User talk:Betsythedevine/Archive 2011

January 2011
At first I believed that that comment of yours although is false, but is allowed by the policy, but now I read at the very beginning of the same page you made the comment that "commenting on people rather than the article is considered disruptive". So may I please ask you to refrain from disruptive editing and to stop making false statements about me? Please have a nice day.--Mbz1 (talk) 22:49, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The statement to which Mbz1 objects is this "This is the third article Mbz1 created and put up for DYK in just the past month on the theme of murderous/stupid Muslims, the other two being When_we_die_as_martyrs and Flora_and_Maria." I doubt she contests that Mossad shark and Zionist vulture is the third article she created and self-nominated as DYK in the past month; I am guessing she disputes whether the three share a theme of "murderous/stupid Muslims."
 * The original shark/vulture article, which even its supporters admit has POV issues, cherry-picks and mocks two stories about animals whose unexpected behavior was linked by somebody to Mossad/Israel -- the net result of the article's distortions, at the time it was nominated for deletion, was to imply that Arab nations in general were paranoid, hysterical, and foolish. In this state, it was submitted by Mbz1 for DYK using the hook "that Saudi Arabia's officials detained a vulture, as the one (pictured), and accused him of spying for Israel?" It is my OPINION that the article as submitted by Mbz1 on Jan. 6 is a mocking WP:ATTACK.
 * When_We_Die_As_Martyrs describes a song performed by a popular Jordanian children's choir, whose music video has been much-viewed on YouTube. The article is used as a WP:COATRACK for editorializing about "a consistent pattern of encouraging violence" by Muslims. Mbz1 submitted the article on Dec. 18 with the hook .. that the song When We Die As Martyrs performed by Arab children choir Birds of Paradise has became a world-famous hit song?" The article was featured on Dec 31 using the hook "that the song "When We Die As Martyrs" is performed by the Arab children's choir Birds of Paradise?" after others complained that the initial hook went far beyond the claims in any article sources.
 * Flora and Maria were two Christian girls imprisoned and later beheaded for denouncing Islam; if you read far enough down in the story you discover that this happened in the year 851. The story appeared as a DYK on Jan 6 with the hook "... that Flora and Maria were the first two of nine female Christian Martyrs of Córdoba?"
 * In addition to these 3 articles Mbz1 submitted for DYK in the past month, Mbz1 was the creator of an earlier article Egyptian shark attacks conspiracy theory, submitted for DYK on Dec. 10 by Avenue, and featured on the front page on Dec 31 with the hook "that while the origin of recent shark attacks in Egypt (species pictured) is unknown, experts cite overfishing and illegal dumping of animal carcasses as possible causes?" Quite a change from the original hook suggested, ".. that the governor of South Sinai said the idea that Israel was responsible for the recent shark attacks (species pictured) on tourists in an Egyptian resort needed further study?" . These are the same shark attacks being mined for humor in Mossad shark and Zionist vulture.
 * Mbz1 has in the more distant past contributed many articles on other subjects and many admirable photographs. It is my opinion that her most recent articles have used the DYK process to showcase on Wikipedia's front page links to anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda. betsythedevine (talk) 00:01, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

your question
Daniel Case (talk) 17:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Andre Geim
I've posted our dispute here and have asked for a third party to mediate our dispute. Fellytone (talk) 04:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the notification, I have replied there. betsythedevine (talk) 14:19, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * So are you still going to post a response to the comments I've made on the Andre Geim talkpage and the Wikipedia NPOV noticeboard ? If not I'm going to put the remarks made in the exchange between Geim and Llosa back in. (And I'll take your silence as a subtle affirmative nod for those edits.) Fellytone (talk) 03:00, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Not one single person has agreed with your arguments, either at the noticeboard or on the article talk page. Please do not take it as a subtle affirmative nod that others consider the argument to be over. As for the changes you want, the article talk page is the place to propose them, but it seems to me they have been rejected, and not just by me. betsythedevine (talk) 09:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Your comments
Hi Betsy, thanks for your contributions on Articles for deletion/Criticism of Israel. You write so nicely and with such thoughtfulness, and you have my respect for your overall contributions to WP - hence why I am writing to you now. The discussion in question is not easy but I believe it is important that WP gets this right. I am writing to you because I noted that whilst you have set out your views clearly, you chose not to address the challenges from other editors against specific points you had made (I am referring to my points as well as the challenge to your SYNTH comment by Noelander). Perhaps I am still too new to how wiki-discussions work - I guess I am just surprised that ignoring good faith and thoughtful critiques of one's comments is deemed acceptable in wiki-world, by even the nicest and most civil of editors such as yourself. Oncenawhile (talk) 20:29, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi there, Oncenawhile, I said so many things already on that page, I was afraid people would already be tired of hearing me. :-) I did not intend to slight anyone's comments or criticisms. If there is some specific question you feel I should answer I will be happy to do so.


 * There are good arguments to be made on both sides of the issue, it seems to me -- good arguments to delete, and good arguments to keep, as for most debates here in Wikipedia. Neither solution, if enacted, will be perfect -- each solution would lack some of the virtues of the opposite solution. My basic argument to "Delete" is perhaps more emotional than reasoned -- a "feeling" that such an article will be a flashpoint for conflict and POV-pushing, a constant source of hurt feelings and resentment to one side or the other. betsythedevine (talk) 20:47, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Betsy, I understand and respect your point of view, thanks for your response Oncenawhile (talk) 02:00, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Betsy, I just read your comments here - frankly I was quite shocked as you appear to be have taken exactly the other side of the debate on this one. Oncenawhile (talk) 21:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * My initial !vote was also to delete . I was willing to change that to a "Keep" on the condition that the article discuss "Blame Israel" as a meme or slogan invoked by supporters of Israel. The article's intro was re-written that way; the rest of the article remained a list of examples of people invoking "Blame Israel" or otherwise criticizing or demonizing the critics of Israel, and in the end it was deleted, which was probably for the best. Your statement that you were "quite shocked" sounds like some kind of accusation of hypocrisy or bad faith. I'm really not interested in hearing any more from you on my talk page. betsythedevine (talk) 23:30, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry Betsy, it was not meant that way - I just wrote how I felt. I have a lot of respect for your views and contributions - perhaps that was at the root of it. I really didn't mean to accuse or suggest anything untoward. Oncenawhile (talk) 00:54, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Reference templates
Yup, feel free to cut and paste them to your page, make sure you are in edit mode when you do, they update the access date to the day you cut and paste them into an article. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much; I copied the ones I'm most likely to use here; my only real change was adding "xxx" as a placeholder for a lot of the blanks to make it easy to select the spot, copy, and paste. I really appreciate your inspiration for this idea! betsythedevine (talk) 21:23, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Kudos and another article
Hi Betsy - you did a great job with updating and expanding Jack Ertle Oliver yesterday. I came across a similar case and thought you may want to take a crack at expanding it as well - Oleg Grabar was an art historian who died on the 8th. I've added the NYT obitaury to the article already and there seems to be a great deal on him that is not yet included in the article. If you're not interested, no worries, but I did want to bring it to your attention. Cheers, --Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 15:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I would love to work on this but today is going to be a busy one in RL. I really liked and admired Oleg Grabar, who joined the IAS at about the same time as my husband. I remember during the 1990s going to a seminar he gave about something completely novel he was working on, basically a computer-generated rendition of Jerusalem's Old City where you could watch it develop over the centuries with mosques and temples appearing and changing shape. It was a truly awesome and imaginative idea for somebody near retirement to be exploring. Of course by now people do things like that so easily with all the game engines. Maybe after I shovel out my car I can dig up some sources. Thanks so much for the kind words and also for moving the page, which I did not know how to do. betsythedevine (talk) 15:41, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a fantastic story - what a coincidence that I happened to mention his name to you in the first place. Regarding the page move, it was easy peasy, so happy to help. Good luck with the shoveling - the Vancouver rain has all but washed away the remnants of our snowfall from earlier this week. --Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 15:51, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

