Chris.sherlock is taking a short wikibreak and will be back on Wikipedia soon.

Hello! Your submission of Shortarse feelerfish at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:10, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Chris.sherlock,

Thank you for your comment in the Arbitration discussion. I would like to be able to address some of the points that you have raised, and I expect that others will raise points of their own that I would similarly like to address. However, I am very new to the process of Arbitration and would like to ensure that I do this correctly as I feel that every other form of dispute resolution has failed. Could you please advise me on what happens next in the process? Mclarenfan17 (talk) 02:59, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mclarenfan17 it sounds like this all stemmed from an article dispute. My suggestion is if you have a specific issue, it’s best to take it to WP:RFC for comment. My best suggestion is that for somethings, like tables, it’s sometimes best to take a step back. I’ll keep an eye of ANI to see if things get brought up there and step in if this is at all helpful. - Chris.sherlock (talk)

Thanks, Chris.sherlock.

I feel that this is more than a simple content dispute, though. I was limited in what evidence I could present at Arbitration because of the 500 word limit, but I have countless examples of Tvx1's behaviour that I can present. I am, however, hesitant to say anything specific here because this is outside the formal Arbitration process. I definitely feel as if he is hounding me and doing it because he cannot go to ANI given the number of specious reports he has filed in the past. Even if it is not his intention to hound me, it is certainly the effect. I came to Arbitration because I want some lasting resolution and my last attempt at ANI failed miserably and I don't have much confidence in returning, knowing how Tvx1 operates. Again, I don't want to go into specifics here, but there is a clear pattern to his behaviour. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 03:41, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That’s a bit unfortunate as the Arbitrarors can only go on what is stated. It might be worthwhile drafting it up in userspace and asking a ArbCom member to increase the limit. -Chris.sherlock (talk) 04:16, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a way to close the existing Arbitration report so that I can re-write it and then file another one later on? One of the steps that I had to follow was to notify Tvx1. Now that I have done that, I know exactly what he will do—his argument will be that these are all bad-faith accusstions and that he was only ever following policy. He's very good at wiki-lawyering and will drag the conversation out for as long as he can. You linked to a discussion where he did not provide sources for his claim—he spent six weeks dragging that out, avoiding posting anything to support the claim. When I provided four sources that disproved him, he tried to argue that all four were too vague because they did not define the phrase "permanent numbers", effectively ignoring sources that were invonvenient to him. This is just one example of his behaviour, which I was going to provide if/when the Arbitration case was opened. As I understood it, I had 500 words to persuade Arbitration members to take the case and would then be given the opportunity to present more-detailed evidence. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 05:13, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Update: and he's already done it. It's exactly what I expected it would be: deny wrongdoing and try to turn the focus back on me. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 05:17, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mclarenfan17 ArbCom disputes are notorious for this. Is there a way the two of you can reconcile? Also, what would you ultimately want from arbitration? Perhaps we could resolve things outside of ArbCom if we can define what the issue is and what you ultimately want to achieve... - Chris.sherlock (talk) 09:16, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I don't see a way that we can reconcile. We've butted heads for years, and at times that has actually been constructive because we have really been able to get into the issues and figure things out. But it has been a long time since that happened. Lately it feels like consensus "discussions" involving Tvx1 devolve into two factions emerging and repeating their positions ad nauseum until one side gives in and the other declares victory by default. I have never seen him acknowledge that someone else had the right idea, or compromise. You pointed out an instance where he should have provided sources; rather than doing that (or admit he did not have them), he dragged the conversation out for six weeks, disregarding reliable and verifiable sources that were inconvenient to him and then trying to argue that they really proved his claim after all that. And that was a dispute over car numbers, arguably the most superfluous element of the article. Everything is an argument with him and he refuses to back down. Look at his response in the Arbitration discussion: he points out my block history and clearly wants it taken into consideration, but he also wants the committee to overlook his own history. I haven't had a block in four years, but he had one six months ago. Mine is apparently evidence of a long history of disruptive editing that was never addressed, but his is the result of a vindictive and unfair admin. It's one rule for him and one rule for everyone else depending on what suits him. I know that sounds like a rant, but I'm trying to show that the relationship is, in my view, irreconcileable.

