User talk:Horologium/October 2009

"X" of Annie Le
Hi,

You move-protected this article (currently X still equals "Homocide") over a week ago. Since then, a move request debate has developed which is presently unanimously against "Homocide", but split between the two alternatives, "Death" or "Murder." (In the interest of full disclosure, I am involved in support of the latter.) Since no other admin has wandered by to close the thing, I thought I might bring this to your attention, if you have the time and inclination to resolve it. Best wishes, Xoloz (talk) 03:50, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I took a look at the discussion, and it appears to be a fairly even split—2 in favor of "homicide", and 3 in favor of "death". Since there was page move war underway when I protected the article, a consensus needs to be reached before I am willing to unprotect it. Were there a deadline, my view would be that the "death" people have a slightly stronger argument, since it is indisputable that she died; while it is likely that she was murdered, there has been no ruling. I dislike the title as currently constructed, but stopping an edit-war does not allow me the luxury of changing to a preferred form before protecting, unless there is a BLP violation. FWIW, I don't think that any of the proposed titles are BLP violations, per se, since the media are already using the term in discussions of Ms. Le's death; this does not equate to "the suspect is guilty of murder" (or homicide).  Horologium  (talk) 11:28, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * A unanimous consensus has developed against homocide, however. I would be willing to concede my point (not speaking for anyone else) and agree with "death", in order to eliminate what I take to be a very awkward article title at present.  Of course, you are correct that there is no deadline.  Best wishes, Xoloz (talk) 17:18, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * If you make note of this on the article's talk page, I will agree to the move.  Horologium  (talk) 17:30, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

RFC user?
You wrote that you would be creating an RFC/user on Scribner in the next few days. I very rarely wander over to RFC/user. Assuming that you do write an RFC will you be posting that fact at Talk:Sarah Palin? or would that violate WP:Canvassing? As I read Canvassing, a Friendly Notice on that talk page would be appropriate. I would like to know if you write an RFC as I would like to comment.

In a past RFC/user I raised these objections:
 * The purpose of an RFC is not to punish past bad behavior; it is (one hopes) to eliminate future bad behavior. So the evidence should show recent bad behavior. Much of this evidence is from more than a month ago, or even two or three months ago.
 * An RFC must show "Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute". This section is not so good.
 * The first two items do not provide any diffs; they invite us to wade through very long talk pages to find the evidence.
 * The middle three items appear to be (I have not read through them) good evidence of trying to resolve the dispute.
 * The RFC must show "Evidence of ... failing to resolve the dispute" - i.e. evidence that the attempts to resolve the dispute resulted in failure. The only evidence that would show the attempts failed is evidence of bad behavior after attempting to resolve the dispute.

And I made these recommendations:
 * Provide diffs for all complaints or omit the complaint.
 * Focus on recent behavior, and particularly on behavior after trying to resolve the dispute.

From what I have seen at Sarah Palin, Scribner's behavior is inappropriate. From what you wrote, he also behaved badly at other articles. An RFC may be appropriate but there must be:
 * evidence of trying to resolve the dispute - and I think this should be on the user's talk page and should be sufficiently precise for the user to know what behavior was objectionable and under what policies.
 * evidence of failing to resolve the dispute - this would be diffs showing bad behavior after a discussion on his talk page.

I like good procedure and I like solid evidence - and from what I have seen of Scribner it may not be hard to find solid evidence. Sbowers3 (talk) 14:37, 7 October 2009 (UTC)


 * When I actually form the RFC (it may have to wait until the weekend; I am finishing an article I have been working on for a while, and I have other real-life commitments), I will drop a note on Talk:Sarah Palin and nowhere else. I was not a participant in any of the other firestorms he's created recently (although I have encountered him in the past), so mentioning it elsewhere would be inappropriate canvassing.


 * As to the recent nature of the behavior, I plan to focus on what he's done in the last six months, but it's also appropriate to note that the behavior at issue goes way back. He's been blocked for edit-warring six times (the last three were shortened after he promised not to edit-war), and while three of them were in the last four months, the other three date back to 2006 and 2007. (He had only 32 edits in between April 24, 2007 and February 11, 2009, which may explain why there is a big gap in the block log.) In short, he's not changed his behavior, despite the multiple blocks he's received. There is a serious behavioral issue here, which needs to be addressed.  Horologium  (talk) 15:45, 7 October 2009 (UTC)


 * FYI, I commented to Scribner about his incivility and he deleted without responding. Sbowers3 (talk) 21:55, 7 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Which is, of course, an acknowledgment in and of itself. I'll add that to the RFC, since you made a good-faith effort to discuss the matter with him.  Horologium  (talk) 22:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

