|
||||||||||||
This page has archives. Sections older than 5 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present. |
Welcome!
Hello, Apteva, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- Tutorial
- How to edit a page
- How to write a great article
- Manual of Style
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}}
before the question. Again, welcome! - Darwinek (talk) 08:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/dhuovl5ailh2uhx3jmkcvb6363eit90.png)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/ojrgkav4ytkruo9gnewxlfynkp9gma4.png)
FYI
Thanks for unblocking talk page access. In the meantime, to quote the blocking admin, "and move along to something that less pointless", I have been working on other areas of the project. I think that was supposed to be "is not as" instead of "less". I will be appealing when I have time, and when I am certain it is appropriate (there is no specific date specified, just "February"). To not rattle any chains I will not reply to any posts here until the unblock request is made. Lame or not. Apteva (talk) 05:23, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
Suggestions for proposals are welcome. Being unable to edit freely for over a year is too long. Clearly Wikipedia loses up to or over 1,000 valuable edits each month this continues. Apteva (talk) 20:55, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Unblock request
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/Appointment_red.svg/48px-Appointment_red.svg.png)
Apteva (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))
Request reason:
I am only here to help the encyclopedia. I have created over 100 articles, and made over 10,000 valuable edits, and request that all restrictions be removed so that I can fix errors, update articles, and add contributions. A simple example, is the article Perovo Solar Park, created in March 2012. The article had a redlink image that was removed in December, but a one second search reveals a replacement File:Perovosolarstation.jpg that has been available since July 2012. It takes a lot of work to build and maintain an encyclopedia so that it is useful and accurate, and Wikipedia needs all of the help that it can get and will still have errors that need fixing. I am willing and able to help, and a one year "time out" is more than too much, and I hope that someone will see that and let me get back to fixing broken links, correcting grammar and spelling, and adding content. Thanks in advance. Apteva (talk) 18:34, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Decline reason:
Your unblock request gives no indication that you understand why you were blocked and provides no assurance that things will be different now if you're unblocked. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 18:55, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes it would be different. I am going to stay as far away from what got me blocked as is humanly possible. I want only to fix errors and provide contributions. There are some people who when blocked focus only on the reason they were blocked, and lash out at those who blocked them. I am not one of them. I am only here to contribute in a positive manner. I do understand the reason for the block, and it is too ugly to bring up. Wikipedia has a lot of Wiki drama that has nothing to do with maintaining and building an encyclopedia. I am not here for the drama-rama, I am only here to fix errors and provide contributions. Nothing else. Yes I disagree with some people about a subject that has been expressed in an essay. My view is that Wikipedia does not create content, Wikipedia reflects the usage of the rest of the world. So, for example, since 98% of the books and encyclopedias on the subject use Mexican War, Wikipedia would too. Who knew. But none of the wikidrama has any interest to me. I am just a humble servant of the readers. Others who enjoy annoying people can participate in drama. As an admin I would use blocks correctly. Not to block good editors like myself. Apteva (talk) 19:10, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
What I have been doing is making a list of errors that need to be corrected, and over the last year almost none of them have been picked up by someone else. Those are the edits that I am going to be working on, not the wiki drama stuff. I was blocked to resolve a content dispute that I had already recused myself from. How stupid is that? Apteva (talk) 19:18, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Is that the assurances you are looking for? It should be. Apteva (talk) 19:26, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Here is another one, but a little more subtle, that requires someone who understands Electricity generation. It is impossible to generate electricity from a "disc of copper". You need to use a coil with at least one turn, a disk would just short out the generation. Disks are never used in electricity generation. But has Wikipedia been a victim of its own success, relegated to a few rogue editors and admins who just make things up, or is it going to return to being useful. The choice is yours. Apteva (talk) 19:57, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.
- Please stop telling the rest of the world (again) that they're all doing it wrong and that only you understand the science properly. See Faraday disc. I have some sympathy for your long block, but I have yet to see any indication that WP suffers by not having your contributions in such vein. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:37, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
- Consider this re-declined. In this very unblock request you're displaying the exact same attitude which led to your block in the first place, "everyone else was wrong, everyone who disagreed with me was stupid" etc. etc. I think you should spend your time off away from the project rather than nurturing bad feeling by building up a list of reasons why Wikipedia is worse off without you. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 10:45, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
- You have to be joking. None of us says, this is what it is. But no, it is not appropriate to say, "or a disk" even if a disk can and has been used. This, though, is a detail that gets worked out on the talk page of that article. I say that generation of electricity by disk represents 0.00000000000001% of generation or less and has no place in the article. None of us owns any article and every article is decided by consensus what should go into that article. I have worked on thousands of articles, and have created over 100 articles. I do not spend a lot of time on each one, and look for things that need to be changed and change them. On this talk page someone else made a moronic suggestion that some of my changes were, well moronic. Look at them and judge for yourself. I replaced a broken link with a valid link, and they carefully reverted it. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I do not have any bad feelings about anyone editing wikipedia. Wikipedia is written by everyone from brilliant people to morons, and works solely by coming to consensus as to what each article should say. If you think I have the "exact same attitude", you would be right if you thought that I was one of Wikipedia's better editors, and wrong if you thought that I ever did anything that ever deserved being blocked for. I was blocked solely to resolve a content dispute that I had already recused myself from, meaning that I was not going to vote on or express any opinion on, so far from helping resolve the content dispute by blocking someone they knew disagreed with them, the block had absolutely no effect.
