User talk:FightingMac

My talk page. FightingMac (talk) 21:44, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Intimate Reflections

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Hi CorenSearchBot.

I get a 'URL Not Found' when I try that link so you're very clever (and fast - seconds!) little botty indeed there. All my own work promise except for the 'Time Out' quote which is a fair selection surely and fully attributed. However go ahead and do whatever you think needs to be done. FightingMac (talk) 01:33, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Square roots

Hello, FightingMac. I saw your edits to Square root, which I thought were good. Thanks. I also saw your edits to Talk:Square root, where I thought you made good points, though I do wonder how much point there is in replying to talk page posts from long ago: in at least one case over three years ago. At least a couple of your comments were answers to editors that have not edited since 2008. However, I suppose someone other than the original poster may find what you've written useful.

Perhaps more important is your comment about the section "Square roots of negative and complex numbers". I think the sort of problem you describe occurs in quite a number of mathematical articles. Maybe I will find time to think about editing the section some time. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:45, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks James. As for the talk contributions I was just filling in some spare moments and hadn't noticed the dates of the original contributions. I think the 'Square root' article is a good one, as also is the article on 'Computing square roots' which is mind -blowingly comprehensive! I do think that the section on square root of -1 could be sexed up a bit but it would needs diagrams which I personally don't fingo all that much and it is a problem on reflection. I don't expect to do much maths editing in Wikipedia other than small contributions here and there which meet my eye. FightingMac (talk) 22:26, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I Know It For A Fact

I was personally involved with the production of this film. I was privy to conversations and interactions with many of the people involved with the production including Barry Spikings at EMI. I was informed by people intimately involved with the finances and the ultimate demise of this film, which occurred prior to its release. The film is not anti American, it is just a silly, funny comedy. However, anti-Americanism is the excuse the distributors wished to use for dumping the film and that is the way it was communicated to the press through very powerful press agents at the time (PKM). Although the primary press wrote reviews of the movie as directed, there were several major reviewers who wrote their own opinions. If all the reviews had been like Rex Reed’s in the Daily News (I have a hard copy of the review, but I was unable to find a copy of it on-line) the movie would have been a smash hit, however, it had been decided well before its release that this movie would not make any money and every effort was made by the distributors toward this end. No expense was spared in the effort to kill this movie and it has nothing to do with its content or quality. There were politics behind the scenes that had to do with the finances of this film and the demise of this film was strictly a power play on the part of some very, very powerful studio executives at the time (who are since deceased). It is amazing to me how there are people who are so determined to continue to disseminate the lies and vitriol that was made up about something that was meant to be simply fun entertainment. The budget of the film tells the tale and if anyone editing for Wikipideia can’t see that obvious fact, then I have to wonder why they are editing for a publication that supposedly wants only verifiable facts. The comments made regarding the content of the film being the cause of its failure are the editor’s opinion. I don’t know what the editor ‘s background is, but unless he’s actually been involved in the production of a Hollywood movie, I can’t see how he could begin to understand the mechanism of the Hollywood machinery. The review in the New York Times was not the cause for the failure of this movie it was the result of the failure of the movie, which occurred before any critics ever even saw it for review. While you can verify all the bad reviews you like, it doesn’t account for what actually happened. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Juliacharles (talk • contribs) 10:28, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for this Julia. I responded on the Talk page as follows

Julia, I'm truly sorry my edits have provoked this response from you. I edit across a whole range of topics in Wikipedia, most of it copy editing, and I've been editing since the project's inception. As it happens I am aware that there elements of truth in what you have to say about the machinations of the money men behind the film but you simply have to get yourself a source Julia and that's all there is to it. If there's a story out there that hasn't seen the light of day then go for it, but Wikipedia simply isn't the right forum for that. Once it's out then that's the time for it.

The best I can suggest you do is write an authoritative looking paragraph which avoids sounding like a private opinion (rather on the lines of the paragraph of yours I've retained in the lead section). Chances are this will go unchallenged or if it is challenged with a 'citation needed' template will survive a long time and, who knows, might then be supported by another contributor with an appropiate citation.

For what it's worth I did see the film back in the '80s and thought it tolerably amusing. But then I'm British and I did notice its hard edge (and frankly its immaturity as well) and can well understand it flopped in America. I'm not surprised its DVD release years on has been more successful and think it likely it may well achieve cult status. Again you could help by providing citations.FightingMac (talk) 08:27, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

If I don't see an edit along those lines next few days I'll try to provide one for you. Best I can offer. You simply have the wrong forum here J, nothing personal. Find an appropiate and reliable forum, let me know and I'll cite it. FightingMac (talk) 10:46, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm Working On It

I concur with the need for citations, and will take up the project (have already started thinking about it) to provide same. It will not be a simple matter, and it is not a project that I relish doing. In fact, it will be a painful process. I am all too familiar with the fact that the production of this film was not “fun,” in spite of the fact that the content was meant to be nothing but fun. Some of the research I’ve done so far has started out with how many high profile British (or for that matter any British directors) have ever directed an American comedy.

Although there have been a few foreign born directors of American comedies such as the German born, Ernst Lubitsch, to date I have not found an instance when the director of an American comedy was British. There are also few instances of American directors who have directed American comedies, I came across Terry Gilliam (an American) a long time member of Monty Python who also eventually directed one of their films, (Holy Grail) after easing his way up to the position. For the most part he was so assimilated that most people don’t realize he is American. While it is true that HTF was a British film, the script was written by an American writer and all the actors are American (no Brits using American accents) and it takes place in America. However, given the fact that it had a British director and producer, it has earned the reputation of being anti-American.

The truth is that HTF was never meant to be such a huge “Hollywood” movie. It originally started out as an idea of Don Boyd’s that he intended to both produce and direct as a small independent film. If it had never gotten into the hands of John Schlesinger, there’s no telling what might have happened to it. Most likely the same thing that happens to so many screenplays - nothing. Getting a script made into a movie is a matter of both talent and luck. It is a very flukie process that is mostly in the hands of powerful agents and wheeler dealers who are first and foremost, in my opinion, rogues.

On one hand it could be said that Schlesinger getting a hold of the script was an exciting development. However, this brings us back to the crux of the matter if you ask me, which is the “across the pond” factor. Let’s face it, similar to the fact that many people in the southern United States still wave the Confederate flag, the differences between America and Britain harkens back to colonial days and is clearly illustrated in the first successful American written comedy, The Contrast, by Royal Tyler, written in 1787. Apart from all the machinations of egomaniacal, backstabbing, love you “Darling,” Hollywood, it is alright for us to poke fun at ourselves, but don’t you (Brits) dare say a word about us, ESPECIALLY, making fun of us. Even if Don Boyd had somehow “magically,” successfully managed to produce, direct and distribute HTF, it still would have suffered from this defining “contrast” so to speak.

On the other hand, Schlesinger getting a hold of the script was its death knell. The fact that it was a high profile British director, only contributed to it being a high profile unmitigated disaster. There came a point in the production of the film that John Schlesinger became most acutely aware that the perception would be negative because he was British, combined with his great insecurity about directing comedy in the first place. Whereas, he could get away with it on a drama, as he did with Midnight Cowboy, he realized that comedy was another matter; Since he was British, the movie would be perceived as anti-American. If the director had been American, this perception never could have existed.

Schlesinger manifested this in very insecure behavior and decided somewhere in his mind that he had to do something about it by spending too much money and began spreading the money around as favors that he could cash in on in the future when things went south for him as he was predicting in his mind. All this was going on in his head prior to principal photography. He vacillated between spending and spending, to insulting the executives in the hopes they would cease production and put it on the shelf in mid-stream (which they almost did.) His insecurity became a critical factor and had an insidious effect on the whole production. It infected everyone and at a later date (it took three years to produce) became like a disease that ran to a fevered pitch as it came closer and closer to the film being pushed toward release. He didn’t want the film released in the worst way- he began stepping on people’s toes in the hopes to avoid it. The result was that he made a lot of people very angry at him and they retaliated in the process of distributing the film.

Behind the scenes, people were running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to patch up their financial losses as a consequence of Schlesinger’s spending spree, and consequently sold the ancillary rights (including the video cassette rights, which at the time was a brand new medium.) All this, was on top of the “Roy Tucker Tax Avoidance” business. This is how it turned into such a train wreck and it all happened way before any critics saw the movie that was released in August, 1981. In screenings for the critics the reception was initially quite good, but as the story unfolded and people began to retaliate by exercising their power, anything positive got buried underneath a landslide of reviews that focused on the American comedy directed by a British director aspect. No fun whatsoever!

And the person it was the least fun for was the writer. Everyone agreed for a first screenplay, it was extremely promising. If it had not been put under the microscope of being such a high profile British run debacle, the writer would most likely have had a stellar career. I found a short review in Variety, but I have never read the “Variety” review you cite, and I have ordered a copy of it and will receive it in the mail soon, as I have not been able to find it on line (thankfully) I am not looking forward to reading it after all these years because I’m sure it will not be “fun.” Please don’t republish it. When I have gathered all my sources together and put all my ducks in a row, I will attempt to write a paragraph as you’ve described with citations, in order to possibly set the record straight with respect to HTF. I will thank you in advance for your consideration towards me and will appreciate any cooperation you might provide.

I apologize if my previous message was "harsh" towards you. I do not normally edit Wikipedia and have only come to this "stub" as it pertains to me personally. I am not adept in this area and have fumbled my way to even finally find this discussion page, but it seems necessary at this point in time for me to give it a directed amount of attention and somehow figure out a way to set the record straight. I will do my very best to provide the citations you require. Juliacharles 11:18, 1 May 2011 (UTC) Juliacharles 12:56, 30 April 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Juliacharles (talk • contribs)--Juliacharles 11:27, 1 May 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Juliacharles (talk • contribs) For example - I don't understand why there is an indication that this is unsigned when I have folowed the instructions and insterted the 4 marks as required.--Juliacharles 12:29, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, indeed I encourage you to do so but do please be sure to adhere to Wikipedia core principles or you will run the risk of your hard work being edited out which I can tell you is incredibly annoying and hurtful: do be careful by the way also to make sure you don't fall into the 'original research' trap, which is also non-Wikipedia - again citations is the best protection. What you say about HTF is largely confirmed by Walker's account I cite, which you might care to check out (perhaps you can write a ==History== section) and I think it's agreed that Schlesinger was indeed largely responsible for its morbidly obese budget, compounded by Don Boyd's lack of experience in controlling Schlesinger's excesses. The impression I have is that indeed Schlesinger was a disaster for the movie but you have to cite if you're going to say that (again I stress it doesn't have to be on-line to cite). I haven't read Walker's account recently but I think Boyd also suggested that in the end it was a mistake to employ a young and inexperienced script-writer.

I'll be checking out the article out again a few weeks hence and I'll interested to see your contribution. I hope it's successful and the start of many more. Wikipedia is sometims sniffed at because of its emphasis on 'popular culture' but I absolutely disagree. I think it a fascinating record of an important part of life and times and, yes, important to set the record straight when it needs it. Good luck.FightingMac (talk) 20:25, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Is it ok...

