User talk:Mathsci/Archive 16

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Fernand Dol

At the corner of the rue d'italie and cours mirabeau, there is a placard to say a street is blocked because of roadworks and they spelt it 'rue Fernandol'.Zigzig20s (talk) 01:10, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Les ploucs ! :) Mathsci (talk) 04:06, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I know. Did you see it? Anyway, I thought maybe we could take a picture to add to the Fernand Dol page? lol Zigzig20s (talk) 15:06, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Not yet. I left for London/Cambridge today so will have to wait until Tuesday. Nothing surprises me. :) Mathsci (talk) 16:21, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Glyn Eithrym

No problem, I did notice the author was being sneaky. Oddly it was through Googling those awards that I made the link from Flyn Eithrym to Myron Evans, but I could've saved myself the time by looking at the author's history first. Thanks for your good work on this one. -FlyingToaster (talk) 08:07, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Block notice

I have blocked you for one week, subsequent to this diff: [1]. I think you should use the time to read Wikipedia:Harassment with great care. It is all very well you quoting policy yourself, but here the point is that attempted outing is worth an immediate block, unequivocally. Since this is nothing like the first such incident, I think there is no room for quibbling here. You operate outside a number of our policies, and I regret that you find it necessary to do so while contributing here. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:29, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Charles, did you happen to find that incident on your own, or was it brought to your attention by somebody else? For the sake of transparency, I'd like to know. Blocks are appropriate for malicious outing. Bungling or being confused is a reason to warn somebody or help them become less confused. Could you post diffs of any prior warnings so that we can see why you went with an immediate block rather than a warning. I am not sure I see blatant outing here, yet, but I am sure you will explain it more completely. People make remarks like Mathsci's all the time at WP:COIN. We should avoid the appearance of selective enforcement. We should also consider that WP:COI and WP:OUTING have stood in conflict with each other for quite some time. I recently updated WP:COI, but I am not sure how many editors are aware of the change. We may need to do more to educate people about what constitutes outing, and how they can talk about COI without outing people. Jehochman ^Talk 20:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC) (amended at 01:27, 18 October 2008 (UTC))

I have a related question. I made somewhat similar comments to Mathsci's. In such a very obvious situation it's quite hard to retain the clearly fictitious separation between two people with a straight face. I tried to do it, but I don't think I was very convincing. I am not sure what saved me from being blocked. Is outing of editors who have, for most intents and purposes, outed themselves, OK so long as there is some appearance of subtlety?

I believe this kind of blatantly obvious situation happens rather often on science related articles. Only recently I have seen another important senior mathematics editor out a fringe POV pusher in a similarly clear case. If it is really the case that we are not allowed to call a spade a spade in such cases, or if we can do it so long as we follow certain non-obvious rules, then I think we need a lot of guidance on the matter to prevent loss of valuable editors. And it must be well publicised, e.g. in the maths project, not hidden in a "harassment" policy that is named as if it would only apply in hostile situations. --Hans Adler (talk) 21:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I find this quite confusing. 7 pages from "Mining environmental policy: comparing indonesia and the USA" are reproduced in coal mining. The book "Mining environmental policy" does not appear to be in the public domain. It is published by Ashgate and the copyright page [2] shows that the copyright is with MS Hamilton. The series is "Ashgate studies in environmental policy and practice". Ashgate is an international publishing company based in Hampshire in the UK. Why is this book a US government document? Are the other books in the series [3] also US government documents? I asked Mervyn Emrys to contact Quadell for help and also sent a long email to Quadell explaining the problem. Here are my last diffs [4][5]. Mervyn Emrys did not seem to like me suggesting he contact Quadell, who has helped me several times on copyright issues. This is extremely confusing. Mathsci (talk) 22:25, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I am also puzzled by this diff by Mervyn Emrys. [6] He says that "Mathsci deleted virtually my entire contribution to Coal Mining, much to the joy of coal mining firms everywhere, I imagine. Still gone.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 20:22, 17 October 2008 (UTC)". I have never edited this article. What are these comments about? Did Elonka realise that Mervyn Emrys had made an error? Mathsci (talk) 22:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I was mistaken about Mathsci deleting a contribution to Coal Mining article. It was someone else, and apparently happened simultaneously with my discovery of it, so there was no explanation provided until after my message was posted.

However, Mathsci made outrageous accusations on a previous incident thread that is now archived, preventing me from responding to them. In that thread he attempted to “out” me. Subsequently he attempted again on my “talk” page to out me.

