Tony Sidaway
npa
I'm getting rather pessimistic with WP - it reminds me the tower of Babel. Or maybe I'm too much wiki-stressed these days. Thanks. MATIA 16:05, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Keep the article hidden?
Salutations, Tony! As the most recent Admin to address Page Protection issues listed in the Edit History of Winter Soldier Investigation, I'm coming to you for a little advice and assistance. The article is blanked and protected yet again. User:Duk assures me that he has no interest in the article, other than to address a possible copyvio issue -- coincidentally as a film about this event is being re-released this month for the first time in 30 years.
Duk, an Admin, removed a portion of text from the article and recommended that the whole article be reverted practically to it's stub form from a year ago. He then requested opinions from others on the Talk page. I gave my opinion, he disagreed, and the discussion became quite snippity and unproductive after that. He then engaged in a revert war over the article, despite my attempts to appease him with re-writes of the text he removed. He then blanked the whole article, replaced it with a "copyvio" tag, and page protected it. Having copyright material in an article is unacceptable, but so is completely blanking an otherwise good article indefinitely (and I know it can be months before anyone looks into the matter). As near as I can tell, the issue revolves around the following paragraph:
- (from the Wikipedia article)
- Another revelation of the Winter Soldier Investigation was that servicemen participating in these illegal missions into neutral countries were required to never reveal information on their ___location or activities. As verified by news investigations conducted by Detroit Free Press and others, they removed all U.S. related accouterments from their garments and identification and had instructions not to reveal their true identity if caught. On some missions the servicemen toted Russian-made weaponry and wore the uniforms used by their North Vietnamese enemy. The Pentagon would continue to deny any knowledge of such operations for another several months.
- (from Gerald Nicosia's 700 page book Home to War, page 89)
- The American military's credibility had already been severely damaged by the 1968 Tet Offensive and the perennial failure of Vietnamization, but Winter Soldier took that challenge a quantum leap farther, questioning the morality of America’s superpower status and habitual interventionist politics. One of the points brought out at Winter Soldier, and verified in subsequent news stories, was that servicemen participating in these illegal missions were often required to sign papers in which they promised never to tell the true ___location and nature of their activities. When they went out on the missions, they wore uniforms stripped of all American insignia and personal identification tags, and if caught in Laos they were under no circumstances to reveal their true identity; but even if they did, the United States would not acknowledge them as its soldiers. On certain missions the Americans even dressed in North Vietnamese Army uniforms and carried the Russian weapons commonly used by the NVA. In effect, the American government was attempting to turn a generation of young men into liars in order to cover up its own misconduct—--or, to put it more charitably, to hide the gap between its stated foreign policy goals and the Realpolitik it practiced.
If I understand Duk's contention correctly, the article's paragraph is a copyright violation because it was "derived" from Nicosia's book. I only have a layman's understanding of Copyright Law, but the article paragraph appears fine to me in that the basic facts (illegal missions were conducted; identities concealed) are presented, while Nicosia's conclusions and opinions are omitted. Regardless, I'm not asking you to be a copyright attorney -- I'm simply hoping for assistance in recovering the baby that was thrown out with the bathwater. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 165.247.202.215 18:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
- The problem is, apparently, that copyrighted text was inserted into the article, and then only paraphrased during editing. This makes the paraphrase a derived work, which is subject to copyright. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:02, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
- I just discovered that you had already been commenting on this very issue as I was typing my request to you. I'm trying to play catch-up now, while researching just what happened. The questionable material first appeared September 17, 2004 with this [1] edit by 209.86.253.61. This appears to be a major edit, including the addition of several paragraphs from Nicosia's book. The citation "As noted by author Gerald Nicosia in his authoritative history of the Vietnam Veterans Movement Home to War,..." is also introduced in this edit, along with quotation marks and offsetting of the passages. With the notable exception of the paragraph mentioned above. I'm guessing there was no larcenous intent here. The book was quoted, a proper citation with quotations and offsetting was made, and one of the paragraphs was juggled out of the cited section during formatting and editing. I'm still looking at the other edits from that period.
