User talk:Newyorkbrad/Archive/2015/Apr

Happy that you're still here
...And you edit without the fez on! Regards, Novickas (talk) 20:29, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Discretionary Sanctions
Isn't it usual to at least let a person know they are in danger of discretaionary sanctions? I don't recall ever being pointed to that by anyone. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 19:43, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The entire situation is unusual from beginning to end. However, I will agree to lift the formal sanction if you abide by the guidance I have provided. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:45, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Spell out what you want? I don't mean that bad I just want to have a clear understanding what you want me to agree to? Hell in a Bucket (talk) 19:48, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Why don't you just step away from this whole situation and leave it to others to deal with. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

NYB, if you choose not to lift the formal sanction, please remember to list it at WP:DSLOG. Thanks Thryduulf (talk) 19:50, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * With "Saint Kohser" now blocked and all his edits having been reviewed, the sanction is probably moot. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:06, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Everyone says this is common sense. To me it's anything but, I don't just go pushing buttons on a screen, i consider things carefully. If this is what you described in your statement by the fact we must allow Saint Kosher to continue editing I agree with that being the purpose. I however think that if he is willing to say he vandalized an article what is to stop him from vandalizing as Saint Kohser? I then further thought about possibly reverting vandalism removal and I thought to myself that vandalism isn't something new to the encyclopedia and we manage to find it and remove it without the help of banned users. What my method does is expose them for what they are, a vandal. Why allow them the chance to damage things further by leaving things open? Hell in a Bucket (talk) 19:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You know ... when I say something, and another person disagrees with me, I often think I am still right. When I say something and everyone disagrees with me, I consider that I may very well be wrong. At the moment, as far as I can tell, everyone is disagreeing with you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok So I am wrong, I'm ok with that but if we have rules we should follow them. If it's ok for one banned user to come back the others should have the same opportunity too. We all bend over for consensus and if that it is the consensus they can come back if they are making good edits then there we go. No one including me has that problem, it should be formalized. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 20:04, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You continue not to understand. In any event, I see that "Saint Kohser" has now been blocked by ArbCom. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:05, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Which was all I asked for in the first place. I do not completely understand you are right. I'm stating that outright that I do not understand the difference. Seriously enlighten me what I was missing and what you would like. I know you don't like me, I don't particularly care but like it or not I do have to deal with you. You are stating there is a problem and you want me to refrain from certain behaviors, tell me what those are so I can agree and you can hold the noose or I can disagree and you can still hold the noose. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 20:08, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Let me give you a hypothetical example. Suppose someone goes to John Smith's BLP article and inserts "John Smith likes to kick puppies." This statement is unsourced and in fact is a falsehood; John Smith has never kicked a puppy and in fact is chairman of the local ASPCA. A known banned user reverts the edit. Would you put "John Smith likes to kick puppies" back in the article? Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:16, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * No, I would not, honestly though I look a lot of the time and if I see a source I assume good faith it's actually there. It's one of the few things I almost always agf about. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 20:22, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't know; making harsh comments against him in the Wikipedia space again like that is not one of your best moments. Personally, I think you could have (and should have) approached this situation differently, and the outcome would have been more desirable and less of a sting for all concerned. But we all have our bad days, and our patience is not as great as it might be on other days; I certainly feel like that today. I think it's obvious what the comment at AE was aiming at, but it was not a terrible suggestion in the circumstances of that AE - it would mean ROPE for the reported editor, and given that was one of the editors I thought deserved sanctions at the time.... Anyway, just unusual seeing that from you. Regards, Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:30, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Not sure if that was to me or not but Nyb has probably restrained himself somewhat during this and I don't mind harsh comments if the person is going to back them up with a rationale. I take those liberties often enough and can take a good dosing back. It's the only way a person can grow, hiding from truth only robs yourself. What I dislike however is letting personal dislike over-ride their reason and it has probably come close to that. the arb case request has been declined, i move on everyone else moves on, mark it down as a bone headed move by HiaB and we all live. FWIW I didn't make that post on ARBEN for any reason other then it seemed like a very good exception to use IAR, I was calling out the committee to practice what they preach obviously but really what would it have accomplished with Brews blocked for 1-3 months? Obviously though my own actions have over-shadowed that which there again I'm partly to blame and can't really gripe about too much so long as he keeps his personal opinions out of the dispute when using his tools I will deal. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 19:58, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * My reaction was borne out of a sense that you were saying "since my request was denied as IAR, why isn't everything IAR." If we're not going there, I don't think there's an issue. In any event, I'll leave this issue for others to deal with, if it comes up again, which hopefully it won't. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:02, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

