User talk:Abd/Archive

Warning about User talk:Adambro

(This was a warning on User talk:Moulton.) comment added by Abd 18:51, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• Moulton, please do not post to User talk:Adambro unless permitted or invited by him. If you continue in this way, any administrator here may block you without further warning. Please do not use beta.wikiversity to pursue a grievance, complaint, or "educational action" about what is happening elsewhere, unless it becomes a meta dispute, covering many language wikiversities. And even if this were a dispute here, harassing the user as you have is unacceptable. Please stop it, or you will be carted off the campus. --Abd 15:49, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Well it was about time you showed up here. What the hell took you so long? Moulton 16:43, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

• Like, Real Life, eh? Now, how about some tea? It has been suggested that I intervene here to stop useless fuss and to channel dissent into useful and practical criticism. Please feel free to drop by my office any time, and we can discuss current issues, the weather, or the price of tea in China. Adambro is welcome here, too, both of you are welcome if you behave yourselves while you are here. And, of course, you will, right? Don't worry, either of you, if the heat of the moment overtakes you, I can understand, and I'll offer you some more tea. Cream? Would you like any sweetener?

• Now, if you have any problem with each other's behavior on Wikiversity, I'd rather solve that there. But if you want to mention it here, that's okay. Be nice. It's my office. --Abd 17:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, we should sit down with our fellow scholars here and shoot the breeze over three cups of tea. I also hear that Tai Chi is good for reducing stress. So how about some delicious Chai Tea with our relaxing Tai Chi? —Moulton 17:36, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

• Perhaps, at this point, it's better that it not be even mentioned except in the most polite and indirect terms. Please consider all parties that might be connected with any disputes to be present and due proper courtesy and respect. If outside conflicts are to be mentioned, I'll lead. Thanks. --Abd 18:51, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• And so we come around, yet again, to Moulton's Nth Law of Bureaucracy: Once a bureaucracy makes a mistake, it can't be fixed.
  And more to the point, we now have progressed to the Corollary to Moulton's Nth Law of Bureaucracy: Once a corrupt bureaucracy makes a mistake, it can't even be mentioned, let alone fixed. Evar.
  —Moulton 19:09, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• Patience, my grasshopper friend. I'll let this comment stand, because it does not impugn the integrity of any particular user, and I think we can all agree that, from time to time and place to place, there has been some form of corruption or other. We may differ on examples, perhaps, or not. I'm afraid that your lovely and interesting and even useful theorems may start to founder on a counterexample or two, but, of course, Time will tell. More tea? --Abd 19:36, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'm more concerned about the integrity of the record. Poor JWSchmidt has spent the last two years trying to untangle the mangled record of a conflict dating back some three years now. It's a conflict that should have been trivial to unravel, except for the fact that the record of it was mangled, munged, scattered in shards, hidden from search engines, blanked, baleeted, oversighted, and otherwise tampered with in a corrupt manner clearly calculated to confuse and confound any historians with less stamina than our man Schmidt. Even you, my dear Abd, have engaged in the unbecoming practice of redacting, dispersing, and concealing the record from view by casual reader and search engine alike. I daresay this is the practice that made the subject of History so incomprehensible to me. I reckon that the poor Historians who tried to construct a coherent narrative account of events were confounded by all the bloody holes in the Swiss Cheese. —Moulton 20:10, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Welcome

Thank you for registering, and Welcome to Wikiversity!

• Wikiversity beta is a hub for general multilingual discussions of Wikiversity policies and other issues. It is also an incubator for new Wikiversity projects in various languages.
• Babel is our multilingual forum for general discussions and announcements.
• If you are new to Wiki, here is the bare minimum for editing in wiki.
• If you are running a course with Wikiversity, consider creating a participant list like Narrative_ecologies/Participants. As your material grows, you may want to elect a custodian to help maintain the pages for the group.

--JWSchmidt 21:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, JWS. That isn't exactly what I meant with this, though, I was referring to the manner in which you received my comments there. Adambro and Moulton both responded very positively, you did not. Why? Anyway, take your time, have some tea. No rush. Moulton is already here, see him sitting over there? Adambro might show up. Won't that be fun? What stories we all have to tell! You are, I think, in your fifties, Moulton and I in our sixties, and Adambro is, shall we say, pretty young. He will be around, I can hope for him and the world, a lot longer than you or I. How about we get to know him, and perhaps him us? --Abd 21:43, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

• Perhaps we should serve some Light Lemon Sorbet along with our three cups of tea. —Moulton 22:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Comment from Moulton [redacted]

original comment. Moulton 23:56, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Please use this page to develop cooperation between Wikiversity users, not to complain about them or to organize response, unless this organization and response is a matter of consensus. Please do not embarrass any of my guests or invitees here. Thanks. If you wish to complain or comment, where this might be embarrassing, you may email me.

This is not a comment or rejection of your original comment, Moulton, simply a request that these matters not be brought up in this place, where we may all meet in a spirit of inquiry and seeking understanding and depth. Thanks for understanding. --Abd 18:18, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• I don't understand you. I thought you had characterized your role as one of a mediator. [Sentence redacted by Abd] I am expressly asking you to mediate the conflict, to the best of your ability. If you have determined that this conflict exceeds your capacity as a would-be mediator, please declare that you are throwing up your hands and I will revector the festering and unresolved issues elsewhere. —Moulton 18:27, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• Moulton's original comment. Moulton, a mediator has invited you to his office, and, as well, a party where there may have been some prior conflict. The conversation does not begin with a monologue by one party listing complaints. Not in my office, not now. There may be a time and place for that later, after sufficient rapport has been established. My goal would be, in fact, to make the old conflict moot, not to try to coerce any party to do anything, nor to assess blame. Now, what would you like with your tea? Please make yourself at home, you can look around the contributions of Abd on wikiversity and wikipedia, if you care, but I do not expect that, at this time, all of my purposes and actions will be readily visible, though I do attempt to be quite open. You are welcome to ask about any of them, but not in a manner that would make any of my guests uncomfortable. Please respect this. I.e., you can ask about me. Not about them. If you and Adambro both show up here, I may explore the nature of your prior relationship, but with caution and the consent of both of you. Absent that ... enjoy your tea and the rest of your day. I'm confident you will understand.

• And thanks for your efforts to improve Wikiversity, considering the difficult conditions you face and have faced. It's getting better, Moulton, not worse. By the way, what name do you prefer I use for you here? --Abd 18:47, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Perplexed: What is the theory behind the practice of empowering erratic admins?

Abd, can you explain to me the theory that underlies your practice of empowering erratic admins? I am unclear on how you envision that to work. —Moulton 11:11, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't like "erratic admins," please avoid terminology like that. However, I'm not aware of any such empowerment. How would I be empowering anyone? I'm not a custodian and I'm certainly not a 'crat. I am endeavoring to cooperate with the entire Wikiversity community, and to develop and test policies and procedures to facilitate and continue that cooperation, with or without my personal participation. --Abd 18:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• I don't like erratic admins, either. Going forward, how may we eliminate the need to ever take note of the erratic behavior of such problematic admins? —Moulton 15:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

• It's hard for me to believe that you are that thick, but you can tell me if you were. I don't like "erratic admins" meant that I don't like the language you used, that is why it was in quotes. You lost the quotes, implying that I had expressed dislike for erratic administrators. I did not.
• On the substance, of course, there is a need for better review process covering the actions of administrators. Doing this consistently with the fact that administrators are unpaid and often unprofessional volunteers, as are most editors one WMF wikis, is indeed a problem to work on. I greatly prefer to work on the problem as a generic one, rather than nickel and diming it by focusing on specific administrators, except within due process as established, or as being established. --Abd 17:26, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

• It's not a good idea to believe things for which you lack evidence and independent confirmation. But euphemisms aside, I believe in calling a spade a spade. Anyhow, if it's true that you dislike erratic admins (independent of what euphemistic term of art you devise to characterize them), then the problem is how to deal with someone you don't like (because, let's say, they are too thin-skinned to tolerate being called "thick"). As to the reward structure, it occurs to me that the reward for playing Whack-a-Mole is a dopamine rush. But I reckon you probably knew that. This is the same dopamine-driven addiction that keeps people on Facebook playing Farmville and Mafia Wars day after day for months at a time. As to "due process" that phrase belongs in quotes since it manifestly does not exist in the Wikisphere (any more than it does in Farmville or Mafia Wars). —Moulton 19:22, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Example

• Abd, tl;dr. As I've said, I would not be comfortable unprotecting this page. Please make a request at RCA or wherever you feel is appropriate. Adambro 07:55, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Here you have evidence that Adam is "not comfortable" acting to enable me to make constructive edits to JT Neill's project on Motivation and Emotion. —Moulton 11:11, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• Moulton, I give you credit for great intelligence, please return the attitude. If Adambro is "not comfortable" taking an action, that is his complete right. He has sovereignty over his own actions, as you do over yours. Agreed? He and I and you are responsible for what we personally do. Adambro is, above, pointing me to the next phase of normal dispute resolution process, apparently we disagree on something. This is not a place to resolve that, Wikiversity is the place. This Talk page is a place where we can sit down together to explore our relationships and our goals, but, first, simply to get to know each other better. This is not a purely social interaction, for the goal is mutual understanding that may lead to less conflict on-wiki and other benefits. --Abd 18:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

additional comment from Moulton redacted Moulton 11:11, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• Moulton, in addition to reading your entire comment here, I will read Adambro's comment in situ, but from his response, he does not wish to discuss the particular matter further. That's his right. He remains welcome here, and I will, indeed, invite him to come again. I will explain further below. --Abd 18:33, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

IDCab Redux?

