." [1]. Why is it you think that there is a lack of resolve in moving to counter this threat to Wikipedia? - Robert the Bruce 02:37, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Far more important than the technical details of what constitutes a revert is the idea that we should work towards consensus instead of fighting with each other. This has gotten pretty off topic so maybe we should stop. Rhobite 03:08, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

One should not fear to engage in dialog (even with the enemy). Can we agree on a definition of consensus? - Robert the Bruce 03:17, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've always thought of consensus as a feeling shared by most or all participants that a group has reached a decision. This requires participants to have the ability to disagree with the decision, but abide by it. Consensus isn't a specific ratio, nor is it unanimous. On Wikipedia, those who aren't willing to respect consensus eventually leave or get banned. Committed POV pushers, in my opinion, should be quickly banned. About this conversation, it's interesting but I don't know if it has a purpose. Fear has nothing to do with it. Rhobite 03:32, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

Consensus is only possible when all parties are committed to that end. I refer you to the emails I have linked above and state that like with Bin Laden and his supporters there is no chance of reaching consensus with such zealots. Is this the scenario where you believe such people should be banned? If so would you support the necessary administrative procedures to ban the applicable people? - Robert the Bruce 04:01, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Communism

I removed similar comments a few days ago, and I see the see-also wasn't there on the 1st, so I think it hasn't been around too long, luckily. Good catch though! --fvw * 06:10, 2005 Jan 6 (UTC)

Oh, thanks. FYI, Eequor did it. I'm not sure why. Rhobite 06:15, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

Google is a competitor, yes

Yes I do mean to say that. Please do not revert my edits while I am actively expanding upon them. The owners of QuakeAID once owned a service called YOUVEGOTPOST which falsely claimed to offer 1 terrabyte of email, in competition with Google's own GMAIL. The fact that this person has issued frivolous lawsuits in the past, which have all been thrown out of court by the way, is no reason not to present the information on Wikipedia. If you feel something is POV please bring it to the attention of the talk page for discussion, we should not succumb to fear mongering tactics. GRider\^talk 23:32, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I did bring it up on the talk page, and you have not yet participated there. Rhobite 23:34, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

VfD Maint

Good work on VfD. Your edit was the most important one that could have been done at the time. While more can be done at such a time, you deserve applause (even tho it's probably easier lately to find one's way), since (i think) there is no documentation for the process.

But if you're curious, lk to diffs over two days and note whether

X'n to January 9 (2nd & 3rd to /Old)

is the right-hand ed-summary. (If not, note the left ed-summary, and find, via the page history, the diff that compares those two versions; at this point i can't give you a URL valid for the long term, w/o adding to clutter of the history.)
Two points need comment:

It was presumably in response to User:Brockert or some other editor having finished, via Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Old, the "calling" of and actions on the last debates of their two respective days' sub-sub-pages, that Brockert trimmed off (and surely discarded)
''[[/Old#December 26|26<sup>th</sup>]]

''[[/Old#December 23|23<sup>rd</sup>]]
I did not discard, but rather cut&pasted to /Old (bcz their debates had each had the routine 5-6 days of discussion time -- actually an exceptional 6-7 in the case of the 2nd), these two entries:
{{Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Log/2005 January 2}}

{{Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Log/2005 January 3}}

I mention all this mostly to allay any anxiety you had over the boldness on one hand or the sufficiency on the other of your maint contrib. However, IMO your initiative, caution, & results suggest that your going further in the future, if you chose, would only be a benefit to our collegial efforts -- perhaps even if you didn't have the two hints above.