- Am I understanding correctly that the procedure now is to delete everything subsequent to the introduction of the copyright protected material? 165.247.202.215 19:40, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that's all that needs to be done. Provided the first tainted version can be correctly identified the article can be cleaned up in this way in a few minutes. I'm as anxious as you are to get this article back up and running. The only worry would be over misguided people trying to help by restoring tainted text from their own offline copies, but we have to live with the possibility of copyright violations being injected into any article, it isn't unique to this one. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:46, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
- I would appreciate your comments after reading the most recent addition to Talk:Winter_Soldier_Investigation. Thank you. 165.247.204.56 17:32, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, it's hard, but it had to be done. Now the article can be edited and, as long as copyright isn't violated, rebuilt. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:22, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- Per instructions at WP:CP, I have rewritten the article's text at Winter Soldier Investigation/Temp. Rather than try to rewrite the offending paragraph, I have omitted it (and it's header) completely. Pending verification that all "copyvio versions" have been deleted by a sysop, may this temp page be moved to the article page? What is the procedure for doing so? 165.247.204.56 20:07, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
It depends what you've done. If you've used any material from the deleted revisions, it's no good because we cannot use it under the GFDL. --Tony SidawayTalk 20:48, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- Easily 80% of the present text is "material from the deleted revisions" or very close to it. I refer to original edit contributions, properly cited excerpts and public ___domain material (such as the actual testimony quotes of the veterans), as well as typical article constructs such as external links and bibliographies. I avoided reinserting obviously derivative work, as well some I suspect might have been derivative. When you say, "If you've used any material from the deleted revisions..." I assume you mean material in violation of copyright. Not ANY material. Am I understanding correctly? 165.247.204.56 21:19, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- The thing is that we can't use any material extracted from the deleted revisions, not because of the tainting from the copyright violation, but because using such deleted material is contrary to our license. The original editors own that material and it's fine if they themselves add them back. If you add them back, however, you're breaking our license. --Tony SidawayTalk 16:08, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Re: Unprotects
Yeah, I went through the category page. I hate long protections. Btw, I noticed your own work on removing long protected pages. Well, done. But I was intrigued by your comment "This wiki now has a max temp protection period of 3 days and still hasn't exploded!". I fully support that policy (unless in very special circumstances, I guess, when sorting things out on talk takes longer), but is this a new policy of some sorts, or just something you decided to try out and see how it goes? Shanes 23:06, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
- Just a test. Not policy. I wanted to see how low it could go before things started getting bad. Well, I'm very surprised that I got it so low. --Tony SidawayTalk 10:17, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- Please re-protect Avram. It's been vandalized many times since it was unprotected. Thanks. freestylefrappe 03:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- Done. Boy. that guy is determined! --Tony SidawayTalk 10:17, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Can I ask you to re-protect Urban75 as well? Your removal of U75-related board nonsense from the Talk page has already been reverted by the same guy who was responsible for the recent sockpuppets and general vandalism, and now he's re-reverted the main page to one of his old edits again.
He's not going to take it to Urban75 because he's been banned from Urban75 and is just using Wikipedia to insult various people and spread rumours about the admins there, in particular the editor. There's a reference to the sockpuppetting on WP:ANI. --Fridgemagnet 16:45, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- And he's at it again; see both page and talk, reverting people, removing talk comments and reinstating the old rubbish. Oh, and adding stuff about the board being censored by "liberal capitalists". --Fridgemagnet 21:20, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Harassment?