Abd, it occurs to me that the dominant surviving custodian on the English Wikiversity is on the verge of reprising the adversarial and autocratic tactics that eventually led to the disgrace and demise of so many members of the Intelligent Design Cabal. Perhaps you could warn him off that unwise course. —Moulton 13:37, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Moulton, your view of Wikiversity is warped by your personal involvement.

• Adambro is not the "dominant surviving custodian." He's not even particularly active, it's just that he focuses on you. It's a common phenomenon, sysops get wrapped up in "winning." Fatal flaw, in fact.
• I've warned him, before seeing this comment. I think I have to set my prefs here to email me when there is comment on my Talk.
• Don't mention IDCab, because it raises an appearance of battleground mentality. The issues at Wikiversity are different, though there is some level of analogy possible, it's thin. It's more about power and inability to hear and respond to criticism on Wikiversity. On Wikipedia there was actually a POV cabal. It's important historically to you, and that cabal is still functioning on Wikipedia -- though the engine is sputtering and some of the cars have been derailed -- but Wikiversity is a place where I believe it is still possible to set up structures and precedents to prevent repetition.
• To be very clear, what I'd see to handle your participation on Wikiversity is close monitoring by people, preferably sysops, who are both sympathetic to your educational goals and sensitive to the disruption which your "antics" can cause, who will negotiate with you with respect, but also be firm, which might mean, where you are not responsive -- you lose your temper, Moulton -- short blocks. "Bans" are, in fact, destructive, Wikipedia has not figured that out. Monitored blocks, with controlled bypass, allowing small-scale negotiation, could leave the door open for return to collaboration. The cabals don't want that, because they want the door slammed shut.
• Always remember that the world is free and the wiki is behind bars. You are indeed freer, in a way, blocked. That is generally true for voluntary communities: we give up certain freedoms in return for the value of connection and the results of cooperation.
• But beware of arrogance.

--Abd 15:51, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

To quote someone whom you know quite well, "The events of 2008 left deep wounds in this community." Perhaps my view is "warped" by having been an eyewitness to those dispiriting events. But it's now more than two years later, and the wounds are still festering and unhealed. The corrupt political machinations reverberate to this day, as impressionable young custodians adopt and reprise the same bullying tactics and coercive practices that threatened to destroy the project two years ago. I don't know if it's possible to turn that juggernaut around. But I appreciate that you (and others) are trying. —Moulton 17:17, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Stretching exercises

I replied on my user talk page. --JWSchmidt 08:59, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

On what basis do you object to me acting to restrain misguided Wikimedia Functioaries? "emergency desysop" <-- SB Johnny and Darklama disrupted the #wikiversity chat channel as was done in 2008. I took a reasonable precaution to block them here to prevent them from further disrupting Wikiversity. You are free to game the system and pretend that is grounds for "emergency desysop", but the problem is the disruption of Wikiversity by SB Johnny and Darklama. "You have violated your own principles in these blocks" <-- No, I am obligated to use my tools to protect Wikiversity, even if I find blocks to be distasteful. "there was no risk to beta.wikiversity, and you knew that" <-- The bans imposed by SB Johnny and Darklama were disruptive and, based on their past actions, I expected them to engage in the types of abuse that we saw today: misguided functionaries making false claims about vandalism and policies. I acted to prevent SB Johnny and Darklama from spreading their disruption in the pattern that was used at the English Language Wikiversity, and which, today, we have begun to see at this wiki. "There was and is some risk to beta from Moulton's disruptive edits" <-- What disruptive edits? What danger? --JWSchmidt 18:04, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

• Banhammers are not the answer. Banhammers will just bring about a reprise of Götterdämmerung. The solution is a sincere Truth and Reconciliation Process. —Firelion 18:11, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Firelion (Moulton) is correct. Such a process did begin on Wikiversity; it was Moulton who abandoned it, in fact, interpreting the statement of the other party as being an abandonment, when it wasn't. And then he began massively attacking her. He did not wait for the intervention of the mediator. He did not trust the mediator, so the mediation was doomed. It is Moulton who has prevented almost all Truth and Reconciliation process. --Abd 18:22, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

• Codswallop, baloney, and horse dookie. SBJ intervened to ask a question, and a full week went by with no response. Then, when a response finally came, it was to declare the discussion was over. —Firelion 18:27, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Moulton, have you ever noticed that you are always right? It doesn't matter what the evidence is, Moulton makes no significant mistakes. That's why you don't need to assert diffs, since, after all, you are always right. If there are other diffs that would tell a different story, it doesn't matter, because Moulton's stories are always right, the hypotheses they encode don't need serious attempts to falsify them, since it would be a waste of time, see Axiom 1, Moulton is always right. On the other hand, I make lots of mistakes. Perhaps I overlooked something. I do know that you escalated, attacking the other party, and citing her off-hand comment of lack of interest as a proof that she had ended it, which would make it all that much more difficult, if a mediation were to start up again, should SBJ -- lousy choice of a mediator, by the way -- have actually shut this down without cause.

It would seem that her expression of lack of interest was the ultimate insult: after all, how could she be so stupid as to not realize that she had cut off Wikipedia from the very center of the universe? How could she be so blase about it? Unforgiveable. So there we have it. I thought you were advised, Moulton, to disengage. You haven't. Hint. --Abd 18:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Suit yourself, JWS, you will wear the suit you cut. Your tolerance of Moulton's edits, here, attracted a steward, that's clear, probably aided greatly by your blocks of SBJ and Darklama. In other words, Moulton and you spread the disruption, just as Moulton spread the original disruption (from Wikipedia) to Wikiversity. By anticipating the spread, you caused it. You very much dislike the truth being told to you, and you respond with massive confusion. If you think your "precaution" was reasonable, then you are amply justifying the removal of your tools here. Don't say you weren't warned. I saw that, indeed, on Wikiversity, you were not warned, your complaints had a basis. Formally, you should, at this point, be warned by a steward, but I've never seen that. In theory, as well, anyone attempting to have you desysopped should notify you of the process, but, again, I don't see a custom of that when it happens off-wiki. There should be such procedure, no doubt about it, an opportunity for you to defend your actions or to apologize and promise not to repeat them, but others think that's a waste of time, apparently. The argument will be made that any 'crat can restore the tools, which is true. So, if the tools are removed, and you want them back, you'll be able to ask, here.

It's also possible that there won't be an emergency desysop. It requires someone to care enough. Always the problem.

Or you can spend the next two years complaining about how unfair it all was, which it seems you have preferred. Look, I was just blocked for a few days on Wikiversity, without warning, and improperly. So? I'm not the center of the universe, JWS. There are ways to fix the mistakes of bureaucracies, Moulton isn't exactly correct. But stirring the pot, keeping everything mixed up, isn't one of the ways, not unless conditions are ripe for total revolution, and total revolutions tend, historically, to do massive damage. --Abd 18:20, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

• Moulton's edits did not attract a steward. SBJ dispatched a contingent of Keystone Cops to balete the direct evidence that gave the lie to what he wrote about Moulton. —Firelion 18:23, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Someone would have gone there if it wasn't him, and I don't know that it was him. How do you know that? I did not see all the evidence, you are free to email it to me. I just saw that "confirmation" letter, which, to me, looked like advice to you to disengage. You didn't disengage, you engaged in more provocation, on beta.wikiversity as well as, a little, on meta. --Abd 18:49, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

You may have effectively taken down JWS, by the way. Proud of that? Collateral damage? --Abd 18:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

History repeats itself when Moulton writes the scripts, it seems. Hopefully JWS will see it this time before it's too late. SB Johnny 20:37, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