Alleged three revert rule violation

You posted on my user page: I have blocked you from editing for 24 hours because you reverted an article more than three times in 24 hours. The article is Medical analysis of circumcision, and the applicable rule is Wikipedia:Three revert rule. In the future, please remember that you can be blocked from editing for violating the three revert rule. This is done to prevent revert wars. Rhobite 01:23, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC) I have sonce responded:

Well this was clearly not true. I am edits/reverts on 4 Jan, none before that back into December and none on the 5th. Why have you misued your sysop powers in this case? - Robert the Bruce 04:45, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC) (including the typo)

I require you to apply a srike-through to your comment on my user page and add a suitable apology. - Robert the Bruce 04:55, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Replied on your talk page. Rhobite 04:11, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

Unqualified edits in QuakeAID

Rhobite, I appreciate you trying to accomplish a NPOV, but if you're not going to make qualified edits, please stay out. Thats not your job either.

I don't understand the term "unqualified edits". Please elaborate. Rhobite 05:50, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

You're obviously not qualified to make the edits you're making if you don't understand the term "fraud".

sure ok. Ollieplatt 06:45, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

how so? Ollieplatt 06:59, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

3RR-Breach with ad hominid

A certain someone reverted sexual intercourse three times and made some rather strong statements about the motivations of some of the contributers on talk:sexual intercourse.Ŭalabio 02:14, 2005 Jan 13 (UTC)

It is good to see you are being kept abreast of developments. Ever thought why they selected you? - Robert the Bruce 02:23, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- I don't know why they, and you, have come to me with questions and requests. I think the whole circumcision POV war is stupid, maybe that makes me neutral? Rhobite 03:49, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
They probably think that you will continue to help their cause ... while I came to you to test whether you would find it in you to act against one of them. - Robert the Bruce 05:20, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Ooh, tricky. So did I pass? What's next, flying blades? Pit of snakes? Rhobite 05:29, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
- On this one I failed. I had not noticed that JakeW had also breached the 3RR so there was no test for you ... I in fact gave you the chance to act evenhanded. But you failed the neutrality test on the other issue. Sorry about that. - Robert the Bruce 16:14, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Request for Comment on Rhobite misuse of administration

You are notified of the Request for comment on your misuse of administrator blocking

Above link was posted by User:Ollieplatt. I checked the article earlier and noticed the tone in the edit summaries. So I'm not going to argue that they can be construed as Personal attacks or incivility, but could you specify what kind of vandalism User:Ollieplatt is guilty of according to you? Mgm|^(talk) 09:37, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

That block

I don't think it was vandalism, though I can definitely say that user needs to work on playing nicely. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:53, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Apology Accepted

Rhobite, you did the wrong thing and got caught out. Misusing your admin powers does little to maintain confidence in Wikipedia. I accept your apology and encourage you to read Wikipedia policies before acting. These include:

Wikipedia:Civility Wikipedia:Vandalism Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

The RfC establishes that while my edits were not popular necessarily, they did not in any way justify blocking. You have threatened others with (and maybe have actually blocked) blocking over similar situations where you don't like their edits. It is clear this is an abuse of your power. I accept your apology but will be reviewing your administrative actions to ensure you do not repeat your error.

Ollieplatt 19:10, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Please feel free to review my actions. It's all out in the open and I'm confident that you'll find nothing objectionable in my behavior. Rhobite 19:19, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

I hope that's the case, for your sake. You will be held accountable now. Ollieplatt 23:00, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nonsense/Experimentation

Hi...you've added a couple of "stupid articles are bad" things on my Talk page...it seems as though something odd has happened, because I added the delete tag to those articles. Don't wanna get a bad repuation, y'know! --Coolsi 00:08, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Apology given and then effectively withdrawn

Rhobite, please explain how you can give an apology and then assert you did not err. Ollieplatt 03:16, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hey: All I know is I really want to thank you

Thanks for that uber quick revert while I was reporting a vandalism. It took me the better part of the day to track all that information. Imagine my surprise when I hit the click and saw: Boobs. Now, boobs has an interesting etymology. In all references, it is vernacular and slur. In the plural, it refers to the globular modules on a woman's upper torso. In the singular, a boob can be a rube, a dolt, or a person in a hissy (vernacular for insisting on carrying on when something is better left to drop). However, there can be more than one boob, and the plural is: boobyheads. Anyway, thanks for reverting my boobs. --allie 21:47, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC) (littlebuddha, or in this case, littlebooba)

Re: football

Hi,

Thanks -- it's been a pleasure "working with you," and I too hope we can get the football article featured.