More about Oleg and Terry Grabar, not Wikipedia-quality-reliable though who knows, some real source might say this some day: Terry told me the story of how they met, when she was a student at Wellesley. One of her friends yelled up the stairs of her dorm, "Anybody want to go out with a Frenchman?" Intrigued, she wandered downstairs and met Oleg, who was then a student at Harvard, in the dorm living room. That sense of adventure marked her as a good match for Oleg. They were married for 59 years, traveled the world together, and had two children. I met them at the Institute for Advanced Study and lured Terry to work with me for quite a few years on the "Fuld Flyer," a newsletter I created as a project for visiting spouses from all the schools. She is one of the people I miss most from my years in Princeton. Another fun memory of their post-retirement doings -- they were recruited as "tour guides" for a multi-day luxury journey some art museum sponsored on the Orient Express. Perhaps "tour guide" is the wrong descriptor -- Terry (an English professor) gave talks about the literature of places the train passed through while Oleg discussed the art. betsythedevine (talk) 15:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Beautiful. --Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 15:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for these two. I only do very short art historian bios myself, filling the huge gaps. The dictionary of art historians is an RS I think, & useful. Some of the older Germans have decent bios - Richard Krautheimer, Nikolaus Pevsner and others. Of course Anthony Blunt has a decent one because of his spying! We really need an article on the Yale/Penguin History of Art!  I've done a few touches but these are fine as far as they go - are you going to DYK them? There will be useful obits coming out over the next few months of Oleg I'm sure. Johnbod (talk) 15:53, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I would like to try a DYK but I have never done one yet. I think we could do Andre Grabar together if you expand it, couldn't we? For Oleg, it already had 3700 whatevers when I started, so I would need to bring it up to about 20,000 to qualify for dyk, I think. Thanks for the tips on good art historian bios, I will check those out. betsythedevine (talk) 16:52, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have JSTOR access? This looks very full & I have added from page 1 (of 4) which is all I can see. Sorry about my primitive referencing. Also, found on google, "For a brief biography of Andre Grabar, see Richard Krautheimer, Ihor Sevcenko, and Ernst Kitzinger, Speculum 66 (1991)" - will be on JSTOR too. Johnbod (talk) 23:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Nominated Template_talk:Did_you_know though I'm on a notebook now & can't check length. Please suggest a better hook if you see one. Johnbod (talk) 00:27, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I did do John Shearman by the way - don't know if his years at Princeton or Harvard overlapped with yours. Johnbod (talk) 17:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I did not know him, but you certainly write good articles. What about this DYK for Andre Grabar: DYK " ... which language was used by art historian André Grabar (born in Kiev, educated in St. Petersburg, retired in the USA) for all his scholarly writing on Iconography? betsythedevine (talk) 17:51, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank! I had complaints last time I used one that wasn't "Did you know that..." though it got through in the end. (it was "DYK ... how to tell which of the two possible Saint Catherines is shown marrying Jesus in a painting of the Mystic marriage of Saint Catherine (example pictured)?")  I like them but "DYK that André Grabar was born in Kiev, educated in St. Petersburg, and worked in the USA, but wrote his books in French?" might have a better chance. Johnbod (talk) 18:01, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh -- I liked that one so much I was trying to make this one a bit more like it. I hope it is all right that I added my suggestion, without removing yours of course, to the DYK page. betsythedevine (talk) 18:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course - let's see how it gets on. Johnbod (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Jack Ertle Oliver
HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   00:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably not cool to say this, but I am sooo pleased. I never got a DYK before, and this one came as a complete surprise, because I did not realize it had been nominated until I heard it had been picked. A million thanks to the generous person who got me a piece of this award. I don't even know who it is, or how to find out, or how to look at DKY archives to see the discussion of it.
 * And now I will probably get another thanks to an experienced editor Johnbod helping me by expanding and nominating André Grabar, an article I created based on French Wikipedia's because I did not want a redlink in the obituary of my friend Oleg Grabar. And yet another article I'm working on, Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts) is looking like a possible candidate too. So thanks so much to the people who helped this usual wikignome spread my wings a bit more building the wiki. betsythedevine (talk) 05:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Congrats Betsy! --Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 15:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much for your help, Ponyo. betsythedevine (talk) 02:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Autopatrolled
Hello, this is just to let you know that I have granted you the "autopatrolled" permission. This won't affect your editing, it just automatically marks any page you create as patrolled, benefiting new page patrollers. Please remember:
 * This permission does not give you any special status or authority
 * Submission of inappropriate material may lead to its removal
 * You may wish to display the Autopatrolled top icon and/or the User wikipedia/autopatrolled userbox on your user page
 * If, for any reason, you decide you do not want the permission, let me know and I can remove it
 * If you have any questions about the permission, don't hesitate to ask. Otherwise, happy editing! HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   18:36, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for André Grabar
Materialscientist (talk) 18:03, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

a NOTE
Regarding this, I'd say that's a very interesting approach. So, if I check out an editor such as betsythedevine, I see that less than 50 edits into their wiki career, they jumped right into an AfD. Would you like to disclose any previous account you were using before then, or, given these results, simply post a short apology for this bad-faith assumption? Two for the show (talk) 18:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I apologize (and also did so on your talk page) for my failure to WP:AGF in assuming your editing pattern meant you were another sock of a banned user with similar patterns of action. My earliest edits here were as an IP, but once I figured out how to register I did so with my own identity clear. I probably read about the afd of Kevin Marks on a blog somewhere, so perhaps one could say I was "canvassed" in the Wikipedia sense into my early !vote on that AfD. betsythedevine (talk) 19:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the apology - no hard feelings and no harm done :). I have also edited previously w/o an account. I hope we can work together in a cooperative fashion in the future. Two for the show (talk) 19:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
— HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   00:04, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!
Hi Betsythedevine, before I am blocked again I'd like to thank you at your talk page for your input on AN/I. It was really generous of you to do so. May I please ask you to accept my sincere apology, if my words ever hurt you? Best wishes.--Mbz1 (talk) 22:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Mbz1, thanks for the kind words. You did hurt me when you were angry, but I believe my words hurt you first, so I am sorry for that too. I hope you are not blocked. I mean, because I think you contribute generously and valuably to Wikipedia, I hope you are not blocked, whether you are angry with me or not. betsythedevine (talk) 23:09, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Footnote to the above kind words
In the above, Mbz1 is expressing gratitude for two posts I made in her defense at ANI:


 * : "Since Mbz1 is blocked from posting here on ANI, she can't respond here to criticisms. But let me say in her defense that she is not a native speaker of English, that she is a sincere and passionate advocate for causes she cares about, and that creating a separate section to group her notes on WP policy was probably done with good not bad intentions. But really let's not discuss her here, it really isn't fair since she can't defend herself.betsythedevine (talk) 21:30, 1 February 2011 (UTC)"


 * : "Maybe take this to Copyright_problems/2011_February_1? That would have the further advantage that Mbz1 could also post comments there... betsythedevine (talk) 21:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The fact is, I don't like seeing other people attacked. If Mbz1 is attacked unfairly, I would willingly defend her. I have never wanted to see her prevented from contributing to Wikipedia. But of course as soon as I tried to defend somebody who was being attacked by Mbz1, I have completely fallen from favor again. As see here where I am now (according to Mbz1) "providing such biased,meaningless and misleading information you discredit yourself...I am glad you came here together with your "evidences" because now everybody could see how such users as you were able to make me blocked." And now also below on my talk page. betsythedevine (talk) 02:47, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Pro-life to anti-abortion?
Hi, Betsy. I hate to nag, but could you change your "Comment" to "Oppose" if that was your true intention? Thanks! -- Kenatipo  speak! 00:40, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * My true intention was to comment but without a !Vote. betsythedevine (talk) 01:41, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I can accept that. (I can't understand it, but I can accept it.) Thanks.  -- Kenatipo   speak! 04:29, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Cognitive rehabilitation therapy
— HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   18:03, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll try

 * Hi Betsythedevine, I'd like to try to make you to understand how you came up with absolutely wrong conclusions and claimed something with regarding only of numbers of my signatures.
 * Let's do it on this message of yours pleas. You linked the AE page on December 22, 2010, counted the number of my signatures and came up with a conclusion: "Surely that time-point is relevant to this discussion. There are a good 30 edits signed "Mbz1" on just that one page. You had filed an AE report against one editor and commented within a different report that the AE filer should be banned. I don't see you defending yourself there, I see you using AE to attack others."
 * Now, let's please see why your conclusion is wrong:


 * 1) First of all how you came up with the count 30 edits signed by me? I counted only 20 edits signed by me.
 * 2) You write "I see you using AE to attack others. You had filed an AE report against one editor" but uninvolved administrators agreed with me that my points were valid It means that I did not use AE to "attack others" but expressed absolutely valid points about user editing.
 * Now, let's please talk about this claim "and commented within a different report that the AE filer should be banned". If you are to look here you will see that user:Pantherskin, who I defended did not get any sanctions at all, and no admin ever proposed to sanction the editor. Does this mean that actually the filer was wrong, while I was right, when I said he was wrong?
 * Now, let's please look at this page. There is your signature on it 12 times. Does it mean you attacked me?
 * Betsythedevine, I hope that I have proven beyond the reasonable doubt that one cannot make claims by counting taken out of content number of edits. If I were attacking others on AE page 30 times per day, I would have been blocked by one of many admins, who monitors this page.Honestly, if I were you, I would have removed my posts from AGK talk page. Actually I would have never posted them there in a first place because Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence." is a personal attack.
 * Also I'd like to ask you to explain to me why this message left at Gwen Gale's talk page posted after AN/I thread about me was filed, and that resulted in me being blocked by that administrator is not canvasing. I am asking you because you seem to know very good what is and what is not canvassing. Here you accused me in canvasing Sandstein over email I sent to Sandstein, when Gwen removed my talk page access, because in your opinion my email was not written in "neutral" language.
 * Of course feel absolutely free to remove my post from your page without responding to it.
 * Please have a nice day.--Mbz1 (talk) 00:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I made a mistake about the number of edits signed by you. I saw 37 "instances" of Mbz1 on the page and lazily assumed that meant you had signed at least 30 posts. In fact, if one counts only "Mbz1 (u", one counts "only" 20. I agree that 20 is smaller than 30. Would you be willing to agree that 20 is larger than 1? I am not claiming that you made 20 abusive edits, I am contradicting the impression you seem to have given to AGK that "your ~23 Dec 2010 comments were an isolated incident." If you have 20 signed edits on a page on December 22, and then on December 23 you add to your Request concerning Nableezy a new request concerning Supreme Deliciousness (still only 20 edits signed by you showing because filing a report does not generate a sig). Would you accept that you had filed two different AEs and in addition had signed 20 posts as of the December 23 link there? Would you accept that based on these facts I personally disagree with AGK's assessment, relying on your representations to him, that your December 23 comments on other users made at ANI and at AE and at SPI were just "an isolated incident"?


 * As for the ANI that somebody (not me) filed about your WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior, I did contribute with actual diffs of what I thought were examples of that behavior. And in response to your WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior you were blocked by Gwen Gale, a block that was solidly endorsed by many other admins commenting there. So, by your reasoning above, the filer was right.


 * I'm surprised to see you call my defense of Gwen Gale a personal attack on you, citing "Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence." I gave plenty of evidence. You disputed one part of it and concentrated most of your replies there on alleging bad faith must have motivated me to present that part. I also gave evidence of your non-neutral canvassing of AGK to take your side against Gwen Gale and evidence of the striking disparity between the heavily-edited talk page "archive" you offered AGK as "evidence" and the actual state of your talk page during the dispute.  You never disputed that evidence at all.


 * I do not like to argue without providing diffs to back up what I say. And there is quite a lot that I am restraining myself from saying in addition to what I have already said. I defended you when others attacked you unfairly. I am also quite ready to defend Gwen Gale if I think you are attacking her unfairly, which I do. betsythedevine (talk) 02:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * betsythedevine, thanks for responding my message. I'm missing an explanation about this message left at Gwen Gale's talk page, but that's OK. At that point I believe agree to disagree will be the right thing to do. I will not bother you anymore.--Mbz1 (talk) 02:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

<--You added your question about that message left by Daedalus at Gwen Gale's talk page during the time I was trying to post my reply to the rest of your questions.

I agree with you that this message left at Gwen Gale's talk page was non-neutral. The person who left the message was "Campaigning." The person who received that message (Gwen Gale) was not guilty of canvassing not did she become "involved" by being the target for one unsolicited message. What about the many, many administrators who supported Gwen Gale's block of you? Were they all also "involved" in the same way as Gwen? Yet even now, months later, you tendentiously bring up that message to Gwen Gale, again and again, as if it were evidence that her block was unfair, and in a way that seems to have conveyed to AGK the impression that you accuse Gwen of being "involved" at the time she blocked you. AGK says "I find the accusation that the blocking administrator, Gwen Gale, is not uninvolved to be troubling".