Do you mind if I put a wee colon in your comment on that IMF fellow's page to separate our comments? It's a small thing, but I wanted your permission to do so first. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | Say Shalom! 03:00, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Flinders. No not at all and I've done it for you. I should have done it myself. FightingMac (talk) 03:09, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

You beat me to it by a few seconds. =p Another topic opened on that btw. xD Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | Say Shalom! 03:12, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Interview

Hi FightingMac, I'm a French journalist and I'm writing an article about the inside debate between Wikipedia contributors about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn page. You might not notice but there's a great difference of treatment between the French WP and the English one. I would like to ask you a few question about that if you can give me a little bit of your time today. Here you can contact me : guaranaseven@hotmail.com

Thank you. Regards, Antoine

--Guaranaseven (talk) 14:25, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Antoine. I did notice the contrast between the French WP and the English one (it's even more striking looking at the Dutch one) and I've been looking at the French one regularly. But I'm not up for interview, I'm afraid. Sorry and thanks for contacting me. FightingMac (talk) 14:44, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

feminists and anti-sexists group opinions

These people have nothing to do with this case - please do not replace it again - is is not a soapbox article for opinionated groups. NOBLANKING is just an essay with no support as policy or guideline. Off2riorob (talk) 23:58, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Hey - we are edit warring now WP:3RR - is knocking at the door - as I said blanking is an essay -such opinionated comment do not belong in the article. Off2riorob (talk) 00:08, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi, but I beg to differ about 'we'. It's you who is edit warring. I'm sorry you had a knock at the door from WP:3RR but whose fault is that? The feminist and anti-sexist reaction is here to stay as far as I'm concerned, Off2riorob, and I didn't even create it. Thank you.FightingMac (talk) 00:16, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

It has so little to do with the title of the article that it clearly does not belong. The article is about the case - not the thoughts and opinions of all and sundry, opinionated groups and porno stars do not belong there. Off2riorob (talk) 00:20, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I can't improve my points by repeating them (and neither can you). Thank you for your attention. FightingMac (talk) 00:25, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Just dropping by (I'm off out for the day) to mention; you keep using NOBLANKING. But this is an essay which indicates that blanking sections may violate policy, then explains ways in which policies might be violated. It is an essay written completely by Wikid77, with whom I've had a lot of dealings - his views on policy tend to be somewhat "off the wall", and he has a history of writing essays to support his viewpoints (or to keep his content in an article). NOBLANKING is unlikely to hold much sway in the wider community (where it is accepted that your content will end up being deleted outright at some point) and indeed itself "violates" some of our core policies about removing material :) If you are going to use NOBLANKING I suggest explaining specifically why the blanking might violate policy, and which one. --Errant ^(chat!) 09:52, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks ErrantX. I'll stop quoting it so much. I'm grateful you took the time to let me know. I can only say that I need policy to quote and explain my actions. It's a bit of a bother when having taken the time to locate policy it turns out not to be! As for my content being deleted outright at some point I'm not too bothered. I do accept that and I am aware that there people out there who can provide better content than I can and probably will eventually. But I don't want to see this DSK article, which I absolutely do not approve of nor support, being used as a forum by agenda pushers. I shan't burn out over it, but I do plan to do my bit in the form of occasional tactical raids. Your comments always appreciated. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 11:50, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• please note - reverts in 24 hours are still considered to be gaming the system and looked upon as continuation of edit warring - your comment here is a statement that you intend to do that "dismayed at his blank of the 'feminist' material and will restore it as soon as my 24 hours are up" - please do not do that. Instead - seek support for its inclusion and discuss why you think such opinionated groups against such allegations (remember they are only allegations) are neutral to be included - seek support for the addition, Thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 16:23, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Off2riobi. Thanks for this. Didn't know that. Of course I'll defer. I really, really can't understand why you, I gather an experienced and respected editor, did this. Grateful your input the Conti affair. I see the NOBLANKING essay has an infobox stating it's not part of Wikipedia. Of course I should have noted that. FightingMac (talk) 18:41, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

just noticed the "why you think such opinionated groups against such allegations (remember they are only allegations) are neutral to be included ...", which is frankly a quite fantastic misunderstanding on your part. These group aren't protesting against (?) the allegations but against sexist comments in the media about the case and the absence of any equivalent "presumption of innocence" for the complainant. And once again the "remember they are only allegations" ... really it's too bad. FightingMac (talk) 18:24, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

File source and copyright licensing problem with File:Tristane Banon 31 janvier 2001.jpg

File Copyright problem

Thanks for uploading File:Tristane Banon 31 janvier 2001.jpg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status and its source. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously.

If you did not create this work entirely yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, please add a link to the page from which it was taken, together with a brief restatement of the website's terms of use of its content. If the original copyright holder is a party unaffiliated with the website, that author should also be credited. You will also need to state under what licensing terms it was released. Please refer to the image use policy to learn what files you can or cannot upload on Wikipedia. The page on copyright tags may help you to find the correct tag to use for your file.

Please add this information by editing the image description page. If the necessary information is not added within the next days, the image will be deleted. If the file is already gone, you can still make a request for undeletion and ask for a chance to fix the problem.

Please also check any other files you may have uploaded to make sure they are correctly tagged. Here is a list of your uploads. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Peripitus (Talk) 11:08, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Peripitus. I got the image from Tristane Banon and it's a private image placed in the public domain. I'm just not very experienced at dealing with the copyright issues. I'll try and make it good as you suggestFightingMac (talk) 11:12, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, hopeless. Can't see any way to edit the file. I'll ask for undeletion. FightingMac (talk) 11:15, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Finished with the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case

See Talk:Dominique_Strauss-Kahn_sexual_assault_case#Libelous_or_contentious_additions article talk page quoted below:

• There is a BLP Noticeboard discussion about material that has been the subject of edit warring, and the subject of earlier discussions on this Talk page. Comments would be useful. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 20:10, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
• You don't pay any attention to BLPN consensus, WW1, so what's the point? And it's you who's edit warring. FightingMac (talk) 22:18, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

You are both as bad as each other, I suggest you both stop editing this article before the situation deteriorates and restrictions are required. Off2riorob (talk) 22:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Very well, I shall. I rather doubt WW1 will. What was your opinion of his restore of the Conti material against BLPN consensus? Am I really as bad that? Are you going to allow back "feminist and anti-sexist reaction" you took it upon yourself to blank?

Done here.FightingMac (talk) 22:49, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

See here for examples of the sort of thing I complain of and which is impossible to deal with. I do think these very contentious BLP pages need to better policed against WP:CRUSH editors. What this page will be like when the going really gets dirty god knows. FightingMac (talk) 07:25, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

• Off2riorob says he is sick of being attacked by POV pushers (me) posting crap on his talk page. But I'm not a POV pusher and I wasn't attacking him. In the first place I was defending myself against what you might well characterise as an attack from him, to the effect that I should be banned from the DSK article, and in the second place I was pointing out that I couldn't possibly be POV pushing feminist issues because I hadn't contributed that content and was merely defending it. Well hot under the sporran there, our much respected Rob who isn't an administrator nor on the arbitration committee, but I really am moving on here. I do thank him for taking Wikiwatcher1 to task on the Conti affair and (again) I apologise for (obviously) offending him - I really didn't mean to.

• But I will make one concluding remark in general and that is that WP:CRUSH abuse, which you see all over Wikipedia, is by far and away its most serious problem in my view. An entire generation of Wikipedia editors have grown up armed with all sorts of policy guidelines and editing tools and they are literally crushing the life out of new contributors. FightingMac (talk) 16:33, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Deletions request

Wikipedia takes personal attacks against other editors fairly seriously. That includes many comments you've made on the talk page of DSK over the last few weeks, including numerous insults and gratuitous sarcasm. They are all disruptive and clear violations of civil behavior. Please delete all such personal attacks that you've made from all the DSK talk pages. When in doubt, I'd suggest deleting it. Thanks. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 05:44, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi WW1. My guru says it's right speech, so I won't. Nothing personal, just a religious thing. Sorry. Also guru says not to be here in future so I won't. Try to remember WW1 that all things are impermanent and ultimately empty and stay mindful. Sarva Mangalam FightingMac (talk) 06:20, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Suggest you find a new guru. He's turning your public edits into a mockery of civil behavior. In fact, following any more of his advice is likely to become an administators' issue. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 02:04, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Please note that per earlier comments by me and others, I will be deleting any and all article talk page posts that appear to violate guidelines against personal attacks, against me, whether directly by name, or indirectly by insinuation. A sampling of the guidelines FYI:

As a matter of polite and effective discourse, comments should not be personalized. That is, they should be directed at content and actions rather than people. . . .Editors should be civil and adhere to good wiki etiquette when describing disagreements. The appropriate response to an inflammatory statement is to address the issues of content . . . . Linking to external attacks, harassment, or other material, for the purpose of attacking another editor. . . . Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. . . . Removing unquestionable personal attacks from your own user talk page is rarely a matter of concern. On other talk pages, especially where such text is directed against you, removal should typically be limited to clear-cut cases where it is obvious the text is a true personal attack. . . . Although editors are encouraged to ignore or respond politely to isolated personal attacks, that should not imply that they are acceptable or without consequences. A pattern of hostility reduces the likelihood of the community assuming good faith, and can be considered disruptive editing. Users who insist on a confrontational style marked by personal attacks are likely to become involved in the dispute resolution process, and may face serious consequences through arbitration . . .

--Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 18:27, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Personal attacks

Mac, I've avoided responding to your ongoing comments about me, but you nonetheless continue to attack me personally rather than simply commenting on the substance of my edits or comments. Unfortunately, your latest edit summary here goes even further than your previous comments. Please respect WP:PERSONAL and stop.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:07, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Well yes that was regrettable and discourteous of me and I've aplogised on your talk page as I do here now.

But I do hope you understand that a too nice regard for courteousy must not be allowed to stop an editor from giving a frank opinion of another editor and that especially when we (I mean you and I, I'm not accusing you of this editing style) are coping with WP: CRUSH editing. I take the oppourtunity to repeat some of that essay's points here (the essay is not policy but it says it may be consulted in disputes over disruptive editing and may become accepted as a guideline in the future)

• Principles

• Civility is not limited to superficial politeness but includes the overall behavior of the user. Superficially polite behaviors still may be uncivil. Some examples are politely phrased baiting, frivolous or vexatious use of process, ill-considered but politely phrased accusations, unrelenting pestering, and abuse of talk pages as a platform to expound upon personal opinions unrelated to specific content issues.

• Just as WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOR cannot be applied in isolation, WP:CIVIL should not be interpreted or enforced without reference to other guidelines and policies. Civility is important, but it does not trump other core behavioral and content policies.

• Using Wikipedia as a vehicle for advocacy, or to advance a specific agenda, damages the encyclopedia and disrupts the process of collaborative editing. Wikipedia is not here to right great wrongs. Even when such behavior is superficially civil it is just as harmful to the project, if not more so, than incivility.

• The requirement to assume good faith is not an excuse for uncooperative behavior. There is a limit to how long good faith can be extended to editors who are continually shown to be acting in a manner that is detrimental to the growth and improvement of the encyclopedia. Nor is AGF defined as doublespeak for urging all editors to agree with a particular viewpoint and accept any changes that are advocated.

• Civility does not mean that editors cannot disagree. Academe is well-known for spirited debates and disagreements and these often point the way to progress. The key principle is "stay on topic"; that is, arguments should be on the merits and not personalities. Editors should bear in mind that a disagreement with their point is not an attack on their honor.'

This is the basis on which I am proceeding with Wikiwatcher1, a stubborn and unyielding editor whose contribution are not furthering this article and damage the encyclopaedia. Nor does he confine this behaviour to this article as a cursory examination of his talk page reveals. He exhibited the same behaviour in Roman Polanski amongst other articles and has been warned for abusing Twinkle. Only two months ago he was given the strongest possible warning about BLP violation (he was restoring edits deleted on BLP grounds without taking them to the Talk page first)), our most closely observed policy, yet he repeated exactly that behaviour in this article, restoring the Conti material after a BLPN thread went against him and then again on the Talk page. I would say his nine Wiki lives are up, wouldn't you, and it's time to draw a line in the sand?

I'm sorry that I momentarily forgot myself and tarred you with the same brush.

I should like to see your comments on the Talk page section "Banon disgression" (it's always a 'disgression', or 'filler' or 'trivia' with Wikiwatcher1 and that from an editor who thinks it fine to include the opinions of an Italian porn actress in a "French reaction" section to say nothing of the celebrated Francesco Sisci of Beijing who doesn't really write in the Asia Times because it folded years ago: truly a case of your own shit always smelling of raspberries). It's important we curb NPOV advocacy from WikiWatcher1 if this article is to have any future.