I think the issue here is his hounding me. He knows that I have a vision for what those articles can be, and he knows that I have been very influential in shaping those articles for a decade. I think he is deliberately trying to frustrate me as a way of punishing me for disagreeing with him because he cannot go to ANI anymore. His edit history shows his only contributions to these articles is in formatting and talk page discussions, and some of his posts contain glaring factual errors, which to me suggest that he does not have a real interest in the sport. What bothers me most is that other editors are starting to adopt his tactics.

As for what I want out of Arbitration, I want to be able to edit these articles without having to frame it in the context of "how will Tvx1 respond to this?". I felt that I had a very fair solution last year with a mutual TBAN: each of us would nominate a topic area that the other would then be banned from editing in. This would minimise interaction—and the potential for conflict—without resorting to a full IBAN. I would be more than happy to take on some kind of sanction like that provided that it was by mutual agreement. Tvx1 even agreed to it on principle, but then nominated a list of topics (I had envisioned one each), some of which I edited but he did not (which struck me as a further attempt to frustrate me). I would be still willing to do that provided that it was a) mutual, b) equitable and c) negotiated by a third party. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 10:56, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mclarenfan17 I am happy to have a look at articles in dispute. I have to warn you, my knowledge of anything automotive is incredibly limited - I can’t even drive a manual car. Perhaps, however, this might be helpful given I have no dog in the fight. Can you let me know what the articles are? And would you be willing to let Tvx1 to respond on this page - only fair because we are talking about him. I’d be happy to ensure that if things get heated that I try to dispassionately defuse situations.

What concerns me is that both of you are good editors. Both of you have had run-ins with admins, which can be disconcerting. For the record, I think it is very unfortunate that another admin described Tvx1 in less than respectful terms, I don’t think this is helpful for either Tvx1, or to bring it up with ArbCom, who are used to these sort of accusations and normally are mature enough to take them with a large grain of salt.

For mediation to work, however, both sides would need to be willing to compromise. I can already see one area you might want to consider compromising on, and that’s the tables dispute you were having. So long as any incorrect info is cleared up, it might be a sign of good faith to let this issue slide - I realise it may seem frustrating and to your way if thinking less than ideal, but it might at least allow progress to be made on other areas.

FWIW, I think Tvx1 dues seem to have made some comments that show he never meant to cause you pain in the project. I doubt you’ll always see eye-to-eye, but I’m pretty certain with a bit of forgiveness on both sides and some basic ground rules you two could at least edit more harmoniously together.

In terms of your block log - I have also gone off the deep end at times. I have had a sometimes spotty history on Wikipedia. Some people on Wikipedia literally despise me, so I know how it feels having past blocks brought up over and over. It’s not helpful and if I see they get brought up in future, I will speak up for you because really, none of us are perfect and our current editing should be judged not necessarily on ancient block logs but what we are doing now.

I’m encouraged that you have already considered ways to harmoniously edit. I’m pretty sure that if you we’re willing to give a little in good faith that a lot of the rancour can be put aside and this can be resolved amicably. You have to understand that IMHO it appears you both want the best for the project, but have differing views as to what this might be. I see no reason why this can’t be hashed out in a collaborative fashion if you can both assume the other party is working on good faith! - Chris.sherlock (talk) 11:16, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Can you let me know what the articles are?

To make this easy, let's say everything that falls within the scope of the rallying WikiProject. That would include things such as championship articles, individual events, rally cars and regulatory classes, teams and competitors. If it is somehow related to rallying, then the TBAN applies. I am happy for him to nominate articles withing the scope of a WikiProject as well (I expect he will nominate Formula 1). "Articles within the scope of WikiProject XYZ" is language that we have used before, so he should know what it means.

And would you be willing to let Tvx1 to respond on this page - only fair because we are talking about him.

I'm happy for that to happen; I expect it will help if everything is posted in the open.

