User talk:Newyorkbrad/Archive/2016/May

Modest Stein's heirs gave us an image!
It took months of negotiation (well, most of those months was waiting for them to respond ... more like days of negotiation, really), but in the end, got it!

There are a few more pics by Marcia and Modest Stein at the same Flickr account that I might ask for, but I think this is clearly the pinnacle. :-) --GRuban (talk) 18:34, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Excellent. Thank you! We must do this again sometime. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:12, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Stefan2 ANI
I saw your note about this comment you made. I doubt Stefan2 saw it, and I am concerned that a) the close was too weak and b) Stefan2 took nothing away. It would be great if you would him aware of your comment too. Just a thought. Jytdog (talk) 23:52, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The WP:NFCC#9 fun here at ANI is not yet over, so you may consider restoring your comment. Johnuniq (talk) 05:24, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

May 25: WikiWednesday Salon NYC / Enterprise MediaWiki Conference
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Saturday April 30: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa @ Guggenheim
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U.S. Supreme Court question
Hi. Special:Diff/721311678/721388121 / Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases seems like the kind of question that would be right up your alley, if you have some time. :-) In addition to that question, I'm also curious whether we document that "JJ." syntax/convention anywhere. I think I've maybe figured out why "Alito, JJ."; "Alito, J."; and "Sotomayor, JJ." are used, but I can't really be sure. Hope you're well. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:21, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Lurker, here. If I may, JJ is plural of J and I replied on the talk page, which may or not be helpful. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:41, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Huh, thanks. I always read it as "Junior Justice" but your explanation makes more sense and JJ agrees. All right, then. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:52, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's just the plural. Alanscottwalker, thanks for providing the answer. I've added "JJ" to list of legal abbreviations. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:52, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Your oppose comment
"might if anything be praised rather than criticized" Don't you mean "might if anything be criticized rather than praised", or am I just having trouble reading complex sentences?--Bbb23 (talk) 22:23, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I think it's right as I typed it, meaning that it's good and not bad that the candidate stayed out of this argument. On rereading, the sentence structure is indeed too complicated, but the whole comment is probably tl;dr anyway so I'll let it go. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:29, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I read it. I did know what you meant. I've now reread it (not that I didn't read it more than once before posting this comment), and I can see that it probably is right as written, just, forgive me, a bit convoluted perhaps. Anyway, if people do read it - and I think you'd be surprised by how many will - I'm sure they'll grasp what you meant, which is the most important thing.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:34, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

My guestbook
{{tmbox }}
 * type     = notice
 * image    = Civility barnstar.png
 * imageright= Guestbook barnstar.png
 * small    = {{small|}}} / = yes
 * style    = width: 427 px
 * textstyle = color: black; font-weight: bold
 * text     = Thanks for signing my guestbook! You earned these.  Peter   Sam   Fan  13:14, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Peter SamFan. I think my thoughts on your talkpage are more substantive than the guestbook signature, but you are welcome to both. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:07, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

The RfA oppose rationale was trollish
I hatted the trollish rationale (I've come to realize that not everyone sees obvious jesting/trolling, not sure why) and closed ANI discussion to make the edit war stop. I saw bunch of new comments after hatting and archiving and didn't see that you did the strike and thought it was the new set of commenters. I reverted my undoing your strike and hopefully it will stick without any more hurrah. Apologies for the temporary undo. --DHeyward (talk) 20:36, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note. I saw both the edit and the undoing. My experience on-wiki has taught me that the Oppose section of an RfA is a very poor place for jesting or for us to permit trolling. Worse even, perhaps, than the Signpost. :) Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:38, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * lol. Trolling my soon to be ArbCom sanction with a Signpost reference will yield Nothing. Must. Resist. Feeding. ;)  --DHeyward (talk) 23:06, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, as I've said elsewhere, if I were still on the Committee I wouldn't have voted to take the case in the first place. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:07, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The case is sure to be quite useful. Many will be thanked for their participation. Jehochman Talk 10:49, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * FYI: I've blocked after what you noted in your post and his reply to you. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:01, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

User:Gamingforfun365
I unblocked this user earlier. All things considered, I was confident you wouldn't take issue with the unblock and would have done it yourself as Floq had gotten involved and things seemed to have calmed down. I wanted to at least leave a note letting you know. Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 01:26, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note. I agree with your action. Hopefully this problem doesn't recur. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 05:56, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Clarification please
In this comment, you wrote: "Well, that's actually not as clear as it might have seemed, but in any event, discussion can continue."

had written: Since I started this article, I think any fair-minded person would agree this is an accusation that I was editing in bad faith.