You also said that you would reflect on the feminist content. Have you now reached some conclusions? You say you respect the views of Off2riorob (but I notice from his December 2010 candidacy for the arbitration committee that he himself has generated controversy in the past). I see he's added some content on the maids' protest which did frankly strike me as uncharasteristic and unexpected in view of his remarks about feminist reaction. However I assume good faith and welcome it. I've corrected his punctuation and trimmed a veritable catalogue list of references (some Chinese, which seems unnecessary as the protest was widely publicised in the US) and I shall develop further over the next few weeks. It's good to see the maids point of view represented. FightingMac (talk) 06:12, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I added the maid content only to show they were bussed in by the unions and not independent demonstrators. Also while I am here - It is bad show to attack a users previous contributions in an attempt to demean his position in a current situation - also please learn to count your claim on Errent's talkpage that I have been blocked twenty times is way over the top. I have been blocked 12 times and the last two were quickly resined and from last year all of which is actually irrelevant in this issue. I have asked you previous and as you have continued in the same vein since I ill ask you again please stop focusing on me, focus ion the content. This report by Bbb23 is along a similar vein of attack a user that you are in content dispute with in exactly the same way as you did and are still doing to me. Off2riorob (talk) 11:26, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I wan't attacking you,Off2riorob, I wasn't even criticisng you negatively. I was simply pointing out that you were controversial, clearly. I took the figure from a question and answer session in the election, which I don't recall you challenging in your answer (although you did mention the latest was quickly rescinded). I might have been wrong, sorry, and I don't dispute your figure now. I've already made it clear that I valued and welcomed your contribution to BLPN. It's not bad form to show a user's behaviour is part of a pattern. In Roman Polanski around 18 November 2009 Wikiwatcher1 was deleting categories he didn't approve of, such as 'French sexual offender on the run', adding POV templates and entering into edit wars over them. You yourself sent him an edit warring warning and threatened to lock the article. I'm not focussing on you. I don't really know how to react to your comment about wanting to show the hotel workers they were 'bussed in' by their union. I took it be a good faith edit noting the demonstration and that's how I plan to treat it as I add content later on - union affairs interest me. Hope this sets your mind at rest. I am truly sorry I have upset you like this: let's now try to go forward in a fresh spirit of mutual good will. FightingMac (talk) 11:51, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

corrections to my above post - your claim on ErrantX's talkpage that I have been blocked eighteen times is way over the top. I have been blocked eleven times. In the last two years I have been blocked four times, one for asking a user a improper question on an editors userpage, blocked 31hours. One for 24 hours and reduced on agreement and two rescinded as mistaken - all of which is actually irrelevant in this issue. Please stop repeatedly referring to me as a controversial editor I have in my over two years defending living people on the project created some users the oppose me at every opportunity - the talkpage on the arbitration was an outlet for such users to attack me, just because I chose not to add heat to the discussion does not mean I did not refute or reject some of the comments there. Off2riorob (talk) 11:57, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Well I do sympathise. Your editing on Roman Polanski, which I notice is ongoing, is exemplary and I'm sure valuable and I'm sure it does bring you a lot of flak. Wikiwatcher1 mentions a user TomBaker which was an SPA to post unpleasantry about Polanski. I'll stop calling you 'controversial' as you ask. I can add that if you ever come up for election again I will be supportive on the talk page regarding your intervention for the SDK article. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 12:13, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I would like to add, however, that in your edit deleting feminist reaction at this diff, your assertion that I had added this content was quite false. I added precisely nothing of it, though I did copy-edit some of it and wikilinked it. Likewise your assertion on your talk page that I'm a POV pusher (for feminism) is quite wrong. FightingMac (talk) 18:02, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Just checking back here, I was a bit upset the other day. Ok, I am sorry to have called you a POV pusher and I take that back. You are a constructive contributor. I also appreciate your comments above and I move to support a fresh start and that we move forward together in a spirit of good will. The only thing left is the feminist section, I still feel that content is better out than in that article but if you lay out your case for inclusion of some of it, and point me towards it I will look at it with fresh eyes, although my comment that the primary statements have no assertion of notability is not going to change. Thank you for some lowering of the tension between us, regards. Off2riorob (talk) 21:22, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Cheers, Off2riorob. Appreciated. As I say I don't have any particular brief for the feminist section. ErrantX put some back in his edits concerning the Pompidou centre demonstration and as it happens that's the only content I did consider including. I did think the section on French feminist reaction was getting a bit undue weight. I think it mostly came from a single IP. My only real concern for this article is that it doesn't become a venue for the mud-slinging out of court that's ineveitably going to start up if DSK goes to trial and in particular the real possibility of Jewish/Muslim advocacy of which I've already seen hints on the internet. Bbb23 says he doesn't think that's going to happen. I'm pretty sure it is and why I voted to delete this article. At any rate that's the only thing I really want to keep my eye on. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 03:37, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Even when people completely disagree or misunderstand each other, using the abbreviation "WTF" to swear on wikipedia is inappropriate. (As per your use here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dominique_Strauss-Kahn_sexual_assault_case). No fighting, mac.--68.18.200.162 (talk) 22:56, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

You're quite wrong. People often use various degrees of epithets on Wikipedia as they do in real life, from White House down to the street. Just today I was clashing swords with a respected administrator who said he didn't give 'two shits' for something I had raised with him. Anyway when I say WTF what I actually mean is 'whatever then follows' whatever the fuck you think it is I mean. Of course it would have been quite different if I had called him a stupid cunt or something like that, but I didn't. FightingMac (talk) 23:08, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Sure, whatever then follows. The administrator might have your respect saying that, but he's just lost mine.--68.18.200.162 (talk) 23:26, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

No, not at all. Loads of people talk tough and have hearts of gold, others (like me) basically can't help themselves because that's what we're like however hard we try. I don't know, IP, whether you're the user I made the WTF remark to but if you are I've just put a little apology on your talk page because I didn't understand you were a newbie. If you are new, trust me, starting off like this on this sort of civility issue is just dickish and fuckheaded. Of course incivility and personal attacks should be picked up on, but this came nowhere close (as I might say were my issues with Wikiwatcher1 this section). Really you shall spoil your enjoyment of Wikipedia if you continue this path. I hope you'll agree I was attentive to your remarks. FightingMac (talk) 23:36, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Just found the official discussion: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Should_Wikipedia_use_profanity%3F--68.18.200.162 (talk) 23:43, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes thanks, intersting. I'll have a proper read some time. But that's about content in articles. No doubt there's policy about Talk pages as well and it probably says no way in no shape or form. All I'm saying inthe real world you need to cut people some slack. However if you have a sincere horror of profanity, then of course you're entitled to insist on your standards. FightingMac (talk) 00:35, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

inline linking to external wikis

Please stop doing this, external wikis are not reliable sources and should not be inline linked like that, thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 18:53, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't understand this Off2riorob. Do you mean interlanguage links? I thought that was policy if there was no likelihood of an English wiki as is the case with some of the minor personailities in the SDK article. FightingMac (talk) 20:22, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I've added some remarks at Tristane Banon's talk page about this. Following are the main points extracted

• These links, of necessity, are common in translating wikipedia articles (I should know - I've assisted in translating dozens of them) and their use is set out here of which especially notable is this:

If a red link is not appropriate locally for whatever reason, such as because the subject does not appear to be notable, then linking to the other language page may be useful.

That was the rationale for all the interlanguage links I provided: for example the interlanguage link to Michel Taubmann, Dominique Strauss-Kahn's official biographer, who is unlikely to receive an English BLP, but whose interlanguage link was nevertheless removed by Off2riorob without a corresponding redlink.

In the case of Off2riorob, judging from a message on my talk page, his rationale appears to be that he believes other-languages Wikipedias are not reliable sources, probably thinking of this from WP:RS

Although Wikipedia articles are tertiary sources, Wikipedia employs no systematic mechanism for fact checking or accuracy. Because Wikipedia forbids original research, there is nothing reliable in it that isn't citable with something else. Thus Wikipedia articles (or Wikipedia mirrors) are not reliable sources for any purpose

but the issue here is not about providing other-language Wikipedias as sources for content in the article but rather about providing a service for the reader. Content abourt Michel Taubmann was cited with references to the news website Atlantico and the newspaper Le Figaro.

• Another editor (editing Tristane Banon) has remarked that in fact he doesn't know of any direct policy against these links, provoking a sharp response from me here, but suggests that external linking policy discourage them. But that is simply not so. What that means are wikis such as Wikiislam, but not foreign language Wikipedias. The relevant section is this #12 What not to link

Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors. Mirrors or forks of Wikipedia should not be linked.

Quite plainly other language wikipedias are not envisaged here.

EAR

I've started a topic on WP:EAR that involves you. See here.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:00, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Saw that and I've contributed. Thanks. FightingMac (talk) 20:58, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Polanski

Hi, you mentioned the Polanski BLP. What was your username on that article at that time? Did you work on the Frederic Mitterand issue? Or is this account the only identity you have edit under here at en Wikipedia? Off2riorob (talk) 19:05, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Relax Off2riorob, not guilty. Never contributed to Roman Polanski. Nor to Frederic Mitterand. What I did do recently was to translate a section in the French BLP on Jack Lang for the English version, listing various controversial pronouncements he had made on sexuality over the years and culminating in his recent heavily criticised DSK 'no-one died' remark. When Luc Ferry, an essentially failed French politician made his recent controversial remarks, regarded by many people as referring to Lang although apparently that was not the intention, the French BLP blanked that section and I followed suit likewise in the English BLP, noting I had done so on the Talk page. It was subsequently restored by another user and I expressed my personal disapproval on the talk page but took no action.

I have also, as it happened, expressed my disapproval earlier this year on his BLP Talk page of the inclusion of my ancestor Hector Macdonald in the 'LGBT' and 'Modern pederasty' categories but didn't press very hard, just yet anyway, and looking back just now I see they've been removed anyway.

Almost all my Wikipedia editing has been on an IP account. It is fact rather extensive on a variety of subjects but sexuality or sex scandals is not one of my specialities. Hope this sets your mind at rest, if indeed you were disturbed in some way. I'm taking an interest in the DSK affair because I recognise that as a landmark issue for the French people. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 21:26, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Ok, so you have edited this wikipedia rather extensively on a variety of subjects and almost all of that extensive contribution history has been with IP addresses, so you have had previous named accounts? Off2riorob (talk) 21:30, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

That's right. What's your concern? FightingMac (talk) 21:33, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Only that you have extensive edit history that is unavailable to assess. Would you please provide the named accounts to link them to your contribution history? Off2riorob (talk) 21:36, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

No, you misunderstood. This is my only named account. Why are you trying to assess my contribution history? I can assure you I haven't contributed to either Polanski or Mitterand, nor frankly why it should be an issue if I had, but as it happens I haven't. I don't think I need notice you further on this, Off2riorob. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 21:45, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I took your "That's right" comment to mean you had previous named accounts, it is alright to have had them, have you ever been blocked? As to why I am looking to assess your prior extensive edit history , likely for the same reason you were investigating and quoting mine to other editors on multiple pages.(whatever that was..) mine is all available in my edit history.Off2riorob (talk) 21:55, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

[outdent]First a remark befor an edit conflict:

I'll pass on that ;-) What do you think? I mean I get the impression that many committed editors get blocked sooner or later until they realise the errors of their ways, the more so if they take on genuinely difficult editors as you do. But as I've mentioned before my experience with Wikipedia has generally been in quiter waters than present turbulent conditions. I'm not up for arb committee or anything here, Off2riorob, nor will I ever be nor anything of the sort, if only because I am extremely busy with my own work and couldn't possibly afford the time Wikipedia enthusiasts put in. I gathered from your own arb application you work 8 till late. I couldn't begin to offer that degree of commitment. There's nothing here that need concern you, really.

Secondly I absolutely have not been investigating and quoting your edit history to other editors with the exception of ErrantX we've already discussed. Has Wikiwatcher1 been winding you up over this? The position is that you were accusing me at that time of POV pushing feminism and threatening to ban me from the page. We've been through this. Why are we going back over this ground? We really don't need to. I'll be happy to set the record straight wherever you want me to. FightingMac (talk) 22:20, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

No worries, I appreciate your comments and take them as read. I feel at a bit of a disadvantage as your extensive contribution history is unavailable to view and mine is there for ridicule - I have sometimes considered a fresh start. No one has rattled my cage about this, I was just getting spidey senses tingling that we had edited the same article in a previous similar situation. Sometimes it is ok to ask. Regards. Off2riorob (talk) 22:32, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

No absolutely not all Off2riorob. You absolutely don't need to worry about this. I did understand your point very well and went to Polanski and saw that indeed you are an ongoing editor and while I didn't look at it very closely I understood it was principled and I absolutely understand how difficult that must be. If there are difficulties let me know and I'll be happy to smooth them over. I suspect the problem with Wikiwatcher1 is that he's in very deep shit indeed with his Taubmann libel. I think it's quite possible that's reached Foundation. Well that's his own damn fault. I did warn him fair and square. And honest, we've never met before now! Going to bed now. Anything further will address the morrow. Regards. FightingMac (talk) 22:51, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Since you continue to slander my edits at every opportunity, I too am curious about your response to Off2riorob's questions. He asked you if "you have had previous named accounts?" And you replied, "That's right. What's your concern?" and later, "This is my only named account." But that wasn't his question. If you had previous named accounts, what were they? And were any of them blocked? And why?

This question is relevant to your continual references to my supposed edit warring on the Polanski article. You continue to mention Polanski at every opportunity, even knowing full well, that both editors I disputed, User:Proofreader77 and User:Tombaker321 were permanently banned from Wikipedia. You were also made aware that Off2riorob wrote, "User:Tombaker321 was blocked indefinitely over eighteen months ago, you can see comments on his/her talkpage that the user "seems to have edited Wikipedia primarily for the single purpose of adding derogatory content about the life of Roman Polanski - any position of the user as regards content should clearly be avoided." Off2riorob (talk) June 5, 2011. Were either of those two accounts yours?