I actually have been contributing a little more widely than just the football, you can browse around my history if you like. I know about registration, and I even did register a username at some point, I guess I just haven't been using it. I don't think I even remember my password any more, and I know I can get it again (or get a new one) but I suppose I never bothered doing that and hence have been posting anonymously. Well, we'll see ... if I continue to contribute to Wikipedia maybe I'll start using my username, or maybe you can tell me whether or why it's really advisable.

ok then, I guess that's it for now. Well, thanks again, and it's been nice collaborating over the internets...

All the Best,

--24.103.207.38 22:19, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Go Colts!

I finf your name offensive. Please change it. Anilingus 06:44, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I find computer games very offensive. Please change your name. Anilingus 06:49, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry

Radicalsubversiv and Rhobite are the same user. Interesting. Ollieplatt

How do you know that? - Robert the Bruce 07:40, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'd rather them deny first before revealing all Robert. Ollieplatt 07:49, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Alright, I'll bite. I'm not Rhobite, now where's your evidence? BTW Rhobite, take a look at Ollieplatt's request for arbitration -- it seems our left-wing Wikipedia conspiracy has been exposed. Damn, thwarted again! RadicalSubversiv E 10:51, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Everyking arbitration

I've filed an arbitration request against Everyking. Please comment; brickbats for my foolhardiness are more than welcome. Johnleemk | Talk 07:54, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration against you

I refer you to arbitration request against Radicalsubversiv and sockpuppets. Ollieplatt 11:11, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Libertas/Evidence

Did you mean to write the info about Olliplatt on the Libertas page? Are you claiming that they are the same person? Rick K 23:47, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

Who knows? I'm not sure if they're the same person, but the arbitration appears to be against both of them, so I'll add my evidence. I think the ArbCom needs to look at Ollieplatt's conduct, it doesn't really matter what the title of the request page is. I'll request arbitration against Ollie if it turns out that the current request doesn't cover him. Rhobite 01:11, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you about Olliplatt. He came in with a bias and has continued that bias, uploading POV pictures and adding them to articles, and making "Keep" votes on obvious VfD candidates (and yes, even though I'm what they call a "deltionist", there's no way that anyone who wasn't a troll would vote to keep.) Rick K 01:23, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

Screw it. Baninate the both of them, sockpuppets or otherwise. I'm tired of chasing Ollie around. Blair P. Houghton 06:37, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hillary Rodham Clinton

RadicalSubversiv didn't mention this in his statement. You know that I am a (gasp) newbie. There was a comment on 12 Jan by User:Schissel regarding "Further rv of an entry that no longer exists. Odd," I have no idea what that means; I just try to edit that page so it doesn't sound like a rap sheet & maintain some clarity. Please review for yourself to see if it is relevant. Best Regards from the (gasp) newbie, --allie 02:01, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Of course not. Look at January 12th: RadicalSubversiv was on hours earlier & I was on hours later. This is what I can't figure out, nor do I know if it's even relevant. But considering what's going on, it sure is worth spelling out for you:

00:20:Salazar (note: First Lady of Arkansas - cattle futures issue)
00:23:Salazar (note:
01:13:Schissel (note: rv.going around 'bloggers')
01:16:Schissel (note: Further rv of a history entry that seems no longer to exist. Odd.)
03.12:Salazar (note: Allegations of Financial Impropriety During Term as First Lady) --allie 02:27, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

While you're reviewing, take a look at 130blahblah's history. He has 5 credits: 4 to Hillary and one to some civil war battle. His first two edits on Clinton are benign. Not so the last two. I don't know what a sockpuppet is. This doesn't look squeaky clean to me. I used to teach eighth graders. I have the tenacity of a Rottweiler. --allie 02:48, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Cheesedreams blocks

