User talk:Elonka/Archive 40

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Bullying

Do not bully me about how infractions of the VERY clear instructions about questioning are dealt with. And do not order me about on my talk page. Tony (talk) 16:52, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

This is not bullying, it is stating in a civil manner that your actions were inappropriate. I was not alone in my concerns. And my statement stands: You should not edit other people's posts in the way that you did. Instead of accusing me of bullying, what you should have done was this: When I expressed my concern, a better response from you would have been, "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind going forward." Instead, you responded with emotional language, and then, a day later, an accusation of bullying? This too is inappropriate. --Elonka 16:14, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LVI, October 2010

To stop receiving this newsletter, please list yourself in the appropriate section

talk
) 22:31, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Jehochman and ChrisO

Elonka, I was disappointed to see that you had referred to Jehochman and ChrisO as disruptive editors.[1] As neither of them are standing for election this time around, and your userspace is an area where they can't defend themselves, there is no reason to even refer to them. Would you please redact that remark? NW (Talk) 00:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know that I can speak to Jehochman, but given that ChrisO has been sanctioned time after time after time, despite being given way too many chances, I think Elonka's statement is a valid one, if Phil did indeed defend Chris. I would argue that the problem with Phil runs a bit deeper, but that's a story for another day.
IronDuke
00:46, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I came here on the same errand as NuclearWarfare. Get a grip, Elonka. No personal attacks in your voter's guide, please. Going out of your way to insult Jehochman, who is indeed not running for arb this time round, is just pathetic. I have posted an inquiry to the election coordinators here, in case you'd like to discuss the matter. Bishonen | talk 02:43, 27 November 2010 (UTC).

Medcom

Howdy Elonka. Ya know, I might just seek a seat on Medcom next year. A touch of jocularty would help in that area, anyways we'll see. GoodDay (talk) 05:50, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

They can definitely use the help! --Elonka 05:59, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I just checked the requirements & I'm sunk. The mailing thing, isn't my style. GoodDay (talk) 06:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Your guide...

I thought yours was thorough, despite not asking any questions. You took the time to read and analyze the RfC against me. Apologies if it sounded like I was placing yours in the less useful half. Jclemens (talk) 04:09, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, no need to apologize, I didn't take it personally! I was just explaining my rationale for not asking questions. Thanks for the kind words though, and good luck with the tallies! --Elonka 04:11, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Eh, we'll see. I'm not too optimistic, but I actually liked the excuse to sit down and write and length about what I liked, disliked, and wanted to change about Wikipedia. At this point, the votes are cast, and I predict that I will come in somewhere in the middle or slightly below the middle. Thanks, though! Jclemens (talk) 04:16, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Based on the data I compiled from the voter guides (it's in a Google spreadsheet, let me know if you'd like access), you're at # 10. So, we'll see! I am also very much looking forward to seeing how well the guide data from 20-odd members of the community, predicted the actual results of 850 voters! --Elonka 04:21, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Pedro

Pedro's an admin. His admin log makes it clear he knows about

WP:NPA.©Geni
01:15, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

That is still no excuse for blocking an established editor without a single warning. --Elonka 03:39, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit war

Hello. Please pay your attention to this. I will not remove the propaganda that he wrote.Sentinel R (talk) 12:35, 5 December 2010 (UTC)


Yes, please pay attention to my reply there and you will see exactly what has really happened.Kermanshahi (talk) 15:57, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Could you please have look at the discussion here as soon as possible. I really neeed an administrator to help me here and point out to Sentinel R who is right here.Kermanshahi (talk) 17:43, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Don't you think that by adding this: "Jundullah have been refered to as seperatists by various media,[33][34][35][36][37] the group's leader Abdolmalek Rigi, has however always denied the organisation had any seperatist agenda,[2][5][6][8]" to the article I basicly did represent both views and adressed the dispute in as neutral way as possible?Kermanshahi (talk) 20:02, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
To be honest, I do not know that much about the topic, so it is difficult for me to tell what is and is not neutral at this point. The best way that I can help, I think, is to provide a structure within which the two of you can try to work through your disagreement. The wording that you described sounds fine to me, let's see what Sentinel thinks, and if he would like to propose alternate wording? --Elonka 20:07, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