• Moulton didn't write the script. That script is as old as Gilgamesh, as well known as the the Old and New Testament, as beloved as Snorri Sturluson's Norse epics, as renowed as Richard Wagner's Ring of the Niebelung, and as popular at Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and George Lucas' Star Wars. It's the recurring story of the epic battle between agape and the lust for power. Why should anyone on Wikipedia, with their tin badges and toy banhammers be any less immune to it? Who the hell do you think taught Moulton about it in the first place? —Firelion 21:04, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

• Write, direct, reinterpret, whatever... it's still you that's pushing everyone into the lake. You don't mind being blocked because it helps you make your point, but I'm pretty sure JWS will mind if your little game ends up costing him yet again. SB Johnny 21:24, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Notices for custodians

Re User talk:TeleComNasSprVen. The last comment in this notice or request is copied here:

*Yet he continues harassing me in this latest diff on my talkpage which triggered Special:Notifications instead of contributing usefully to Beta Wikiversity's content like any other normal editors would. He clearly knows he is harassing because I've already warned him, and not only does he disregard my warning he arrogantly claims to speak for me as to what I consider harassment. And his combative behavior compels him to have to write long ad hominem drivels to respond to others' criticism. This behavior should not be tolerated, here or anywhere else. Please block him from my talkpage. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 23:15, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

The user is essentially complaining about a notice of an edit to his talk page. If my goal were to harass him, the only way to prevent this would be to full-protect the page. (Blocking me would not do it. However, simply asking me to stop editing his talk page would do it.)

It's totally silly. He or she does not point out that the edit was self-reverted, that no response was required, and the page was left intact, as he left it. I pointed out that what was called "removing harassment" was removing the user's own comments, not mine.

I thought it important to point that out, for this user often presents evidence in ways that can readily be misinterpreted, quite conveniently. This entire sequence resulted from unwillingness to simply accept a brief criticism of gratuitous incivility. This is not a new user, the user knows, quite well, that such warnings can be ignored, as long as they don't repeat the behavior, and sometimes even if they do. They can simply blank them without comment. They have done it many times. (In this case, some behavior warned about was repeated after filing the complaint, so the user does not mind administrative attention.)

No, there is an apparent goal here: to make it so unpleasant to criticize behavior that, it is imagined, users will avoid it. I've had occasion to review history back into 2011 today, and there the user was, doing similar things.The user is not here to improve this project, i.e, to create or improve educational materials, their goals would be quite similar to those on en.wikiversity.[1] What will be done here is wikignoming, around WMF "free use" policy, and they won't care about any impact on the users or materials. The work is legitimate, generally, or at least allowable, but the manner in which it is done often is not. The user revert wars, readily, as an example. I can show examples if needed, but it's not necessary unless someone asks.

By the way, that the notice (request for custodian action, i.e., a "block") was made without notifying me is also typical behavior for this user.

So that the user has a notice of this comment, @TeleComNasSprVen. No response is required, and, indeed, from long experience, I hereby request that the user stay off my Talk page. --Abd (talk) 02:33, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Follow-up.[2] The user this time posted in French, attempting to appeal to the custodian David.crochet, apparently. David knows English, and TCNSV's English is quite good, so that was strange.

I've addressed nearly all the issues raised, already. The original warning was civil, a mild warning for mild incivility. (Calling an error, easily recognized and corrected in seconds, a "mangling" is high hyperbole, i.e., exaggeration, and calling the error "usual" implies regular repetition, this is how someone writes who is claiming a user is disruptive.) I have no history of harassment by sock puppet, and only used a single sock for a very short time on en.wiki as a continuation of a test, nobody was harassed, and some good edits remained. That violated guidelines on editor behavior, but in the name of w:WP:IAR and the results demonstrated that, in fact, some of the editing was an improvement. None was shown to be damage, it was merely reverted on the basis of being block evasion. (This was before my enwiki ban.)

What I wrote in that self-reverted edit to the user's talk page was just a fact, rooted in It's really a bad idea to threaten people. Sane adults resist it strongly.

As to my purpose on Beta, my primary wiki and field of activity is en.wikiversity, where I have over 10,500 non-deleted edits, almost 2000 logged actions (I was a sysop for some extended periods), and many deleted edits (I commonly place speedy-deletion tags, most commonly after moving resources for organization, where redirects are not needed.)

I am not a regular content contributor on Beta, because English is the only language I feel comfortable writing in. However, I am very interested in the Wikiversity concept, obviously, and often work with users involved with other language Wikiversities.

On en.wikiversity, a current project is a study of fair use and permitted use files, looking at how to (1) allow fair use and permitted use within the restrictions of WMF free use policy -- en.wikiversity has an Exemption Doctrine Policy allowing fair use, and we would think, permitted use as well -- while (2) promoting and supporting users in the educational process. Wikiversities are not just about the production of content, and, in fact, content, per se, may be less important than discussion and learning. --Abd (talk) 17:50, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Beta is broken

How badly it's broken is another matter. It may not be a real problem.

However, TCNSV filed a complaint on Wikiversity:Notices for custodians. There has been no response since filing, 23:59, 20 February 2014.

It is important that requests for custodian attention receive prompt attention. Who would see TCNSV's complaint? If a custodian has edited the page, it would normally be on the administrator's watchlist, and the administrator may receive email notification of it.

A list of Beta custodians:[3] Shown are date of last activity, is email enabled, and, if the user has ever edited the Notices page, the last date is shown:

• Ciprian Dorin Craciun 12:37, 12 March 2013, Yes,
• Crochet.david 11:54, 24 February 2014 (log), Yes. 15:35, 1 April 2012‎
• Darklama 15:50, 2 June 2013, No.
• Erkan Yilmaz 04:04, 16 September 2013, Yes. 17:40, 19 March 2010‎
• Gabrielchihonglee 09:37, 16 February 2014, Yes.
• Hillgentleman 07:09, 20 February 2014, Yes. 15:45, 22 April 2008‎.
• KaidoKikkas 18:54, 24 February 2014, Yes.
• Kanjy 08:35, 22 February 2013 (log), Yes.
• Rjclaudio 13:58, 13 January 2012, Yes.
• Shujenchang 07:31, 16 September 2013, Yes.
• Sotiale 04:34, 24 February 2014 (log), Yes. 10:44, 26 August 2013‎
• Wasami007 07:06, 20 February 2014, Yes.
• ZaDiak 21:53, 22 August 2011, Yes.

The last edit to the Notices page was of Sotiale, acknowledging a notice from a steward, that three custodians and one bureaucrat were about to lose their privileges for inactivity (due to a new policy). All were removed, and for the record, only the following responded to the notice on the user talk page: [4].

Four custodians, including two active, might have seen a notice of the edit. None responded, even with a helpful comment or a "saw this, nothing to do."

The complaint may have been filed on the wrong page. There is another page, Wikiversity:Request custodian action

However, that page has even less activity than the Notices page. Only Crochet.david would be likely to see it, from History.[5]

(I'd expect all custodians to have both pages on their watchlists, and they might, it's just that I can't tell if they have manually added the page. The Notices page would be crucial, but there should be custodians who also watch the Requests page, obviously, and who handle requests (accept, comment, deny, close). It looked like the Requests page has never been used since it was started in 2009.

That's an error, I just now realized. The redirect WV:RCA used in the site notice goes to a root page, Wikiversity:Request custodian action, which does point to the language pages. The English RCA is Wikiversity:Request custodian action/En. That page has some activity. Hillgentleman and Crochet.david are present custodians who have edited it. The page has mostly been used for renaming requests, which are not for ordinary administrators, they are for bureaucracts.

I will not forward the complaint, because my position is that the matter involved should not have been brought to custodian attention, it will waste their time. However, if the user wishes to persist in drawing attention to his or her behavior (and mine), the user is free to do it. --Abd (talk) 17:12, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

However, ultimately I will act to revive the Request page. There is a site message that draws attention to the Notices page. How may site custodians help you? You can also report any problems you have to site custodians. This is misleading, slightly. Both situations described refer to requests for custodian action. The Notices page is not about "problems," per se.

The previous language in the Site Notice was clearer, but was changed in 2011 to the present language. It will take custodian action to change the Site Notice. So I have a task for another day, here.

NfC is for what it says, notices for custodians. RCA is for what it says, requests for custodians. We may want another page that is a general dispute resolution page, though I don't see a lot of dispute on this wiki, any more. Still, when there were problems, and major disruption, it took quite a while to get anyone to pay attention to it, and steward intervention became necessary. That's not good. This site actually has many active custodians. -Abd (talk) 17:44, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

first and last disclamer

This message is doubled on 2 pages of discussion of people involved: Ladies and gentlemen. When I receive a request for mediation between two people, who themselves are unable to find a "common ground", I do not go in the delicacy. If I have to intervene to calm the "whining" it will be clear is blocking one month. Now that you connaisser the terminating, is sure to keep you quiet. word to the wise. Crochet.david (talk) 09:01, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I did not request that you mediate. TeleComNasSprVen complained, and complained, and complained, on Wikiversity:Notices for custodians (the wrong place, as I explained). I did not take the matter to custodian attention, he did.