Well, Tony, I've been breaking from Wikipedia, or I would have notice this earlier. If you think this RfA is harassment, feel free to try and get me banned or de-sysoped, or whatever you have in mind. Of course, you probably didn't see the 100 or so articles Maoririder created that were speedy deleted for having no content (i.e. "Sports Watch" It's a watch made in Taiwan). You know where he came up with that? He took it off his wrist, saw that it said "sports watch" and "made in Taiwan" and wrote an article. He's tying up a bunch of us who should be fixing vandalism and whatnot, doing repetitive tasks that he's too lazy or apathetic to do himself, and if you think that a bunch of garbage articles that add nothing but clutter make this a better encyclopedia, than you and I have very different views of the project. He refuses to put any effort into his work, and expects others to clean up after him. As for the articles you cited that didn't exist before, they certainly aren't testimony to the greatness of Wikipedia, but rather to the generosity of people like Lucky 6.9, who clean up after problems like Maoririder. If you'll notice, most of those signed on for the RfAr were those who cleaned up after him. You might also note that this only went ahead after an RfC failed because Maoririder refused to be involved. Wikipedia is not a baby-sitting service; and Maoririder has added nothing of any value. I see no need to shelter him from the consequences of his refusal to communicate or move beyond his general apathy. With respect, Scimitar parley 19:55, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- Sorry but I really don't see what the problem is. You call him "lazy or apathetic" because he writes very short stubs, and you call others who edit the same article "generous"; this seems to me to entirely miss the point of having a wiki. Wikis are supposed to have multiple editors. --Tony SidawayTalk 20:04, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- Yes, but those expanding onto his articles are trying to tutor him to do it himself, since they have other things to do. Show me, Tony, just one instance where an article comprised of the sentence "It's a school" or "It's a bakery" is helpful. They aren't. They are disruptive. Maoririder is disruptive.--Scimitar parley 20:25, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
A couple of home truths:
- Nobody is forced to edit any article on Wikipedia.
- An article correctly identifying a school is not disruptive.
I'm utterly flummoxed by your evident inability, or perhaps outright refusal, to recognise these as facts. --Tony SidawayTalk 20:41, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- If articles correctly identifying schools and bakeries aren't disruptive, than why do they get deleted? And speaking of flummoxed, I'm still confused as to how you can regard illustrating basic conventions "The title is bolded at the start of the article. . . " "Expand boxes belong on talk pages, not in the article mainspace" and such as harassment. And perhaps I've been a bit unclear myself. My problem isn't with a few such articles, but when half of new pages (and I wish this is was an exaggeration) are taken up by such nano-stubs from one user, it makes it difficult to do New Pages patrol, as well as diluting overall quality in Wikipedia. As for your rationale that nobody is forced to edit, that's true. Nobody is. Nobody is forced to do vandal patrol either, but without it this project would collapse into an unusable mess, and it certainly doesn't hurt to give those doing the job some support, despite the fact that they aren't forced to do it.--Scimitar parley 21:15, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
You misunderstand my statements on this matter. I referred to the RfC, which contained statements saying "It's unclear if Maoririder is a kid or perhaps mentally retarded" as harassment. In fact I find the tone utterly impossible to condone and I think the person who wrote those words should be subject to the most severe discipline.
You claim that the overall quality of Wikipedia is being "diluted" and it's hard to do new pages patrol because of the work of one editor. I disagree with this and regard Maoririder's contributions as valuable, not to mention groundbreaking work. --Tony SidawayTalk 21:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- The retarded comment was a mistake by whoever wrote it, but I chalk it up more to frustration than anything else. As for the value of Maoririder's contributions, I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree, since I honestly think that the encyclopedia's a better place without them.--Scimitar parley 21:47, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Hey
You may not remember me or the fact that I opposed your candidacy for adminship. But I just wanted to let you know you are among the admins I most respect now.
By the way, what's up with the "currently on wikibreak" message? You don't seem to be on wikibreak. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 06:28, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
- Well, I meant to go on wikibreak some months ago, but somehow it didn't happen. --Tony SidawayTalk 11:48, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Subpage protection - thanks!
