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Revision as of 23:52, 27 November 2014

Admins: If one of my admin actions is clearly a mistake or is actively harming the encyclopaedia, please reverse it. Don't wait for me if I'm not around or the case is obvious.

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What?

I assume you were joking with that edit summary, but it's hard to leave that alone. --AmaryllisGardener 17:15, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I was just coming here to say the same thing. While I have to agree we have lost a valued contributor, that was a bit over the top. I think all concerned have overreacted just a little bit too much here. --Mdann52talk to me! 17:17, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, I've e-mailed him. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:24, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

• Mitch, I should agree. The edit summary was not fair to editors. I've known you for so long, but don't recall you losing your cool like this. Anyway, am around, so ping me if you wish anything. Wifione 17:28, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
• I completely and wholeheartedly agree with every word of that edit summary. LHM 17:29, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Somebody please explain this to me: if we have to be nice to the trolls, but we drive away our most dedicated editors in repugnant displays of contempt for their contributions, how have the trolls not won? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:52, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Thomas' retirement was a surprise to me. I was in the neutral, but the opposes didn't seem harsh to me. That's coming from an editor that feels that RfA is a horribly broken process, the problem being harsh opposes. Like I said, it was a very big surprise. I don't know why it had to end that way. --AmaryllisGardener 17:55, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

It's fairly clear to me. If you'd spent several years doing dirty jobs and getting abuse from trolls/vandals/POV pushers/sockpuppets/long-term abusers, and then asked for more tools to make your life (and everyone else's life) easier, only to have scorn poured on the request, for the most part by people who have no idea what they're talking about (look at the number of experienced admins who deal with that kind of abuse on a daily basis in the support section; I don't see any in the oppose section), you'd be pissed off. And you don't answer my question. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:26, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

If he retired from this, then how could he handle adminship? You're twisting things around here IMO. We block trolls and vandals, which keeps them away, we do not insult them. Is blocking trolls and vandals not enough to satisfy your wants? Thomas retired on his own free will, no one tore him down as far as I can see. --AmaryllisGardener 18:37, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh, gorgeous--the old "well, if failing an RFA caused him to retire, how could he handle adminship" BS. Just beautiful. Well done. LHM 18:50, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I can see some RfAs would cause them to retire, but not this one. --AmaryllisGardener 18:51, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Except it did, because people were basically piling on TW for being too "mean" to vandals and trolls, and he finally had enough of that nonsense. LHM 18:54, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

This keeps going in circles. You're not paying attention to what I'm saying. I see no point in you and me arguing anymore. --AmaryllisGardener 18:59, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm "paying attention" to what you're saying. What you're saying is just really inane. LHM 19:04, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Why do people feel they have to be "mean" to anyone? Isn't that what trolls want? I didn't see much contempt for Thomas W.'s contributions; I saw legitimate criticism about his demeanor, which both you and him did not take very well at all.- MrX 18:01, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any "mean"ness in the diffs there. I see nitpicking of an excellent candidate who would have been much more useful to the project as an admin, and a few terse comments to people who wouldn't have understood anything else. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:26, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I found my own failed RfA to be quite disheartening and it put me off for a few days. Admins who I'd never worked with were digging through my edit history to find examples of my failures, instead of looking at the greater benefits (like a lighter workload) that my participation would bring. Meanwhile, the admins I was most familiar with weren't commenting and I couldn't ask them to per WP:CANVASSING. I thought adminship was more of a trust issue, which I felt was something I could easily demonstrate as having earned, but nope. The community found fault with my AfD noms up to that point, and assumed that rather than realizing my shortcomings and improving, that I would continue to make the same mistakes. At the time that felt like the opposite of AGF. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:10, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Here's some gravestomping from one of the winning trolls: Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:42, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Mitch, for what it's worth, I agree with you and I regret not having supported Thomas while it was still possible. Guess I should now wait patiently for the "cops" to catch me. Favonian (talk) 18:20, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I didnt vote because I had no time to research, and I learned early on from User:Kudpung dont vote if you do not know the background. Its premature closure and the loss of Thomas is a bad blow to WP. The reason things are not worse than they are here is precisely due to the behind-the-scenes work of Thomas and others. I understand Harry's frustration. Irondome (talk) 19:16, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

• While I do not agree with how the edit summary was worded, I do agree with the concept behind it... --Biblioworm 20:03, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
• Me & HJ at times haven't seen eye to eye on things... But I completely understand why he said it ... You nominate someone and it all goes tits up and then that editor leaves... it's bound cause upset, I guess not all RFA's go smoothly and it's a shame but unfortunately it's life. –Davey2010 • (talk) 20:20, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

The RfA process is really good at "straining out the nats but swallowing camels". I remember a few years back, I had noticed a fairly new editor who made some problematic edits that I reverted. I don't remember exactly what the edits were, but it was certainly unproductive. A few weeks later, much to my surprise, I found out that they had been made an admin, and I hadn't even known the user had made an RfA. I only found out about it after the user had been caught bragging off-wiki that they were a vandal who had been approved for adminship!! - BilCat (talk) 20:43, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I think both Thomas and Harry may have overreacted slightly, but in a perfectly understandable way. It's a lose–lose situation, as RfA's reputation will take yet another hit. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 01:36, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Thomas isn't the first editor to quit after an RfA this year. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:32, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

• First of all, I supported Thomas and still would. At the same time, the edit summary in closing that RFA is exactly the type of activity that the opposers were concerned would happen by Thomas himself. I don't see humor in it, but I do find it ironic, and worthy of note. Dennis - 2¢ 03:15, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

