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Re. closed AE thread

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:58, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#COVID: SYNTH, BLUDGEON and MEDRS (moved from AE) --Guy Macon (talk) 20:28, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Too many Zahirs

I'm trying to wade through the history; the user is blocked from Zahira Zahir and Abdul Zahir, but not from Ahmad Zahir (yet). Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 15:05, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Girth Summit, jings. I fall back to my other comment. When did any editor with "FactChecker" in their name, turn out to be anything other than a POV-pusher? Guy (help! - typo?) 15:28, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

At least it wasn't 'TruthChecker'. There ought to be a filter that flags up new accounts with 'truth' in the name and makes them easy to find and monitor. GirthSummit _(blether) 07:03, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Thorn Cycles

The article Thorn Cycles has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Fails WP:NCORP

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Nomadicghumakkad (talk) 08:39, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Hey hey, age of an article is usually not a rational for notability. Please add more sources. I have good faith that they exist like you said and you will add them. When I searched, I didn't find anything and hence proposed. Thanks! Nomadicghumakkad (talk) 14:55, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Railways, Dim ond Dyn!

Drmies has a bus stop. You have a whole railway station.

Out Of London, PWG Coombs. It has a lineside hut, not a fogman's hut, alas.

Looking at Llandinam railway station here, I had some questions and I thought of you. Do those signs mark the end of the platform? And is that the signalman's hut? Uncle G (talk) 16:23, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• Uncle G, Heh! That is very much nott he station, is it? The white circle with the black stripe? That is a speed limit sign for the road - national speed limit applies (in this case 60mph). There's a level crossing ([1]), and you can see the actual station location on Street View (on the B4569, not, as you might expect, Station Road). We don't have signallers' huts, there were things called fogman's huts back in the day though. There's one in my train painting, I will grab a picture. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:37, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Road trains limited to 60 miles per hour (97 km/h), eh? But can reach that right off the platform. Impressive.

    I cannot readily accept your self-published source when I have an English from Greater Manchester Built-up Area (cymru), Dim ond Dyn.

    In the signalman's hut is placed a battery, one pole of which is to earth, the other to the electro-magnet.

    — Axon, William Edward Armytage (1875). "Railway signals". The Mechanic's Friend: A Collection of Receipts and Practical Suggestions. D. Van Nostrand., page 133

    Uncle G (talk) 09:51, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

    • That's a signal box. They started off as shelters for people running ground frames and developed into standardised and in some cases ornate edifices. I need to get my railway operations books out and write an article on fogman, it's a rather interesting topic IMO. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:59, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
      • Well signalman's huts do appear to be scattered throughout history. I suspect that the Legends of Tomorrow have had a hand in this. This seems like a brilliant opportunity for a cross-over, Dim ond Dyn. We can correct history to match Wikipedia.

        I know that you can get the Heart of Gold to travel through time, but the only time when you've done that you've been hung-over and in an artificial universe. So perhaps we should cross-over to User talk:Drmies and ask to borrow the TARDIS so that we can undo the Legends' dastardly work.

        We've certainly got our work cut out for us. There are signalman's huts in the Railway Engineer and all over the place. The first major stop appears to be Reading in 1921, though. Some bloke named Henry Ralph got a whole bunch of articles published in a column in the Reading Standard from 1921 to 1922, which later got collected in book form.

        When writing my last paper I was uncertain if the ancient signalman's hut and signal could be reproduced.

        — Ralph, Henry (1922). "Signals, Ancient and Modern". Railway Days and Railway Ways, Being the Reminiscences of a Great Western Railway Man. Reading Standard., page 22

        If we can get this excised, then perhaps the butterfly effect will stop Colin Maggs from ever writing about signalman's huts.

        One of the outcomes of the inquiry was that all points outside Salisbury were to be worked from the level crossing signal hut. Accordingly, a small ground frame was provided outside the signalman's hut.

        — Maggs, Colin (2013). A History of the Great Western Railway. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781445613000.

        Drmies has the library card, not I. So perhaps you should bring along your cycling proficiency certificate and we can convince either M. Ralph or the editor of the Standard that we are from the War Office and that knowledge of signalman's huts is an official secret. If loose lips don't sink ships in this case, they might interfere with the 17:38 to Bognor.

        Plan B is of course to discredit M. Ralph after the fact. Drmies did it to Prime Minister Harriet Jones with one question. I think ours should be: Well, yes. But Henry Ralph is a retired Great Western Railway official. What on Earth would he know about trains?