Protection was performed by me. --Tony SidawayTalk 21:07, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
- Thank you so much! -- Thorpe talk 16:04, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
The personal tastes of one or two editors of a particular articleare important, but during two periods of protection and even now, none of them offers any discussion. Those editors say they dislike the template's presence because of how it looks, but give little solid reasoning for why this one article must be an exception. The style of the template is open for discussion, but making biographical entries look coherent as well as adding important meta-data to the articles is the higher goal. -- Netoholic @ 17:58, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
- Sure, but it's not about the template, it's about the way you get into these eternal ding-dong battles. Try to understand why you're being opposed, then do whatever it takes to make the opposition go away. If that means persuading people, or being persuaded yourself, all the better. Slamming revert after revert isn't convincing anybody. --Tony SidawayTalk 18:05, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
- Incidently, a clear act of edit warring/WP:POINT/vandalism was performed by one of those editors opposing infoboxes when he made this edit. Who's side do you really want to take on this? And one of the editors directly reverting me, User:Rivarez, is a sock puppet of Wik/Gzornenplatz/NoPuzzleStranger. -- Netoholic @ 18:07, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
So the only guy in step is you, right? --Tony SidawayTalk 18:52, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
- Edit warring? Hardly. I added some fields, when it was pointed out that it was better not to change it while it was on TFD I decided I'd wait. There are *lots* of people who think the box is dreadful and useless... You can't claim that all of us are sockpuppets, Netoholic. Can't you just accept that many people disagree and that it's not some troll conspiracy? --Gmaxwell 22:30, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
western sahara
and we already had this debate on the french wikipedia :-(.... ant
i must have missed many episodes
I had listed 4-5 examples of personal attacks against me on WP:ANI, and now the whole section is gone? +MATIA ☎ 20:50, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
- Oh it all became ridiculous so I deleted it. Look, there's a thing called Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. Read it and follow the suggestions. This business of screaming about how horrible somebody else is doesn't work. --Tony SidawayTalk 21:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm not screaming anything Tony. But I do believe that it was unfair to be treated the same way as the one who attacked me. Thanks for your answer. +MATIA ☎ 21:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for setting the protection on List of Tier 1 Internet Service Providers --68.57.130.138 23:30, 30 September 2005 (UTC) AKA Somitho
Terri Schiavo again
Thrice it was suggested that FA page be closed along with unlocking the Terri Schiavo page. Plz do this as well. Marskell 00:25, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
History of the Internet
Unprotecting History of the Internet seems to have been a bad move. Barbiero went back to inserting his personal Original Research POV there. Not content with that, he completely discarded the entire PARC Universal Packet article, including a long list of references, etc which were given nowhere else. He then created a long list of errors by inserting some of the PUP material directly into Xerox Network Services - a fairly different, although related, protocol family. Finally, he went to Routing Information Protocol, and through his lack of knowledge, deleted some correct material, and introduced several more errors.
I do not have the time or energy to carefully filter out all the errors this person introduces. About 20% of his material is useful/interesting, but it's simply overwhelmed by the errors, personal original research, etc, etc. Noel (talk) 01:41, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
*sigh*, what Noel is talking about with PARC Universal Packet and Xerox Network Services was not a deletion but a merge. As the pre-merge article stated, XNC is PUP with minor changes and a unified transport protocol. They are not really seperate systems, XNC being a second version of PUP. The articles duplicated each other to an extent, and I felt were better served as a unified article, merging them so as to describe XNC primarly and identify where it differed from the earlier PUP. Noel has a right to disagree with the merge, but not to make accusations of vandelisim.