- Consider this re-declined. In this very unblock request you're displaying the exact same attitude which led to your block in the first place, "everyone else was wrong, everyone who disagreed with me was stupid" etc. etc. I think you should spend your time off away from the project rather than nurturing bad feeling by building up a list of reasons why Wikipedia is worse off without you. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 10:45, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
- You need to recognize what I am here for - to fix things that need to be fixed, and to add things that need to be added. I am not here for content disputes and do not even care about them. It is not important that Wikipedia comes to idiotic results, and I tried and failed to fix that. I am moving on to simply working on content. I will leave it to others to decide what is right and what is wrong. Be brave and unblock me for a week and see. Check my edits at the end of that time and if there is even one that damages the encyclopedia in any way feel free to reblock me. But tell me why it damaged the encyclopedia too. The fact is that you will not find any, not this week, not next week, not this year, and not next year or any year. You are in a no-lose position. You can not hurt the encyclopedia by finding out that I am a good editor, and can hurt the encyclopedia by thinking that I might hurt the encyclopedia. The only way you can lose, is by not unblocking me, because then Wikipedia loses thousands of valuable edits. Apteva (talk) 00:20, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
- Dumb, dumb, dumb
- Thanks for that. Makes me miss you all the more. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:07, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
- Good for you. Some of the edits that I have been listing have been corrected. For example a deletion that was not warranted that I noticed the day it was done, on November 20, was reverted on the 24th. I would like to be able to say that someone else has done all of the edits that I noticed, but that is not the case. The case is that most of them have not been done, and the world is either seeing wrong or not seeing information that could be added if anyone took the time to research the subject and add it to the article. WP had a peak of maybe 4,800 active editors and it has been asymptotically declining to maybe 3,000 active editors - not enough to keep up with all of the changes that need to be made. But yes it is dumb to say that someone's edits are no good and give examples where broken links were replaced with good links and revert them. Not one of the examples they gave, nor any of the other edits they reverted until they got tired of reverting my edits were improvements, and every one of them made the encyclopedia worse by undoing them. Brilliant. I have no problem with someone showing diffs of edits that should not be done, and I do RCP and see tons of those, but when someone says that edits that should be done, should not, and reverts them, they are just making a fool of themself. Apteva (talk) 02:25, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
- Make no mistake though, there is never any shortage of work to do. I am never going to say, gee, I guess I have nothing to do this hour because I can not edit Wikipedia. But others are going to look something up and not have as good information as they could have if we had more editors like myself, and Andy. So the choice is yours, help or hurt the encyclopedia. Unblocking helps, leaving me blocked hurts. It is not rocket science to be a good administrator or a bad one. Apteva (talk) 04:15, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
- A review of the fixes that I noticed six months ago shows that six months later only 20% of them have been corrected. This, in case anyone is not sure, is not good. I suspect that any editor could do the same thing - make a list of ten edits, just to keep it simple, not do them, and come back in six months and see how many had been fixed by someone else. With millions of articles, needed corrections are easily unnoticed. Many of the articles that I noticed needed edits to, and were not done, have less than 1000 views a month, but some had over 100,000 views each month. We have never been able to convince everyone to just click edit when they see something wrong. When they do we are more likely to criticize them for not fixing it properly, and they come away not wanting to ever do that again. And the number of experienced editors that we do have is declining each year. Not good. How to fix that? Quit blocking good editors for starters. Apteva (talk) 01:46, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/2dag850lhajfc76kb5buticetgih4ey.png)
This is what started the controversy. Here is a list of the busiest airports in the world, as published today:[1]
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (USA)
- Bejing Capital International (China)
- London Heathrow (United Kingdom)
- Tokyo International (Japan)
- Chicago O'Hare International (USA)
- Los Angeles International (USA)
- Dubai International (United Arab Emirates)
- Paris Charles De Gaulle (France)
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (USA)
- Soekarno-Hatta International, Jakarta (Indonesia)
Are these the names that we use? No. In fact 8/10 are red links. Why is that? Do we think we know better than the rest of the world? That is not what our rules say. Our rules say that we must never do original research, yet that is exactly what we are doing by using different names than these for our articles. Now in some or even all cases, there could be a better name for the article, but all of these redlinks should be redirects when that happens.
These are the names that we do use.
- Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport adds airport, uses different punctuation
- Beijing Capital International Airport adds airport
- London Heathrow Airport adds airport
- Narita International Airport the link above is unrelated
- O'Hare International Airport leaves off city, adds airport
- Los Angeles International Airport adds airport
- Dubai International Airport adds airport
- Charles de Gaulle Airport leaves off city, adds airport
- Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport adds airport
- Soekarno–Hatta International Airport adds airport, different punctuation
Nine out of ten of the above need to at least have redirects added (or in one case either a hatnote or change the redirect to go to a disambiguation page) to be able to find the article. As I stated, I am not interested in this battle. I fought to make this a better encyclopedia and lost. What I am interested in doing is fixing errors, and adding information. These are non-controversial needed changes. Someone else can fix the problem that we use funny names for articles. I am done with that battle. Blocking me because I wanted to fix it is idiotic. We resolve content questions by consensus, not by blocking everyone who disagrees with one side. Do I know how to help yes, do I help? Yes. Does blocking me help? No.
Here is a quote from the archives:
This absolute adherence to the idea that your interpretation of the rules is paramount and everyone else's input is merely an obstacle to overcome is an accurate summary of how you ended up in this position.
The problem with that is that it is false. I have no allegiance to any interpretation of the rules, and I have no obstacles that I am trying to overcome. I see problems, I fix them. My interest in helping Wikipedia has never changed. I see an article that is either inaccurate, wrong, or could be improved in some way, and I fix it and move on to another article. If someone disagrees, we talk it out on the talk page. Decisions are always made by consensus. When we do not reach consensus we listen to the concerns of the other editor, and sometimes add the disputes to the article. But the idea that I am not helping the same as anyone else is nonsense. A lot of people watchlist this page. Need something to do? Fix the see also links on Narita International Airport to say Haneda Airport instead of Tokyo International Airport, and Transport in Greater Tokyo instead of Transportation in Greater Tokyo. Or remove them if they are not needed. Apteva (talk) 00:11, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
The following editors request that user Apteva have all restrictions removed:
- Jesus Christ, I cannot believe that even now, after everything, you are STILL bleating on about those bloody dashes. I literally don't know where you go from here Apteva. I'm starting to think this is all a complex piss take. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 00:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
- Read what I said. I do not care about the dashes. I tried to fix them and failed. I just want to move on. I care about fixing redlinks and uncontroversial fixes that need to be made. Why are you keeping me from doing that? Apteva (talk) 02:36, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
- One website is not indicative of the "rest of the world". As a matter of fact, LAX uses Los Angeles International Airport on their website. I'd really like to see you unblocked, and I've been watching your talk page since you regained access hoping you'd post a rational appeal, but you need to understand that your attitude is disruptive. You've reduced your argument to 'the encyclopedia needs me or it'll be damaged'. Please, please think this through before posting more. Ishdarian 05:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
- My attitude is that Wikipedia has a lot of things that need fixing, and daily I list things that I could fix if I was unblocked, and am looking forward to the day that I am unblocked so that I can go back and fix those - if someone else has not already done them, and look for more things that need fixing, and fix them. It is not as simple as unblocking me. I need all restrictions removed so that I am just like any other editor. It is not a matter that Wikipedia needs me or anyone else. Wikipedia just needs more editors than we have and we are not attracting them, we are losing them. We reached a peak of active editors in 2007 and have been declining since then. What we need is more good editors who will make lots of quality edits. That is what I want to be, one of those, and year in and year out I have been one, too, with one nasty exception that is long gone as an issue, and never even should have been made an issue either. I fully understand the issue and have more than enough things to keep me busy without getting into trouble. We have a page for perennial issues, and the appropriate way to handle any issue like that is to just list it there, not get all hot and bothered that someone else brought it up again.
