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Guidance

Mate, you've got a tag on your signature that says "help!" You've been on Wikipedia for 13 years, and your user page lists all kinds of different achievements. That's clearly something that's important to you. I'm asking for your help and guidance here.

I don't want the chaos magic page to try and convince people that chaos magic is real. That is not my aim here! If you want a big "criticism" section saying "all sane people think this is bullshit", I really don't care. OK? I'm not trying to push that kind of agenda.

Please, take a look at the page before I did anything to it: [[1]].

It's badly written trash. It looks like some children have written it.

Look at the page in 2008: [[2]].

It's almost the same! Nobody else is doing this. If I don't fix it, it's not going to happen. My aim here is just to have a well written, encyclopaedic article on chaos magic, the same as the articles for Wicca or Thelema. That is it. That is all I'm trying to do.

In my mind, within the general sphere of "things that are probably bullshit", Witchcraft and ceremonial magic and enochian magic occupy a different category to homeopathy and creationism and conspiracy theories. As you've pointed out, everyone else puts all of that stuff into one category. OK, that's fine, I accept that totally. But I'm really struggling to deal with the tag that's been put on the page: "This article may present fringe theories, without giving appropriate weight to the mainstream view". I thought it was fairly obvious that that wasn't the right tag, because I can't see how witchcraft or magic deviates from a mainstream view in the same way that creationism deviates from "we evolved", or homeopathy deviates from "homeopathic medicine is just water".

I'm not trying to make that argument again, now. I've made it till I'm blue in the face. I'm just trying to describe to you why I need some guidance now. Now I'm trying to fix that problem, I really need your input on this.

Have I correctly identified the mainstream view? Do I need to be more specific? Are we talking specifically about the mainstream view of science? Or the cultural mainstream, somehow? Does the mainstream view need to be threaded through the article somehow? Do I need to deal with the mainstream view of each sub-topic within chaos magic, like sigils or whatever? Have I covered the maintream view effectively with the new content I've added?

Please, I need your help on this. Rune370 (talk) 11:57, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

You want someone to help you increase the amount of fancruft in the chaos magic article. I am not that person. Guy (Help!) 12:25, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/91.235.142.81

You've had a bit of a run-in with this IP, and (while some of their edits are pretty good) they've got a heroic ability to IDHT, generally bludgeon away (yeah, it takes two to tango, but they do it to everyone) - Jamez42 had a lump of the same behaviour I got, where looking for other problematic edits gets you labelled a stalker.

I'm not sure what can be done but I thought I'd let you (and J42) know there's a pattern emerging. Pinkbeast (talk) 15:49, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

@Pinkbeast: Hi! I'm not sure if I fully understood the message, but in case it is useful to know, per WP:DUCK it is most likely that this IP is a sock of Apollo The Logician. Back then I only decided to leave warnings on its talk page, but seeing that they seem to have started edt warring again I strongly suggest you to file an investigation or make a report in the admin noticeboard. For the time being I personally can't do it, but you have my support and help if you decide to. Cheers! --Jamez42 (talk) 22:50, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
On second thought, I decided to go ahead and file a report of sockpuppeting. They have already been warned and this will just go on. --Jamez42 (talk) 23:07, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. If it's a typical sock, I'll know it next time. Pinkbeast (talk) 23:41, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

John Paul Morrison

Talking to my son a few days ago, I realized I am still grieving over being deleted from Wikipedia 3 years ago (?). Stuff I put up about my hobby-horse, Flow-Based Programming, was apparently treated as advertising, whereas I saw that page as just a place to put some cross-references. I am not a villain... just someone who made the mistake of putting his enthusiasm in the wrong place! Since then a lot of material on FBP has been posted in various places, including videos, articles, plus products based on FBP - notably NiFi, NoFlo, etc. I guess if you feel someone should be penalized forever for making a mistake in their usage of WP, so be it!

Approaching the age of 81, with various medical problems, it would be nice to have even a small presence on Wikipedia other than a pink block - preferably before I die! Given that both my father and half-sister - also my godmother - have WP entries - although I realize this doesn't make a difference to the situation - it would be nice to join them! I also make an appeal to AGF - I was only motivated by my enthusiasm for the technology - apparently I should just have been patient!

