User talk:Dan Polansky

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Demos (the people) voted on the definition of consensus

As per Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2022-09/Meaning of consensus for discussions other than formal votes created at Wiktionary:Votes. The more lofty citizens, the special right holders, known as administrators, mostly did not edit the vote page, exceptions being TheDaveRoss and Vininn126. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:22, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Handling block evader Wonderfool

Handling block evader Wonderfool should be much easier than the project makes it seem. A key element of the handling is an intentional causing of displeasure to the person, while allowing the person to return if they pledge to stop using multiple accounts and pledge to stop inserting incorrect information. A key element is the reduction of social standing of the editor to the minimum. Tolerating Wonderfool the way it is being done is far from harmless.

Principles:

• Once Wonderfool is identified, the user account shall be blocked immediately.
• Alternatively:
  • Wonderfool shall be prohibited from participation in RFD, something he likes to do.
  • Wonderfool shall be prohibited from creating votes, something he likes to do.
  • A public profile of Wonderfool shall be created, stating key signs of being a Wonderfool. One of the signs would be languages he likes to edit. Other editing patterns shall be stated, like the two above. The profile shall serve as a public administration asset.
    • Item: likes to create Spanish entries, per Special:Contributions/Flackofnubs
    • Item: likes to process Wiktionary:Todo subpages, per Special:Contributions/Flackofnubs
    • Item: likes to add Czech declension using cs-decl-noun-auto, per Special:Contributions/Romanb. He could do it well if he learned to check against {{R:IJP}}, a source that the English Wiktionary is now starting to link from as many Czech entries as possible. He will need to do proper hinting to the template; it is not fully automatic.

Once the alternative is implemented, a Wonderfool's new user will disclose himself by starting to make low-quality RFD nominations and by asking fairly many people if they want to become admins.

A question is whether this will lead to too much suspicion about new user accounts. Not necessarily. So long as a new user account behaves reasonably and well, any suspicion of being Wonderfool may be suspended until it becomes relevant. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:18, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Expanded with items. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:04, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Item added. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:49, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

A public profile is probably not wise, since (i) it gives him more of the attention he craves and (ii) it tells him how to behave in order to avoid identification. Equinox ◑ 12:47, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

It's true, I do crave attention :) --unsigned Wonderfool

Thank you. Wonderfool already does have a public page listing his accounts, is of remarkable fame, and gets attention (does one say "this ship has sailed"?) With a public profile stating the signs, he can avoid identification but not without a cost: he must edit in a way that is not "himself", as it were. If he gets kick from RFD and votes, too bad for him. If he likes editing Spanish entries, too bad for him. And with each new account identified, the profile gets expanded and tightened up and the playing room for evasion gets narrower. Therefore, what I said still makes sense to me. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:58, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

I totally agree with Wonderfool being prohibited from RFDs (tagging {{delete}} instead is easier) and from creating votes (I tried to start a vote about myself about it, but it got deleted :( ). I also tried to get Dan Polansky admin powers, so he could block Wonderfool on sight, but that one failed too. Flackofnubs (talk) 13:05, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Today, Wonderfool entered incorrect Czech declension into antikoncepce: the non-existent form "antikoncepc". He failed to guide the automatic declension template properly. Hardly anyone knows how many pieces of incorrect information entered by Wonderfool linger in Wiktionary. This is an instance of bad quality control on part of the project, failing to enforce bans on users with considerable history of irresponsibly entering incorrect information. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:20, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Those who tolerate Wonderfool share considerable responsibility for the countless mistakes he injects. The project can do much better, and I think it ought to. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I increasingly think that if a group of competent administrators used a public description of signs of being Wonderfool (which already exists above), it would be almost trivial for them to prevent the person from editing. However, when Wonderfool is not Mr. Hyde (Mr. Playful Rascal), he is Mr. Jekyll (Mr. Turbo Lexicographer), a prolific and highly useful contributor, and it would be a pity to prevent him from editing forever. (This characterization is a bit unfair, given that Mr. Playful Rascal is nowhere as bad a person as the novella's Hyde.) --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:28, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the idea for a new username :) Mr. Turbo Lexicographer (talk) 21:08, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Ban

I have banned you for a week, because you have continued to engage in the exact same behaviour which got you banned last time. Your belligerence is unacceptable, and clearly goes against the fundamental principle of cooperation that underpins Wiktionary. Theknightwho (talk) 18:50, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. If you can't win an argument on substance, you can use block tool with a false justification in a direct personal conflict. I do not know whether to laugh or cry. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:51, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

As for "belligerence", the only one I see is by the above editor, who never showed much interest in closing RFDs (did he ever close any?) but right now is trying to find any minor possible mistakes in my closures. Last year, I have been systematically targeted by the above editor, who must have followed my every step and look for a possible conflict, and this pattern seems to continue. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:54, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

This isn't violence, and you were belligerent in the face of being asked to read policy you don't like, which is not a rational response. I am certainly not the only person that you have behaved like this towards, either.

These are standards that we are all held to. You can either continue to make up excuses, or you can reflect on how to cooperate with others. Theknightwho (talk) 18:54, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Here's the allegedly belligerent diff: diff. It is not "belligerent", just self-respectful. It is the use of imperative toward me that is belligerent, as well as the use of a blocking tool. Yes, the use of a blocking tool is an analog of use of violence as contrasted to the use of the power of the argument. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:57, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I've heard the same kind of protestation from IP trolls. The problem is that it assumes you were engaging in rational, good faith discussion, which you weren't.

