User talk:Thatcher/Archive2

This is an archive of past discussions. Its contents should be preserved in their current form. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Just a note

I read your 'temp' page and I just want to say that although you probably won't believe me, I'm not trying to persecute anyone. The articles that Merecat disrupted have suffered as a direct result of his behavior. And now there's no reasonable doubt that he is Rex - a well-known troll - deliberately evading his prior ArbComm remedies. That means the entire exchange has been a violation of good faith on Merecat/Rex's part. I'm doing what's right as such conduct is wrong whatever the political POV of the miscreant - and I neither filed the RfC nor edited the 'GWB' article, nor did I participate in the prior RfAr's against him. To cause this much disruption is really wrong and really shouldn't be tolerated by a responsible community. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 02:07, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Note I have excerpted the above for the RfAr reopen request. And an honest thanks for providing your statement. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 02:12, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Xchrisblackx

Next you'll be trying to tell us that his high-school buddy probably isn't a government agent out to suppress the paranormal. You, sir, are what we call a buzzkill. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:54, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Preying from the Pulpit

In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Preying from the Pulpit you suggested that we delete the article Preying from the Pulpit. 8 out of 10 people who commented there agreed with you and said we should remove the article by deleting or merging its content with First Baptist Church of Hammond. Now the admin that removed the AfD has placed a merge tag on the article instead. Can you please comment on the proposed merger of the article at Talk:First Baptist Church of Hammond#Merging with Preying from the Pulpit? Vivaldi (talk) 02:20, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Misha_Sedgwick

Hi, as a result of OTRS ticket number 2006050610009773, an email from a source close to the subject, I have removed the unsourced material about Misha Sedgwick. The "anonymous" edits have apparently been coming from this source, and is highly concerned about the "gossipy" nature of this article. Please be sure to source all potentially disparaging material, and if you could, try to keep the article as balanced as possible.

Thanks! ℬastique▼^parℓer♥^voir♑ 00:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, the article as it was was kinder to Misha than it could have been. It is a matter of record that she appeared in the off broadway play Andy & Edie in 2004, and that various publications referred to her as the niece of Edie Sedgwick (including the New York Times) as late as December, 2005. (An Andy Warhol-related web site claims Misha is sorry about claiming to be related and that it was Braunstein;s idea, but that is not a RS.) Of the sentence you removed

She made her off-Broadway debut in 2004 as Edie Sedgwick (no relation), in the play Andy & Edie, about the relationship between Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol.

the only thing I can not prove with an RS is that it was her debut. I think the inclusion of the statement "(no relation)" is redundant, given the details given below in the article; that too keeps getting inserted by an anon and although I think it is not encylopedic in tone I haven't fought to keep it out. I did not include the real gossipy stuff, like the fact that the play's writer/director Peter Braunstein became infamous for a notorious sex crime and that before the play premiered Braunstein told Page 6 that he and Misha were going to be married (which I wouldn't include even if there was no complaint). I don't understand why that sentence was targeted. Most actresses would want their professional debut mentioned in their bio and I don't see how the sentence you changed could be construed as gossip (except for the needless "no relation"). Maybe its simply that becuase the play was a flop, someone wants to rewrite history and pretend it didn't happen, or maybe they want to avoid the link to the article about the play since that links to Braunstein. You could make an argument that her theater and movie roles have been so minor that the the article should be sent to AfD for lack of notability, but I don't see why Wikipedia should be a party to sanitizing the poor decisions she made while trying to get her career started. Thatcher131 06:03, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your consideration. Please bear in mind that I have no personal interest in this article. We deal with countless requests at m:OTRS, and due consideration by all the volunteers contributing to Wikipedia goes a long way toward making our job much easier. ℬastique▼^parℓer♥^voir♑ 13:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I have found two sources that support the claim that her off-broadway New York stage debut was in the play Andy & Edie. Both are from projects which Sedgwick has an official affiliation with as an actress and producer. I've added this material back to her Wikipedia bio and cited the sources. Please let me know your thoughts on this. Perhaps we could add this to the discussion at Misha's Wikipedia entry? Santress 20:36, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Office of International Treasury Control