And just for the record, notifying people mentioned in an ANI that they have been mentioned is not canvassing. This has been explained to you many times but the claim still appears in your own account of the long-ago ANI dispute: "After a complaint that should not have been filed in the first place about me was filed on AN/I, and User:Prodego warned me they should have archived this complaint on AN/I and mark it as resolved. It was not done, that promoted a few trolls and my personal hounds to pick it up a some time after I was warned. At that time I felt threatened because the trolls brought up my communications with another users that had nothing to do with initial AN/I thread, and none of which required any administrative assistance whatsoever. The three users were canvased notified about the thread. Two of those three were decent enough to ignore the canvasing notifications. The blocking administrator was canvased notified too. At that point I was sooo surprised how an elephant was getting created out of a fly that I filed an SPI request. It should not have been filed of course, but it was not filed to harass anybody. I filed it with the only purpose to protect myself. I was refused in Assumption of the assumption of good faith. At that point I got blocked for a week. I should not have been blocked even for a minute. A single(even wrong SPI) and a single a few words post on AN/I with no PA in a thread started by someone else (not me) should not have resulted in the block ever. If User:Prodego marked AN/I about me (that should not have been filed in the first place) as resolved and archived it nothing like this would have happened."

Good luck in your future editing on Wikipedia. betsythedevine (talk) 04:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Because you did respond my question on the most important for me matter about the message left at Gwen's talk page, and did rightly identified it as canvasing here is a clarification given by administrator EdJohnston "Admins ought to be uncanvassable. Any admin who gets an improper request on their talk page should not take the proposed action. If they do, a question may be raised as to their fitness to be an admin.." As you could see Gwen should not have blocked me. She was canvassed. She did wrong. Nothing else matters about that unfair block. Happy editing to you too.--Mbz1 (talk) 04:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * So your tireless canvassing of Ed Johnston and of AGK, which finally elicited from each of them a statement you can take out of context and use to defame Gwen Gale--that was perfectly ok,--but one message from Daedalus to Gwen Gale made her "involved" in a way that should have prevented her from taking any action ever?


 * Here's what AGK says about admins responding to canvassing: "I will decline requests to block or sanction another editor that are posted on my talk page or by e-mail, unless that request was posted on the appropriate forum and I am simply being invited to action it." Wait, wasn't that exactly what happened with Gwen Gale and Daedalus? Daedalus posted a message to Gwen Gale asking for action on a request that had been "posted on the appropriate forum." What I don't see AGK saying there is that if somebody posts a request to his talk page he will recuse himself from even considering the ANI pointed to. But that is the standard of "purity" you claim should happen with every admin. If that's what Ed Johnston was really saying, then both you and Ed would probably also want to raise a question about AGK's fitness to be an admin. betsythedevine (talk) 15:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Strong gravity and Strong gravitational constant
Betsythedevine, please check the article strong gravity. Why you try to install the text of the article in Strong gravitational constant ? Fedosin (talk) 17:05, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The text you are trying to maintain in Strong gravitational constant is disputed by several other users. Please discuss on the article talk page the changes you want. betsythedevine (talk) 18:36, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

A false acusation = personal attack
You complained about my three recent articles at DYK talk page, and then made an accusation at User talk:Qrsdogg. you said they got promoted by my friends. If it is not so much to ask for, could you please provide the differences of my "tag team" that promoted my articles you mentioned on DYK talk page, and, if you cannot provide such difference, would it be to much to ask you to strike out the comment, and give it another thought before making a false accusations against me ever again?--Mbz1 (talk) 15:52, 4 May 2011 (UTC)


 * If it is not to much to ask, can you provide diffs for these accusations and attacks you claim I made? Better yet, provide those diffs to ANI or RFC/U, so I can respond to you there. I'm going to archive this section in a few minutes, since I am not a fan of making Wikipedia content disputes into personal battles. I have stayed off your talk page at your request, now I am asking you to stay off mine. I really am not interested in playing games, and since I would like you to keep on enjoying Wikipedia and creating content here, I am trying not to be provoked into saying things that will hurt you. betsythedevine (talk) 16:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It is different situation. I do not make personal attacks against you. If I did in your opinion by all means please come to ma talk page and point it out to me.
 * Here's the difference of you PA against me: "As for the hypothetical motivation of the many people (NOT just Mbz1) who have been tag-teaming each other's articles through DYK despite POV issues"
 * And no, I am not going to any of those boards. If you are a decent person you'd remove a false accusation. If you are not, who cares.
 * I have an offer for you. It worked perfectly well with another user.
 * I promise never again mention your name in any content. You promise never again mention my name in any content.
 * I promise never revert you in any article. You promise never again revert me in any article.
 * I promise never again comment/vote on your DYK nomination, you promise never again vote/comment on mine.
 * In other words we promise to each other to behave in such a way like we have an interaction ban. Agree?--Mbz1 (talk) 16:16, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

<-- No. Now beat it and don't come back here. betsythedevine (talk) 16:17, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the confirmation
Thanks for the confirmation that you are a wikihound. You have been commenting and making a false accusations on me at multiple pages and IMO there's nothing worse than conducts of wikihounds. Please have a nice day.--Mbz1 (talk) 16:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Now please, I don't want to have to keep archiving my talk page. Would it be more convincing to you if I started archiving this nonsense on your talk page too? betsythedevine (talk) 16:59, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Your post to Wikipedia talk:Did you know about misuse for political gain
Hi Betsy. Thanks for the thread you started about the misuse of the DYK process for political gain. I hope you don't mind that I re-named the section in a way that I think is more descriptive, and more likely to draw attention and comment. I provided an anchor to the section, under the name that you gave it, and verified that the link you provided on Gatoclass' talk page still works. But you started the thread, and if you disapprove of the change, I'd have no objection to a revert. Will probably comment there soon. Thanks for your attention to the problem: it definitely needs much more "sunshine", much braoder exposure and comment from the wider community, imo ... I don't suppose people will try to change the policy page now that you've raised the issue there? I'll have to watchlist that. ;-) If you'd like to reply, you can do so here, as I've temporarily watchlisted this page. Best, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 08:41, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks for letting me know. I changed the link from Gatoclass's page to a diff for what I actually posted. I also tweaked the new title (removing quotes) and readded the old in text, just for clarity.  I hope that the discussion there will focus on the policy rather than attacks on people for calling attention to the policy. betsythedevine (talk) 12:37, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