This is a shame, because you genuinely do have the potential to be a good contributor. See you in a week. Theknightwho (talk) 19:02, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I recommend anyone interested to look at the mainspace contribution of programmer Special:Contributions/Theknightwho. If any of you know my Wiktionary contribution and contrast it to those mostly trivial edits for a bot, you will realize the absurdity of the above pronouncement. Needless to say, I did not seek the above programmer's input on my person, my being able to "become" a good contributor, and the like; the objectionable character of the above editor is clearly revealed in the manner he has attacked me in 2022 and continues doing so. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:07, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

You can write a bot to write modules? Impressive! Or are you referring to the entries that required manual review, since they'd been broken in a nonstandard way? Theknightwho (talk) 19:59, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

A bot to write modules? What is that, artificial intelligence? Where can I see one, to learn more? This is getting funny. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:45, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

As for the entry WT:RFDE#Song of the Three Holy Children (to be archived at Talk:Song of the Three Holy Children), I can interpret the above editor's statement "there is clearly a consensus to delete" only as a very naive lie: anyone carefully inspecting the record will be able to see what kind of lie it was. It is really getting rather funny. The policy for "consensus" is at WT:VPRFD. The offender has dug a deep hole. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:49, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Chuck Entz

Chuck Entz reveals himself to be a harasser, a fraud and an incompetent. (What he really is we do not know, merely how he reveals himself. He is quite possibly capable of redemption if he starts listening and talking to his conscience on a regular basis. An indefinite block against Mr. Entz is uncalled for at this point.) Some supporting evidence:

• In User talk:Speednat#Unattested Acanthasitta, I asked an editor for evidence supporting attestation. Mr. Entz wrote "He's not singling you out- he haunts several other talk pages. I'm not sure whether to recommend an exorcist or a proctologist." To me, my request on that user was legitimate and no harassment; by contrast, the sentence by Mr. Entz is harassment: 1) "haunts" means Dan Polansky is a ghost, possibly evil ghost; 2) exorcism is "The ritual act of driving out evil spirits from persons, places or things that are possessed by them"; thus, Dan Polansky is an evil spirit or possibly is possessed by evil spirits, or 3) we need "proctologist", a doctor specializing in the colon, rectum and anus. Thus, Dan Polansky is possibly an anus, or alternatively, Dan Polansky has some health problems relating to digestion, or possibly, Dan Polansky has some psychoanalytic disorder relating to being "anal". Whatever the interpretation, the words traded are uncalled for insults. If Dan Polansky really ought to no longer use user talk pages to ask about attesting quotations, the admin-worthy communication would have been to use Dan Polansky talk page and explain to him in the clearest possible terms so that a child can understand what the problem is and what the remedy is.
• A case of argumentation fraud by Mr. Entz: "Another step toward complete circularity: adding links in discussions to you talking to yourself in userspace. Whatever your intention, it makes it look like you have your own CFI that you consider more important than the real one, because everyone else is too stupid to think like you do." 1) "Another step" means there was already a previous step toward complete circularity; there was none. 2) This step intended to relieve RFD discussion of longer arguments and evidence is not a step toward circularity at all; to be sure, I consulted the matter with multiple of my acquaintances and they confirmed my conclusion. (The confirmation is not truly independent since they are my acquaintances, but two of the confirmers are not my friends and do not know me very well.)
• A case of argumentation fraud by Mr. Entz: "You're on very thing ice here: IMO you shouldn't be closing anything that's not an obvious snowball slam-dunk. You are not RFVE's Supreme Court." 1) "IMO": we have not sought the opinion of Mr. Entz, one that nominally isn't humble but ought to be; 2) there is no principle that Dan Polansky ought not be closing RFDs, given his long-term history un unchallenged RFD closures spanning multiple years; 3) "RFVE" is probably a freudian slip, by which the conscience in the psyche of Mr. Entz is trying to reveal to the world that he is lying; 4) the concept of "Supreme Court" in relation to RFD closures is nonsense; in fact, RFDs can usually be meaningfully closed by using numerical consensus since a lone opposer cannot close RFD as kept based on their assessment of the strength of the argument; and closing RFDs based on numerical consensus is relatively simple and can be done by a range of editors who are careful (meticulous) enough; mistakes happen, but everything is on record and the mistakes can be corrected, and a corrective action can be taken even years later. This item is not only fraud but also harassment, an unjustified attempt to prevent Dan Polansky from closing RFDs. It is also an attack on Dan Polansky's social standing.
• The incompetence of Mr. Entz is revealed in his entry Thesaurus:mountain range. The identification of defects is left as an exercise for the competent reader. The low-quality entry was produced by him in 4 edits. Remarkable.

One remarkable characteristic of Mr. Entz is that he does almost no lexicography: almost no new entries, new senses, or new other classes or lexicographical information, e.g. inflection or gender. That does not prevent him from sharing his often misguided pseudo-wisdom on a range of subjects, in Beer parlour, Requests for deletion and elsewhere. He even once opined that creators of new entries ought to fill in gender as part of the initial creation; well, then, let him; his resources are the only ones under his rightful command. For some reason, Mr. Entz is loath to use his own resources to produce lexicography and instead seems interested in controlling other resources. Not once, from what I remember, did Mr. Entz share with us a link to an authoritative source where we could find out more about the subjects on which Mr. Entz is allegedly knowledgeable, e.g. clitics. If he did so, he would have provided a tangibly valuable service. Dan Polansky (talk) 07:57, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

User -sche

User -sche reveals himself to be a harasser, a naming-incompetent and an inconsistent person.