It seems Mathsci does not understand copyright law as applied to U.S. Government documents. Nobody can acquire a copyright on any material published in a U.S. government document simply by quoting or paraphrasing it in a book published by a commercial publisher. The material remains in the public domain as public property. No publisher is going to come after anyone for reprinting material that is in the public domain, and nobody else has legal standing to do so.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 23:59, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not true that there can be no copyright in a document published by the US government. In fact, there can be no copyright in a document authored by the US government. Documents with other authors may be published by the federal government with the permission of the copyright owner, or the copyright in a work created by another author can be assigned to the federal government and then published by it, and in such cases the copyright continues to exist. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:12, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Your request to be unblocked has been granted for the following reason(s):

Harassment requires a pattern with the intent to intimidate or threaten. I see no pattern (a pattern requires more than one incident) and I see no intent to intimidate or threaten. On the contrary, I see an intent to help an editer add relevant content to an article without violating copywrite. I perhaps would have handled it differentily. Maybe I would have simply wrote, "If you are the author if this material, please e-mail me privately" or something like that. But the intent is clearly to be helpful, and I see no evidence of a pattern. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:47, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Request handled by: Slrubenstein | Talk 23:47, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

There are some grossly problematic posts above. Two in particular are obvious.

Jehochman - administrators, and often arbitrators, keep their ears close to the ground on the wiki. The idea that being told of a harassment matter somehow invalidates or lessens its proper handling is a serious error of understanding, since the advice given all editors and admins is, if in doubt, ask others to review a dispute. Notice that "ask to review" (correct) does not mean "push them to make a given decision" (canvassing, incorrect), and in this case, Charles acted completely correctly in handling it, as he had prior awareness of the past problems here.

Slrubenstein - you're plain mistaken about harassment, and you didn't check with the blocking admin who might know more than you do on this. Sorry. But everything in that policy states that even one incident, if serious enough, is to be treated seriously. You haven't checked Mathsci's record as Charles has; you didn't consider the blocking admin might know matters that you don't; you didn't read the long standing wording of the policy you cited, but merely the first few lines. In fact, Wikipedia:Harassment#Posting of personal information has a long standing consensus of the community, that's very blunt and very simple: "Unless unintentional and non-malicious [example snipped], attempted outing is grounds for an immediate block". Thats a well established communal consensus.

Please do not unblock without consulting with the blocking admin next time. This is not the first unblock I'm aware of where you didn't, and found you were not in fact aware of the case sufficiently to make a good decision. Please do be careful to check carefully in future, to avoid any more.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:33, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, FT2, I disagree with you. I do not question Charles's right to block, I just think it was imprudent. Mervyn Emrys posted information about himself on his user page. he added content to an article, and mathsci provided us with information about the source. This is a far cry from the kind of outing that all of us should indeed by appalled out, and it does not come close to intimidation or harassment. I myself have noted on the talk page of an article who the author of a source is, and what his or her credentials are. i have even added that information to articles. I cannot see how MathSci can be faulted for this. MatchScie also pointed out that Mervyn Emrys and the author of the source both teach at large public universities (as do I for what it is worth). This is not very surprising - I assure you I am well aware of works by other academics in my field who teach at large universities; I would like to think it is a resource I bring to Wikipedia. Mervyn seems to think so as he has pointed this out on his/her user page and I would certainly agree; s/he is a good resource. In context, MathSci's pointing this out seems to me to be a step in attempting to explain why Mervyn kept adding information a seasoned editor has copyright concerns about. In context, mathSci is suggesting how a third party could be brought in who might helpfully resolve the conflict. All of this is in keeping with our conflict resolution policy. I am sorry that Mervyn took it poorly, but I just do not see a pattern of harassment here, and I do not see ANY private information revealed, or any confidence betrayed, which is what we really should be worried about with outing. Are you really saying that we should not identify the credentials of sources being used for articles? beyond that all I could say is this: if Mervyn really is concerned about being outed, s/he could either provide less information on his/her user page, or say - as any reasonable person would - "Dude, there are many large public universities in the US, and they employ a lot of people. Yes, I have said publically I teach at a large public university. And I value the work of other academics. So don't be surprised that I use as sources other academics. There are lots of us out there; I am not the only one, and the guy who wrote this article/boolk is not the only one!!" Be that as it may this is an unfortunate conflict that could use some cool mediation but not a block, certainly not yet. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:48, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

