User talk:IZAK/Archive 18

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Orthodox Rabbinical Biography Collaboration of the Week

Hi IZAK, I've created an Orthodox Rabbinical Biography Collaboration of the Week. I'd love to see your comments, improvements, amendations and nominations, preferably all on the discussion or the actual page there. Many thanks, Nesher 13:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

• I will try. IZAK 11:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

True Torah Jews

Hi, I posted a defense of the article True Torah Jews, I would like to ask you to be so kind and read it, and than rethink your position on deletion. Bloger 00:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hi, I looked at it, but why are you "defending" such stuff? IZAK 11:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Lists and lists

I'm going to take a break from Wikipedia. Send me an email if this sort of thing ever comes to a vote again. Hasdrubal 01:02, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Best wishes, and stay in touch! IZAK 11:39, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

David Berger

I am having some issues over at David Berger with User:PhatJew, whom you may recall from the ongoing Chabad-Lubavitch arguments. Please try to drop by and comment. Thanks, DLand^TALK 05:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hi, I hope my recent edits helped. IZAK 11:38, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Meshullam Gross

Hi IZAK, thanks for that neat move of Nachlas Tzvi. Only two issues - one fairly significant.

1.If you want to be pedantic, he actually went by the English name of Herman Gross. Meshulam Tzvi was his Hebrew name and used in his Seforim. 2.Technically speaking and according to the information availible to me, he was NOT a Rabbi. Apparently (or so I've been told), he was offered Semicha many times and was certainly able, but never accepted it.

Therefore, I deliberately refrained from placing him in any Rabbi category, let alone the Haredi category. Off the point since he wasnt a Rabbi, I object to terming him "Haredi" as the boundaries in his age were fluid and the word wasnt even used. Indeed, by todays standards he may not have been "Haredi" (whatever that irksome term means). Many thanks, Nesher 15:44, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Nesher: Thanks for the info. IZAK 11:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips

Hi Izak, Thanks for the tips! Escamoso 18:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Escamoso: You are welcome! IZAK 11:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

"Blood for goods"

Hey, thanks for the feedback, IZAK. The two that have been worked on most so far are Joel Brand and Rudolf Vrba. The history of the proposal(s) is very complex, to say the least, so I'm learning as I go along. It's fascinating and very sad to read about people who were struggling to do their best in unbelievable circumstances. Thank you for adding more names to the template. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Slim: Yes, I realize. IZAK 11:36, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

You have been blocked for 24 hours

Dear IZAK: Regretfully, due to your persistent incivility, personal attacks and lack of cooperation with other Wikipedians (for example, surrounding the Berel Wein AfD, and your poor behaviour towards User:PZFUN) I have been forced to block you for twenty-four hours. I would please advise you to read Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:No personal attacks, which provide information on the standards of civil behaviour we expect of contributors on Wikipedia. I would also suggest that you read Wikipedia:Neutral point of view as you appear to be spending a great deal of time attempting to espouse your own personal points of view on Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions, and please feel free to edit after the block expires. If you have any questions or concerns relating to your work on Wikipedia, please do not hesistate to contact me or another administrator (my contact methods are listed on my userpage). Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 05:13, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Nicholas: Evidently, not everyone agrees with you. What are the specfic objections? Are you familiar with what has been going on surrounding the Berel Wein article and its proposed deletion? Are you aware of what User:PZFUN has "proposed"? IZAK 06:05, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with NicholasT. He just happened to get to the "block" button before me. Your behaviour on that AfD was deplorable. Here are the offending lines, from my point of view, if you want specifics:

• "the nominator obviously knows less than nothing about the subject of the article and its related content"
• "People should stick to their areas of expertise and not stick their noses into subjects..."
• "it's hard to imagine that someone who writes English as well as you do should not have heard of Berel Wein?"
• "don't you read and understand English?"
• "Apology accepted"
• "HUH?! Where did you get such a weird idea from? And you are an admin yet?"
• "Do you have any idea how Wikipedia started?"
• "You will only get yourself in more trouble, and complaints filed against you for being a ROGUE ADMIN!"
• "let this episode be a hard-learned lesson to you"
• "especially when you know that you know nothing about a subject"
• "in a rather inept way"
• "save your misguided and pathetic "righteous rage""
• "any intelligent editor, especially an admin, should know better"

