User talk:Horologium/September 2012

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)
Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page. In this issue: Read the entire first edition of The Olive Branch --> --The Olive Branch 19:07, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
 * Research: The most recent DR data
 * Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
 * Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
 * DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
 * Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
 * Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

Thanks for fixing stuff on my userpage!
I'm always so bad with MoS capitalization rules on article titles...! I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 01:03, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * No problem. I am a confirmed user page peruser, and when I arrived at your page, I saw two "empty page" links, which were easy fixes (I did verify that you had rescued the articles to which I moved the links, of course.
 * And for what it's worth, there are quite a few edits in my edit history that are fixes of capitalization snafus which broke links, so you're certainly not alone in that regard.(wry grin) At least you didn't create improperly capitalized categories.  Horologium  (talk) 01:09, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

the issue re multi-accounting
I replied to your comment at User_talk:EatsShootsAndLeaves but my reply was deleted (despite this multi-accounter's claims of having "nothing to hide"), it being asserted in the edit summary that my reply constituted "vandalism". It is a discussion I would have liked to continue, if the WP:BATTLEGROUND can be left behind, so I am posting it here, although if you weren't intending to reply over there, I invite you to ignore this and not reply here. I believe whether multiple accounts should be endorsed for any particular editor should take into consideration the editor's propensity for transparency and disclosure. This is, in my view, the critical missing consideration in your take on the matter. I cannot restart this discussion over there since the user has commanded my silence on his Talk page. However, I understand if you'd rather not get into this issue here, since without more participants this may not be the best place for it. ''Horologium, the issue here is not whether the minimum standard of accountability that the community demands has been satisfied. I invite you to focus on the big picture here instead of "the link", that being whether defending the right to dodge even the slightest of measures that might increase accountability above the absolute minimum tolerated is serving Wikipedia's interests. As far as I'm concerned anonymity is at the root of Wikipedia's biggest problems, both in terms of tendentious editing and civility amongst Wikipedians. I would be sympathetic if the person seeking anonymity was living in a police state or something like that. But when the person is the sort of character who makes unsigned edits of my words and passes them off as my freely chosen final draft instead of his, moreover with edit summaries that falsely claim that I have issued a "clear threat," well, I feel compelled to ask whether or not supporting multi-accounting for these characters is going to make things better or worse''--Brian Dell (talk) 07:23, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not entirely sure if I'm the person you want to talk to in reference to this issue, as we are talking about three people who are apparently editing under their own names or publicly disclose them (,, and ) and me, who clearly edits under a pseudonym (although it is possible to figure out who I am, with a bit of digging and connecting of dots; you won't know me, as I am unremarkable and certainly not notable). User:EatsShootsAndLeaves has an explicit link to his alternate account at the top of his userpage, and User:Bwilkins has a link to his alternate account at the top of his user talk page, so arguments about a lack of transparency simply don't hold any water at all. The sockpuppetry policy doesn't apply here, since he has clearly linked the two accounts, although it's slightly less obvious than beating people with a clue by four; Wikipedia's sockpuppetry proscriptions are aimed at about people who don't ever reveal alternate accounts which are (actively) used to advance a dispute by implying that there is more support for a particular view than actually exists (WP:AFD and WP:DRV are particularly prone to such behavior, as are certain flashpoints such as ethnic or political disputes).
 * I have an undisclosed alternate account (whose sole edit was noting that it is an alternate account); if I were to begin editing with that account, I'd make the connection to this account clear (although I did disclose the existence of the account to an Arbitration Committee clerk, who was subsequently elected as an arbitrator; he is not currently on the list of active arbs). Having an alternate account is not a problem, as long as it is not used in a disruptive fashion, and since ESL is not editing in a disruptive fashion, I don't understand why some editors (particularly you and Jasonasosa) have such an issue with him. YMMV, and it's possible that I am not seeing your specific problem. My post (although directed at a specific editor) applies to several editors who have been fussing over this issue for a while now.