My long-term concern and involvement is with the Wikiversity mission, and I am not so active here because of language issues. However, there is a newcomer being attacked by TCNSV. The newcomer created a page that, quite clearly, had it been an English equivalent, would be kept on the English Wikiversity. It might be moved to user space if it is not adequately developed for mainspace, that's all. How pages like this are treated are important for the future of Wikiversity.

I recognize your warning, though I'm not sure what, exactly, I'm being warned about. I've been engaged in quite a few different activities here. Which ones are a problem?

I can interpret your request as one to avoid all contact or mention of TeleComNasSprVen, on-wiki. That's fine.

I will not, after this edit, make any mention of the user here, unless and until I have permission, a request from an administrator, or there is a clear necessity.

I have filed a request for custodian attention at Wikiversity:Request custodian action/En. Given your warning and lack of interest in the issues of substance, only being annoyed by "whining," which is understandable, I request that you allow a custodian fluent in English handle that. Thank you for your kind attention.

Oui, je comprends votre bonne intention, et la récompense de la patience est la patience.--Abd (talk) 17:01, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

The user has made my mention of him necessary. See [6] and [7]. Because of lack of custodian attention to the issues, for far too long, I am now revert warring to maintain Template:delete as it was before this user changed it. There is a small improvement that was included in his radical change, I'd prefer to incorporate that, and attempted to, but the user insisted on his full and disruptive change and revert warred to maintain it. I will stand down if any custodian intervenes, or likely any regular user other than him, or if he presents cogent arguments for his change. --Abd (talk) 14:31, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

IRC?

Hi Abd, I'm still reading up on things here, but it'd be great if we can meet at IRC #wikiversity or #wikiversity-en (Wikiversity:Communication/En). In general: I admire the time you invest in this. cool... ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 20:19, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. We can either communicate on-wiki, or if you think something should be confidential, by private email. I prefer on-wiki, generally, and am noting for the record here that we have no off-wiki communication on this matter, so far. At this point, I do see what can be done, I suggested it on your Talk page, and it should be, in theory, non-disruptive, representing a test of what could have been done all along. However, opposition has already been expressed, with [8].

And here you are bypassing the Dutch community totally, sorry, that can never be considered a normal way of acting.

Yes, bypassing the Dutch community totally, as to what should not concern the Dutch community, if it is truly believed that all these pages were useless. That is the whole point of moving resources to user space, generally, to make it unnecessary to argue about them.

When I've seen opposition to moves like this, sometimes it comes from a desire to punish the user, which is a Bad Idea. It is surely not coming from a desire to save disk space, since deleted pages take up the same space as visible ones. (If Timboliu uploaded the pages to his user space, or to any user space, they would then take up extra space.)

It will merely allow review of the files by regular users. Dutch users may participate in that if they choose. It is possible that there will be some issues with categories. That can be handled, if needed. The goal is indeed to allow the Dutch community to proceed without hindrance. I've requested no further deletions, for the time being, by Romaine, but it was never a necessity to have a Dutch custodian to handle Dutch deletion requests, Beta has proceeded for years without needing such. Timboliu did not actually contest deletions, he did not attempt to remove tags. Given a list of deletions, enjoying consensus for that, easy for any sysop to delete, and you have a bot you can use for it, I think Crochet.david does as well. But I don't expect another 5000 deletions! Actually, Category:Wikiversiteit only contains, now, 41 pages, with only a couple of pages in subcategories. I see deletion requests for recipe pages that probably could be part of a legitimate resource.[9] But I dislike creating page structure in a language other than my own, or I'd comment on that deletion request page and act to create the resource, that's what I'd do on en.wv. A user there says that the pages could be appropriate for Wikibooks, and that is possibly true. Wikiversity can often serve as a book incubator for Wikibooks. Wikiversity was actually started as a Wikibooks project, to handle original research and a wider variety of educational resources.

Key, though, to any mass deletion is clear consensus for it. The problem with what was done was that consensus was manufactured through the canvassed participation of non-Wikiversitans with an external agenda. That agenda is compatible with Beta, but is not inclusive of other things that are also compatible with Beta. So my goal is to support what is legitimate of the agenda, and stop the damage.

If you can explain that on IRC, to them, fine. But, again, my preference is for on-wiki discussions, and especially if some review might later be needed.

As to "cool," the basic issue here, for me, is control of Wikiversity by Wikipedians with no concept of the Wikiversity mission, who often, then, historically, damage the critical features of Wikiversity that, for me, make it the great white hope of the WMF. It is possible, on a Wikiversity project, to negotiate deep consensus, outside of the constraints of an encyclopedia; this, then, can feed back to the encyclopedias, just as academia generates expertise and expert comment, too often missing from the 'pedias. (It does not feed back through being defined as reliable source, it is not that; rather, it can generate understanding of topics, so that editors on a 'pedia are better informed and can understand sources more deeply.

Wikiversity, among other things, is a place where topics can actually be discussed, often with experts, while discussion of topics is generally prohibited on the 'pedias. (And experts who try to answer questions or point out errors on encyclopedia talk pages are often told to go away.) One does not go to an encyclopedia for deep learning!

So this is worth a substantial investment of time. -Abd (talk) 21:12, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Please be aware that the deleted pages were not "suddenly" deleted, and that several users from the Dutch Wikimedia projects were involved before actual deletion. Problems on the "Dutch" WikiVersity have been detected earlier, it has been a topic on IRC many times. Bluntly said, WikiVersity has become a personal scrap-book of one user, where most users would use Evernote or Google Keep, this user was using Wikiversity instead. Including memo's "when certain people should be re-contacted", ideas of how commercial companies could pay to support a certain page on WikiVersity, many links to commercial projects that we "accidentally in the commercial interest of this one users business activities", etc. This user didn't want to give up his project as he already spent three years on it, but obviously he would also not get any cooperation from other users as well, as there was no idea, it was just like 3000 loose ends with no beginning, no end, just copied pieces of Dutch news sites, seminars this one user seemed to have visited, and people that were related (or not) to Wikimedia projects, like the staff members of the Dutch Wikimedia Office in Utrecht. Now we have actually started cleaning up the project, hoping that we could get an environment where a true WikiVersity could be set up, rather then a public Evernote of this one specific user, this user now complains that "we" demolish his project and all his spent time is becomming worthless. But I also believe that Wikiversity has been used for "articles" it wasn't meant for. Pages of people working for WMN or ideas how a company can commercially support a part-project, can only be deleted, there is no way we can save this to be "useful later". I'm sorry to say that it looks like 99% of the existing pages are just crap. They contain personal notes, and therefor should be deleted. That this one user believes that HE will learn from this crap, is fine. Move all to his Evernote/Google Keep/etc, but not on a public WikiVersity. Edoderoo (talk) 17:17, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

First of all, I'm quite aware of the history, having researched it in detail. Part of my point is that the "effort" to deal with the "problem" was almost entirely off-wiki, not here. We can see that when Romaine placed his custodian candidacy, 6 votes came in immediately, within minutes of each other. That is a practically conclusive indication that this was announced off-wiki. It appears, though this is not conclusive, that Timboliu had no clue what was happening, I'm sure he was overjoyed to see Dutch interest, and he then, himself, voted for Romaine.

I readily understand your opinion, Edoderoo, of his work. We have seen similar on en.wikiversity, but we handle it, usually quickly. I have reviewed Timboliu's User talk page history here. One could think of him as a disruptive user, so where were all the warnings? Where were the requests to stop? Basically, little to nothing for three years. I see a couple of hiccups, nothing serious, nothing really dedicated to educating him.

And that is what we do with "disruptive users" on Wikiversity. We educate them. We do delete inappropriate pages, and usually quickly, or we begin a process that reliably comes to a conclusion. We do this through a series of measures that maintain respect for the educational needs of the user, because our goal on Wikiversity is not just "educational materials," but education itself, which was called, in the mission statement, "learning by doing." This is unique among the WMF wikis.

Edoderoo, I see from CentralAuth that you have no edits to any Wikiversity but here, where you now have 22 edits total, with only 15 showing in contributions, so you probably tagged seven pages for deletion. It would appear that your entire Wikiversity experience has been since you appeared here, made a joking comment on a Talk page, and then, next day, voted for Romaine as custodian. However, I did just realize that I've been making an unwarranted assumption that could be quite wrong. I've been assuming that there was not much communication with Timboliu. It is possible that there was more communication than I have seen, but that this was on now-deleted Talk pages. From Central Auth, though, I can tell that your participation here was quite limited.