It is not legitimate to pull out the "I've been here longer than you" card in disagreements, as I'm sure you know by now. And in light of all the time you've been on the Wiki, you should well and truly know that personal attacks and incivility of the type listed above are not tolerated. If you didn't know that, then perhaps it is time to go back to the documents for newcomers, and reacquaint yourself with the relevant policies. - Mark 07:31, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hello Mark: Excuse me, but I do not view any of the above quotes as questionable. They are the truth. Sure taken out of context to someone not familiar with the subject they may seem overly vigorous, but when faced by obvious ignorance and ineptitude I expressed myself in a forthright manner befitting an inexcusable action. You are coming in as outsiders. As far as I know only one person User:Shuki objected to me and threatened me with physical violence [1] which is far worse than Wikipedia:No legal threats. If you really cared, you would report that and deal with it, instead you come barking at my door like a bunch of cry-babies. Did you forget that User:PZFUN was proposing that articles about famous subjects that he did not like should be nominated for deletion just to "get the attention" of other editors? Have you hit him over the head about that? Well he should have been demoted from his admin perch for taking liberties with his new-found title. Oh yeah, by the way, what's wrong with saying "don't you read and understand English?" when the person is obviously MIS-reading what is in front of him? By the way, not everyone writes like an eighth grader, some of us have vigorous MATURE writing styles. IZAK 07:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see how I have taken the above quotes out of context when their context is the AfD discussion, which I have read in its entirety. Is there some wider context I should be considering in relation to this discussion, to which all the participants in the discussion were parties? You appear to me to be arguing that "I know more about this subject than anyone, so I can call them idiots and get away with it". It is not a "mature", "vigorous" writing style, it is just plain rudeness.

As for the content of the AfD discussion, PZFUN appears to have made a legitimate, good-faith nomination for deletion, based upon concerns of vanity, notability and plainly poor article quality. Clearly, his preconception about the notability of this person was incorrect, however that is no excuse for the vitrolic response he got from you. Also, being an administrator and making a statement (such as about the purpose of AfD) does not make new policy. I do not think this comes even remotely close to disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, on his part. You had the opportunity to simply vote "speedy keep", and this would have been settled. There was no need whatsoever to take the discussion where you took it.

