This is an archive of past discussions with User:Guy Macon. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
There is an attitude around Wikipedia of putting up with minor annoyances and glitches rather than making the software excellent.
There is an attitude around Wikipedia of putting up with minor annoyances and glitches rather than making the software excellent.
As of Wednesday, 27 November 2024, 10:45 (UTC), The English Wikipedia has 48,326,522 registered users, 121,836 active editors, and 851 administrators. Together we have made 1,255,090,125 edits, created 61,919,259 pages of all kinds and created 6,916,594 articles.
If we made a tiny improvement to our software that reduced the time to create a page (the total time, including every edit ever made to that page, every talk page comment, and all the time spent by multiple users checking the page for errors over its lifetime) by a single second, that would be the equivalent of a single person working 40 hours a week for six and a half years.
As of the 2016-2017 fiscal year we had $91.3 million USD in revenue, $69.1 million USD in expenses, and $113.30 million USD in assets.[1] So we could easily afford to hire a few top-notch software developers to make obvious improvements to our software.
Given the above numbers, in my considered opinion we should not put up with minor annoyances in our software. We should hire someone to fix them.
You apparently have more faith in the WMF devs than do I. Based on past performance, what would actually happen is that someone would be hired to reduce the time to create a page by one second, decide that the most efficient way to do so is to redesign the user interface to make it "more intuitive", break everybody's workflow because the buttons are no longer where users expect to find them, and subsequently be forced to put everything back exactly the way it was. Head on over to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures, which is where our allegedly elite team of developers dump their bright ideas, and see if you can find one single thing that actually makes the experience quicker, easier or less buggy. When it comes to reducing page save times, bear in mind that the main cause of delays isn't the coding, it's the bottleneck at the EQIAD server, and reconfiguring the servers of a top-ten website for greater efficiency isn't a matter of flipping a switch or hiring a few extra programmers. To have any serious impact on load and save times would probably need either a formal partnership or a megabucks contract with Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM or Microsoft, and that would cause about 30% of the editor base to resign on the spot. ‑ Iridescent16:06, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
Points well taken. What I had in mind were easy fixes like a message that tells you if you are posting to a talk page but forgot to sign your post, or even (we are getting into alien technology here...) automatically added the sig with the option of removing it. I would bet that if someone counted up the number of times template:unsigned was used, picked a really small number of seconds needed to apply it and added them up, this alone would add up to many man-years of labor. Or the ability to watchlist a section instead of a page. Or allowing us to user [regex]] in the search box. But yes, the WMF would no doubt manage to "fix" those issues by making things worse.
Clearly I need to add more more detail on what I mean by "putting up with minor annoyances and glitches rather than making the software excellent".
As someone who writes software professionally, and then uses said software just as professionally, I have to agree with the overall point Iridescent makes here: most "improvements" are only an improvement to a small group of people who so rarely use the software in question that the time cost of adapting one's workflow to a new paradigm (be it a UI change or an overall system change) is a moot point: they have to spend just as much time learning the existing system that the users know by heart as they do the new system, so they miss a huge downside of the new system. This is a problem with the industry, however, and not inherent to programming. I'm perfectly exempt from it because I am both the designer and the end user. Of course, there's still some complaints to be made by other users about being forced to do things my way, but in the end, my way is faster, for obvious and somewhat masturbatory reason.
But that whole objections rests upon the assumption that the bug fixes in question would be modifications of the UI or workflow that would directly change how the user interacts with the software. If the fix is done inside the black box of code, then Guy's implicit point stands.
As to the math: It's not entirely clear how you're arriving at your number. When I take the total number of articles, and treat that as total number of seconds (1 second per created article, as you said) and break that down into 40-hour work weeks, I get about 40 work weeks. That's from going off your statement that you're discussing reducing the time to create a page by a total of 1 second.
If, instead, I take it to mean the total time to make an edit, then I work that down to just over 113 years of 40-hour-a-week labor. (no vacation because I'm a horrible boss). Which makes your point a bit more cogently, except that it presumes that 1 second can be shaved off every edit, a presumption which would make me laugh in the face of anyone making it. Until WMF is in the ISP and PC building business, we can never fully control the speed at which edits are made. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.16:40, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
I'd appreciate it if a scriptkiddy would stop wiki pages of all kinds going up and down like a tart's drawers while still doing its slow crawl to my monitor. When I think of the time I've wasted because I clicked in the right place too soon and ended up somewhere else. argghhh. -Roxy, the dog.barcus16:50, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
This is a documented issue with Chrome (and other Chromium based browsers) and the eccentric way they handle Javascript, not a bug at the MediaWiki end; switch to another browser and the problem should disappear. ‑ Iridescent16:57, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
With JS off, this jumping no longer occurs, but redirect pages with anchors only jump to the top of those pages (i.e. WP:PSCI: to get the proper anchor link, one then has to click the "redirected from" link to go on the redirect page and then click on the archored link there). —PaleoNeonate – 19:27, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
Started on Huel
Regarding this conversation: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2018 June_20#Improving one's palate for subtle flavor differences — I ordered a 2-3 week supply of the product you suggested (Huel, unflavored), conferred with my doctor (who said "well, it won't kill you and may well have a positive outcome, so go ahead"), and today I started on my Huel regimen. My family is supportive. It remains to be seen if I have the discipline to pull it off. The taste is tolerable, reminding me of soggy Cheerios cereal.
I'm hungry again, so I guess it's time for another "meal". I'll let you know in a couple of weeks how it worked out. ~Anachronist (talk) 22:40, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Mel Blanc page: continued problems with edit attempts
Hello,
I am Mel Blanc's daughter-in-law, married to his son Noel. On the Mel Blanc Wikipedia page I added a sentence describing the creation of Mel's production company, Blanc Communications Corporation, in 1962. I provided proper Citations showing the company and its founding (California Secretary of State Office), plus the official website for Blanc Communications Corporation.
Within 15 minutes, a (perhaps well-intentioned) Wikipedia editor/demigod DELETED the sentenced I added. Thinking it was a mistake, I re-added the cited sentence -- only to find it removed again AND a notification regarding "Edit War". This is immensely confusing, as I am not only a family member of Mel Blanc, but also an executive of Blanc Communications Corporation.
I cannot find a way to contact the user "Binksternet" who removed my edits, so I hope that you can help me resolve this ridiculous situation!
Best regards,
Katherine Blanc
(Username: wordsandpictures)
I am looking into it now. This looks like something that is easily fixed. Please be patient; I know that Wikipedia can be confusing to a new user, but there are reasons why we do the things we do. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:07, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Thank you!
Dear Guy Macon,
I want to thank you for taking me under your wing, with regard to the deletion of a phrase that I added to the page "Mel Blanc". I'm a complete neophyte to Wikipedia, and I am sure that the editor who deleted it was concerned that my added sentence may have had commercial or conflict-of-interest intent, and exercised due caution (understandably). But I assure all of you that this was never my intent.
Perhaps I simply used incorrect Citations -- I mistakenly assumed that I need to provide validation that Mel's company, Blanc Communications Corporation, is still actually in business. Viewed under that lens, my citations would appear to be promotional instead of informational. I apologize for this, and wish I could share my apology with editor Binkersnet too!
Hello Guy Macon; I'm here. :)
Most importantly, I hope that your family member is doing well!
As I just posted on Talk:Mel Blanc, during the Mel Blanc Associates/Blanc Communications years, Mel and his son Noel produced over 5000 public service announcements and commercials featuring major stars like Kirk Douglas, Lucille Ball, Vincent Price, Phyllis Diller, Liberace, the rock band The Who, and of course Mel himself. It is for the above reasons that I wanted to include Blanc Communications as a vital — and colorful — part of Mel Blanc's career.
Please let me know of any other tasks I should perform in order to "plead my case" so to speak. And yes, I'm happy to validate my identity as Katherine Blanc at any time if needed.
Following up on Mel Blanc page: an independently-edited inclusion of Mel Blanc Associates/Blanc Communications Corp.
Hello Guy Macon,
I'm just following up to see if you needed additional information from me, as you prepare a fresh edit to include the Mel Blanc Associates/Blanc Communications Corp. era of Mel Blanc's career on the Mel Blanc Wikepedia page.
It looks great! In my opinion, nothing else needs to be added. BTW, thanks for ordering a copy of MELVIN THE MOUTH. It took me 3 years to sell the manuscript but the effort was truly worth it as there were no children's books about Mel, and I knew that kids would love reading about a misfit who finds a place for his talents. Katherine Blanc -- wordsandpicturesWordsandpictures (talk) 16:05, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
A bit off topic, but is there any evidence that Jan and Dean's Dead Man's Curve was a direct reference to Mel Blanc's accident? The only ref I could find was here:[2] If I could verify it, I would like to add the info to our Dead Man's Curve (song) page.
Answer: No, Jan and Dean's song wasn't a direct reference to Mel's accident. The section of Sunset Blvd. known as "Dead Man's Curve" got its name due to numerous deaths, prior to Mel's accident, on that same stretch near UCLA. However, while Mel was still recovering from his accident, his family (represented by attorney Irving Green (sp?) sued the City of Los Angeles and won. The hazardous crowning of the road was repaired. On the day that Mel was released from the hospital, while being driven to his Pacific Palisades home, he was transported on Sunset Blvd. -- along the newly repaired Deadman's Curve. Interestingly, in the 1980's Blanc Communications Corporation collaborated with Warner Bros. on a restaurant concept called "Gadgets", in which animatronic Looney Tunes® characters sang and performed onstage for restaurant patrons. While "Gadgets" was a bust, Mel's voice tracks were sensational. Ironically, one of the tracks was Jan and Dean's "Dead Man's Curve". As Noel and I watched Mel record that track in the booth, we wondered what he must have been thinking. Yet Mel was so into his characterization that he didn't give the irony much thought until AFTER the recording!
A bit more off topic, but for the past few months I have been working my way through The Looney Tunes Golden Collection on Netflix. I am in awe at how Mel Blanc made those characters come alive. Alas, Netfix doesn't have his Private Snafu work. :( Now that was a real work of art! --Guy Macon (talk) 16:14, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Defeating cameras in Chinese hotel rooms sounds like the kind of skill that people all over the world are likely to need at home soon, so might as well bite... Wnt (talk) 22:24, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
For any talk page watchers, we are talking about this post:
"I am in a situation where I occasionally have to go the China and fix a production problem. This is in the toy industry so there is a big concern with industrial espionage as well as government censorship. My connection is through a corporate LAN or through the network at my hotel, and I assume that they eavesdrop on everything. I typically buy a computer with a CD locally, boot Tails (operating system) from a CD-ROM, and make my connection to the outside world through Tor (anonymity network). I have WP:IPBE, which allows me to edit Wikipedia.
I do not believe that it is possible for them to selectively block or eavesdrop on my Internet connection (ask me if you want to learn about defeating cameras in the room). Of course I am in a privileged position, because hundreds of workers are sitting idle waiting for me to fix the production issue. A Chinese national might very well get a visit from the authorities asking about his encrypted connection. And I don't do anything that the authorities would object to, like editing our Falun Gong or 1989 Tiananmen Square protests pages or anything political."[3]
Let's assume that I am in a Chinese hotel room or conference room, and I have a reasonable suspicion that there may be cameras, microphones, or (given the amount of manpower available) even a human looking though a peephole.
The first question is whether it is OK to take visible countermeasures. Chinese nationals can get in trouble for doing things that hinder surveillance, whereas as a toy engineer trying to evade surveillance is pretty much expected of me.
The next question is what to protect. If I am already logged on to Wikipedia and doing the normal sort of edits I do, who cares if a camera is watching? They can access my editing history and get the same information.
When I do have something to protect, like entering a passphrase or reading an email about a toy design, I cover myself and the computer with a sheet or bedspread to defeat cameras, and use the Tails[4] on-screen keyboard[5] to defeat keyloggers. I save everything on a Veracrypt[6] encrypted thumb drive[7].
There are a few other countermeasures that I personally don't bother with.