• In his block against me in relation to Razorflame, the user has accused me of "hounding" Razorflame, quoting Wikipedia policies as if they were Wiktionary policies. Quoting such policies as part of administrative action is unacceptable. The action was a harassment.
• The user is naming-incompetent by having a user name starting with a minus or dash, violating typographical conventions of the given naming culture. Furthermore, a proper user name would start with a capital letter, which makes it easily recognizable as a proper name in the middle of a sentence. The result is a displeasure in the mind of the readers, certainly of the present speaker. On a risk-averse side, a user with such a user name ought not to be made an admin since via his chosen name he reveals his disregard for needs to others.
• His disregard for needs of others is confirmed by his closures of RFDs, in which he habitually fails to strike out the heading. The archivers need to have the headings striken out so that they know which threads and when can be archived.
• Let us assume that Dan Polansky's approach toward Razorflame was excessive, too obsessed with the problems caused by the Razorflame. There is some superficial plausibility to it: perhaps no person ought to go too far out of their ways to single-handedly deal with a problematic editor. Maybe not; I don't know. But let us assume that Dan Polansky went too far and ought to have asked other editors for help, or the like. Then, we can see in 2022 how user Theknightwho (another inappropriate user name) systematically harasses Dan Polansky, in action that has the appearance of "hounding". The user creates conflict after conflict related to Dan Polansky editing, and when Dan Polansky ceases editing, the conflict disappears and the "Knight" user, who has the appearance of being a programmer or perhaps scripter, goes back to his semi-automatic mainspace edits worthy a bot. What does user -sche, the person concerned with "hounding", do? Nothing. Or actually something: places an indefinite block on Dan Polansky.
• In a vote to block long-term problematic user Luciferwildcat, user -sche opposed. But later, user -sche issued an indefinite block against the user, from what I remember. If this is right, it is consistent with the hypothesis of user -sche being an enemy of the open society: the open society must not function productively via open processes such as votes, and instead, private persons, perhaps Prussian Junkers, ought to rule.
• User -sche is aider and abetter of non-consensual editor CodeCat/Rua.
• User -sche created almost no votes and repeatedly made anti-vote statements. He appears to be one of the enemies of open society, part of the perennial revolt against freedom. These are the appearances; what he (or she?) really is we do not know.
• In 2022, user -sche created what appeared to be a fraudulent Beer parlour thread nominally appearing to address the alleged problem of "matronymics". To me, that appeared suspect from the start: matronymics never have been a problem, and furthermore, CFI overrides are possible anyway. Then, fraudster and another enemy of open society and the reign of reason (via his anti-vote statements), DCDuring, inserted a vaguely related proposal in that thread that was then alleged to be insertable into CFI without a vote. Whatever the true intentions of the participants, the thread has the appearance of fraud.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 08:29, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

DCDuring

DCDuring has done a lot of good for the English Wiktionary, but unfortunately, he has revealed himself to be a force for harm as well:

• DCDuring's participation in Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2010/September § Poll: Deleting "/more" pages from Wikisaurus has the appearance of trolling, nominally thwarting a productive process by nonsensical administrative requirements.
• DCDuring repeatedly made anti-vote statements that hindered the voting culture in Wiktionary. Sure, the voting culture is defective in so far as it insufficiently emphasizes the strength of the argument. Remedies are possible, such as requiring each vote participant to state a rationale. DCDuring never proposed such a requirement.
• DCDuring stated we ought to rely on intuitions rather than clearly formulated rules. Such a position makes a lot of sense in private life, but is positively harmful for a publicly administered project. But at the same time, DCDuring praised the attributive-use rule as being a "rule". A contradiction.
• In 2022, DCDuring was the key contributor to user -sche fraudulend thread on "matronymics", trying to sneak in a policy without a vote. That is very disappointing.

I see good chances for DCDuring's redemption. It seems to me he already improved greatly, and perhaps mentioning the first item above is unfair since it is so long ago, and he has learned his lesson already. The first step is to start listening to one's conscience on a regular basis, get acquainted with one's fallibility and start learning from one's mistakes. Dan Polansky (talk) 08:40, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Fay Freak

One fellow Wiktionary editor who recently declared to me to be my friend will probably agree with me when I say that Fay Freak, self-reporting as Russian-German, is a master of nonsense. The amount of nonsensical arguments and semi-comprehensible English that person has produced in Wiktionary fora is remarkable. All too often I am not sure what he is saying; like many of the continental philosophers, he does not make a point of being understood; with a little effort and good-will, he could learn to write in normal and comprehensible English. Since he does not, his being semi-incomprehensible speaker has the appearance of being intentional. I for one cannot take anything that person says seriously; a lot of it is either a lie or a case of poor internal knowledge processes, especially the failure to regularly criticize and refute what one thinks. When this person celebrated my 2022 block, I was not surprised. Narrowly understood, the wiki would benefit from forbidding this person from participation on public discussion. From what I remember, after one of his nonsensical offensive argumentation displays, one editor opined discussions ought to be disallowed from votes. What a bad idea: before we restrict our collective capacity to speak, argue and reason about proposals at the most opportune place, we ought to restrict the capacity of the offender. However, restricting his ability to speak does not seem acceptable; we must respect other editor's right to speak, even editors like Fay Freak. At the same time, if Dan Polansky can be blocked from Wiktionary namespace for speaking too much, as has happened, the project ought to be able to temporarily prevent Fay Freak from using Wiktionary namespace after one of the episodes of more of his clear nonsense. Dan Polansky (talk) 08:50, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Ben Wing

Ben Wing does a lot of excellent work, but unfortunately, he recently started to reveal himself as a fraud. Since, he likened a transparent vote showing objectively editor preferences to reading tea leaves. That statement is clearly nonsensical. The point is clear: the decisions ought to be made by Ben Wing and other members of various inner circles, not via a public process. Thus, he started to reveal himself as one of the enemies of open society. Nonetheless, I have good hopes for him to recover from this folly. Dan Polansky (talk) 08:55, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Sgconlaw

Incredible.

