User talk:Geo Swan/archive/2017-08

This user is one of the 800 most active English Wikipedians of all time.

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Orphaned non-free image File:Young Ismail Agha, ten days after repatriation from Guantanamo.jpg

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Speedy deletion nomination of Danish Ahmad

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A tag has been placed on Danish Ahmad requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a real person or group of people, but it does not credibly indicate how or why the subject is important or significant: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time. Please read more about what is generally accepted as notable.

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• I didn't start an article. I created a redirect. Someone else started an article on a nn person. Deletion was not appropriate. Restoring the redirection was appropriate... Geo Swan (talk) 01:39, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

August 2017

Hello. This is a message to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions, such as the edit you made to Muhammad Ismail Agha, did not appear constructive and has been reverted. Please take some time to familiarise yourself with our policies and guidelines. You can find information about these at our welcome page which also provides further information about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. If you only meant to make test edits, please use the sandbox for that. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you may leave a message on my talk page. Please discuss the addition of this image and wait for a consensus rather than continuously reverting. CommotioCerebri (talk) 17:02, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

• False positive. CommotioCerebri is, apparently, a practicaly brand new contributor. I tried to explain to them that the civil expression of disagreement is not a personal attack, when they accused me of personally attacking them.

• Seven of the twelve edits they have made, so far, have had something to do with me. Geo Swan (talk) 20:35, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

  Just to let you know, you now have a report at WP:AN3. SkyWarrior 16:46, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

  • It was apparently new contributor CommotioCerebri who initiated the ANI discussion.

    I left them two heads-ups on their talk page. But I overlooked that they lapsed in their obligation to inform me they had initiated this ANI discussion. Geo Swan (talk) 00:50, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

On civility

well done. KDS4444 (talk) 05:19, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

August 2017, redux

Hello, I'm CommotioCerebri. I noticed that you made a comment on the page Talk:Crane_climbing that didn't seem very civil, so it has been removed. Wikipedia is built on collaboration, so it's one of our core principles to interact with one another in a polite and respectful manner. If you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Please stop with the personal attacks and comments about myself and other editors. CommotioCerebri (talk) 16:32, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

• Sigh.

• I don't know what to do about this contributor. As of August 5th, 18 of the 23 edits they have made, so far, have either been excisions of edits I made, or have otherwise been about contributions I have made.

• I have cautioned them about giving the appearance of wikihounding. But they haven't stopped. In fact they filed a complaint about my edits, at WP:ANI/3RR, without leaving me the required heads-up, here on my talk page. That complaint was quickly dismissed as groundless, but no acknowledgement of error from CC.

• In the preceding comment they assert that they feel I have personally attacked them, but I am concerned that they may not understand the difference between the civil expression of disagreement and a personal attack.

• Note: the comment says they reverted my comment on Talk:Crane climbing. Actually, they left a reply.

  In my initial comment I wrote they were "inexperienced". Undeniable, when they have not yet made two dozen edits; and hard to deny given clear lapses, like failing to advise me they brought me to ANI, the underlying misunderstanding of 3RR the complaint was based on, and several other things that suggest to me other misunderstandings of policy. Undeniable, and, in my opinion, not a personal attack.

  No one expects new contributors to master our complicated and sometimes contradictory mass of policies and guidelines. I do think it is appropriate to be prepared to consider the possibility one made a mistake, whether one is on their first 1000 edits, or their first million. I have been a contributor here for fourteen years, and I think I generally managed to do a pretty good job of considering the possibility I made a mistake in my first year, and this year. Geo Swan (talk) 00:11, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

  • One more thing... I was already concerned that CC has been granted authority to use Twinkle, without the experience to use this powerful tool properly. I think the comment that initiated this thread is another misuse of Twinkle. Geo Swan (talk) 00:21, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Lester Brickman photo

Thanks! I'm a big fan of Professor Brickman's scholarship, as you can probably tell from the bio, and have been struggling with the photo issue for about a year. He actually owns the rights to the portrait that was taken down, but I was, as you know, unable to get past the Wikipedia restrictions. I'm relatively new to this Wikipedia editing thing. Not sure even if this the right way to communicate with you!Curmudgeonette (talk) 11:51, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that's the guy. Thanks again.Curmudgeonette (talk) 15:06, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

In regards to a user.