You can use an Ironkey thumb drive[8] and put your Veracrypt-encrypted data on that. The big advantage here is that if, say, airport security compels you to give up your Ironkey password the Veracrypt-encrypted data cannot be distinguished from an unused thumb drive.
You can scan for cameras. Low-end scanner:[9] High-end scanner:[10] I just pulled those out of an Amazon search -- I don't know if those particular models are any good. I do know that the basic principle of Nonlinear junction detectors really do find pretty much any bug that you are likely to encounter unless you are part of ISIS and are going up against the CIA. But you should still hide under the covers. I hear that it also protects you from monsters.
Don't forget your Rick and Morty modality. Walk around naked all the time. The internet police are notoriously homophobic. Edaham (talk) 06:03, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
Very interesting! But none of it would stop Van Eck phreaking, unless you're completely cocooned in a tinfoil bedsheet. (also Terahertz radiation would penetrate the sheet, but I don't know if it could read the screen; still, it would show them what you typed on the on-screen keyboard) Or, they could just use a camera and look through the sheet -- there was a Nature paper where an image was focused through a piece of chicken; I didn't find that just now but this is the kind of thing. I don't know about ultrasound; you can do six inch resolution with an Arduino [13] but I don't know what you can do with extreme frequencies and superior equipment. But the easiest thing for them is to wait for 5G, when every phone will use terahertz to image its entire surroundings, supposedly to find the best path to the network. [14] If that also means that they can target the user's body with precise frequencies of terahertz to displace specific transcription factors from DNA to cause tailor-made disease conditions, they won't complain. At least, not for long... Wnt (talk) 18:03, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
My threat model is someone using standard surveillance equipment in a conference room or hotel room, not someone doing a TEMPEST attack. Nonetheless, the above is an interesting security question.
A Terahertz imager wouldn't show them what you typed on the on-screen keyboard. That would work with a smartphone or other device that uses a touch screen, but a standard laptop running TAILS uses the trackpad to "type" on the onscreen keyboard. It might be worth while moving your fingers about between letter/numbers entered to make it a lot harder to figure out what you are typing.
I think (but have not tested) that the issue of an LCD leaking the image could be dealt with with two countermeasures: [1] A jammer that swamps the signal with noise. [2] A transparent RF shield. I already have a bunch of those in my lab for shipping boards in; I buy them here: [15] I am going to try slipping one over the screen and one over the base/keyboard of a laptop and then take some measurements and see how much it reduces emissions. Like I said before, I am not an ISIS agent with the CIA after me, but I am reasonably likely to end up in a hotel room or conference room that has off-the-shelf hidden cameras and microphones. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:38, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
Puffingbilly
Even though he's pretty clueless about how to be a good editor, I think you're being unnecessarily harsh, essentially cutting off any possibility of moving him toward being a better contributor. He knows stuff and means well, so it's a loss if we can't convert him to being productive here. Dicklyon (talk) 06:15, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Fair enough. I will stop interacting with him and leave the article alone for at least six months. You have my permission to undo any of my edits in that area if you think that will help. I hope that you are right about the potential for being a productive editor and I can see that what I am doing is not helping. I am going to set a reminder to look into this again in six months and again at nine months. One way or the other, the article has to end up being properly sourced instead of big chunks of it being solely based upon puffingbilly's original research. If it isn't properly sourced by, say, December of 2019, I plan on deleting the unsourced material and replacing it with material based upon reliable sources. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:16, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Roxy, Dicklyon is a veteran editor who I have worked with many times in the past. If he says he want me to back off and let him try to handle the situation, I am glad to do so, just as he would do if I made such a request. Why the rush? It's not like Puffingbilly is trying to get people to drink bleach or not vaccinate their kids. He posted some original research on Delta-sigma modulation that is for the most part technically correct, he thinks he owns the page and that he own anything he adds to Wikipedia articles, he refuses to follow our rules, and he has a bad habit of playing the victim. Yes, this is annoying, but none of it needs to be fixed this week or even this month. Let Dicklyon work the problem. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:46, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
I'm not interested. I just want to make sure that if I can help someone get an answer to an unanswered question, I can. Or if the question was answered elsewhere, I can verify that. It is useful, I suppose, to indicate a solution was found so people who happen to see archives don't wonder. Or if they are using the archives to find answers, that is helpful also. And I see you posted the information.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:12, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
MC14500
hello, Guy Macon. I am curious regarding something unimportant -- NOT a crucial issue such as the Diameter of a Sewer cover. And it's not an official Wikipedia matter, so forgive me for approaching you through this channel.
You and I are both familiar with the MC14500 one-bit processor. And on the Internet I have a certain obscure notoriety for inventing and building a related device, a one-bit processor but one which conspicuously *lacks* an MC14500. It's even possible you've heard of it:
http://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/One-bit%20computer/One-bit%20computer.html
Sometimes I do web searches to discover places where my web site, laughtonelectronics.com, has been mentioned, and the results can be interesting, or even weird. One result I've seen repeatedly (from google, for instance) is a link to the WP page on the MC14500 which you helped to write. To be clear, when I google laughtonelectronics.com, one of the results is a link to the WP page on the 4500.
I'm curious to know why. I'm unable to find the string laughtonelectronics.com in the WP article or in the edit and talk pages. It ... just ... isn't ... there! Maybe the link results from some eerie clairvoyance on google's part.
I thought maybe you would know the explanation. If so, will you please very kindly share it with me? Thanks!
Fascinating! Besides my work in the area of microprocessors and microcontrollers, I have also does a fair bit of work reverse engineering the Google algorithms. Keep in mind that the actual algorithms are a closely guarded secret and that if Google's software thinks you are trying to figure out their algorithms they send you and only you wrong results in order to mislead you, so the following is no more than an educated guess.
Next, Google tried to figure out what the term "laughtonelectronics" means. It checked dictionaries, Wikipedia pages, etc. No actual definition found. Not even "A laughtonelectronics is a..." on some random page. Then it looked for words and phrases that are often found close to laughtonelectronics on various pages. One of the most common turned out to be "1-bit / One-bit", but that didn't help Google much because it is used so many places. See [19]
Still trying to figure out what what the term "laughtonelectronics" means, Google found another word that is often found along with it; "MC14500". And it found that http://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/One-bit%20computer/One-bit%20computer.html has a link to the Wikipedia Motorola MC14500B page. And it found that pages that talk about laughtonelectronics often mention "1-bit / One-bit" and that that pages that talk about MC14500 also tend to mention "1-bit / One-bit"
Based upon all of the above, Google's algorithm correctly deduced that people searching for laughtonelectronics would be likely to be interested in the Wikipedia Motorola MC14500B page. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:18, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Barring a simpler explanation, I thought it must be something like that. Interesting subject! Drop me an email if you like -- address is on my site.
I was just dropping by to thank you for your reinforcement of a recent warning I left to a user on their talk page. However, I was instead quite stricken by #Yes. We are biased.
Did you just casually type that up? Is that actually original thought? Or did you copy it from somewhere else? If it's the former, brilliant. Just brilliant. Either way, I would very much like to copy it to my talk page with attribution to whoever wrote it.
Yes, that is 100% original thought, not copied from anywhere else. I tweak it from time to time; the latest version is at User talk:Guy Macon#Yes. We are biased.
Regarding copying it, The things I write on Wikipedia are all released under a less restrictive license than Wikipedia uses. Here is my standard licensing notice (which will always be on my user page):
Unless otherwise specified, everything I (Guy Macon) write on Wikipedia or anywhere else on the Internet is released under the Creative Commons CC0 "No Rights Reserved" license. See https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en and Creative Commons license#Zero for details. To the extent possible under law, I waive all copyright and related or neighboring rights to my work. You are free to use them for any purpose, including web pages, newsgroup posts, emails, and letters to the Los Angeles Times. I do NOT require you to give me credit. I would prefer that if somebody asks where you got it, you tell them, but that is up to you. You are even free to pretend you wrote it, just as everyone else is free to mock you when they find out what you did.
Every product I design and every program I write (other than things I do for pay and transfer ownership to the buyer) are released under similar licenses, so that nobody is ever hindered from reusing my work because of copyright, patent, or trademark concerns. I believe that the world is a better place when everything is free to reuse, and I am willing to take a financial hit to make it so.
I always find it amusing when someone simply cuts and pastes something I wrote (which I approve of and support) and then someone else, instead of asking where they got it, blasts them for not including attribution. Some people just can't wrap their minds around the concept that, just as some things are under a more restrictive license than CC BY-SA 3.0, some things are under a less restrictive license. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:37, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Wow! That's seriously an impressive piece of eloquence. Good work, man. All the better that it has been created as an essay. And, seriously, nothing but respect for your copyright stance. That's excellent and selfless. Of course, I will absolutely provide attribution as it is simply credit where credit is due. I did happen to see the original thread that you posted this in (via the essay's creation edit summary). Yikes. In my humble opinion, people like you, who put up with and actively fight against the "POV-pushing of lunatic charlatans" are the lifeblood of the project. Keep up the good work. Regards, ~Swarm~{talk}06:49, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
Awesome. Also now known as WP:GOODPOV or WP:GOODBIAS. Though, I do wonder if would be better tagged as an information page, or an explanatory supplement to policy, rather than a simple, toothless, expression of individual opinion. Best, ~Swarm~{talk}06:50, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
That would be fine with me, but I would rather someone else made it happen because I have a COI. For some odd reasons I usually agree with myself...
If you talk to yourself, you aren't crazy. If you talk to yourself and you answer, you aren't crazy. If you talk to yourself, you answer, and then you say "huh? Sorry. I wasn't paying attention", you just might be crazy. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:09, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
Are you seriously dismissing their work as biased? I read your comments on their talk page and I can come to no other conclusion. You're making this your last stand, taking on a historic civil rights organization? 2601:1C0:6D00:845:40AD:D720:F067:F1E7 (talk) 21:39, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
They used to be a historic civil rights organization. They once were a wonderful organization that fought Klansmen and Nazis to protect the rights of minorities. Now they are a shrill, biased, denouncer of miscellaneous petty thoughtcrime. Worse than that, they are sloppy. They put people and organizations (and the occasional plastic sign) on their list of active hate groups without a shred of evidence that they belong there, and have lost several lawsuits for doing that. Please, read the following. Then research the claims made for yourself.
Hi Guy Macon, the subsection "Impact on reproducibility --> Uncertainty of fundamental physical constants" is marked as original research and has no inline citations, so unless it's fixed by the time I reach it, I probably won't copy-editing that subsec because there's no point working on text that's liable for removal. Cheers, Baffle☿gab00:07, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
I've done as much as I can with the article; you'll need to address the unreferenced nature of the text I mentioned. I haven't touched the mathematical markup, tables or formulae. Good luck with the article. Cheers, Baffle☿gab00:16, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
13 years
On 03 February 2006, it was reported to the WMF that our CAPTCHA system discriminates against blind people. See phabricator T6845. This appears to be a direct violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and leaves Wikipedia open to the possibility of a discrimination lawsuit.
In particular, National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corp. was a case where a major retailer, Target Corp., was sued because their web designers failed to design its website to enable persons with low or no vision to use it.
So why, after 13 years of inaction, do we not have a set of software requirements (including a testable definition of "done") and a schedule for solving this?
And no, I will not accept any proposed "solution" that lacks the name of an WMF employee who has been given the assignment of fixing this, a budget that says how much the WMF expects to spend on solving this, a deadline that say how long the WMF expects it to take to solve this, and a way for an independent third party to look at the results and verify whether the requirements were met.
Regarding hiring someone else to fix this, I would very much like the idea to be given careful consideration rather than being dismissed out of hand. The WMF is great at running an encyclopedia. Nobody else, anywhere on earth, even comes close. However, running an encyclopedia does not magically confer the ability to create high-quality software, and the WMF has a pretty dismal track record in this area (Examples: Visual Editor, Flow, 13 years of failing to making this obvious but boring improvement to accommodate blind people.) I realize that this will anger some people, but why should it? Olympic-level athletes don't get angry when you tell them that their athletic ability does not magically confer the ability to repair automobiles or do astronomy.