• Wrong user name: he is not Singapore Constitutional Law and ought not carry that name. What are the syllables, if any? How should one pronounce this name internally in one's mind?
• Since he has another user, Jack Lee, which has a decent name, why does not he use that one? Is it because he has no concern for needs of others, who could then call him simply "Jack" instead of trying to figure out how to call him?
• Adding bad images.
• Adding bad image captions, excessive.
• Creating absurdly long quoted source identifications. One of them spanned 5 lines and looked like from a Monty Python sketch.
• Stated that consensus is usually determined by 50% majority.
• Recently started to demand that RFDs are closed based on CFI as a rigid policy regardless of consensus for override, and when I explained to him very clearly that this is contrary to common law, he pretended he heard not a single word.

Whatever the cause, whether incompetence, dishonesty (why dishonesty? what would he gain?) or mental challenge (or is he a paid troll? seems unlikely), a person showing such a remarkable pattern of badness in multiple dimensions ought not to be an administrator. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:32, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Administrator

I realized I would like to see an admin vote for myself. If someone wants to nominate me, I will accept the nomination, and in the vote, I will explain why, perhaps rather surprisingly, I ought to be give administrator rights. I am given to conflict perhaps more than is good, but that can probably be managed by me showing restraint in use of administrative privileges. And if that restraint proves impossible, there can be a desysop vote (50% are enough for the vote to pass) or other administrators may undo any administrator action of mine that turns out to be a folly. The qualities that speak most favorably in my favor is a burning sense of requirement of justice and a proper process. Sure, the same qualities are going to disqualify me in the eyes of others. I am flawed in many ways, as many have observed, but most administrators are. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:25, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

That appears to be a terrible idea. It is almost certain to end in a failed vote. There are furthermore several instances on this talk page where you accuse longstanding editors of fraud or lying, not something that is generally indicative of a good state of mind. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 20:46, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

The vote is likely to fail but it could produce some surprising results such as at least one vote in support; even some abstains would be nice. Moreover, it would provide a channel where editors could raise whatever criticism they want to raise of my behavior, ideally with diffs; thus, if they are too ashamed or abashed to use my talk page as a venue of criticism (as nominally appears to be the case), they could use a venue expressly intended for such a purpose.

I have come to believe that I would make a much better administrator than most. I have realized that the standards that the English Wiktionary administrators actually have to meet are extremely low; there is plenty of evidence I could cite. Indeed, an editor who wished another editor death on-wiki had become an administrator. However, this one case is probably an aberration and a major finding against the Wiktionary project, and not to be replicated.

The notion that accusing longstanding editors of fraud or lying is a bad thing requires a proof. I have not seen anything remotely resembling a proof, and I have decided that it is therefore rational to reject that unproven evaluative hypothesis. Moreover, recently elected administrator Theknightwho repeatedly accused me of lying in discussions and called me nasty names, and hardly anyone complained, and instead, he was made an administrator; and in that vote, it was said something like, don't be afraid to call "bullshit", and no one objected to that notion. The double civility standards ought to end. I always assumed that accusing others of lying is as unacceptable in the English Wiktionary as it is in the British parliament, but in 2022, I was unequivocally proven wrong. I discovered arguments in favor of the notion that openly accusing longstanding editors of argumentation fraud and other kind of fraud can be a good thing, even an excellent thing, a defense line that the project has against very dangerous social phenomena that are well documented in sociology and anthropology of power. Indeed, how can a project be defended against individual and collective fraud if no one is allowed to identify that fraud? Collectives are not automatically right, as logic and history teaches us, especially subcollectives; there is a good hope that the aggregate collective of people of the good will of the English Wiktionary will defeat the fraudsters.

Be it as it may, whoever wants to raise my spirits (for whatever reasons) has the following options: 1) let me know publicly here that you support my adminship; 2) let me know publicly that you like my work, and which work you like; 3) use the thank tool to indicate which particular work you like. This is psychologically rather important for a person so broadly hated as myself, and so abused by a multitude of different parties, which I usually identify as enemies of the open society, which in general are plentiful. But I have learned from Christians (I am not a Christian) that the fact that a person is broadly hated at a certain point in time by a certain group of people does not necessarily make them a bad person, and their deeds bad deeeds. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:01, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Surjection

He has the appearance of being a competent person. Unfortunately, in RFD discussions, some of this arguments were so bad and implausible as to appear to be fraud.

• There was this thread where he said something like, Dan Polansky is talking nonsense, as usual. It was obvious I was talking no nonsense; at best, I was saying something he legitimately could have disagreed with. Moreover, the proper debate conduct is to attack arguments specifically by singling out parts or aspects that are low-quality. To rank multiple sentences together as "nonsense" with no further analysis is low-quality form of argument.