- Jesus Christ, I cannot believe that even now, after everything, you are STILL bleating on about those bloody dashes. I literally don't know where you go from here Apteva. I'm starting to think this is all a complex piss take. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 00:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
- As an admin wannabe, the only thing that I am interested in if I see an unblock request is is this person going to do what caused them to be blocked? In my case the answer is a resounding no. When I hear that I unblock them. But I check some of their edits to see if that is the case too. Blocks are preventative, they are not punitive. And they are never used to resolve content issues. WP:Block "Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users". Blocking me is simply not appropriate and serves only a negative purpose - it stops quality edits from being made, nothing else. The honest truth is that if I was unblocked and all restrictions removed I can not promise that I would make even one edit. But it is likely that I would make thousands of edits. And it is extremely unlikely that anyone would have any reason to be concerned about any of them. And I am certain that I would go on being thanked for edits just like always. So I have not reduced my argument to "Wikipedia needs me", I have reduced it to "Wikipedia would benefit from my being unblocked, and all restrictions removed." Wikipedia will be largely unchanged with our without me. With me I am simply one of 3,000 active editors, and not even in the top 4,000 most active editors by total edit count. And Wikipedia does fine with or without any or even all of the top ten most active editors, so no that is not what I am saying, I am saying that Wikipedia is losing quality edits. Wikipedia is edited by millions of editors, most of whom make less than five edits. And some of Wikipedia is done by about 500 very active editors, who have each done over 70,000 edits. I should remind anyone reading this that this is an indef block - it can be removed in an hour, a week, or whenever whatever caused it is corrected. It has been corrected. A long time ago. I recused myself from the discussion before I was even proposed being blocked. Apteva (talk) 09:05, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
- "daily I list things that I could fix if I was unblocked,"
- You're not blocked because there are no things that need fixing. You're blocked because you are completely clueless as to why you were blocked in the first place. Until you work that one out, you're most unlikely to ever be unblocked.
- Continually whining (for that's how it's seen by others) about irrelevant issues just annoys the few people still reading what you write on the wall of your oubliette. That's not a productive route either.
- If you really want to be unblocked, go back to the start and try to work out why you were blocked and what the real problem is. If you can fix that, a matter of serious WP:COMPETENCE in your ability to work with others, then you might possibly see some progress. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:00, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
- Been there done that. I even put all the gory details into one file. I was blocked because a small number of editors did not want me to keep insisting that the majority of books use Mexican-American War instead of Mexican–American War. Now after that I discovered that as many more use Mexican War than use Mexican-American War instead of Mexican–American War, making the situation even more comical. I recognize that. I tried to fix that and failed. I get that. That war was fought without my knowledge, and I only stumbled into it when I discovered that some people were using funny names for airports, like Soekarno–Hatta International Airport instead of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. The hornets nest that I stumbled into when I brought it up had been fighting that battle for a year, in the great endash war, where a small number of editors basically thought that endashes look prettier than dashes, and had meaning. That is false. Proper nouns in English are proper nouns. Their meaning is the noun itself. English is not like other languages where you can break down phrases into words to find their meaning. In English you just have to memorize the meaning of phrases and proper nouns because we often use words in funny ways. We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway. What happened is I made a perfectly polite request to bring it up, and perfectly rationally laid out the evidence. I was met instead with the block all dissenters tactic. As to not working well with others that is nonsense. Nor is that ever a reason for blocking anyone. We use topic blocks for that. We make people go edit non-controversial areas, and most have no interest in doing that - if they can not fight about their own personal black/white issue, they prefer to make no edits at all. I am not like that. I am only here to fix things that need to be fixed. Like I said the reason that I was blocked is too ugly to mention. It is an example of Wikipedia at its worst. Any experienced admin should have seen what was going on and put a stop to the nonsense. Not by blocking me but by simply addressing my concerns and moving on. What disrupted Wikipedia was not me, but the response to my concern - that Wikipedia does not spell things the same way that the rest of the world does, and is breaking its own rules of not doing original research by doing that. It gets even worse when you get into comets, which actually do have a governing body that names all of them, and very specifically states that hyphens are used to name them, like Comet Hale-Bopp. But what punctuation to use is a minor point and not worth wasting any time over. Use whatever we find in the literature for each article. We always do that, why would we treat punctuation differently? But I am not here to fix punctuation. I am here to fix everything that I see that needs to be fixed, and out of 10,000 edits, dashes was likely less than a dozen of those edits. The way to move forward is to simply put the punctuation issue onto the perennial issue page and move on. Sooner rather than later. Apteva (talk) 15:28, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
- TL;DR (That in itself is an important clue)
- "I was blocked because a small number of editors did not want me to keep insisting that the majority of books use Mexican-American War instead of Mexican–American War. "
- No you weren't. You were blocked because a community (a Thoroughly Evil Community) had decided (In its Thoroughly Evil Stupidity) to do it wrong (and Evilly). Then you kept insisting on banging on about the same issue regardless. I have no idea if you were right or wrong. I care just about as little as I know. Your behaviour though was to continue banging on about it in a disruptive manner. You couldn't win this one (a Cabal of Evil Grammarians is against you), yet you kept on wasting everyone else's time despite. You were blocked for disruption, not for grammar. You will not be unblocked for arguing that your grammatical point was right all along. The more you perseverate over it, the more entrenched your block becomes. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:06, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
- That is just plain silly. No one is against anyone. No one is evil. Everyone is doing their best in their own way to improve the encyclopedia. But in this case the fall out is a good editor for over a year and counting. And that is not something that anyone needs to accept. Time to end that and move on. Apteva (talk) 16:52, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
What happened is I made a perfectly polite request to bring it up, and perfectly rationally laid out the evidence. I was met instead with the block all dissenters tactic.
— This isn't really a fair description of what happened. You made a perfectly polite request and rationally laid out the evidence, it was discussed, and you didn't convince many people; IOW you didn't change consensus on the matter. That's fine. But then you brought it up, politely, with rational evidence, again, and again, and AGAIN, and AGAIN so many times. I explained this to you here, others did too, and yet you continued. The problem is not that you were impolite, or irrational, or anything like that. You weren't. You were disruptive. And in these unblock requests here, it is still not clear that you understand that:What disrupted Wikipedia was not me, but the response to my concern
. Note: I'm sympathetic to the argument (not a point you are making) that a blocked editor doesn't have to "repent" or agree that the behavior was bad as long as the blocked editor agrees to stop engaging in it, so in some sense this thread of discussion is a bit of a sideshow to me. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:16, 2 April 2014 (UTC)- Correct, and which I have. The fact is that 99% of the people in my position would just create a new username and go on happily editing, and forever be hunted down. I am the 1% who will wait until I am unblocked. Apteva (talk) 17:24, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
In the meantime if anyone has any questions about any edits I can now freely answer those questions (other than questions about punctuation). As to why I was blocked though, it is solely due to the culture of Wikipedia, makes no sense at all, and that culture needs to change. Eleven minutes after this unblock request was made it was rejected, without even one question, which is absurd. Where Wikipedia gets into trouble is not by having someone bring something up a million times, but by someone not bringing something up at all. It is very much like students in a classroom - there are no dumb questions, and the problem that teachers face is not too many students asking questions, but students not asking enough questions. We are not constrained by bandwidth or disk space. Where we have trouble is not by having too many people bringing things up but by not enough people contributing. The graph above shows the number of active editors, making over 100 edits in a month. At the peak in 2007 as many as over 10% of all edits were made by these active editors, but that has declined now to only about 0.3% of edits are made by those active editors. The one thing that has been constant since 2007 is that about 10% of the editors who make over 5 edits each month, make over 100 edits that month. We need those active editors, because those are the ones who understand the nuances about how Wikipedia works, and understand how articles are formatted and structured. But we do not need those active editors bullying other editors, as is the case with myself. We all need to respect and appreciate the contributions of everyone. Apteva (talk) 21:11, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Lamest discussions
Wikipedia:Lamest discussions, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Lamest discussions and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:Lamest discussions during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. KonveyorBelt 16:16, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
- If you have any article-relevant comments to add to that MfD, I'd be happy to copy them across on your behalf.
