User talk:Spinozist triangle

April 2024

 * You cannot simply create new accounts then return to the same disputes and topic areas. That's not how clean start works. Any new accounts or editing will be pure block evasion and further violation of policy. You, the editor behind all these accounts and IPs, are blocked as an individual. You are unlikely to be able to appeal for at least 6 months. Read WP:SO. -- ferret (talk) 20:04, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Speaking on the record
Well, it had to come out sometime.

On the last song on the Wedding Present's Bizarro, David Gedge sings "if we're really, really going to be honest - we might as well be brief." I will try my best to do that here, though it is my nature to be longwinded. If you've seen the way I wrote as Janglyguitars, you know that already. But I can try.

Yeah, I was using socks. I was. And I recognize now how damaging that was for the very arguments I was making. Why did I do it? I didn't, at first. I tried to have good faith, rules-abiding conversations on various talk pages. I did genuine "original research" (another cardinal sin, I know), from which I concluded by inductive reasoning (another foreign concept here) that Wikipedia's coverage of much British pop music was seriously slanted, alienated from both scholarly and critical opinion and that of most ordinary British people. I thought, and continue to think, that to be a problem. Is it the purpose of Wikipedia to act as a sort of personalized blog, a place for users like Hiddenstranger to dump the dubious, but technically reliable, sources they find online which support their own (highly subjective) systems of categorization? Or is Wikipedia's purpose to act as a summary of the literature on a given topic, which means considering such factors as the context, relevance, and relative expertise of sources to be included? I raise these questions not in the spirit of one hostile to Wikipedia or intent on its destruction, but as someone who has, gradually and bit by bit, lost faith in much of what it pretends to. Wikipedia is a truly incredible project with so much to offer, but again, I would ask those who are far more invested in its maintenance than I: what purpose does it serve? Which kinds of people are being rewarded, and which are pushed away? I'm sure the administrators here would group anyone who uses socks in the latter group, but I don't think that's correct. In the real world as on the internet, there are those who will closely observe the letter of the law while exerting an overwhelmingly negative effect on society with their greedy, antisocial, and selfish behavior. Similarly, there are those who will break the law, often out of a feeling of desperation or necessity, who are fully genuine, upstanding, and moral members of society. On Wikipedia as in the world, the causes of crime must be examined, and if any more than a few (and I know it is far more) editors who come from a place of good faith, genuine understanding, and tolerance of opposing viewpoints are banned for violating site rules, then those rules ought to be examined.

To reiterate, before the idea of socking had ever even occurred to me, I tried again, and again, and again at having the sorts of talk page discussions encouraged by the site, based on an exchange of opposing views, compromise, and consensus-building. But such conversations can't be one-way affairs. The other party has to follow the same guidelines and behave in good faith, or the whole exercise becomes a pointless and hypocritical affair, as I have seen all too often, of who can muster the greatest hypocrisy in picking and choosing which site policies supposedly support their positions. Rather than, you know, actually discussing the question at hand on its merits, picking apart the opposing views, it becomes a game of who's the bigger hypocrite/is better able to cynically exploit their knowledge of site policy to their advantage. And that's a real fucking shame for anyone who believes in the idea of an online knowledge-based encyclopedia. In my numerous talk page discussions, none of the basic ideas of rational disagreement, the give and take and considering and reconsidering of views, were ever once displayed. Each and every time, it was a total prefab charade, in which I would state my position in detail, before the opposing side would state theirs (in considerably less detail), ad infinitum. Each time I tried to get a respond to my specific criticisms, just the same lines, again and again. Like talking to a fucking wall. At its worst (though really all have been equally bad), we get a conversation like this one on the synth-pop talk page. No matter your own views on the subject at hand, for any thinking person that conversation would be (and was, I can assure you) a truly Kafkaesque nightmare of the most incomprehensible and unspeakable horrors.

Again, I'd like to emphasize that you're driving away the right sorts of people, and encouraging the wrong ones, from what ought to be a collaborative encyclopedia based on free knowledge and open discussion. And to give that some context I might want to say a little bit about myself. Who am I really? Well, I'm an American university student who has thoroughly studied British pop music as my field of research, and will soon be a published author in the field (in a far more reputable source than the sorts of places Hiddenstranger looks to, so I could cite myself if I wanted). In some ways, Comeniusthegreat was a far more accurate reflection of myself than Janglyguitars (minus the horrific prose); I actually was studying in London when I left my comments there on the genre discussion page. With Jangly though, in a sense I was more able to write as myself (with modified British spellings and punctuation), as my own personal style has that peculiarly English, manchurian air about it. And as Jangly, without actually lying about who I was, I think I gave the impression of someone who lived through the 1970s and 80s by way of my style and points of references; these I obtained, of course, because it is actually a subject I have researched in great detail. For my deceptions, I'd sincerely like to apologize to Mutt Lunker and any other British users who thought I was one of them, and whose credibility and arguments (the whole point of my efforts) have been arguably damaged by indirect association with a sockpuppeteer. If it means anything, for what it's worth I thought of myself as doing it all for you. You who lived through those days, as New Romantics down the Blitz or Punks on the Kings Road, but have lived to see your own history obfuscated and erased for eternity by the 21st century's online arbiter of truth. Well, I want you to know that here's one young American who hasn't forgotten you, loves your Jackanory stories, and is gonna get them published so that maybe even Wikipedia will take some notice. Cheers and good night. Spinozist triangle (talk) 06:14, 25 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I have no desire to address any of the above, and has no involvement in any of your content disputes. If you want to be unblocked, read WP:GAB, wait six months with no socking or logged out editing, and explain how the issues leading to your multiple blocks (partial and full) and ANI discussions for disruption will be addressed going forward. I'll be frank: An unblock will not even be entertained without a promise of a one account restriction and that you won't edit logged out (something you have promised to stop doing repeatedly). -- ferret (talk) 13:41, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I have no desire to be unblocked at this time. Spinozist triangle (talk) 23:13, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Whoops, I guess you tripped and fell onto . -- ferret (talk) 13:46, 30 April 2024 (UTC)