So how do you know what is appropriate for Wikiversity and what is not? It's very clear that Timboliu did not lay a proper foundation for what work he wanted to do, but because Wikipedians, typically, have no idea what can be done on a Wikiversity, they won't see how to advise someone like Timboliu, how to guide and educate him. Wikiversity is very much not like the Wikipedias, because of the "learning by doing" mission.

If a user on Wikipedia is ignorant, as to policy, sometimes others will educate the user; but education of users is not the primary focus on Wikipedias, and what education there is might as well be called "indoctrination," i.e., "this is the way we do things, if you are different, go away." Users may be "educated" by being blocked.

Wikiversities, by design, are much more tolerant, following modern educational concepts, where people are encouraged to discover for themselves -- but with help from friends -- how they learn best. With what, to a Wikipedian, may look like vandalism, a Wikiversitan might see a 7-year-old practicing with a computer, and then guide the user to what is non-disruptive and educational. We don't keep the essays of 7-year-old users in mainspace, not so far, anyway. (a collection of these might be fascinating). Rather, we move them to user space, and let the user know they can create whatever pages they want there, but, please avoid [...] and we tell them what not to do and watch for problems. In the case I have in mind, the user did, in fact, cooperate, and did, in fact, learn, and quickly, and is now, still quite young, a relatively accomplished Wikimedian. Still makes mistakes. What do you expect from someone who is maybe ten years old?

What this users had been identified as, before the Wikiversity welcome, was "cross-wiki vandal," and he was being routinely blocked. When he was welcomed on Wikiversity, the cross-wiki vandalism disappeared.

Timboliu is not a child, but was quite naive about wikis and wiki process. He can learn. Obviously, he had a very defective concept of what was acceptable here. He did indeed use Wikiversity as if it were a place to collect random notes. Basically, he could do that in his user space, with a relatively limited number of pages. 5000 pages, no. But nobody guided him, for three years. That is why there was such a huge mess to clean up. It's a collective failure. Whose failure?

Well, I don't read Dutch, except with Google translate. I saw Timboliu, but had no idea of the scope of what he'd done. Oddly, in this whole affair, the first person to mention "5000 pages" was me. There was no explicit description of the scope of the problem, anywhere that I saw, other than within the Dutch walled garden, perhaps (and I still haven't seen it there, it's just that I could easily miss it). When Timboliu came to en.wikiversity for advice, and, later, more or less, screaming in pain, so to speak, he didn't provide specifics. He is not an experienced Wikimedian, at all! When I finally looked at the deletion log here, I nearly fell over. And that was when deletions were at 1600 or so. Quickly, the number went to over 5000.

This was a major Wikiversity event, and not being mentioned on Babel or much of anywhere outside of the newly created Dutch Wikiversity:Forum, in Dutch, of course. This is the problem with that many deletions at once. It is impossible for a small community to carefully review 5000 files in a couple of weeks, unless there is a highly organized effort. Further, if the reviewing community has no clear concept of what is allowed on Wikiversity and what is not, but applies Wikipedian concepts, it could happen that lots of unnecessary deletions will be made. And, then, normally, if a page has been speedy deleted, or deleted with a summary process, it can routinely be undeleted on request. How does one address this with 5000 pages?

The process set up by Romaine was defective as to normal wiki policies. He made deletion be upon placement of a tag, and a brief delay, then deletion by a custodian. That places deletion authority in the hands of custodians; normally, with expedited deletion process, any user may remove the tag, and then, if deletion is still required, there is a full deletion discussion, with adequate time (no deadline, normally, and deadlines are routinely ignored even if set, because deletion is not an emergency; rather, the process waits for consensus to appear), and then a close. Generally, any user may close. However, a deletion close requires sysop tools, that's all. (Otherwise if a regular user closes with delete, they must then convince a sysop to actually delete, and the sysop should review the discussion, so the regular user close is extra.)

So, the situation: Romaine had lots of general WikiMedian experience, but effectively zero Wikiversity experience, I just reviewed CA for him. His concepts are clearly Wikipedian, not Wikiversitan, and if you don't know the difference, it would be obvious why: you are a Wikipedian. You are welcome here, don't misunderstand me, but what you will instinctively bring to this table could be harmful for Wikiversity, which was designed with a very different founding purpose. Please, set aside what you expect from your Wikipedia experience; Wikiversity is, for those who understand it, a breath of fresh air, after slogging through the muck on Wikipedia. If you don't think that Wikipedia is "slogging through the muck," maybe you have never experienced anything else! That conclusion is where many early Wikipedians ended up, those that still communicate. And they never discovered Wikiversity. I did. --Abd (talk) 20:24, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, this sounds rather pitiful. Superman Abd know best and is suddenly able to judge on the content of articles in a language he can not read. And of course, Timboliu will be selective in the articles he presents to you. Not the empty pages. not the requests for sponsoring, not outdated news-pages etc. Abd, please, assume good faith towards Romaine. The Banner talk 00:02, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The Banner, your comments are entirely based on your fantasies. Timboliu did not present any articles to me. I see exactly what Romaine did, I assume good faith, I believe I understand his motives well, and I also see that the process he set up was, in effect, abusive. Both.

I just did an analysis of it on User talk:Erkan Yilmaz. I can read articles in almost all languages. I cannot judge writing quality, that is another matter. However, content, I can see and usually understand. Now, The Banner, do you have any example at hand of where I misinterpreted article content? I certainly can make mistakes. But, instead, I'm seeing a disturbing habit here: no evidence is needed, one can simply make whatever seems like it might stick, as mud to toss, such as your assuming that Timboliu only showed me good articles. No, he showed me none at all, I looked at his material myself and I saw plenty of problems with it, but also some obvious solutions that non-Wikiversitans would likely not think of, because Wikiversity is very different from an encyclopedia project, and it can take some Wikiversity experience to understand this.

Some of what was complained of would not be a problem on en.wikiversity; to address a present issue, for example: one could easily put up recipes. What we probably would not allow would be individual mainspace recipes. But a resource on Cooking as a top level "class" and Cooking/Recipes as a subpage, no problem at all; then the individual recipes could be subpages of that. Nice, neat, organized, and actually could be useful, but especially fun.

So when I see something like a recipe page on Wikiversity, I'll create that superstructure, if it doesn't exist, and move the recipe page underneath it. I would usually drop a speedy deletion tag on the redirect. I also notify the user, thanking them for their contribution and telling them what I did with it. We are not just building educational resources, we are building a community that is mutually supportive. It works.

How about you either apologize for the travesty you visited on Timboliu, can you imagine what it is like to see three years of work disappear, quality or no quality, with every argument ignored and rejected, and no compromises, even when there were some obvious ones, or please go away and do something useful, like sitting on a newspaper to keep it from blowing away.

I'm serious. Timboliu could use some encouragement now. I assume that you would have seen Plan 2014, since you nominated that for deletion, where he was excited by the custodian candidacy of Romaine? At last, Dutch users were going to help out! He obviously had not read the Wikimedia post of Romaine, where the agenda was laid out and Timboliu was defined as the problem to be fixed.

The problem with that page was that it was one of two possibilities: a Wikiversity process page, in which case it should have been in Wikiversity space, or a personal plan, in which case it would have been personally acceptable in his user space. He requested page moves to his user space. Ignored. He asked lots of questions. Ignored. This was shameful treatment of a user; this kind of treatment is what has given wikis a very bad name.

With experienced Wikiversitan involvement, most of Timboliu's pages would have been deleted, as-is, but it would have been done collaboratively, with merges and a great tightening up of his work, and all the accoutrements of skilled education, so that the result would have been that he's excited by what he's learning and the new opportunities opening up. Instead, what did you give him? --Abd (talk) 00:47, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

"The Banner, your comments are entirely based on your fantasies." -> Hahahahahahahahaha, sorry, you are humorous. What a great joke. The Banner has actually seen all the deleted pages, understands Dutch, understands the guidelines, and is part of the community who created the guidelines. He based his comments on what he has seen. User Abd hasn't seen any of the deleted pages, but only know a sad story and has written a long list of conspiracy theories, false harassments and wrong assumptions.

"I see exactly what Romaine did, I assume good faith" - You absolutely don't. If you assume good faith, you don't act like a troll and write all those false harassments and wrong assumptions.

"I just did an analysis of it" -> You didn't as you haven't seen any of the pages what it is about, you haven't read nor understood the guidelines or discussions. Your thinking is bogus.

"I saw plenty of problems with it, but also some obvious solutions" -> Maybe some solutions like the crap on some pages on en.Wikiversity, but you haven't presented any solution to the problems which the Dutch community has stated.