        Bloody Legends, eh? Vandalizing history so that it doesn't match actual Wikipedia.

        Uncle G (talk) 16:12, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

        • Uncle G, the Reading Standard? I live in Reading and have never heard of this. I wonder if the archives are now part of the Reading Post or Reading Chronicle? Anyway: I am reasonably sure that mentions of "signalman's hut" are in fact references primarily to signal boxes. It's clear from the few professional references that the term refers to a building containing a lever frame. Perhaps they are describing smaller boxes without block instruments, but it's unclear to me where you would find such a thing. It's possible that they are actually talking about fogman's huts, though. The Western, in particular, had huge numbers of these, typically located near distant signals. They genuinely were huts, about the size of an outhouse, containing the fogman and his lamp, a supply of detonators, and if he was lucky a brazier. If visibility was below 200 yards the fogman would place detonators on the line in advance of the signal, to warn trains if it was set to caution. So I'm not disputing that the term exists, but I am saying that, as used, it probably doesn't apply to a hut (in the sense of shed) but instead to a more substantial structure. Maggs is referring to a level crossing operator's hut, which may indeed be much less substantial as it often did not have a lever frame - a crossing between signal boxes would be manned, but the crossing operator would contact the signaller Up or Down from the crossing to set the signal at danger, from my reading of the manuals. But this was a station with a crossing, and that would normally need a frame to operate starter, home and distant, and potentially a crossover as well.

          So it seems to me most likely that this is informal language. The only images I can find that are explicitly listed as a signalman's hut appear to be for permanent way men (which would include fogmen), with no evidence of any signal operating equipment.

          Of course it is All Very Different Now. King's Cross is signalled from York ROC! That's no hut. I think KX power box closed last month. There is also a big problem with user-worked crossings, which have no staff. They are just about the most dangerous thing on Britain's railways. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:29, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

          • Well at least you won't have to cycle any great distance once the TARDIS has landed. I only know that the book itself said that it was from The Reading Standard on its title page. Uncle G (talk) 17:19, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Uncle G, 1891–1963 - so it folded before I was born. That explains it. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:27, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Franklin Child Abuse Non-Case ?

I am confused about one detail. It appears that you replied within the past 24 hours to a post to Talk:Franklin child prostitution ring allegations that had been made by Autonova three years ago. An IP address then popped up and filed a somewhat garbled case request at DRN. My question is whether there was a reason that I don't see why you replied to something three years old. I think that the case will go away, but am just asking. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:53, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, oh, having seen the gobbledegook DRN case I went and read through the Talk page to see if there are any outstanding unanswered points. I didn't look at the dates, tbh. The DRN thing quoted Autonova's comments, right? And actually it only drew my eye because my wife's late cousin was an expert on the Franklin expedition. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:46, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Different Franklins, undoubtedly. The alleged child abuse was in the United States, where things named Franklin are usually named for Benjamin Franklin, not for Sir John Franklin. Also different sorts of mysteries, because the Franklin expedition was real, and there is no reason to think that the Franklin child abuse was real. But we have paranoids here who invent child abuse, who are typically also COVIDiots, and who have a savior with a time machine. (Oh. Wait a minute. I haven't used that phrase in this forum until now.) Robert McClenon (talk) 23:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC on racial hereditarianism at the R&I talk-page

An RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence revisits the question, considered last year at WP:FTN, of whether or not the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. This RfC supercedes the recent RfC on this topic at WP:RSN that was closed as improperly formulated.

Your participation is welcome. Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 21:12, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

NightHeron, heh! need to ask for EC rights first... Guy (help! - typo?) 21:34, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

@JzG: The R&I talk-page was already EC-protected, per a recent decision at WP:AE. NightHeron (talk) 21:37, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

NightHeron, yeah, I know. I'm taking a break form sysopping so I don't have EC rights despite 16 years and 150k edits, just waiting for that to be sorted. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:39, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

@JzG: I misunderstood. I'm very sorry about that. There's a whole lot I still don't know about Wikipedia -- I just assumed once an EC user, always an EC user. It literally never occurred to me that EC goes away because of a wikibreak. NightHeron (talk) 21:56, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

NightHeron, no problem, it's a weird artifact that bundled rights introduced after sysopping are not recorded separately in the rights log. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:57, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Very glad you got EC back quickly and wrote a good response to DGG. NightHeron (talk) 10:41, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Franklin child prostitution ring allegations