Comments from the phabricator page:
"This doesn't just effect addition of external links, it also prevents new users from registering, requiring them to use ACC to request an account."
"There is no one currently assigned to this, so no one is taking it upon him to fix this at this moment. It's also not something that any team at the foundation is responsible for, so it's not likely to be prioritized from that end."
The only thing stopping us from having an audio captcha is that nobody's put the work into implementing it yet." --Source: Chief MediaWiki developer as of 2008
"So the question is why has work not been put aside to fix an issue of recognised high importance that will, 13 years after first being raised, resolve an issue that results in us discriminating against people who are (in many jurisdictions) a legally protected minority?"
Fun fact: The modern Wikipedia hosts 11–12 times as many pages as it did in 2005, but the WMF is spending 33 times as much on hosting, has about 300 times as many employees, and is spending 1,250 times as much overall. I just updated WP:CANCER with WMF financials from 2017-2018. Enjoy! --Guy Macon (talk) 02:39, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
Wow. I am also getting emails with the same message.
I basically have two concerns, and both are based upon the fact that in a RfA you have to not defend your self.
First, My edit history has a lot of improving existing articles, but not a lot of creating new articles. This is sure to result in criticism and I would be really tempted to defend myself and say that Wikipedia needs both kinds of editors.
Second, there are quite a few people on Wikipedia who absolutely hate my essays at WP:YWAB, WP:1AM, or WP:CANCER. I expect some nasty attacks and I would be really tempted to defend those essays.
I guess what I am hoping for is someone to say "If I see a completely unfair or untrue attack, I will speak up, but if there is even a tiny bit of validity to it, that's for you to handle." --Guy Macon (talk) 00:20, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
+1 from me as well - I can't really speak for the essays, but as far as I'm concerned, article creation is not a prerequisite for a good admin, and Wikipedia absolutely does need both kinds of editors. I say that out of pure self-interest, of course. From what I've seen you have a level head on your shoulders and would make a solid admin. creffett (talk) 01:33, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Guy, I think plenty of people will speak up in defense of editors in a range of situations. I think the number 1 predictor of a successful RfA (1st attempt) is whether respected sysops are suggesting you run. There are only two cases in the past couple of years I can think of where many respected sysops suggested someone run for a first RfA and they did not pass. In both those situations I would suggest it was their actions/answers during the RfA when conerns were expressed that made the difference as much as the concerns themselves. 75% of people saying really great things and 25% saying criticism can be though because those 25% feel like a lot more than 25%. However that's still enough to pass. I hope you'll reconsider and run. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:33, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
@Guy Macon:, so to comment on the three aspects you raise (which somewhat mix): concern about insufficient from-scratch articles, concern about controversial essays, and concern about how to handle criticism when you're restricted from self-defence. I'll endeavour to be pragmatic.
Essays - I've had a read through them all (2 i'd read before), and I don't think they've pick up significant amounts of opposes. If I saw people raising it, I'd probably ask a question about it, as most oppose causes are worth hearing the candidate's reasoning on.
Articles - in blunt terms, this will get a few opposes. You have plenty of content creation, but it will still get opposition. Of itself (or even with the essays), unlikely to be enough to defeat your well suited candidature. If you have time you could always create a couple of "C"s of course, but discounting that, I think addressing it head-on in either/both your nomination/required questions would be worthwhile.
Undefended criticism - so the above are right that it's in-RfA activity that has caused 2 major candidates problems in the last couple of years. However, I've not spotted criticism going without objections - usually opposes get a lot of discussion from those supporting. I think it's also just a case of using your questions well, and we know you can write well - it's getting "down in the weeds" that's problematic.
I think you can run and pass. I think you'd pass more comfortably with some more article creation, but I still think you'd pass without it. In either case, you'd make a good admin. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:54, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
+1 I've long thought you'd be a good fit for the role. Yes, you speak plainly, but your tireless work maintaining the quality of our content on some contentious areas is invaluable. I'm probably a bit wet behind the ears to offer myself as a nom, but you can expect a detailed support rationale. GirthSummit (blether)11:10, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
OK, I have thought about it and have decided to run if somebody is willing to nominate me. If anyone decides to do so, please wait until after 6AM in Los Angeles (2PM UTC) so I can be fresh for answering the initial flurry of questions. If someone beats you, feel free to co-nominate. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:47, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
I've (AFAIK) always got on fine with you and this is intended as advice, not a slight, but before you send any RFA live, make sure you have a clear answer to just why you have more than 1400 edits to ANI and almost 1200 edits to Jimbotalk. For anyone skimming your history (and most participants at an RFA won't be very familar with you and will only judge you on what you say, your nominator says, and a brief skim of your edit history), that's one of the key markers of someone who's likely to have a battleground mentality and to be more interested in internal wiki-politics than improving and maintaining content, regardless of whether in your case it's actually true. (Just to put those stats in perspective, I've been an active admin for a decade and during that time have at times been an arbitrator, checkuser and oversighter and been directly involved with some of Wikipedia's more bitter controversies and with some of Wikipedia's most notorious problem editors, and I still have fewer edits to ANI than you; you even have fewer edits to ANI than Newyorkbrad, the closest thing we have to a machine politician.) It won't necessarily tank an RFA provided you have a legitimate explanation, but you need that explanation front-and-center before the opposes based on it start to pile up and generate momentum. Ritchie333 would be a good person to talk to, as he's done a lot of nominating and has seen for himself what generates opposition.
First, there are times when I have completely screwed up and been taken to ANI over it. For a while there I drifted into being overly aggressive and even insulting. That was wrong. I took a long hard look at my own behavior and started disengaging more and confronting less. I expect to do some serious apologizing when people bring these sort of issues up.
Second, there are times I ended up at ANI because I edit a lot of pages where there are people who really want Wikipedia to say nice things about what they do for a living. Examples include acupuncturists, promoters of fad diets, and the makers of various electronic products. Sometimes I report them and sometimes they report me, but I have never ended up blocked over these sort of ANI reports.
Third, there are places where I simply add some information or ask a question about a technical issue without reporting someone or being reported. Here is one recent example:
I expressed no opinion on the user who had been reported, and instead simple documented some off-wiki canvassing by an already-blocked user that might explain why we were getting so many SPAs at that article.
Again this was not about the editors or the dispute, but rather about how the admins should deal with this sort of issue. I am going to quote it here because I think it speaks to whether would I be a good admin:
"A word of caution from a member of the engineering community
"I am an embedded systems engineer. If you are making an electronic toy at a rate of 100,000 units per hour and want to reduce your costs by 0.01 cents per unit I am your man. Medicine, not so much. I don't edit medical articles for the same reason that Colin and Doc James don't edit our articles on Cockcroft–Walton generators, Hall effect sensors or Negative resistance. I am very much an outsider in this situation, but I do understand the human aspect of how subject-matter experts like Colin and Doc James end up interacting with ANI and Arbcom.
"In the above discussion, I am seeing a lot of discussion about user behavior, the usual "he creates content and has friends, so behavior that would get anyone else a 24-hour block gets a warning" bad attitude, and at least some examples of "Yeah, I know we aren't supposed to rule on content disputes, but dang it, this content dispute is just so darn interesting that I am going to forget the basic rules about ANI and content disputes just this once". I recognize the latter because I have seen it when engineers end up at ANI fighting over engineering content disputes.
"My caution is for each of you to watch yourself carefully and only to deal with user behavior, without any hint of ruling on article content.
"Nothing I wrote above should be construed as supporting either side on the content dispute or on the behavioral issues." --posted by Guy Macon at ANI, 15:13, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[20]
If someone wants to criticize me for posting to ANI too much, it would be nice if they noted the content of those posts. were they helpful, or did they show a battlefield mentality?
Jimbotalk:
Yes, I am interested in internal wiki-politics. Anyone who reads WP:CANCER can see that. I think the WMF spends too much, doesn't give enough details on what they spend it on, and refuses to take steps to protect our endowment from someone in a future WMF draining the principle to pay for Wikimanias. I also want the WMF to stop discriminating against blind people, and I want them to start producing high-quality software. (As I always do when I mention the software, let me be clear that the actual developers know how to make great software and have done so for other organizations. The problem here is management.) And Jimbotalk is a great place to get attention for these things. I will not apologize for posting "Two weeks One week to go before we reach the '14 years of discriminating against the blind' milestone"[21]
That reminds my of an old joke: a politician paid off the teamster's union to help him get elected. The union boss asked "do you want us to announce that we are for you or against you?" :) Not-even-slightly-seriously though, maybe we should invite some of the proponents of fringe theories mentioned at WP:YWAB to weigh in. I have had some pretty nasty off-wiki attacks from holocaust deniers, antivax proponents, and for some strange reason Jasker Power Systems,[22] despite me never writing about them on Wikipedia. Go figure. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:44, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
WMF finances
In case you're interested: I've been trying to organize some data on Meta on the WMF's finances: see m:Template:Wikimedia Foundation finances. There's a fair amount that can be derived from public statements and reports. I also set up these charts, on the grants for affiliates and spending on major independent contractors, which I haven't found a place for. (I also set up a system on Meta for storing and organizing staff data, which I'm hoping that the WMF folks might start using to provide data themselves eventually.) --Yair rand (talk) 23:28, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for this, Yair rand. I can understand your dilemma in compiling some information. The page at https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/staff-contractors/ is totally confusing and AFAICS there are plenty of departments and employees who don't figure on it but which have huge budgets for travel, not to mention their probable salaries, and spin-offs such as this. Where the WMF staff infrastructure fails is in the lack of any discernible hierarchy (no organigram) and the US terminology for job positions which doesn't necessarily convey to us non-Americans who is actually in charge of what. I have pored over WMF staff lists for years trying to establish who is who, mainly to find out to who the communnity can best address its requests and concerns, but my confusion simply grows. When asking fairly senior employees about the staff infrastructure (such as at the water cooler at Wikimania for example) the answers I get are "I don't really know" or "I'm not sure", which means the WMF itself is just as confused as I am. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:52, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
I am really glad to see that someone is at least trying to put together the accounting that the WMF should have been providing all along. If we sprinkle it with things along the lines of "amount spent on X: unknown" and invite the WMF to correct any wrong figures and fill in the unknowns, we will at the very least have an overview of some of what they are refusing to tell us. I am limited in what I can do -- health problems: most likely stuff that I will recover from but still annoying and limiting -- but I will help in any way that I can.
Now if only we had an Edward Snowden on the inside who would download the entire list of what the money was spent on and publish it anonymously... --Guy Macon (talk) 01:26, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
Good one! I never understood that song until now when I read it on that talk page. I think it deserves to be a Wikipedia essay :>) Point well taken! Hahahahahahahaha! ---Steve Quinn (talk) 05:48, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
"In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade;
And he carries the reminders, of every glove that laid him down,
or cut him till he cried out, in his anger and his shame;
'I am leaving, I am leaving', But the fighter still remains..."
In case you haven't seen this yet: I just noticed a few pages that were posted recently on Mediawikiwiki: A description of the WMF Captcha Initiative (which specifically mentions the problems the current Captcha system causes for the visually-impaired) and the notes from a meeting yesterday by the Captcha working group. It looks like they're finally taking the Captcha problems seriously. --Yair rand (talk) 23:12, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
The good news: They appear to be finally working on it.
The bad news: after me asking pretty much everywhere nobody at the WMF thought that I should be notified. Instead I only found out about it when when a sharp-eyed minion ... henchman ... co-conspirator ... cabal member ... fellow editor noticed it.
Hello Guy Macon. Your account has been granted the "filemover" user right, either following a request for it or due to a clear need for the ability to move files. Please take a moment to review Wikipedia:File mover for more information on this user right and under what circumstances it is okay to move files. When you move a file please remember to update any links to the new name as well! If you do not want the file mover right anymore, just let me know, and I'll remove it. Thank you, and happy editing! Kevin (aka L235·t·c) 20:05, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Hey there. I would like to ask you a question, which you're free to ignore or not answer, but I think it would help me to understand your perspective better.