RE: Bunns USMC
If he promises not to do it again then I would not be against an unblock. Thanks for asking. GARDEN 11:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you, and you're welcome. I don't like stepping on another admin's toes when he's following proper procedure.  Horologium  (talk) 11:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually this lends me to believe this is compromised and should be indeffed, not unblocked. Sorry, this wasn't there before. GARDEN  12:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. I already stripped out part of that post, and was going to lift the autoblock on the IP so that Bahamut can continue editing. I've never tried to lift an autoblock before... If you can help Bahamut out, that would be a good thing. And ues, Bunns needs to be indeffed.  Horologium  (talk) 12:22, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I think WillKing got it a while ago. I assume you got the block already... Thanks for your help here...  GARDEN  12:36, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Willking unblocked him twice, to no effect. I also tried, and ended up giving him the IPautoblock-exempt user right; he's been caught up too many times. (Stuck on a single shared IP when deployed, and in NMCI rotating IP hell when in the US.) As for Bunns, he's been toasted (grin) unless he sends me an e-mail confirming his identity. I don't see that happening.  Horologium  (talk) 12:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, well IPautoblock-exempt seems the best option at the minute then. I'm pretty crap at the whole unblocking thing so... thanks again :)  GARDEN  12:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * On a totally unrelated note, how does that random color thing on your signature work? I'm fairly sure that you are not manually changing it each time... (grin)  Horologium  (talk) 12:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I thank you gentlemen, at least I dont have to worry about collateral damange now. This was a headache that none of us should have had to deal with. I suppose maybe he did have some contraband alcohol... and I rather suspect that the "real" Bunns that showed up has an Al Asad IP address. Not that checkuser is for fishing. :P In any case, I thank you gentlemen (assuming male, pardon me if I'm incorrect) for your intervention.
 * I noticed that color effect earlier, and found User:Garden/ColourChanger. However, I haven't had time to steal copy it and tinker with it, so unless Garden would be so kind as to write up a WP:DOC for it, the mystery shall persist for a while yet.  bahamut0013  words deeds 13:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Florida
I'm sorry, read it quickly and not realizing it was a quote, found the wording redundant. J'me excuse. Thanks Micael (talk) 13:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Bare references
Sorry to cause problems. I don't always have access to my personal notes on reference construction. I suppose I could imbed them in my user page sometime. Nor access to a decent keyboard, nor even (this summer) access to broadband. I normally only put in referenced material. I can date bare webpage stuff from newspapers (or other sources) I suppose. Student7 (talk) 11:25, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Sarah Palin and rollback
Hey,

I'm concerned about the back-and-forth about the birthdates on Sarah Palin, and I'd like to avoid seeing the article protected. I noticed that you used rollback here, and I wanted to remind you that rollback should be used only for cases of pure vandalism, not a content dispute like is happening there. Thanks. :) kmccoy (talk) 14:54, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I used rollback because he made two edits in rapid succession, and using undo was not possible. (The second edit looks to me like a way of covering the first edit; it's an unnecessary change.) The three sources he used in the first edit were incredibly inappropriate; one of them was already discussed previously on the page. Ordinarily, I would have simply undone the edit. If he does the multiple edit thing again, I'll use popups to revert to the previous good version. I do understand the restrictions on rollback, but those restrictions are for those who have the rollback permission. He (and the IP address that has been active on the talk page) have been agitating for adding information about Track's birthdate because of the short interval between her marriage and his birth, which is a BLP violation. (The gratuitous link to DU that he added makes it clear, since that it is the topic of that discussion.) BLP violations don't receive any reversion restrictions.  Horologium  (talk) 15:10, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * You can also go to the version of the article you wish to revert to and hit edit and then save that version. Rollback's use is the same for both admins and non-admins with the rollback permission, as mentioned in the first line of WP:Rollback.  Admins do not have special authority in content disputes, that is not why we have rollback.  I have been watching the discussion and understand the context behind it, but it remains a content dispute.  If you are making reverts that you feel are required under WP:BLP, then I would suggest that you label them as such in the edit summary, especially on an article with a special editing restriction and a history of content disputes like that of Sarah Palin. kmccoy (talk) 15:30, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, after thinking about it for a while, I'm not going to revert him again; I'll hold myself to 1RR on the article (even though your 1RR restriction was lifted). It appears that there are enough editors who agree with me that the article will get locked for edit-warring if James Nicols decides to reinsert his information. No, I don't think that full-protection because of edit-warring is a good thing, but (assuming some bad faith here) POV pushers don't tend to back down. (I don't feel bad about that bad faith assumption; he's already assumed bad faith with me by accusing me of being a minion of Sarah Palin.)  Horologium  (talk) 15:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm glad to hear it. I also understand your frustration in this particular content dispute. kmccoy (talk) 16:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