If he makes a reasonable proposal on how to alternate the wording, I have no problem with it. I however do strongly believe that the organisation's own official goal should be listed in the infobox rather than what some others have to say about them.Kermanshahi (talk) 20:28, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Other options are to list both views, or simply remove that section of the infobox entirely. There is no policy requirement that Wikipedia articles have infoboxes, nor is there any requirement that all entries in a box must be listed. --Elonka 20:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

That could be an option, but I dont' see why that would be needed since they have stated an official motive of their organisation, which is equal righst for Sunnis, while stressing many times that they are not seperatist. Just because of some wiki editor not wanting that to be put into the article (for some reason) doesn't mean people should be deprived of sourced information.Kermanshahi (talk) 20:52, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello, Elonka. Need your attention here. I made some concessions and offered a compromise.Sentinel R (talk) 04:20, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
I am very glad to hear it. Did you see the wording that Kermanshahi suggested above? What do you think? --Elonka 04:28, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
I think that he should stop insisting on one version and to accept my offer.Sentinel R (talk) 04:59, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

He rejected the compromise. The choice is yours, which of us is right?
And about Balochistan conflict, dispute at an impasse. Decide you are, otherwise we will both be a couple more weeks to argue.Sentinel R (talk) 04:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

If two weeks of discussion would bring you to a compromise, by all means try!
There is no deadline here. Take your time. --Elonka
06:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LVII, November 2010

To stop receiving this newsletter, please list yourself in the appropriate section

talk
) 22:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Voting table

Hi, your very interesting table of daily votes: do I gather that there's no issue with first and second voting? Can we print this in next week's Signpost Election Report, or are there problems in interpreting it? Tony (talk) 13:51, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd be honored if you were to include it. As for the first and second voting, I just used the dates that showed up at the log. My understanding is that this means that anyone who updated their ballot still has the date listed from their first vote, not their update, but I am not certain so that might be worth doublechecking. --Elonka 14:44, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, Elonka. It partly depends on where we're at when the next edition comes out, and how many other graphs/tables might be important. But your count is interesting enough to be mentioned, I think. Tony (talk) 08:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Now the results are out, a comparison with the guides might be good as well. I think you (Elonka) had been doing a spreadsheet that attempted to use the guides to predict the outcome? It would be interesting to see which guides tallied most closely with the community vote, and which didn't. Carcharoth (talk) 01:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

See also what I did at Sandy Georgia's guide... (second table) User:SandyGeorgia/ArbVotes2010/Guides ++Lar: t/c 04:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the table Lar. For my own data, I'm trying to decide where to draw the cutoff. For example, it doesn't feel right to just assign 1 point if someone supported candidates 1-12, 1 point if they opposed candidates 13-21. If someone supported candidate 13, but candidate 13 didn't get elected, I don't necessarily see that as getting it "wrong". Ditto if someone marked a neutral on a candidate, I don't see that as an error. However, if someone supported a candidate that got less than 50% of the vote, then yes, that might be worth marking that guide down a point? For example, Giano came in 18th, with 40.77%. How do we rate the people who supported him? Minus one point for supporting someone who lost? Minus one point for supporting someone who ended up in the bottom 5? The votes really aren't spread evenly: The bottom candidate got 10% support. Next was 17%. Then there are 7 candidates who got 38-45%, 3 candidates from 51-56%, and in that latter batch, 2 probably won. So many are pretty close.
Also, how do we rate people that didn't provide opinions on all the candidates? Piotrus supported 5 candidates, opposed none. 4 came out in the top 5, 1 at #15. But it wouldn't feel right to put his guide at the bottom of the list for getting all the others wrong, simply beause he chose not to offer an opinion! --Elonka 06:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Very good questions. Ncmvocalist didn't like my methodology and changed my table around... so I made a copy and now there are two... he factored out neutrals (while I penalized them for not having a view). I have no idea how to really score this. As I said at the start I wrote my guide as advocacy not prediction. So Maybe Maybe next year I will find someone to escrow my predictions and write two tables, one advocacy and one (secretly so as not to skew results) predictive. ++Lar: t/c 14:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that's exactly it. The guides were mostly written as recommendations, not predictions. And I wouldn't think very much of anyone who chose to vote based on, "Here's who I predict is going to win," rather than, "Here's who I want to win." This isn't a multiple choice test, it's decision-making on who should be the voices of authority within our community. Voting for someone because, "Well, this person is probably going to win, so I should vote for them because of that," may be how consensus decision-making works, but not in a secret poll! Unless maybe we're Cardinals voting on the next Pope.  ;) And even then, we'd have the benefit of seeing the results of previous polls, before casting our next vote. --Elonka 15:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Exactly!!!! Exactly what I was trying to explain to Casliber yesterday but he didn't seem to get it. If you are going to vote exactly how the election is going to result you can skip voting. So all this analysis is fun, I guess but ultimately just fun analysis. (don't stop! We just need to know how to take it: fun)... ++Lar: t/c 15:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Yup, was just working on that!  :) I've included my first pass at the data below. In a nutshell: The top five candidates from the guides, and the top five candidates from actual results, were the same, just in a different order. The biggest changes between guides and votes were Xeno and John Vandenberg doing much better; and Giano and Georgewilliamherbert doing much worse:
Candidate % based
on guide data
Order based
on guide data
Percentage based
on prelim results
Order based
on prelim results
% diff Order diff
Newyorkbrad