I have asked homeopathy fans a version of this question for years: what would convince you that you're wrong about homeopathy? The answer is usually of the form "this miracle cure would have to have not happened" - effective insulation from falsification. The scientific method grew out of the replacement of philosophical truth by empirical fact. It was held for centuries that heavy bodies fall faster than lighter ones, even after experiments proved this not to be true, because the rhetoric of Aristotle was accorded to be superior.
So, from everything I have seen of you, you live in the real world. Where, for you, is the line? What is "too far"? Do you believe that the impeachment inquiry is justified at this point? Do you accept that there is a difference in kind between the conservative media bubble and partisan-liberal sources, as documented in Network Propaganda? Guy (help!) 10:31, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
What would convince me that I was wrong about homeopathy would be multiple double blind and replicatable clinical trials showing that a 500C or 500CK Homeopathic solution has an effect on humans that pure distilled water does not. If they could do that, I think we would both become homeopathy supporters. But of course they can't do that.
(For my other henchmen talk page watchers, 500C and 500CK doesn't refer to temperature in Celsius or Kelvin as one might expect but rather two different ways of diluting something, both of which pretty much have the same end result. Let's look at CK. The Korsakovian method dilutes the base substance at the rate of 1 part of the previous dilution with 99 parts of solvent. For water soluble materials the solvent is pure distilled water. Other substances might use pure ethanol as the solvent. So, remove 99% of the "Mother Tincture" and replace it with the same volume of the solvent. "Succuss" it (fancy word for "shake vigorously"). The result is called 1CK. Take the 1CK and dilute it again at 99:1. That's 2CK. Do that 498 more times and you get 500CK, otherwise known as "100% pure distilled water without a single molecule of the original substance left".)
You could do the pretty much the same thing same with your claims about Team Blue (We already agree about Team Red). Show me how when Team Red gets into power (congressional or presidential) we invade other countries but when Team Blue takes over we withdraw. Show me how when Team Red gets into power federal spending and/or federal debt goes up but when Team Blue takes over it goes down. Show me how when Team Red gets into power the NSA starts listening in on my cell phone but when Team Blue takes over they stop. Show me how when Team Red gets into power the wealthy can buy whatever laws and regulations they want but when Team Blue takes over they can't. Show me how when Team Red gets into power cops get to steal your stuff without charging you with a crime but when Team Blue takes over they are forced to stop doing that. Show me how when Team Red gets into power a person (plus a bunch of innocent bystanders) outside of any war zone can be killed by a drone strike with no chance to contest the kill order in a court of law but when Team Blue takes over that stops happening.
Or you can keep focusing in on how the previous Team Blue president did all of these evil things with a smooth, college educated demeanor and really seemed like a nice guy while his replacement is doing the exact same evil things with the demeanor of a reality show star and while really seeming like a thug. Go ahead and do that. I will agree about the demeanor and about the thuggery. But at least be honest and admit that you are unable to show me any of the things I ask about in the paragraph above this one. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:32, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
It doesn't look like I am going to get any response about the many ways Team Blue and Team Red are the same, so here is an area where they are way different:
"Both episodes underscore the way Trump’s 2020 operation is using the most controversial moments of his presidency to electrify his base, reinforce his brand as the disrupter in chief and assure voters that — despite his incumbency — he’s as much a political outsider now as he was when he first ran for office 4½ years ago. With exactly one year to go until Election Day 2020, the tactic is one team Trump plans to employ as much as possible, primarily, it says, because it cannot be replicated. 'These are the things that only the Trump campaign can do because of who our candidate is,' a senior campaign official said. 'What would be the death knell for any other candidate is often a $1 million idea for us,' another declared, adding they have 'a candidate who loves rallies, loves campaigning and loves using Twitter, so there are plenty of opportunities for us to take what might be politically incorrect and capitalize on it.' "
As someone who favors neither team, I find this to be an interesting strategy. Of course those who would rather jump into a volcano than vote Trump will say that it can never work, but it seems to have worked last time... Another interesting question; what kind of Democratic candidate would be best at beating this strategy? A radical firebrand who talks about socialism and taking away assault rifles by force, or a solid, reliable (and boring) candidate with slightly left-of-center positions that are more likely to attract independents?
Not that it matters. No matter who wins, we will get more wars, more spending, more debt, more surveillance, and further increases in the power of the Presidency at the expense of Congress. In the last election, the only candidate who wanted to stop the wars (Rand Paul) got single digit support, This election the only candidate who wants to stop the wars (Tulsi Gabbard) is getting single digit support. And the parties that want to stop the wars (Green, Libertarian) regularly get -- you guessed it -- single digit support. Clearly the American voters want us to be at war forever.
[24]. I have never been especially good at coping with people whose response to losing an argument is to carry on with the same rejected assertions as if it never happened at all. Guy (help!) 14:50, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
News & Reliability
Thank you. The comparison made me smile. I look forward to proposing Fred and The FFN for inclusion at WP:RSP in just under 5 months from now. - Ryk72talk10:57, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
I doubt that either of us meet the strict entrance requirements for that group. However, being labelled a pedophile Nazi bed-wetter cabal leader is easy. Just publish something like my WP:YWAB essay.
BTW, There Is No Cabal (TINC). We discussed this at the last Cabal meeting, and everyone agreed that There Is No Cabal. An announcement was made in Cabalist: The Official Newsletter of The Cabal making it clear that There Is No Cabal. The words "There Is No Cabal" are in ten-foot letters on the side of the 42-story International Cabal Headquarters, and an announcement that There Is No Cabal is shown at the start of every program on The Cabal Network. If that doesn't convince people that There Is No Cabal, I don't know what will. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:44, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
Note that as part of the background check, the Cabal (which does not exist) verifies that your mother was a hamster and that your father smells of elderberries. You must also pass an entrance exam. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 05:55, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Captcha 2
Hi Guy, thank you for raising the captcha issue. I had been aware that there was a problem, what I hadn't realised was just how long the Foundation have known about it and done nothing. It's a really important issue - until it is fixed the "Encyclopaedia anyone can edit" claim rings rather hollow. My sister is a senior executive at a major educational organisation which has a blind board member. Anything they do to support him in his role, they do for any of their staff and students who need it. Why? well, of course they wish to avoid legal problems, and they wish to attract the very best, regardless of disability, but it's also a matter of behaving with basic decency. All the best, DuncanHill (talk) 20:00, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Guy (pinging because it's an old thread), thanks for raising the Captcha/blind accessibility issue; I learned of it at User talk:Doc James#13 years. It's infuriating to read the account of it. I suppose this would never rouse the level of interest as the ongoing WMF ban issue, but do you suppose an independent project page somewhere to follow all developments would be worthwhile, as opposed to scattered fragments on Talk pages here and there, which eventually get archived? Not sure how I could help, but if you think of a way, let me know. Mathglot (talk) 05:11, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
This appears to be a direct violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and leaves Wikipedia open to the possibility of a discrimination lawsuit.
In particular, National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corp. was a case where a major retailer, Target Corp., was sued because their web designers failed to design its website to enable persons with low or no vision to use it.
So why, after 13 years of inaction, do we not have a set of software requirements (including a testable definition of "done") and a schedule for solving this?
And no, I will not accept any proposed "solution" that lacks the name of an WMF employee who has been given the assignment of fixing this, a budget that says how much the WMF expects to spend on solving this, a deadline that says how long the WMF expects it to take to solve this, and a way for an independent third party to look at the results and verify whether the requirements were met.
I am left with these known facts:
For 13 years the WMF has failed to assign a single employee or contractor the task of fixing this problem.
For 13 years the WMF has failed to budget a single dollar towards fixing this.
For 13 years the WMF has failed to provide any estimate of how long it is expected to take to fix this.
For 13 years the WMF has failed to create any requirements for fixing this. (Note: "Requirements" is geek talk for "please define what 'done' is and tell us exactly how how we will recognize that whoever is working on this is done").
For 13 years the WMF has failed to make a plan for an independent third party (which in this case means "someone with a visual impairment accessing Wikipedia with a screen reader") to look at the results and verify whether the requirements were met.
Again, for me to consider this to be something that the WMF takes seriously, the solution needs to include:
The name of an WMF employee who has been given the assignment of fixing this.
A budget that says how much the WMF expects to spend on solving this.
A deadline that says how long the WMF expects it to take to solve this.
A plan for an independent third party to look at the results and verify whether this has actually been solved.
I admired the effort you put into helping OJ and thought that there was a real chance they could be turned around. Even though OJ failed to live up to everyone's hopes, please don't let it sour you on looking for the best in others. Sometimes efforts can fail but it doesn't mean it was wrong to try. Schazjmd(talk)00:59, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
By my estimation, roughly 25% of the people who I have recommended for an unblock have gone on to become productive editors, and the other 75% were quickly reblocked without actually doing all that much damage, so WP:ROPE really does seem to work. Of course recommending an unblock is a lot easier than it would be if I was the one making the unblock decision; I would have to see a real consensus for unblocking if it were my decision to make. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:42, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
This RfA was on my watchlist before it was created. Usually that means I have something that I definitely wanted to say at an RfA, but that might have happened years ago and I can't seem to remember whether there was something really great or really bad that I wanted to comment on (ha ha). In this case, while we don't overlap too much, I can recall having both agreed and disagreed with you and things going smoothly in both cases. However, a heads up that I would intend to ask a question about this and what's different today. Dekimasuよ!16:21, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Good question! I pretty much feel the same way today as I did then, and part of me is hoping that the RfA will fail. Sometimes I think wanting the job should disqualify you from having the job... So what made me decide to accept the nomination? I do a fair amount of volunteering (I teach inner-city kids how to program) and I have seen too many volunteers take on too much, burn out, and quit. It seems like every time I report a vandal at WP:AIAV it is the same few admins who do the blocking. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:13, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
If I had thought of it before excitedly casting my support vote, I might have asked "What took you so long?" – bradv🍁18:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
I posted something at the RfA under Neutral
Hey Guy,
It was a valiant effort. I'm sorry for you that it doesn't look like it will work out. It may not be the time now, but if you want to write an Op-ed for The Signpost about what it is like to go through the grinder, just let me know. Smallbones(smalltalk)19:12, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Yea. Although the community does not appear to think you would be suited to that role, your many contributions are appreciated. Have fun and best regards Govindaharihari (talk) 05:45, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Hi. I saw your RfA because I had an email from Doc James and he had confused the two of us. I'm deeply disappointed with the result and I hope you will not be too downhearted. There's a conflict right now between those who want Wikipedia to be cuddly and fluffy and those who understand the need for robust response to the assault from fringe advocates. Seems to me that not only are you Good People, you are also a tremendous asset to the project, and a far better editor of content than I am. Of course a lot of my attitude comes from being British, where casual profanity is normal and accepted: it amazes me that the US has a culture where people will actually write "d--n" rather than damn. Fuck that noise. Guy (help!) 10:44, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
The only thing that's uglier than an ugly RfA is an ugly desysoping. At least you won't have to go through one of those! Take care my friend :) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:17, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Hi. Please dont get discouraged. I have always respected you, and your work. Just wanted to let you know that. Also, take a break, do some goofy things on internet and IRL, have good laughs; and then come back to enwiki. I hope to see you soon. Regards, —usernamekiran (talk)19:34, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Well ... I'm assuming you are doing what I have unashamed-fully attempted a multitude of times: Leaving this place, especially after a RFA such as yours. For some, their RFA results in them leaving permanently. For others, their RFA brought them down, but they eventually bounced back. I'm not sure which path is the best for you, but for what I've seen about you, you are not the type to let something like this get under your skin. You bounce back and fight hard for what you believe needs to be done! But ... what that means to you is obviously your own decision to make. Whether that means motivating yourself to get back to Wikipedia or motivating yourself to deal with other life matters is up to you. But, from what I've seen from most of those who are more familiar with you and were for you and even against you becoming an administrator (I'm obviously not part of that camp since I don't recall ever interacting with you or seeing more than what I mentioned in the RFA), you are a net positive to Wikipedia as an editor. Either way though, I wish you the best in this decision (since I empathize with my multiple attempts at retirement) and luckily ... Wikipedia's probably never going away, so if you feel the need to have months or even years to figure out if you want to come back here or not, no rush or hurry; this place only becomes a stressful time sink if you allow it to be. Be well. Steel1943 (talk) 19:08, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
I have seen the below regarding the heart attack, but felt I should comment here as well. I realize that your RfA didn't go as planned, but definitely hope that you do decide to return when medically/emotionally able & ready. RfAs are hard, but unsuccessful ones can be bounced back from and a successful request for adminship at a later date can be possible and has been done countless times before. Either way, it is potentially a learning experience for self-betterment as a Wikipedian (and possibly beyond). You had two amazing nominators in Doc and Baltimore. I do hope to see you around when you recover. Wishing you all the best, TheSandDoctorTalk03:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Stick it up your innuendo
Somewhere in the last 6-18 months someone made an hysterical pun on the word innuendo. I somehow think it was you. I am in dire need of it now. See [27]EEng20:07, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Well goddamit I did look there, but it didn't show up (though of course I take no responsibility for that). As for the heart attack, see, this is what happens when you just click the little + at the top to start a new thread without checking what's been going on. Sounds like you're on the mend, Guy; rest up, and don't exceed your physician's recommended daily Wikipedia exposure limit. EEng02:33, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, that's it. I think you should know that this video [29] of you convalescing is going viral (the good kind of viral, though). EEng03:50, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
EEng: "I feel there's a colonoscopy pun in there somewhere, but it's just not gelling."
