User talk:SilkTork/Archive2/Archive 4

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WikiProject Horticulture and Gardening COTM

The current monthly WikiProject Horticulture and Gardening collaborations are: Cash crop Energy crop Plant ecology Seedling Tropical horticulture The next collaborations will be posted on May 1, 2012. (Contribute here!)

Harassment of editors and Arbcom transparency

On my talk page at User_talk:Russavia#Comment_from_AGK, there is a discussion between myself and your fellow Arb User:AGK, concerning an issue which came to the attention of Arbcom. As the various links and diffs show, many editors saw the recent RFC/U against User:Fae as harassment, at best, and as homophobic harassment, at worst.

AGK firstly stated that he "voted" to ban Delicious Carbuncle, then has "corrected" himself to state that he merely was in favour of the Committee reviewing the case; either way there was opposition on the Committee to either banning Delicious Carbuncle or even reviewing the harassment that Fae was being subjected to.

As an Arb, the community elected you to represent the community for the community. The Committee time and time again pushes on editors who come before it that transparency is essential in our editing; in fact, transparency is one of the key tenets of this project, however the Arbcom often does not act in the same transparent way that it (and the community) expects of the community itself.

AGK states on my talk page that one can only expect a transparent hearing if a request for arbitration is filed, and states that most Arbcom business is conducted this way. This notion is somewhat correct, but it is also very wrong. As the committee time and time makes a point of stating that community transparency is essential, the community also expects the same of the Committee -- at all times. The Committee also makes many decisions "behind closed doors", and when pushed to explain decisions cites various "get out of jail free cards" to avoid being transparent to the community-at-large. This includes decisions such as banning editors for things done offwiki which can't clearly be attributed to that editor, or unbanning editors with a history of socking, etc, etc.

In aid of this, and in the interests of transparency to the Community at large, I am asking that you answer the following questions:

1. Did you discuss the harassment of Fae on the Arbcom-l mailing list?
2. If you did discuss this on the mailing list, were you in favour or against the Committee reviewing the information?
3. If the discussion got to anything resembling a vote, did you vote in favour or against banning Delicious Carbuncle?

These are very simple questions which one is able to answer if they are truly for transparency both on the Committee and in the community in general, and I would expect that many in the community would be wanting transparent answers to these questions.

The last thing, it is of course Fae's choice if he wishes to request a case for Arbitration, but these questions are not being asked to have an end-run around the Arbitration process, but are being asked in the interests of transparency on a specific example that the Committee was aware of and refused to act upon. I would expect Fae and other editors (especially LGBT editors) would be wanting transparent answers here now, before deciding if they wish to act. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 07:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Though the Committee is a body, not all members get involved in every request, case or email. As with Wikipedia as a whole, as individuals we get involved were we feel our actions are needed. With ban or block appeals, for example, one person may take the lead on a request, investigate, report back and make a decision, and then await feedback. As with RfA or AfD, or other community discussions, if after a reasonable time has passed there is clear consensus, then a decision is made and sent to the appellant. Not every member of the Committee is required to get involved in that discussion.

I am aware that there has been a RfC on Fae. I didn't see that the RfC involved ArbCom as a body as the RfC was a community discussion on an individual; while input from some individual members of a previous Committee might be helpful in that matter, that would be for the individuals themselves to decide. I didn't see that the discussion involved me, as it was about matters from before my time in the Committee, and I don't currently have access to the archives relating to any discussions - anything I could have added would have been simply uninformed opinion. I believe I passed some comments along those lines at some point.

My feelings regarding this matter is that the community runs Wikipedia, and we have processes here by which matters can be dealt with. If it is felt that matters have become so serious or disruptive that the community feels it needs a binding decision, then a case request can be made and the Committee will consider taking up the case. At such a point I will seek access to the archives if felt necessary.