If you are still unable to control your behavior, and must invoke my Polanski edits, understand that since I was the only editor to confront those two Polanski attackers, I consider your pointing out my edit warring a compliment. Thank you. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 03:36, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Wikiwatcher1. Already complimented Off2riorob about his handling of Polanski. I take your word about your involvement there and compliment you too. But you were also edit warring there over POV tempates and categories. No, I've never edited Polanski or Frederic Mitterand, I'm not sure how that issue ever arose. Yes, I've been editing Wikipedia, and not just the English version, since the project began and no, neither you not Off2riorob can or need to know my edit history. Not slandering you, not attacking you. I do oppose many of your edits in DSK, often ironic. Relax, it's not a big hill of beans, maybe a huge pile of aftermath, who cares? Go take a walk on Bodega. Breathe in, breathe out. Meditate on the impermanence of things. Conference call now so busy. Thank you FightingMac (talk) 03:51, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Daily mail

• - Daily Mail - This publication has recently been under discussion a fair bit recently at en Wikipedia and its status as a reliable source for any contentious or controversial or opinionated content has been quite strongly rejected (please take my word for this as I am lazy to suppy the links to the discussions), this is in reply to your revert and replacement of disputed content supported by it, in this edit summary ,"Undid revision 435596858 by John Nevard (talk)1 'Daily Mail' not a red-top " diff - Off2riorob (talk) 22:44, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Off2riorob. Can you give me a source? I don't know whether you're American or Brit (I'm ex-pat Brit) but it's part of British middle-class conservative culture and emphatically not a 'red-top' as John Nevard claimed in his revert. More significantly it is a very important vehicle for British conservative feminist opinion (it's 'Femail' section is hugely influential) and it has a distinguished record in advocating the righting of various injustices. It is the comfy liberal left who revile it. But revert it if you must. I'm not that bothered. But please don't call it a 'red-top'. It's not. FightingMac (talk) 22:55, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Personally I don't usually have a problem with the Mail except when it's reporting celebrity crap. But you are readding links to it in an article where there are already longer, better written references. Four different references for a couple of statements is utterly unnecessary, as are links to foreign language sources when English ones are easily available. Nevard (talk) 01:49, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

You're entitled to your opinion about celebrity life-styles I'm sure. For myself I would say they merely reflect a decided narcissism in our contemporary culture, evident in very many manifestations and by no means excluding Wikipedia itself.

Regarding the Banon article, which is first and foremost a translation, I am not the only editor nor the originating editor. But, as well as adding to her published work, I did provide most of the content about the Strauss-Kahn allegations and there I went to particular pains to choose a selection of sources I believed representative of the press coverage as well as an example of the French sources on which the English ones are necessarily based.

In the edit-history you said the Mail was a "red-top". It is not. Why did you say it was? Do you think the Banon allegations are 'celebrity crap'? Presumably so, because there's where you say you have a problem with the Mail.

I trust you will have restored the interlanguage links you deleted, as I asked you to, by tomorrow evening, and in general I ask you to be more reflective and considerate of other editors' contributions and above all to stop wasting our time like this. FightingMac (talk) 02:39, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm confused as to where I'm supposed to have removed any foreign language interwiki links. Readd them if you want em. Nevard (talk) 03:21, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

interlanguage wikilinks

Thanks for the input on this re: the Nazi book burning article. I'm real reluctant to get into edit wars -- I've read too many anecdotes of people quitting work on WP after getting sick and tired of the politics spoiling their contribution experience. I was just going to let it stand because it wasn't a deal breaker in terms of the article, but after what you've said, I'll re-revert John Nevard's changes. Thanks! Wingman4l7 (talk)

Cheers Wingman417. You're quite right about edit wars. In this particular case I'm maintaining a minute watch on a very small selected group of articles, adopting a zero-tolerance policy on disruptive editing and making quite sure the editors involved are held to account. Wikipedia needs to be protected from these editors. The reality is that most new contributing editors are turned away by their behaviour. This is a typical newbie bite on a newbie who didn't return, the very first comment on her account talk page, from an editor with a long history of disruptive editing who was nevertheless allowed to continue his WP: CRUSH POV advocacy in Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case unchecked for weeks until I eventually put a stop to it. I put all such editors on notice: not in my articles, not in my user-name. FightingMac (talk) 11:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

law Guigou

Still on my todo list - I have a few things to get out of the way first sadly :) Sorry for jumping down your throat today - please don't take it personally. Paraphrasing is a perennial and potentially disastrous problem, unfortunately. Ill wait to see what MRG has to say - I could be going to hard on this. --Errant ^(chat!) 00:08, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you'll find the law Guigou on the presumption of innocence a bit of a tough nut to crack, but you mentioned you had some experience of French privacy law so you might well find the task easier than I would - I certainly couldn't contemplate it amd my French is actually quite good, as a reading language anyway. I'll look back to see what if any thing is added to the copyright issue. I really can't see what the objection is to the edit I proposed, which after all was merely in the nature of a copy-edit in the first place, correcting some obvious deficiencies in the original contribution, not least the quoting of text that simply didn't exist in the source.

I simply can't understand what moves editors to make churning edits of other editors' contributions as Bbb23 did to mine. It's a kind of violation. In this case what was really important was that the NYT reported that the case was on the verge of collapse, that prosection no longer believed in much of the housekeeper's story, that investigators had found her repeatedly lying about the events and her background and that finally the prosecution had asked for a bail review, and this, whatever the faults of that edit, was what the original edit had focussed on. But most of mine got churned over, on copyright vio if you please. Well I can't do that. It seems so unnecessary and ungracious.

I would say the problem of close paraphrase is probably more pronounced in ongoing news events. I have of course seen unacceptable example of close paraphrase, most recently in a section of complex numbers about its history, which was essentially a copy-paste of some passages from an ancient Gutenberg text on the history of mathematics and which stuck out like a sore thumb because of the slightly archaic language (it contrived entirely to ignore the contribution of Bernhard Riemann, who along with his French contemporary Augustin-Louis Cauchy together brought the theory of complex analysis to a high state of completion over a period of a mere 20 years or so). Indeed the fundamental formulas decribing the character of an analytic complex function are known as the Cauchy-Riemann formulas and Riemann himself has his famopus hypothesis unsettled in 150+ years and more to the point his mapping theorem can be reasonably regarded as a canonical summation of the entire theory. Yet he received absolutely no mention!

Likewise you see passages from the 1911 Britannica which are instantly recognisable from its language with no attempt made to correct...

I really do have to wean myself of the DSK article which threatens to become an obsession. I shan't interest myself in an ongoing issue like this again. The POV advocacy and BLP issues are too serious. At one point, for a period of at least a week, the article contained what was essentially a blatant libel of Tristane Banon. I do think Wikipedia should find ways to police this kind of article more effectively as you have indeed suggested on your talk page. I'm sure the article will now degenerate into mud-slinging between advocates of the two parties involved in the process. It's very unseemly.

Give me a head-up if you ever do contribute on Guigou. I'll be curious to see it. Kind regards. FightingMac (talk) 01:28, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Notification of WP:AN/EW report

Resolved

 – FightingMac (talk) 22:31, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Hello FightingMac,

This is an automated friendly notification to inform you that you have been reported for Violation of the Edit warring policy at the Administrators' noticeboard.
If you feel that this report has been made in error, please reply as soon as possible on the noticeboard. However, before contesting an Edit warring report, please review the respective policies to ensure you are not in violation of them. ~ NekoBot (MeowTalk) 18:37, 2 July 2011 (UTC) (False positive? Report it!)

Replied in detail. Result was declined. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 19:15, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

noindex

Hi, just a note to remind you to please add - {{NOINDEX}} - to articles you are working on in your userspace to stop the crawl bots from publishing them to the WWW. Thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 20:02, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Yes, thanks. Forgot. I did see you added one to my page about my DSK edits which should still be there. FightingMac (talk) 20:13, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

All user pages {{NOINDEX}} now. Thanks. FightingMac (talk) 20:35, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Great - please stop revert warring over these inline links to external foreign language wikis - see my comments at - talk:Tristane Banone - If you object I suggest you start a WP:rfc - thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 20:52, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

This - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ELNO#Links_normally_to_be_avoided - is relating to External links in the external link section not inline links. Off2riorob (talk) 20:56, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes. But that was what was quoted to me by John Everard. Your concern was RS, but they aren't being used as an RS. This Help:Interlanguage_links#Purpose decribes their use. I've used them very often in the past and there never have been any objections previously. I think we have discussed this together all we usefully and I shall now elevate it as you continue remove them. I shall consider what to do over the weekend. FightingMac (talk) 21:02, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Where/which articles on this en,wikipedia have you used them "often" in? My concern was not just RS I have multiple concerns about your adding inline externals to foreign external wikis. My issues are better expressed at - Talk:Tristane_Banon#External_links - Off2riorob (talk) 21:17, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

It is RS [#inline_linking_to_external_wikis above] whhile at Tristane Banon your concern appears to be that the French wikipedia is not reliable. Will you please address Help:Interlanguage_links#Purpose? Are you saying that's not correct? FightingMac (talk) 21:22, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

From what I see there, although it is a bit confusingly laid out, it is not against policy but it is far from common practice indeed, as I requested above, where have you used this practice often before here at this en wikipedia. My specific issues with some of them are laid out in the Talk:Tristane_Banon#External_links section. Off2riorob (talk) 21:26, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

(Edit conflict) I note your concerns at Banon as follows

Please stop replacing these inline links to external wikis - french wiki or any other wiki are nothing to do with us and people do not expect to be taken to an external website that is not reliable and in another language when the click on inline links - write the article here at this wikipedia. If you want to add them - add them to the external link section and clearly explain what they are, personally I wouldn't add them at all. If I was as interested as you I would create stubs for these people in the correct location - this wiki

and that, along with your original RS concern, is what I shall be citing.

(added) If it's not against policy why are you deleting them? FightingMac (talk) 21:40, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I am not going to talk round in circles - I have posted issues on the Talk:Tristane_Banon#External_links section, as I suggested to you, start a WP:RFC or show me where it is common practice on this wikipedia that you have done it often on this wiki. Off2riorob (talk) 21:48, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

'I am not going to talk round in circles' - I would just like to talk in a straight line: why are you deleting these interlanguage links if they're not against policy? Regarding your anxious concerns about where I have used them elsewhere, for example at Canon of Dutch History at Marjolijn Drenth and other places and French Socialist Party presidential primary, 2011 at Michèle Sabban and other places. I do take it you understand that if you follow me to these artiles as you did with Banon to edit them according to your tastes and opinions I shall complain quite stridently? I can add I do them much more the other way round as well. That is I link English wikipedia from other language articles but the languages involved, and especially the articles involved, I don't wish to be known as the contibutor (I edit these on an IP). I take it you are aware of Wikipedia policy about privacy? You fish more than I care for.

I addressed your concerns about expectations by changing the style as suggested at Help:Interlanguage_links#Purpose to Michèle Sabban (see French Wikipedia article) in the DSK article but you immediately reverted. Why doesn't that address your concern about the reader not expecting to be taken to another Wikipedia? I shall cite this as well when I elevate. FightingMac (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

• - Final 3RR warning at Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case - please use propper procedure and stop edit warring. Off2riorob (talk) 21:52, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Not edit warring. One restore to suggest and establish dialogue on Talk page. One fresh approach documented above to address the issue of expectation you raised and which you immediately reverted. Will you please now address 1 why you are deleting these links when you agree they are not against policy 2 when they are not being used as RS as was your original concern 3 why my fresh approach recommended by Help:Interlanguage_links#Purpose was immediately reverted by you without explanantion and a 3R edit-warring warning released instead. I will raise all these when I elevate Monday. FightingMac (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

As I said I had multiple concerns. I am not talking in circles with you. I have continued to post on the related talkpage where my issues are clearly outlined. As I suggested, start a WP:RFC on the article or ask for uninvolved opinions. Please keep discussion in a single location, the article talkpage will be the best, I will open a WP:RFC there tomorrow, that will be the best way of getting some uninvolved opinions in regard to your desired external additions and resolving this dispute. Thankyou for posting the other additions you have made in this way on this wiki, please note I am only interested in the ones on this wikipedia - what you do on other wikipedias is of no interest here, as for the ones here we can resolve them at the same RFC. Off2riorob (talk) 01:16, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I've started a thread on the DSK affair Talk page here Talk:Dominique_Strauss-Kahn_sexual_assault_case#Interlanguage_links because that's where you sent the 3R warning from (on what authority by the way? I mean I'm simply curious. Can I send them for example?). I have repeated the three issues I raise above there and I ask you to respond there. Please don't bother with your RFC. I shall elevate the issue at at time and a place of my own choosing. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 01:41, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

As I said a lot previously - de escalation is the way of discussion, compromise and consensus. I have no reason to wait for your threats. Off2riorob (talk) 02:03, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

In reply to your Q, Can I send them for example? - yes you can and I will accept the exact same one as I gave to you. We both deserved one. Really if you are going to report a user you should first give a warning, if the user then makes another revert you can ask him/give him an opportunity to self revert his edit after the warning and if he refuses you will have a strong report. Off2riorob (talk) 02:11, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

You haven't responded to any of the points I ask you to. On the DSK talk page you suggest I write an English language stub, but even if I was minded to spend the timen that would be deleted for the reasons I gave on the Talk page - she simply isn't notable in English letters. There is no escalation of anything at all here, Off2riorob, I'm not upset and I'm not threatening anything. I would like to see your responses to three points and especially 3 why the format Michèle Sabban (see French Wikipedia article) you immediately reverted doesn't satisfactorily take care of your concerns about reader's expectations. If you're so keen on discussion and resolution why aren't you addressing those issues I ask of you. They do seem pertinent to me, at the heart of it all. FightingMac (talk) 02:14, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the info about 3R warnings. FightingMac (talk) 02:14, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

[Outdent]

As I noted there, I see you have followed me to the Help desk. I find that a bit creepy and on reflection I'll spend time going through the resolution process, archiving it as I proceed.

