User talk:Guy Macon

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"Wikipedia's articles are no place for strong views. Or rather, we feel about strong views the way that a natural history museum feels about tigers. We admire them and want our visitors to see how fierce and clever they are, so we stuff them and mount them for close inspection. We put up all sorts of carefully worded signs to get people to appreciate them as much as we do. But however much we adore tigers, a live tiger loose in the museum is seen as an urgent problem." --WP:TIGER

Only 993088551 articles left until our billionth article!

We are only 993088551 articles away from our 1,000,000,000th article... --Guy Macon

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Quotable quote

"... anyone who volunteers at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard can never be a clerk, administrator, or any other office that involves an election -- those who are unhappy with the result at DRN have a tendency to hold a grudge" -- Guy Macon

I think that merits a spot on your User page. Kudos. --Lexein (talk) 04:00, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:Glaisher

Ouch! You've used a template to send a message to an experienced editor. Please review Wikipedia:Don't template the regulars or maybe listen to a little advice. Doesn't this feel cold, impersonal, and canned? It's meant in good humor. Best wishes. – Smyth\^talk 18:04, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Smyth, If you read WP:DTTR and WP:TTR, you will see that the arguments in the TTR essay are far more compelling that the arguments in the DTTR essay. I have yet to see anyone read them both and conclude that the arguments in DTTR are better. Also, Glaisher doesn't need you to fight his battles for him. He is a big boy and is perfectly capable of defending himself without your unsolicited assistance. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:10, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lighten up, please. It's just a joke -- the kind of good-natured pseudocriticism that you often see among people who like and respect each other. – Smyth\^talk 19:22, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Joking aside, if humor was your intention, then the whole question is moot, though that intention wasn't obvious to me and apparently several other people. – Smyth\^talk 19:26, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(Smile) It was indeed an attempt at humor, but it is also true that nobody has ever tried to defend WP:DTTR after reading the rebuttal at WP:TTR.

I am now trouting myself for not being clear enough:

Whack!

You've been whacked with a wet trout.

Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

Ah. that was cold and ~~slimy~~ refreshing! --Guy Macon (talk) 19:35, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia_talk:Reward_board#As_we_are_going_to_keep_this.2C_do_we_need_to_tighten_the_criteria_a_bit.3F

Given it's been kept at MfD, I've reposted a proposal to tighten it. See header. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:47, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I need to give that one some thought; it isn't clear to me what the right thing to do is. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:35, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A brownie for you!

Thanks for your help in resolving the Republic of Kosovo dispute! Neljack (talk) 23:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks from me as well! You managed to help us resolve a seemingly intractable issue in no time at all. TDL (talk) 21:17, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

DRN

If you're wondering some of the reasons as to why I opposed, besides the vi.wikipedia issue (if you told someone to stop doing something as part of the Commission, would you use tons of exclamation marks and all caps? would you be nice about it?) - I just don't think you understand what your role was in the DRN incident, and what you could have done better. (Even Steven Zhang, the founder of DRN, understood my concerns). It seems that you're more interested in people "following the rules" than resolving disputes, both then and now. Besides your continuing to smear my name on WT:DRN whenever you get the opportunity, and on my CU nomination (where you had little evidence to show that I would violate rules at SPI, or that I would violate someone's privacy if I disagreed with what they had to say). It came off like throwing pasta at the wall and seeing what stuck. You'll note that I had the support of several current CheckUsers, SPI clerks, and stewards at that nomination.

I understand that my comments at that DRN were probably suboptimal, and could have focused less on Martinvl (who is now indefinitely blocked), but your involvement certainly made the situation worse (as did Mark Miller's, but he has since tried to make amends, which I appreciate).

Finally, all of the other candidates I have worked with quite a bit (in all truth, I did have some misgivings about GiantSnowman, but not enough to move me from support), even if it's just on IRC and not visible otherwise. Factually speaking, you were the only non-admin candidate, and that does play a factor in my decision; the only non-admin candidate that I have supported for a seat on the Commission was Lord Roem, who was an ArbCom clerk. And as for your prior comment that nobody who works DRN can get into any other positions, I can name one who became an admin: Mr. Stradivarius. --Rs chen 7754 06:39, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and there was User talk:Glaisher#November 2013: while he may not have many edits here, he is a global rollbacker, acting in good faith, and I don't think he deserved to be templated. It seems that you tend to overreact when telling people to stop doing something. --Rs chen 7754 06:41, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the explanation. I made this edit based upom the above.