I'm still waiting on Noel to tell me exactly what in History of the Internet he thinks is in error, or is original research. Since I've cited and discussed everything but the minor changes to the page. Please hold off on re-protecting the page until Noel makes it clear exactly what his objections are. I have said I am willing to enter mediation over this if he will do so. --John R. Barberio talk, contribs 13:13, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
Catholic Traditionalist
I despair of reaching a consensus. We all agree on a basic definition but this person has a shopping list of crackpot views of what this consists of, which are irrelavent to the informal term used by the Church. This person has a very strong PoV axe. It is his and his PoV alone that will guide this article. Look for yourself (If you dare!) Talk:Traditionalist Catholic Dominick 12:24, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
- You need more eyes, more opinions. That way you will make a consensus that will outweigh minority views. Try asking for opinions on Talk:Catholicism. Explain the conflict in neutral terms. Also try Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Religion. The more people you get, the less weight such isolated views will tend to have. I know it must seem frustrating, but as an administrator I'm not possessed of special powers of judgement. My opinion alone on an article may easily be wrong. Instead we rely on consensus to decide questions like this. This can sometimes be wrong, too, but it's a bit more reliable. --Tony SidawayTalk 14:23, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks for the advice! I think I shall do just that! Dominick 14:27, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
RE: Homosexuality in Singapore
HOW? Have you seen Groyn88 at any time responding constructively to the discussion? Nobody wanted to touch that article. I did. And you still hasn't provided a sufficient justification for your threat to revert my edits and protect the page. --Miborovsky 
22:16, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
You haven't got to the point at which I said I might have to intervene in that manner, and I've decided to perform some edits myself so I would have to ask someone else to make that decision. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:22, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Fadix VfDed something in my userpage. What do you think? --Cool Cat Talk 23:11, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
No strong feelings either way. I think if it upsets people it's probably better off deleted. Put any factual evidence into your arbitration case. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:20, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Left the best till last... really wanted to say thanks to you most of all. With your sysop support, comments and personal experience I feel trully deserving and up to the task of admin. Much appreciated... and it made me forget entirely about the oppose votes. :"D– RoyBoy 800 23:15, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
- I wasn't an admin when first we met--far from it. When I interacted with you, I gained a lot of confidence and felt that my contributions were appreciated. I also liked the way you addressed the issues. I am surprised that I made it to admin before you did. --Tony SidawayTalk 23:32, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
How can one establish consensus with a loon who will not discuss, will not give cites and uses anonIPs and sockpuppet accounts to get his way? I think you're taking the wrong tack here. Zora 02:01, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
- Trust me, things will work out okay. I have to work through the whole process before I can say whether or not I agree with you. Sysops have formidable powers so we don't use them lightly. --Tony SidawayTalk 14:41, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand, why did you switch and protect the Biased version on this page?? That is not right--JusticeLaw 19:38, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
- I don't know which version is biased; however there was overwhelming support for a particular version so I switched to that one. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:45, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree with User:JusticeLaw, the wrong version has been protected. I am also requesting this page to be reverted to the last version. The current version has unnecessary information with cities and such without much Urdu text support. That version was protected anonmously before, it is not fair to keep protecting that version.--64.241.37.140 00:50, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Merging
Hi, I know you agree with me that articles which can be merged don't belong on Afd, so you might be interested in this conversation between the creator of the Miami-Dade elementary school articles and the person who nominated them all for deletion, both of whom would have been happy for them to be listified instead of deleted. Kappa 02:16, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Thank you
Thank for instilling some form of hope Tony, I feel that lately many Wikipedians are forgetting the true purpose of the project that was Wikipedia. I only hope that eventually this will change and the ignorance of the authoritarian attitude of many will be drowned out by the intellect that is exemplary of yourself. Again thanks for your support and good luck! Piecraft 12:12, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
- I would like to echo User:Piecraft's gratitude for your moderate and well-balanced stance in Wikipedia, Tony. Too many deletionists wield Wiki's guidelines like the Old Testament and use them as a buttress for indulging their tyrannical tendencies. It takes a lot less work and unfairly reaps loads more malicious satisfaction to delete information that someone else painstakingly added. I'm referring in particular to the article Homosexuality in Singapore. Thanks for restoring some much-needed equilibrium to the topic.Groyn88 16:51, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Arbitration votes
Well, at least I'm consistent. ;-) Thanks! Jayjg (talk) 19:05, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
IN RE: to unprotection due to lack of "substantiative discussion".
The anonymous user who continuously reverts the changes refuses discussion. He continues to instigate a POV/revert war with personal attacks and has been doing this non-stop for close to a month. I have sent an e-mail to this person's IP provider (likely a network in Poland or the Netherlands) along with Wikipedia about what's going on. Why hasn't his IP been blocked by now? Danteferno 17:02, 2 October 2005 (UTC)