I hope that has answered your questions. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:15, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Horticulture and Gardening COTM

(Received from you on my talk page)
WikiProject Horticulture and Gardening
Hi, thanks for the invite, but I'll not be taking part. Could you take me off your mailing list. Regards SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:20, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• I made a note of this the future. There isn't a list: I sent the COTM to you because your name is on the member list for the project. Thanks for letting me know. Happy editing, Northamerica1000^(talk) 19:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I have removed my name. Regards. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 19:35, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Tag not proper or appropriate

Hi SilkTork. I wonder if I can impose on your time just a little. I respect your judgment so much and I'm just not experienced in the confrontations and situations that I run into in editing on a controversial article with the editors I work with now. The issue here is just that the editor felt the article should be tagged but perhaps hastily chose wrongly and does not want to change it for my asking. (I don't think he is overly fond of me or the article.) I have asked him often what he specifically objects to but he generalizes and wants to delete instead of telling me how I can improve the wording to satisfy him. IMO this latest tag puts this well sourced, not overly long and structured article in a category that I feel like is not appropriate and I feel it demeans all the work I have put into it. Will you help me by looking at this issue on the current tagging and remove it if you agree with me. I reverted the second time, never guessing he would revert me again instead of discussing. There is a write up on the talk page at the bottom. New tag. I know I should just quit on this article but my sense of fairness won't let me. I hope you understand and don't think I am just being stubborn. Thanks so much and if you don't want to take any action, will you tell me where to go to get help with this? Agadant (talk) 09:37, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Got your message SilkTork.  ;) I'm still a newbie at what to say when I get taken to boards here, who to ask for advice, etc. (or not) and thought it would be be best to be transparent, as is recommended. Agadant (talk) 19:53, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution survey

Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite Hello SilkTork/Archive2. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released. Please click HERE to participate. Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts. You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang DR goes to Wikimania! 12:09, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Webster's Brewery

Hi! You may be interested to know that my Webster's Brewery page has now achieved Good article status! Three good articles on WikiBeer now. I'm working on Boddingtons only fairly sporadically at the moment, but that seems like the most likely candidate for Good article status next. It's currently ranking B. Cheers! Farrtj (talk) 16:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I've listed the Boddingtons page for GA review, and whilst I don't expect it to get GA status quite yet I would like to get a fresh critical perspective on it.Farrtj (talk) 17:06, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you're doing some excellent work, and are a great asset to Wikipedia. I think your efforts here are more respected than on RateBeer! SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 20:02, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Lookahead

I was about to go to bed, so I'm going to fix this right now, but I don't think result of the split you just performed here makes much sense at all. One dubious blurb of text made little sense in the context of Lookead and none in Lazy evaluation, the other piece of text has nothing to do with Combinatorial optimization. —Ruud 00:35, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. I agree that the article as it stood wasn't helpful, and also that the split is not much of an improvement as I was simply using the unsourced text that was available, but hopefully it's a step in the right direction. I was going by what the text and links indicated, and followed the split request. The difficulty is the lack of sources. These might help if you're looking to tidy up: Lookahead in combinatorial search, Lookahead parsing, and Lookahead and lazy evaluation. Regards SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 14:29, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

SilkTork, May I remind you of the message that you sent to me. This particular one I don't think is really splittable (whether there is such a word or not). The material that Ruud wants to split is really just examples of look ahead. Good luck with this one, you'll need it. Me, I've noticed that when I stop banging my head against the wall it stops hurting. Regards. Op47 (talk) 15:28, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

My main point really was that it wasn't only not an improvement of the Lookahead article, but actually a regression of both that article and the targets you merged the content to. At least the original article provided some context from which a computer scientist could improve it. Now we have e.g. an out-of-context piece of text on combinatorial search in the article on Combinatorial optimization (there two are - apart from a similar name - fairly unrelated topics.) I placed the merge tag on that page instead of simply splitting it at that time, because a proper split would require some a non-trivial amount of work (and some domain specific knowledge - a few snippets from Google Books probably aren't going to help you much, I have more useful books on my bookshelf.) —Ruud 10:37, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I see what got you confused there... —Ruud 11:18, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Good article reassessment

An article that you have been involved in editing, Webster's Brewery has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the good article reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 17:20, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice, though I think my editing on that article was fairly minimal! Article now comfortably meets GA criteria. I didn't initially see the reason for the nomination, though it appears that work has been done since you nominated, which I assume has cleared up your concerns. As part of ongoing development of the article tidying up the cites would be helpful, though the reference formatting issues you raise do not strictly apply to GA which simply requires a reference section and inline cites for certain statements. It's worth having a look at Wikipedia:What_the_Good_article_criteria_are_not (particularly Wikipedia:What_the_Good_article_criteria_are_not#.282.29_Factually_accurate_and_verifiable), which was mainly created by WhatamIdoing, but which has been looked over by various experienced GA reviewers who broadly agree with the advice there. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:28, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Lectionary 179