"with every argument ignored and rejected" -> Again, false harassments and wrong assumptions, as Timboliu took part in the discussions and his arguments were weighted.

"and no compromises" -> because the pagaes are considered to be worse than worse.

"I'm serious. Timboliu could use some encouragement now." -> You make it even worse for him. If you are serious, what you certainly not have shown on this wiki this month, you would have acted and reacted differently.

"but it would have been done collaboratively, with merges and a great tightening up of his work" -> You haven't seen the pages. The Dutch community considered the pages to be too worse to be useful in any way. Collection crap may be a normal way of action on the English Wikiversity, this isn't the English Wikiversity and the policies there do not apply here. Romaine (talk) 06:22, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The Banner drops by

Why do you so desperately want to help Timboliu? I have judged many of his pages and to my opinion 99.995 was plain rubbish. The Banner talk 01:08, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not desperate. Desperation was the state of Romaine when he wrote wikimedia-l. "Emergency."

Now, 99.995 percent, eh? Cool. There were maybe 5000 pages deleted. So that would only allow a quarter of a page to be "not rubbish." Yet I just mentioned a page above that wasn't rubbish, and, in fact, it's one you nominated for deletion. Plan 2014. Shouldn't have been in mainspace, to be sure, but nobody was giving Timboliu any guidance. Just because a user space or Wikiversity space page is in mainspace doesn't make it "rubbish."

I see some pages still undeleted that are not "rubbish," though, again, they need organizational work. There also was a majority position on a few nominations on the deletion page where actual consensus, had the deleting custodian been at all neutral, was Merge, not Delete.

Now, give me some reason to suspect that you are not a net harm to this project. What are your intentions here? What do you want to build, or are you only interested in tearing down "rubbish."?

I see that you are blocked on nl.wiki. My condolences. I make no assumption about that, but taking a look at your user talk page there, I do have one suggestion, I'll offer unsolicited. When blocked, never tell the blocking administrator that he or she is wrong. Never attempt to establish that. Unless it is totally and immmediately obvious from clear evidence, in which case you would never say "you are wrong." You would say something like, "I see why you would think that, but please look at this [diff], there has been some mistake. Usually, though, if you want to be unblocked, what is most effective is to ask what you can do to assure the administrator or any other administrator passing by that there will be no problems if you are unblocked. The best way to do that is to thoroughly understand the block reason, so you can actually explain why it won't happen again. "I didn't do anything wrong" does not inspire confidence that a problem won't repeat. Now, no charge for that.

I was looking at your history, and I see over 43,000 edits on nl.wiki and a very long block log, with many familiar names as blocking administrators. I'm suspecting, now, that there is something you haven't learned, after all. Wikiversity is for learning. Care to stick around and learn something?

I also see over 44,000 edits on en.wiki. Quite impressive. I also see a substantial block log there, and, again, I'm familiar with many of the blocking admins. So, is that history misleading? Do you know what it indicates about you?

You are a quite experienced Wikipedian. What would you think if a user comes to the wiki and their entire wiki history, aside from a little process stuff, consists of deletion requests, all focused on the work of one user? They do not work on creating or improving articles, just on deleting them. Indeed, Central Auth shows for the user, for the wiki, in about 6 weeks, 2,171 edits, but contributions show only 150 edits. You realize what that means, right? Busy little bee, you have been. Or should I say, tireless termite? --Abd (talk) 02:14, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

"Desperation was the state of Romaine when he wrote wikimedia-l. "Emergency."" -> I didn't wrote emergency. You are infringing on my words. Again!

"Now, 99.995 percent, eh? Cool. There were maybe 5000 pages deleted. So that would only allow a quarter of a page to be "not rubbish."" -> The rest was no rubish, but still too worse to keep.

"Just because a user space or Wikiversity space page is in mainspace doesn't make it "rubbish."" -> Nobody has stated such. The contents of the page are considered to be too worse to be of any use anywhere.

"are not "rubbish," though, again, they need organizational work." -> And again, this is the Dutch community who decides on what is rubbish, not you. It is also the Dutch community who considers the pages as non useful on no way at all. "Organizational work" may be sufficient for the English Wikiversity with a total lack of vision and a lack of simple basic requirements, resulting in many pages with crap, the Dutch community has decided differently.

"Now, give me some reason to suspect that you are not a net harm to this project." -> You are trolling on this wiki, and you ask another user who is working constructively on this wiki if he is harming the project. You, Abd, you are harming this project.

"What are your intentions here?" -> His intentions are to set up a useful Wikiversity in Dutch. What are your intentions here?? Romaine (talk) 06:31, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

• Emergency. You are correct, but only in that you did not use the word "emergency." You used the word "urgent." Which is, in English, in a context like this, a synonym, which is why I remembered it that way.[10][11] The point was "desperation," and "urgent" indicates that the same as "emergency." The Banner seemed to think I was "desperate," and I pointed out that the word might be more appropriate for you. I still think that, because for a sysop to ignore a recusal request must require some strong purpose. Or a foolish sysop.
• not rubbish. Thanks for agreeing. Now, if there is a page that is "not rubbish," but perhaps it is not suited for mainspace, and the user wants it userfied, what is normal procedure? On Wikiversity, one of our goals is education, and students use their user space for their own education. Who decides what is useful for the education of a Wikiversity student? Sysops? The Community? The Board of the WikiMedia Foundation? Or, how about the student? But, yes, we don't let students leave their notes lying about in mainspace.
• Vision. The people who founded Wikiversity, which included Beta, went on to establish the English Wikiversity, of which you have such a charming opinion. Some aspects of the vision were naive, some were simply incomplete, inexperienced. We now have the experience, and there is vision, and traditions that work to build content and to allow academic freedom and, a popular buzzword in American education now, self-directed learning. What you have, Romaine, is lack of imagination.
• Trolling, harm. A serious and grossly uncivil claim. What harm? Apparently, you consider it harm to point out that a group of users, led by yourself, came here to demolish the Dutch Wikiversity, almost completely, without any balance, without any attempt to consider the education of the major participant. In the deletion discussions, a consensus for deletion was not shown for many pages. You actions based on those discussions demonstrate, clearly, that your goal was not maximizing consensus, but pursuing your own agenda, which is, in part, entirely clear. The part that is clear is your intention to delete massive numbers of pages, and you had this intention from before being a sysop.
• Summary. Romaine, as you have been acting, you are a danger to the Wikiversity mission. You brought a particular segment of the Dutch community here, people like The Banner. People ready to swing an axe. Not what we call "scholars." You are not a Wikiversitan, you had no Wikiversity experience, and you still have no record of creating Wikiversity content. Will I do anything about this? I'm considering that. This is a meta issue, ultimately. It would not be the first time that a Wikiversity has been co-opted by users disinterested in academic freedom and not understanding learning-by-doing.
• The principle of community autonomy is strong. However, a handful of users, collected together by off-wiki process, which obviously happened, is not a true community. There are WikiMedia Foundation issues. My first step with something like this is to study what happened, because I don't just start screaming. I wrote about this here because I was asked. When I find that someone really doesn't want the matter studied, it's a clue to me that there really is something there to look at. Otherwise, what's the problem with study?
• The next step, which depends on what I find, would be an RfC. I did that on en.wiki, and a collection of users showed up to yell at me, and call for me to be banned, there was a two-thirds majority opposing what I'd put up. That, then, failing to find support, created the basis for an Arbitration Committee case. In spite of a lot of screaming from users who very much did not want anyone looking at what they were doing, the Arbitration Committee totally validated what I'd covered, and reprimanded the sysop.
• So I do know how to handle this. But it's a lot of work, and I'm not yet convinced that the occasion is worth the effort. It might depend on how the "Dutch Wikiversity community" proceeds. --Abd (talk) 14:20, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

• "Which is, in English, in a context like this, a synonym" -> I certainly disagree with that. A dog is a mammal, not every mammal is a dog. Here too: An emergency is urgent, but not everything urgent is an emergency. No synonym.
• "The Banner seemed to think I was "desperate,"" -> It is a simple description of your actions.
• "I still think that, because for a sysop to ignore a recusal request must require some strong purpose. Or a foolish sysop." -> I have accountability and responsibility to the Dutch community, not to someone to an outsider who thinks he can decide for the Dutch community, not to someone who has posted an overdose of false harassments and wrong assumptions, not to someone who acts like an idiot. I would be a fool if I would take you seriously instead of the Dutch community.
• "not rubbish. Thanks for agreeing." -> I do not agree with you, the Dutch community does not agree with you as they decided to get it deleted as it is considered not useful.
• "Now, if there is a page that is "not rubbish," but perhaps it is not suited for mainspace, and the user wants it userfied, what is normal procedure?" -> If the community thinks a page is not usable for any educational purpose, thinks that this is never a possibility in future, such page would not be restored.
• "We now have the experience, and there is vision" -> Good luck with that. I am very happy other Wikiversity language communities has a different view on what should be considered a learning compared with the English community.
• "and to allow academic freedom" -> Adding and allowing crap to a wiki (because a community is afraid to maintain quality) is not the same as academic freedom.
• "What you have, Romaine, is lack of imagination." -> Maybe you can leave some of it behind when you leave this wiki. But be careful, your imagination has a burnout.
• "A serious and grossly uncivil claim." -> You are complaining about that. Hahahahahahaha. You really are humorous. Shall I repeat your long list of uncivil claims, false harassments and wrong assumptions? Ye, let's do that:

"I made two requests here" - In Babel you made things up, you are attacking me, I am sorry that your requests got lost.

