Most users have criticized my conduct with the controversy over the protection of Catholicism in mind. Soon, they will understand the truth behind the fact that I was unfairly maligned in my choice to protect that page. JoeM was subject to auto-revert for adding POV rants similar to those of Nostrum. And no one condemned those sysops. Why? Because JoeM didn't have his buddy sysop protecting him by proxy. The truth will get out that my actions are not at all unusual. Had you never decided to protect your buddy at all cost, then there would be no cloud of mistrust unfairly surrounding me. 172 00:17, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
No, I had nothing to do with JoeM. I wasn't on at the time. Other sysops handled his POV ramblings well, like I would have. 172 00:23, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Michael, comparing my relationship to 172 to your relationship to Nostrum is ludicrous. Abe and I only know each other on wiki. We have disagreed on issues (I disagreed with him over PP, whom though I knew for a specific reason was Adam, but whom I nevertheless said should be left on wiki, on the basis that his standard of behaviour had dramatically improved, only to be proved wrong when he returned to his old Lir/Vera Cruz ways). Our relationship is built on your experiences of each other on wiki. We have never met, he doesn't even know my real name. You on the other hand know Matt off wiki, which is something totally different. Anyone on wiki can see Abe and my relationships on the talk pages. You deceived people by never informing them that the person you were so agressively defending is an off wiki friend of yours. That is a gross abuse of wiki. Please stop making excuses by making irrelevant and patiently absurd comparisons. FearÉIREANN 00:28, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
From the accusations I've read he appears to be doing some fairly idiotic stuff, rather than typical newbie errors. Anyhow, as I have stated many times, any comments I have made with regards to 172's sysop status have nothing to do with Nostrum whatsoever. As I said to you on Jtdirl's talk page, I believe everyone is guilty of breaking the policies on occasion. Newbies can appear somewhat similar to vandals!
Perhaps Nostrum does merely need guidance, but if this is the case, there needs to be other admins to offer this as you aren't going to convince 172 to do it. There are always going to be differing views on how to handle "annoying users". Revert their work or try to help them? Perhaps each annoying person needs two people following them round, one in each role, but many admins aren't willing to devote that much time to potential vandals. I realise you want me to follow up my vote with an email to Jimbo, but I have come to realise that 172's work against vandals is important. It just needs to balanced out by others who can take a softer approach. Angela
- I may not be the best person to do this as I not going to be around much for the next few days. Visitors and assignments are having to be put first unfortunately. If he still needs help by Wednesday then I'll try and help out. Angela 02:12, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Michael, if you had told us at the start "look, I know this guy. I can guarantee he isn't a vandal" then I for one would have eased off on him considerably. But instead we had to rely on nothing but the evidence of the edits. I don't think you were on wiki at the time, but earlier this year wiki was under siege from trolls DW under a host of names, Adam under a host of names, Michael under a host of names, a rascist bigot called Zog (whom 172 apparently caught again tonight. You have no idea what a near miss that was!) and various others. I came on to wiki very trusting, as do most people, and found myself being used by these trolls until I copped on to their game. Others had a similar experience. 172 and I as a result have a low tolerance threshhold when it comes to trolls. Nostrum had the misfortune to make some frankly ludicrous claims that to all too many people seemed suspiciously like a troll coming on for the sole reason of causing trouble. (Adam specialised under some of his personæ in making farcically OTT claims.) I remember one day spending my entire day (well 6 hours on wiki) reverting one troll's vandalism of a set of articles over and over again. Some of the things he kept trying to add in could be described as 'encitement to hatred'!) I know it may sound hard to look at each newbie edit for evidence of trolling, but after the DW/Adam/Michael experience, it is hard to presume innocence until guilt is proven when doing so in the past led to weeks of chaos at the hands of some very clever and manipulative trolls.
In any case, I hope the air has been cleared somewhat. 172 can be blunt sometimes but he is motivated by a passion to see wiki achieve a high standard and to stop wiki facing the reign of chaos we experienced before at the hands of professional vandals. I do hope that Nostrum proves worthy of your support. And you are right to take the weekend off from wiki; wiki all too often can be a hothouse of stress and passion. One final point: I certainly do not try to POV articles. I have spent most of my time trying to NPOV text, including incorporating text I may not agree with but which is a credible opinion worthy of mention. But I do have a low tolerance of extreme POV; whether it is RK's pro-Israeli editing, of Palestine Liberator's extreme anti-Israeli opinions, attempts to whitewash RC Church scandals or to make wild factually inaccurate claims. I have in my time on wiki been called an apologist for fascism and a communist, an extremist Australian monarchist and an extreme pro-Australian republican (for exactly the same edit!), a Catholic apologist and a Catholic-basher, a "west-brit" Tory and an "extreme Irish republican". I try to strike a fair middle ground, with the guideline that any extreme claim from any side must have hard evidence to back it up.