Guy Macon: "This being MOS, I would suggest you start with semicolonoscopy puns. Then you can move up to innuendos."
"This being MOS, I would suggest you start with semicolonoscopy puns" is my all-time favorite Wikipedia pun. (By the way, E, this was already in the museum.) Levivich[dubious – discuss]06:44, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
...even after the RfA closed was a good, nay, a great thing; well done.
I'm not sure we've ever interacted, though i am well aware of you (as who wouldn't be, with your thoughtful contributions in WPspace), and i believe that i actually opposed at the RfA; that may well have been a mistake. I am very impressed with your unavoidably late responses ~ both with the fact that you have taken the time at this surely difficult juncture, and with the care and thought you put into them ~ on the talkpage of the RfA.
Thank you for taking that time ~ and for putting your name forward; i think i can affirm that should you do so again i would support. Happy days, LindsayHello20:05, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
There Is No Cabal (TINC). We discussed this at the last cabal meeting, and everyone agreed that there is no cabal. An announcement was made in Cabalist: The Official Newsletter of The Cabal making it clear that there is no cabal. The words "There Is No Cabal" are in ten-foot letters on the side of the international cabal headquarters, and an announcement that there is no cabal is shown at the start of every program on the Cabal Network. If that doesn't convince people that there is no cabal, I don't know what will. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:32, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
(remember: the user after whom the prize is named: blocked, the user who made the design: banned, others: left in frustration, silently inactive ... - but stubborn me is still around ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:17, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of dryer balls before, but a Dryer ball is not the same thing as a Laundry ball.
Now that I have looked at it, I will edit and improve the dryer ball article, which sucks. It doesn't mention the main claim, which isn't softening but rather faster drying because clothes clump together less -- even though the Popular Mechanics source talks about it. Also, that PM source concluded "difficult to detect a noticeable difference other than increased noise" rather than "unable to find any beneficial effects" and mentions that the the director of home appliances and cleaning products at the Good Housekeeping Research Institute recommends inserting a foreign object into the drum when drying products made of down. Also, the article doesn't doesn't mention using a tennis ball or an old sneaker rather than buying dryer balls. Pretty sad for an article with 52 revisions by 40 editors since it was created in 2008. :(
I'm one of those 40 editors! The Popular Mechanics article didn't even test wool dyer balls. It looks like professional research will take some work to find. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:59, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
s. urls
Extended content
Hi Guy-the url you removed here is only for spam tracking, so that the user's talk page will show up in spam link searches. It's useful if someone tries to respam the link months later; we can see that previous users already tried to spam it, at which point we have a good argument for blacklisting. I suppose these link reports accomplish the same thing, but I see no harm in adding an additional level of tracking, at least to named user pages. OhNoitsJamieTalk15:42, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Ah. I thought it was some sort of typo. I usually do a URL search and remove any other spams when reporting a spammer, so the evidence of respamming would be useful for me as well. (Note to self: when spamming, wait until Ohnoitsjamie puts up an s. url, them make it a valid URL to my spam.) (Good thing spammers are mostly idiots who aren't smart enough to take advantage of this...) I have a suggestion: if you use https://spam.example.com instead of https://s.example.com the purpose of the bogus URL will be more obvious. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:55, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
You know, it's funny...I used to use "spam" instead of "s", but I noticed others using "s" so I thought maybe there was some convention I should be following. Point taken, I'll go back to "spam" or "spamtracking" for clarity. OhNoitsJamieTalk17:57, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
As a minor gesture of protest against the Wikimedia foundation's decision to rebrand itself with Wikipedia's good name, until they back down I choose to call them "the "W?F".
Feel free to assume that this stands for "WMF", "WPF", or "WTF".
I call on those who oppose the rebranding to start using "W?F".
"We should have been clearer: a rebrand will happen. This has already been decided by the Board."[30] -- Heather Walls, head of the Communications department at the Wikimedia Foundation and executive sponsor of the Brand project.
@JzG: I'm not familiar with the "Wikipedia Song" in question, but, given the context, I choose to assume that it's the Internet-infamous Pokémon Go Song but with the main lyric replaced with "I edit Wikipedia E V E R Y DAY", the other lyrics replaced with something vaguely relevant, and that it's on a ten hour loop. Nathan2055talk - contribs20:28, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Here is an actual thread from WP:ANI: Can you imagine what they would do if I mentioned suspenders and a bra?
Extended content
To those who would forbid even the minor expression of protest of using the term "W?F", you are aware that WP:CIVIL does not apply to saying things about organizations, right? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:51, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Unless WMF has become sentient, then there are still editors involved, so that's irrelevant. Given that it's pretty obvious that this stands for "What the Fuck" surely anyone who advocates the usage of such a phrase should be permanently banned from Wikipedia, without prejudice. It's time that the 5 pillars were enforced, and there's no reason for such clear hostility, which only leads to a hostile environment. Nfitz (talk) 00:29, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
You want to make casual use of "WTF" a bannable offense? WTF?!?! Good luck trying to push that one through. Let me know how it works out for you.
I made my meaning perfectly clear several times:
"As a minor gesture of protest against the Wikimedia foundation's decision to rebrand itself with Wikipedia's good name, until they back down I choose to call them "the "W?F".
Feel free to assume that this stands for "WMF", "WPF", or "WTF".
I call on those who oppose the rebranding to start using "W?F"."
Your transparent attempt to paint "W?F" as as anything other than what it is -- a minor gesture of protest against the Wikimedia foundation's decision to rebrand itself with Wikipedia's good name -- is classic sealioning. See [ http://wondermark.com/1k62/ ]. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:15, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
An announcement:
I do not agree that one cannot compare things that are similar in some ways without implying that they are similar in all ways. In my opinion, insisting that nobody can compare things leads to a world without metaphor or simile, never being able to note any similarities unless the two things are identical in every way. I personally think that it is acceptable for me to say "I am burning up" on a hot day or "let's eat. I'm starving" without having someone fresh out of the Tone Police Academy accuse me of insensitivity to people who are actually on fire or who are actually starving. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:22, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
Corruption and grants
I forgot to mention it at the time, but after I read your comment at VPWMF a few weeks ago regarding grants issues, I made a proposal at Meta to prohibit members of the Grant Committee from receiving grant money while on the committee. (I know that the context wasn't exactly about that, but this seemed actually actionable, so...) --Yair rand (talk) 06:04, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
I imagine the reason it doesnt have a page is because the plot centers around a nazi scheme to weaponise sharks. Brain transplants may be involved. It is possibly one of the worst shark-related films I have ever seen. And I have seen a lot of shark films. As to why I have seen it, a local arts center/cinema has a Bad Film Club run by a couple of comedians, where they show a terrible film on the medium screen (the medium only seats 35 people) and do commentary over the top. Think Mystery Science Theater 3000 but with less robots and more filth. Some highlights have been almost all the shark films on my userpage, Anaconda, a variety of 70s & 80s rubbish like Night of the Lepus, as well as some blockbusters. The main drawback to the large budget films is the cost to screen it, no matter how terrible it is. Theres a limit to which 30 odd people's ticket fee will cover the screening cost. There have also been some classic 'bad' films as well, Undefeatable, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Howard the Duck to name a few. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:19, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
Gosh. You could come here, subject to restrictions of course. Something else... Ah, that cartoon made me smile broadly, which doesn't sit right on my grumpy face. I also wanted to ask how you are getting on recovery wise; as much as you care to tell us of course? -Roxy the inedible dog .wooF20:16, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
No secrets here. :) I am really doing well. I now have a pacemaker that fixed the electrical problem in my heart. With the heart pumping better I am able to get back to my exercise routine. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:25, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
Good to hear
....that you're planning on running again!
I had some questions/concerns last time but I certainly plan to join any firm rebuking of those arguing "too soon (again)"!
You do come with the, potentially dubious, advantage of getting loads of questions in advance which you can prep for.
Thx — I should’ve been clearer. I saw Newslinger’s recommendation to “RfC at either WT:RS or WP:VPP to have any proposed guidance on headlines written into the reliable sources guideline” but haven’t found any recent proposals there. Perhaps I missed it in my searches. Just wanted to make sure I had seen all proposals and objections. Thx Humanengr (talk) 16:18, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
1. All pipes is to be made of a long hole surrounded by metal or plastic.
2. All pipe is to be hollow throughout the entire length. Do not use holes of different lengths than the pipe.
3. The ID (inside diameter) of all pipes must not exceed the OD (outside diameter), otherwise the hole will be on the outside.
4. It is desirable that the hole in the pipe be the same diameter for the entire length, otherwise the contents of the pipe will get thinner in the smaller part of the pipe,
5. All pipe is to be supplied with nothing in the hole, so that water, steam
or other stuff can be put in at a later date if required.
6. All pipe should be supplied without rust; this can be more readily applied
at the job site. Note: Some vendors are now able to supply pre-rusted pipes. This should be cheaper as it is usually old stock.
7. All pipe over 500ft (153m) in length should have the words "long pipe"
clearly painted on each side and end, so that the contractor will know it is a
long pipe.
8. Pipe over 2 miles (3.2km) in length must have the words "longer pipe"
painted in the middle, so the contractor will not have to walk the entire
length of the pipe to determine whether or not it is a long pipe or not.
9. All pipe over 6in (150mm) in diameter must have the words "large pipe"
painted on it, so the contractor will not mistake it for small pipe.
10. Pipes that are threaded on both ends should have either right hand or left hand threads. Do not mix the threads, otherwise the coupling is screwed on to one pipe as it is unscrewed from the other pipe. This could cause the pipe to be disconnected and then leak.
11. Pipes that are to have flanges must have then at both ends. Flanges must have holes for the bolts that are quite separate from the big hole in the middle.
12. When joining two pipes together with flanges, it is necessary to have flanges of the same size, otherwise the bolts will not fit into the holes and the pipes will not stay together, causing a likely leak.
13. When ordering 90 degree, 45 degree, or 30 degree elbows, be sure to specify left hand or right hand - otherwise you will end up going the wrong way and the required 180 degree elbows are an added cost.
14. When ordering pipe, be sure to specify to your vendor whether you want level, uphill or
downhill pipe. If you use downhill pipe for going uphill, the contents
will flow the wrong way.
15. Check if the pipe pipe includes ready made leaks. If not, these may be added during the construction process. Most pipes leak from the inside out but do not be surprised if the occasional one leaks from the outside in. In some instances where leaks are not desirable, to check if the pipe is working, it may be possible to use both types of leaks together, to offset each other.
END OF QUOTE FROM BULK WATER PIPELINES
DISCUSSION:
It is doubtful that this originated with Burstall. Compared to other humorous material widely posted on the Internet, the copies of the pipe spec have a large number of inconsequential wording variations (pipe vs. pipes, must vs shall vs. should) that strongly suggest something that was hand copied, faxed, or mimeographed multiple times.