91.67%

2 89.01% 1 -2.66% 1
Casliber

80.95%

4 78.73% 2 -2.22% 2
SirFozzie

86.36%

3 78.45% 3 -7.91% 0
Iridescent

95.00%

1 74.04% 4 -20.96% -3
Elen

70.00%

5 72.57% 5 2.57% 0
Xeno

42.86%

12 70.64% 6 27.78% 6
David Fuchs

68.42%

6 62.88% 7 -5.54% -1
Chase

55.56%

8 60.61% 8 5.05% 0
PhilKnight

63.16%

7 60.38% 9 -2.78% -2
John Vandenberg

35.00%

17 57.73% 10 22.73% 7
Jclemens

43.75%

11 56.71% 11 12.96% 0
Shell Kinney

40.00%

13 56.70% 12 16.70% 1
Sandstein

39.13%

14 51.30% 13 12.17% 1
Stephen Bain

27.78%

18 45.54% 14 17.76% 4
Harej

38.89%

15 44.62% 15 5.73% 0
Georgewilliamherbert 46.67% 9 44.26% 16 -2.41% -7
FT2

36.36%

16 42.13% 17 5.77% -1
GiacomoReturned

45.00%

10 40.77% 18 -4.23% -8
Balloonman

20.00%

19 38.64% 19 18.64% 0
Off2riorob

0.00%

21 16.87% 20 16.87% 1
Loosmark

0.00%

20 9.87% 21 9.87% -1
As for which guides were "most accurate", that's really difficult to analyze. No one guide was a direct match. If we look at the four candidates that were most different between guide average and vote average though, we have Xeno and John Vandenberg being strongly supported by the community, and Giano and Georgewilliamherbert not so much. Of the guides that got those calls right, we have Aiken Drum and Secret who agreed with those 4 decisions, and myself and WereSpiel who got 3/4. But even among those four, there are many other differences. If anyone knows of other ways to crunch the data though, I'm open to suggestions! --Elonka 02:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
If anyone wants a spreadsheet of the 2010, 2009, and 2008 votes, I can email it. Tony (talk) 06:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
The median support percentage for the top 12 was around 67%. The median percentage for those outside the top 12 was 42%. The middle of the range between 12th and 13th was 54%. You could choose to equate those percentages with "Support", "Oppose", "Neutral", if you wanted to assign a predictive value to each of the opinions offered by a guide writer. That would allow a coefficient of correlation to be calculated for a guide. Not terribly accurate or to be taken seriously, but it could be used as a basis for comparisons. Just for fun, I calculated the correlation for Elonka (0.39), Lar (0.31), and SandyGeorgia (0.58). You could refine it by using intermediate values like "Strong Support = 78%", "Weak Support = 58%", "Weak Oppose = 45%", "Strong Oppose = 28%", but that would disadvantage guide writers who didn't use those categories. Caution: this is a gross violation of statistical methods, and is only offered for entertainment purposes :). Anyone wanting a copy of the spreadsheet I used can download it from http://www.metropolis2.co.uk/Bish/ACE2010-guides.xls . Regards, --RexxS (talk) 21:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you very much for your support of my reelection in your voter guide, as well as for your overall thoughtful observations there. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:37, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Heh, well, I didn't really offer much of an opinion involving you, other than general support. I guess it's because I knew that you were going to be a slamdunk, so it didn't really matter what I said! Congrats though, and I'm glad you're still on ArbCom. Wikipedia is a better place because of your involvement, so thanks for all your work! --Elonka 03:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
If you didn't say much before, you've made up for it now. :) Much appreciated, once again. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You've been mentioned at AN/Edit warring