Anyway, have a good relaxing wiki-free weekend.:-) FearÉIREANN 03:04, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for you latest comments. Since you were the most vocal opponent of my administratorship, how about listing that anti-172 page on the VFD and putting this whole ridiculous episode to a rest. Then I'd really be able to get to work without this storm cloud hanging over me. I'll be afraid to do anything until that shadow is gone. 172 19:03, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Based on what you have said about Nostrum, and trusting your faith in him, I have decided to ignore past mistakes and judge everything he contributes on its merits, without reference to his past contributions. I hope you can do the same with 172 and that we can all move on beyond the recent controversies. FearÉIREANN 19:25, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
When () comes back I want to nominate him for sysop (for real this time) I dont ask for much, but I ask that you support his nomination. Sincerely-戴眩sv 22:54, Aug 16, 2003 (UTC)
well, I see that your talk page is protected...but I come in peace with open hands...so, I hope I can "abuse" and edit it nevertheless :-). I just saw your comment left about 2 or 3 weeks ago about Daniel Boyer on my talk page. I just wanted to know if anything was still going on about it, what was suggested, decided, voted; whatever. Well, what is the outcome of the discussion anyway ? Anthère
- all right, I will look at it then. Thanks. Btw, I am very sad that you changed your nick. All I see is ????, it is ...er...well...not very... Ant
- LOL, now, I see { MB | マイカル } , that is much better, I can recognise you :-)
- Waiiiit, the first time, I just typed what I saw, the second time, as it was more complicated, I did a copypaste, and now, above, I can see some coding with & and # and ; and numbers
- now, here is the stuff pasted : { MB | マイカル }
- and here is what I see (typed) : { MB | ???? }
- As you can see, I still have the ???? instead of the japanese (if japanese, it is) but also the MB, so I can recognise you. Plus some { and } and some spaces. There is no bug there :-)
- you look green at the top, and pink at the bottom on my mac. Is it planned that way ? ;-) ant
- LOL. Had only seen 2 colors. Not four. But you are right, 4 there is. Ok, another suggestion for color play : try a new logo ! ant
- yes, pick up one you like. Open your photoshop and drink your best beer, go for the filters and color manipulation stuff and go wild :-)
- You too. Don't forget : green for reality and faith and orange for happiness and fun.
- and then, which logo is yours in the end, or which one did you play with ???
No, it wasn't what I expected. I don't know why but I thought it sounded interesting or maybe even fun. In reality it is too theoretical and of little practical use to me. It's also just not worth the stress of working full time and then coming home and spending my evenings doing something I can't find an interest in. Basically, I don't care what the invalid equivalence partitions of some imaginary scenario are and I have no motivation to find out. Angela
Thanks for your message on my talk page. The answer is of course - everyone is mad. Me too, which is why I never really left for long. Angela
Good work on the "Votes for any variation" on the logo voting pages... it's just that you seem to have accidentally voted on my behalf a number of times. ;) --Dante Alighieri 01:36, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- Yeah, I think when you went to cut and paste the line that had the "votes for any variation" part you also copied my name, because I seem to have voted for 4-5 images in a row that I didn't intend. :) I checked the edit log and it was you who added them when you were adding the voting section to every image. It's no big deal, I just thought it was kind of funny. I'm fixing it now. --Dante Alighieri 06:11, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- Nope, you caught them all. Good work, and thanks! --Dante Alighieri 14:01, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Welcome message
editDumping large amounts of HTML on users' talk pages is not exactly a good way of introducing them to how the system works -- they have to edit the talk page sooner or later, and then they will be confused by the syntax and think that using talk pages is more complicated than it is.—Eloquence 18:21, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)
- I assume the "insert name here" part of your greeting should be swapped for the person's username. I changed a couple of the ones you did today. Hope that's ok and I'm not missing the point or something. Angela 20:33 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Could you be a little more specific about what problem you're having with the mailing lists? Hopefully it's solvable. Discussion about the copyright notice left off something like here. --Brion 21:55, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)
---
Thanks for nominating me for adminship. :-)
Over at VfD User:Mintguy mentioned that you had grown frustrated by some controversial edits to some computing articles. In response, there's now a new Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing and Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing/Controversial articles to help form consensus on computing topics. Please consider watching the talk pages there and using them to let others know of issues you believe merit peer review. JamesDay 15:50, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I unprotected User:Mbecker - assuming accidental/old vandal/etc. If deliberate, please re-protect and drop a quick line of explanation on wikipedia:protected page and/or on the page itself. Thanks. Martin 18:06, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Hi Michael. Sorry to see you haven't been around for a while. Just to let you know in case you're still here, I have listed Image:Trillium.jpg for deletion as it has been renamed Image:Sagittaria.jpg. Apparently it wasn't a Trillium. :) Angela 21:45, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Hi, an anon IP changed your user page. I wasn't sure if you or not so I reverted in case it wasn't. Angela. 03:28, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Hi. It looks like User:Hephaestos fulfilled your request for a merge of Hipparchos with Hipparchus on Wikipedia:WikiMoney. --snoyes 01:08, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The Page history of Continental United States suggests (as does its talk) that you introduced the expression "non-continental" there to describe Alaska and Hawaii. Do you recall whether you had a specific source, or just deduced that usage as following logically from "continental" (or "continental US")? --Jerzy 05:53, 2004 Feb 19 (UTC)
Tnx, i'll probably research eventually to see if i can confirm; maybe read the act that establishes term CONUS. --Jerzy 04:29, 2004 Feb 20 (UTC)
Hi Mbecker, I read on Image:Clitoris.jpg that you cropped and retouched the clitoris photograph, which I believe is the same that is on de:Klitoris. We'd like to use the same image in other articles such as de:Vulva, but our problem is how to get rid of that circle and text on the image. Do you happen to have a copy of the original photo without the markings? -- 195.33.105.17 09:53, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
re: Geosynchronous_orbit I am not disputing the value of the Free Body Diagram, should such a diagram ever appear. Until it does a "todo" list on a main article looks extremely unprofessional and belongs on the discussion page, which is why I put it there. If you believe this is in contravention of WP policy then please provide me with a link to the appropriate page in the general editing section. The whole page was marked for cleanup and that is what I am doing. Mat-C 20:26, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)