Pegasusphil

Appeal against blocking

{{unblock|reason=I've apparently been blocked for "block evasion" - yet all I've done in the past week (today, actually) is request help from an admin on how to create a citation. I simply do not understand how Wiki's systems work, it makes no sense why I'm blocked for "evasion". Apparently user 'jpgordon' has blocked me for this "evasion" - I have no idea who that is, nor why they think I'm evading a block. I was previously blocked for no valid reason by another admin a couple of weeks ago who was rude and objectionable to me and refused to answer my requests for advice on how to go about editing. I assume this latest "block evasion" is somehow connected with that? But in all honesty I haven't a clue what's going on. It seems my IP address has just randomly been blacklisted and I don't know why and I can't make any progress on getting it resolved. Wikipaedia's rules are dense and unintelligible but it seems we are supposed to somehow understand them by default......}} Pegasusphil (talk) 21:40, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like you're logged into this account on your phone but not your desktop computer. It's possible that your desktop computer is on an IP address that is blocked for some reason unrelated to you – for example, multiple people on the same internet service provider may share an IP block, and maybe one of them did something to get blocked.

So, try logging into this account from your desktop computer?

Wikipedia is made of volunteers like you and me, and it's imperfect and messy sometimes. Dreamyshade (talk) 22:37, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks - I think that IP issue must be the explanation, because I am actually logged in on the desktop PC as well. I got the 'block evasion' message when I tried to reply. But now, replying to this, the block message didn't appear. It's utterly confusing.

So (as previously) I assume I've been blocked because of someone else - which presumably means I'm stuck with it and can't do anything about it?

Yes, It was the Mary Stanford entry I was trying to reinstate. So it has to be actually 'written about' elsewhere to be valid? It's on Youtube, and is held on this 'Historic England' website - https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1392961?section=comments-and-photos

I guess that's not enough? Pegasusphil (talk) 23:07, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Since you're able to reply here, it seems like you're not blocked in a way that matters.

Right, Wikipedia can only include "verifiable" information according to the standards described at Wikipedia:Verifiability. Looks like the comments on that Historic England website are user-generated content, which means they can't be used as references: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#User-generated_content. YouTube is similar. Dreamyshade (talk) 23:52, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok thanks, makes sense - yet the other entry for "songs" on the Mary Stanford page that has been allowed to stand has a citation that just goes to a YouTube page (I just checked it), which by the rules as described doesn't independently verify it any more than the fact my song has a video on Youtube in exactly the same way. So that entry is allowed based in a YouTube page yet mine is not. I'm clearly missing something?

(Sorry to drag this on - just trying to learn....) Pegasusphil (talk) 00:44, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Right, according to Wikipedia guidelines, that information should be sourced to something better than a YouTube video. I looked it up and found a couple sources, so I added them. See Wikipedia:Editing_policy#Try to fix problems – there's lots of unreferenced information in many articles, so when you identify something like that, a good practice is to try to fix it instead of just removing it. Dreamyshade (talk) 02:09, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok thanks for clarifying - I get it now. If the creator of some work tries to include a reference to it on a Wiki page saying "this exists" then that isn't verified data, but if someone else has said somewhere "that work exists" then it's verified. Presumably if a friend of mine writes an independent entry in a source somewhere that refers to my song/video then that would verify it (even though it's no more proof than I myself can provided). Seems pretty tenuous and lacks robustness, given that any fact(oid) on the web can be circulated simply by exchanging it in a forum somewhere without any fact-checking, but fair enough if that's how it works then it is. It significantly reduces my confidence in Wikipaedia an information source though - I though verified sources and citations somehow suggested a bit more rigourousness than that. I've been assuming through all this that something a bit more more robust was being demanded in order to verify my comments. Or am I being unfair in saying that? Pegasusphil (talk) 09:11, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

PS - I say that mainly because the Verifgiasbility rules include this -

• material whose verifiability has been challenged
• material whose verifiability is likely to be challenged, and Yet I included a comment about a piece of media which I myself created, and there's a Youtube page that displays it and mentions my authorship. I can't really see how that falls under "likely to be challenged" nor indeed "has been challeneged" - no-one is going to say "he didn't create that, I did." and it's displayed on a public media source. I can't really see how that constitutes a breach of the verifiability rules. But Hey. (And of course some other editor has happily allowed exactly the same thing - a Youtube source - as acceptable for at least a year and probably more for the other song mentioned.)

Pegasusphil (talk) 09:15, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

A person challenged the verifiability of your unsourced statement by adding a "citation needed" tag, then another person removed the statement as unsourced.

You challenged the verifiability of a statement that was supported only by a YouTube link (by asking about it here), so I added two local news pages that seemed sufficient to verify that the song exists. The news pages seemed adequate according to my understanding of Wikipedia:Reliable sources – they're not super strong journalism or anything, but they're not just somebody's personal social media, and that's fine because the existence of a song is not a particularly controversial claim. If I couldn't find something better than YouTube, I could have removed the statement.

If you know of similar news pages for your song, you can point them out on the talk page for that article, and a person can look at adding the information back into the article. Dreamyshade (talk) 16:07, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok thanks. You've given me sufficient info to help me understand the process, which is helpful (unlike the previous admin I encountered!). I'll leave it here and stop bothering you - but I have to just say as I bow out that you said you found news articles that "verify that the song exists" - yet both for my song and the other one, the YouTube videos alone verify that the songs exists - you can even listen them! If they didn't exist then the videos wouldn't be there. As you said yourself, the existence of a song is not controversial - so the extra validation seems entirely redundant. Not criticising you at all, just saying that the logic of a rule requiring you to verify the existence of something that is already published on the global web is redundant logic indeed. In the end it means an admin can go look at the video, listen to the song, then say "your song's existence is not verified" - which is obviously nonsensical.

Anyway thanks for your help. Pegasusphil (talk) 16:32, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Also, are you trying to add your song back to RNLB Mary Stanford (ON 661)? If there's no secondary coverage of the work (for example, if it hasn't been written about in any magazines, newspapers, even local blogs, etc.), we can't include it in the article – see Wikipedia:Verifiability.

You could present it at my local virtual chantey sing though! Check out https://maritime.org/chantey-sing/ - affiliated with San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. We enjoy when people bring local songs from far-away places. Dreamyshade (talk) 22:45, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Re: Your unblock request

You have not been blocked as far as the block logs show. If you are blocked, a message should show up when you try to edit a page that isn't this page (try WP:sandbox). If a message like that pops up, you should read through it in its entirety. It should provide a clear simple reason as to why you're blocked. Note that many blocks can unintentionally catch users who have done nothing wrong. Please make sure to assume good faith with the blocking admin. GrayStorm^{(Complaints Dept.|My Contribs.)} 22:19, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks - it's inconsistent, I got the block message earlier when trying to reply, even though I was logged in - it specifically said I was blocked until 30th September. Now this time it didn't appear. Baffling.

I might have to take issue with there being a "clear and simple reason shown" - it just said "block evasion" and there's no explanation. I suppose that could be called a 'simple reason' but when you don't get told why, or what you did to cause it (nothing, as far as I know) and don't get told how to fix something you didn't cause, it's highly confusing for a novice user.

But thanks for trying to help. Pegasusphil (talk) 23:13, 14 September 2024 (UTC)