I brought up your comment at

WP:PRIMARY in no way prohibits the use of primary sources in any article. This should especially be true when using the actual CFDI list as published to build an article about the CFDI. Further, I would say that since the 2008 CFDI list was compiled by the DHS and other agencies and transmitted via an official cable to solicit revisions from various government officials for the next year's version, it is not a primary source, but a secondary source under considerable editorial control. Wnt (talk
) 14:00, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

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

SilverserenC 19:30, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I replied again. SilverserenC 21:04, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Contribution Team

Hi there! This is a message sent to all members of the

Contribution Team. We're letting you know that there has been a rather major update - you can read more about it at Wikipedia talk:Contribution Team#Backlog Drive Update And Other News. Kind regards, Panyd and Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk
) 23:24, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding personal attack allegation

Yesterday I posted a response to something you had written at

talk
) 16:22, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I have replied there several times, so I'm not sure what you are referring to. I did scan through the thread again, and it looks like there was some confusion on one point, but it was cleared up by another editor, so did not require an additional reply from me. If there's some other specific question I missed though, please let me know? Thanks, --Elonka 16:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for the confusion. It's the entry starting "Assertions of users having..." There were some irrelevant points being made, but the main issue remains. __
talk
) 18:11, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm still not seeing what remains unanswered. Could you simply repeat the question here? --Elonka 02:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Here:
Assertions of users having made
talk
) 09:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
This[3] was a personal attack. Comments on article talkpages should focus on the content of the article, not on the contributors. --Elonka 15:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
It may very well be a personal attack by your personal standards, but when you accuse another editor of making personal attacks on Wikipedia you need to get in line with Wikipedia's definition of what constitutes a personal attack on a fellow editor. That you have neglected and thus your censure directed at User:Wnt is unreasonable and unconstructive. I'm not sure you actually have read
talk
) 17:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
After looking at the diffs, I agree with Elonka that it was a personal attack according to the most basic reading of
WP:NPA. Meco, you distracted away from the topic and attacked User:Ohconfucius, claiming that he was "imposing himself as the supervisor-in-charge over all other editors." You also said he was "acting like a run of the mill Wikipedia deletionist." Meco, you were making accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence, and this isn't the first time you've done this. Tell me, Meco, is this the reason you were kicked off no.wikipedia.org? Honest question. Viriditas (talk
) 23:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Meco, I appreciate the support, but the relevant AN/Edit warring thread was dropped without action of any kind, so there's really no point to continue the debate. Viriditas recently admonished me about a different 'personal attack' on my homepage, which I believe to be specifically excluded by WP:NPA as I responded there. In general, these allegations of "personal attacks" are an unwelcome distraction from the larger Wikileaks debate. No one involved in these disputations has let loose with invective to match many other political debates I've seen here. Wnt (talk) 23:52, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
On the contrary, I've analyzed the debates, and I came to the surprising conclusion that all the heated rhetoric, all the accusations, all the incivility, and all of the personal attacks, have begun with people promoting the WikiLeaks cables over and above best practices and reasoned self-restraint, and anyone who tries to discuss this issue in terms of policy, is automatically set upon by account after account crying "censorship". So, you've got a lot of explaining to do. We're here to write encyclopedia articles, not advocate or campaign for any topic or group. Viriditas (talk) 23:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