"you wrote about "false accusations."" -> Yes, and incorrect statements. Examples:

• "The response cherry-picks from Timboliu's over 32,000 contributions" -> I pressed random and all pages I got on my screen had issues. No "cherry-picks".
• "They decided, off-wiki, to support the creation of a Dutch Beta custodian, who could then handle the situation." -> there was no "they", I thought I need to do something on my own. There is no "off-wiki", it all happened onwiki.
• "That is, a group of Dutch users wants to use Beta for a project" -> A group of people wants to set up an education programme, one question which came up is "where?" I started personal thinking of Beta Wikiversity (where else?) and considered that if the education program gets more active, it needs a good place, and seeing all the negative comments on various places about the pages on beta Wikiversity, I thought something needs to be done.
• "Votes immediately appear, and within a few minutes of each other, there are six supports, a red flag waving "canvassing."" -> That day some users wrote something on the IRC about the problems at Beta Wikiversity, went looking for issues and found out in the recent changes that I was going for custodian is something what actually happened. I did not announce it! That "Votes immediately appear" is not correct, see yourself and stop fantasizing!
• "One of the clearest positions, which is contradictory to the Wikiversity mission, is a prohibition of original research." -> This proposal for a guideline was rejected!! Again you make up something! And yes, I do not understand why we should not allow original research, as this is a typical phrase from Wikipedia which isn't an issue for Wikiversity.
• "This is a very Wikipedian view of education" -> You clearly do not understand what I meant, and then drawing such biased conclusion.
• "where education only covers what could be in an encyclopedia" -> so far I know nobody has claimed such, you made that one up, again.
• "So, as soon as Romaine was a sysop, he created Wikiversity:Te verwijderen pagina's as a new deletion process, for the Dutch community." -> Maybe it is fair to tell why: because nominations for deletion of pages with actual educational content should be community discussed, and not only just by me.
• "He created a newCategory:NL verwijderverzoeken, which would keep the massive deletion process he was setting up out of the view of regular Wikiversity custodians, who might have freaked out at the appearance of over 5000 deletion templates." -> Incorrect. That category is only for pages with educational content which are nominated for deletion and (I think) the community must have a say in those. I can't decide for them.
  • Also the hundreds of pages that got deleted were mostly nominated as speedy!
• "and possibly the only custodian aware that this was happening." -> this is framing, and you make something up again. At least two other custodians knew this.
• "Given that this is all happening in Dutch, Romaine was setting up a process where he would be the only judge" -> The judge is the community, they have two weeks the time to judge the nominated page, and afterwards I do the action for them. What do you expect otherwise? That the Dutch community wants non-Dutch speaks to judge Dutch content? (Like you did with terrible conclusions as result?)
• "What sysops do is to follow community consensus." - That is what I was doing, you try to frame me that I have/had the intention to to otherwise. Highly disturbing.
• "but canvassed and biased and designed to set him up to do what he wanted." -> I proposed it first, and then set it up. The way it is set up is the way it is done on all Dutch wikis and that works fine, for more than 10 years! Saying that I would have set it up to do what I wanted is a personal attack, and purely fantasy.
• "Normally, page creators will be notified of formal deletion process." -> The creator of the nominated pages was aware of the nominations (was reacting many times), that is what counts. A bureaucratic way of thinking is maybe only needed on projects that became too large to see what is happening. Also I must stress that this is your personal vision, not a hard fact.
• "There was no attempt to negotiate a consensus" - totally untrue, as there is one thing we did most was discussing and negotiating with each other.
• "He was given generic advice about deletion, and there was no hint of the real problem." -> Also not true, many pages have been specifically explained what the problems were.
• "He was attacked, with the same kind of "you forgot to tell" argumentation as we see above." -> So if he tells half the story and I say that, that is an attack? Sorry, not really. That is called a critical view on the behaviour. being critical about someone's behaviour is a need for wikis, otherwise collaboration among users is impossible. You mistake a personal attack on the person himself with critics on the way of acting, those are two very separate things.
• "The difference here was that this user was active for years without problems being seriously addressed." -> Timboliu has been addressed with the several issues multiple times, both live as on wiki. Again you make this up.
• "So it appears that a collection of Dutch users decided off-wiki to attack the work of the only major Dutch contributor to Beta Wikiversity." -> This is really shameful of yours, there was no "collection" of users, they did not "decide", and it was not "off-wiki", and certainly not with the goal of working someone off the wiki. You are multiple times violating the Assume Good Faith policy, an official English Wikiversity policy, but also on other projects.
• "Treated with respect, users don't complain, they almost always cooperate." -> In the real world also users complain for other reasons, too much assumptions again.
• "Looking at his talk page archive for 2011, he first ran into some fairly normal problems over copyright, discussed by a custodian, Crochet.david. They seem to have been resolved." -> We had recently a discussions and multiple pages and files on Commons which were created/uploaded with copyright issues. Your conclusion is not correct.

• "What harm?" -> You write an overdose of false harassments and wrong assumptions, you bypass community process, you have no intention whatsoever to start a dialogue with the Dutch community. You are only here to disturb this wiki, that is the harm.
• "you consider it harm to point out that a group of users, led by yourself, came here to demolish the Dutch Wikiversity" -> Yes, that is considered harm, why? Because you have only fantasized this. You only heard a sad story, you haven't seen the deleted pages, you haven;t read all the discussions, nor understood, you haven;t read the guidelines, nor understood. And then you still think you can have a large mouth, based on your assumptions. Sorry, we do not consider that as useful, but we consider such as trolling. And such is widely considered harmful.
• "without any balance, without any attempt to consider the education of the major participant" -> You have no idea what has been discussed, so saying such things is purely based on assumptions.
• "In the deletion discussions, a consensus for deletion was not shown for many pages." -> As I have said before, as long you do not understand the process behind the guidelines, discussions and the deletion process, you are totally incapable to judge or understand how it works. Such sentences of yours can only be considered worse than trash.
• "your goal was not maximizing consensus" -> Totally untrue. If you say, "your goal is not equal to what the English community would have done", than you are true. The current situation regarding the Dutch pages has the maximum consensus possible in that situation.
• "but pursuing your own agenda" -> I have nor had no agenda.
• "The part that is clear is your intention to delete massive numbers of pages, and you had this intention from before being a sysop." -> Not true. Again you fantasize too much. As written and stated earlier clearly, the expectation was it concerns only a small number of pages which are not suitable and harmful.
• "Romaine, as you have been acting, you are a danger to the Wikiversity mission." -> If a trolling person like you says something, he means the opposite, and I then must thank you for your compliments.
• "You brought a particular segment of the Dutch community here" -> I didn't bring anyone here.
• "Will I do anything about this?" -> You can't do anything about that. The Dutch community has the ability to decide, based on substantive arguments. Not based on the fantasy of a disruptive user who thinks he is more important than the community, thinks he no best on every matter, but still is blocked indefinitely for trolling on the English Wikipedia, and now tries out that behaviour on Beta Wikiversity.
• "The principle of community autonomy is strong." -> And still all actions of yours have the intention to ignore that as you think to know better, without having seen the deleted pages, without having seen nor understood the discussions, without having seen nor understood the guidelines.
• "collected together by off-wiki process" -> Fantasy again. The complete community process has happened on this wiki.
• "My first step with something like this is to study what happened, because I don't just start screaming." -> You changed your habits? As the long list above here shows otherwise. You wrote long messages in what you attack the Dutch community, without having any knowledge about what had happened. And as you have made clear before, you do not understand Dutch and you are not able to judge anything because you don't know anything.
• "I wrote about this here because I was asked." -> This sounds like acting as a meatpuppet.
• "When I find that someone really doesn't want the matter studied" -> Everyone is welcome to study the matter. But without any knowledge you decided to draw assumptions which are clearly not based on evidence, but on what you believe to be evidence. That is not study. Writing down false harassments and wrong assumptions are not a study. That is called trolling.
• "what's the problem with study?" -> There is no problem with actual study. The problem is you, you only. And we are waiting you to leave. Romaine (talk) 15:07, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Warning