Dan Polansky (talk) 10:13, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Anyone can close a RFD

@Donnanz Anyone can close a RFD, including non-administrators. You are a long-term Wiktionary contributor. You can close a RFD too. You can also reclose a RFD that someone else has reopened. The policy is WT:VPRFD; all you need to do is proceed in accordance with the policy and the common law. If you happen to violate common law (which is all too easy exactly because it is common law rather than statutory (codified) law), someone ought to be able to correct you and explain things to do; if they won't, they themselves do not know the common law and have nothing to complain about. What you are going to do is up to you; I am instructing you of your legal options. Dan Polansky (talk) 10:22, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky: Thanks. I can see who is blocking you now. Theknightwho is abusing his position. I won't say any more. DonnanZ (talk) 10:35, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. On a philosophical note, whatever the merits of the idea of common law, there is something suspect about it. It has the appearance of intent to create a class of privileged interpreters of the law, those who know the precedent cases. By contrast, statutory (codified) law lays things bare to all the users of the law, including the non-privileged classes. And the non-privileged classes will need an authoritative dictionary to define those words that are not defined in the laws. That would be why the French republic (liberty, fraternity, equality) needs to produce an authoritative dictionary for the citizens, a product of an authoritative academy: to help anyone interpret the law, especially as a defense against demagogues. But it is probably much more complicated than that, and I suspect a lot of good things can be said in favor of common law. I am from continental Europe, from Czechia, a heir country of Austria-Hungary, land of codified law. I find common law both refreshing (finally I don't have to obsess with little rules) and frustrating (I have no good way of knowing what the law is). It seems it is the U.S.American constitution that strikes a balance: on one hand, it is codified, as a constitution, so we know exactly whether a sentence is part of the constitution or not. On the other hand, it is considerably general and does not get lost in the continental minutiae, of enumerations of near-individual cases. The one thing worse than common law is bad statutory law, viz certain parts of CFI. Without CFI, we would need to become common lawyers. That is what many of us have become, by necessity, collecting precedent cases for names of specific entities and the like. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:14, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

@Overlordnat1 You, as well, have the option of posting "RFD-closed": it is your legal right. You will probably be undone by the rogue scripter editor, but you do not need to get yourself provoked by that into a further response. By exercising your legal right, you may advance the project forward against a rogue scripter editor, who can in fact be in the minority. But even if you do nothing but express your disagreement with the action by the rogue editor as you have done, you advance the project forward, and I thank you for that. The rogue scripter editor has revealed himself to be a coward by using unjustified force against the opposition; he appears to be trying to intimidate others by his power and willingness to fight, but that will not get him very far unless others let him. The rogue editor has revealed himself for what he is, and there is a good chance he will be desysopped in some hopeful future. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:00, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Those who thanked me

Thank you. Your thanks via wiki interface help a lot. Often, I am surprised to see what people are thanking me for. By thanking me, you are instructing me to continue in certain endeavors in preference to other endeavors. I am sure I should be using the thank function more often. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:00, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Sections on other users

Hi Dan, nice to see you're practising your prose and talking about your feelings. You could publish a couple of books in no time with the speed your churning these out! Mind you, there would be a very niche market of readers. I'd like to request a section about the following users too: Equinox, SemperBlotto, Fytcha, Donnanz. Celui qui crée ébauches de football anglais (talk) 11:17, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

And maybe you can throw in some panegyric comments, just to mix it up a bit. Celui qui crée ébauches de football anglais (talk) 11:24, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Good idea: I could make some public speeches in the praise arena as well, not just criticism. For a start, the English Wiktionary has grave quality control issues, but it is at the same time an amazing project with enormous potential, in part greatly developed. Quality control can be improved by better use of authoritative sources, which can be done with the use of bots. I hope to write more later. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:48, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Anyway, you seem to be a nice person. Do I know you? Do you want to reveal more? I have a most bizarre suspicion that I will leave unstated, revealing a dual character of your personality, Jekyll and Hyde. You can help relieve me of my badly thought out speculations by revealing more. But frankly, the speculation seems to match the suspected profile all too well. If so, I was nasty to you and you rewarded me with a kindness, or mock kindness. Funny. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:20, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

You're bluffing, Dan. I am revealing nothing. I'll tell you my full story, just send me an email and you've got it. Celui qui crée ébauches de football anglais (talk) 01:20, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

The above is Wonderfool per a perfect match to Wonderfool editing pattern profile, and now also per self-disclosure. The account ought to be blocked immediately. --Dan Polansky (talk) 05:01, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Equinox

Equinox is a very nice guy in many ways. His multi-year lexicographical output for the English lexicography (word documentation) is phenomenal, one of a kind.

• He often creates trivial entries like nonX, semiX, antiX, pseudoX and the like, which, as trivial as they are, appear to be of considerable value for language processing by machines: some company ought to be paying him for creating them. On the other hand, a machine can perhaps take a candidate prefixed word, break it down into candidate prefix and the rest, and check against candidate prefixes and the rests. Nonetheless, manually curated break-ups seem to be of potential utility for machines. And who knows, perhaps a human or two will find them useful once in a while.
• He gets irritated by low-quality control over problematic users.
• He deleted a main page once, from what I remember, after getting frustrated by the project's shameful incompetence in dealing with problematic users.
• He also shows a range of objectionable behaviors, but out of the great respect that I have for him, I will leave these unspecified. I think he suspects what they are. If not, I can describe how these things look from my perspective.
• He revealed himself to be a fair-minded person when he reduced my unjustified indefinite block by user -sche from indefinite to one month, arguing that to block a non-vandal indefinitely is unacceptable. One month was also unfair, but in the larger scheme of things, one month is not very harmful. He may want to delete more entries than reasonable via low-quality RFDs, but he is not ready to use this kind of nefarious means (wrong indefinite block) to get rid of the opposition.
• When he started, editors suspected him of being Wonderfool, which delayed his obtaining administrator privileges. I am not sure why.
• He encouraged me via public thanks for certain things, which revealed to me someone cares. Some of the things he thanked me for via public interface were my posts to my talk page. If you like them, you can thank him; if not, you can blame him.
• He thanked me for a draft proposal of the current Wiktionary logo. If you like the logo, you can thank him, since that encouraged me to create a vote for the logo; if you dislike the logo, you can blame him, or even better, create a better logo proposal yourself or use your finance to procure a free-as-in-freedom alternative candidate logo. You have the options.
• He was in the minority that supported my administrator vote.