No longer sorry
Hi Betsythedevine, I'd like to let you know that I am no longer sorry for what I told you. I am afraid my first impression about you was absolutely right. Please have a nice day.--Mbz1 (talk) 03:52, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this impressively elegant notification. You actually made your renewed hostility clear three weeks ago, after I did something else that met your disapproval:  . For anyone eating popcorn at home over this, the story of Mbz1's brief "sorry" is here:
 * FWIW my objection to the politicization of DYK is not aimed at you personally. I really think letting people -- any people -- turn DYK into a propaganda weapon is a bad thing for DYK and for Wikipedia. betsythedevine (talk) 04:41, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Betsythedevine, I am very sure you declined DYK not because of me personally, but it does not mean your decline is a valid one. This article promotes nothing. It is a review of a book, and I used both positive and negative reviews. You are absolutely, more than welcome to add any review you want, but from RS. --Mbz1 (talk) 04:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Edit warring
You made many more that 1 revert in less than 24 hours, and besides you added POV tag against clear consensus. The source you used was found to be absolutely unreliable Please revert yourself.--Mbz1 (talk) 04:53, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That source, which you yourself added to the article, is alleged to be unreliable by Rym Torch. The article has many problems with neutrality, the fact that several editors under ARBPIA sanction have flocked here to keep it non-neutral is not what Wikipedia has in mind as "consensus." The NPOV tag states "The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved." Please discuss issues with the article on the article talk page, not here. Please discuss issues with my behavior at some appropriate noticeboard, and be sure to include diffs of my alleged edit-warring when confronted with you and Broccolo tag-team removing the NPOV tag. betsythedevine (talk) 05:29, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually Broccolo has never removed the tag, so I am not sure what are you talking about, and a warning about edit warring should be placed at a user's talk page, and not at an article's page.
 * There's no dispute about the article. It is only you who claim it should be tagged.--Mbz1 (talk) 05:34, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You are right that Broccolo did not remove the tag, instead he repeatedly removed something else he considered POV. My mistake. But that being the case, I don't see any reverts by me in 24 hours other than putting back the POV tag that you inappropriately removed. betsythedevine (talk) 05:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You are mistaking about the reverts. I know it is very confusing, but actually each and every change of the article could be counted as a revert. For example this is a revert and of course there are quite a few more like those.--Mbz1 (talk) 05:48, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

<--So every time I edit an article it "could be counted" as a revert? I have been editing Wikipedia for years without knowing this ... fascinating. betsythedevine (talk) 07:07, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Here it is--Mbz1 (talk) 07:22, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Mbz1, the fact that you wrote the entire article in your talk page before posting it does not mean that nobody else can try to improve said article 3 times in one day, even though in a sense every edit involves changing "your" work. But you better caution Gilabrand, who has made many more changes in the last two hours than I made in 24. betsythedevine (talk) 07:48, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have never said nobody could edit it. Just the opposite. I asked you and Gato, and everybody else to edit it, and to add more reviews but only from RS. I am still asking you to do it. It is much more productive approach than creating dramas. Gila did not violate revert because another rule states that a continues edit of the article is consider to be a single revert, in other words, if you go ahead, and change a few sections in a few sessions followed one after another it is one revert. I cannot find the rule to link to, but you could ask any admin, and they would confirm it.--Mbz1 (talk) 13:21, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

<--Footnote, for clarity, I want to put in diffs to the edits Mbz1 is complaining about here.


 * "Remove contentious quote, replace with more relevant quotes from reviewers being cited" (I think this was my first edit to the article.)
 * "More intelligible quote from the review already cited"
 * "NPOV" (I changed "points out" to "says" as the introduction to a quote.)
 * "Ongoing dispute on talk page as several editors demand that a negative review must not be quoted here" (This is where I added the POV tag.)
 * "remove some editorializing" (I removed phrase "with no natural resources" from the lead.
 * "neutral language -- "says" not "admits"
 * "CFR is the publisher of the book. This section gives way too much space to material from this publisher's blurb -- an ad for the book --not a "review" as first paragraph claims"
 * "Reverted to revision 427180555 by Betsythedevine; Restore POV tag, the POV of article is disputed. "

It is my opinion that the only "revert" was my reversion of her inappropriate removal of the NPOV tag which thoroughly deserves to be on the article. betsythedevine (talk) 13:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Q
I got a kick out of this. I really envy the lucky guy who got Q. Qrsdogg (talk) 05:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There are probably 26 lucky old editors somewhere ... and wasn't Q the boss of James Bond? So make that 25 lucky old editors and 1 extremely lucky one who is your namesake... betsythedevine (talk) 07:00, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I grew up watching Star Trek, so this Q was always my favorite. Qrsdogg (talk) 13:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

AN3
ברוקולי reported you for edit warring here but he doesn't appear to have informed you.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 06:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the notice, I will go take a look now. betsythedevine (talk) 11:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I have closed that discussion as no violation, but honestly, you escaped being blocked by the thinnest of hairs. Please take care in the future to establish that you really have consensus for restoring material in a highly contentious article. I saw no consensus clearly evident on the talk page for one of the reverts reported that you claimed had consensus. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:27, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your forbearance, I really appreciate it. I will try to do a better job in the future but I am not used to editing such contentious articles. betsythedevine (talk) 22:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The collection of articles related to Arab/Israeli conflict is a hornet's nest in which nearly everyone who becomes involved eventually seems (to me) to face charges on WP:AE and/or accumulate blocks in their user logs. I can find plenty of more pleasant things to do on Wikipedia than become embroiled in the daily disputes going on in that area. But some folks thrive on conflict and controversy. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

NPOV?
Hello,

ברוקולי/Broccolo has (once again) removed the NPOV tag from Start-up Nation, citing the Talk page. I don't see any consensus there. I know you placed the tag in the first place. Do you agree that it can be removed? — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 21:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No. The article gives enormous weight to enthusiasts for Israel and for the book but fiercely censors critics. From my iphone and i wd appreciate it if somebody else cd restore it. betsythedevine (talk) 21:44, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry
Sorry I blasted you. I left another appology and a response at the relevent DYK discussion. Best, 4meter4 (talk) 03:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually I just figured out how blastable I was being, so apology accepted and my own extended also. Thanks for the kind words, they are appreciated. betsythedevine (talk) 03:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Talkback
Hi, Betsy! I want to thank you for your very kind remarks at my talk, which I saw just a short while ago, and to which I've now responded. Btw, there seemed to be good support at DYK for requiring notification on article talk when a DYK for that article is proposed. What say we take it to the Village Pump proposal section once that DYK thread rolls to archives? I've never done that before, and don't know the protocol for floating a proposal, but I'd fully support the effort, or would take the trouble to learn how to do it, if you have no idea. I've watchlisted your page temporarily, btw, so we can discuss the idea of such a proposal here, if that's okay, rather than intermingling the previous thread on my talk with this new one. Oh, also: In case you noticed Khazar's request at my talk, I'll just mention that I've replied to him as well, saying that I'd already told Gato that I wouldn't oppose removal of the tag he asked about there. Cheers, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 03:11, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Funny, I was also thinking of how and where to re-propose your idea about notification of DYK nomination on article talk pages. Surely one of our clever bot-makers could cobble this up and get lots of praise for it. Also funny that while you were writing on my talk page, i was over at yours replying to your post there. Now I'm going off to sleep for a while, take care and be well. betsythedevine (talk) 03:15, 10 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Great minds think alike? ;-) I won't open a new talk page section to mention it, but I did see your recent addition to the AE thread that AGK began. I also saw there that our friend who threw out the psychotic and hater characterizations wants credit for having "promptly deleted" those comments. What he's neglected to mention, however, is that he deleted his remarks only after EdJohnston asked him to, along with a very lightly veiled suggestion that there would be consequences if he didn't. He also would have everyone believe that he apologized for them. Could he be referring to this, perhaps? There's no apology there that I can see; what I do see is a user who recognizes he's a hair's-breadth away from being blocked and who doesn't want to be. More to the point, when he first had an opportunity to actually apologize, at our first interaction (his comments seemed primarily directed my way), he chose to continue to be derisive, instead. I remarked on that (scroll down in diff), and received no response at all.