 * FWIW, I will be dropping a note on User talk:Bwilkins and User talk:EatsShootsAndLeaves, since this discussion substantially involves him. I don't like the idea of sub-rosa discussion of other editors and their motives, and this is a bit too close to that line for my own comfort. I am quite sure that any discussion on this page will be as open as I want it to be; I generally don't remove or refactor posts here unless they out or otherwise personally attack other editors or living people.  Horologium  (talk) 00:54, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for dropping that note for EatsShootsAndLeaves (I've never taken issue with anything signed by or done by Bwilkins, and if there is indeed a sound reason for two accounts, that should be respected by not considering them fully interchangeable). He could have discovered this discussion anyways but what transparency is concerned with is not the possibility of discovering something, but the ease of this.  I would have specifically asked you to drop the note for me, in fact, but if this discussion was going to continue to substantially involve what a third party has done, I wouldn't have raised it here, because I don't think this is the appropriate venue (although when the original venue was declared off limits there wasn't an ideal venue available).  I tried to indicate as clearly as I could above that I wanted to steer away from the direction of talking about specific editors (or, more relevantly, specific edits) and rather address the "big picture" here, which applies to everyone.  You discuss the specific disagreement some more though so, just to reply to that, I would grant that maybe it should have occurred to me sooner that the wikilink in the userbox had been customized such that if I look behind the text to investigate the link I could discover something.  If even just the "someone" had been bolded, it might have clicked with me that the link would be to something specific (about that that "someone") instead of something general.  In the end it was the Talkpage discussion that clued me in.  It looks like a generic userbox, and why is it made to look generic when the connection could have been explicitly instead of hidden behind a link?  There's two options here, one more transparent than the other.  I don't think requests for more transparency should be dismissed with a "it's there if you investigate enough, do you need to be beaten with a clue by four?" response because this misses the point: a transparency complaint is not a complaint that the information is not there but that it is not as readily available as it could and should be.  But aside from taking issue with your assertion of "explicit" in this way (I think the most you could claim is "explicit enough"), what I wanted to discuss was whether multiple accounts should be the exception to the rule or the rule.  I don't have a "specific problem," in other words (or at least not anymore and not here), I have a general one: is the burden of argument on a skeptic like me to prove that multiple accounts should NOT be given the green light or is the justification burden on the party wanting the multiple accounts?  The latter would mean putting the multi-accounter under the spotlight, not calling critics like myself on to the carpet.  Anyway, I apologize if I come across as someone who doesn't just let threads drop, I don't want to keep pulling you back into a discussion that you might have decided to just let lie.--Brian Dell (talk) 05:00, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Since you mentioned my name Horologium, I might as well cut into this conversation. My problem with a particular Admin is not so much that he has an wp:alternative account, but in the case of User:EatsShootsAndLeaves what really bothers me is when this admin says, and I quote: "I went so far in ANI to use "non-admin comment" for awhile. Once or twice, when involved in a discussion about policy, I have said "well...as an admin, I understand that"." while further commenting to others, "and have gone out of my way to NOT claim to be an admin." This is downright deceitful behavior for an admin. That's all I pretty much have to say. Thanks,  &mdash;  Jason Sosa  06:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

A Beka Book?!?!?!
Why did you undo the what I did on Pensacola Christian College? I made a page exclusively for A Beka Book. I will undo what you did and I did give an explanation of what I did. If you have any more problems don't be hesitant to talk to me. Dplcrnj (talk) 00:55, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You removed an astonishing chunk of content with absolutely no justification. If you created a page for A Beka Book, you at least need to link it; as far as I can tell, looking at the PCC page (which I have on my watchlist), you stripped out an entire referenced section of that article. You didn't add a link to another page, you didn't add a link, and you didn't add it to the "See also" section. Nobody is going to find a page that you don't have linked somewhere in that article. Don't revert unless you provide something to justify the removal.  Horologium  (talk) 01:01, 27 September 2012 (UTC)