re: St. Kohser
I don't know if you saw the letter from Philippe that Russavia supposedly received a few months back. I'm surprised to infer that St. Kohser didn't get a similar one ages ago. 50.0.205.75 (talk) 21:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * That letter was based on a global ban issued by the Wikimedia Foundation. Thekohser is not the subject of such a ban. Let's leave it at that. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:14, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Didn't you think...
That after you retired from ARBCOM it would be somewhat less hectic and controversial for you here? I'm sure we could run you for Wikipediocracy Trustee if you got really tired of this site. ☺ → StaniStani 07:42, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * It's my own fault; I keep commenting on things that I don't have to, whether more-or-less out of force of habit, or because I'm under the misimpression I have insights to add given my tenure as an arbitrator.
 * A candidacy on my part for an enhanced role on Wikipediocracy would surely be internally divisive: I don't think I'm one of the favorite people of Mr. K or Mr. V or Ms. M, to say nothing of Mr. D (who "despises" me) and his co-author Mr. B (who makes Mr. D look kind); and we certainly won't discuss the honourable Gentleman who declared me "a fatuous ass" just yesterday. Given the site's role in promoting the recent and indefensible experiment in vandalizing (among other articles) BLPs, I don't think it would be a terribly popular move here, either.
 * But I promise to post again on Wikipediocracy sometime soon, if only to promote the R.S. book I'm editing when it comes out in a couple of months. I'd tell you more about it here, but I don't want to risk being blocked as a promotional account. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 10:14, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Fortunately at Wikipediocracy we have no rules against self-promotion, you can even leave a link and blurb in your signature. &rarr; StaniStani 04:22, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Though humility is an admirable virtue, Brad, the word "misimpression" applies to nothing you say about this project. Certainly this project needs critics, but it would be far more useful if they were level-headed and thoughtful at least some significant percentage of the time, as opposed to compulsive, unhinged and rabid far too often. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  06:01, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

New Newyorkbradblog entry
A reference librarian reviews Wikipedia. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:11, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Gerechtigkeit
You are known for fine legal language, - how can we best render Gerechtigkeit (justice, righteousness, the right thing) in this poem, and how the cry for it when it is missing (Schrei nach Gerechtigkeit)? See the discussion on the talk. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:45, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Equity. – iridescent 2  12:15, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Either "righteousness" or "equity" sounds like a good fit to me, though I may be missing nuances. If you post the query at the language reference desk or to a relevant wikiproject, you might get other suggestions there. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:15, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you, both. My personal problem: never heard "equity" other than in finance, read about it now and it reads like a legal concept. Can a concept "suffer in great need"? The German seems a personification, such as Justitia. That article says "Lady Justice" and "Justice in art", not "Equity in art". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:00, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Although "equity" does have meanings wider than finance/legal, perhaps Gerda is correct that the connotations of that English word are too constrained in this context. "Righteousness" is perhaps better, but may carry excessive connotations of religious piety. Might a formulation like "right living" work? As a Jew, I am reminded of Yiddishkeit. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  06:10, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I think "right living" would be an adequate translation to modern English, as I tried saying "the right thing". But again: could "right living" suffer? I see people doing the right thing but "out of process", and suffer. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:24, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Another near-synonym is rectitude, which has less of a biblical whiff about it than does righteousness.—Odysseus 1 4 7  9  20:06, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Can rectitude suffer? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:58, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * No more or less than any other abstraction, I suppose—such suffering is figurative to some degree, invoking personification or another such metaphor—as applied to objects especially, in many contexts to suffer means merely to be harmed or damaged, without any reference to the experience of suffering.—Odysseus 1 4 7  9  03:06, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