RFA spam

 * &mdash;Kww(talk) 18:34, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

USS Ballistic
Really not. Just found it really pointless. And defending it? Nobody's heard of cut & paste? Or, in this case, cut? TREKphiler  hit me ♠  01:34, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Administrators%27 noticeboard/Incidents
This is to let you know of the above ANI - it is directly relevant (and refers) to this discussion where you participated. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:05, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protection Request
Horologium, I know that you swore to never set foot on Macedonian soil again, but would you be willing to semi-protect Macedonia? It has had a steady stream of anon IP vandalism for the past month or two. Established editors are pretty content with it and there aren't any edit conflicts there. It's just the stream of anon IPs. If you don't want to, I'll understand and look for another admin who'd be willing (Future Perfect is excluded from admin tasks in Macedonia-related articles or else I would ask him.) Thanks. (Taivo (talk) 12:20, 26 October 2009 (UTC))


 * Pictogram voting support.svg Semi-protected&#32;for a period of 6 months, after which the page will be automatically unprotected. Oy. It was that FYROM edit that got me.  Horologium  (talk) 12:45, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I appreciate it :) (Taivo (talk) 13:22, 26 October 2009 (UTC))

Hey there
I just wanted to inform you that the user DKqwerty has reverted your edit at Virginia Foxx. John Asfukzenski (talk) 08:58, 27 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you. It showed up on my watchlist when I logged on this morning. For future reference, however, please don't use me as a proxy in a content dispute, as you did on DKqwerty's talk page . I ran across that page and encountered what I considered to be an NPOV issue; I didn't check to see if it had been the subject of an edit war in the past. There's no discussion on the talk page. Your post over there was a form of taunting, which really isn't appropriate, and my admin status doesn't much matter in an editorial dispute. I was on that page as an editor, not as an admin, since there was no issue which required administrative intervention.  Horologium  (talk) 11:42, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Let's figure this out
I have no desire for a content dispute or an edit war. I simply want the facts reflected accurately: most reliable sources attribute the murder of Matthew Shepard to both drug-fueled rage and homophobia. The three sources I've used in the Virginia Foxx article are not opinion pieces and are most certainly third-party synthesis of the matter at hand. The first is a lengthy discussion of the 20/20 report, systematically peeling away the bias of the special, and makes an overwhelming argument for a homophobia-based murder; this is not opinion, it is third-party synthesis of the reactions from many groups to the special. The second is the only one that may qualify as opinion, however it is tempered by third-party analysis. yes, the piece puts O'Mally's opinion on display, but does so from a third-party perspective; if the police chief from the investigation is not to be believed and his opinion on the matter disregarded, who is to be believed? The third is a reference from an NPR broadcast. While there are a couple instances of expressing opinion, the transcript contains both the quotes, "Shepard was targeted because he was gay," in the broadcast's caption and, "it appeared that Shepard was singled out for the attack, at least in part, because he was gay," from the broadcast itself; neither is or should be regarded as "opinion", rather they are both factual statements from a quite reliable third-party source.

Honestly, I could find you a dozen more references that attribute Matthew Shepard's murder to homophobia as well as drugs, but given your definition for what you consider "opinion", almost every reference would fail that criteria. All the provided references are reliable, third-party sources, none of which are direct opinions or commentary on the matter. I don't want to start an edit war by constantly reverting that section while adding more references each time, but any accounts that firmly reject homophobia as a motivation for the murder have been themselves either been firmly rejected by experts given the weight of the evidence or come from unreliable sources. It doesn't matter if you disagree, what matters is what can be verified. All verification from reliable sources indicates that there was a homophobic motivation to the murder.

And please, if you have not already, take the time to read each citation in its entirety; they are lengthy, detailed discussions, yet you reverted them like opinions off a blog. DKqwerty (talk) 14:11, 27 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I recognize that your sources are reliable sources, but the portions you are using to support your assertion are all opinions—the police chief, the producers of and actors in a movie—or highlight contradictory statements, such as those of McKinney's girlfriend. (I did read or listen to the references before reverting.) The main issue is that there is a lot of synthesis needed to fashion all of that into incontrovertible evidence that it was a hate crime. Further, none of the sources you brought up address the issue in the context of Foxx's statement, another example of synthesis. While I disagree with Foxx's interpretation and some of her conclusions, the fact remains that the two asshats who murdered Shepard were not charged with a hate crime, which makes the first part of Foxx's statement correct. Adding in "incorrectly" both misstates the issue and adds in a POV tone. There is a good number of data points which support your position, but that discussion doesn't belong in a biography of Virginia Foxx. There are undue weight and coatrack issues here, and we are discussing a Biography of a living person; this is not the article to discuss the validity of her conclusions, and Wikipedia is not the forum to right great wrongs. Too often, Wikipedia BLPs of politicians are used to further political attacks, and I tend to revert such nonsense whenever I encounter it. ( is another recent example.)  Horologium  (talk) 16:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)