Thanks for the copyedits - this whole business is so unbelievable that it's hard to stop a bit of snark from creeping in... :-) -- ChrisO 08:03, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for voting on my RfA

Thanks so much for voting! Thanks so much for voting on my request for adminship. I have decided to withdraw my nomination as it seems that consensus will not be reached. If you voted in support, thanks for putting your trust in me to be a good admin. If you voted in opposition, thank you as well for your constructive criticism as it will only help me be a better Wikipedian and perhaps help if/when I apply for adminship again sometime in the future.

Mahogany

Apologies

Apologies for ignoring your comments on AFAQ on my talk page, but I am currently quite busy. I will resume the discussion when I have some free time again, but meanwhile, thanks a lot for bothering to have taken the time to provide thoughtful insight into the matter. :) -- infinity0 00:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Killian documents

I've been thinking about the intro to this article, which is the least stable part of it. It gets edited cyclically, moving from "forged documents" to "possibly forged documents" to "likely forgeries" to "considered by experts to be forged," etc. I was thinking it might be helpful (?) to put in between <!---> something like "DEAR EDITORS. IN ACCORDANCE WITH NPOV PLEASE DO NOT INSERT "FORGED" INTO THE LEDE SENTENCE AS THIS IS DISPUTED. PLEASE SEE TALK:KILLIAN DOCUMENTS." Think this is a horribly bad idea? Writing it out like this makes me wonder. Maybe less trouble just to keep reverting it as needed? Kaisershatner 15:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Good thinking

I had though that the Preved vandals might be open proxies, but was attacking it from the direction of the spam blacklist instead of through the RFCU checking for proxies. Both will be effective, but yours is the better general approach. --Syrthiss 19:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

re: Arniep

Thanks for replying. I just don't think it's fair for someone to accuse people of something like an "advertising scam" behind their back without confronting them. I asked Arniep to tell me what I was even advertising and he told me to go place a complaint about him at some link so that's what I did. I mean I thought Wikipedia was supposed to be about working together. If you ask me there should be rules that if you have an issue without someone first you go to them rather than posting attacks behind their backs. That's why I went directly to Arniep to find out what his deal was, he just chose to hide rather than deal straight. Just my thoughts. I appreciate your reply. Thanks. Icemountain2 20:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia has lots of guidelines but very few hard and fast rules. All I can say for myself is that I would have handled the situation differently. I hope you enjoy wikipedia and can find some things that interest you to work on. Thatcher131 22:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

CAN YOU HELP? I am the first to admit that I am a relative novice at Wikipedia. I created the Joey Travolta page because I happen to know Joey and think he's a good guy. I have made a few minor contributions. That's about it. So, I don't know a lot of the terminology. When this person Arneip said I was a part of something called and "Advertising Scam" I tried to address it with him directly and he refused to enter into any kind of discussion with me. He told me to post a complaint about him at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents. So I did what he told me to do. I didn't do it maliciously. I presented the facts and my thoughts that there should be rules against that kind of behavoir. Now - again rather than address me and open a discussion, the Arniep has put a label on my user page naming me something called a "Sock Puppet." I don't know the terminology. I don't know what an "Advertising Scam" is or what a "Sock Puppet" is. I just don't understand why there is this whole sense of back stabbing and fear of talking one on one. Like the last time this Arniep person attacked me my first move has been to contact him/her directly and request conversation. However given track record I expect he/she will avoid one-on-one communication. My question to you is what am I supposed to do? I'm small time. I do a few little edits here and there. Is this an exclusive club that I'm not invited to? Is it the bully system where the person who attacks the most wins? What is an "Advertising Scam" and what is a "Sock Puppet"? I'm just trying to fit in and here I am under attack yet again. Can you help? Icemountain2 14:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I removed the sockpuppet tag per wikipedia policy Assume Good Faith. For a definition of sockpuppets see WP:SOCK. During the debate on whether to delete the article on Riki Lee Travolta, it was discovered that there were 5-8 accounts that all registered in October-November 2005 and made edits to Riki's article, to his book My Fractured Life, or to add references to Riki to other articles (like the claim that he was considered for the role of James Bond). These accounts were then mostly dormant until the articles were nominated for deletion, at which point they became active again making all sorts of unverifiable claims about Riki. This was highly suspicious of sockpuppetry and looked like an effort to bolster the resume of this actor about whom nothing could be verified. Your account is suspected by Arniep, and to a lesser extent by me, because you fit the general pattern, because your first edit to Joey Travolta included a link to "matinee idol Riki Lee Travolta", and because of this edit [1] where you claim that Travolta's book, which very few people seem to have read, was the inspiration for Less than Zero.