I will work on those reviews one at a time, as I do agree with you after you clarified things further with your later response. I will be sure to ask you for any guidance if I need it and after finishing re-reviewing those three articles, I will be sure to take on board your suggestions and look very closely at the good article criteria to ensure the article is reviewed in the best possible way. Before I start with Lectionary 179, I have asked User:Leszek Jańczuk if they would like the review to be re opened, to ensure that I do not disrupt their current wiki work. Again, thank you. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 15:16, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

That's very good! I think you have some promise as a future admin. I'll take a closer look at your contributions later, and if you like we can have a talk about adminship and going through RfA. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 15:22, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Splitting

Hello Silktork,

I see that you have finished the troublesome splits from last year. Very Good. Op47 (talk) 22:29, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes - there were some awkward ones there. I have been wondering for some time now if there should be a system in place for splits the same as for mergers - Wikipedia:Proposed mergers. Often there is no or little discussion so it can be difficult to find consensus, and when acting on a request either to do the split or decline it, there can be objections due to lack of input from others. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 08:42, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Museum guidelines

Hi! I first tweaked the Wikipedia:WikiProject Museums/Guideline sequence, which wound up reverted fairly quickly, so now there's an active discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Museums/Guideline about the sequence of sections. You are invited and encouraged to chime in. Please also see the discussion about consolidating several sections which tend to be especially brief. -- ke4roh (talk) 03:13, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Responded. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Bowls

Could you please take look at Bowls. I believe the page would benefit from an having anonymous user accounts blocked. The edit history shows long term sustained abuse by anonymous user(s). Slowart (talk) 18:09, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Responded. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Accuracy of FoFs

Would you mind taking a look at what I posted here? I'm worried that some of the arbitrators are voting on the findings of fact without carefully thinking about whether they're accurate. But you've listened to some of my earlier comments about the proposed decision, so I was hoping you'd consider my comments about this too. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 04:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I did note your comment and was going to respond, but then got distracted by Real Life. I'll leave a comment there. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 08:06, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Paul Walsh

Hi Silk, could you use your admin privileges to change the title of Paul Walsh (businessman) to "Paul S. Walsh"? The initial of 'S' is surely differential enough from the footballer called Paul Walsh.Farrtj (talk) 10:28, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

That looks fine, and he appears known as Paul S. Walsh. You can move that yourself, as there is currently nothing at Paul S. Walsh. You click on the "move" tab, and a box appears. For "reason", you put WP:Common name. You then check incoming links and update those - such as changing Paul Walsh (disambiguation) so that the entry there reads Paul S. Walsh. If you have any problems, let me know. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:55, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Lectionary 179

Just letting you know that I mentioned you at WT:GAN regarding the GA review of the above article. AIRcorn (talk) 21:35, 24 April 2012 (UTC) And also at Puffins talk page. AIRcorn (talk) 22:06, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:18, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

RfA withdrawl

Thanks for your advice. I thought I should just ride it out, and learn as much as I can, since its already gone south. I learned much last night, after I should have closed it, so I am torn between learning as much as possible about the process, and closing. Also, if I choose to close it, how do I do so without causing more errors. — GabeMc (talk) 21:51, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for delay responding. You edit the RfA page and replace

<span class="plainlinks">'''[{{fullurl:Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GabeMc|action=edit&section=5}} <font color="#002BB8">Voice your opinion on this candidate</font>]'''</span> ([[Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/GabeMc|talk page]]) '''{{RfA tally|GabeMc}}<!-- WHEN CLOSING THIS RFA, REPLACE THIS PART WITH {{subst:finaltally|SUPPORTVOTES|OPPOSEVOTES|NEUTRALVOTES|[OPTIONALMESSAGE] OR [result=successful] OR [reason=SNOW] OR [reason=NOTNOW] OR (blank)}} SEE TEMPLATE FOR MORE DETAILS -->; Scheduled to end 02:47, 4 May 2012 (UTC)'''

with

{{subst:finaltally|9|36|7|Withdrawn by candidate }}

You may add a brief reason, or just leave it at that. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:06, 29 April 2012 (UTC)