Dan Polansky (talk) 11:45, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the idea that non- can be handled entirely by machine: this is not true. nonadic is not in any way the opposite of adic, and that would be a misparse. Equinox ◑ 22:49, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

BONUS INFO: why I was thought to be Wonderfool: it was just because I was British, had a sense of humour, and fairly quickly picked up the rules (this was because I can read documentation, not because I had been here before!). And WF of course is always creating new accounts and saying they aren't him. So I was a prime candidate. Blotto banned me almost immediately and I was justifiably outraged and e-mailed all the admins, who steadfastly ignored me... lol. Equinox ◑ 23:09, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Closing RFD discussions

Rogues Theknightwho and Chuck Entz have accused me of doing bad RFD closures. First, Chuck Entz being a rogue is documented on this talk page; Theknighwho (the Knight) has the documentation pending.

It is nonsense. I have multi-year record of closing RFDs without any conflict. A conflict arose in 2022 after the Knight started to attack my closures on petty grounds. The RFDs that he challenged were then reclosed to the same effect as I did anyway. To demonstrate that I am inept in closing RFDs, one needs to produce evidence in the form of my closures that were successfully challenged. I believe they will be very hard to find.

I have always been doing closures based on the numerical consensus alone, not strength of the argument, since I believed that to be a de facto unwritten policy and a good policy. Since, if the closer were to close based on their assessment of the strength of the argument, it would mean he is the actual decision maker and the other participants are mere advisors: that cannot be. However, in 2021-2022, a spirit has developed in the project of trying to take the strength of the argument into account. Therefore, in 2023, I tried to bring this element into the closure notes. That did not fare very well, since unsurprisingly, I ended up siding with myself as for the strength of the argument, and I had to use numerical consensus anyway. The default threshold for the numerical consensus in RFD is 2/3 as per WT:VPRFD, voted-on, statutory law, finally. Anyone meticulous and fair-minded enough ought to be able to close RFD discussions, and more editors ought to be encouraged to do so. The strength of the argument principle ought to be strenghtened by adopting the following policy: any vote with zero rationale shall be discounted (but we need a vote for that, I suppose).

On a minor note, it seems to be a good principle that those who spend no resources on closing RFDs have no business aggressively criticizing closures by others. That pertains to the Knight and Mr. Entz but also to DCDuring, a RFD-free rider. Dan Polansky (talk) 12:12, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Theknightwho

Defects and observations:

• Bad user name. At a minimum, it ought to be The Knight Who, or at least TheKnightWho, TheKnightWHO or whatever else that is supposed to indicate.
  • He presents himself under the cultural symbol of the knight, a chivalrous entity, where in fact he reveals himself to be a rogue via his actions such as the use of force in direct personal conflict against me, in violation of Wikipedia blocking policies (but this is Wiktionary, which de facto has no blocking policy after a real blocking policy was dismantled by rule haters, the enemies of open society).
  • What is "Who"? A reference to Doctor Who? World Health Organization? Anything else?
• Most mainspace edits appear to be bot-like changes, such as dropping of tr= parameters and changes of whitespace. Genuine lexicography is relatively rarely seen.
• An alleged lawyer. What he is, by being, we do not know. By appearances or how he reveals himself, he has the appearance of a scripter and a non-lawyer. The non-lawyer-appearance is given by his extremely low-quality argumentation, which appears unlikely to match a real lawyer. It is hard to imagine a real lawyer would be so uninterested in authoritative sources and evidence in the form of diffs. He may be a programmer, but we do not know. A programmer can be distinguished from a scripter by the complexity of the programming task. For instance, a real programmer may have to deal with the problem of parallel synchronization between processes, a problem a scripter will never have to address. (I have been both a computer programmer (Basic, Assembly (6502, etc.), ABAP, Java, C++) and a computer scripter (Python, also Perl (not so nice)), as part of my employment and also as a hobby.)
• As a scripter, he seems to be doing some fine job for Wiktionary, judging from the praise he received by other editors.
• His apparent lack of sense of justice and propriety makes him especially unfit for an admin role.
• His systematic pattern of very low-quality argumentation in the area of linguistics creates the appearance of someone extraordinarily stupid or dishonest. It is very hard to tell which it is. Systematic consultations with conscience should help him advance the matter.
• His use of multiple vulgarities against me in a Discord discussion (revealed by someone else in his administration vote) was a violation of the principle that one ought not badmouth others behind their backs; I was not part of the Discord discussion. The whole idea of that Discord discussion about Wiktionary seems to go against the spirit of the open society, creating a separate locus of power. It is suspect.
• In discussions, to get an answer from him for a simple and relevant question seems to be a tall order, a hard task. One can apply the usual technique of sticking to the question despite the evasion, but with this person, the technique has truly bad yields: he keeps on deflecting, again and again. And yet, after five iterations, one may finally extract something like an answer. Most curious indeed. Unfit for an administrator role.
• Eliminated a text on benefits from Wiktionary:Thesaurus, removing valuable content for the users. Moved Wiktionary:Thesaurus/Benefits, which I have written to explain possible benefits to users, to User:Dan Polansky/Thesaurus Benefits. Used administrative power to enforce that move. This has the appearance of being part of a systematic "hounding" (interfering with editing of) Dan Polansky, i.e. myself. Never did anything useful for the thesaurus, unlike Dan Polansky. Instead, Theknightwho created a Beer parlour discussion where he proposed to move thesaurus content from the current format to Lua-based data format. This would increase the power of the likes of the Knight, that is, scripters, and decrease the participatory power and comfort of editors who are not scripters. (I have been a computer programmer and a scripter, so I would not be among those most disadvantaged by the proposed change.)