My personal opinion is that Mr. Travolta runs a very efficient self-publicity machine with very little in the way of reliable sources to back it up. See my comments at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Rikki Lee Travolta for a partial analysis. Also at the bottom of that page is a comment that Margaret Travolta has sent a verified e-mail to the Wikimedia Foundation regarding her family's articles.

At this point I think there is a chance you are connected somehow with Riki Lee and the former effort to inflate his resume by posting articles here, but there is also a chance you are entirely innocent, and got fooled by the hype machine RLT has built for himself. Per wikipedia policy I am willing to assume good faith that you are an innocent bystander who has been unfairly suspected as a sockpuppet. I would not support restoring the sockpuppet label (which I feel is somewhat aggressive) unless your future edits continued to support that theory.

A likely reason that Arniep tagged your account without communicating with you first is that wikipedia has extensive experience with sockpuppets and they always deny it. Many editors (including in this case Arnie) would probably find my taking you at your word to be somewhat naive and the 15 minutes I have spent writing this as a waste of time.

The best thing you can do is go about your business and edit whatever articles interest you. If you make good edits, you will develop a good reputation that will eventually overwhelm any lingering suspicions about your first few Travolta-related edits. Good luck. Thatcher131 15:24, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your patience and advice. I am more connected to Joey Travolta and will not deny that. My son went through the wonderful Joey Travolta Entertainment Experience that he runs with Greg Evigan. I have met Rikki Lee, Rachel, and Sam Travolta and also Tom Fridley but all only in passing. My allegiance is to Joey and Greg and the wonderful experiences they brought to my son's life. Icemountain2 14:37, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crime Fiction

Hey I think I busted these guys (see here, bottom of page)- the whole Rikki Lee Travolta James Bond/My Fractured Life hoax just seems to have been a scam to get attention for this film. If the film is successful, fine, but I don't think we should list films that are unreleased and have dubious press coverage. Arniep 00:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, they mention the Bond thing and My Fractured Life in this blog [2], [3] which basically catalogues all their hyping. Arniep 02:19, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, they got a press release done saying "According to a source in the Screen Actors Guild, ponytailed actor Rikki Lee Travolta of the well known entertainment family was ushered from the Chicago set of 'Crime Fiction' and flown to London for a closed door screentest for what is only being described as 'a franchise action role." just to get the films name mentioned in the press. I am convinced all that was just hype for this film- also note the fiction/ reality / lie theme that was in My Fractured Life. Arniep 02:36, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge on America

I've heeded your sound suggestion and merged this page as proposed. A Good idea of yours. Thanks Norwikian 12:28, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank-you

The count is in, and now I join the crew who wield the mops and pails. Thanks for your support! I pledge to serve both you and Jimbo Wales. If you have anything you need, then please don't think to hesitate. For I am the very model of a grateful admin designate! ♫Bucketsofg✐♪