• HJ, I for one found your hypocritical edit summary very amusing. Keep the entertainment coming. Townlake (talk) 06:00, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
  • ...really? --Richard Yin (talk) 07:48, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
    • HJ Mitchell called everyone who voted against his candidate "you fucking morons." His message in this thread to the opposers, many of whom are longtime respected contributors to this project, is that by opposing certain candidates on civility grounds "we drive away our most dedicated editors in repugnant displays of contempt for their contributions." Of course, he's displaying severe blanket contempt for the "Oppose" RFA contributors with his "you fucking morons" statement. If you can't see the humor in HJ's approach here, that's unfortunate. Townlake (talk) 17:27, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
      • That was stress. HJ works very hard, is one of our best admins. Non admins I think often don't fully grasp the pressures of admin work, which often goes unseen by the community at large. Let us just move on, and not alienate a fundamentally decent person. We already lost one yesterday. Let's empathise a bit more.No man is an island kind of thing. Irondome (talk) 17:38, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
      • And he was right. Opposing on "civility" grounds is very rarely legitimate. Unless someone is just a complete hot-tempered jagoff (which Thomas is not) "civility" is a stupid reason to oppose. LHM 19:27, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
        • You have your opinion, I have mine. Shrug. Notice that I'm not going to resort to profane name-calling because we disagree. Too bad HJ can't model a similar example. Townlake (talk) 20:46, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
          • And yet, you felt it necessary to troll HJM in your post just up this thread. But the fact that you didn't use any profanity makes it all better, right? LHM 20:50, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
            • Who's trolling? He obviously wanted to get attention and a reaction. Wish granted! Townlake (talk) 20:56, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

You were, and obviously so. Trolling an upset editor is far worse than using profanity, in my view. Give me HJ Mitchell's approach over Townlake's any day. LHM 21:03, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

The edit summaries were completely out of line. It does not matter what the motivation was. It does not matter if you were right, and all 28 people who opposed in the RfA are the "<censored> <censored>" you called them. Your behavior is completely out of line. "Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others." I haven't looked, but based on comments by others this appears to be an isolated event. I hope so, and I hope it remains that way. Permanently. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:58, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Hammersoft is right. And IMO Townlake and HJ have both acted inappropriately (I wouldn't go as far to call Townlake's behavior "trolling" though). Don't make me choose which user acted better. --AmaryllisGardener 22:16, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Townlake's post was obvious trolling. Not even a close call. And HJM was simply noting that the ducks had quacked in his edit summary. LHM 03:07, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

We both have our opinions. But calling a huge group of respectable opposers (not that less-respectable users deserve this either) "F****** morons" is far from a "simple note". HJ hasn't admitted has has done wrong (using Thomas' retirement as an excuse for his now blatant and IMO serious personal attack). Not what I was expecting from him. (I even assumed that his edit summary was a joke at first.) --AmaryllisGardener 03:48, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

But note, it was only an ill-advised edit summary, which would have passed unnoticed by most if people hadn't drawn attention to it. That said, we don't want a myth to grow up that 28 mostly intelligent, reasonable people got led astray by some troll. Quite a lot of other instances were quickly identified that were a lot more telling than the one flagged by the IP. This RfA would certainly have gone the same way regardless of the IP's intervention: Noyster (talk), 13:11, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Except that's exactly what happened. You lot put more weight on that troll's "concerns" than you did on Thomas's fine work battling trolls like that. Because of it, WP has lost not only a potentially good admin, but also a fine editor. And that's on you people, so you might as well just own it. LHM 16:04, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

And yet you're totally cool with HJ calling me a "fucking moron" because I committed the cardinal offense of disagreeing with him about someone's RFA. Because HJ calling his fellow volunteers "fucking morons" totally encourages us volunteers to agree with HJ in the future and keep working with HJ, shoulder to shoulder. Right? Townlake (talk) 06:55, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

WP:RFA2011 didn't bring about any physical changes to the current process but together with Wales labelling RfA 'a horrible and broken process', it did sent a clear message to the voters, hence for the past year or so it is far less of a bloodbath than it used to be. That roughly concurs with your relative semi-retirement from Misplaced Pages, Townlake. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I took some time away. Thanks for noticing. I would love to continue chatting about this with you, Kudpung, it's always interesting given our different perspectives on the world. Alas, I'm about to head offline for a few days and must now wrap some things up. Be well. Townlake (talk) 20:36, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

• I apologise for the "fucking morons" remark. That was unnecessary and uncalled for. I recognise that the opposers were acting in good faith and that some of them actually put considerable thought into their comments. I pushed Tom to run (this was unusual in that I approached him about the idea, rather than the other way around as has been the case in most of my nominations) and I was very upset to see the RfA go so badly. I don't pretend to understand the majority of the "civility" opposes (and yes, you most certainly were led astray by a troll—I would bet good money that the IP who posted that question is the same serial troll Tom and I had been dealing with the week before the RfA, requiring a great deal of time and dozens of revision deletions) and I still believe that Tom would have been an outstanding admin. As can be seen, I took a few days away from Misplaced Pages. I'd probably spent a bit too much time on Misplaced Pages, and particularly in project space, prior to the RfA, and I needed to regain perspective and focus on other areas of life. Of course, none of this excuses the remark, but I hope it will be seen as mitigation. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:52, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

AE discussion still going on

At WP:AE#Oncenawhile the editor has been asking more questions. Since you imposed the original blocks, do you want to respond? Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 21:55, 25 November 2014 (UTC)