RSN

Other users at the RSN discussion have said that both Business Insider and the Armenian news service are reliable. I just wanted to let you know. SilverserenC 22:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I am following the discussion, and look forward to acquiring more input from uninvolved editors. --Elonka 02:37, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
I would prefer uninvolved yes, but Fifelfoo is not. Wnt announced that he was involved, the fact that Fifelfoo didn't is a bit of a problem, I think. I'm going to go put a comment beneath his, labeling him as also involved. SilverserenC 02:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Speaking of which, it's not a good idea for you to declare consensus on the RSN thread either, as you just did at WP:AN, saying that the Business Insider source has been approved, when obviously it has not.[4] --Elonka 02:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
If more uninvolved users say that it isn't, i'll obviously change that wording. But currently, no one that is uninvolved has opposed the use of them. RSN discussions usually only get 2-3 people that respond. SilverserenC 02:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Note: "been approved" is not the same as a consensus. I just stated that it was approved by uninvolved editors, not that it had gained a consensus. SilverserenC 02:52, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
It has not been approved at RSN. It is misleading for you to say that it was approved at RSN. --Elonka 02:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
What do you define approval as? SilverserenC 02:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
It can vary from case to case, but in general it would involve a preponderance of strong policy-based arguments, preferably by uninvolved voices. If two uninvolved voices were disagreeing, but both making strong policy-based arguments, then more voices would be required to try and determine consensus. As for how "uninvolved" would be defined in this case, I would look at contribs, to see who has been editing (for example) any Wikileaks-related articles. --Elonka 15:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Work1

I came across your

User:Elonka/Work1 on the list of pages linking to the CFDI article, so I've prepared a rebuttal at User:Wnt/Work1. I don't know if there's anything we can agree on out of all that, but if there is, it will make things a little less complicated if we take our cases to other editors. Wnt (talk
) 22:32, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a look! --Elonka 23:25, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Administrator discussion

I object strongly to both your insertion of an "admin only" section into the thread about classified documents and to your moving of comments into it. The determination of consensus and the discussion of proposals such as yours are not admin-only matters, and the moving of comments in an active thread distorts the record and makes it much harder for other editors to follow the flow of a discussion. DuncanHill (talk) 16:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

That is way out of order. Please desist from removing objections to your behaviour. DuncanHill (talk) 16:57, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
I understand your concerns, but the whole point of the thread was to get the comments of other administrators. I am interested in your opinions though. If you feel that the consensus determination is incorrect, then what would you replace it with? If it were up to you to write a summary of consensus, what would it be? --Elonka 16:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Am I the only non-admin whose opinion you are interested in? You do not own the thread and you do not have the right to decide on who may or may not post within it. DuncanHill (talk) 17:01, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
All opinions are welcome, within the proper structure. --Elonka 17:05, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
There is no structure to exclude non-admins from such a debate. You need to propose a new policy if you wish to have debates about consensus restricted to admins only, not do it on the fly. DuncanHill (talk) 17:11, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
You are not excluded from the debate, your comments are simply in a different section. We have plenty of precedent all over the project for certain types of structured discussions. For example, at an RfC, you may wish to disagree with what someone has said, but you are not allowed to comment there on the RfC, instead you have to comment at the talkpage. --Elonka 17:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
The start an RfC. AN doesn't work like that, as I'm sure you'll have noticed. I do wonder what your motive is in all this. Several editors have commented that your "summary" looks biased, and others have pointed out incorrect assertions from you about what policy already says. Your attempt to exercise ownership of the thread looks very poor. DuncanHill (talk) 17:29, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
The AN thread is absolutely not intended as an RfC, it is intended as an attempt to summarize the community opinions that have already been offered. --Elonka 17:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
And still you give no valid reason to try to exclude non-admins from it. DuncanHill (talk) 17:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)a
I should let you know that I've commented about you on the current AN thread in reference to possible conflict of interest, based on the Wikipedia article about you that you reference on your user page. The access you appear to have had to the CIA would seem to suggest to me that you can't actually change your opinion on this topic without repercussions. Likely it is merely pride, but I'd like to hope that otherwise I would have changed your mind about at least some of the points we've disputed. Wnt (talk) 20:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Your speculation is incorrect. I did speak at CIA once, and I have spoken at several other schools, government agencies, and other organizations (Such as Rotary Clubs). But I am not a government worker, I have no special access, and I am under no obligation to comment one way or the other about classified information. --Elonka 04:06, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