Heya, the block message and block duration seem to be contradictory on your cheesedreams sockpuppet blocks: According to the block log, you've only blocked them for 24 hours. --fvw * 02:30, 2005 Jan 17 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, I guess I made a mistake the first time around. Rhobite 02:34, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

UGH

that was a totally disgusting, insidious manouver. i am terribly sorry you have to deal with such a low level of behaviour, and that anyone would cut and paste a comment to manipulate it in such outlandish fashion. i joined wikipedia for the scholarship and in return i've been rewared by meeting some of the most incredibly talented people who have motivated me to do better work. yours is astounding. speaking of which, your user page is all screwed up again. best regards, --allie 04:51, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Everyking/Proposed decision

Hey, you endorsed the RfC on Everyking, and you probably know it's gone to arbitration. Some of us feel that the proposed decision against Everyking is insufficient and too weak for a user who has abused Wikipedia so badly. I hope you can weigh in at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Everyking/Proposed decision having read the proposed decision and discussion and share your opinion with us, whether it's that the decision is too strong, just right, or too weak. Johnleemk | Talk 06:11, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Comments from GoldTrader

Thanks, how do you change the spelling on the main title?

How do you delete an entry after changing the name by recreating it?

All the links for short selling stocks were redirected.

The definition you are redirecting to is not the same word. It does not have the correct meaning.

I am moving it back. GT

The short page does not duplicate anything. Look at what is linked to short and what is linked to short selling. They are not the same.

Besides the short selling page is screwed up in content.

It is not the same topic. Short selling is about borrowing stocks. Short is what we are in the futures market. We do not borrow anything, See the dissuasion under short selling. Look at what is linked to each word.

Short selling is too restrictive. It is not the same thing.

That is the point!!! GT

On the other stuff I was in the middle of moving things over to new titles when you came in the middle and redirected back to the page I left behind. GT

The previous definition of short selling is out and out wrong. The definition should be universal and neutral. What you have there is a load of mis-information. It is misleading and untrue. It only applies to one small highly regulated use. Maybe you should change the name to something like “short selling (stocks only),” because it sure does not apply to real estate or normal businesses.

The current page says “In order to sell something short, one must borrow it from someone else.” Bill Gates did not have to borrow something from someone else, and he was selling short. How do you explain that?

I can sell 5,000 bushels of November Corn, I do not have to borrow anything. How can this page be true?

When Bill Gates sold an operating system he “did not have,” to IBM. Gates was selling short. He sold something before he bought it. He did not adhere to all these things this writer says. Short selling futures, real estate, and fungible property is a part of the Speculation business and it does not fit the current limited description used under this heading for selling short. GT

All I wanted to say was that in futures, short selling is selling a contract “before,” you buy it. That is the essence of the thing.

In order to balance the non-universal explanation I will explain shorting futures as it is mis-explained above. GT

In futures, shorting brings with it an obligation to deliver in the future. Sellers are not selling something that they do not own yet, they may be selling something that is not even planted yet. In fact a farmer may have to pre-sell his crop to get the funds for seed. There is no borrowing of any securities like with stocks. The clearinghouse only as a good faith deposit, holds margin. There is no interest or dividends to be paid. There is no deterioration of your capital because of time as there may be with options. When there is no fluctuation in price it does not cost anything to maintain a short futures position. New contracts are only created out of open interest increasing transactions involving a new seller and a new buyer. Selling short futures does not mean that you owe a negative amount of anything. The seller may have it offset with actuals or a long position in something else.

Traders who trade spreads do not hope that prices fall. They may in fact own actuals in greater number than the short position. As when a rancher pre-sells part of his herd by shorting futures. Spread traders may be depending on their shorts to continue going up, just at a slower rate than the long side of the spread. The short side may be just to minimize drawdowns, reduce margin requirements and increase return on margin. It may not be expected to move at all, which is quite common. GT

Why is this one sentance?