Hi there, I was recently on Hullaballo Wolfowitz talk page and I saw your message you left him some time ago. I have to say, I agree with you on most - if not all - accounts that he is an aggressive, uncompromisable user. His signature does read that he has a chip on his shoulder and he is "out for blood" in a way. My run ins with him have been being accused of displaying advertising and promotional content on the Total Divas cast table, yet the term "WWE Superstar" in this context was purely based on giving the assigned Superstar their correct job title. That was resolved, as he stopped with his bullying-type editing. Then, a while later, he accused me of violating Wiki's copyright rules, claiming the summaries for each episode was copied and pasted off of other online sources. Therefore, I explained to him that each and every summary had been re-edited and re-phrased to avoid this violation, and - in my opinion - it should have been completely avoid. However, he kept reverting and reverting, claiming the same thing over and over again, and I didn't think it was fair. I have consulted another user who edited the page with me, and he agreed that there were no copyright violations that he could see, however he insisted that we should just restore the summaries "by hand", by re-writing the summaires ourselves from scratch. Fair enough, I agreed, but I couldn't get over this guys way of editing. Instead of brining his opinions to the talk page on the article, he just straight up removed everything. And that, in fact, is a violation itself, leaving something empty because of whatever reason. At the beginning of this all, he did edit a few summaries, yet claiming the words he removed and re-edited were promotional use, once I again I said no they weren't and then he just deleted every summary and claimed copyright violation. Sorry for this large story, I just thought I would explain to you my situation with him. And now, as of today, he has reported me because I restored the summaries and re-edited every single summary to avoid copyright violations. Fair enough, right? Nope, I get reported to the administrations and I personally can't deal with this kid anymore. I guess I came here also to maybe ask for your support? As in, if you have the time, if you could go over to the Total Divas season pages and check it out and let me know if they are in violation or not. If so, fair enough, I just want to get other opinions before continuing my stand. If not, then this user needs to learn how to edit and communicate with proper manners and etiquette. Anyway, let me know if you are able to help me out, thanks! MSMRHurricane (talk) 05:16, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

• Your description does sound like bullying. I am sorry to hear of it.

I am going to offer you some general advice, rather than talk specifically about HB.

Even if I feel someone's behavior has strained my ability to assume good faith, past its breaking point, I nevertheless make the effort to continue to respond as if I am still able to assume good faith. I think this has advantages for the project, and for me personally.

It takes at least two parties to engage in an edit war. If you can manage to refrain from responding in kind, you preserve your credibility, if the discussion is reviewed by previously uninvolved third parties.

There are individuals who regularly trigger edit wars, by abusing edit summaries. Edit summaries can only usefully be used as the sole explanation for an edit, when the edit is both not complicated, and not controversial. But it is pretty common to see over-confident individuals making pretty bold edits, explained only in a brief edit summary. Some of those brief edit summaries are cryptic, or completely opaque. Some of those brief edit summaries are downright insulting.

This kind of edit summary is, in my observation, the most common trigger for edit warring. The brief cryptic, and sometimes insulting edit summary presents a temptation to someone who disagrees with the edit, or just doesn't understand it, to leave a reply to it in the edit summary offered when they revert it.

Not only does this trigger a counter-productive edit war, but it can be really hard, or even impossible, for an uninvolved third party to figure out what went on. The brief inadequate explanaiton in the edit summary generally requires stepping through each edit, one at a time, and figuring out exactly what the edit did, in order to follow the argument. I suspect that, with the passage of a few days, or weeks, even the warring parties often can't what was going on.

Giving the appearance that I am still able to assume good faith, when in fact my patience was actually exhausted, has saved me from embarrassment. There have been times when my patience ran out prematurely, and it turned out the other guy was right, all along. Presenting the appearance of reasonableness prevented me from owing anyone an apology.

Sometimes, when one doesn't respond in kind, someone who has been acting unreasonably, will return to reasonable behavior.

In those instances when the other guy doesn't return to reasonable, policy compliant behavior, and you then go and seek third party opinions, it is much better to go with clean hands.