--Dan Polansky (talk) 12:40, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Expanded. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:44, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the name: see User:PseudoSkull/Etymologies of usernames. P.S. Thanks for my positive school report. My parents are very pleased. Equinox ◑ 21:01, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Or watch it on video. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:48, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo This is the correct answer. Theknightwho (talk) 19:03, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I identify as the king of Wiktionary

Yes, this is my new-discovered identity. I have been that all along but I did not realize it. At birth, I was assigned the gender of non-king, but that was merely a guess on part of the medical doctors. My pronoun is "your highness". I am suicidal, and if people do not use my pronoun, I will probably kill myself. If others do not do as I tell them (remember I am the king, the supreme sovereign), I will probably kill myself as well. Therefore, I am very vulnerable, and others ought to respect my true gender and treat me as a king. After all, all human life is infinitely precious, and mine is as well.

Ok, I was just joking. I am in fact a designated engineering representative (DER) of Federal Lexicographical Administration (FLA). I perform audits and identify findings against projects that fail to implement DO-123F, a regulation of federal lexicographical projects. I also audit projects for compliance with Wikipedia-consensus process. One requirement is comprehensive traceability. Projects that meet DO-123F can be certified for lexico-worthiness, and can be productively deployed in safety-critical lexicographical applications. For brevity, I identify as "agent of FLA".

Well, this was also just a joke. I am in fact a secret employee of the world's largest maker of business software, including ERP and CRM. SE80 is my daily bread. We are implementing software that will enable effective global resource planning and will lead to a world-wide socialist revolution, leading to centrally planned world economy. We are Marxists in disguise, which fits the country of our origin all too well. I am here working to support making Wiktionary more useful for machine processing, part of efforts to support natural language processing by nascent artificial intelligence. I am co-sponsored by multiple American corporations. I have been given authorization to reveal my true identity. Dan Polansky (talk) 05:28, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Lol, Dan! Good to see your light-hearted side a bit. I hope your week off was fruitful, and that you come back here with lots of long rants and personal attacks to flood the discussion pages :) Celui qui crée ébauches de football anglais (talk) 10:41, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Usually, I am a dead-serious formal logician. But after interacting with one of the greatest jokers on the planet, Wonderfool, who is in fact very nice in many ways and has contributed a lot of good content to the English Wiktionary, I probably got "infected" (or inspired?) by some of his spirit. Still, I must insist that Wonderfool switches from a child to an adult mode, and stops inserting incorrect information. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:51, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

    Wonderfool identifies themself as gender-neutral. Please use "they/them/their" in future. Celui qui crée ébauches de football anglais (talk) 20:09, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

BD2412

Observations:

• He appears to be very fair-minded.
• He did a lot of RFD closures, activity that is very valuable to reduce the excessive size of the RFD page and that many do not want to do. In relation to these closures, he was unfairly attacked by an enemy of open society Mr. During. Mr. During requested that a participant in RFD does not do a closure himself. Such a requirement is arguably excessive, while imaginable in a very stringent bureaucratic process. The request was dubious especially given that Mr. During almost never closed any RFD himself if ever at all.
• In RFD, he used the term "!vote" (with exclamation mark suggesting the C-language "not"), which I did not like but which has the merit of pointing to Wikipedia-consensus process as opposed to mere numerical consensus process.
• He took the initiative to make me draft and help me draft WT:THUB. He is effectively one of the two authors of WT:THUB. He thereby advanced the English Wiktionary toward greater inclusion of valuable lexicographical content.

Dan Polansky (talk) 08:33, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The guy is apparently a lawyer in real life, which may explain some of their qualities (or deficencies) Celui qui crée ébauches de football anglais (talk) 08:37, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Two-week block

My two-week block just ended. The rationale for the block was this: "Continued engaging in exactly the same behaviour, despite previous bans."

I see the following problems:

• 1) The rationale does not state a specific transgression, merely references some previous transgressions. There are various level of specificity, and it is debatable which level is adequate, but here, the level of specificity is zero. It makes auditing this business record (the block rationale) nearly impossible, except for the meta-finding I have just raised. Unacceptable.
• 2) The block is unlikely to meet the blocking pseudo-policy WT:BLOCK "The block tool should only be used to prevent edits that will, directly or indirectly, hinder or harm the progress of the English Wiktionary. It should not be used unless less drastic means of stopping these edits are, by the assessment of the blocking administrator, highly unlikely to succeed." The pseudo-policy is a very bad business artifact, approaching being a non-policy, of which I will write later. Even so, the block does not seem to meet this bad business artifact.
• 3) The block was issued by a person (user account Theknightwho) that has a long-standing personal conflict with me, as evidenced by a sustained pattern of their behavior in year 2022. Unacceptable. The person creates the appearance of going out of their way to interfere with my editing; by contrast, I pay almost no attention to the editing of that user account.
• 4) The likely causally significant antecedents of the block were my edits in Wiktionary namespace, especially the criticizing diff. Even if that is accepted as a ground for a block (which it normatively/deontically isn't, but causally psychologically is), that is no ground for blocking from the main namespace.