As for what Shuki said to you, I'm not sure of what it means, so I can hardly take any action at this stage. - Mark 08:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hello Mark: I have not and did not call anyone "idiots", more "nosy parkers" than idiots. I was not accusing User:PZFUN of "disrupting Wikipedia to make a point" but I am accusing him of sowing the seeds for a future controversial policy that does not, and should never, exist. So I disagree with your assessment, I think User:PZFUN made a huge BLUNDER and then tried to back-track and cover his mistaken steps. When I called him on it, he then went on to argue, inter alia, as follows: "it is hardly vandalism to verify whether the contents of an article do indeed merit inclusion on Wikipedia, and what better way to do that than put it on an AfD where people who might know more about the subject might actually see it and comment rather than slapping a {{NPOV}} and {{cleanup}} template on and waiting for someone to perhaos come across it" [2] (emphasis mine) which IS a huge red flag as far as any experienced Wikipedian is concerned. If it's ok for anyone, let alone admins, to make such wide-sweeping proposals then, hey, they are going to get flap from users who would view such actions as totally out of line. There are other policy forums to bring up such issues, but for heavens sake man, don't pick on a scrawney article that was obviously written by a kid in a worshipful manner about a very famous personage (which happens ALL the time on Wikipedia and is why it GROWS and is so popular). So, to sum up: A) User:PZFUN deliberately chooses a topic to delete (about a famous Orthodox rabbi yet) that he has admitted that he knows very little about [3] and then B) He later defends himself with the lame excuse that it's ok to nominate articles for deletion about people/subjects he knows nothing about (or has failed to research to the level required to nominate it for deletion), a very serious move as it often spells the doom for a long time of an important subject on Wikipedia. C) Basically anyone who came over to vote DIS-agreed with his move entirely. D) Fails to withdraw his latter assertion (about placing deletion tags instead of "improve" tags on articles about important subjects) as far as I know (and you have not said anything about it -- which worries me). E) Get's a well-deserved mouthful from me, and then all of a sudden a couple of "random admins" show up (probably his buddies) blaming me for causing problems (call me names), akin to Shooting the messenger and at the same time F) Some self-righteous dude states that he wants to "punch me out" (I have NEVER threatened anyone with any sort of violence either in word or in deed.) G) I had also rewritten the entire article to everyone's satisfaction (for now) H) The Berel Wein article is now a permanent "keep" the vote is over. I) I get blocked along the way -- mostly when the discussion is 99% over -- makes you wonder what's behind that doesn't it? And J) Hey guess what, within half an hour of being blocked I was unblocked by an admin who does not see it your way, and I have been editing articles ever since, that have nothing to do with this issue. Have a good day/night. IZAK 09:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The reason I have not broached the topic of incorrect use of AfD is that I did not see it as relevant to your conduct - there is no justification for incivility. However, I am happy to oblige and provide comment on the situation.

The number of articles tagged with the {{npov}} and {{cleanup}} is absurdly high. The backlog is extensive, and placing these tags on articles will often have no effect for a long period of time. Similarly, filing a Request for Comment on an article needing attention may only get one or two responses. In light of this people have for some time been using VfD/AfD as a way not only of gauging notability, but also ridding the encyclopedia of articles which are of substandard quality. This raises an important question of whether VfD/AfD should be used as a vehicle for eliminating really bad articles, which nobody seems to want to improve. I guess this is the old inclusionism v deletionism debate. I don't know the answer to this question.

Anyhow, that discussion is irrelevant to the issue of your incivility to PZFUN, because the first instances of your incivility/personal attacks on him occurred before he had even made a statement to that effect. Considering your Arbcom case about personal attacks, I would have thought that you would take more care to show more respect for your fellow Wikipedians, even if you may disagree with them. As I said above, had you simply said "keep" and explained the notability of the subject of the article, all the animosity of this situation would most likely have been avoided entirely. - Mark 13:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Mark: In that old case against me, I spoke out against what I perceived to be Anti-Semitism and I took the heat for it. I would do it again if the need arose. No use taking a back seat to hate-mongering and trolling. I don't think you want to lump User:PZFUN with the cast of characters involved in that old case. It's a can of worms so beware! As for your arguments that Wikipedia is now so huge that it's ok to tag article NOT as the rules call for, I see that you have your own way of breaking Wikipedia's long-established protocols, and I TOTALLY disagree with you. As for my initial dealing with User:PZFUN, when I first came across his insertion of the VfD on the Berel Wein article it (the VfD tag he placed on the page) was going to the wrong place (after my protest it was subsequently corrected NOT by PZFUN but by User:Peripitus [4]) which made the entire process seem like (stealth?) vandalism, and I immediately warned him that it appeared to me like a simple case of vandalism [5] . He ignored me (perhaps he was away on vacation, but one shouldn't go away if you have nominated pages for deletion). Thus, not having heard anything from him, and getting ever more concerned, only after User:Peripitus made the change (why couldn't PZFUN correct his own errors, this does not speak well for someone so concerned about the "quality" of articles) was I able to find the correct VfD page and I made my opening remarks. Kindly refrain from advising me or anyone else how brief or elaborate their comments should be because there is no such limit in existence. These kind of situations are not just "yes-or-no" votes but they also touch on far more serious underlying matters for those who know about them and are seriously conerned about the subject/s with which they are involved. IZAK 07:19, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'm guessing Ambi undid NicholasT because your parole is over? Lucky you!