The point is, check with Charles before going ahead, in this case. It's not a trivial expectation, and it's there for good reasons. If you had posted on mathsci's talk page, "I do not see a problem needing a block. I'm checking with the blocking admin and will get back to you shortly", that would have been far better, and avoided a problem. I spotted the same question you had, and hence I didn't block, but I am aware that there is history I don't know, and you don't know, hence I didn't unblock on the spot either. So you actually don't know the background as Charles does, here, but have perhaps assumed somewhat. Checking would be a reasonable and serious expectation when reversing a block that's for something like this. Could you try to, in future? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:02, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, FT2, this block was not at all transparent. I did ask Charles to comment, but he is apparently off wiki for a time. I am not accepting your pro forma answer as to how he found this. I'd like him to say how he found out about this incident, because that may shed light on why this block happened. There simply isn't good evidence here to show outing, or a pattern of harassment. The evidence should be placed before the block, so as not to leave people guessing. Please don't wheel war over this, folks. Take it to WP:AN and discuss the matter to achieve consensus. Jehochman ^Talk 01:08, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

The non transparency is exactly why Slrubenstein needed to check. Think about it. Charles has stated there is "attempted outing" and that "this is nothing like the first such incident". Perhaps some of those may not be known to Slrubenstein or others. Perhaps some are not being linked or referenced in order to reduce the harm. Who knows. Not you, and not I, evidently. So Slrubenstein needed to check with the blocking admin.

As to how he found out, best you don't ask me to speculate on limited knowledge, when you can easily ask him for an accurate answer yourself. As I stated above, administrators, and often arbitrators, keep their ears close to the ground on the wiki. The idea that being told of a harassment matter somehow invalidates or lessens its proper handling is a serious error of understanding, since the advice given all editors and admins is, if in doubt, ask others to review a dispute. Notice that "ask to review" (correct) does not mean "push them to make a given decision" (canvassing, incorrect). FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:25, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Oversight is going to have to find a way to square its mandate which anyone who knows me knows I fully support, with the value of transparency. I am sure we can come up with ways to establish on record that someone has been warned by ArbCom without violating a third person's privacy. But FT2, this is a policy question better left for another time and place. MathSci is faulted for outing when he revealed nothing that was not on the public record, and in a statement that begins "The edit summary is probably inaccurate, but the intent is clearly to add very useful scholarly information to the encyclopedia" which to me is an explicit indication of MathSci's good (and not malicious) intentions, being a defense of Mervyn's intentions! Defending mervyn against whom? In fact, MathScie was responding to Hans Adler's comment accusing Mervyn of a conflict of interest [7]. In context - MathSci is clearly NOT agreeing that there is a conflict of interest, and does not believe that Hans' comment is good cause to exclude the material; he is AGFing Mervin and making it plain that he sees only a copyright issue that, once resolved, can lead to the inclusion of the material. As for outing, Hans Adler seems to be doing that in the accusation of a conlict of interest ... but i am not challenging Adler, it seems to me that Mervyn did that himself when he wrote on his user page, "cannot quote their own scholarly writings even briefly or they are alleged to have a conflict of interest" - clearly a complaint about Hans Adler's concern, not MathSci's concern. These are the salient facts and they simply do not justify the block. Slrubenstein | Talk 02:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no transparency in outing, serious harassment, and privacy breach cases, a lot of the time. In fact a responsible admin will often do all they possibly can to avoid giving the matter oxygen. That's exactly one reason you needed to check with the blocking admin in this case, and cases generally. Because you may not know everything. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:23, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this (at least) insofar as it puts me into a more problematic light than Mathsci. I tried to be helpful without doing enough research first. I should not have mentioned COI so carelessly to a scholar and newbie editor. I will not comment about the other issues prematurely (i.e. before we have Charles' position). --Hans Adler (talk) 08:17, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it involved this "taunt" [8], which was ill-advised and very wisely removed by Paul August. I did not receive any further comments on my talk page from either Paul or Charles. Charles has said elsewhere that it was "clueless" and I have to agree completely with him, no matter how provoked I felt. Mathsci (talk) 09:00, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the explanation. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:44, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I have dealt with a good number of harassment cases. What you do to provide transparency is say that there is private evidence. Admin may contact the blcoking admin. Please don't unblock until you have the full facts. Charles didn't say any of those things. He cited a diff that didn't really show blockable harassment. I asked question, but did not unblock because I expected that Charles would provide an explanation. It will be good when he does so, because that may help conclude the discussion. Mathsci should not be blocked without knowing why. Jehochman ^Talk 12:07, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

That first point works for me, and worth remembering for blocking admins. At worst "I have blocked for harassment. I do not plan to give all details here; any reviewing admin please email me to discuss". The standard is to check anyway, but even so, it's best to be sure. Perhaps it would have prevented the above. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 12:37, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of subpages