Progress so far is that I took the dispute to the Talk page of the article you issued the edit warring notice from and I've sought help from the Help desk. Nevertheless you still haven't addressed any of the three issues I raise 1 why you are deleting these links when you agree they are not against policy 2 when they are not being used as RS as was your original concern 3 why my fresh approach, formatting as Michèle Sabban (see French Wikipedia article), as recommended by Help:Interlanguage_links#Purpose to deal with your new concerns about reader expectations was immediately reverted by you without explanantion and a 3R edit-warring warning released instead.

Give these some time to produce results and then let's proceed to the next stage of the resolution process. You suggest a RFC so let's do an RFC. You can start or I shall. Don't mind. Let me know but please stop hounding me. That is likely to upset me. FightingMac (talk) 14:35, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I've asked for a Third opinion here since this seems to be a two editor affair. See what comes of that. FightingMac (talk) 05:54, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Third opinion supports me. I've put a note on the DSK page and on the Banon page announcing my intention to restore these links tomorrow evening unl;ess you contest. I would prefer it you you restored them yourself. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 02:49, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I see you put the Banon fork up for deletion. That was good of you. Thank you.

I get the impression TEB728 below (he did the Michèle Sabban translation) still wants to raise some issues about interlanguage links so I'll wait a day or two, but as far as I'm concerned the issue is resolved. FightingMac (talk) 18:57, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Good Humor
	For displaying a rather jolly sense of humour about a fairly sordid set of circumstances in the DSK sex abuse article, and particularly the talk page Egg Centric 16:27, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Egg Centric! Appreciated. FightingMac (talk) 16:50, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, FightingMac. You have new messages at TEB728's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

POV tag

Don't worry. I hadn't noticed! I've no idea why the caurt case was moved to a separate page. That's not necessary with such a short article. The moving editor created a formatting chaos. Paul B (talk) 18:56, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Cheers, Paul. Well, I do have a few ideas but perhaps best left unsaid. Thanks for ditching that POV template. The user could have at least expressed his concerns on the talk page (whatever they could have been, really coudn't discern what they might have been). FightingMac (talk) 19:01, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

great

I am happy to take your comment as a compliment - "Off2riorob's extremely cogent observation" I do stand up for my position, or rather my best understanding of policy as I see you do and I do sometimes fall out with users that disagree but one think I am always open to is revisiting and re-evaluating and making up and leaving what is in the past behind, no worries, Rob - Off2riorob (talk) 22:06, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I did mean it sincerely. Very grateful your intercession on Banon. Going to do an article about 'Sexus Politicus'. may take me a few days and then I'll get in touch with you to discuss what to do, if anything, about the rest of the links. I have actually moved pretrty close to your position over them, noticing in fact hardly anyone uses them. Cheers and thanks. FightingMac (talk) 22:11, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

"Kahn"

Doh!

I have been lazily calling him "Kahn" in the talk pages just to save some typing. But I can't believe I did so in the article. If you fixed that, thanks.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 04:29, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Bob. Wasn't me who fixed. I was amused :-). Don't worry. We all do it. Just a tip in case you're new to posting. Rowing in like that, changing section headers and so on without discussion on the Talk page is probably quite a lot bolder than you perhaps ought to be right now. An awful lot of water, really a lot, got swept under the bridge discussing headers in the early days of this article and I know ErrantX spent a lot of time, I mean really a lot of time, sorting all that out. Changing headers and stuff as you fancy is fairly dickish in my view. A lot of people don't like loads of subsections. It usually just means the editor can't cope with paragraphs. No, seriously. However, whatever you feel comfortable with ... FightingMac (talk) 04:58, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

There was discussion. Pages and pages of discussion about creating a new section, which didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Based on that discussion, particularly on Errant's comments, I boldly stepped in with a compromise solution which I thought could work. And it seems the compromise worked out okay, because (at least for now) it's sticking.

As for section and subsection headers, I'm sure that it's a matter of taste and style. But in my opinion, it shouldn't be based on an editors ability to write lengthy paragraphs. Instead, we should be tailoring the text and formatting towards our audience. I don't know if any studies have ever been done, but I'm guessing that the vast majority of wiki readers come to the site looking for particular bits of info, instead of looking to read entire multi-page articles. Thus, I personally lean towards adding a good number of section and sub-section headers to help them find the information they're looking for. 2 cents on that. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 06:21, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. I didn't notice a lot of discussion and I thought ErrantX against all those subsections. You're guessing or knowing? It really ought to be that latter or we would be endlessly second-guessing here. Next time I see an opportunity, I'll make it clear I really don't like to see all these sub-sections. I do see it as dumbing-down. FightingMac (talk) 12:31, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I looked at the discussion there and I don't see you had a consensus at all. I'll study it and consider what to do, but I'm really not happy about this at all. FightingMac (talk) 12:55, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

FightingMac, I hope you didn't get bothered by my comments. It was just concern that her article might get deleted one day. Felt flattered by your case built as a response and agreed with you eventually. Hope no hard feelings. Take care. Divide et Impera (talk) 16:21, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Not at all DeI. I appreciated them and as I originally said on the Talk page, I do think what you said was very arguable. Just that I can't help myself blethering on. Agreee with your remark about the 100,000 copies being unsourced. I raised eyebrows there too. Just try to extract any resemblance to honest figures from a British publisher :-), same thing with American ones as well I should imagine. Thanks very much for your input, appreciated. FightingMac (talk) 17:24, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

4+ reverts in less than 24 hours

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. Users are expected to collaborate with others and avoid editing disruptively.

In particular, the three-revert rule states that:

1. Making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period is almost always grounds for an immediate block.
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you continue to edit war, you may be blocked from editing without further notice.

- - - - -

You have done at minimum 5 reverts in the past 24 hours. Not only my changes, but wikiwatcher's and Pat's and more.

Please, as the template says, seek to find consensus and negotiations with other editors rather than reverting their work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dominique_Strauss-Kahn_sexual_assault_case&oldid=438218357

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dominique_Strauss-Kahn_sexual_assault_case&oldid=438299649

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dominique_Strauss-Kahn_sexual_assault_case&oldid=438290567

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dominique_Strauss-Kahn_sexual_assault_case&oldid=438290083

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dominique_Strauss-Kahn_sexual_assault_case&oldid=438301721

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 21:30, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Bob, don't be so ridiculous. It's you who's edit warring. 3 times reintroducing "Housekeeper" sections when there was no consensus. I am seeking resolution on the Talk page. You've just accepted on the Talk page that these edits are POV contentious and you've now renamed the section "Prosecution disclosures". The dispute is thus resolved. Are you an administrator? Do you propose to block me? Please stop being so juvenile.I'm not going to notice you further and I will continue to revert POV edits by you and in general any of your contentious edits that don't have consensus. FightingMac (talk) 21:43, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

If you think I am guilty of edit warring, then you are welcome to follow up on it. But I do not believe that putting up new and different text, in order to find a workable compromise, is a "revert".

As for your notice here, it's not resolved. You have not only been reverting my changes, but also the changes of wikiwatcher, pat, and others. Whether or not you think any of those edits are POV, there is a hard limit of 3 reverts per editor, per page, per day. I am not an administrator. This was a polite notice. But if you refuse to follow the rules, I will escalate it to the administrators.

You are also violation of No personal attacks by repeatedly trying to denigrate me based on my age, calling me a 'dick' and now referring to me as juvenile. Please stick to the content and facts, and keep whatever opinions have about me to yourself. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 22:33, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

We've reached resolution on this, so there is no fall out (which is why 3RR exists). I came very close to asking for article protection earlier and I am pleased that the matter got resolved fairly simply in the end. I noted Mac, that you have done quite a few RV's today - although I never made a big deal of it because the article has been through the mill the last few days and some cut and thrust is inevitable. Although the tension has been high and some decorum has been lost it is definitely not as bad as some articles I have worked on (where the abuse just *flies* and article content seems mostly secondary!). However with that said, WP:3RR is one of the most bright lines we have - no matter if you are right to the nines it is something never to be broken. Not to preach of course, I've clicked RV one too many times on a fast moving article, and done in good faith most admins will accept the mistake. But the point of 3RR is to avoid situations like today - both of you reverted too much - and the discussion/resolution could have happened a lot earlier than it did. 3RR is not there as a way to get people blocked (though sadly it is used that way far too often) but as a hard limit to force discussion and compromise :) So just to say; I don't think anyone did wrong and between the 5 or 6 of us (yep, including WW) we've ended up with some decent material. Good job. --Errant ^(chat!) 23:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Cheers Errant. I also thought the article was on the brink this morning and I'm glad we were all able, Bob included, to bring it back back. The Barnstar was a nice surprise! Thank you so much. FightingMac (talk) 23:25, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Errant, I'm sorry, but exactly what do we have resolution on? The section header was only one of the many things that FightingMac has been reverting in the past 24 hours. I stopped counting his reverts at 5, and he's reverted the changes of at least 3 different editors. I can certainly understand an honest mistake, when someone gets passionate about the content of a page and accidentally goes over the limit. However... FightingMac does not seem to think that the rules apply to him:

From above -- "I will continue to revert POV edits by you and in general any of your contentious edits that don't have consensus."

So, the discussion here can wrap up. But I have given him appropriate warning, and if he insists on reverting past 3RR, I will report him. That's the policy, right? Do you see an issue with that? -- Bob drobbs (talk) 01:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Errant was referring to the housekeeper credibility issue we've been debating and reverting all day and which we did achieve resolution on. You can safely assume I get your concerns here and don't feel you need to post them again. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 01:24, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Resilient Barnstar

Knowing you're a Scotsman, I hope you don't mind me saying that you're sometimes stubborn and sarcastic (like many I know); but I've always liked that in people. And more often than not you are right (and the rest of the time I am ;)). Thanks for sticking the article - I know it is a frustration and tense, but you would not still be here if you didn't love it. The article would not be as good as it is without your efforts! Errant (chat!) 23:11, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much Errant. Appreciated. FightingMac (talk) 23:19, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

FYI

FYI NickCT (talk) 00:57, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Just saw your comment on DSK talk page. Guess you already realized this. Sorry for a redundant notice. NickCT (talk) 00:59, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Nick. I hadn't actually seen the sock request. New to this sort of thing. Let me know how it progresses. FightingMac (talk) 01:03, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

No prob. The editor I think this guy is related to (i.e. User:Breein1007) was a real tendentious blighter in the Israel-Palestine circle. Wikiwatcher can edit a little aggressively as well. I sympathize with you on the DSK thing. NickCT (talk) 01:08, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I put a comment on the Sock-puppet page about Bob's editing of the DSK article. You did a really thorough job on that! Yes, Wikiwatcher1 is a real drag. His usual area is Hollywood sleb. I frankly think he's just out of his depth here with the DSK affair. I've tried pretty well everything I know to come to terms with him. Now I'm just dealing with him by the wiki book.

Let me know here what transpires with the sock enquiry. FightingMac (talk) 01:25, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

FightingMac, you _say_ that you have done everything that you know to come to terms with Wikiwatcher. But I have to ask, have you simply tried to "Assume Good Faith" and work toward "Compromise"? If you really want to make progress, that's the way to proceed, not by constantly reverting other's work and calling them names. 2 cents on that.