I did discuss your position with PZFUN briefly. I was somewhat more polite than you, and he did actually listen, at least. :-) Kim Bruning 18:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Kim, thanks. IZAK 07:47, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I was referring to: this parole that ended hmm, actually a couple of months ago already. Since it no longer applies, I assumed that that was the reason you were unblocked. Kim Bruning 10:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Kim, have you read through the entire case? Do you notice that my deep concerns over there were about Anti-Semitism emanating from some very problematic users, who have been accused of being trolls many times and some were subsequently banned for such. I doubt very much that anyone here wants to be associated with some of the characters I took on over there. But what is it that really want from me here? As said below, I don't get it. You just are making comments, but for what reason? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm??? Motives, anyone?????????????? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?????????? and Hmmmmmmmmmmm again! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha! IZAK 11:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

That may be so, though I'm not sure why it's relevant to bring that up here?

My motive is to figure out what happened, and make reccomendations (some of which I've already done on WP:AN). Is there anything else you'd like to add? Kim Bruning 11:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Kim: Yes, I am very alarmed by this new trend that seems to be emerging. Recently, there was a VfD that had I known about it, I would have also screamed NOT to delete, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zichron Kedoshim, Congregation about a very large Orthodox Jewish congregation. The reasons that were given was that : "Scarce material available on on Google, nor any evidence in those results of notability nor any notable size" but what the nominator did not realize or know was that it was something important to the topic of Judaism, especially to Category:Synagogues (were the people who vote experts in synagogues???) , and it should NOT have been deleted! As a matter of fact, in that vote, User:Shuki objected to the deletion for very good reasons, which the nominator, not being familiar with Judaism, took upon himself to delete. Now I took the bother to take a look at the one who nominated that other article for deletion, User:Kuzaar's home page, and what he declares in BOLD font is his "mission-statement": "Some will question your right to delete hundreds of unnecessary pages. Those who understand realise that you have no right to let them exist! -- which he tells the reader is itself a quote from Inquisition (Warhammer 40,000): "The Inquisition (formally The Holy Orders of the Emperor's Inquisition) is a secret organisation in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. They act as the secret police of the Imperium, hunting down any and all threats to the stability of the God-Emperor's realm." (the opening line in the article. Thus for all articles relating to Jews and Judaism (mostly in the Category:Jews and Judaism) this is a great DANGER because many articles are stubs, or poorly written, or copied from the archaic Jewish Encyclopedia of a hundred years, or written by very knowledgeable editors who have a poor commaned of the language, and that often will not have many hits on Google BUT deserve to be in an encyclopedia because they are notable and important (even though it may not be apparent at first). Google CANNOT be the ONLY standard for deciding if Jewish and Torah based articles should remain on Wikipedia. There should be a policy that when ANY editor decides to nominate an article for deletion then that editor has a responsibility to inform active editors in the field who know the subject (otherwise Wikipedia will become the victim of "roving wolf packs of deletionists", who may well have their own agendas). One solution with Judaism-related articles: Is that we have a fairly active Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism with many members. A notice could be placed on that forum requesting input. There are by now many thousands of articles about Jews and Judaism and no-one can police all of them at one time. But alternately, random editors and admins cannot decide to delete articles based on quickie Google searches (besides, you have to know how to search for a subject on Google , especially if you know nothing about the subject. There could be alternate spellings and names that could lead to better Google results.) Also, it has been long-established Wikipedia practice that the editor nominating an article for deletion MUST place a notice on the talk page of that article's original creator/s. I hope that I have made myself clear, that this is now a problem for all areas, where non-expert editors with a "mission to delete" like the ones I have mentioned here (User:Kuzaar and of course User:PZFUN) whose actions brought my attention to this serious change from Wikipedia practices that seems to be catching on and MUST be controlled, or else you are going to have a lot more angry responses from others who will be similarly affected when their turn comes to have articles important in their fields deleted. Thanks for your help, and feel free to call on me again for any clarification. 12:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah, a number of editors have been aware of the problems with Articles for Deletion for some time now. There have even been articles in the press. Unfortunately, this process -while pathological- is heavily entrenched, and we have not been able to knock it down yet. I'm glad to hear you're now aware of the problem too. Kim Bruning 12:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Dear Kim: thank you for your understanding. Best wishes and now I must truly sign off and get some sleep. Bye! IZAK 12:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Is User:NicholasTurnbull out of control?