- I trust that you aren't one of those editors who'd see that as a soapbox opportunity, in which case I'd obviously have to withdraw such an offer. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:30, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks but not necessary. Whatever the community decides is fine. I have no reason to offer any advice. The page in the discussion listed has already been renamed, and there is a new convention adopted last year that will result in it eventually being renamed again. So much to do, so little time... Apteva (talk) 22:20, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Moving forward
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/ENactiveEditors100.jpg/220px-ENactiveEditors100.jpg)
It is pathetic that I keep getting comments like "try to work out why you were blocked and what the real problem is". The reason why I was blocked was to stifle useful contributions. The real problem is that Wikipedia is messed up. Make me an Admin and I will help fix that. Wikipedia has made a left turn when they should have kept on moving forward. You can see the drop in contributors starting in 2007. Wikipedia is no longer a fun place that welcomes everyone, and has been losing editors faster than we are gaining editors. We had a peak of 4800 active contributors who made more than 100 edits in a month, and are perhaps going to level off at only 3000. Not enough to fix the things that need to be fixed. A relatively constant 10% of editors who make over 5 edits, also make over 100 edits that month. But the percentage of edits made by active editors, those making over 100 edits a month, has declined to less than 1% of all edits, to about 1/3 of 1%. I was mentioned as "blatantly suggesting edits" while blocked. That is because those things need to be fixed. I am currently making a list offline of things to be fixed, which I will be fixing when I am unblocked, which can of course be done at any time by any administrator who recognizes that the need for the block never existed, and the conditions for the block - suggesting a review of that left turn that Wikipedia is on - no longer exists, as pointed out above in the unblock appeal. A recent review of errors that I noticed six months ago showed that only 20% had six months later been noticed and fixed by someone else. I will of course again submit an unblock appeal when that is appropriate, but no one needs to wait for that - indef blocks are just that - they can be for a minute, an hour, a day, a week - just until whatever caused them is resolved. I noticed the advice of one of our 100,000 plus edit contributors, about making suggested edits on talk pages of blocked editors, that of course they should be made if they are useful,[2] and our rules for talk pages and removing talk page access clearly need to be clarified so that we do not need to leave this point up to debate. Of course having a rule that everyone is instructed to ignore all rules is always interesting, and good luck enforcing that one.[3] I see that the most recent edit to that policy emphasizes that all blocked editors are required to either make a note of anything they see that needs to be fixed, or create a sockpuppet and fix it themself, if they are in fact willing to point out the issue, as even arbitration committee rulings are to be ignored if they result in preventing improving the encyclopedia.[4] Apteva (talk) 16:58, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
- Above, I said it didn't matter if you agreed that your behavior was problematic as long as you agreed to stop engaging in it, you replied
Correct, and which I have.
Can you elaborate on that? Am I interpreting you correctly—did you agree to stop some certain behavior? Can you point me to your statement that you would stop so we can see exactly what you agreed to stop/etc? Thanks, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:34, 28 April 2014 (UTC)- This is going to require a little research and I am pretty short on time right now, but will post when I dig it up. But in a nutshell an editor requested that I be blocked because I did not let them get away with using a two comma format for an article, and instead I asked for an RfC to decide the issue, an RfC that I recused myself from. They asked that I be blocked so that I would not be able to vote in it, which I was not going to anyway. They lost the RfC but renamed the article in their preferred manner anyway, even though the RfC requires a different format. I had been arguing that publishers prefer a particular format on a subject that I will not mention, and was blocked from bringing up the subject even though it is a perfectly valid suggestion, and the most comical result is that even the WMF (that is us) when they publish books, they change our formatting to normal formatting. Yet the rules here idiotically say not to use that format. I agreed to a one calendar year ban on anyone bringing up the subject, but was blocked just to make sure that I did not bring it up. I agreed to completely forget about any formatting issues and just fix non-controversial errors and that fell on deaf ears. Just today if you look above I dug up the date that Jimbo said the inimitable "paradox" of following the ignore all rules rule, not sure where it can be added, but adding the reference and date is useful. That is not an error, but an addition. I come across many useful additions and many errors, but can not address those in any manner that I know of. Someone said there is a blog somewhere that people have been using, and that seems useful, but should be linked to from the block page. Something like, if you are blocked, please list any errors or other issues that you can not contribute so that someone who is not blocked can. As an encyclopedia we certainly do not care where things come from, although we can not attribute any text that is created by someone else unless they do it themself, so that is an obvious limitation. So spelling errors could be listed, but not paragraphs of text that would be useful to add. If people did suggest paragraphs of text on their own talk page that would work, because that would provide the required attribution (when someone copied and pasted it somewhere else in the edit summary they would just provide the link to the diff that created it). We do not want to discourage or stop people from contributing by blocking them, we want to stop them from making the encyclopedia worse. If they want to make it better, we need to facilitate that. There is not really any rush in anyone unblocking me because I do not have much time available right now anyway. But it would be nice to be able to. Apteva (talk) 23:53, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
I agreed to completely forget about any formatting issues and just fix non-controversial errors and that fell on deaf ears.