A slightly quieter corner for discussion of admins "determining consensus"

Consensus is indeed determined by the community, and the administrators judge that consensus, write up consensus determinations, and enforce. [...] 17:33, 13 December 2010 Elonka [5]

Based upon several of the comments you've made over the last few hours, and including the use of {{adminnote}} in general discussion, I'm struck by how differently we appear to be judging the role of an administrator. The specific concerns I have are that you appear to be elevating administrators’ voice in determining consensus, and that you appear somewhat cavalier in restricting the editing privileges of "normal" users. You have twice stated that it is "not uncommon to have "administrator-only" discussion sections, such as at WP:AE"

Thank you for taking the time to discuss this,
brenneman 02:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, I am not trying to say that administrators are the only people who judge consensus. For example, at AfDs, it is not uncommon to see non-admins closing obvious discussions. However, in general, it is administrators who tend to have the most experience in closing complex discussions. In some cases, bureaucrats are usually the ones to judge consensus, per
Wikipedia:AE#Result concerning Benkta, where it begins, "This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above." Arbitration workshop pages are also routinely separated to allow arbitrators to comment in a different section than other users. Such as in this example, where there are different sections for "Comments by arbitrators", "Comments by other parties", "Comments by other users". These kinds of separate discussion areas can be very useful to give structure to discussions, especially when there are many users with strong opinions, or things are scrolling rapidly. RfCs are another example where discussions have a certain structure. For example, someone can say pretty much anything they want on an RfC page, but any replies are expected to go on the talkpage, etc. See this random example, and note the instructions at the top: "All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page." I hope that answers your question? If anything's still unclear, please let me know! --Elonka
02:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for that response. Rather than extend this ad nauseam, I'll make a few final comments then leave you to your day:
Finally, I'm trying to convey to you that simply being an administrator has no bearing on experience or ability to "judge" consensus outside of those edge cases where it is unavoidable. Even thinking that "set[ting your] own comment apart" based upon the flag should be anathema to you. And in the future I would request that you do not remove another contributor's comments based upon self-created editing restrictions.
brenneman 03:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your comments on Template_talk:Did_you_know#Critical_Foreign_Dependencies_Initiative

I apologise for returning to your talk page. Prefacing your comments with "As an administrator monitoring this article..." and the aforementioned use of {{

adminnote
}} are identical behaviours. You have received negative feedback from parties other than myself on this issue, and I note that this feedback has occured in various forms over a protracted period of time.

I would again ask that you reflect on community standards for adminstrator's behavior, including the almost sancrosect "no big deal" aspect of being an adminstrator. The nutshell at Wikipedia:Administrators says very clearly "never to use [adminship] to gain advantage in a dispute." Every time you casually discuss blocking you're gaining advantage. This is a content dispute: There is a complex set of policy interactions here and as it's not a clear-cut case it's just your opinon of policy that you're advocating.