Hi, I only wish to comment about User:NicholasTurnbull's unannounced blocking which may be a serious abuse of his admin powers. Why does he not give any advance warnings that he intends to block someone? He recently blocked me without any warning whatsoever. He was not part of the heated discussion that I had been involved in, but prefers to swoop in from nowhere UNannounced and summarily block people, using ever-so-polite "hello and goodbye" messages. This is dictatorial behavior and should be stopped. IZAK 06:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Please calm down, IZAK. While I agree that the block was out of line, and said as much to Nicholas, you do yourself no favours by getting too worked up about things like this. Let's see if this can be worked out amicably. :) Rebecca 06:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I agree, but Turnbull has overstepped his authority. He should have given at least ONE warning at the minimum! Unfortunately I am not the only editor he has done this to. IZAK 07:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it's something else? I understand that (at least) two admins are known to have been reaching for the block button at roughly the same time, and that NicholasT just happened to be the one who got there first. Else you'd have been posting "Is User:Mark out of control?". Hmmm. Kim Bruning 10:22, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Kim, I don't get it, what are you up to? What do you want? Hmmmmmmmmm? Either way, anyone about to be blocked should be warned that it's coming, especially if any outside admin is about to intervene without any prior notification. Otherwise any editor can be in the middle of a discussion and wham the screen goes blank, it makes no sense for an admin to "fly in unannounced and uninvited" regardless if it's one, two, or two hundred admins who are tempted to "hit buttons" alone or all together: Notice should be given for such an extreme measure to kick in. Isn't that why we have an elaborate system for MEDIATION? IZAK 11:00, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I have this terrible habit of going "hmm" while pondering, my apologies. In the mean time, I take it that we are in agreement that "User:NicholasTurnbull out of control" is an incorrect assesment of the events.

I don't believe mediation is appropriate here.

I do agree that in future, it might be wise for at least one person to place a warning before issuing a block. I'll place a notice on the Administrators' noticeboard to that effect. Kim Bruning 11:13, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I should note that it is actually preferred for admins to "swoop out of nowhere", rather than have admins who are involved in the dispute start using their admin powers. Admins issuing blocks should always be uninvolved parties. - Mark 15:36, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Mark: This was not merely a "dispute" between me an User:PZFUN in isolation. There was a much larger discussion going on between a number of editors who were sharing their views in a number of directions, in other words there was a debate or discussion going on between several editors, and in fact User:PZFUN was more or less acting avoidantly (making it harder to know where he was and what he was thinking) and the debate was basically OVER Turnbull appeared out of nowhere and did his hatchet job without prior notification making it a retroactive response rather than a reaction to anything that was happening. An admin needs to use discretion in any situation, if User:PZFUN had problems he could have asked for mediation. IZAK 04:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman

Hi IZAK, as an admin can you please move Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman to Elchonon Wasserman. The current pitiful situation is that the former is the article's primary name while the latter is only a redirect. Many thanks, Nesher 21:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Nesher: I am not an admin! (And I don't want to be one!). ANYONE can move an article, just use the "move" button at the top of every page which will then automatically turn the OLD article into a REDIRECT to the article with NEW name, It's that simple. IZAK 06:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments

I agree that Nicholas appears to have overstepped his bounds here. He's not along among new admins doing this lately either. JohnnyBGood t c 00:40, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

• You're welcome, and best wishes with your efforts! Recently-minted admins should learn that their hasty actions may often inflame a situation rather than help it. IZAK 06:19, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Re your messages: What have you done? / What do you mean?