Sorry, but censoring messages because you don't like them is unacceptable. Romaine (talk) 15:22, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Again, warning! Stop your behaviour. Romaine (talk) 15:33, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I am posting this also to Romaine's page (he told me about this in chat, actually):
Can you both not - how should I say it? - "anger" each other? Perhaps not replying to each other or to the recent happenings would be good. And if someone can NOT control and wants to write, do that like in a blog or so (modus: self-reflecting), ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 15:39, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

If someone is publicly attacking a community or individual users, exactly the behaviour of Abd, a response is required. Now Abd chooses to start with acting disruptive, while it was only disruptive in words before, this can only lead to a block of his account on this wiki, similar as the block on the English Wikipedia for the same disturbing behaviour. Romaine (talk) 15:46, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

• Erkan, I'd have removed both posts from Romaine from this page if not for your comment. That would be exactly what you suggested, not replying, but I don't want to leave messages on my talk page without response, so I remove what I consider useless to continue, as I had concluded. The comments are not "censored," they remain in history, and the removal of warnings is broadly supported in WMF practice.

• Unfortunately, I see you as, in effect, supporting exactly what Romaine is demanding, that I go away. He apparently believes that he owns this wiki.

• This page is not part of the Dutch Wikiversity, and overall process on Beta is not the property of the Dutch community, either. There has been no "attack" on the Dutch community, nor have individual users been "attacked." User histories have been, in some cases, described; for example, I've pointed to Romaine's amazing record of contributions and the number of wikis on which he holds advanced privileges, at the same time pointing out a complete lack of experience with any Wikiversity, including this one, until he, following up or in connection with IRC and Wikimedia-l discussion, came to request sysop privileges. He did not disclose those prior conversations in his request, and Timboliu simply assumed that the "Dutch community" was now going to take an interest in the Dutch Beta Wikiversity project. Timboliu did not know that Romaine had essentially defined him as the problem, and was coming here to demolish his study.

• Romaine, here, refers to the "same disturbing behavior" on the English Wikipedia. That's radically false. Essentially, he has no clue what I was blocked for, or if he does, he's stating it in a way that was never stated on en.wiki. Yes, I confronted admin abuse on en.wikipedia, in two ArbCom cases. In the first case, the admin was reprimanded. In the second, he was desysopped. And then the story gets very complicated. I was not ArbCom banned.

• I don't raise issues unless they are worth discussing. Romaine wants no criticism, it's obvious. Yet he has gone way outside of wiki traditions, and without any necessity, most clearly shown by today's actions.

• When a sysop writes, to a user, that their actions can lead to a block, that's a sysop action, almost the same as a block. It is blatantly obvious that Romaine is highly involved in a dispute with me, the dispute being over two matters: my claim that he should recuse from deletion of pages here, having come with a predetermined agenda on that, and having participated in the creation of a "deletion community." All that could clearly be established in a review process, if it's ever needed. And, secondly, my request that he refrain from attacking users, which, initially, referred to Timboliu. To describe someone's work and study as he did was highly uncivil, and not collaborative, and Romaine's behavior in subsequent deletion actions shows that he had a predetermined agenda, and was not following community consensus, because there were examples where there was either no consensus for deletion, or there was actually consensus for a different result. And, again, this can be shown if needed.

Now, in addition, he is claiming that I'm a troll, and should not participate here at all, when on an established Wikiversity, any WMF user may participate. He is violating WMF policy in this, so this could become a meta issue. We have had plenty of situations on en.wikiversity where users from other wikis come, with no Wikiversity editing, and comment in processes. We welcome them, we never tell them to go away. Sometimes we place a note that they have no other edits to the project, which is a standard thing to do also on wikipedias, for Single Purpose Accounts. As most of the "Dutch Wikiversity community," here, could be considered. And that, again, is easy to show from contribution histories. It's not an attack, it is not exclusionary, but Romaine's requests are.

A claim of "involvement" about a sysop is also not an attack. Either the sysop is involved or is not involved, and may not even realize the "involvement," we can sometimes not see this about ourselves. Hence my warning to Romaine. He has now violated the warning, flagrantly and defiantly. Historically, this has not ended well for the sysop. But I have no crystal ball.

• What I have demonstrated in the past is a willingness to risk my account to stand for real community consensus, long-term consensus, what I know, from experience, the community will ultimately back when given the opportunity for careful review. I don't go away when that is demanded by a highly involved and reactive sysop.

• Further comment from Romaine, on this page, is unwelcome, I am requesting he stay off this page. There is no point to further argument (as you suggest, Erkan). I have enough evidence to pursue a deeper resolution, at this point. Having those deleted pages (i.e, in my user space, with the Dutch Wikiversity category removed) could help in the preliminary study, but is not completely necessary. --Abd (talk) 16:27, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

just in short:

"Unfortunately, I see you as, in effect, supporting exactly what Romaine is demanding, that I go away.": Actually the opposite, I was thinking yesterday how good it'd be if you were here custodian

"It is blatantly obvious that Romaine is highly involved in a dispute with me": well, what I see is: it reflects not well on the both of you :-( ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 17:08, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps, Erkan. This is a long-term on-line problem, I first realized it in the 1980s on the en:wikipedia:The WELL. If there is a conflict, there is a knee-jerk assumption that anyone involved in a conflict is doing something wrong, because if they weren't, there would be no conflict, right? It's a knee-jerk assumption because it's often true.

However, it's not always true, and when communities simply act based on that assumption, and long-term, they end up shoving genuine conflict, i.e., unresolved issues, under the carpet, and the carpet gets lumpy and more and more people trip over the lumps. And anyone who complains is, of course, bringing up that old issue that we decided long ago was useless to address.

The issue for me, mentioning "highly involved in a dispute," was purely technical. It does not incorporate any judgment about who is right. For recusal requirements, it doesn't matter who is right. Or it shouldn't! (Sometimes wikis fall for the argument that the sysop was right, when, in reality, there was no right or wrong, just some difference of opinion and point of view. So then what should have been an obvious recusal requirement gets muddied. Usually ArbCom could sort that out. And they have sanctioned administrators for taking action while involved, even when the admin was in some sense right, i.e., the .)

I am not likely to go for custodian, because it would bring many users out of the woodwork, once they saw it. I have many friends, Erkan, because I've long stood for user rights and freedom -- and, by the way, policy, since this is generally supported by policy. But at the same time, there are those who very much opposed what I've done, and they have sometimes made Get Abd a long-term agenda, and that's easy to see in the history as well. In my training, it's pointed out that reformers often get shot. They point to Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi. And then they say, "If you haven't been shot, maybe its because you aren't doing anything worth wasting ammunition on." My tag line on Wikipedia Review, after covering Ignore All Rules, was the corollary: "If you haven't been blocked, you aren't trying hard enough to improve the project." And I consider that completely obvious. IAR was Wikipedia Rule Number One. And is increasingly ignored, itself, in favor of being safe.

I don't need custodian tools to do what I do. When I had them, I worked tirelessly on the routine wikignoming that is the bulk of a sysop's job, the logs show that. Then, over one action, and without any necessity at all, and where I was supporting policy and had basis in discussion for what I did, I was "emergency desysopped." There was no emergency. There was one unblock, and I would not have repeated it. Bottom line, though, nobody cared enough to do anything about it. So having the tools is just an opportunity to work long hours for no particular benefit to myself, no pay, and very little appreciation, even. Anything that I would properly do as a custodian, I can easily get done. Yesterday, for example, I moved that page. It left behind a redirect. So I placed a speedy template on it and it was promptly deleted. Who needs the tools for that? I don't need tools to clean up en.wikiversity. It only takes some attention and time. Actually pushing the button takes seconds.

So, look at the situation here. Suppose I was a Beta sysop. What would I do differently, and would that be a good thing? I can suggest some things, and they would very likely cause conflict even if completely legitimate. And then it's deja vu all over again.

No. but thanks. I do have, in spite of what has been claimed, a strong vision for Wikiversity, and it's working on en.wv. Working very well. We don't need more sysops (what the Dutch community legitimately wanted to do was all doable without a new sysop). What we need is more community, and especially more diverse community. Wikiversity, the vision as I have it -- which is quite aligned with the original vision, just more sophisticated in realization -- is attractive to users who are not remotely interested in editing Wikipedia (or, often, who tried and found it impossible). --Abd (talk) 17:51, 22 August 2014 (UTC)