"Fixes" at AfD log

No offense, friend, but your "fix" of my entry in the AfD log was a very bad thing. Please be very, very careful when making switches like that... there was no reason to do what you did. Based on that fix, I think you should leave tidying the log to others, really. Best wishes, Xoloz 17:43, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, sorry, it looks like you tried to revert what you did, but somehow the next edit caused a revert. So, it wasn't as bad as I thought. AfD does weird stuff like that, which is why fiddling with the log is not good. Xoloz 17:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• The version as you left it didn't work. I tried twice to fix it, when I realized I couldn't, I left it the way I found it [4]. Thatcher131 17:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it was a misspelling, although I'm not quite sure what it was. Anyway, when I came back to the page, the next edit after your last one had reverted to your previous edit, hence my confusion. I do apologize, and I suspect the site outages are having with all of us. Xoloz 18:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for being a good wikipedian and collecting all your comments on the Blu Aardvark arbitration application into one statement. This is much better. --Tony Sidaway 13:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Blu_Aardvark

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Blu_Aardvark. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Blu_Aardvark/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Blu_Aardvark/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, --Tony Sidaway 00:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Request assistance

You mentioned that I added comments in the clerk's note. As I signed them myself, this was not my intention, but rather to provide more evidence on my own part. Could you point me to where this would better be located? Thanks. YINever 09:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for all your effort on Seckel entry. I am trying to send you a very brief reply to Seckel's boldfaces, but I am unable to copy it. I will try again.Tmciver 16:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Seckel is now showing his true colors, threatening to sue unless the "previous" (his) version is restored. I wanted a vanilla version all along, which was why I requested AFD.

Re Popoff: Yes, Seckel was running SCS at the time. But the investigation, in San Francisco, was Randi's, was sponsored by CSICOP's CSER. The "God's Freq." article referred to was written by Seckel himself, and published by CSICOP. SCS is not mentioned. There is no mention of direct participation by Seckel because there was none, though elsewhere (as in his wikipedia acount) he implied otherwise. See Randi's accounts. The amicus brief: I stand by my facts. I was involved myself. Gell-Mann and Lehmann have published accounts. The article Seckel refers to was written by Seckel himself, not co-authored with Lehmann. The brief itself was credited to Lehmann and other lawyers, and is written about widely. Shermer wrote his article (in STHV) before forming Skeptics Soc., and believed Seckel's version. I *do* have the cite. He knows better now. I told Pat Linse about Shermer's article; she told him about Seckel, and Linse and Shermer began a partnership at his new Skeptics Society. I was then added as a contributing editor. Re Darwin fish: I go with the published accounts. The court records would be useful. Re illness: I never doubted that Seckel entered the hospital. I merely pointed out there has been no documentation of leukemia presented, which is a fact. Seckel here directly accuse me of libel. I stand by my statement that SCS's collapse was due to mismanagement and preceded this, regardless of how long it existed on paper. Re Seckel's articles: I have Seckel's articles too, and can provide them. Plus sources they are based upon. Re Seckel's book citations: I specifically said they were "accurate." I added that there were claims of "forthcoming" books in his Contemp Authors entry that were never published. This is fact. Re magician: I specifically said he was NOT listed as co-author, and Seckel was listed as sole author. In fact that was the point. Re Feynman: Of the huge number of works about him, Seckel cites one mention in the acknowledgements of just one. The letter from Feynman's secretary says: "As soon as I had my information [about Seckel] I told Feynman, who dropped Al immediately (he really disliked a phony)." I can provide a copy, plus the original. Re Pearce Williams: Seckel accuses me of "fabricating" his letter—an extremely serious accusation. I can provide a copy, plus the original. It postdates the lecture Seckel refers to. In the letter he says "For years, I have warned Al Seckel that he was misrepresenting himself but he paid no heed to me." Also: "He immediately latched onto me like a puppy dog. It is an absolute lie that I ever said, publicly or privately, that Al was my best student. In fact, he was never technically a student of mine at all! He never took an examination from me, he never wrote a paper for me nor did he even show me through oral communication that he was anything but a dilettante who could fake knowledge of history of science fairly well." And more, ending like this: "One of the reasons I broke off contact with Al was that I began to suspect that he was defrauding me. I know for a fact that he has withheld money that he owes one of my children for some seven years now. Not being a lawyer, and being rather simple-minded, I would call this theft. You may use this letter in any way you wish and have my permission to show it to anyone. I hope it has been of some use to you." Re Caltech affiliation: I said he was not listed in the directory, and that the University did not answer inquiries about his affiliation. I know he had some lab affiliation, which was my point: why then no official directory listing? I e-mailed one of the labs but did not phone. I did not claim misrepresentation about lab affiliation, but rather his earlier claim of being a Caltech grad student on the verge of a PhD. Re SCS audit: Shneour claimed CSICOP performed an audit of SCS. When I asked CSICOP, they denied this, saying someone *else* did the audit. When I told this to Shneour he threatened to sue me if I asked any more about it. There was no audit.