Hello Nicholas: I do not agree with your block and with any of the so-called "reasons" you cite. If User:PZFUN had any problems he could have contacted me first. The only one complaining that I know of is User:Shuki who threatened me with violence [6] and I overlooked that, instead, you have acted as both prosecutor and judge, which does not reflect well on your judgment. You could have asked for more clarification. You have also disrupted my ongoing contributions to other articles which have nothing to do with this discussion. IZAK 06:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Nich old boy: When you say: "I would also suggest that you read Wikipedia:Neutral point of view as you appear to be spending a great deal of time attempting to espouse your own personal points of view on Wikipedia" what in heavens name do you mean? I am no different to any other hard-working Wikipedia editor. You are totally out of line with the accusation quoted above. It's been a long-long time since anyone alleged that I was doing this. Yes, I admit, my interests are mainly within Category:Jews and Judaism and Category:Israel and Zionism and I know a lot in particular about these subjects. Don't you have your own interests or are you only caught up in process and not content? What don't you like about my work? Have you read all of it? What do you know about these subjects that you can critique what I have or have not said or what my view is or is not? IZAK 06:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Dear IZAK: Firstly, thank you for your message to me. Of course, I am always open to feedback, discussion and indeed the disagreement of others relating to the administrative actions that I apply on Wikipedia. I must apologise for the slight delay in responding to you. I am very sorry that you disagreed with the block that I set on your account, which indeed User:Rebecca reversed fairly promptly; thus to an extent the issue over whether I was correct in taking the blocking decision is now, to some degree, something of a fait accompli. The block I set was only for twenty-four hours, which at the time I believed was justified; there is a certain precedent for the setting of twenty-four hour blocks in the case of persistent incivility, especially where they involve personal attacks against an individual. I personally do not believe there is any excuse for rather unpleasant behaviour towards a user simply because you disagree with his judgement, and thus I considered a block to be condign for the matter in question. It was my view a block was suitable in order to demonstrate the gravity to you of the requirement that contributors are civil on Wikipedia, and moreover not applying sanctions against users for poor social behaviour merely begets a drop in social standards - as Publilius Syrus put it, "Pardon one offence, and you encourage the commission of many."

Your behaviour towards PZFUN is not justified by a claim that he should have personally taken issue with it publically, as social standards apply to all contributors regardless of their views of their correctness. You refer to me as having acted as prosecutor and judge - that is correct, I suppose, but administrators would otherwise not be granted administrative privileges unless they were expected to use their own volition in carrying out administrative actions, and indeed administrators are trusted users who have been granted such responsibility by the community to work on the community's behalf. In this circumstance I considered it appropriate, versus a warning, as your style of interaction did not appear conducive towards people advising you on doing things differently on Wikipedia. Relating to your point of view, and my opinion that you are espousing it on Wikipedia - it was not the fact that you were editing a particular series of articles, but more the obsessive and rather combative way in which you have been doing so, as your approach to dealing with people who do not agree with your personal points of view is not constructive. It is, indeed, not your work that I dislike, but more your mode of interaction with users who you disagree with; perhaps I did not make myself clear. Your rhetorical question as to what I know about the subjects in question, as if that should absolve you from any kind of scrutiny from me as regards your conduct on Wikipedia, is fallacious; I freely admit I know nothing, or rather very little, about the subjects in play, but I cannot see how that has any bearing upon how you are entitled to interact with others on Wikipedia.