—Ok. I understand it's hard to find the exact date where you agreed to this, but do you remember if it was before or after you opened the 3rd move request at Talk:Vidalia,_Georgia,_micropolitan_area? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:36, 29 April 2014 (UTC)- Yes and no. In December 2012 there was a proposal that formatting of a type that I will not mention not be discussed until the end of 2013, a moratorium that I agreed to (the silly thing about a topic ban is you can not discuss what you are not talking about). That RM was opened because those were anomalies - we had a hundred articles named with a one comma format, and three with two commas and I was just making all of them the same. But a couple of weeks later I was discussing the format, something I would not do now. I opened an RfC to lay it to bed but stated that I would not be participating. The RfC was eventually closed in November 2013, choosing neither format, but a third format that was suggested during the course of the RfC. No one has gone through the hundred or so articles and rename them. It is one of the lowest priority tasks on the planet. It does bother me that we spend so much time on inane discussions, but the solution is not to block those who do, but to simply ignore them and go edit something else. That only becomes a problem when those arguments get resolved in idiotic manners, as was done with the issue that I agreed to a moratorium for 2013. When there is an actual naming authority that chooses names for things it is completely idiotic for us to even be discussing how those items should be named, yet there is one of those discussions going on right now in an RfC - common names of birds. I am not going to participate, but this would certainly qualify as a "lamest discussion", because common names of birds have a naming authority, and for us to even discuss how they should be named is completely lame. I basically progressively backed away from such discussions. Right now due to a lack of free time available for Wikipedia I would not be able to make many edits even if I was unblocked, but it would be nice to clean up some of the articles that have had errors for over a year that I have not been able to get to (this is an alternate account, and until I can use alternate accounts, there are things that I simply can not fix even if I was not blocked). I might make half a dozen edits a month instead of a thousand right now, but they are useful, non-contentious edits. I just discovered that data for Nellis is available for 2012 and I would add that, for example. My goal when unblocked is to take things easy for a very long time. Been there done that, got the t-shirt, now I just want to fix a few things that need to be fixed, and leave the discussions to others. Nothing has changed since my first edit, 10,000 edits ago. I feel sorry for anyone reading Wikipedia and seeing a spelling error or factual error, which is why I click edit and fix it. What has changed is I am not interested in being harassed for wanting to fix things that I think need to be fixed and someone else thinks they should be done differently. That I can leave up to others to sort out, and I will use whatever they decide. There was a point that I was so harassed that I did not even feel like editing anything. Fortunately though I never threw in the towel, like many others have. I appreciate your taking the time to ask, and remind you that any admin who was thinking of lifting the indef would need to at least attempt to discuss the block with the blocking admin, Beeblebrox, although they were an odd admin to administer the block, as they appear to have decided at some point that I was the worst editor they had run across and both proposed and implemented the indef. Normally if someone proposes an action, they would leave it up to someone else to implement, unless it was completely cut and dried, and they were a new admin who had never blocked anyone and wanted to see if they were doing the right thing. You want to eliminate emotion and make decisions rationally, which is hard to do if you are really mad at someone. That was a point that I would have hoped that Arb would have noticed. I actually have no idea what caused them to form that negative opinion, as I have not had any interaction with them that I can recall. Apteva (talk) 07:08, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- I see one interaction. "Disruptive editing: Using email to send me a long manifesto of condescending tripe". Evidently they really do not like getting email. But removing email privileges is certainly not the way to deal with that - just tell me that they do not like getting e-mail. I actually rarely use email and have it only on this alternate account so that if I become an admin people have a way of contacting me. But it is also useful for other purposes, such as requesting oversight, and I have used it several times for that. But it is not something that I would really ever have any use for from my primary account. Apteva (talk) 07:39, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- I think the answer to my question is that you agreed to stop before starting the RM in question, but I can't tell—despite writing at length it almost seems like you didn't even answer the question. I'm going to assume the answer is before—please correct me if I am wrong. Here's the thing. I get it that "try to work out why you were blocked" is not satisfying or helpful. I believe you are operating in good faith here, and from your point of view I can understand why you think all of this is inane. However, the fact remains that many here consider your style of dispute resolution to be quite disruptive. It actually doesn't matter at all if you agree with this. It doesn't matter if you understand why they find it disruptive. It doesn't even matter if it is in fact disruptive. The bottom line is that you have a way of doing things that gets people quite riled up, and you need to stop if you want to edit here. Even if its everyone else who should change and not you, it's still the case that you need to stop if you want to keep editing here. You don't need to agree that you are disruptive, you don't need to apologize or admit you were wrong, you don't need to agree that you are the one who needs to change and not everyone else, you just need to change this style of resolving disputes. The immediate cause of this block is that you started an RM shortly after one that you participated in was closed in the way you didn't want. That is a taste, albeit a small one, of the dispute resolution style that I am referring to. Even after you had been told, many times, that this style wasn't working out for the rest of the community here. Then this—violating your ban and again continuing to argue about dashes. The behavior that I'm referring to, that has to stop, was continuing despite really extraordinary efforts to get you to change it. Does this make more sense than "try to work out why"? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:48, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- This is going to require a little research and I am pretty short on time right now, but will post when I dig it up. But in a nutshell an editor requested that I be blocked because I did not let them get away with using a two comma format for an article, and instead I asked for an RfC to decide the issue, an RfC that I recused myself from. They asked that I be blocked so that I would not be able to vote in it, which I was not going to anyway. They lost the RfC but renamed the article in their preferred manner anyway, even though the RfC requires a different format. I had been arguing that publishers prefer a particular format on a subject that I will not mention, and was blocked from bringing up the subject even though it is a perfectly valid suggestion, and the most comical result is that even the WMF (that is us) when they publish books, they change our formatting to normal formatting. Yet the rules here idiotically say not to use that format. I agreed to a one calendar year ban on anyone bringing up the subject, but was blocked just to make sure that I did not bring it up. I agreed to completely forget about any formatting issues and just fix non-controversial errors and that fell on deaf ears. Just today if you look above I dug up the date that Jimbo said the inimitable "paradox" of following the ignore all rules rule, not sure where it can be added, but adding the reference and date is useful. That is not an error, but an addition. I come across many useful additions and many errors, but can not address those in any manner that I know of. Someone said there is a blog somewhere that people have been using, and that seems useful, but should be linked to from the block page. Something like, if you are blocked, please list any errors or other issues that you can not contribute so that someone who is not blocked can. As an encyclopedia we certainly do not care where things come from, although we can not attribute any text that is created by someone else unless they do it themself, so that is an obvious limitation. So spelling errors could be listed, but not paragraphs of text that would be useful to add. If people did suggest paragraphs of text on their own talk page that would work, because that would provide the required attribution (when someone copied and pasted it somewhere else in the edit summary they would just provide the link to the diff that created it). We do not want to discourage or stop people from contributing by blocking them, we want to stop them from making the encyclopedia worse. If they want to make it better, we need to facilitate that. There is not really any rush in anyone unblocking me because I do not have much time available right now anyway. But it would be nice to be able to. Apteva (talk) 23:53, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
- I really don't think stating "The reason why I was blocked was to stifle useful contributions." is helping you in the slightest.--Maleko Mela (talk) 07:21, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- That is my honest assessment of why I was blocked. If someone thinks that is why they were blocked that is what I would want them to say. But that is neither here nor there. The reason I was blocked is because someone wanted me to be blocked. It is not possible for them to have a legitimate reason to want me blocked at this time. I want to add a dozen numbers to the Nellis article, and I simply can not see any reason for blocking anyone from doing that. Until they are added the article is missing vital information. Apteva (talk) 07:39, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- But as pointed out above it is far less important that someone understand why they were blocked than to know that they are not going to repeat the actions that caused them to be blocked. All blocks are preventative, and if we know that the action that caused the block is not going to be repeated, the block is removed. The actions that caused the block dealt with issues of deciding how things should be formatted, and as stated, I have been there, done that, and have the t-shirt. Now I just want to go back to editing, just like every other editor who has never made even one edit. Apteva (talk) 07:58, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- Well, you have Erik's ear right now and I don't want to interrupt further. As an Admin is currently discussing this with you I think you are in good hands and will let you continue. Hopefully, happy editing in the future.--Maleko Mela (talk) 08:24, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- I think Mark is making a really important point here: in appealing your block, statements like
The reason why I was blocked was to stifle useful contributions
really torpedo your request. They are a really good way to get anyone to immediately decline. Again, no comment here on whether that reaction is reasonable, it's just the way it is: I've seen a number of unblock requests and this seems like a consistent pattern: that kind of statement = "decline". I would encourage you to instead dispassionately focus on what you would do differently if unblocked. You are probably right that I ought to discuss with Beeblebrox/etc first, so I can't make any guarantees, but I think if you promised to approach every dispute on Wikipedia by limiting yourself to one comment and then under no circumstances re-opening any kind of "closed" issue that progress might be made here. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:48, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- I think Mark is making a really important point here: in appealing your block, statements like
- Well, you have Erik's ear right now and I don't want to interrupt further. As an Admin is currently discussing this with you I think you are in good hands and will let you continue. Hopefully, happy editing in the future.--Maleko Mela (talk) 08:24, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- But as pointed out above it is far less important that someone understand why they were blocked than to know that they are not going to repeat the actions that caused them to be blocked. All blocks are preventative, and if we know that the action that caused the block is not going to be repeated, the block is removed. The actions that caused the block dealt with issues of deciding how things should be formatted, and as stated, I have been there, done that, and have the t-shirt. Now I just want to go back to editing, just like every other editor who has never made even one edit. Apteva (talk) 07:58, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- Words can barely express how overjoyed I am to have been pinged in this discussion. It's so refreshing to see that you have owned up to your past errors, and furthermore are not blatantly misrepresenting the series of events that led to your banning. And you have been perfectly honest and upfront about the fact that BASC declined an appeal from you barely a week ago. Oh wait, none of that happened, you are still blaming others, self-agfrandizing, and not bothering to get your facts straight before speaking.