Tom McIverTmciver 17:12, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I see Seckel is continued to pump it out on the Seckel entry discussion site. For anyone interested in finding out about him, they should contact Pat Linse, or Michael Shermer himself (who Shneour's letter is addressed to). I am glad Seckel made that letter public, for I knew of attempted intimidation but had no documentation. Now Shneour calls it an "informal" audit. What it was, was figures Seckel showed to Shneour, who believed him. My admittedly strange point about wishing to include the LA Times articles is that, though overwhelmingly positive to Seckel, they repeat demonstrably false claims made by Seckel about his credentials. Seckel does not want these sources available. I'd like to remind Seckel that his vociferous supporter Klass (now deceased) contributed huge amounts to Saucer Smear, including defenses of Seckel. AFD, followed by a clean slate and perhaps a vanilla entry written by independent third parties would have been far easier. Please feel free to e-mail or telephone me. I appreciate your suggestions of external criticism pages, but that would be tremendous work and any contributors would be subject to intimidation, perhaps leaving me facing Seckel alone, as in the past. And I too have other things to do. I am not pursuing Seckel, but when his outrageously self-promoting and dishonest entry appeared I could not in good conscience let it stand uncorrected. BTW, in the original entry Seckel boasted of how Shermer's Skeptics Soc. was a continuation of his SCS. This is absolutely false, and was corrected by another editor before I began any editorial involvement. Seckel's dark allegation that I associate with fringe groups such as creationists is most amusing. Anyone is welcome to see my cartoon in Feb 24 Science magazine, in the Holden article about creationism. Or long review of my book on creationism in Nature, 1989 May 25, or article in LA Times about my PhD diss on creationism (1989, forget date). (Tmciver 18:37, 6 June 2006 (UTC).

If you are actually willing to investigate this mess, might I also suggest a science citation search on Seckel, since he claims to be such a scientific authority? For years he boasted of working as research neuroscientist in the labs of both Shin Shimojo and Christof Koch (and he indeed did have some sort of lab affiliation with them). They have authored many hundreds of articles. Surely he is listed as co-author at least on some of these, given his reputation; and given that listed co-authors sometimes include even the test-tube washers. Surely he also has lots of peer-reviewed scientific articles of his own too. I've done these searches myself and know the answer.Tmciver 23:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Note: when I mentioned Contemporary Authors I did not realize there was an updated entry on Seckel. The 1988 entry lists at least two interesting books "in press" or "publication expected." The new entry (2006) lists his illusion books, and does not mention those other two. It gives his credentials as BS from Cornell, 1980, and his address as the Koch lab at Caltech, with a "work in progress" from MIT Press.Tmciver 23:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:RFCU clerk comment

As a personal recommendation, you may want to withdraw part of your comment in WP:RFCU#User:Rex071404 that is marked as a clerk note about needing more evidence. Not that I don't agree with you that they shouldn't request again w/o more evidence, but I said a very similar thing on a different one that was in a comment with a clerk tag. Essjay removed it with a comment about not doing that in the edit history. Kevin_b_er 00:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)