I'd written a detailed rebuttal to this and other distortions, when I noticed That man from Nantucket had been blocked for sockpuppetry. I decided there was no point rebutting specious accusations from a proven sockpuppet, that specious accusations from a sockpuppet would be best to be simply ignored.

From your comment, should I assume you took his or her accusations of bad faith seriously? Should I assume I need to defend my character, to you? Will you read a long and detailed rebuttal? Geo Swan (talk) 01:11, 27 May 2016 (UTC)


 * No, no&mdash; I was referring only to the sockpuppetry issue, as at that time it looked like The Man From Nantucket might have an explanation for that. I wasn't referring to your editing or behavior at all. Sorry if that wasn't clear!! Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:20, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi
Please check the latest developments over at Engleham's talkpage; we talked about it and Engleham agreed to change his tone. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 16:16, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I have followed the discussions on that page and unfortunately that is not my impression at all. I appreciate your heartfelt post and efforts on that page. They were especially useful because you have Engleham's respect after you defended him so energetically on RfA this week, so if he would listen to anyone, he'd listen to you. (Personally, I remain disgusted by both his and your behavior on that RfA, which by leading editors to believe that bogus RfA oppose !votes cannot be controlled without excess drama, may lead to permanent damage to the project. But that is a different discussion.)


 * I've carefully reread Engleham's comments over the past few days and I don't see any commitment by him to change his on-wiki behavior, even though you did your best to elicit one from him. His reaction to GorillaWarfare's post left me particularly speechless, and certainly eliminated any prospect of his block's being shortened.


 * I would very much like to see Engleham continue editing, because I've read a couple of the articles he has written. They are interesting, well-researched, and well-written and I learned things; we need more contributors who do that for us. And anyone who knows my nine-plus-year history as an administrator, including my seven years on the ArbCom, knows that I am virtually the last person to advocate blocking or banning anyone except as a last resort. But the impression I have right now is that he doesn't plan to change at all, and that he doesn't care whom he offends or how badly. That's sad. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:55, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, I tried. I am certain that you would understand my POV (and even partially agree with it) if we would have the chance to talk about it for a while, you know, with tea and stroopwafels. But we live on different continents and have to communicate via written text, which makes that process a lot harder and far more time consuming, so I think that realistically our time is better spent doing other stuff. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 17:12, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps if you threw in some bitterballen we would make more progress.
 * Seriously, The Quixotic Potato, I respect very much that you tried. I just wish that Engleham were also trying. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:16, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 17:19, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * I love the irony! The Quixotic Potato (talk) 22:03, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Rick Alan Ross and New religious movements in general and ArbCom
A strange headline, but I'm a strange person, as you probably already knew. I remember there being some discussion recently about amending one of the existing sanctions to NRMs. I think proposed the request for clarification or amendment, but be damned if I can find it right now. In the discussion there was talk of maybe changing the scope of the proposal. I mention this because I think maybe having some sort of single active sanction as opposed to the current numerous existing sanctions might be of benefit, and that, maybe, you might be one of the better individuals to draft it, being a lawyer and all. I remember making some comment myself about one possible change of scope to cover those groups which have received negative government reaction, and I think maybe that one might work.