P.S. NickCT, how can I compare you and FightMac so I can claim that the two of you are sock puppets?  :-) -- Bob drobbs (talk) 03:18, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for this Bob. First of all let me say that I do assume good faith in your case (never queried that). While I think you're quite wrong to storm in the way you do, I can see you do in the end move to consensus. I mean I feel I can work with you.

But no, not Wikiwatcher1, and not least because, for all his strident complaints about personal attacks, it is in fact he who is unrelentingly aggressive and keeps making personal attacks. I'll see what he has to say for himelf tomorrow evening, but I don't really think anything will change. I simply can't assume good faith when someone persistently ignores all question of neutrality. I'm not stupid and one does begin to consider other possibilities. I shall withdraw from the article (like everyone else). I can't lend my support to it in the circumstances. ASs for the your last query I think it's some sort of trick merging contribution histories into a spreadsheet. Beyond that I don't know. I'm not really into sock-puppets myself. But I did look at you edit history. First the Gaza floitilla (no, I never edited there) and then silence for a couple of years and now this. Something like that? It does look odd. Anyway bed-time here for me. Thanks for commenting. FightingMac (talk) 03:38, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Presenting the facts of a libel case

I'm sorry, but both you and ErrantX are 100% wrong here.

There is absolutely nothing in WP:BLP which says that the facts of a libel case cannot be listed. Please read it!! WP:BLP simply says that things have to be well-referenced.

Beyond that, there is a long precedent here. In each of these notable libel cases, the article discusses what the claimed libel was: Ashley Olson World Net Daily Jose Santos

e.g. "In 2005, Ashley filed a $40 million lawsuit against tabloid magazine National Enquirer for printing a headline reading "Ashley Olsen Caught In Drug Scandal,"

Now, please think about this seriously.

Why can we list the libel against Ashley Olsen, Jose Santos, and Clark Jones, but not the details of a lawsuit filed by housekeeper whom we can't even name??

Are you now going to start deleting important, notable, and well-reference material from all of those pages too. I hope not. But if you are, will you _please_ seek out advice from other editors and truly understand WP:BLP before you continue your habit of reverting the work of other editors!

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 06:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Bob,

That was my thinking too when I first presented, through an edit, the libel case but I got a serious ticking off from ErrantX for doing it (I mean I was up all night agonising and even broke cover over it so conflicted I was) and I'm inclined to think he's probably right and give him the benefit of the doubt. I mean I just don't have time to go through the entire Wikipedia policy corpus, no way I'm ever going to put up myself for admin me, but I can see where a policy of never mentioning the nature of a libel might make sense in a BLP. At any rate EX adjured us to think long and hard about it and that at least I hope you will do. Of course I won't revert you again.

It's not "about winning" but all the same one does rather want to emerge on the winning side, that's only natural. Three things I suggest you don't want to take sides too closely on young Bob 1 the Fulani phone call 2 the prostitution libel 3 the going into another room to clean it after getting herself gob-fucked (I mean she was there all right, but less than a minute on leaked key-data).

Just friendly strictly non-attributive advice. Bed-time again here. What was your take on the Gaza flotilla by the way? Just curious, not one of the things I felt moved to make another addition to my sock-farm over :-). I was sympathetic to the Israeli version myself (hope that doesn't return a flood of invective) but I do sometimes thinks that supporters of the cause are often their worst own enemies. St. Mel of the Mail for a start, unhappily departed from The Spectator coffee-house over her own recent little libel difficulties.

I rather admire you sticking it in there. Keep me posted. Regards FightingMac (talk) 07:25, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I see your recent attempts have been reverted and I do agree. I can't see your attempts acceptable given that policy is not to refer to the nature of ongoing libel cases.Regarding the three cases you quote above, the last two have been settled whiled the first is plainly no longer notable (a vexatious filing it would seem, the newspaper aplogised) and I will remove it directly. FightingMac (talk) 03:18, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

...that policy is not to refer to the nature of ongoing libel cases.

Do you have an official reference for that? Or is that just what Off2riorob or others have told you? Because WP:BLP says nothing of the sort.

If you at my request for mediation, you'll see I was hoping to establish an actual, referenceable decision to this question. -- 03:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bob drobbs (talk • contribs)

No, I don't Bob. As I say I just don't have the time to go throught the entire corpus. But these are respected editors who make Wikipedia their passion and I'm content to assume good faith and accept they're right. Hoever if you'e passionate about your cause then, right, of course you're entitled to mediation and I'll look in later this evening to see how it's going. But what you shouldn't be doing, Bob, is just going ahead and making these edits as you do, which just pisses people off in the group. FightingMac (talk) 03:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I was just curious if you had an official reference because I very much would have liked to read it. And, I also assume good faith with both of these editors. But assuming good faith, does _not_ imply that they are correct in what they say.

As for making edits on my own, my suggestion for a compromise was to delete the line in question until we could get consensus on it. That's exactly what I did. It's also _exactly_ what the mediator suggested doing.  :-) -- Bob drobbs (talk) 04:16, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

OK Bob. I'll check later, but only as a courtesy, I don't want to get involved. I'm really happy to defer to off2riorob and ErrantX here. I might make a neutral comment at your mediation, but I'm unlikely to supprt you. I mean even if it's not policy it strikes me on reflection as good practise. Have a look later. FightingMac (talk)

You

I'm not impressed by you, your edits to wheatfield were poor, and given that you are a new account who obviously has no problem with socking and inventing eloberate stories (a cousin null editing the Lavrentiy Beria article over and over to pass autoconfirm so she could agree with you on a sex scandal artice talk), be warned, I'm watching, not impressed. I'm not an admin, but wont tolerate you folowing me about either. Reply here, if you edit my talk I'll revert you. Ceoil 11:41, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Advice

I think your edits to Vincent van Gogh have been pointy and I think that comments such as this are as incivil as the incivility you complain about. Ceoil has given you and opportunity above to discuss - do so. Explain why you're following him around, and why a new account's first edit shows such knowledge of Wikipedia. Maybe you have an alternative account, maybe you edit on other wikis. I've been plagued and harassed by sockpuppets recently as have editors who collaborate with me, so an explanation would be helpful at this point. And toning down would be extremely helpful. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:20, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Truthkeeper88. I'm not following Ceoil around. Here's the original diff I explained myself.

I will repeat it for you. Ceoil and I first met because he bit a newbie thus. I defended her (indeed I know her but she is not a sock of mine, really) and looking at Ceoil's user page I noticed that he was a leading editor at Vincent van Gogh where indeed I have contributed before. So I thought that might be some common ground but it proved not to be as it happens. But I did raise the question of what had happened to my edit and when I went to look at the article I noticed the "severely dark" thing I take real exception to. I made an edit to the "Death section" and then I made a pleasant as pie remark on the Talk page about my concerns about editorialism as well as praising the article. That's not following anyone. If I wanted to follow Ceoil it would be very easy fro me to do that because he has a whole list of artilce he is the lead editor or origuinator. But i haven't done that.

I trust that clears everything up for you and you shan't have to return here on this topic at any rate. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 14:36, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I watch his page and know what happened. He did ask you to leave him alone which is allowed. Usually when in dispute with someone it's best to disengage and let the dust settle. I don't think bringing the dispute to the VvG page in the guise of finding common ground has been helpful. Furthermore, I have had my user page deleted with the list of articles I've worked on for the very reason you mention above - an abusive sockpuppet targetting my pages. So that kind of veiled threat only makes me wonder more, to be honest. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:52, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

But I din't bring the dispute to the Talk page at the VvG page as you can easily vetrify from the diff I provided. What I said was

• A chance encounter with Ceoil reminds me it's been some time since I've been back here. I'm glad to see the article active and flourishing in capable hands.

which is as nice as pie as I claim above. What veiled threat? There is absolutely no way I shall ever do anything of the sort or ever have. Amongst other things I wouldn't even dream of deleting content on my user page or any other user page unless there were issues of privacy involved, that sort of thing.

I really do hope these assurances finally set your mind at rest. FightingMac (talk) 15:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

So where do we go from here. You say that the the edits to the beria page were not socking, which was my main concern. You are a very young but obviously experienced account, and aggressive, so you see where I am coming from. 'nice as pie' is just approach, window dressing. I do notice that many of you post are lucid and insightful, so would be delighted to be proven wrong. Ceoil 00:22, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Hardly young, young Coeil (I see you confess to being a mere 83 on your Talk page). On a personal level I can't see very far (urostomy pouches at ten paces perhaps?) Regarding my being aggressive, that is so it seems (in the genes, Sir Hector, FightingMac, really being a relative), and I can be pretty profane myself when sufficiently inspired to. I wasn't really bothered by that and didn't go screaming overly much to matron about it. Although I really am not following you, I did look at your 'Lucy' page with interest because I love those poems myself and I do think your page absolutely wonderful and I'll have a proper read when I have time. Promise not to edit there, or at least if I do really feel moved to I'll seek consensus for it the on the Talk page first (I know that the French postmodern philosopher Derrida has an interesting meditation somewhere on Three years she grew in sun and showerer, such a miraculous poem that, which I'm sure you would want to see alluded to in the article :-) and come to think of it he has another especially famous one on Vincent's "Shoes"). But the Wordsworth BLP (which I see you don't contribute to) doesn't strike me as very successful (and not even especially literate). I might do something about that a few months hence. I only edit Wikipedia perhaps a couple of hours in a day, spaced amongst other things at the computer, although I sometimes get more involved with an article. I'm sorry if I spiked your nose over the Van Gogh thing. I honestly didn't mean to. Might have been a bit insensitive. I really am concerned about the 'severely dark' business, which worries me, not least because I myself see "Wheatfield with crows" as a triumphant vindication of life itself (possibly by way of being more muderous than suicidal in outlook), picking words out of the cliché bag without spending overly much time over it , and watching Schama last night on it I saw he says much the same thing. I thought it curious in the Schama program that he flatly described Vincent as an epileptic without any equivocation of any sort. I don't care for TV much. Such a waste of time for so little back in the end. I don't have Hulsker. I've ordered Wouter van der Veen's "Van Gogh in Auvers: His Last Days" from Amazon and will make an edit eventually if it hasn't before, and in any case will probably add. I would have supported you over 'van Gogh' by the way. I don't like to see 'Van Gogh' either. It arises (I suppose) in the the Dutch language because of difficulties with the construction 'of van Gogh', which without their rule would appear as 'van van Gogh' (the Dutch don't really have "'van Gogh's"), is obviously hard to follow. But of course there's no worry about that in English. Thank you for getting in touch. Appreciated. Pax? FightingMac (talk) 03:57, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not really 83, a few years younger, but I feel that age sometimes believe me, but anyway. Thanks for the words on Lucy, that was a real labour of love and one of the few times where wikipedians unexpictantly jumped out of the woodwork to help. It was a real bitch of an FAC but got there in the end, not with out a body count, but I think the end results is ok; but jesus at the time it was really really hard. I think I wronged you over Beria, and I'm guessing you feel backed into a corner as a result. Your right about more than a few things. Myself, Modernist and TK are old freinds and will defend each other, but not blindly. TK espically is very hard on utilisation of sources, Modernist will often break ranks and challenge if a statement does not jarr. And I'm a fiery cranky bastard. As are you; but yet why we are not on the same side working together I dont know. I said earlier, about 700kb earlier that I respect your openion, and it would be thought about and incorporated if your approach was not so bitter and did not so automatically pitch people against you. Jesus, you asked for a third openion, when all that was needed was you treating the others on the page with a small bit of respect, and it would have been discussion, agreement, incorporation, done, over. You very obviously have a lot of knowledge, and there is focus on the page, why not work with us, if you can get past our initial harsh words. If you accept this sort of apology at face value, believe me it would be appreciated and we could all move on and work through each issue without daggers draw. And no I cannot spell. Ceoil 01:36, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

One other thing, my email is enabled, if you want to talk. Ceoil 02:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Cheers Ceoil. No hard feelings at all. Still haven't read Lucy, but I will. I usually only do poetry at nervous breakdown times :-) I also had a quick look at the Friedrich page which I think you and Modernist put together and I felt a real pang of jealousy there. No lack of respect here. As for the visual arts, that's really not my area at all. It just happens that with Vincent there's a strong family connection and that's why I'm quite knowledgeable. I'm basically just doing what Ipigott suggests and withdrawing a couple of weeks or so. Perhaps it was overheating. The worst of it is sorted anyway. Modernist taking this to an admin was a huge overreaction. Can't do email, sorry. As for spelling, Mark Twain is supposed to said he respected a man who could spell a word more than one way while Benjamin Franklin went further and said someone who can't simply lacks imagination, but I can't find either quote on a quick search. All the best. FightingMac (talk) 09:10, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, you were a bit on the agressive side and taking no prisoners, so I cant really blame Modernist for throwing up his hands and asking for help. A stay away period is best, though incidentally I'm also on a self imposed exile from that talk, like you I got frustrated a few weeks ago and let both barrels fly, stupid me, and it was into that atmosphere you walked. But whatever. The substance of your argument is heard and if you do come back, in a collaborative spirit, suggesting rather than demanding, and having respect for the rest of us, well all hands are welcome, at the end of the day we all want the best for the page, chiche though that might sound. All the best to you too and see you around. Ceoil 12:06, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, collaborative all round hopefully :-). I'll at least look in a couple of weeks on. Just one thought I meant to part with and that it's very strange that Tree Roots doesn't have an article yet. The only decent image in Commons is framed (the unframed is way too yellow). If I can find a decent image I can get past the wiki police I might start a stub. FightingMac (talk) 12:24, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Death

Hi, back again. I thought I'd leave the thread above to you and Ceoil. Regarding death - I understand that you don't like the description, but I have about 7 books stacked up, dunno should probably count them, and each one says the same thing. I decided to source to the one that came closest to the current wording - simply because I'm lazy and have spent a lot of time tidying the page. Meant to tell you btw, in the tidying I had to throw out your weblinks for the funeral and the reburial section, and added a book source, so hope you don't mind too much. If you want an alternate opinion regarding the last paintings, go ahead and post again on the talk page, or keep it here, but give me a chance to look through the books. Rome wasn't built in a day you know. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 18:51, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Truthkeeper88. I'm untroubled by your 'death' edits. All I wish is that the remark about his last paintings being severely dark either being adequately cited (and I doubt it can be because it simply isn't true) or clarified or removed.