The Wiktionary project ought to do much better. In Wiktionary history, I know of no vote-driven desysopping based on administrator misconduct. That, alone, is suspect, if not a basis for a finding against the project; since, surely there must be some administrator misconduct, so where is the evidence the project has the tools to deal with that misconduct and that it uses these tools to actually deal with it? Dan Polansky (talk) 14:01, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Morphology of Czech diminutives

Hey, Dan. Welcome back. Thanks for the Czech diminutives. I´m probably misparsing these, but could -ký be a suffix for diminutives? Celui qui crée ébauches de football anglais (talk) 21:00, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Or maybe -ou- is a diminutive midfix??? Celui qui crée ébauches de football anglais (talk) 21:02, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I have found no authoritative source on morphologically parsing Czech adjectival diminutives (I have not looked very hard), and I hesitate to enter what may turn incorrect. Let's take the derivatives of krátký: kraťoučký, kraťounký, kratičký, kratinký and kraťoulinký. One can guess kraťoučký = krát- + -(soft sign)ouč- + -ký; but then there is maloučký from malý, where k seems to be part of -oučk-, being absent from the base term. Similarly, kratičký could be krát- + -ič- + -ký; but then, maličký = mal- + -ičk- + -ý, so in kratičký, one should probably guess -ičk- rather than -ič- and assume a merge of the double k. Then there seems to be the infix -li-, as in malilinký = mal- + -li- + -li- + -nký or the like. The matter would require a systematic analysis, ideally also looking at whether other Slavic languages have analogs, and how their linguists treat them.

(About "I´m", that seems to be Wonderfool's pun at the rather typical Czech typographical mistake, in which Czechs are trying hard to do the "correct" thing instead of using "'", and they end up doing the thing opposite of correct; since, "´" is accute accent.) --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:11, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

I wrote something in Wikiversity:Czech diminutive; the article has some solid further reading, so one can ignore all that I wrote and go straight for authorities. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:22, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Elements of open society

I should probably clarify the sense in which I use the term "open society". The term traces back to the work of Karl R. Popper.

Some key elements of open society:

• A genuine rule of law. That, to my mind, is above all the rule of codified or statutory law, not common law. Thus, it is rule of policies such as WT:CFI, albeit overridable ones. However, the rule of common law is better than anarchy. A key element of common law is stare decisis, or standing by the things decided. It cannot be perfectly implemented in Wiktionary and it probably should not be; what it does mean is that objective evidence of common practice has considerable force in decision making; anyone who continues an objectively observable common practice can do so and anyone changing an objectively observable common practice must be ready to meet a challenge.
• Specifically, rule of law as regards the use of administration tools, especially blocking tool. This is grossly violated by WT:BLOCK pseudo-policy, which is, as I have realized over the years, ridiculously bad from the standpoint of rule of law for the purpose of open society. WT:BLOCK practically amounts to there being no rule at all except that the blocking administrator is the source of arbitrary will, a near-monarch, or at least an oligarch. (He is not a monarch in so far as most egregious blocks can be changed by other administrators.) From what I remember, Wikipedia does so much better as for rules for blocking.
• And a cultural note, "rule" is not a vulgarism, especially "overridable rule". Yes, there is such a thing as overspecific and overdetailed Europe-continental rules, but a project ought to strike a balance.
• Considerable freedom of speech. Most importantly, it must be possible and easy to criticize holders of power. However, some censorship is acceptable, such as censorship of vulgarities, since any argument that can be made using vulgarities can equally and fairly easily be made without their use.
• For controversial subjects (many are surprisingly controversial, even curly quote vs. simple quote), strength-of-the-argument-augmented votes are the golden standard of evidence. A weaker yet acceptable alternative form of evidence is strength-of-the-argument-augmented Beer parlour poll or debate. Other options do not seem to provide sufficient traceability and are not acceptable in an open society. An alternative to open society is the power of various tribal groups, the unaccountable elders of the tribe. (The language of tribal is as Popperian as open.) It means claims of consensus are made by the elders without evidence and those who demand evidence of consensus are blocked as obstructionists. A synonym for elder is godfather, from the Italian context.

What has all this to do with open? It means that there is de facto no group of powerful rulers and that it is easy and pleasant for new members to join the project. Since, if new members can find the rules in well-designed, clear, unambiguous, non-Orwellian (not abusive of terminology) and reader-friendly policies, that makes them welcome, get productive faster, know what they are allowed to do and disallowed to do, and know their rights. Dan Polansky (talk) 11:20, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Opiaterein

All sort of things can be said about the person and eventually they may. To begin with:

• "Anyone who actually reads 17-7-5 and knows math knows that 17-7-5 indicates 58.62% support for deleting". Thus, he failed to discount abstains in the vote percentage, where the necessity to discount abstains should be glaringly obvious. Surprisingly enough, I saw multiple people fail to see that. So frustrating; it feels like living on a planet with semi-intelligent aliens. At the same time, it makes it clear that we need to codify even obvious things as rules since there are too many persons who will fail to see these obvious things. Common sense does not work when it is not common.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 11:56, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Rousseau (I’ll note with your permission)
Could not conceive how solemn Grimm
Dared clean his nails in front of him,
The madcap sage and rhetorician.
Champion of rights and liberty,
In this case judged wrong-headedly.
One still can be a man of action
And mind the beauty of one’s nails:
Why fight the age’s predilection?
Custom’s a despot and prevails.”
— Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin

For some reason, I wanted to make a caricature of your comments from above. I apologise (: Gnosandes 💜 (talk) 14:16, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Collocations

Hey, Wonderfool here. I just realised it was you who was adding loads of collocations to our English entries. All of them that I've seen are great! I've been changing some to fit them under a Collocations heading, like in this edit. It has the advantage that it gets categorized in Category:English terms with collocations. Perhaps you'd like to use this in future (if you ever actually return, that is. And if you do, consider getting a new username). Emmett Lathrop Doc Brown (talk) 21:40, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Your unblock request

Hi. I have passed it on the Beer Parlour: Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2023/October#Blocked_User:Dan_Polansky_requesting_talk_page_access. Equinox ◑ 09:08, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Reminder to vote now to select members of the first U4C

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