Given the spread of interest in Flow-Based Programming worldwide recently (especially since NoFlo), probably a very short unembellished article about myself would have been enough, and of course one was put up on Wikipedia quite a few years ago (not by me). If the author of that one, or anyone else, could be prevailed upon to restore the original, how should they go about doing it?

The original decision to delete me seems draconian - have the rules or conventions been relaxed in the last few years? I have not been on WP much since then, but it seems likely that there may have been changes since those days... Jpaulm (talk) 16:18, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I understand, you want to tell the world about yourself and your brainchild. Wikipedia is not for self-promotion. Guy (Help!) 13:27, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for answering, Guy! I do understand: WP is not for *self*-promotion... And I understand the need to keep cranks, charlatans and snake-oil salesmen off Wikipedia, but WP seems to have created a situation where the inventor/discoverer of an important technology is not allowed to personally put information about it on WP - this seems odd! Requiring people other than the inventor to put up the information could result in losses or distortions. Why not get the info from the horse's mouth, as it were...? I ran into another situation where I wasn't allowed to add info to WP that I personally experienced because "it was not attested to in a paper document..." (or words to that effect) - I didn't understand that one either! Maybe WP contributors should have some kind of trustworthiness index!
A few years ago, when I started to put up information about this technology and related ones on WP, I was viewing WP as a sort of repository of all of humanity's knowledge - I was brought up on the Encyclopedia Britannica (probably like yourself), and thought WP was a big improvement! It seems that this has been trumped by the requirement to protect it from "fake news"! I'd also like to point out that, when I was growing up in England, I was taught never to draw attention to myself (the nail that sticks up is hammered down), but in the US, where I made my discovery, and worked for 5 years in the '60s, you are taught to "blow your own trumpet" - in the case of WP, this seems to entail a very delicate balancing act! I get your point, but I don't think it's unreasonable to want to keep the page on FBP up-to-date, especially given all the advances that it has made in almost 50 years (see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/flow-based-programming , if you are interested)... Too many to list in the article, but it is getting a bit old and cobwebby...!
Finally, I'd really like to get rid of that embarrassing pink box - the only things I was guilty of were a) not knowing the rules, and b) maybe, excessive enthusiasm!
Thanks, and regards,
PS Did you ever tell me which was the 1000-year-old school - that would go back to the Normans? Just curious! (Mine was only a bit over 500 years old, and I didn't enjoy it much!) Jpaulm (talk) 21:32, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Unblock

Hello, Guy. I have just accepted an unblock request from an editor you blocked, at User talk:DefendingPages. Usually I consult the blocking editor first, but in view of what you have said on your talk page I decided to go ahead with the unblock, but of course if you know of any reason that I don't why the block should stay, please let me know. The reason you gave in the block log was "All edits are reverts, often reintroducing spam removed by others." I checked a sample of 20 edits, spread across the account's history. Of those 20, 15 were clearly beneficial edits, and the other five appeared to be at the least good faith attempts to improve articles, but it was not immediately obvious whether they were beneficial or not: it would have needed further searching, checking sources, etc, to determine which. I did not see a single edit which was obviously bad, and only one of them re-added something which looked as though it might or might not have have been spam (again, it would have needed more checking to decide). Of course, I may have missed problems which you saw, but it seems highly unlikely that in the sample I looked at I would have seen such a total lack of evidence of problems if the editor's history was so uniformly bad as to justify an indefinite block without warning. Please do tell me if there are significant aspects of the editing history which I have missed, but from what I have seen the block looks like a mistake. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:22, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, maybe I was wrong. The edits I saw were reverting spam links back in, but that may be an artifact. That said, the username is a huge red flag. Guy (Help!) 08:26, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, user names like that usually suggest an editor who is not here for constructive reasons. In fact I think that is what called my attention to this one editor among dozens that were in the list of current unblock requests. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:41, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Wiki "Rules" Query..........

