User talk:Georgewilliamherbert/Archives/2013/June

The Signpost: 27 May 2013

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The Bugle: Issue LXXXVII, June 2013
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here. If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 08:40, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Mr. Mabbett.
Hi! As I understand, User:Pigsonthewing was banned from the FA of the day and any articles nominated or scheduled as FA of the day in a discussion closed by you about a year ago. As he has been interfering today with (the talk page of) Richard Wagner, today's FA of the day, placing misleading messages on it, and issuing dismissive messages related to the talk pages of editors with whom he disagrees (including myself), I am writing to ask whether it is appropriate to bring this to anyone's notice (yours? - or whatever). I am not familiar with the WP investigative/disciplinary procedures. With apologies for bringing this back from the (un)dead, --Smerus (talk) 13:53, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I am also an involved party as a large number of my edits – including even non-controversial archiving, see here — have been reverted by User:Pigsonthewing. -- Klein  zach  21:14, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Acknowledged and reviewing (his, and the rest). Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:08, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you - --Smerus (talk) 04:35, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I was the person who started the ANI thread that led to Mabbett's topic ban. At the time he had just driven away the principal editor of a classical music-related FA just as it was TFA. Mabbett's issuing of bogus vandal warnings on Smerus's talk page just as the Wagner article is about to be TFA is part of the same pattern of behaviour and looks calculated to deter him from writing another one. I find the original dispute over infoboxes (which lies behind the long-standing animosity between Mabbett and various classical music contributors) to be rather Liliputian but Mabbett's history of year-long block/bans for stirring things up in this area should be borne in mind. I think that there is an indefinite Arbcom ruling still in effect related to this under which his year long block/bans happened.--Peter cohen (talk) 09:17, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The claim that I drove away another editor is false. The assertion that I left vandal warnings (and bogus ones at that) is a lie. The allegation that my actions were calculated to deter another editor from doing anything other than censoring an ongoing (edited in the previous two days) discussion is a baseless slur. I'm surprised that Georgewilliamherbert hasn't already removed it from his talk page.  Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:45, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * On the "false... lie... baseless slur..." claims, I did make a mistake in saying that the warning was a vandalism one. It was a disruptive editing one, an area in which Mabbett has much practice. However, if GWH were to look at the last few sections in User talk:Tim riley/Archive10 and at Tim's contribution history, contrasting that in the period August-October 2012 with the current and previous patterns, he would see that Mabbett's behaviour around the Solti TFA and his obsession with infoboxes did drive Tim away for two and a half months and lost us hundreds, if not thousands, of edits by one of the best contributors Wikipedia has.--Peter cohen (talk) 11:16, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This is not helping, gentlemen. Please stop it.  Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:15, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I am taking this page off my watch list. If anything actually happens here, can you tell me? Thanks. -- Klein zach  23:07, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I have only now noticed the thread on this issue at Mr. Mabbett's talk-page. May I express some concern about some aspects of his response to you? Mr. Mabbett comments on the 'double-jeopardy and malicious nature of the ANI discussion'. I don't fathom the relevance of 'double jeopardy', nor, may I say, was there any malice in my query to you. (But of course the topic under discussion here is not other editors' motives, whatever they were, but Mr. Mabbett's behaviour). My main concern in initiating this discussion, which represents the only complaint I have ever made to an administrator about another editor, was discontent that the Wagner pages, on the day of its front page appearance, were hosting a pub brawl, which Mr. Mabbett appeared to me to be wilfully provoking. That Mr. Mabbett, in defending himself to you, takes the opportunity to gratuitously slur others, indicates a certain inability to AGF when confronted with any editors whose opinions differ from his own. But as he has commented on editors' behaviour, let me comment on his.


 * Mr. Mabbett, with whom I have had many disagreements (normally centring on the timesink of infoboxes), is a man who, as his talkpage makes clear, has a mission. He is also a man who acts as a public face of Wikipedia,and is indeed himself an administrator. One would have hoped that in these circumstances he might be able to temper his enthusiasms with the understanding of the opinions of others who are possibly more thin-skinned than he and/or do not have the time or will he may have to indulge in extensive talk-page correspondence. I invite those who are better qualified than I to investigate the parallels between Mr. Mabbett's methods and what is often referred to as 'cyber-bullying'. Nonetheless, Mr. Mabbett's frequent persistence, relentlessness and constant resort to attack as a means of defence, seem to me to be contrary to all the principles which Wikipedia is supposed to stand for. I am clearly not the only editor who has felt that Mr. Mabbett's interventions are often attempts at intimidation.


 * I accept that, at heart, this is a debate between Wikipedia 'reductionists' like Mr. Mabbett, who see WP as means of crystallising the world's information to an essential nucleus from which all can be extrapolated (rather like, as I have mentioned elsewhere in a debate on Mr. Mabbett's obsessions, the desire of Mr. Casaubon in 'Middlemarch' to construct a key to all mythologies), and 'expansionists' like myself who like to create and expand articles, and are not in the slightest interested in microformats, etc. That is a debate which Wikipedians must resolve amongst themselves, certainly. But they should do so without the rancour and cycle of wikifrenzy frequently induced by the interventions of Mr. Mabbett. Thank you.--Smerus (talk) 06:33, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate that this situation was probably put on hold whilst Mr. Mabbett was unwell. As I see that he is now editing again, may I ask please if you will now be carrying it forward? With thanks, --Smerus (talk) 05:02, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I guess your absence of comment means you do not wish to take this forward? And that I should take the issue elsewhere? But please correct me if I am wrong. I would appreciate some response (even if it's only 'adios') as Mr. Mabbett is now recommencing his campaigns on infoboxes on articles on which he has not been an editor. --Smerus (talk) 20:12, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Canoe slalom venue
Hi, George,

Wonder if you could do me a favor.

I am trying to document all the canoe slalom venues using artificial whitewater, that are commonly used for international competition or team training. (I, myself, practice the sport.) My latest, Andrew Cibak Whitewater Slalom Course needs to be reviewed by someone other than me, who will then remove the "new article" note.

The list of articles, mostly written by me, is here: List of artificial whitewater courses.

We briefly passed through SF on the way to China in May.

HowardMorland (talk) 20:55, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 June 2013

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 * EdwardsBot (talk) 20:30, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

ANI
Hello. There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.--Smerus (talk) 15:55, 28 June 2013 (UTC)