In case anyone missed it, we have an article, equity (law), about the legal term. 50.0.205.75 (talk) 01:07, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

New Newyorkbradblog entry
A troubling New York court decision about privacy. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:30, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Heather Bresch
Assuming this isn't resolved the usual way by consensus, is this the kind of thing that is appropriate to submit to Arb-Com? It has already made its rounds to various noticeboards a half-dozen times, but ultimately the editors that do participate from a board are not as persistent as the other ed. There is some constructive discussion going on that is promising. I realize that if it did go to ArbCom my own contributions would also be scrutinized, but when I looked at the ArbCom page, it looked like most cases are declined anyway. Figured I'd just ask you, since you already have some context and are certainly more familiar with that kind of thing than I. CorporateM (Talk) 04:34, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
 * ArbCom might get involved in this type of dispute if there were issues of user conduct, and all other avenues have failed; they won't decide specifics about article content, as you know. If you want my personal opinion, it's that we might be better off without this article at all. Newyorkbrad (talk) 05:30, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you think she is not notable? or do you just mean her notability is not enough to make all the arguing really worthwhile? CorporateM (Talk) 13:47, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

New Newyorkbradblog entry
Books inspired by information found and connections made on Wikipedia. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:47, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Upcoming attractions in DC
 Hello!

Here are some upcoming DC meetups in April and May:


 * Tuesday, April 14: National Archives Hackathon on Wikipedia Space with American University – 2:30-5pm
 * See the latest work on the Wikipedia Space exhibit in the new NARA Innovation Hub and brainstorm on new ideas for a public exhibit about Wikipedia
 * Friday, April 17: Women in Tech Edit-a-thon with Tech LadyMafia – 5-9pm
 * Team up with Tech LadyMafia to improve Wikipedia content on women in the history of technology.
 * Saturday, April 25: April Dinner Meetup – 6 PM
 * Dinner and drinks with your fellow Wikipedians!
 * Friday, May 1: International Labour Day Edit-a-Thon – 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM
 * An edit-a-thon at the University of Maryland

Hope to see you at these events! If you have any questions or require any special accommodations, please let me know.

Cheers,

James Hare To remove yourself from this mailing list, remove your name from this list. 22:18, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

April 29: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Using Wikipedia as a blog
So Brad, what about WP:NOTBLOG are you exempt from and why? Are you allowed to continue to run a blog because you are an admin? a former arbitrator? I'm curious what makes it ok that you have a page called User:Newyorkbrad/Newyorkbradblog and treat it like a blog, on Wikipedia, when such things aren't allowed. I'm sure I will surely be blocked for even asking such a question, but it seems rather silly to me that someone who is supposed to be upholding Wikipedia's policies so flagrantly disregards them. Would it be ok if I created a subtalkpage and did the same thing? How long would it take for that page to be deleted and for me to be blocked with a summary pointing to WP:NOTBLOG, my opinion is it wouldn't take long. 96.255.237.170 (talk) 01:19, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * While the section summary is not qualified, the rest of the section at WP:NOTBLOG makes it clear that its is talking about using your userspace for things unrelated to Wikipedia. The reality is that someone would probably be a lot quicker to challenge you, as an IP editor, if you started a similar user space blog, but if it was of the same quality as Newyorkbrad's I would hope the result would be the same for the both of you. Someone could also definitely write a Wikipedia related blog in their userspace that we would reject, the nature of the content matters as much as the form factor. Monty  845  01:44, 16 April 2015 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) It would be clearly permissible for me to have created each one of my series of posts as a separate short essay, either in my userspace or in Wikipedia space, because my subjects are directly related to Wikipedia and concern issues of importance to the project. Instead, I have chosen to collate the postings on a single page as a convenience both to myself and to readers. That is a matter of formatting only, and does not transform my appropriate commentaries into an irrelevant personal page that would raise an issue under the userspace guidelines. I fear that you may have allowed a shorthand slogan such as "NOTBLOG" to substitute for thoughtful consideration of what I have had to say. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:54, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