 * He didn't apologize anywhere I've seen; on the contrary he seems to have made it clear that he had no interest in doing so, and planned to continue to express contempt for those who oppose the tendency of his editing here. It also troubled me that he showed up at Start-up Nation only after making those comments and that his first action there was to delete a sentence (re AIPAC) for which I had been the principal proponent on Talk, even though Khazar had actually introduced the content. I'm afraid I don't have the time to do justice to commenting in the AE thread, but I don't think it's right that any editor should get by with misrepresenting his actions so blatantly, either, especially in a quasi-judicial context. Overall, though, I think socks are our biggest challenge in the topic area at present, followed closely by organized POV editing. I liked what I saw of AGK's subpage comments; did you notice Gato's proposal, I wonder? I really liked that, too. Cheers, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 11:04, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for these thoughts -- good to hear from you. I will look more closely at Gato's proposal after I get a bit more of my packing done, trip coming up and a lot to get done before then. Thanks for fixing the format on my proposal for DYK too! All best, betsythedevine (talk) 17:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

A modest proposal
Whereas, all the sanctions and blocks and topic-bans and noticeboards seem to be generating more bad feeling and sockpuppets than progress toward civil collaboration in contentious areas...

What about if, instead, we "penalized" warriors by requiring them to spend one week and make 10 cleanup edits in a contentious area that is not their own personal contentious area. That is, I/P warriors would be "sentenced" to monitor WP:AGF, WP:NPA, WP:RS, etc. among warriors about abortion, Armenia, pseudoscience, or ... you get the general idea ... and vice versa.

I think POV warriors would find it eye-opening to spend time reading and critiquing the POV things people try to sneak into (or out of) Wikipedia in other areas. I think they would be saddened as well as educated by the sincerity and urgency of content warriors, on both sides of most disputes. I think it would be especially educational for warriors over XYZ to look at the generally mixed share of praise and blame in bitter disputes elsewhere, disputes that cannot be explained away with a claim that one side is 100% right, and no other side would exist if it weren't for some pathological hatred of XYZ. betsythedevine (talk) 18:05, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to Jonathan Swift for the origin of this section title. It is a wacky suggestion which I also considered heading up as "A Cunning Plan" with a hat-tip to Blackadder. But I admit to thinking there's a bit of truth in there too. betsythedevine (talk) 04:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting. This is close to something I did. I looked at conflicts in three difficult areas (AA, RI and IP), occasionally commented at AE, and spoke with some people who edit in these areas. Yes, it helps to look at other battlegrounds to realize: this is something you do not want to be involved in. It is amazing how nice and intelligent people start attacking each other. But rephrasing Leo Tolstoy ("each unhappy family is unhappy in its own unique way"), every battleground is ridiculous in its own way. In EE area people fight over naming conventions of cities, in "Race-Intelligence" area they argue how many times someone should be called "racist" in his BLP article, and so on. But what if someone was not involved in any content disputes at all? That's not a problem. Just call him someone's "buddy" every time when he comments about something. This is not to blame anyone. Just an observation.Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 13:02, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * A part of this is poor knowledge of subjects. I can agree that we do not need experts who know a lot of detail, but we need people who at least understand basic concepts. For example, someone who comments on Time must know definition of time in Physics, someone who comments about human races must have an idea about biological populations, someone who comments about pseudoscience must know the difference between actual pseudoscience like Lysenkoism and simply "non-science" (like religion or certain empirical practices), and someone who does something in history and politics must be aware of disinformation sources that are freely available on the internet (such as that one, for example). Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 15:30, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

<--Part of the problem in contentious areas is unintentional disinformation as shared urban legends are told and retold without fact-checking by people who genuinely believe what they heard, as for example that in 1983 no Palestinian schoolgirls were really sick, the "poisoning" was a plot from start to finish, after which the UN condemned Israel for poisoning children. WP:RS don't support any of that -- although some fakery occurred, early incidents were genuine if mostly stress-triggered suffering -- both Israelis and Palestinians at first claimed there was "poisoning" and predictably each side blamed the other -- the UN did not accuse Israel of poisoning, nor did they (as Israel's ambassador wanted) apologize to anyone for having asked for an investigation of "poisoning" after doctors determined there had been no poison. We need a Snopes.com with more wide-ranging interests! betsythedevine (talk) 16:14, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is exactly what I am talking about. But I received my "battleground vaccination" in this area and should move to different subjects. ( Indeed, I did not study this particular poisoning story and therefore did not make a single edit in the article. ) Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 17:00, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Your beautiful collection
There are quite a few problems with your "collection" on me, but could we please return one more time to this exchange:

Remember, I made an offer to you: "In other words we promise to each other to behave in such a way like we have an interaction ban. Agree?", and your response to my offer was an angry "No".

I believe that, if two users, who usually are not editing in the same area (as we are not) do not get along with each other (as we do not), would agree to disagree and walk their different ways, it is the right thing to do for the involved users and for the community.

I believe that, if one user (me in this situation) is asking for this agreement, and the other user (you in this situation) angrily refuses, there should be no doubt who is the victim and who is the hound there.

If somebody, no matter who, offered me something like this, I would have agreed immediately with no questions asked.

My offer still stands. Will you consider it now please?--Mbz1 (talk) 18:31, 30 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Your "offer" sounds symmetric but it is not. I am a quiet little wikignome, with a real life that takes a lot of my time, watching over a few articles and occasionally creating an article like Tory Row or André Grabar. There is nothing in any of my interests to interest you in the least, although you seem to have my talk page on your watchlist, and you seem to have forgotten that I asked you not to post here.


 * You are one of the most prolific and combative editors in Wikipedia and also on Commons, with huge block logs in both places. On a very few rare occasions -- rare compared even to my own work here and very rare compared to yours--I have publicly compared your version of facts with what the actual facts show. I first encountered your scorched-earth style of debate over List of Jewish Nobel laureates. Your frequent use of WP:PA instead of discussion of content was something I had never seen before except done by quickly-banned trolls. A few weeks later, I saw your name at ANI, where somebody was asking for you to be (temporarily) blocked as a way to get you to change your WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. . I agreed, citing diffs to support WP:BATTLEGROUND: . When you contended on your talk page that you never made PA, I again responded with diffs.  I understand that my participation there was unwelcome to you, but I felt it would benefit Wikipedia if you could be motivated to change. I also think it would benefit you, but since you never agree that you are doing anything wrong, I think any change in your behavior is unlikely.


 * You and I have also clashed at a couple of AfDs, notably [] and []. In fact, it was frustration with the low quality and editorializing of many of the articles you were submitting to DYK and getting quickly approved by Broccolo et al that motivated me to try to change the system there so that 1) articles should be NPOV and stable before being front-paged and 2)Proposed and now acted-on policy change: "DYK novices are strongly discouraged from confirming articles that have been flagged as subject to active arbitration remedies, as are editors active in those areas."