I am Poorpony and what does it matter how many edits I have? The author of this page should be held accountable for implying the Franklin child prostitution ring allegations was a hoax! This article is related to government officials trying to hide the fact that government officials are having child sex, This article is of a very sensitive subject and should not have been written so lightly and immature. The author should take the time and add all relevant facts to the case. For example, the boy was compensated in a civil suit however the author failed to mention this in their sources. There are many articles the author could have shared about this case but chose not to for what reason? Is the author part of a people trying to hide sources which would portray the United states as faulted as other countries and people? I have been an avid reader and money contributor to Wikipedia over many years and because of this authors most awful puke display of an article I made an account and my first edit. Poorpony (talk) 10:22, 5 May 2021 (UTC) Poorpony (talk) 11:59, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

---

When I saw the above by an obvious conspiracy theorist who is obviously not posting for the first time. I though, "Benjamin Franklin? Aretha Franklin? Franklin, Quebec? USS Franklin (1795)? Franklin Roosevelt? Roosevelt Franklin? It turns out that the obvious sock puppet is talking about Franklin child prostitution ring allegations. Which was a hoax. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:56, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Guy Macon, indeed. And I only noticed it because my wife's late cousin William Battersby was an expert on the Franklin expedition. Guy (help! - typo?) 13:42, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

By the way, I deleted the cup from my user talk page. I didn't see the need for a phony award from a phony troll cluttering up my talk page. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:28, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Removal of my comment

Hi! Was the removal of my comment at RSN [2] inadvertent or intended? (In the latter case, why?) Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 14:15, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

NightHeron, inadvertent, sorry. I was EC'd I think. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:54, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Never mind. It's been restored. No problem. NightHeron (talk) 14:18, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

On a similar topic to the heading above, saddened that my reaching out wasn’t even worth a reply. starship.paint (exalt) 14:38, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Starship.paint, it will be at some point, but not right now. I've just put in a very long day, I lost a friend to COVID last weekend, and two of my friends in Bangalore lost relatives yesterday - one had to go and collect a newly-orphaned nephew, and another friend was in a flat with someone who just died.

My tolerance for wingnuts is low right now, whether it's seditionists, people who "both sides" the murder of Black people by police, or COVIDiots. Your comment says: too low. I hear you. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:56, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear of the difficult period you are going through. In that light, I would urge you to exercise more caution in your engagement of disputes. Maybe refer more to what RS say (any RS stating as fact Babbitt was murdered? no? case closed), instead of your own arguments. Take care. starship.paint (exalt) 01:35, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Starship.paint, it's really a lot simpler than that. As someone memorably put it on teh socials recently, what blows my mind is not that we keep having to have a conversation about whether it's OK for cops to kill Black people who are just going about their daily lives, it's that some people seem to think that there are two sides to this issue.

On the insurrection talk page, we see a small group of people who have clearly succumbed to the right-wing narrative that Babbitt is the George Floyd of white nationalistspatriots. This is not a question on which reasonable people can differ.

The narrative of Babbitt as an innocent unarmed woman murdered by police (or even killed by policy using excessive force, which is the faux-reasonable argument being advanced most of the time) is asinine. It was a mob storming the Capitol calling for the blood of popular right wing hate figures, specifically including Pelosi, AOC, Tlaib and others. The fact that they erected a gallows and chanted "hang Mike Pence" tells you everything you need to know. Mike. Fucking . Pence. The Platonic form of white Christian nationalist. A man who was too much of a bigot for Indiana.

And I really do not think we should be humouring these people. Wikipedia is a reality-based encyclopaedia., If someone sincerely believes that the Jan 6 insurrection was a peaceful attempt to redress a massive election fraud, and that the only true victim was Ashli Babbitt, then Conservapedia is the place, not here.

It's a specific case of WP:NONAZIS. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:47, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think we are at the stage where election fraud believers would qualify under WP:NONAZIS, a page targeted at racists. I think we can humour this people as long as they stick to our policies. I suspect that your views on this are more extreme than many other editors, and I fear that this will be ammunition for an eventual examination of your conduct in relation to AP2. starship.paint (exalt) 13:37, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Starship.paint, the leaders of the movement that led to the insurrection, and most of the lead actors themselves, are fascists. This was America's beer hall putsch. They wanted it to be the Reichstag fire.