Vincent painted some 70 canvases in his final 69 days at Auvers. They represent a simple revolution in modern art and they include some of the most sublimely beautiful paintings ever to have seen the light of the day. To centre on just one of these, Wheat Field with Crows, is just crass and is doubly so when the tendency in modern scholarship is to shy away from romanticising that painting as an anguished cri de coeur. It saddens me that in its article Modernist has chosen to valorise Kathleen Erickson's absurd remarks on the painting (amongst other things she describes Vincent's fluid brush work as the trumpet calls of the Last Judgement). Kathleen Erickson is not an art critic but an academic in Theology and her inadequacy as a critic extends to the most fundamental misunderstanding of Wheat Field with Crows' composition (see my note on its Talk page). Her book on Vincent's spiritual development is her single book so far and received little attention, let alone praise.

I see that you or someone else has removed (for a third time) the {{citation needed}} template I have been adding. I will review the situation later today, but I think this now needs to go to some form of dispute resolution or receive the attention of experts.

As for details of where the bullet did or did not go, there are no sources. There was no autopsy and no doctor's notes have survived. Published accounts of his death are, as far as I know, based on Theo's account of his last hours and Theo might well have sought to minimise his suffering; that would be a very natural thing to do writing his mother and sisters. Vincent died 29 hours after returning to the auberge. The exact time of the day he shot himself (as indeed where he shot himself, 'walking into a wheatfield' being yet another romanticisation without any firm basis in fact) is not known. Theo himself was admitted to a mental institution just three weeks (correction: three months FightingMac (talk) 14:40, 19 July 2011 (UTC)) after Vincent's death, never to be released again.

I trust you will concede I have been sufficiently attentive to your concerns. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 02:08, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I understand what you're saying. If you'd like the bullet lodged against the spine removed, that's fine. As for the "severely dark" situation, I've decided to remove myself from the page. I think arguments exist to support what you've said above about the 70 canvases, and to support the mood of the paintings of the last week or so after Vincent received Theo's letter. In my view a bit of expansion can sort it all out, but for the moment I'm little burned out with it and want to work elsewhere. You've been very attentive, thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:27, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, no. You don't need to feel you have to leave and I'm content to await other input, but, yes, at some point, hopefully after discussing with Modernist and reaching some sort of compromise, the section will need rewriting. I'm aware that Huskler makes some kind of comment to the effect that although WFwC is not his last work, in the sense of innovation it can be regarded as such and that is surely true and perhaps where we can reach consensus. The trouble is that I don't have Hulsker and I'm unwilling to buy him because frankly he's conssidered outdated. I think Pickvance very much remains the connoisseur's choice. Thank you for your input. Appreciated. FightingMac (talk) 04:02, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually I ought to make a caveat about "innovation" there. Vincent's probable last painting Tree Roots prefigures abstract expressionism, certainly innovative. I think the point Huskler was making was that Vincent didn't return to the same degree of emotional intensity after WFwC and I woudn't dispute that. FightingMac (talk) 08:45, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Auberge Ravoux

Hello! Your submission of Auberge Ravoux at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Jayjg ^(talk) 02:25, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Cheers, Jayjg. Responded there. FightingMac (talk) 02:33, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

To nail a lie

Just a note in the pious hope that I may be saved further time and trouble thereby :-{ (from the Oxford English Dictionary)

nail, v. Add: [1.] [d.] Also, to nail a lie (charge, etc.): to expose or put out of circulation (a falsehood, allegation, etc.). [1624 J. Gee Foot out of Snare v. 33 Heere is a knocking and long-lasting lie, worthy to be nailed upon a post or pillory.] 1895 Funk's Stand. Dict. II. 1175/1 The phrase to nail a lie+was suggested by the nailing of counterfeit coins to the counter by shopkeepers. 1915 E. Pound Let. 1 Dec. (1971) 66, I think however that the charge of my being jealous of Frost ought to be nailed, perhaps even at the disclosure of state secrets. 1987 News on Sunday 12 July 3/3 The caring family man+has risked public ridicule in a bid to ‘nail the lie’ as he put it.

n.b. thus not necessarily an actual lie and its perpetrator not necessarily an actual liar. FightingMac (talk) 18:27, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Van Gogh

Hello FightingMac. I don't believe we have had the pleasure of corresponding before. I have followed with interest your recent edits to the Van Gogh page but I am becoming increasingly concerned that you are overstepping the mark, particularly in your reactions on the talk page. As you must realize, there are not too many of us who are seriously interested in contributing to the visual arts pages on Wikipedia. Those who are involved generally take their work very seriously. While I have noticed you have made some useful observations and a few pertinent edits in the past week or two, I now think there is a real danger that your rather demanding attitude may well drive people away. Ceoil, who admittedly was not at all civil in your initial exchanges, has obviously decided to withdraw for the time being. TK and Modernist, who have been valiant contributors in the past, are now increasingly concerned about how to proceed. I know also of others who would be happy to contribute at present but are concerned about the unfriendly atmosphere that has developed on the talk page. I have a rather simple but perhaps effective solution to all this. Before undertaking what you consider to be well documented edits in the article, why not bring them up first on the talk page. In that way you can build up consenus and keep everyone happy. If the general consensus is that your suggestions are not appropriate, then you should be prepared to give way or to argue your case more convincingly. Alternatively, if you are so interested in the "Death" section, perhaps it would be helpful to start a new article. The VvG article is getting longer and longer anyway and it would help if some of the sections could refer to better documented "Main articles" such as your Auberge Ravoux. And finally, I must say mea culpa to the present placing of "At Eternity's Gate" on the VvG page. It had been adjacent to the lead until I suggested it was perhaps not appropriate there. Interestingly, it is based on a number of VvG's sketches years before his death and therefore is perhaps not so closely related to his mood over the last few weeks. Anyway, I hope we can all instill more enthusiam (and less antagonism) in this important article. - Ipigott (talk) 18:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ipigott. Thank you for contacting me. I have noticed your useful contributions to the article. Ceoil has withdrawn I believe because he objects to the use of capitalised "Van Gogh" in the article, which incidentally I support him in: I see no need at all for "Van Gogh" in an English article and really do not like seeing it. I doubt he's in the slightest bit troubled by my contributions and is, plainly, more than capable of looking after his own interests.

Ipigott, if there is antagonism then that is entirely the fault of Modernist and TK. I have been very patient in the face of extreme (and quite unwarranted) incivility when no one came to support me, several redactions of my input and increasingly uncivil remarks from Modernist and TK ('can I read?', 'stop the disruption' etc.). In addition every one of my suggestions to improve the article, notably the business of the juxtaposition of The Church at Auvers with At Eternity's Gate, which is frankly bizarre and originally just an accident to do with layout, is slapped down.

My original task was merely to get a very silly remark about Vincent's last paintings being "severely dark" removed, clarified or at least cited (which last is plainly giving difficulty because no modern critic or historian would say anything of the sort). If that had been conceded at an early stage then I would have been satisfied and left the article.

But there are plainly issues over and above that have developed and I mean to see them through. That is what I am like and that is what I am going to do.

Regarding the death section I have no special commitment to it. I just thought I would add there. I see it's been replaced by some extremely questionable content which I think should be removed, or at least cited adequately, Auberge Ravoux wasn't started by me. I merely added some content and the images.

I do hope the present issues with the article will be resolved. I propose to add some content about Jo Bonger and I will also be looking through the article for evidence of other bias, but otherwise I have no plans to involve myself with it. I can add that, in my opinion, in its present condition it's extremely unlikely to achieve Featured Article. It's far too cluttered with images I think. The Dutch, French, Russian articles much better I think.

You are right about At Eternity's Gate. I edited there a couple of days ago and uploaded images of the relevant lithographs. I have more content I want to add there. Of course Modernist's "common-sense" assertion that it reflects Vincents mood at his suicide is nonsense. How could it? It's emotive content was established with the 1882 lithograph eight years before, before Vincent had developed any symptoms of mental illness and was in a sunnily optimistic phase of his life. He was merely making a social comment in the painting, as was his wont at the time. As I have remarked before on the Talk page, just because a painting is "dark" doesn't mean the mood of the artist is necessarily "dark" at the time. I make some further remark about that here.

Thank you again. Perhaps we can edit together when all this blows over. FightingMac (talk) 18:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick response. I'm rather surprised you think the Russian and Dutch versions are so good. I don't know how well you understand Russian but I must say I find the article far too concise, especially on some of VvG's key periods such as his stay in Paris. It is badly referenced, has virtually nothing on the artist's style and nothing at all on the value of his works. The Dutch article is hardly referenced at all. You may be right that the EN article is a little cluttered with images but personally I think this enhances understanding. In biographies of artists, images are particularly important. Maybe the English article could be cut back a little but I think most of the content is valid and well referenced. I called it your Auberge Ravoux article because you submitted it for DYK. And you did, after all, do quite a bit of interesting work on it. I've seen your work on "At Eternity's Gate" too. There's actually quite a bit more background that could be added. I may have a go at it myself one of these days. In any case, on the VvG article, perhaps you could take up my suggestion of using the talk page and set out the priorities you see as requiring attention. Then we might all be able to work together constructively. I'm sure everyone has the very best of intentions but some of the contributors may well become defensive when they feel threatened. Hope it all works out for the best. - Ipigott (talk) 21:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but when I said "better" I meant in the sense of being uncluttered with images. The French article actually has quite a few images, perhaps as many as the English, but there's no sense of clutter. I think they achieve that by rationing one per section, or at best one small multi-image. Dutch articles are always rather brief. I suspect simple arithmetic. There's only about 15,000,000 of them against getting on for 500,000,000 anglophone. For me content will always be more important than the images. With respect, I am using the Talk page, Ipigott. On the "severely dark" issue I haven't attempted to make an edit (do you have any views about that, BTW?) If that remains uncited then in accordance with Wikipedia policy it must eventually be removed. As I say I have no plans to contribute further to the article, which is way long enough already I think. I might attempt to add a brief remark about Jo Bonger establishing van Gogh's legacy and I'll look through it for other examples of naive editorialism that needs swatting, but otherwise I'm content to leave it as I found it. Should I ever happen to look back again I would hope to receive a more courteous reception. Meanwhile citing spurious sources and "common sense" just isn't going to be allowed on my watch. FightingMac (talk) 21:34, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Roger on images. All I would suggest is that perhaps a little more attention could be paid to layout. Perhaps the clutter effect also depends to some extent on the screen size you are using and your thumb defaults. As for the "dark" discussion, I think it is now bordering on personal research which should of course be avoided. That is not to say that published commentators who have drawn their own conclusions should not be taken into account. As for citations, I know that more than one of the current contributors has referred to the need for improvements. I am therefore confident that the work will continue along well-established lines. Many of us have other occupations and only limited time for Wikipedia. In addition, I think everyone involved is also tied up with work on other Wikipedia articles, not to mention reviewing, discussion, etc. So I think the best policy is just to give it all a bit more time. - Ipigott (talk) 06:53, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Well that would cerainly be true on screen size and thumb defaults. I use the highest available resolution on my chipset and monitor (1360 by 768 pixels) and the default thumbnails. "Dark" discussion was always OR because it isn't cited (and will remain so as long as it's uncited). The truth is it needs to be removed because no art critic of any notability has ever said any such thing. As I've mentioned before this naive mythologisation of Vincent, which so comprehensively misunderstands both the man and his work, is now repeated on literally hundreds of mirror websites throughout the internet and it's an absolute disgrace I'm simply not going to allow to go unchallenged. Wikipedia has no preferred mode of citation. If an editor has consensus to maintain a particular style then that's fine with me. My own suggestion (grouping references in the manner of the French article) simply slapped down "because". My own favourite is Harvard style. I agree the references look really messy at present. The letters in a particular could be tidied up by grouping. Not sure what the gist of your concluding remarks are. I have a comfortable position within a number of loosely affiliated Russian entrepreneurships anxious to facilitate the free movement of goods and capital in the global marketplace, which basically allows me to work at home bar the occasional working trip abroad to meet with the dons, so I do have a fair bit of free time, but I'm emphatically not addicted to Wikpedia, which is just a hobby, and until recently all my contributions have been for the most part in rather recondite and decidely non-contentious areas, and indeed most of that by way of translations and copy-edit and much of that in other language wikis. I go long months, years even (I have been contributing almost from the outset), without contributing at all. Right now I would say I was doing a couple of hours a day, that sort of thing as I work on other matters at my desk. I have absolutely no ambitions to gain any sort of position in the Wikipedia hierarchy. At any one time I doubt I follow more than half a dozen articles or so. I just volunteer this information to ease any anxieties you might have. Thanks for your input, Ipigott. Appeciated. FightingMac (talk) 08:27, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Query