 * I have also taken part in a couple of discussions at user talk pages I was reading when you started attacking other editors, often without notifying either the people you were attacking or the people whose remarks you were quoting to attack them. I can cite plenty of diffs if you want but this is long enough.


 * In your proposed no-interaction agreement, you would supposedly promise to stop wikistalking me and making random attacks on my character as you did for example here and here. On the other hand I would be agreeing to let you attack people I respect without making any comment, even when I knew you were misrepresenting the truth and I could prove it. I would be agreeing to say nothing while you and your friends manipulate DYK, intended to reward the creation of new encyclopedia articles, to front-page links to op-ed "article" coatracks for demonizing Arabs, Muslims, and critics of Israel. That is not a symmetric agreement. It does not benefit Wikipedia. This is why I said no in the first place. Let me reassure you I am not following you around to see if you are attacking people or pushing bad articles into DYK. If I did that, I would have little time to do anything else on Wikipedia. betsythedevine (talk) 22:24, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

<==Footnote: The "beautiful collection" objected to was a collection of links only to my archived talk pages, only to sections started by Mbz1:

So long and thanks for all the fish Pass the fish, please?
That's all there is, there isn't any more. betsythedevine (talk) 21:20, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Meh, I can't resist the call of my watchlist. And a photo I took I thought would be perfect to illustrate the article Pockets. And responding to ... never mind. Hope the more productive parts of this keep being fun and the less productive stop now. betsythedevine (talk) 08:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, you did ask, and who am I to question another editor's proclivities? So glad you've chosen to stick around! – OhioStandard  (talk) 14:42, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * And they say, be careful what you wish for ... Thanks for the lovely fish, and it was just what I, er, probably deserved. betsythedevine (talk) 19:40, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigations/NoCal100
I have closed and declined this case because previous checks have confirmed (through both technical and behaviour evidence) that User:Red Stone Arsenal is not engaging in any sockpuppetry activities because checkuser result reveals accounts related to Red Stone Arsenal (if any) even if they're not listed in the report. The result came back is negative. Also, if you want to accuse someone engaging in sockpuppetry, you should gather more evidence and a search (located right here with a big search bar and button that says "search all cases and archives") would instantly revealed that it is not the case. Since Red Stone Arsenal and you have opposing POV at Start-up Nation, I really believe that you use the sockpuppetry case to try and assassinate his character. Therefore, I am cautioning you not to abuse the process and use SPI as a venue to silence editors with other POVs. OhanaUnitedTalk page</b> 06:34, 25 May 2011 (UTC) Text struck based on consensus reached at WP:ANI. --  At am a  頭 22:27, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems to me a striking failure of WP:AGF to accuse somebody of using sockpuppetry "to try and assassinate his character" on the basis that you know a lot of stuff about how SPI should work than I do. I did not know that a past SPI checkuser would show the user had no other account; in fact my impression was the opposite. I thought that the reason you have to state which account you think somebody is an SPI of is that checkuser is not a fishing expedition. Furthermore, if you review the SPI case for Rym Torch, the person I thought was the same as Red Stone Arsenal, you will see that Checkuser evidence was not sufficient to reveal his identity with NoCal 100. I have no intention of using SPI to silence editors with other POVs, but I intend to use it whenever I encounter a brand-new user who jumps right into taking up the arguments  of a banned user. I hope I will be equally willing to file SPI if the banned-user-lookalike is on the same side of the argument as I am. And I appreciate the tutorial you have offered on how SPI is supposed to work. betsythedevine (talk) 07:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It is our job to treat all accounts as equal, be it involving an IP, an anonymous registered editor or someone editing under real-life identity. Two checks were run on April 27 and May 8 of 2011. Let me repeat my message again. Checkuser will reveal (if any) accounts used by Red Stone Arsenal even if they're not listed in the case. The software does that for checkusers. Both times the result turned up nothing. Checkuser software reveals these accounts if they're less than one month old (or longer?). Since the first report involving Red Stone Arsenal was filed on April 27, it would have already identified Red Stone Arsenal by then if any connections exist. Two cases have passed through different checkuser and clerks' eyes. They agreed that they're not related to each other. Therefore, I arrived at the conclusion that the case was meritless to begin with. <b style="color:#0000FF;">OhanaUnited</b><b style="color:green;">Talk page</b> 17:22, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The Rym torch banned account, which is the one I thought is the same as Red Stone Arsenal, successfully evaded checkuser but was caught by some other (apparently secret) SPI method. Therefore even if Red Stone Arsenal has twice been checkusered against all other Wikipedia accounts, something I didn't know, those same checkuser tests did not reveal the true character of Rym torch but some other method did.  The fact is the Red Stone Arsenal does not act like a new editor, he acts like a heavily POV-pushing experienced editor, as both Nableezy and HelloAnnyong, who filed SPI before I did, also noted. I really think it is hugely unfair to accuse me of trying to character-assasinate a POV-opponent by filing an SPI against somebody that many others besides me think acts just like a sock. betsythedevine (talk) 20:35, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have started a topic to obtain third party's comments. <b style="color:#0000FF;">OhanaUnited</b><b style="color:green;">Talk page</b> 21:28, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi, Betsy. I'm not sure whether you'd noticed, but I re-opened the thread that Ohana started at AN/I. Thought you should know if you didn't. Best, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 14:07, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, one other thing. Things got a bit procedurally rumpled around the time of Fences' closure and my re-open, but an inadvertently positive outcome of that, I think, was that you removed this. I don't blame you in the least for finally growling back that way. You'd showed such extraordinary patience at all the poking up to that point, though, and it was very much to your credit. People are smart enough to look at the tone and content of your responses and compare them to what your usual critics are saying; you certainly come out on top by refraining from responding in anger and defensiveness. "Procedurally rumpled" is going to be the name of my garage band, btw, if I ever start one. ;-) Cheers, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 15:57, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