But I am *really* going to find something else to do now, so thank you for listening. brenneman 05:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Hiya, thank you for taking the time to offer an opinion, but I'm afraid that you are not accurately interpreting the concept of "involvement in a dispute". If I were actively editing the article, got into a dispute about content, and then used my administrator access to try to gain an advantage over other editors, then yes, that would absolutely be inappropriate. However, I have never edited the articles in question, I have never edited in this topic area, and have no prior involvement with the editors who are working on the article. You may wish to review
adminnote}} tag, stating that I used it incorrectly, but I must ask you again, what is this based on? If there is some policy or guideline about when it is or is not supposed to be used, you have not provided any link to it. If I violated a guideline, please state which guideline. --Elonka
14:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I think you've totally missed the point of "no big deal". Yes, Arbcom do rightly expect proper behaviour from those with the power to block editors and delete content. However, the opinion of an admin is no more worthwhile than the opinion of any other editor in good standing, which is why it is extremely rare for any discussion to be "admin only". I've never seen admin only discussions on AN or ANI before your attempt to invent them recently. With regard to whether or not you are uninvolved in the matter of linking to primary sources and particularly wikileaks - you have made it clear that you want a "consensus" that they should not be linked to, via your post at AN, as well as making it clear that you intend to block editors who do link to them - even while discussion continues as to their appropriateness. That makes you involved. I must say I'm surprised that you appear to have so little knowledge of behavioural norms for admins. DuncanHill (talk) 14:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I did not invent the concept of admin-only discussion sections. It is routinely used at
WP:AE, where there are admin-only discussion sections on each request. --Elonka
14:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
It may have escaped your notice, but AE is not AN. Hope that helps! DuncanHill (talk) 14:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Ahh, this is rapidly becoming my personal tar baby. There are several threads in your response, so I'm going to split them in my reply:
  • You have (on several forums) re-iterated the text from Wikipedia:Administrators#Involved_admins. Please note that I have not raised this issue with you (your previous involvement or lack thereof) at any time, that I do not consider it to pertain this discussion, and that I will therefore not be responding further to those statements of yours at this time.
Turning to the second half of your text,
  • Can you please link for me where the Arbitration committee has stated that adminship is a big deal? Thank you.
  • With respect to "adminnote," A) I do not appear to be communicating effectively with you and B) You appear to be suggesting that all behavioural standards are black letter law. I'll attempt to address this by both answering your direct template-based question (hopefully so that we may lay this part of the discussion to rest) and by restating my actual intent.
    • Please see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Admin-note, click through those links, and note that this template is used to alert editors to administrative actions: page moves, sock checks, etc.
    • There is also the
      Template documentation
      , which I just wrote.
    • As above, I will not be discussing this (very minor and somewhat distracting) issue any further. In its stead I will be addressing the substantiative issue.
  • You have received strong negative feedback (on your possession of the privilege flag as an appeal to authority) from multiple editors over the last few days. Several {{trout}}s have come you way. If it is required, I will list the diffs to this feedback below.
  • Finally, there was not a single voice raised in support of your "admin only" concept, and that I was not alone in deprecating it. Please note that when it was removed strong language was used.
Cheers,
brenneman 05:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
For an example of an ArbCom ruling on the status of administrators, see this case, which includes the principle: "Administrators are held to high standards of conduct, as they are often perceived as the "official face" of Wikipedia. Administrators must be courteous, and exercise good judgment and patience in dealing with others." --Elonka 07:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
That's a very pertinent ruling Elonka - "Administrators must be courteous, and exercise good judgment and patience in dealing with others" - your blanking of non-admin comments and duplication of admin comments while reformatting the thread was both discourteous and displayed very poor judgement. Your stated desire to avoid further debate of the individual points also looks rather impatient. Could you shew me the Arbcom ruling which says it's OK for admins to exclude non-admins from debate on AN? I would be grateful. DuncanHill (talk) 12:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
To repeat: My goal with
the AN thread
was to pull together the links from several discussions around the project, and try to summarize the consensus. This was a complex process, and I knew it would be controversial, which is why I did not "declare" consensus, but instead suggested a possible interpretation of the consensus and then sought the advice of other administrators to see if they agreed. I had multiple reasons for seeking the opinions of administrators, mostly because administrators tend to have the most experience with closing complex discussions, and because administrators are more likely to be in tune with specific policies and guidelines, so would understand to discount inappropriate arguments that are not correctly interpreting policy. Silly me, since I was seeking the opinions of administrators, I thought the most appropriate place to post my question was at the Administrators' Noticeboard. I now see that this was a mistake, since trying to get the opinions of administrators, at least in that venue, appears to have hit a nerve and just caused more chaos. If there's some other venue to ask for admin opinions on this kind of thing, aside from IRC, I am not aware of it.
Further, I see that trying to summarize a complex consensus and asking for opinions, seems to have simply resulted in a lot of people attacking me personally and accusing me of bias, rather than anyone actually offering constructive opinions, or a different summary of consensus. My hope at the time that I posted, would be that I would get comments such as, "Good summary Elonka, though I think point 2 may not have strong enough support to call it consensus. I would recommend removing that, and replacing it with <text>." And then we could have had a civil discussion, in a public format, about the best way to define consensus from those many complex discussions. Again: I am not trying to push my definition of consensus over anyone else's: I just didn't see anyone else stepping up to the plate, so I opted to give it a shot. If my suggested summary does not meet with the community's approval, so be it, I'm fine on passing the buck to someone else.
Anyway, the best course of action at this point is probably a centralized RfC, and one is being prepared here: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Use of classified documents. I encourage anyone, admin or non-admin, to participate in that discussion. It is my hope that a clear consensus will emerge from that format, which will help to decrease the disputes at articles such as Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, United States diplomatic cables leak, Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak, and others that will doubtless be sprouting up as soon as Wikileaks releases another batch of classified documents. --Elonka 17:45, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