What previous user name(s) have you edited under? --John (talk) 09:34, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

None. FightingMac (talk) 09:37, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

So what did you mean here when you said you had been editing for years? --John (talk) 09:42, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

What I meant at Polanski above replying to off2riorob (we're good mates now). All this at Van Gogh begins with this absolutely fantastic flame which I ask you to familiarise yourself with first. Are you an admin? Would you care to comment on that? I put a brief comment on your Talk page but didn't check. Off this afternoon. Might edit further later this evening, otherwise tomorrow morning. Happy to address any valid concerns of yours here but I'm not prepared to spend too much time over them. I am busy and this is just a hobby. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 09:52, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I see, so you have never had a named account and have never been blocked, but have edited for years with an IP address. What is that address please? Yes I am an admin and have been asked to look into your edits by another editor. There is no presumption of guilt at this point and I am just trying to look into your background to see what the next step is towards resolving the situation. --John (talk) 10:01, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Hello John. Actually there are at least half a dozen long-term IP addresses involved since I move around a lot, as well as literally dozens, I should imagine, of short term addresses since I travel a great deal, and some of these will be other Wikipedians of whom I count many amongst my friends and associates (though I do not attempt to involve them in my disputes).

Needless to say I have not the slightest intention of revealing my IP addresses, which would be potentially a very serious matter for me. I flat out refuse and moeover I don't believe that can be a proper request from you, admin or not. What is it I am "accused" of? Editing from IP addresses? All this is about requesting an editor to cite his sources. One such source I showed to be spurious here and a second cite is disputed here. You might also like to look at this, which is another example of Modernist's disinclination to cite sources (he simply seems to think he is above rules). I don't care if he is Jimbo Wales himself, he has to cite his sources. As I mention above and elsewhere, Modernist's naive mythologisation of Vincent van Gogh, which so comprehensively misunderstands both the man and his work, is now repeated on literally hundreds of mirror websites throughout the internet and it's an absolute disgrace I'm simply not going to allow to go unchallenged.

What do you mean resolve the situation? An editor tapping the shoulder of (I presume) a friendly and sympathetic administrator to check out another editor's edit history is not a dispute resolution process that I accept. It's also an absurd over-reaction to the dispute, which is simply about citing your sources.

All this stuff about revealing IP addresses on demand is new terrritory to me. It's quite fantastic. Of course you can't have my IP addresses. I do feel extremely harassed by this. I ask you to cease and desist. FightingMac (talk) 12:27, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

So you decline to give the previous addresses you have edited from. It seems to me that if the dispute is only about sourcing, you should collectively be able to resolve it without help. What do you see as the viable next step in resolving the dispute? --John (talk) 10:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks John. I asked for a third opinion and one has been supplied now supporting me. I'll wait for Modernist to respond and then suggest he make an edit of the material, either removing the "dark" comment or properly citing it (but there are no sources, believe me there are no sources). I'll also suggest that he remove the content added during the course of the dispute describing Vincent's death, which comes from the Sweetman biography, well out of date, and whose primary source are the recollections of Paul Gachet (the son of Dr. Gachet) some 30 years later and which have been thouroughly discredited by modern reseach (and incidentally giving a different version of Vincent's last words than those quoted in the article, the sadness will last for ever, and generally accepted). If he doesn't within a reasonable amount of time then I will make a bold edit and take it from there. I sense a certain reproach in your saying I 'decline' to give my IPs, but it's absolutely out of the question. I can't imagine any user would ever be happy to do that. I'm sorry. You will just have to assume good faith. Out most of this afternoon again. I don't want to be contentious, I'm happy to assume good faith on your part, but can I just repeat I don't accept Modernist contacting you the way he did and implying by turns that I am insane, aggressive and edgy is an acceptable dispute resolution mechanism. I'm glad you agree we should be able to resolve it ourselves. FightingMac (talk) 10:24, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh well, they insist I "lost" anyway (that last section on the Talk page was refactored by them: originally I just added it to the existing 3O section). I think I'll just leave them to it for a while, indeed that's the suggestion of Ipigott, while I take care of a few problems I need to attend to. Thank you for your attention. I doubt you need to pay any more attention to any of this. It's pretty lame frankly.

I found a very nice image of the Dowding memorial in Moffat in your gallery (there's a family connection there) which I've borrowed for my User page for a while. I plan to ring the changes every now and then. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 22:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The great van Gogh "dark" debate

Much of the immediately preceding sections refer. Some of the debate on the Talk page has disappeared and is preserved for posterity here for those curious. FightingMac (talk) 18:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Dont bother. Its in the talk archives now. Ceoil 21:29, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, it will be handy to have it all in one place, safe and sound. FightingMac (talk) 14:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

The recent postings you have made with respect to the identity of another user have been suppressed by me not by that other user. The problem is that you are associating the name of a person with a Wikipedia account, outing them. You are free to continue to address this matter, but please do it privately by emailing the arbitration committee, not by posting the person's name. User:Fred Bauder Talk 04:31, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I would be grateful if you could tell me how to do that. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 11:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Drop an email to arbcom-llists.wikimedia.org explaining the situation as best you can. The Cavalry (Message me) 11:53, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Cheers Cavalry. Brilliant user name! Have come across you somewhere else I think. Thank you. Appreciated. FightingMac (talk) 12:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I am one of the arbitrators. If you have a concern whose discussion may tend to reveal the offline identity of editors who edit anonymously, you may e-mail the committee. Please do not raise these issues again on Wikipedia, as your doing so is a violation of policy (see, WP:OUTING) and may lead to your account being blocked from editing without further warnings. Newyorkbrad (talk) 12:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Newyorkbrad. I shall look at WP:OUTING. You must not be surprised if relative newcomers, as in this area I certainly am, are not familiar with every detail of Wikipedia vast corpus of policy and guidance. All I can say is that I read carefully through the heading section of the ANI pages and thought it appropiate. Of course the relevant comments I made are now redacted but I emphatically deny that I in any siginificant sense 'outed' the user concerned. One may say he outed himself/herself by publishing, in many places, on wikipedia the address of his/her personal website. I gave no clue to his/her identity whatsover, but merely pointed out that the given article, contributed and exclusively edited by a user who had contacted him/her for watchful "eyes", had had a {{Connected contributor}} template naming him/her as possibly having a professional or personal connection with the subject of that article. I gave no hint of the nature of that connection.

I hope this reassures you of my good faith in this matter.

When you say I should not raise these issues again on Wikipedia does that mean I should not reply to any of the remarks made on the ANI as currently redacted? I take it must mean that and for the time being I shan't, but can you please clarify. FightingMac (talk) 14:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Some of those remarks are negative criticism of my conduct and I am replying to those without in any way further commenting on the identity of the admin complained of or his /her possible professional or personal connection with any subject of any article. FightingMac (talk) 16:20, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I've now looked at WP:OUTING. There is absolutely nothing there that applies. Which of this are you thinking of

• Personal information includes legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, whether any such information is accurate or not?

As late as February 2011, for all I know later still, ongoing now, this user was publishing his/her website identity on Wikipedia, and this after changing their name and gaining adminship. It's plain that online privacy is not an issue for the user. Given the scale on which that user does it one can only surmise that in fact he/she actively wishes to publicise their website.

• Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person voluntarily had posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia

and it follows that I would be justified in posting that user's website address.

But I did not. I did not post a single thing that impacted the privacy of the user in question.

It would be courteous to have an apology from you. FightingMac (talk) 17:31, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Use of Template:Connected contributor can result in linking an editor with a personal name, which may be his, thus be an outing. The editor may or may not be the subject of the article. That is the cause of concern. User:Fred Bauder Talk 13:22, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for this Fred. I wasn't disputing your good faith in redacting my ANI. But I would reply that in fact WP:OUTING doesn't mention this template (on a quick read, I am prepared to be corrected) and moreover the very existence of this template with presently 1,915 members in the catgory it adds to suggests it is very much part of current Wikipeida practice. It must follow that your position above on the use of the template simply isn't tenable, especially since the text of the template only vaguely hints at a possible connection, professional or personal. Or indeed is that your position in which case I really would like to see a policy document that explicitly says so or an explanation of why this template is allowed to stand in the existing 1,915 cases?

Happy to develope my argument further to cover my own involvement in the affair if you would like to clarify that. Presently I have to say I find it a bit vague. Just citing a policy such as WP:OUTING is not the same as arguing it's relevance and I've already asked Newyorkbrad above to clarify which of the examples he gives applies in my case.

But I'm prepared to let it stand and have arb committee deal with. I've already been asked by the committeee not to involve myself further with these templates and of course I respect that, and will not only during the arb committeee deliberation but I dare say afterwards. I mean I have made my position clear about the admin involved and his involvement with the user I was in a content dispute with. If the community thinks that's acceptable then plainly I must accept it ruat coelum. FightingMac (talk) 16:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

New FfD on DSK perp walk image

A second FfD on File:Dominique Strauss-Kahn perp walk.jpg has been opened. Since you commented at length in the first one, you may want to comment in this one as well. Daniel Case (talk) 19:27, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Cheers, Daniel. I'll have a look in a moment but may not comment for a while. FightingMac (talk) 19:38, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Blocked

You have been blocked as a sock of indefinitely-blocked User:Rinpoche, as well as for participating in discussions with both a named account and an IP without identifying that you are the same user; using another sock to make an edit while your main account was discussing the same edit on the talk page of an article; and making logged-out edits intended to further battles with other editors. In addition, you have continued to pursue allegations of conflict of interest against various editors through either your named or IP accounts, despite the fact that you yourself have identified familial or other personal relationships with the subjects of several articles you have edited. You may request unblock by completing the {{unblock}} template. Any reviewing administrators should note that this is a checkuser block and should, at minimum, be reviewed by a checkuser prior to consideration of unblocking. Risker (talk) 04:36, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

That's not so. FightingMac (talk) 05:30, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I see you have also blocked IrinaofKamaz (talk) as a sock but that is also not so. She sent you a complete description of the situation from Rinpoche's website, which she is presently maintaining, and in nutshell the situation is that she and Rinpoche are old friends of long standing and I am a recent acquaintance.

I intend not to appeal this block until at least I have had a chance to get in touch with Rinpoche, who is away and may not return until the New Year or later. I also don't intend to comment about this matter further until then because I want this talk page at least to stand and my experience of Wikipedia is that to criticise another user's actions is to be accused first of bad faith and then of launching a personal attack and then that is used a pretext for sanctions. I may or may not return to the issues at a later date, meanwhile I ask that this page be left to stand. Thank you. FightingMac (talk) 10:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

You **** **** ***** piece of **** ****** fu**** - what a ***** ***** - Good riddance. Off2riorob (talk) 20:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I have now managed to get in touch with Rinpoche who can be contacted via IrinaofKamaz (talk). I am awaiting the opinion of the arbitration committee, who I trust are still considering the fundamental issue I raised with them. FightingMac (talk) 15:00, 30 July 2011 (UTC)