<--And here's what happened. OhanaUnited started a thread at ANI, asking for third opinions. Quite a few respectable admins and longtime editors, including OhioStandard, FencesAndWindows, Heimstern, and MalikShabazz gave decided opinions that OhanaUnited should redact the statement: "Since Red Stone Arsenal and you have opposing POV at Start-up Nation, I really believe that you use the sockpuppetry case to try and assassinate his character." OhanaUnited's response was instead to discover new reasons he was right to insult me for filing a good-faith SPI, proudly noting that at least one user agreed with him that I'm a generally bad person. And that user was Mbz1! And Broccolo agreed, of course, offering as evidence that I had at one time made an edit to an article for which I later apologized. Imagine being tormented by the opinions of people who call themselves Broccolo and Mbz1. I don't have time for this now, and quite possibly I never will again. Good job on retaining editors who are women, Wikipedia, we just love being publicly insulted for unjust reasons. betsythedevine (talk) 13:51, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Footnote before I archive this section First of all, I would like to thank OhioStandard for his support and encouragement, and to thank Atama for redacting the allegation that my intention in filing the SPI was "character assassination." I had asked OhanaUnited to redact that claim (I did not ask for an apology, just a redaction), but he would not. Because consensus at the ANI he filed was strongly in favor of redacting the allegation, Atama who is an admin expressed that consensus by striking the sentence. Other places this issue was discussed:
 * The SPI I filed on Red Stone Arsenal
 * Ohana's ANI request for a "third opinion"
 * A different ANI thread objecting to Mbz1's expressions of support for the accusation by OhanaUnited
 * I hope this drama is all over now and we can all peacefully return to our muttons. betsythedevine (talk) 22:56, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Regret
I'm very sorry to see this happen to you. I think you've been treated unfairly here, but no one can make OhanaUnited listen to others or redact his unfair accusations. I do hope you'll be back under a pseudonym soon. Again, I find it regretful that this was handled this way and wish I could have done more to help. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 14:54, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Betsy. I recommend that you don't do a WP:CLEANSTART. Stick with your present account. Anyone who has never been scolded at ANI in an embarrassing manner has not lived very long and has not done anything interesting. Any attempt at doing clean start adds a lot of murk, and could be source of trouble in the future.  Also your inimitable style, which some people like, would probably shine through in any new account. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 20:14, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Retiring? :(
I hope you'll reconsider after a break - it's good having you around. :( Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 00:34, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh no! We need you around here... please come back soon :)  – SJ +  02:22, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm real sorry to see this, hope that you'll reconsider! Qrsdogg (talk) 14:27, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Please reconsider
This recent debacle has only now come to my attention. You are simply too valuable to this project to allow this instance to overwhelm you! I admit that it is completely selfish of me to implore you to reconsider when you are the one who had to undergo the "microscope of ANI", however I hope once the sting wears away you will either return using your own fabulous name, or under a new (I would assume equally fabulous) account name. I sincerely hope that this is more of break to re-energize than any permanent retirement as your keen mind and sharp writing skills are needed here. Cheers, --<b style="color:Navy;">Jezebel's</b> Ponyo <sup style="color:Navy;">bons mots 13:27, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Ponyo, for the kind words and thoughts. I am actually finding it harder to abandon my watchlist than I expected. And SJ has asked Ohana to apologize so maybe that will solve the whole mess anyway. betsythedevine (talk) 14:46, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well that certainly is good news :) --<b style="color:Navy;">Jezebel's</b> Ponyo <sup style="color:Navy;">bons mots 14:52, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh good lord!
Hi Betsy -

There's another thread at AN/I in which you've been mentioned. (link/snapshot)

I would very strongly urge ( implore? beg on hands and knees? ;-) you not to post to the thread if you can possibly restrain yourself. When a particular editor couldn't resist another poke your way after she was obliged to withdraw a previous one a few hours earlier, the drama-o-meter just spiked, and I doubt any good can come from your jumping into the midst of the fray. But that's up to your discretion, of course: By all means do as you think best. Sorry I didn't inform you immediately, I'd at first thought it was sorted, and then I just got distracted.

Best, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 19:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Thinking of you
Ah! I see there's been drama. I am so sorry! We certainly do need your wonderful presence around here; I also hope you're not gone for good! I was just thinking about you in an unrelated context -- I have been rather unexpectedly appointed the physics librarian here. I am trying to do a lay-person's catch-up on the subject and so started reading your lovely book; thank you for writing it, and for everything you do. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 18:17, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Phoebe-- how nice to be reminded of you and to read your nice message. Yes, the kindness of my friends (not to mention my addiction to my watchlist) detoured my hurt-feeling exit so here I still am. Thanks for thinking of me. I am mostly offline traveling this week but I will be back to pester Wikipedia with a LOT more fun stuff I learned here in England next week sometime. betsythedevine (talk) 21:51, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Just a note, Betsy, that there are some people who feel that your recent treatment has been unfair and are still discussing remedies, including at least one administrator (myself), so don't lose heart. --  At am a  頭 16:58, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hello Betsy. I just wanted to endorse all of the positive comments above, and to repeat my concern at the unwarranted comments by OU. I would regret, though understand, a decision by you to retire; I hope you will remain. Whether you stay or go, I will continue to argue for the caution to be struck out. RolandR (talk) 17:29, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * And welcome to England, by the way. I wish I were in the Lake District this week, instead of in London. RolandR (talk) 17:31, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Betsy, could you please weigh in at Heimstern's talk page to indicate whether you'd like OhanaUnited's SPI comments to actually be struck through, or whether you no longer care at this point? He now supports that, and it looks like there's broad consensus to do so, but he ( and I, and everyone else, I'm sure ) would also like to see the AN/I thread archive. If you can possibly swing it, with your dicey access to the web, and your time constraints while on the march, then sooner rather than later would be desirable, I believe. Best,  –  OhioStandard  (talk) 10:25, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Guide to the Lakes
Hello! Your submission of Guide to the Lakes at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:03, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You were successful for the urls! Would you find projects interested in that article, to put on the article's discussion page? I am more familiar with music, example "Classical music". Just look around on related pages to find examples for your area. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:23, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Gerda, I did that. I hope it is really OK for me to add the project templates saying they might be interested. betsythedevine (talk) 12:23, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Image of Yellow-crowned Bishop
See Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know. It seems that it does not matter that the article image is protected or unprotected as long as the miniature image on the main page for DYK is protected. There is a requirement that the DKY miniature image on the main page is also on the article is some form, and it is in the uncropped version that two editors were trying to put back. I think that the page looks better with a large image in the infobox rather than the miniature image. How did this originally come to your attention? Snowman (talk) 23:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I apologize, Snowmanradio. I saw BarkingMoon's distress call at WikipediaTalk:DYK (which is on my watchlist) and jumped on my white horse and rode off to the rescue, only it turned out I was riding in the wrong direction. I apologize for having been part of the problem instead of part of the solution. betsythedevine (talk) 23:21, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It has been fixed by an administrator, who had been following the discussion on the DYK talk page. A miniature version had been accidentally uploaded to en wiki, and it has been fixed with this edit. I think that showing the uncropped image in the article infoxbox was practically the only thing an non-admin could do to temporarily improve the appearance of the article in preference to showing the miniature image that was temporarily here by mistake. Snowman (talk) 23:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Guide to the Lakes
Materialscientist (talk) 18:03, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of File:ProfessorSirSamEdwards.jpg


A tag has been placed on File:ProfessorSirSamEdwards.jpg requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section F3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an image licensed as "for non-commercial use only," "non-derivative use" or "used with permission," it has not been shown to comply with the limited standards for the use of non-free content. , and it was either uploaded on or after 2005-05-19, or is not used in any articles. If you agree with the deletion, there is no need to do anything. If, however, you believe that this image may be retained on Wikipedia under one of the permitted conditions then:
 * state clearly the source of the image. If it has been copied from elsewhere on the web you should provide links to: the image itself, the page which uses it and the page which contains the license conditions.
 * add the relevant copyright tag.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion," which appears inside of the speedy deletion tag (if no such tag exists, the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate). Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. –Drilnoth (T/C) 13:53, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That was too speedy. I would happily have changed the rights on it for you but by the time I saw this, less than 4 hours after you posted here, it was already gone. Fortunately, Commons had a better version.betsythedevine (talk) 16:22, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Talkback
–Drilnoth (T/C) 16:49, 19 July 2011 (UTC)