But let's focus on the things on which, to my point above, no reasonable person could disagree. Like the fact that the election was not rigged, Trump did not win, the insurrection was a violent attempt to subvert an election, and there's no way Babbitt was a victim in any sense other than that she was a victim of disinformation and insane conspiracy theories. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:20, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I am not a Nazi, [redacted]. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:09, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I also haven't succumbed to any narrative where Ashli Babbitt's death or character remotely resembles George Floyd's, or where Pelosi, AOC, Tlaib and Pence are portrayed as popular far-right hate figures. I don't think white people are better than black people, or vice versa. All I'm saying is that casualties of any event should be killed or wounded by it, not just associated with it. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:45, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

InedibleHulk, I don't think I said that you did. In fact I don't think I was discussing you at all. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:14, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

It's genuinely hard to know who you're discussing. Glad you don't think it's me. If you truly believe there clearly is a small group of Nazi racist idiots on that Talk Page, you should root them out, and that starts by pinging them to let them know you want them, in particular, gone forever. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:47, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I am also not a Nazi. And knowing that Babbitt was a victim does not make me a national socialist. Innican Soufou (talk) 18:00, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

That reminds me, I also know she was unarmed, but that doesn't signify anything to me beyond the fact that she, the one who was killed, did not at the time, herself, have a gun on her person. Nothing to do with whether the violent people in the mob acted peacefully (they did not), or whether Trump is the rightful current president (he is not). Glad you're not the Nazi in my midst! InedibleHulk (talk) 18:19, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Innican Soufou, Babbitt was a victim of a delusional cult, not of a police officer. And that's all I have to say on this matter. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:25, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Berchanhimez, as the third and final registered editor Guy appears to have disagreed with "on the insurrection talk page", are you now or have you been a Nazi, a victim of a delusional cult or any other alleged thing above? InedibleHulk (talk) 18:49, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, since I've got the Anti-Nazi badge to prove my credentials, from a time when Guy were but a lad, may I respectfully opine that that the victim in the confrontation that brought Babbitt fame was the cop. She was likely to have been the victim of delusions, but as a responsible adult she chose to lead the mob of rioters in their assault by climbing through the window/glazed door. The cop had no choice, his duty was to stop the mob from overrunning the improvised barrier in the way they'd done with the barricades outside, and to protect the escape of congresspeople. He was issued with a gun, and trained to use it, but still a very distressing thing to have to do. By the way, the Beeb describes the shooting as at "point-blank range", looked rather further to me, but I'm no expert. . . dave souza, talk 19:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Per your link, that badge expired in 2003. If I were the suspicious authoritarian type, I'd demand the official UAF bumper sticker before letting you interrupt this inquiry! But my gut says you're definitely not the mystery Nazi here, and your respectfully interjected opinion only confirms that hunch...cheers! InedibleHulk (talk) 19:39, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

2003? Shoved mine in a drawer around 1981, but what with BLM in the news still put Handsworth Revolution on the record player occasionally as a memory of seeing them at a ANL/RAR demo. . . dave souza, talk 20:42, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Dave souza, yo, Dave? ANL was very much "when I was a lad". I was at school. Sounds like you're somewhere between me and Cullen in age :-) Guy (help! - typo?) 23:12, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

[does some research] If you mean Cullen328, nope, from his user page he's a few years younger than me. Probably more mature, though. . . . dave souza, talk 10:59, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Dave souza, So Methuselah is your kid brother? ;-) Guy (help! - typo?) 11:17, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Just slightly surprised I'm still around, so far. . . dave souza, talk 12:13, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Re: Point-blank range, it depends on whether the writer knows what the phrase actually means as opposed to the common misconception. ^{I shot a man with a paintball gun just to watch him dye.} --Guy Macon (talk) 21:01, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! I should've thought to check that out. . . dave souza, talk 21:39, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Guy Macon, I had never thought to look that term up! Thanks for an interesting read.

My shooting instructor could take out the markers at 300 yards with a SMLE, but I never got much better than 94. I must go to Bisley again some time. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:22, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Fired one once, when helping run a youth club which got invited to an army firing range. Had to lie down on a muddy tarp, so the youths were reluctant. I was still at school, so pre '65. Think I just about hit the target. . . dave souza, talk 12:13, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Alright, given the refusal to identify any Nazis and the three denials we all can see, I take it this was just standard Internet hyperbole intended to "win" a conversation, and nothing to do with any actual problem Wikipedia faces from hardcore Hitler fans. I suppose that's a good thing, relatively. Whatever the case, remain vigilant for obvious signs of facism, terrorism and jingoism, but when in doubt, maybe err on the side of asking all of our future suspected enemies directly in plain English what their problems are, rather than immediately resorting to wild vague namecalling. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:04, 5 May 2021 (UTC)