- Why did you ping me, exaclty? I'm not sure what you hoped to accomplish by that. For the record:
- I don't mind getting emails, I get them all the time. What I do mind is getting long condescending lectures from self important people who drone on and on, oblivious to the fact that literally nobody agrees with them.
- I did not implement anything that I personally proposed, but even if I had there was a very strong consensus for blocking you. This was noted by placing this diff [5] in your block log.
- While I recused myself from voting in the the BASC discussion about you Iwas still aware of it and consider what you are doing to be blatant forum shopping.
- I don't believe I have anything else to add and will not be watching this talk page. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:08, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- It's pretty easy to inadvertently ping someone; it's not clear to me anyway that poking you was intentional here. But wait, what do you mean BASC declined an appeal? What was the point of unblocking the user page if it wasn't to allow Apteva to make a request here? If there was forumshopping going on or this appeal is a misuse of the conditions of the talkpage being unblocked or something I would like to know more. Thanks, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:30, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- That is true, it was an inadvertent ping, and the link was done because you can not really name someone without adding a link. I did want to make certain that no one unblocked me without giving B the courtesy of discussion. It is true that many admins look for things like "it wasn't me" to decide whether to unblock, but those statements are irrelevant. What is important is what is the editor going to do moving forward? We want everyone to help us build the encyclopedia. We never wish to exclude anyone, and always have a vested interest in working with anyone who has been causing problems to help them learn how to contribute productively. I asked an experienced admin if they wanted to mentor me, and they declined. Maybe Erik would be willing to help me learn how to contribute productively. I would like to move towards being another editor with no restrictions, just like any other. I am perfectly willing to do the above suggestion, but will want it to go away eventually, not so that I can participate more than once, not so that I can re-open a closed discussion, but so that there are no restrictions on what I do. I honestly have a hard time seeing how anyone remembers what 10,000 restrictions there are on various editors. But I have no interest in either participating in any discussions or in opening any discussions, let alone re-opening them. I am only interested in fixing errors and adding content. There are plenty of others who can do the discussions, and I will simply use the results in knowing how to edit. I appreciate B from recusing themself from the BASC appeal, as that was appropriate, and it reinforces my impression of B, as a perfectly reasonable editor. The first interaction that I recall was when they proposed a one calendar year moratorium on formatting in a manner that I can not mention, a moratorium that I thought was completely reasonable and that I agreed to. I recently noted that Arb lifted a block "so that they could vandalize" and were quickly re-blocked. I appreciate ARB for giving them a chance, and that is what ARB is for - to appeal any decision that anyone thinks is unreasonable. As I have very little time available right now, unblocking now is moot, but it still would be nice, and would result in a small number of edits, such as adding the 2012 data to the Nellis article.
- It's pretty easy to inadvertently ping someone; it's not clear to me anyway that poking you was intentional here. But wait, what do you mean BASC declined an appeal? What was the point of unblocking the user page if it wasn't to allow Apteva to make a request here? If there was forumshopping going on or this appeal is a misuse of the conditions of the talkpage being unblocked or something I would like to know more. Thanks, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:30, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- The bottom line, is that I have dug myself into a hole, and would like to get some help getting out. This is not an unblock request - that will come at an appropriate time. This is though, an outline of what I would do if unblocked, and all existing restrictions removed (and replaced with the restriction to not comment more than once in a discussion or re-open a closed discussion): Make a small number of non-controversial corrections and additions. Apteva (talk) 22:47, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- This is what I would like to know. These two users seem to have followed me around making negative comments about the contents of my user page [6] [7], and yet I have never heard of either one of them before. They don't seem to be bothering other editors in similar circumstances. So what do they have in common? Your talk page. [8] What have you been telling them about me? —Neotarf (talk) 04:31, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks for the question. I have not been telling anyone about anything if I can help it and certainly do not recall saying anything about you to anyone. Wbm1058 I know fairly well because they are a frequent contributor at RM, Incnis Mrsi I have little information about although I have seen them from time to time. I would not call that a negative comment about your user page, just a notification that a template was being used inappropriately. What caused them to see it in March 2013 and July 2013 I have no idea, but that is a very long time ago now. Apteva (talk) 06:42, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
- There has been some more recent activity as well, but as before, nothing pertaining to the other editors. Who have you discussed this with more recently? Perhaps someone is taking your remarks the wrong way. —Neotarf (talk) 07:09, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
- The answer is the same. No I have not discussed this. If you are concerned you can invoke "the right to disappear" and have your account anonymized. Apteva (talk) 06:28, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- There has been some more recent activity as well, but as before, nothing pertaining to the other editors. Who have you discussed this with more recently? Perhaps someone is taking your remarks the wrong way. —Neotarf (talk) 07:09, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks for the question. I have not been telling anyone about anything if I can help it and certainly do not recall saying anything about you to anyone. Wbm1058 I know fairly well because they are a frequent contributor at RM, Incnis Mrsi I have little information about although I have seen them from time to time. I would not call that a negative comment about your user page, just a notification that a template was being used inappropriately. What caused them to see it in March 2013 and July 2013 I have no idea, but that is a very long time ago now. Apteva (talk) 06:42, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
- This is what I would like to know. These two users seem to have followed me around making negative comments about the contents of my user page [6] [7], and yet I have never heard of either one of them before. They don't seem to be bothering other editors in similar circumstances. So what do they have in common? Your talk page. [8] What have you been telling them about me? —Neotarf (talk) 04:31, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
May
During the last year, Wikipedia has added 300,000 articles, and lost 290 very active editors (who made over 100 edits per month), and 2200 active editors (who made over 5 edits per month). Wikipedia is not writing itself. Many of those "articles" are redirects and stubs, but all of them require maintenance. Wikipedia has more readers than a year ago, but less active editors. This is not a good trend. The reason that I want to have all restrictions removed, is so that I can be one of those active editors. This is an alternate account. Even with this account unblocked, I would not be able to update hundreds of vital articles until the restriction on using alternate accounts is removed. The reason we allow alternate accounts is because they are necessary. There are several reasons for this, but mostly for testing and privacy or security. Alternate accounts have never been abused by this editor, so it is important to remove that restriction, so that those hundreds of articles can be updated. One of the edits that I would do, if I was unblocked, is add the letter "f" to a file name. It is marked as a dead link, but the extension is simply missing the last letter. It is a pdf, and the f is missing, but instead of it being added, it was marked as a dead link.