I would be exceptionally grateful if you would please try to be more civil towards, and indeed about, those who you don't agree with, and to recognise that different people have different perspectives which may be equally correct. I would like to thank you for your hard work on Wikipedia, but would like to also remind you that we do expect good standards of interpersonal interaction from Wikipedians, and that your behaviour in the past relating to the recent AfD should not be repeated in the future; otherwise, myself or another administrator may well have to block you from editing Wikipedia. I look forward to working with you in the future. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 03:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Nicholas: I do not agree with you! Judging from your response/s above, it is crystal clear that you have either chosen to ignore or have missed the crux of the entire episode. Given that a number of well-respected admins disagreed with your actions in this instance you are thus NOT at liberty to use in any way whatsoever insofar as my "behaviour in the past relating to the recent AfD should not be repeated in the future;" so that "otherwise, myself or another administrator may well have to block you from editing Wikipedia." If any admin wishes to interject themselves (by issuing blocks or whatnot) into any INTELLIGENT (albeit heated) debate that is taking place between a number of editors (and in this case there were admins on either side of the debate) they would be well-advised to give at least one prior warning AT THAT FUTURE TIME, if and when such a situation were ever to occur, so that the person being informed should be made aware that more serious measures are being considered, such as a "block" by an invisible admin. Thus this statement of yours is to be considered null and void and of no import whatsoever. The following is the procedure you would be obliged to follow when a situation arises that is CLEARLY concerned with matters relating to articles and their CONTENTS (for example, in the context of a legitimate discussion on a talk page or during voting) which is what this bebate was about when you interjected without an invitation: Wikipedia:Resolving disputes: Wikipedia:Negotiation; Wikipedia:Requests for comment; Wikipedia:Requests for mediation; Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration etc. Kindly do not threaten me in any way whatsover and save your scare tactics for less seasoned Wikipedians. Wikipedia is known for it's fairness, and you need to remember that in the future it is you with the powers of admin that needs to work within the paramaters of WP:GF and consider the CONTEXT and CONTENT of the situation in it's entirety when dealing with contributing editors who are acting out of genuine motives for the betterment of Wikipedia. My discussions with User:Kim Bruning (see my page above) have been far more productive, as he has at least been willing to get to the heart of the matter, a very wise approach indeed in contradistinction to your uncalled for actions vis-à-vis me which creates an air of even greater potential friction than had existed prior to your actions. IZAK 05:42, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Shape up or ship out

You are blocked for personal attacks and incivility and this is how you respond? What are you thinking? It's as if you're trying to shove it back in his face as unpleasantly as possible because you seem to think he can't do anything about it and you can get away with anything. That's simply not the case. --Cyde↔Weys 06:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Cyde: Question: Is the expression "Shape up or ship out" within the guidelines of Wikipedia:Civility? Obviously you fail to see that this is a vigorous debate, and I am stating my views. I do not see any problems with it. Have you familiarized yourself with all the details of the discussion? Instead of making un-called for threats of "Shape up or whatever" why not respond to the arguments it presents. Let's be rational and objective and not give in to knee-jerk reactions. If you object to any points that I have made let me know and we can discuss them. As an admin you should be taking the lead in acting calmly and civilly. IZAK 06:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Dear IZAK: I regret that your idea of "vigorous debate" is what others consider to be unacceptable acrimony; you appear to somehow expect other people to conform to an exemplar standard of civility, whilst being aggressive and unpleasant in conversation yourself. This isn't acceptable; please don't do it. I tried above to be civil with you over this issue, but it seems that you have no interest nor inclination in even attempting to follow standard levels of common courtesy when working with people on Wikipedia. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 07:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Nicholas: I have worked with MANY hundreds of people on Wikipedia for almost four years and I must say that I have had good and civil levels of communication with almost all of them (the rare exceptions were when in the past some editors were making edits that seemed to be of an anti-Semitic nature). Obviously, because the subject matter of interest is religion and Judaism in particular, there are from time to time heated debates that arise, and in almost all cases they have been solved satisfactorily. For whatever reason, at this juncture, you have chosen to intervene in discussions that others have told you were not to be viewed as you view them, yet you have persisted in "warning me", and in response I have had to inform you (in very correct and civil terminology) that I disagree with you. Why do you think that I have to see it your way? This is not so hard to understand. Thanks for listening. IZAK 07:20, 19 May 2006 (UTC)