Out of interest, & following the completion of the ArbCom case, COI & Topic Ban could you kindly point me in the right direction to the "rules" that specify an Admin can arbitrarily close down a COI noticeboard discussion (within a minute of it being raised) seemingly based on their own personal opinion? nope . And again here?. closing it down arbitrarily? NOPE I am struggling to find the relevant "rules" around these specific actions, but I am sure you must know where they are. Thanks in advance --RebeccaSaid (talk) 09:33, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

University of the People

@JzG:Hi. I see that you have protected the article University of the People. A few minutes before you did that, the user who makes POV reverts made his last reverts and as a result, now the article reflects his POV view whereas if you see the talk page of the article the consensus view of at least two editors was that the earlier version was the more balanced. Can you help with this? Weatherextremes (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

See m:WRONG. Guy (Help!) 10:49, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi Guy, might you have the time to take a look at the consensus reached on the University of The People talk page and either, remove page protection so it can be fixed now, or make the changes yourself? Thank you kindly. --Sadsignal (talk) 12:58, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Wiki "Rules" Query..........

Out of interest, & following the completion of the ArbCom case, COI & Topic Ban could you kindly point me in the right direction to the "rules" that specify an Admin can arbitrarily close down a COI noticeboard discussion (within a minute of it being raised) seemingly based on their own personal opinion? nope . And again here?. closing it down arbitrarily? NOPE I am struggling to find the relevant "rules" around these specific actions, but I am sure you must know where they are. Thanks in advance --RebeccaSaid (talk) 09:33, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

University of the People

@JzG:Hi. I see that you have protected the article University of the People. A few minutes before you did that, the user who makes POV reverts made his last reverts and as a result, now the article reflects his POV view whereas if you see the talk page of the article the consensus view of at least two editors was that the earlier version was the more balanced. Can you help with this? Weatherextremes (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

See m:WRONG. Guy (Help!) 10:49, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi Guy, might you have the time to take a look at the consensus reached on the University of The People talk page and either, remove page protection so it can be fixed now, or make the changes yourself? Thank you kindly. --Sadsignal (talk) 12:58, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
I wanted to come back here and thank you for your directing us to RfC. You were right, this is the best way to resolve a content dispute and I am hoping a consensus will be reached in the coming weeks. I hope you and I can put our past differences behind us. Many thanks again. --Sadsignal (talk) 08:00, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Shady's back...

The IP you blocked the other day for disruptive editing at Talk:Ben Swann came back and immediately started again. See [3] and [4]. I'm pretty sure this is a static IP; it's been the same editor since May. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:20, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

List songs

Just to let you know that the above article which you created 12 years ago is up for AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List song. Not sure when the last time you looked at the article was, but you may care to comment on the AfD. Richard3120 (talk) 10:47, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

User:Stefrogovskiy

Hi JzG! I hope you're doing well and having a great day. I just wanted to leave you a message and let you know that I decided to cut this user some slack and give em enough rope, and I decided to accepted his unblock request. Since you were the blocking admin, I made sure to ping you so that you could provide input in case you were opposed to this but we didn't hear back. Whether or not this was intentional, I'll happily respect it. I just wanted to give you a courtesy notification to let you know about the unblock so that you were aware. If you have questions or concerns, you know where to reach me ;-). Cheers - ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 22:44, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Cool deal - thank you for verifying that you were okay with my decision to unblock the user. All I can say is that the ball's completely in his court now; he has the full ability and opportunity to move on from this, contribute positively, help us build this project, and become a long-term and highly experienced and respected member of the community here. What we'll surely find out from his edits and behavior is whether or not he wants to... I truly hope that he does. Cheers :-) - ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 11:00, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Block review for Clockback". Thank you. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 07:06, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

Best Regards, Barbara ✐  ✉ 21:40, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).

Administrator changes

added Sro23
readded KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

  • After a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by bureaucrats. Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
  • Following a request for comment, the WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to Wikinews should only be made as per the external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.