Upon reflection, here is what I believe is happening:

You see me doing something (using all caps) in one situation (dealing with a Vietnamese speaker who isn't getting it) and suspect that I will act the same way in another situation (dealing with arbcom candidates). In other words, you think my future behavior will be driven by my disposition or personality, as evidenced by what you have observed of my past behavior. I look at the same situations and believe that my future actions will be based upon the circumstances -- that I am smart enough to not treat arbcom candidates as if they had very bad English skills.

Meanwhile I see you doing something (not following rules that you disagree with) in one situation (DRN's rules about discussing article content and not user conduct) and suspect that you will act the same way in another situation (the rules about not misusing CU). In other words, I think your future behavior will be driven by your disposition or personality, as evidenced by what I have observed of your past behavior. You look at the same situations and believe that your future actions will be based upon the circumstances -- that you are smart enough to not treat CU like DRN.

This is a classic example of Fundamental attribution error, and it has caused each of us to mistrust the other and to conclude that he is fundamentally unsuitable for any position requiring the trust of the community. Meanwhile we have both concluded that we ourselves are perfectly trustworthy.

A related cognitive bias can be seen in your statement "Steven Zhang, the founder of DRN, understood my concerns". The thing is, I can say the exact same thing. If I wasn't familiar with Steven's methods of resolving disputes I could have interpreted his private correspondence with me as somehow supporting my position, but of course I knew that he was being sympathetic and understanding, not rendering a verdict. I admire him for that.

The obvious solution would be for me to leave the job of explaining why you cannot be trusted to others and for you to leave the job of explaining why I cannot be trusted to others. Realistically, if nobody else sees the flaws that we think make each other unsuitable, that should tell us something. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:40, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On the surface, that may appear to be true, but it's more nuanced than that. "if nobody else sees the flaws that we think make each other unsuitable, that should tell us something." -> well considering the complaints that I got on my talk page about DRN (and the ones that I have gotten about aspects of DRN from a few arbs/functionaries), and another admin's comment about your templating Glaisher here, it's not true for you, and one could say the same about me (though in my defense, quite a few had less than pure motives). I would venture to say that some people didn't support you because of what I posted, though of course there's no way to know for sure. I would urge you to consider whether what people are saying is true, and whether you can improve your methods of communication.

Unfortunately, I don't see a way forward here. I think it's unfortunate that you've chosen to oppose all my subsequent rights nominations, especially as I was planning to use my CU rights to handle the Morning277/Wiki-PR case, with my crosswiki connections and access to assist me in the process. And the CU log is watched constantly, so any abuse of the tools would have been noticed very quickly, and would probably cause me to lose my OS access on Wikidata too, if WMF or the Ombudsman Commission got involved. In addition, the WMF is considering making CUs legally and financially responsible for purposeful violation of privacy policies. And I would never CU you, and would try to stay far from any cases that you filed to ensure full transparency. But if you want to oppose every rights request that I make from now until I retire from Wikimedia, that is your right to do so; there is nothing that I can do about that, and rightfully so.

What is not appropriate is rehashing what happened at WT:DRN every month or two. It's ax-grinding, plain and simple, and it looks quite unprofessional, along with breaking our policies on civility. What happened in March happened, and to be honest, it reflects poorly on all of us. It's time to move on, as User:Steven Zhang did tell you on this very talkpage. --Rs chen 7754 09:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While it takes two people for an argument to occur, I am disappointed if this matter is still being discussed. It happened in March, and if it is still being discussed, well, it really is flogging a dead horse. We all make mistakes. Never forgiving each other (this includes not reminding them of it all the time) is a bad idea, and I hope you have both moved on. If so, great. I never spoke. If not, well, please do :-) Steven Zhang (talk) 10:09, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to just unconditionally stop. I am not going to discuss this again. I am not going to refer to it in any situation. I am not going to oppose Rschen7754 regarding CU or anything else, and in fact he can count on my support vote for CU (I had already decided to do that based upon his comments above about the the CU log being watched constantly). I would hope that Rschen7754 would leave the job of telling everyone that I cannot be trusted to others, but if Rschen7754 decides to oppose me in the future as he did when I volunteered for the Electoral Commission, I will not respond. Not that I am likely to allow myself to be put through that sort of thing again. Feel free to have the last word. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:29, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Negative Power Factor

After a long period of silence, Wtshymanski is back at Talk:Power factor and has picked up the stick again on his IEEE spec that conrtradicts itself [1]. You threatened to take action if he did, so now is your big chance. I B Wright (talk) 19:25, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]