I see that many bird names have been renamed, which is a shame - "what is written is less regarded than the style it's written in". Birds actually have a naming authority, and it is more than bizarre to choose to make up our own names in an encyclopedia, instead of using the correct bird names. It is somewhat comical to see that "a sock of a blocked user" initiated one of the move requests. Does this mean that their edits are valued or relished? When Wikipedia started, the original advice was to capitalize all species names, which is done for some, and is done for all common names of birds, and then someone noticed this was goofy, and for a long time there was insistence by the bird lovers that bird names really are capitalized, but has now reverted to only proper names. Sigh. Bird names are proper names. But as I have often stated, I follow all guidelines and policies, even when I disagree with them. In this case I would likely if asked about an article about a bird name, say, well the actual name is "Crowned Crane", but we call it a "crowned crane". If asked why, I would only be able to say, "because we are stupid". After all isn't most of Wikipedia written by 5th graders? It is more than comical to see a sentence that says so and so calls them the "crowned crane", and then look up the cited reference and see that it says no such thing, but instead says "Crowned Crane". ("Each of the two Crowned Crane species") Apteva (talk) 09:19, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
- ". This is an alternate account. "
- Please tell us clearly: are you operating an alternate account at this time, despite your block? Andy Dingley (talk) 10:36, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
- No. I am not making any edits and will not until I am unblocked. This is not my primary account. I have created many articles with my primary account that I can not edit until the restriction of using alternate accounts is lifted. Many of those articles have not been updated in a year and a half now, because of that restriction, and now show information that is a year and a half old, as no one else is updating them, and it is inexcusable to not allow me to update them. Many of the articles that were created by this account have not been updated in the year since I have been blocked. The articles that are more in need of updating are the ones that I would be editing from my primary account. The only edits that I make from this account are RCP, RM, and solar. This account was created for the purpose of becoming an admin and to make edits that I could not make from my primary account. Obviously the converse is true - I can not make edits from this account that would be made from my primary account, which is why those articles languished for six months while I continued to update the solar articles. NB: Sockpuppetry would only apply if I was using two accounts to participate in the same discussion in order to make it appear that more than one person was taking that position. I have never done that and never will do that. I only use alternate accounts in a manner that is allowed. The reason we allow them is they are required. Apteva (talk) 19:13, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
- An unblocked editor can edit any article from any account. There are no restrictions (other than individual topic bans). It is most rare for an alternate account to be permitted, simply to edit a different area of interest (it does happen, but very rarely).
- This is your primary account. You don't have any other accounts. You had another account once, as I recall, but it was indef blocked as an unnecessary alternate account. You have given no valid reason to restore it. There is no need for it, simply to edit a different set of articles.
- Blocks are also (in general) applied to the person, not the account. Any personal blocks you have (as at present) apply equally to all accounts.
- As you have no other accounts, this becomes your primary account. Disputing this is seen as a wasteful disruption on your part. WP does not recognise your reasoning or justification here, and your continual advocacy in its favour was long ago seen as tendentious and disruptive. Your best route to having any account is to accept that. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:29, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
- Not true. This is an alternative account, and there are many edits that I can not make until I have access to my primary account restored. I may, though, create another primary account, but it will not be this one. I edit an article on blue widgets from my primary account. I can not edit them from this account due to privacy issues. When access to alternate accounts is restored, I will once again be able to edit articles about blue widgets. In the mean time the articles on blue widgets are getting out of date and in need of updating, as the slack has not been picked up. Calling this "my only account" or "by default my primary account" is simply a lack of understanding of how alternative accounts work. They are not a replacement, they are essential. Apteva (talk) 07:51, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
- "Calling this "my only account" or "by default my primary account" is simply a lack of understanding of how alternative accounts work."