Technical news

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:31, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Page deleted for topic ban violation

Hi, you just deleted my sandbox3 as a topic ban violation. I did it as a draft for a reply to @Joshua Jonathan: in the middle of an on going t-ban appeal. By WP:BANEX, "I'm allowed to talk about the topic during a formal appeal." . And I have been asked to draft my comments in a sandbox before posting. It did discuss the topic, and an article in the topic area - but I did it in a way that is directly relevant to the appeal, explaining how I can contribute via talk page suggestions as well as via editing, if the t-ban is lifted, using the example I gave. I was working on it and it was mid edit, then I tried to edit it and it was gone, so I have to start again. In what sense was it a topic ban violation? Robert Walker (talk) 14:50, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I see it has just been closed as declined. If that is the reason, please be aware I did not know it was declined when I saved the edit of that page. I have only just noticed the notification. Robert Walker (talk) 14:54, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort closed

An arbitration case regarding German war effort articles has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

  1. For engaging in harassment of other users, LargelyRecyclable is indefinitely banned from the English Wikipedia under any account.
  2. Cinderella157 is topic banned from the history of Germany from 1932 to 1945, broadly construed. This topic ban may be appealed after six months have elapsed and every six months thereafter.
  3. Auntieruth55 is reminded that project coordinators have no special roles in a content dispute, and that featured articles are not immune to sourcing problems.
  4. Editors are reminded that consensus-building is key to the purpose and development of Wikipedia. The most reliable sources should be used instead of questionable sourcing whenever possible, especially when dealing with sensitive topics. Long-term disagreement over local consensus in a topic area should be resolved through soliciting comments from the wider community, instead of being re-litigated persistently at the local level.
  5. While certain specific user-conduct issues have been identified in this decision, for the most part the underlying issue is a content dispute as to how, for example, the military records of World War II-era German military officers can be presented to the same extent as military records of officers from other periods, while placing their records and actions in the appropriate overall historical context. For better or worse, the Arbitration Committee is neither authorized nor qualified to resolve this content dispute, beyond enforcing general precepts such as those requiring reliable sourcing, due weighting, and avoidance of personal attacks. Nor does Wikipedia have any other editorial body authorized to dictate precisely how the articles should read outside the ordinary editing process. Knowledgeable editors who have not previously been involved in these disputes are urged to participate in helping to resolve them. Further instances of uncollegial behavior in this topic-area will not be tolerated and, if this occurs, may result in this Committee's accepting a request for clarification and amendment to consider imposition of further remedies, including topic-bans or discretionary sanctions.

For the Arbitration Committee,

-Cameron11598(Talk) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:32, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Mark Bisnow Entry

Hello, thank you for your note about the Mark Bisnow entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Mark_Bisnow.

I understand that my edits make it look like I am related to those folks (I am not) or that I am them (I am not). There have probably been such instances on Wikipedia in the past, so I understand the caution exerted. The reason my entries are about two related people is quite innocent: One led me to learn about the other. I believe both are notable in their own right; this is supported by the mainstream sources included. Hopefully you'll agree. Also, to answer the concern of another admin, this isn't a promotional entry meant to coincide with some release; his books were published in the 80s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki-contrib-acct (talk • contribs) 20:37, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

block evasion

On July 27th, you blocked an SPA IP for being disruptive at the Ben Swann article and talk for 6 months. Well, there is a suspiciously familiar IP from the same city as the first ([5] [6]) still arguing away, trying to whitewash that article right now, and when I looked into their contributions, I found where they were speaking as if they were the original IP.

Now, I'm no checkuser or anything, but I'm willing to go out on a limb and suggest we have a bit of block evasion on our hands. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:26, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Is there an attempt to draw up a list of predatory journals somewhere?

I could swear I saw one but can't find it now. Doug Weller talk 12:36, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Your problematic edit at Talk:Environmental Working Group

I find this edit of yours at Talk:Environmental Working Group concerning. Not only is there no reason that I can see from removing my comments from the talk page, you gave no edit summary that even claimed some reason. In addition, you marked the reversion as "minor", as if deleting both responses to your comments and the raising of a new concern is an inconsequential matter.

Do you have an explanation for this edit? --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:28, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Huh, sorry about that, NatGertler, it was absolutely not intentional. Guy (Help!) 17:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Apology acceptorated! --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:14, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Choosing Wisely

I am slightly confused by why my sentence with references from three different medical journals from around the world is not independent evidence. Can you explain why a discussion article from the BMJ, CMAJ, and a German medical journal are not independent? Thanks--TransfusionDoctor (talk) 15:59, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Because for the most part it was "country X, source, website of CW in country X". You do that a lot, I notice. Guy (Help!) 17:24, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
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