I have deleted User:Mathsci/subpage and User:Mathsci/subpage3 in line with the principles set out in the Tobias Conradi Arbitration case. In other words, "no laundry lists of grudges": this has been deemed an inappropriate use of user pages. If you wish to use these diffs in dispute resolution, I shall willingly mail you the text of these pages. Otherwise I should make clear that it is not acceptable to warehouse diffs here - your nearest text editor will do fine. I think you should pay much closer attention to the thinking here, in future.Charles Matthews (talk) 16:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Did somebody ask you to delete User:Mathsci/subpage and/or User:Mathsci/subpage3, or did you find these yourself? Jehochman ^Talk 22:05, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Charles, the first page was used by Elonka to put restrictions on User:Koalorka for anti-Turkish edits, and she agreed with this page being created. The second set of recent edits by Elonka was communicated to FT2 on WP:FTN. Elonka herself kept a series of my diffs on User:Elonka/Work1 in June (the page was deleted and then restored). I communicated privately with administrator User:DGG about the diffs collected by Elonka; you can see his reply if you wish. Mathsci (talk) 22:42, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

The matter of your behaviour is under discussion on the ArbCom list, and the precedent is pretty clear. It doesn't matter which individual admins have "agreed" that the principles can be bent. We (the ArbCom) want dispute resolution to be used, not festering lists and "monitoring". It could be that these points could be more widely known, but WP:HARASS applies, in spirit. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:24, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Good morning, Charles. Thanks for this clarification. Does this also apply to administrators? Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 08:31, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Assuming you mean removal of such material - yes. I can't speak for others, but on request, I will courtesy blank or in some cases (based on judgement) delete that contain old shopping lists of diffs for a case where there's good reason to believe they are historic, and explain the problem to the user whose space they are in, whether they are an admin or not isn't relevant. I would see this as applying to all users if the material is apparently "historic" or not current and active. (And will accept if someone does the same to my userspace, although it hasn't been a problem yet.) If it's relatively current and I was asked to review it, I'd be considering whether a case looks imminent, if it looks like it's just causing problems, etc, and try to reach a view if anything really needed doing and if so, what. Relevant reference: Wikipedia:User page#What may I not have on my user page? (item 9).

As regards the rest of Charles' comment (bending of principles, dispute resolution, WP:HARASS etc) - yes. Absolutely they apply to administrators. Again I can't speak for others, but I expect higher not lower standards of a user trusted with adminship. I also expect them to get the idea faster if corrected and therefore I'm aware that they may not be so likely to need blocking to protect the project and community though, so depending on the case is how it's handled. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:33, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Concerning my unblock

Mathsci, I truly believe your intentions were good. But others do not and you need to take that to heart. I have four bits of advice and you know I mean well:

memorize WP:BITE. Yup, I often forget it myself. And regret it.
do not make insinuations (meaning for example a clause that ends inviting people ot draw their own conclusions). Say what you mean and mean what you say and people will not misinterpret you.
When I say, "say what you mean," just go over WP:BITE before you do and ask yourself if there is a better way to say what you mean, first.
Even though I know you know I mean well and am acting in good faith, if I were you I would still be feeling a little hot under the collar about all of this and maybe even about something I just wrote. If so, just take however much time you need to cool down before your next edit. I do think Charles was wrong to block you, but i take his concerns seriously and if he thinks you need to reconsider your recent edits in relation to our outing policy, well, you are unblocked but do me a favor and take some time off from editing and yeah, review that policy. Respect his intentions as I respect yours. Slrubenstein | Talk 01:21, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

As I have pointed out, the unblock was without proper consulation with me, since User:Slrubenstein seems to make no allowance for time zones. There was a quite gratuitous invitation for people to "draw their own conclusions", and the diff provided is well within "attempted outing" as defined at WP:HARASS. As it says, there, and as I said above, a block is then not negotiable. Since Mathsci has previously dabbled in attempted out of User:Arcfrk, the unblock by User:Slrubenstein, who should have read that the block log contains a previous harassment incident, is wildly out of touch with the realities of the situation. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:29, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I try to avoid blocking people immediately before retiring; it saves trouble. Now, let's get back to my question. Did you come across this matter while patrolling AN/I, or did somebody (you don't need to name them) ask you to look into this? If so, was this person neutral or did they have a strong adversarial relationship with Mathsci? Jehochman ^Talk 12:22, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You're barking up the wrong tree here. Charles and I have been involved here and watching things for awhile now and are coming at this from an entirely different angle. We haven't needed to be pointed at things by other editors. Specifically not the editor I believe you have in mind. Paul August ☎ 12:48, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, then. Ruling out something is good, because it cuts down on bad feelings. Jehochman ^Talk 12:53, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Next question. Where is the evidence of harassment? Where is the pattern of behavior? Above I see one diff that looks more like incompetence than malice. The interaction between WP:OUTING and WP:COI has been poorly explained in our policy pages until very recently. In practice many people are confused about these policies. It does not seem fair to pick an arbitrary editor and come down on him like a ton of bricks. Perhaps there have been prior warnings or incidents. Could somebody link to them, or if they are private, just say so and maybe email me the info? Jehochman ^Talk 15:43, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