Reaching out to me for advice is a good thing to do. But I don't focus on celebrities. It would be better to reach out on a wikiproject that concentrates on celebrities. Wikipolicy is a mess. Its baroque. Corners of wikipolicy are very poorly written: ambiguous and contradictory. And it is in a constant state of flux.

The notability of topics in some fields is much harder to establish than the notability of topics in other fields. Porn stars' notability is easier to establish than that of local politicians. What's up with that. What this means, sadly, is that there are some fields where reaching out for reason won't help, because there is an entrenched tradition of applying a different standard. Pointing out the inconsistency results in being pointed at WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.

I had a very unpleasant interaction, in 2010, where a very unpleasant contributor said something like (paraphrasing from memory): "How dare you! Don't you know BLP says X!" Well, no I didn't. I generally took a glance at BLP, looking at particular sections, as they were referred to in AFD, or other fora. But I didn't have it on my watchlist, and I didn't closely re-read it, every day or so.

I checked BLP. It did say "X". But it hadn't said "X" a year previously. Our revision system said that BLP had been edited over 1000 times that year. Wikipedia talk:BLP didn't have explanations for more than a handful of those edits. Woah! So, what did the contributors making those edits think they were doing?

I think most of those people actually thought they were doing genuine clarifications. Sadly, many contributors who focus on quality control made this choice because their level of literacy was insufficient for them to add new content, or update content. So, their level of literacy is also insufficient for them to "clarify" policies.

The end result of this is that less than literate quality control volunteers inadvertently change our policies, through a long series of re-writes that were meant only to improve the wording, not change the policy's meaning.

So, when my unpleasant respondent asked me how I couldn't know BLP said "X" -- it really never should have said "X", because the change that made is say "X" was not the result of a genuine policy discussion, there was no consensus.

Were a much smaller number of these changes were bad faith subversions, by someone calculating to push a POV? I have no proof this has happened, but I certainly have encountered POV pushers who wouldn't hesitate to pull a stunt like that.

I hope this general advice on dealing with difficult contributors proves helpful. Geo Swan (talk) 18:42, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

SQuire Rushnell

I saw you originally created the page, I'm wondering is this a typo in the Name "SQuire", or is that the correct spelling? If it's a typo I'll be happy to move it to the correct spelling for you. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:30, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

• Nope, that is the way he spells his name. Geo Swan (talk) 15:21, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

No problem, is there a source to this out of curiosity? RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:28, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

• From the article's references:

• Lisa Belkin (2002-08-11). "The Odds of That". New York Times. Retrieved 2012-05-15. The view of coincidence as fate has lately become something of a minitrend in the New Age section of bookstores. Among the more popular authors is SQuire Rushnell (who, in the interest of marketing, spells his first name with a capital Q). {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

Rushnell is a religious guy, not in the Jimmy Carter mold -- that I really admire -- but in a different mold I won't describe, so I won't seem mean-spirited. Nevertheless, when I saw Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Sqrush I decided he was notable.

Rushnell contacted me, after I created a policy compliant article about him, and after thanking me he asked me to insert self-promotional material in the article. I declined, of course.

He signed himself SQ. Trust me, if I had any doubt that was how he spelled his name, I would have explicitly asked him.

I can't find that correspondence. He may have emailed me.

I hope this satisfies you. Geo Swan (talk) 16:47, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

No that's actually great, I think adding that as a side note to the article with the source would be a good addition. RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:48, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Rasul Kuldayev -- before and after Russian interrogation.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Rasul Kuldayev -- before and after Russian interrogation.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

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Orphaned non-free image File:Ramzi bin Alshibh at Guantanamo.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Ramzi bin Alshibh at Guantanamo.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:18, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Said Amir Jan

Hi Geo. You've added this to Said Amir Jan and Hafizullah Shabaz Khail (and possibly others), but I can't find the quoted section in the linked source. Am I missing something? Cheers, Bromley86 (talk) 10:27, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

• @Bromley86: Thanks for the question. The quote field in the CCR reference is to the paragraph in the top left corner of page 27.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 19:21, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of Jacob Poroo for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Jacob Poroo is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jacob Poroo until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. CommotioCerebri (talk) 13:21, 14 September 2017 (UTC)