New Newyorkbradblog entry
A test of Wikipedia quality improvement. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:59, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Nazi gun control theory
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Nazi gun control theory. Should article be locked down/protected? If so, which version, and for how long? Thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 22:36, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for thinking of me, but for a number of reasons, I'd prefer to stay away from this particular topic. Thank you for your understanding. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:26, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Hillary Rodham Clinton - Move Discussion
Hi,

This is a notification to let you know that there is a requested move discussion ongoing at Talk:Hillary_Rodham_Clinton/April_2015_move_request. You are receiving this notification because you have previously participated in some capacity in naming discussions related to the article in question.

Thanks. And have a nice day. NickCT (talk) 18:49, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement question
Hi Newyorkbrad. I'm new to AE and probably don't know all the rules. You wrote that the violation I reported for Eric Corbett was three weeks old; is there a statute of limitations on ArbCom remedies for personal attacks and topic bans? I apologize for the belated request for enforcement (I only just saw the edit in question). gobonobo + c 20:53, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no specific "statute of limitations." However, on AE as on other noticeboards, "stale" reports generally will not get acted on unless they are part of an ongoing problem. The purpose of sanctions is to prevent disruption. If an edit was made some time ago and no one raised an issue with it at the time, it is often better to let it alone rather than rekindle an issue that might otherwise have petered out. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:58, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * To which I might add that a one-week block would mean nothing to me anyway. Eric   Corbett  21:02, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Eric, that's helpful now, I don't think. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:06, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Then we'll have to disagree, and not for the first time. Eric   Corbett  21:08, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You've been in a privileged position for far too long NYB, you really don't understand how this project really works. I'm just an oink, I see how it really works. Eric   Corbett  21:13, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the clarification Newyorkbrad. I would argue that this is an ongoing problem, with Eric today opining in the same thread that GGTF supporters "have blocked up their ears and closed their eyes to the reality". gobonobo  + c 21:11, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Anyone who believes that expressing an opinion is a problem, is a problem in themselves. Eric   Corbett  21:18, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

This section is closed. I am going to a ballgame tonight, and I'd rather not see a flamewar here in my absence. Regards to all, Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:26, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

User:Gavodel
I'm sorry for creating the page it was only a joke with my friend but please be nicer next time you warn a user, or there will be no one left to edit on wikipedia. Gavodel (talk) 20:31, 29 April 2015 (BST)
 * , thank you for your message. The reason I was so stern in that particular warning was that you created what we call an "attack page"&mdash;that is, a page whose sole purpose seems to be to attack or mock another person. Since you are telling me that this particular page was just a joke, I believe you. However, a lot of the time, people create these types of pages not in the spirit of friendly joking, but to hurt or bully people. Since Wikipedia pages show up when you Google someone's name, we really need to get rid of pages like that as quickly as we can, and to tell people not to make any more of them.
 * In your comment about being nice even to users who are being warned, you have happened upon one of our important guidelines for running Wikipedia, which is "don't bite the newcomers". So in that spirit, welcome to Wikipedia (even after three years), and I hope that sometime, if you feel up to it and in the mood, you'll try actually editing our encyclopedia. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:55, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

thanks for replying, sorry I won't make any more "attack" pages,

cheers,Gavodel (talk) 21:02, 29 April 2015 (BST)