I found a copy of a USENET post from "1987 to 1989" at[36] with some interesting variations. I could not determine the date it was posted.
Another interesting variation can be found by googling "Scottish Regiments in the Army use Army pipes in unusual ways" (with the quotes). I found one example from 1998:[37]
There are a fair number of additional jokes added to various copies, possibly suggesting someone retyping from a poor-quality fax.
Some examples (Try putting quotes around them and googling):
All pipe is to be of the very best quality, preferably tubular or pipular.
All pipes shorter than 1/8 in are very uneconomical in use, requiring many joints. They are generally known as washers.
Joints in pipes for piping water must be water-tight. Those pipes for compressed air, however, need only be air-tight.
All pipe is to be free of any covering such as mud, tar, barnacles or any form of manure before putting up, otherwise it will make lumps under the paint.
All pipe closures are to be open on one end.
All pipe fittings are to be made of the same stuff as the pipe.
Pipe specified as "Straight Pipe" shall not have fittings within its length, otherwise it becomes "Crooked Pipe."
Lengths of pipes may be welded or soldered together. This method is not recommended for concrete or earthenware pipes.
Other commodities are often confused with pipes. These include: Conduit, Tube, Tunnel and Drain. Use only genuine pipes.
All acid-proof pipe is to made of acid-proof metal.
Gaskets are to be made of metal, rubber, plastic, paper, or some kind of goop - do not use cow or sheep manure. It cracks when it gets dry.
All completed piping lines must go somewhere and connect to something. The fitter is required to verify this before turnover.
What article is this for? I'm not sure how the Internet Archive decides when to capture pages, but the earliest capture of the 1980s joke is from 1999. [38]. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:53, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Note that Environmental Science and Engineering Magazine is published in Ontario, and Brad Templeton went to the University of Waterloo. Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:59, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
It's probably satirizing engineering bulletins like this from 1896: "1.2.64...All pipes...should be larger when their length is great". [44] But the joke perhaps spread among Australian ships by radio while they were laying pipelines, and then once it was published in Amateur Radio magazine in 1986 some Australian might have read it and posted it on the internet. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:52, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
I know some of my talk page henchmenstalkers watchers are also engineers, technicians, or scientists. Here is a good engineering/technical resource; I have been watching videos from the Better Biomed YouTube channel at [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5iZzbAn_abSOoNbNaiTRVw ] Check it out. (I have no relationship, financial or otherwise, with the channel). --Guy Macon (talk) 06:21, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
[1] I noticed this version on my watchlist.[45] But unlike what I get when I go to that revision, when I saw it the "reset" was super tiny. Not the perfectly acceptable 0.9em but instead somewhere around 0.1em to 0.2em.
[2] I clicked on the reset, hit publish, and got this result:[46]
[3] I looked at the transclusions and templates and found no obvious explanation.
[4] I asked for help on the help desk
[5] After reading the above, I did some tests. So did Floquenbeam (See the revision history) both worked just fine.
[6] looking at the page history, I see that it it happened to me once before; once at 20:09, 17 May 2020 [47][48] and once at 09:43, 26 August 2020 [49][50]
[7] Finally, looking at the page history, I see a bunch of other people using the reset button and getting the correct result. It's only me. :(
I do not believe that Wikipedia showed me a different version than the version I see in the history, so I am thinking that the computer I am using (I am on my Windows 10/Firefox system, not my Slackware/Firefox or TAILS/Tor-Browser systems) screwed up the rendering somehow. Twice.
So I have an intermittent mystery that really looks like it is on my computer and has nothing to do with what Wikipedia is doing. I don't see how anyone else on Wikipedia can help with this. If it ever happens again I will get screenshots and save the raw HTML. If I figure out the cause I will post a report here on my on my talk page in case anyone is curious. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:59, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
Ok, and most browsers can be configured limit the minimum font size to a custom value, but since this seems to be a bug it's doubtful if this would change anything... —PaleoNeonate – 00:03, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Speaking as someone who recently dropped dead (no pulse for a couple of minutes) I give it Zero Stars: Do Not Recommend. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 16:07, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Before you dropped dead, and after I voted, I unwatched your RfA as everything wot is rong and horrid with wikipedia. should I read the Signpost article to get up to speed on what happened at the Rfa? Oh, and I'm very happy you are back, etc. Best, -Roxy, the PROD. .wooF16:29, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Politics. Can we please talk about something else? Literally anything else?
I propose that whenever anyone posts anything on any article talk page that consists solely of trashing Trump or Biden, the comments should be removed and the poster should be given a 24-hour block.
For example, the following would not be allowed. Don't read it. It will only upset you. Save yourself, before it is too late!
Thanks! Here is a complete list of my medical, legal, and professional advice:
There are some who believe that Wikipedia has a policy against giving medical, legal, and business advice, but no such policy or guideline exists.
Here is some medical advice: Don't do crystal meth. It will screw up your health. Don't bother asking a doctor if crystal meth is good for you. It isn't. (medical disclaimer.)
Here is some legal advice: Don't do crystal meth. It is likely to get you arrested. Don't bother asking a lawyer if crystal meth is illegal. It is. (legal disclaimer.)
Here is some professional advice: Don't do crystal meth. It will use up all of your money and is likely to get you fired. Don't bother asking a certified financial planner if becoming a meth addict is good for your finances. It isn't. (general disclaimer.)
There. I just provided medical, legal, and professional advice, and while I did make a point, I did so without being disruptive.
Feel free to report my behavior at WP:ANI if you believe that I have violated any Wikipedia policy or guideline.
The actual rule is that context matters. If you are about to advise someone to drink bleach, that is medical advice that isn't allowed on Wikipedia. If you want to tell people not to drink bleach or to say that crystal meth is bad for your health, that is medical advice that is allowed on Wikipedia.
BTW, here is some more free advice: In my opinion food poisoning, terminal cancer and AIDS are even more effective methods of weight loss than doing crystal meth, so if you really want to shed those pounds why not try all four at the same time?(In case anyone missed it, that was a joke.) More advice: don't get your medical advice from an electronics engineer. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:21, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
(Buttinsky) Aditya, are you talking meth as in methylated spirits or methamphetamine, and bleach as in bleach or bleach, or are you implying disinfection as in a process that is irrelevant to bleach - New light-mediated disinfection protocols are currently validated in hospitals and healthcare facilities for surface, air, and water as well as personal protective equipment (PPE), including eyewear, N95 respirators, and masks. Additionally, photobiomodulation, a light-based anti-inflammatory therapy, may have some palliative effects on patients suffering from severe COVID-19.? Atsme💬📧15:10, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Press mentions
Hey, you've got a couple of press mentions in the Spanish and Brazilian press:
"Already in 2016, a Wikipedia editor named Guy Macon published a report in which he warned that the viability of the project was in danger ... due to the pace of the foundation's expenses and, above all, because spending priorities were not the correct ones." (The Spanish and Portuguese translations are pretty much the same).
Interesting how they came to that conclusion about spending priorities despite the fact that it I was very clear that in my opinion it is the spending increases that are likely to kill Wikipedia, not the spending priorities. Actually, the fact that they are pouring money down rat-holes strengthens my argument. If the W?F was spending way too much but spending it doing things that are worth doing it would be harder to get public support for having the W?F grow up, put on their big-boy pants, and stick to a budget. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:33, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
It seems Katherine Maher has made a contribution to the Hacker News thread. See [51]; her handle on that page is "kmaher". --AndreasJN46609:57, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Have you ever heard the story of the admiral's yacht? According to the story, whenever someone proposes a reduction in military spending, the military immediately cuts the budget by not buying bullets or buying less food for the troops, but they never touch the admiral's yacht or the general's ski vacations in the Swiss Alps.
Whether or not the story is true in the case of the actual military, in certainly is in the case of the WMF. We keep hearing about maybe spending less on redundant datacenters or on fixing bugs, but we never discuss the Wikimanias, the HQ located in the second most expensive city on earth, or hiring 300 people to do the exact same job that 50 people were doing before.
In the linked comment Katherine Maher makes the same error: literally nobody is calling for lowering the wages of software developers. Absolutely nothing in WP:CANCER suggests such a thing. If anyone had bothered to ask me I would have pointed them to studies that show that a smaller number of higher paid and more productive software developers typically create better software. (You have to work hard to identify the really productive developers -- just spending more money doesn't get you there -- but once you do you have to pay them what they are worth.)
Again, it isn't what the W?F spends on that is likely to kill Wikipedia. It is the ever-increasing spending and the inevitability that donations will not increase every year forever. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:59, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
"Wikipedia's articles are no place for strong views. Or rather, we feel about strong views the way that a natural history museum feels about tigers. We admire them and want our visitors to see how fierce and clever they are, so we stuff them and mount them for close inspection. We put up all sorts of carefully worded signs to get people to appreciate them as much as we do. But however much we adore tigers, a live tiger loose in the museum is seen as an urgent problem." --WP:TIGER
Only 993,083,405 articles left until our billionth article!
We are only 993,083,405 articles away from our 1,000,000,000th article... --Guy Macon
Finalists for the Wikipedia 2020 Main Page redesign
ANNOUNCE After an exhaustive search, the W?F has found two web designers who really understand what we are trying to do with our main page. Here are the finalists out of 1337 submitted front page designs:
Easy? I had to go to WMF headquarters and go down to the cellar to find it.
That’s the user feedback department.
With a flashlight.
Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.
So had the stairs.
But look, you found out where to vote, didn’t you?
Yes. Yes I did. The ballot was on in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard."
LOL could be worse....our main help page could go the way of non accessibility. ...on wait it has. We have an epidemic of editors who could care less about accessibility.--Moxy🍁16:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Depiction of Wikimedia Foundation destroying Wikipedia with Visual Editor, Flow, and Mobile App
"A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction into a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day." -- Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes. --Guy Macon
Page views
Page views for this talk page over the last five years
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be -- or to be indistinguishable from -- self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time." --Neil Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
--Guy Macon
Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence
"The Revolution's main adversaries were the patriots and the people from Braveheart," said speaker Tim Capodice, who has edited hundreds of Wikipedia entries on subjects as diverse as Euclidian geometry and Ratfucking. "The patriots, being a rag-tag group of misfits, almost lost on several occasions. But after a string of military antics and a convoluted scheme involving chicken feathers and an inflatable woman, the British were eventually defeated despite a last-minute surge, by a score of 89–87."[52]
--Guy Macon
Reasoning
"Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired: for, in the course of things, men always grow vicious, before they become unbelievers..." --Jonathan Swift ( 1721)[53][54]
In modern language that would be
"You cannot reason people out of something they were not reasoned into. They will viciously attack you instead of abandoning their beliefs".
Absolutely brilliant, thanks. It's interesting that the comments were also high quality. If that discussion had happened here, there would have been many woosh moments with suggestions that the procedure was unhygienic and should not be displayed without reliable sources! Johnuniq (talk) 05:00, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
It occurs to me that when AI beats the Turing test, parsing videos like this will still be a good way to determine whether you are talking to an android or a sentient human. Johnuniq (talk) 07:47, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
Quitting Wikipedia
To those who have expressed support; please don't escalate this. That is not what I want. Just let it go.
To those who have criticized me; you got your way. I have stopped editing. Please let it go.
To Floquenbeam; please consider what a number of editors have told you and consider walking away and letting other administrators deal with any future issues. You really can trust the other administrators to do the right thing.