In finance, short selling is selling something that one does not (yet) own. In futures, short implies an obligation to deliver something before it is bought.

The definition “something that one does not (yet) own.” Does not apply to futures. You may already own it. It is a separate explanation so it should be put on a separate line. If you are an expert in finance, I suggest that you clean up your act. If your have expertise in futures, than you can see the absurdity of the connection. It is too limited for U.S. futures markets, as they exist today.

We don’t trade in ownership as much as we trade "obligations," to deliver or receive. These agreements are called contracts. GT

Funny thing when I wrote the “Trend,” article I hesitated to put in bullets. Someone else came in later to add bullets to make it look like I thought it should.

“In finance, short selling is selling something that one does not (yet) own. In futures, short implies an obligation to deliver something before it is bought.”

The above sentence made by you is incorrect! See above response on this page. I am going to put the bullets back if you do not fix it. GT

I find your responses and explanations incoherent. If you don't like the explanation please rewrite it, but don't reintroduce your nonstandard formatting. And will you please stop accusing me of things? All I did to Short selling was remove the bullet points. I changed no words. Rhobite 18:53, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Removing the bullets combined two lines of different thought making them appear as one. How else are you planning to separate the two without using the bullets that you removed? GT

I'm not planning anything! If you are so concerned about that paragraph, please change it. Rhobite 21:54, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Looks great!! Thanks GT

I learn by seeing. There are 35 links to margin a disambiguation page. Why don’t the same rules apply to them?

You wrote on _ (cur) (last) 13:00, 25 Jan 2005 Rhobite (don't link to disambig pages)

_ (cur) (last) 02:27, 27 Jan 2005 -oo0(GoldTrader)0oo- (_See also - How can you spread by "short selling stocks?")

_ (cur) (last) 13:00, 25 Jan 2005 Rhobite (don't link to disambig pages) GT

You're right, many of those links should be disambiguated. Wikipedia isn't perfect. Rhobite 14:50, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

All this time I thought the only risk was that traders would get a margin call?

Why are two of the four limited to “stock or other index prices,” are these the only things that have what you are calling "market risk?"

What about the risk that the relationship between two contracts might change?

Or carrying charges, or 911, or just the risk that a trendline will break etc.

If you are redirecting “Risk (Futures)” here then you have to include “futures,” in the limited descriptions. GT

Capital, Loss and Risk mean a different thing to futures traders than they do to schoolchildren. For this reason they deserve a separate explanation. GT

I'm sorry, you're wrong. The concepts are the same. Also, read Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Rhobite 20:32, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

What about loss? You were the one who said not to link to Disambiguation pages!!

Obviously it's not preferable, but since there's no article about the financial concept of loss, we don't have a choice. Personally I don't think the topic of "loss" justifies its own encyclopedia article, but feel free to prove me wrong. This time, you should write more than a dictionary definition. Rhobite 20:47, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

this ip is a network ip!

just noticed you reported someone vandilizing wikipedia recently just telling you that this is A NETWORK IP (for a school!) so i can't do much about it --(unsigned)

Just block the school's IP. Let them figure out who's costing them their Wikipedia editing privs. --Blair P. Houghton 22:59, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Agreed, we should be helpful if they want to determine at what time the vandalism occurred and such, but we shouldn't be afraid to block proxies. --fvw * 23:01, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

Weblog

Censoring documentable and notable information is vandalism. It is always vandalism to censor material you don't like, rather than documenting a particular point of view. Launching a "rule of three" revert war - where numerically superior editors try and force their point of view is vandalism, because it rests on ignoring POV and simply counting noses. I'm going to RFC this one, since after putting up with their first round of infantile tirades, it's pretty clear they aren't, for whatever reason, in any mood to be reasonable about this one. There isn't moral equivalence over what to say, but two editors trying to remove information they don't like. Stirling Newberry 17:52, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)