There is More Classified than Unclassified

Maybe this Harvard Univ. source could be used to provide some context for making any decisions related to classified documents. "as many as a trillion pages are classified (200 Libraries of Congress)."

Peter Galison, a historian and Director[6] in the Science Dept. at Harvard University, published research showing that the U.S. Government produces more classified information than unclassified information.[7].

"..about five times as many pages are being added to the classified universe than are being brought to the storehouses of human learning, including all the books and journals on any subject in any language collected in the largest repositories on the planet."

Peter Galison is the Mallinckrodt Professor of the History of Science and Physics at Harvard University. His main work explores the interaction among the principal subcultures of physics: How Experiments End (1987), Image and Logic (1997), and Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare´’s Maps (2003). Several projects explore crosscurrents between science and other fields, including his coedited volumes The Architecture of Science (1999), Picturing Science, Producing Art (1998), and Scientific Authorship (2003). In 1997, he was named a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow, and in 1999 he received the Max Planck Prize. Mr.Grantevans2 (talk) 04:00, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Good work on Mongol Empire!

Thanks! It's getting close to GA status, I'm looking forward to nominating it! --Elonka 02:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Sandbox articles

Hi Elonka. Thank you for your message. As you might remember, I am encouraged to make suggestion on Talk Page regarding the Mongol etc... Accordingly, these sandbox articles represent material I would like to propose to the community in Talk Pages through questions or RfCs. As Arbcom does not make ruling on content (unfortunately!) the proper way for me is to ask the community of editors (which I will gladly do). A recent example, if you have not noticed, is the Mongol elements in Western medieval art article, which, after being in my sandbox for months, has now just become a valuable and interesting mainspace article through RfC (Mongol influences in European art RfC). I am afraid it would be quite unfair if you attempted to stop me making suggestion to the community like this, especially as such positive outcome turn out to be possible through discussion with other editors. As an Administrator, I believe you should encourage idea exchange and editorial discussion, not try to block it. At least Arbcom has the wisdom to encourage such exchanges. Best regards Per Honor et Gloria  19:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Ellingham Hall

   I'm trying to sort out the mess of the Ellingham Hall-related pages with minimum destruction of edit histories. Your edit at

BOLD editing in this group of pages with "Ellingham Hall" in their titles. TIA.
--Jerzyt
23:38 & 23:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

   I've gone further, at talk:Ellingham Hall#Old edit history, and will an article or a Dab be moved over the accompanying Rdr? (and similarly characterized your edit -- without naming you). I welcome your input here (will be watching for a while), re concerns that are purely between us, and on the talk page i named about what should be done with that mainspace page. Thanks again.
--Jerzyt 04:54, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
I have no strong preference, do whatever you think is best. :) --Elonka 06:55, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:Granick.gif

Thanks for uploading File:Granick.gif. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file agreed to license it under the given license.

If you created this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at

non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:File copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:File copyright tags
for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Kelly hi! 09:43, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Evgenia Obraztsova

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! PM800 (talk
) 16:54, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

In particular, there appears to be a ) 17:50, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you very much for taking the time to review the article for DYK status. I believe I have addressed the issues that you pointed out, but if you have any other concerns, please let me know! --Elonka 01:15, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
I posted another question relating to this nomination. If I'm just missing something, then I apologize. - PM800 (talk) 22:14, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Happy New Year

For no particular reason except that I was looking ovr my old talk messages and remembered you, Happy New Year! Jdorney (talk) 20:15, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Evgenia Obraztsova