I appreciate the emails I have received and would welcome more like them. I will reply to every one, but I want to take a break from this and move on with my life for at least a couple of days. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:51, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
OK, time's up
Your many friends would really and truly be delighted if you'd forget the retirement thing and go back to being the old Guy Macon we all know and love. EEng01:27, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
[ Comment deleted. I have been ordered to not discuss the reasons why I stopped contributing to Wikipedia. ] --Guy Macon (talk) 16:33, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
That's your privilege, but I regret it. I am going to give Ritchie333 a courtesy ping since he unblocked you, and my understanding of policy is that that resets your status with respect to blocks. Preventative, not punitive, and all that. But the ping doesn't imply that I think he should come here, or that I don't understand and respect your reaction to the quoted statements. (That's a useful template, I hope I can remember its syntax; I wonder whether it generates a ping?) Yngvadottir (talk) 21:28, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
I don't mean to be a bitch here but the easy answer would be to get over it and just use the persons preferred pronouns. Especially, as in this case, when they were specifically warned on this exact wording. I mean I get it, I disagree with the block I got and think it was completely arbitrary and asinine. But here I am. PackMecEng (talk) 12:05, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
That's not the point. The point is, "this is an environment I am not comfortable with. I cannot work like this. Any time I do anything, some admin who hates me can invent a new rule forbidding what I just did and punish me for it. It's lawless, it's not civilization, it is the Wild West."
[ Comment deleted. I have been ordered to not discuss the reasons why I stopped contributing to Wikipedia. ] --Guy Macon (talk) 17:22, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
Can cow dung and cow urine cure Covid-19?
In the US, quacks have recently discovered that while the substantial contributions they have made to key politicians means that they can freely advertise pills and creams that make your penis or breasts larger or will burn fat without dieting or exercise, if they attempt to branch out and sell magic Covid pills, the government will come down on them like a ton of bricks.
Meanwhile, in India, political activist Erendro Leichombam and journalist Kishorechandra Wangkhem and have been held in prison for more than 45 days without trial under the Indian National Security Act. Their crime? They posted on Facebook that cow dung and cow urine will not cure Covid-19.
They posted after the death of Tikendra Singh, head of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the state of Manipur. Singh had claimed that traditional Indian medicine, including cow dung and cow urine, was a cure for Covid-19.
I only noticed of the recent events now and will sometimes miss your participation. I was just thinking of your "yes we are biased" essay today, that although I always found too verbose, seemed relevant... —PaleoNeonate – 23:09, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
I read through it sometime back and I think it can be summarised into a one-sentence aphorism: "We are biased towards scholarly consensus and against fringe views that have only a little scientific backing." Aathish S | talk | contribs06:19, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
What led to that? That’s unacceptable, your contributions to this collaborative project have been stellar, my friend, talk to me did someone offend you? Celestina007 (talk) 23:47, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
I have been ordered to not discuss the reasons why I stopped contributing to Wikipedia.
I believe a Daily Mail piece criticised my user page, specifically the part that says "This user hates The Sun and thinks anyone who treats it as a reliable source for a biography of a living person is stark raving mad.", but didn't directly attribute it to me. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)11:06, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Of course, such things always remind me of that Yes Prime Minister episode...
Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; and The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?
Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.
"In a statement the environmental protest group said it wanted to send a message to 'the four billionaire owners of 68% of the UK’s print media' and was demanding 'an end to media corruption that suppresses the truth from the public for profit'."
" 'I think what they've done brilliantly in this ad funded world (is) they've mastered the art of click bait, they've mastered the art of hyped up headlines, they've also mastered the art of, I'm sad to say, of running stories that simply aren't true,' Wales told CNBC in a TV interview. 'And that's why Wikipedia decided not to accept them as a source anymore. It's very problematic, they get very upset when we say this, but it's just fact, so there you go.' "
"Hennepin County Chief Judge Toddrick Barnette on Wednesday denied the Daily Mail access to a media center across the street from the courthouse where Derek Chauvin is to be tried, along with access to trial exhibits and 'all media updates related to the trial.' "
"Priyamvada Gopal reached the settlement with the news outlet and its sister website MailOnline after they published a column by Amanda Platell in which the journalist attributed a series of inflammatory quotes to the English professor. In reality the quotes were fake and came from a mocked-up screengrab that had been circulating for some time among rightwing Twitter users."
" [The Daily Mail] alleged that they had behaved oppressively by bringing High Court proceedings against the housekeeper in retaliation for her bringing an unfair dismissal claim against them. In fact, the Dysons said the housekeeper brought her claim after they launched their 'proportionate and reasonable' case against her for taking and retaining their private and confidential information without consent – therefore it could not have been retaliation. They said this was explained to the Mail before publication but not reflected in the story. The Dysons also noted that in November 2018 the High Court granted an order requiring the housekeeper to return the information, including medical records, and said they had helped her financially through the process."
BTW, as anyone can clearly see by examining the table of contents on this page, I am slightly left leaning. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 02:46, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology (ijact.org)
NOTE: The above is the sort of thing I would have posted to WP:RSNB before I quit contributing to Wikipedia. If someone wants to post it there, feel free. I suggest keeping the section title I chose above, so that people who search the RSNB archives can easily find it.
The article has been republished and commented upon on multiple sites. Just Google "Wikipedia Admins Support Banning Editors for Not Using 'Preferred Pronouns'"
I cannot at this time comment publicly on the content of the article without violating a voluntary interaction ban. As always, comments are welcome, but don't expect a response from me if you comment on this.
Also, nothing in this post should be construed as implying anything -- positive or negative -- about breitbart.com or about T. D. Adler / The Devil’s Advocate. I have my opinions about that, but this is not the time or place to discuss them. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Come over to the dark side
You said, [64]"I suppose I should just let obvious problems remain when I see them. It kind of sucks not being able to fix errors that any IP could fix without issue, but it was my decision to stop contributing to articles so I only have myself to blame." You may remember from my comment earlier that I was in the same situation. There is always an option on the table: just join the dark side and stop giving a fuck in general. Do your own thing, edit when you want to, and above all, adopt a cynical attitude toward other users on the website. I cannot stress this enough: the more cynical, the better. When you inevitably come into contact with someone you don't want to interact with, just don't. Yeah, the place will burn but it's always on fire here. Then some days later you'll be reading an article without a care in the world, and then when see something that needs fixing, you can fix it at your leisure. It works out really well, you know. BirdValiant (talk) 02:19, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
May you please provide feedback on the new paragraph I added to WP:SANTA?
I added a new paragraph to WP:SANTA which mentions the RfC that was held on the existence of Santa. It's at the bottom. How do you like my addition to the essay? Thanks! Félix An (talk) 23:50, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Good addition. Any essay that is supported by a policy, guideline, RfC result, arbcom decision, W?F decision, etc. should contain a similar link. Those all carry more weight than essays do.
BTW, I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but your contributions are much appreciated and make the encyclopedia better. Keep up the good work. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:40, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Hi, have closed the AN discussion with an obvious consensus to lift your voluntary interaction ban with editor Fæ. For tps reference the close is here. -- Euryalus (talk) 10:07, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
"The bottom line is that we elected Arbitrators that we trust to deal with confidential information and to decide who should know what, and even Arbcom's harshest critics have never shown any example of any of them betraying that particular trust."
I think you are basically right, but an experience of mine taught me to still beware.
During my ArbCom kangaroo court trial, one ArbCom member wrote his judgment against me before any evidence had been presented, and he's a disbarred lawyer who should know better than to do that. At long last I was vindicated, but it was a hellish procedure. Be cautious. -- Valjean (talk) 21:46, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
Rejuvenate WikiProject Skepticism
Hello - my name is Susan Gerbic (Sgerbic) and I'm writing to you because at some point you joined Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism. This might have been months ago - or even years ago. With the best of intentions the project was created years ago, and sadly like many WikiProjects has started to go dormant. A group of us are attempting to revitalize the Skepticism project, already we have begun to clean up the main page and I've just redone the participant page. No one is in charge of this project, it is member directed, which might have been the reason it almost went dormant. We are attempting to bring back conversations on the talk page and have two subprojects as well, in the hopes that it might spark involvement and a way of getting to know each other better. One was created several years ago but is very well organized and a lot of progress was made, Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Skeptical organisations in Europe. The other I created a couple weeks ago, it is very simple and has a silly name Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Skepticism Stub Sub-Project Project (SSSPP). This sub-project runs from March 1 to June 1, 2022. We are attempting to rewrite skepticism stubs and add them to this list. As you can see we have already made progress.
The reason I'm writing to you now is because we would love to have you come back to the project and become involved, either by working on one of the sub-projects, proposing your own (and managing it), or just hanging out on the talk page getting to know the other editors and maybe donate some of your wisdom to some of the conversations. As I said, no one is in charge, so if you have something in mind you would like to see done, please suggest it on the talk page and hopefully others will agree. Please add the project to your watchlist, update your personal user page showing you are a proud member of WikiProject Skepticism. And DIVE in, this is what the work list looks like [67] frightening at first glance, but we have already started chipping away at it.
The Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Participants page has gone though a giant change - you may want to update your information. And of course if this project no longer interests you, please remove your name from the participant list, we would hate to see you go, but completely understand.
I don't know if you missed it at the time, but the question about whether the concluded RfC or the FoF from the ArbCom case should be authoritative was already answered by Barkeep49on 15 March on the AN thread about this. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:49, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
I was just coming here to say something similar. I feel like by continuing to push that this needs addressing you're inviting the problem you're seeking to prevent. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:03, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
As I said, "The answer to this question may seem obvious, but it is near certain that there will be a heated debate about this by whoever didn't get their way."
I think it is very likely that this will be disputed, I doubt that those who are going to dispute it are monitoring Wikipedia:Closure requests for ideas, and in my considered opinion, a brief mention of the FoF in the closing will be far more effective at reducing the objections than me shutting up and hoping that it won't occur to anyone to object. Nonetheless, by request (basic principle: if someone asks you to do something and there is no good reason not to, just go ahead and make them happy.) I won't mention it again.
Neither one is doing the right thing regarding accessibility. title="Edit section: File:Stek4.jpg" is a bit better than title="Edit section:" for the non-disabled, but title tooltips are nearly useless for accessibility.
Doing the right thing regarding accessibility would be to add alt="Edit the commons page for this image file" to the edit link and to add alt="A pepper plant being hand-planted in a standard hydroponic growth medium" to the image link.
Imagine yourself blind and unable to look at Stek4.jpg. Does the name "Stek4" fully explain what a sighted person sees? No? Add a description using alt text. Use title text to display whatever you want to appear in the tooltip, knowing that the disabled may not see the tooltip.
"Current user agents and assistive technology provide no feedback to the user when links have title attribute content available."
"Some graphical user agents will display a tool tip when the mouse hovers above an anchor element containing a title attribute. However, current user agents do not provide access to title attribute content via the keyboard. The tool tip in some common user agents disappears after a short period of time (approximately 5 seconds). This can cause difficulty accessing title attribute content for those users who can use a mouse but have fine motor skill impairment, and may result in difficulties for users who need more time to read the tool tip."
"In all the time that the title has been around, most browsers still have not implemented any support to reveal the attribute’s value to sighted users that aren’t using a mouse."
"Understandably, if one is aware of title‘s accessibility issues for sighted users, why would it be assumed that screen reader users get off any better?"
"while the title does provide an accessible name to elements in the absence of other sources, it is considered a fallback. Outside of some notable exceptions (more on this later), other mechanisms will always be preferred."
Although I realized that you were gone, I hadn't delved into the full story until today, in your talk page archives. I will say no more about that situation, other than that I like grammar and English usage. My true reason for blighting your clean talk page is that I want to apologize to you. I checked the page history, and see that you (or someone) sometimes responds to comments but always removes them, so I decided to be BOLD.
I apologize for being difficult last year, around June 2021 or so, on one or more of the COVID19 conspiracies/alternative origins article(s). Just the thought of it (them?) makes me shudder now. We kept changing the names of the articles, and merging, deleting, then resurrecting. (I'm tired of Coronavirus in general, but it isn't tired of us. I think we're stuck with it forever.) You might not even remember me. That is my hope! I was part of the... um tendentiousness of it all. My behavior toward some editors wasn't the best.
I am appreciative of your contributions on articles in the sciences and math and engineering-like things. You have exceptionally sound instincts regarding budgetary matters as well. You are tenacious about accountability and don't consider it mere 'bean counting'. I respect that enormously. I learned many things about Wikipedia budgetary practices from you. I wish some of our CPA IRL editors were as savvy as you are! (CPA = Certified Public Accountant in the United States, where I am). I miss you. I do understand why you departed, and why you don't want to return.