I myself might maybe support the addition of Ravidassia because of its recent unusual history, where they apparently try to use what some might describe as forged documents to indicate that their faith is a pre-Sikhism form of Sikhism. Or something like that. It gets complicated, and the group is only about five years old, and there ain't a lot of good data really available yet. Anyway, I was wondering about your thoughts in the matter. Given your recent involved in the RAR discussion, if Thryduulf can point out the last proposal, I was wondering whether you might have any ideas of how to roll the existing multiple sanctions together into maybe one single matter. John Carter (talk) 22:22, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Frankly, my initial reaction is that this isn't an area I'd want to get heavily involved in (my interest in the Ross article derives from the BLP aspect, not the NRM aspect). But I do appreciate that I have skills that can help sometimes, so I suppose I shouldn't be selfish.
 * I'm not clear on the specifics of what you are suggesting. If you are saying that there are existing sanctions that need to be broadened or reworded or revised, what is the specific issue is that is not being addressed by the sanctions that already exist? This isn't an area where I'd advocate rewording or revising the DS in place just to achieve greater elegance of draftsmanship. What is the specific problem you are trying to solve? Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:32, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I pinged Thryduulf for a link to the page where he made the earlier proposal. He should be I hope coming here with a link to the previous discussion soon, which I can't find. The proposal was to "roll together" the existing various sanctions on NRMs, including Falun Gong, Scientology, and others into one sanction, and in the discussion I made a variant proposal that it be expanded to cover all NRMs which have been pronounced "illegal" or similar by one or more governments, like Landmark Worldwide, which was the subject of a recent arbitration case which didn't impose DS but which easily could have and maybe I think should have. And, it seemed to me at the time, that having in place might prevent a few similar cases in the future. Maybe. I mention above the Ravidassia because while they haven't been specifically counted as illegal anywhere, at least to my knowledge, someone mentioned it particularly in the proposal and the situation there does look like one which might arise to ArbCom soon. I hope that makes some degree of sense, and that maybe Thryduulf can find where the previous discussion is. The discussion there would probably be helpful, when he can find it. John Carter (talk) 22:44, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I think what you are looking for is Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Archive 17. This was my suggestion to simplify the sanctions in the NRM area by combining the various different remedies into one broad DS authorisation, however it really didn't attract much support and would almost certainly fail if proposed again this soon (it was archived in November). My interest in it was from the point of view of simplifying the sanctions regime rather than any particular knowledge or interest in the NRM topic. Thryduulf (talk) 09:45, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Would you, NYB, think it maybe reasonable to combine the various extant remedies into one, maybe with the addition of Landmark, already mentioned, and maybe Ravidassia religion, a new religion about 5 years old which claims, and has produced (fraudulent) documents to support, being directly founded by someone from the 13th century? Granted, it is still a very new group, and there haven't been much by the way of RS on it I have seen, but I think that, maybe, it might not be unreasonable to include it as well. Maybe. John Carter (talk) 20:15, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd repeat the question I asked above, which is whether there is a specific, ongoing problem that this would address, as opposed to just making the scope of the DS more elegant as a theoretical matter. If Thryddulf is right that the ArbCom looked at this just a few months ago and decided not to make this change, then you would probably need to persuade them that something has changed between then and now. I'll repeat that I'm not especially well-versed in these topic-areas. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:18, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The change he proposed isn't really the one I am suggesting here. His proposal was to basically include all NRMs established 1925 or thereafter. The new variant is to only include those still actively functioning which have been in legal problems, like being basically banned from certain individual countries. In such cases, the countries involved have a tendency to issue lots of material to support their action, sometimes disproportionately to most other sources. One of the, admittedly sometimes obscure, problems which I guess I could see at times is that someone like RAR could have negative criticism of him added regarding group A to help undermine his credibility regarding group B. So, in cases where, for instance, negative material added regarding the Unification Church or Branch Davidians to help weaken his apparent reputation regarding, for instance, Scientology. I acknowledge that I can't say I actively remember any such roundabout attempts at besmirching, but I also have to say that it wouldn't surprise me if they had happened without my notice. John Carter (talk) 20:36, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I understand the category you are trying to create, but I anticipate more bickering about what religions or beliefs belong in the category than it is worth. As just the first example that comes to mind, would all forms of Christianity and Judaism be included because they can't be openly practiced in Saudi Arabia? You still haven't identified a specific, ongoing problem that rewriting the DS scope in this way would solve, and unless there is a serious problem, my instinct is that there is not enough value to warrant pursuing this. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:14, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
 * FWIW, the groups I was thinking of including, although admittedly using very inaccurate phrasing, are the still-active or very-recently-active ones in the Governmental lists of cults and sects. But you may well be right. that it might not be worth the effort. John Carter (talk) 21:22, 31 May 2016 (UTC)