- One of us is insane. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:49, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
- Not likely. Alternative accounts are created to edit things that can not be edited from your primary account, or at times that you can not use your primary account. I have a lot of things that I would like to edit, that I would do if the restrictions were removed. That is all that I am asking, that I have the same restrictions as everyone else. As in "none". I will use this account for the things that I can do from here, and I will use my primary account for the things that I can not do from this account. But no, this is not my primary account, and restricting me to one account does not make this my only account, it just means that until the restriction is removed I am partially but not completely blocked. The edits still need to be made. Who is going to make them? Apteva (talk) 09:09, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
- Not true. This is an alternative account, and there are many edits that I can not make until I have access to my primary account restored. I may, though, create another primary account, but it will not be this one. I edit an article on blue widgets from my primary account. I can not edit them from this account due to privacy issues. When access to alternate accounts is restored, I will once again be able to edit articles about blue widgets. In the mean time the articles on blue widgets are getting out of date and in need of updating, as the slack has not been picked up. Calling this "my only account" or "by default my primary account" is simply a lack of understanding of how alternative accounts work. They are not a replacement, they are essential. Apteva (talk) 07:51, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
- No. I am not making any edits and will not until I am unblocked. This is not my primary account. I have created many articles with my primary account that I can not edit until the restriction of using alternate accounts is lifted. Many of those articles have not been updated in a year and a half now, because of that restriction, and now show information that is a year and a half old, as no one else is updating them, and it is inexcusable to not allow me to update them. Many of the articles that were created by this account have not been updated in the year since I have been blocked. The articles that are more in need of updating are the ones that I would be editing from my primary account. The only edits that I make from this account are RCP, RM, and solar. This account was created for the purpose of becoming an admin and to make edits that I could not make from my primary account. Obviously the converse is true - I can not make edits from this account that would be made from my primary account, which is why those articles languished for six months while I continued to update the solar articles. NB: Sockpuppetry would only apply if I was using two accounts to participate in the same discussion in order to make it appear that more than one person was taking that position. I have never done that and never will do that. I only use alternate accounts in a manner that is allowed. The reason we allow them is they are required. Apteva (talk) 19:13, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
- "An unblocked editor can edit any article from any account" That is categorically false. While it is theoretically true, due to several reasons, it can not be done in practice. In my case it is because of privacy, but it could just as well be for security, for example not wishing to log into a secure account from an unsecure network. We allow alternative accounts because they are necessary, and I have a specific need that can not be met other than by using an alternative account. Of the two accounts that I primarily use, I would be happy to flip back and forth between them once a month, but that is a little silly. What that would do though, is keep each set of articles no more than two months out of date. Right now the articles that I would be editing from the primary account are now about a year and a half out of date. Some of them have had some edits made, but many have a lot of things that still need to be updated - and some are relatively highly traffic. Suggesting that I edit them from this account is simply not going to happen. I can not give up my anonymity. Apteva (talk) 08:00, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
What is undeniable is that I do thousands of quality edits on subjects that I can not edit from this account, and will not be able to get back to editing them until I either create a new account or simply go back to the same account that I have been using. It only hurts the project to keep the one account restriction in place for me. That is not a restriction that anyone else has other than for very specific reasons. I just need to be treated just like every other editor, and have the same restrictions that every other editor has. Apteva (talk) 08:15, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
There is an unfortunate edit[9] which changed the heading of the discussion of bird capitalization from a neutral heading to a biased heading, which is both prohibited, and makes a search for the discussion fail. I would recommend reverting this edit. The correct way to do this, since no edits can be made in an archive, is to unarchive it[10], revert that edit, add a plain text alternate title "Common name bird decapitalization", and then re-archive the section. However, it is a bit messy to just undo the archiving, because it was archived into two archives, 156 and 157. The closed discussion was archived into Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 156. Whether manually unarchiving it will allow the above edit to be reverted is to be determined. In any case it should be manually put back into the same archive (156) after the edit is made, instead of creating yet another duplicate in the archives. Apteva (talk) 19:13, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
- I advise strongly against you attempting to unarchive a closed discussion. I would advise anyone against this, but especially you. I have never seen you demonstrate the political and WP competence to achieve such a thing without causing annoyed chaos, with repercussions upon yourself.
- If you really wish to do this, and if you're unblocked to permit it, then I would advise instead simply starting it as a new discussion thread and linking to the old thread in its archive. Possibly quoting short points from it, at most. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:29, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
- Perhaps you did not understand the question. This is a discussion that ran from April 4 to April 25 and was closed on May 1. It runs almost 64,000 words and 461,000 bytes. There is no possible way that anyone can rename the section heading of a closed discussion, for many reasons, yet this is what was in fact done on May 3. That is what needs to be reverted. The process of fixing something that has already been archived is a little bit complicated, but it is pretty straightforward. First it is unarchived, the correction is made on the talk page, and then it is restored to the archives. Anyone can do that, but it is important to not get tripped up and accidentally create duplicate archives (MOS talk archives already have examples of this) or leave something out of the archives. This is not an issue of "starting a new discussion". It is simply a matter of correctly archiving a closed discussion, with the heading that it had while it was being discussed. Apteva (talk) 22:24, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
- As to my own archiving skills I have no idea what your concern is, as there is nothing to worry about there. I have many times set up, repaired, added navigation, and adjusted archiving, and am not aware of anyone ever having any issue with anything that I have done. If they did it was a lack of understanding of archiving on their part, not mine. Apteva (talk) 07:42, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
I see that editors have confused the word "title" in the page Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles. Article titles are determined by the WP:AT policy. The page MOS/Titles exists to show how to indicate the title of a work within a page, not how to title an article about that work. All of that page that refers to the naming of a article title needs to be moved to WP:AT and its sub-pages. Apteva (talk) 20:12, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
Question
This is a two part question. First, what do I have to do to get unblocked, and second, what do I have to do to have all editing restrictions removed? There are four. Blocked/prohibited from using alternate accounts/prohibited from using email/prohibited from discussing "the letter Q". Each can be addressed separately, or as a group. Obviously there is a lot that I would be able to contribute that I can not now, because of these four restrictions. Theoretically blocks and restrictions are only imposed to protect the encyclopedia, but in fact the sole function of all four is to hurt the encyclopedia, prohibiting quality edits, and nothing else. Apteva (talk) 07:43, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
June
June was a pretty good month. I did about 500 edits, and learned how to create SVG bar, line, and pie charts - and how to translate them within the same file into any language. Unfortunately this has been of little to no benefit to the English Wikipedia, because I have no way of pointing them out or replacing outdated charts with new ones. To do this, I need to have all restrictions removed. Just as if I was a new editor. To that end. I am making another unblock request, as I believe it is more than warranted. I have zero interest in discussing anything that anyone wanted me blocked for. I only wish to do things that are completely non-controversial, and completely of benefit. Apteva (talk) 18:45, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Appointment_blue.svg/48px-Appointment_blue.svg.png)
Apteva (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))
Request reason:
Notes:
- In some cases, you may not in fact be blocked, or your block has already expired. Please check the list of active blocks. If no block is listed, then you have been autoblocked by the automated anti-vandalism systems. Please remove this request and follow these instructions instead for quick attention by an administrator.
- Please read our guide to appealing blocks to make sure that your unblock request will help your case. You may change your request at any time.
If you ask the blocking administrator to comment on this request, replace this template with the following, replacing "blocking administrator" with the name of the blocking admin:
{{Unblock on hold |1=blocking administrator |2=This block has outlived its usefulness. I have no interest in performing any action that led to the block, and am only interested in making non-controversial positive contributions. Most importantly, I need the freedom to use my primary account. This is an alternative account, and I can do some things from it, but many things I can not do from this account. [[User:Apteva|Apteva]] ([[User talk:Apteva#top|talk]]) 18:45, 10 July 2014 (UTC) |3 = ~~~~}}
If you decline the unblock request, replace this template with the following code, substituting {{subst:Decline reason here}}
with a specific rationale. Leaving the decline reason unchanged will result in display of a default reason, explaining why the request was declined.
{{unblock reviewed |1=This block has outlived its usefulness. I have no interest in performing any action that led to the block, and am only interested in making non-controversial positive contributions. Most importantly, I need the freedom to use my primary account. This is an alternative account, and I can do some things from it, but many things I can not do from this account. [[User:Apteva|Apteva]] ([[User talk:Apteva#top|talk]]) 18:45, 10 July 2014 (UTC) |decline = {{subst:Decline reason here}} ~~~~}}
If you accept the unblock request, replace this template with the following, substituting Accept reason here
with your rationale:
{{unblock reviewed |1=This block has outlived its usefulness. I have no interest in performing any action that led to the block, and am only interested in making non-controversial positive contributions. Most importantly, I need the freedom to use my primary account. This is an alternative account, and I can do some things from it, but many things I can not do from this account. [[User:Apteva|Apteva]] ([[User talk:Apteva#top|talk]]) 18:45, 10 July 2014 (UTC) |accept = accept reason here ~~~~}}