In closing, I will share that I have always thought of you as the Prime Minister of France because your first name could be French, and your last name lacks but one letter. You would probably have been an excellent finance minister somewhere.
Do not feel obliged to respond to this message, nor to acknowledge it in any way whatsoever if you prefer not to. I stopped contributing much to Wikipedia after disagreeing with a few atheist editors who wanted to change the info boxes in articles about deities of world religions to in-universe character info boxes. They ridiculed Abraham and I cried several times after trying to explain that in-universe character info boxes would make many readers feel sad. We argued, they were spirited, and I gave up. It was much worse than the COVID19 origin talk page wars. I hope you are well, and happy.
P.S. Nearly forgot! I really like this: <div style="-moz-transform:rotate(-1deg);-webkit-transform:rotate(-1deg); transform:rotate(-1deg);">__TOC__</div> Very eager to implement it on my own talk page, but maybe at 4 degrees. Can't ever get enough degrees, or degrees of freedom. Sorry not-sorry, bad pun.--FeralOink (talk) 00:05, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi! I don't recall any conflicts with you and have better things to do than look them up, but thanks for the apology. Friends forever (group hug). :) As for the rotate, remember, left leaning is that only leaning allowed here.
No need to rehash old business, but to be clear, I am not editing articles while still maintaining a few essays and responding when someone comments here or pings me on a discussion page. Some of my enemies (especially the one who is on staff at The Daily Mail) no doubt wish I would go away and never come back but they can go pound sand. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:54, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
FYI
Hi, Guy. Sorry to see you've stopped contributing. I thought I'd tell you just the same that I have prodded Vijnana Bharati, with a reference to your removal of material in 2020 and your note on talk. Since prods aren't signed (rather oddly IMO), I don't think you got pinged by that, so I wanted to mention it in case you're interested. Bishonen | tålk07:46, 17 September 2022 (UTC).
Good call. Unless someone comes up with some good sources (always a possibility in deletion discussions) I support deletion. I did a quick search and only found a few passing mentions such as [68] but nothing that is sufficient to establish general notability.
I will watch the discussion and may weigh in if it is close, but it looks like a clear delete to me. I hope they become notable in the future though; it looks like they are doing good work.[69] --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 16:32, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
I would like to ask my loyal minionssycophantsfanboishenchmentalk page stalkers talk page watchers for some advice.
I decided a while back to stop editing articles, but to continue maintaing essays such as WP:CANCER and WP:1AM.
My question is this: does maintaining the essay at User:Guy Macon/Alfa or Alpha? Juliett or Juliet? include fixing errors in the article NATO phonetic alphabet? The issue I am dealing with does not involve "Alfa" or "Juliett". This time an editor keeps changing "X-Ray" found in sources [70] (first page) and [71] (page 414, PDF page 421) with "XRay" without linking to any sources to support the "XRay" edit.
So, do I fix the article? Document the error on the article talk page without fixing the article? Leave the article alone and let the error stand? Bring it up on the reliable sources noticeboard? Ask someone else to lookinto it and deal with it? I would like some advice as to how to deal with this situation. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:27, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
I allways find that in hish tension situations llike this, it is best to wallk away from the keyboard untill the rage goes away. I was sent to the naughty step a few days ago for making two reverts in a day so ...
I have never see Xray or xray in print that I can recall without the hyphen, so there is that, and alpha and juliett is also spelled (spelt) rong. I took a look, but couldn't fit the diff inside my head to decide, but have watchlisted. I havent looked for sources for xray though. it does look as if both have been used since the inception of the NATO fonetic/phonetic code.
I'm not very helpful, am I. I may do a "better before" revert after I've looked again, or somebody else may help perhaps. Nice to see you. - Roxy thedog16:53, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
Wait, what? Do research before replying? That's just crazy talk. This is the internet. The usual response would be to call me a Nazi pedophile bedwetter and declare victory. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I still check my talk page and the essays I wrote at least once a week. Lots of people say that they find pages such as WP:YWAB and WP:1AM useful so I keep them updated.
This a concerning. If they can do this and make money on YouTube, they are likely to be able to do the same on other social media platforms / user-generated content that rewards you financially for views. Our boring but reliable wall of text pages simply don't have the same appeal to schoolchildren. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:35, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of ARM Cortex-M development tools until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.
I didn't think it appropriate to bring it up at Talk:Cargo cult science, since it risked dragging the discussion off-topic, and isn't citable for anything (WP:OR, obviously), but if you are interested in the question of where Feynman got his trivialising depiction of the 'cults' from, David David Attenborough's 1960 BBC documentary on the subject has to be a prime candidate for the origins of it, I'd think. [72] Well worth watching, if you want a short guide on how to engage in amateur anthropology, and use it to confirm your pre-existing opinions. And after discounting Attenborough's initial source for this (a missionary, and therefore hardly an impartial bystander, as should become obvious), along with Attenborough's relentless use of leading questions, at least one useful observation can be made - that 'cargo' was but a very small part of it.
To be fair, at the end of it, Attenborough acknowledges he is discussing religion, and that his earlier description of a John Frum supporter as 'deluded' might not be appropriate in such a context. Hindsight would indicate that he was also discussing (or failing to properly discuss, despite it being overt) a nascent movement for political independence. A movement with distinctly Millennialist overtones, and one built, unsurprisingly, around the very different world-view of the inhabitants of Tanna, which may well have made it difficult for even someone as smart as Attenborough to get his head around,* but a political movement nevertheless. Hence Attenborough's need to convince the locals that he wasn't from the police. If there is one thing that is fairly obvious from accounts of most of the 'cults', it is that it wasn't endeavours to secure 'cargo' through 'imitation' that raised the ire of the colonialists, it was the far more troublesome assertions of autonomy implicit in movements engaging in wholesale ritualised rejection and/or inversion of existing power structures.
*Many people not much less smart than Attenborough have tried this. Arguably it can be done, to at least some limited extent, if you have a spare decade or so. Otherwise, my best advice is if you want to understand a culture, try to get born into it.
I am reaching out to you because of your previous participation in one of the discussions regarding the reliability and neutrality of HuffPost/Pink News/ProPublica as sources used on Wikipedia.
Currently, there is an ongoing issue with the Edelman Family Foundation section in the Joseph Edelman Wikipedia article. The section appears to be biased and lacks a balanced representation of the foundation's activities, as it primarily focuses on a single controversial donation while neglecting to mention the organization's numerous other significant contributions to various causes.
Not exactly doing well -- medical problems -- but I am optimistic about having a full recovery.
I would love to go back to editing articles, but there is one thing stopping me. There is an admin who [a] called me a liar and said that they can't believe anything I say, [b] made up a new rule (I am not allowed to refer to certain individuals by their Wikipedia username) and, [c] blocked me without warning for violating the new rule. I really was trying to do what I thought was the right thing and avoid offense, but of course if I say that I am lying. :( I would also note that the individual who I supposedly offended by calling them by their username never objected (I would have stopped if asked) but instead a third party well known for shit-stirring over political and gender issues reported me.
I would have stopped the behavior and simply never interacted with that user again if asked. I always stop any behaviour that anyone asks me to stop, whether I agree or not. Far better to talk things over than going straight to blocking (for admins) or edit warring (for regular users).
Whether I am right or not, it is my belief that this one admin dislikes me enough to make up another new rule and block me for it if I start editing articles again. If someone else was willing to ask them to step aside and let other admins deal with any misbehavior on my part, I could get beck to full editing. I would be glad to agree to having one of you promise to keep an eye on my actions and report anything I do that is against policy. I would also be glad to have another admin say that they will keep a close eye on me.
What I am NOT willing to do is to interact with an admin who I believe has a personal animosity against me, and I am also unwilling to name them here or criticize them publicly and risk further enraging them. If anyone reading this is willing to act as a neutral third party and ask them to step aside and let other admins deal with me, please email me. I may not answer for a few days because of medical issues, so please be patient. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:13, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
First and foremost, I hope you do indeed fully recover, and please look after yourself. I've refreshed my memory about your block. Please bear in mind that I am so far as I know not on the spectrum, so I can be annoyingly unclear without realising it. But consider that a lot of us went a bit barmy/nuts during the pandemic (and it isn't over yet) and in retrospect, weren't thinking as clearly as we thought we were. My understanding is: (a) You have an interaction ban, which you have been respecting, so there's no need for further discussion of that. (b) The admin in question said back in 2021 that they would not post here again. (c) (this is getting more into my personal understanding of how things work on Wikipedia) For that admin to keep watch over your edits would be frowned on, especially 3 years on from your being unblocked. (d) I'm not aware of you doing anything contentious since then (except possibly disrespecting the WMF, which to me is more of a duty than an infraction, providing one is civil toward individual employees and other editors); you've kept your nose clean and there's no reason not to presume you will not continue to do so. (e) on the specific precipitating issue, I note you use singular they above, and (partly for anyone else reading here) that Tamzin wrote an explanatory essay and also said at the time that they were open to questions; that may still be true. I am not a good person to ask to monitor edits; for one thing, I limit my edits each month, and for another, I often go by the spirit of the rules rather than citing chapter and verse. But if you want, I can send someone an e-mail to verify a few of my presumptions. Do you want me to, or are my assurances enough for now ... once you feel better? Because above all, look after yourself. Yngvadottir (talk) 03:35, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
Guy, here's what I want you to do: (1) get to that full recovery; (2) once that's behind you, contact me and Yngvadottir (who, I am sure, will not mind my volunteering them) so we can help you find a path back. You may remember when, years ago, there was some misunderstanding between us which we successfully navigated past, to the point where we became good friends. Together we can get past this situation too. Good luck, and let's hear from you when you're ready. EEng03:56, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you. I will post back here after I get some medical treatments that may help my condition. For anyone else reading this, at one time I hated the singular "they" and felt that I was being forced to use what I learned in school to be bad grammar. The fact that a bunch of people tried to change my mind by calling me a homophobe and transphobe (I deny this. I have volunteered a significant amount of my time working towards equal right for the LGBTQ+ community and see no reason why they should be treated differently in any way.) made me dig in my heels even further. I rally felt like I was being bullied. Then they started spreading the accusation on Reddit and Wikipediocracy, so now whenever you Google my name you see me listed as a homophobe.
I honestly thought that avoiding both "him" and "they" and calling the person by their username was a good way to avoid offense. And I was and still am very angry that instead of simply asking me to stop doing that an admin destroyed my perfect record of no blocks. Especally because of what I believe is personal dislike towards me.
One person -- one single person out of the dozens who blasted me -- made an effort to actually discuss the grammar aspect. And they convinced me that I was wrong and that a singular they/them isn't bad grammar! So that's one more reason why I don't think that my behavior regarding prounouns will ever again be seen as problemetic by any admin other than the one who drove me away from being an active contributor.
On a more positive note, it really lifted my spirits being reminded of our friendship and how it had a rocky start. So whatever happens, thank you for that. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:45, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
Count me among those who wish you find a way that works for you to return as that contributor as whom I remember you. ---Sluzzelintalk23:38, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Dear Guy Macon: Your edits, as in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 217#My favorite source , have shown traces of a sense of humor, which is disruptive of the serious, somber, and relentlessly grim mood that so many other good people in all walks of life have exhibited just before burning out entirely. Be advised that if you continue on this present course, you run the risk of enjoying yourself while at work on this project, and you may even have a similar effect on other editors. Please consider very carefully whether you want to be responsible for such consequences. Thank you. Yes, I know that was written 7 years ago, but that's too funny to go unrecognized upon discovery.
By the way, don't let the actions of one of the 851 admins and one of the 114,522 active users three years ago make you paranoid now. I am much to young (in WikiAge) to have seen you edit, but given your following you were a good one. [Insert ending here (I'm bad at writing them)].
—PaleoNeonate – 15:38, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
Atsme Talk 📧 22:33, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Buttinsky) Aditya, are you talking meth as in methylated spirits or methamphetamine, and bleach as in bleach or bleach, or are you implying disinfection as in a process that is irrelevant to bleach - 
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