What MathSci did with Arcfrk was wrong and I think he knows it. What he did with Mervyn was not the same thing; was not wrong; and did not violate policy. MathSci provided information about a publication Mervyn was using. he provided information about the author that demonstrates that the material is a reliable source. This is entirely appropriate at Wikipedia and should be encourage. Hans Adler raised the question of a conflict of interest with is the closest one might come to an act of "outing;" I think this is a grey area that needs more discussion but in any event it was Hans who drew a connection between the author of the pub and information Mervyn posted about himself on his web-page. Mervyn has made it clear that his edits should be accepted bcause he is an authority, which I suppose is why he added biographical detail to his user page. It cerainly is enough to make me trust his judgement on picking sources. MathSci then said that other editors can draw their own conclusions but that "the intent is clearly to add very useful scholarly information to the encyclopedia." This seems like a positive statement to me. MathSci's criticism was not to agree with Hans's suspicion of COI but to point out that we generally do not cut and paste seven pages from any source, which, well, which is true and a cause for concern. MathCSci suggested that whatever the problem, consulting with another editor more knowledgable in copyright law could help, which sounds constructive.

What I see here is nothing at all like the Arcfrk case, and nothing inappropriate, indeed, on the contrary, things I ould have done (although perhaps worded differently). Maybe Charles has displaced feelings, that he should have blocked MathSci for the Arcfrk incident, and now has another chance. Or maybe as Jehochman has suggested there is other evidence. I agree that there are limits to transparency - Charles cannot present additional evidence that would really out Mervyn. but he has not suggested that he has any such evidence, only vague statements, ditto Paul August. If they have other evidence that MathScie has outed Mervyn, evidence that, because it itself is the outing, cannot be repeated here, he should have said so (it is a moot point now, since Mervyn has since outed himself), and reblock MathSci. But please, no more references to Arcfrk, the two cases are too different. And a careful reading of the case at hand makes me think Charles for some reason is not treating MathSci fairly Nothing that Charles has posted, before or after the block, warrants a 1 week block for outing.

I think now that mervyn has outed himself we need to return to the real issue, that MathSci pointed out: we should add good content to an article, but not by cutting and pasting seven pages from a book. Let's figure out how to add the material in an appropriate way. More work on writing an encyclopedia and fewer power games, okay? Slrubenstein | Talk 17:02, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment. I am not at all happy with the way I interacted with Arcfrk and, although neither side is blameless, I personally did not act at all honourably. I would sincerely like to correct this on or off-wiki and establish amicable and collegial relations with Arcfrk. This was one of the things that Oded Schramm tried to put in motion. Mathsci (talk) 19:16, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the statements made here by Mathsci, which coupled with offline correspondence of various sorts may serve to address and resolve some of the conduct issues that have given rise to concern. I do not at all appreciate the imputation of lack of good faith and neutrality by User:Slrubenstein above. Admins are supposed to come to consensus on blocks, where disputed. The rambling speculation above and on my User talk page by no stretch of the imagination constitutes such a discussion. Frankly, from start to finish, User:Slrubenstein has evaded any real discussion of the action taken. The onus is on User:Slrubenstein to comply with policy here. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Charles, you have not responded to my questions, though you have had ample opportunities to do so. Where is the evidence of outing that supported your block? Were you acting on behalf of ArbCom, or in your personal capacity as administrator? There is no assertion that you were acting for the committee, yet. Just because you were elected to ArbCom does not make you immune to the normal requirements of adminship that use of sysop tools must be supported by evidence, and must be explained when questioned. To me, it looks like you don't have good evidence of outing, that this block was a mistake (you are allowed an occasional mistake), and that your criticism of SIrubenstein is inappropriate. Administrators who perform independent block reviews may unblock when there is no evidence to support a block. SIrubenstein frequently patrols Category:Requests for unblock. His handling of this unblock request was completely routine. Jehochman ^Talk 11:50, 19 October 2008 (UTC) Discussion continues at User talk:Charles Matthews. Jehochman ^Talk 12:23, 19 October 2008 (UTC)