For the record, I think it is very unfortunate that another admin described Tvx1 in less than respectful terms

Perhaps he could have phrased it better, but I think the spirit of the assessment was fair. I do think he misrepresents things and gets pedantic over policies, and his behaviour in the WT:MOTOR discussion was testament to that. If he wants others to produce sources, then he needs to produce them on request or admit he does not have them and move on. Likewise, he cannot just disregard sources he disagrees with—sources that are established as extremely reliable and would be accepted by any other editor—because it suits him. Until such time as he can learn how to compromise and acknowledge that others can be right and he is wrong, I cannot work with him. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 11:41, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have no authority to implement topic bans unfortunately. I also don't think it would be the best way forward - I would much rather see the two of you reconcile. Tvx1 as this conversation involves you, can I get your input also? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 02:30, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm disappointed to hear that. It's going to take a lot for reconciliation to happen because Tvx1 needs to convince me that he is not trying to undermine me. I have laid out a way for him to start doing that in the past—by making content-based contributions to the articles in question—and he has either refused or ignored me. In the past few weeks alone he has done the following:

1. Refused to provide sources when asked, or acknowledge that he did not have them in the first place.
2. Insisted that other editors provide sources in support of their claims, then dismissed them when those sources were provided.
3. Tried to justify using a source that was unreliable and unverifiable to make changes to an article, then suggested that because the claims made by that source were ultimately proven true, it was fine.
4. Tried to use a source that was only published six weeks after his original claim to justify making that claim.
5. Ignored the fact that the numbering system used in rallying is modelled on the system used in Formula 1 (a fact pointed out by the sources and with no evidence of any differences), a series where he has never raised any objections.

And this was over something as superfluous and inconsequential as car numbers. There is a clear pattern of hypocritical and argumentarive behaviour, and I have virtually no confidence in his ability to convince me that this will change. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 03:29, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I do understand how you may be feeling, however unless you can show some good faith in that you can accept that people can engage constructively and collaboratively, I'm not sure how much I can help. I do want to again emphasize, I appreciate your good work and your obvious interest and knowledge in the subject matter, and I can see that you have some pretty decent points. However, if you cannot be convinced that things can change and you can show a willingness to engage in any mediation it's just not possible for me to assist. I'd love it if you could though. I'm sure with some goodwill this could be resolved. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 03:54, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think I can be convinced. And I have some ideas as to what Tvx1 can do to start convinving me. But I'm not going to detail them just yet—I want to hear what he has to say for himself first. I have a feeling that I know what that will be, and I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. But my trust in him is so low right now that this is all that I can offer right now. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 04:25, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mclarenfan17 that is an encouraging sign :-) So long as you are willing to at least make an attempt, that would be great. Tvx1, would you be willing discuss this here? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:06, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm willing to take part in an attempt to work things out in a way to that prevents editing restrictions being imposed on us. As one arbitrator pointed out in the arbitration case, these are minor content disputes and to put it bluntly it would be stupid to have topic or interaction bans being imposed over this.Tvx1 16:19, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I am disappointed. This is exactly the sort of thing that I expected from Tvx1—to downplay it, claim that it's all being blown out of proportion and to misrepresent it:

As one arbitrator pointed out in the arbitration case, these are minor content disputes and to put it bluntly it would be stupid to have topic or interaction bans being imposed over this.

You know perfectly well that this is not about a minor content dispute. This is about the fact that every single interaction with you ends up like this. A dispute over car numbers is simply the most representative example of your behaviour. Now, as Chris.sherlock pointed out, you should have provided sources to substantiate your original claim. You did not. You either ignored it or refused to provide them. The discussion should have ended when I provided four sources that disproved your claim. So that Chris.sherlock is aware, those four sources are: the FIA, which governs motorsport worldwide; wrc.com, the official website of the World Rally Championship; and Autosport and '"Speedcafe, two of the most reliable third-party sources that are regularly used across the motorsport WikiProject. And yet, you still insistent that these sources were vague. I'd like to point out this excerpt from the Autosport source:

The FIA confirmed the WRC would follow Formula 1's lead and allow drivers to carry permanent numbers at the October meeting of the World Motor Sport Council.

This source draws a direct link between the numbering system used in WRC and that used in Formula 1. You regularly edit Formula 1 articles, and yet you have never objected to this idea of "permanent numbers" being used there.

We then skip ahead to 16 January when the Monte Carlo entry list was published. And yes, it did show that two drives (Loeb and Katsuta) had changed their numbers from 2019. You presented this as proof that you were right all along. However, that entry list was not available at the time that you made your original claim, and it only proves that two numbers changed. It gives no context as to how that number change came about. You argued that they are "seasonal numbers" and that each number is only reserved for a year. How does the Monte Carlo entry list prove this? It doesn't. And to further complicate matters, you made the following claim:

Because in the case of WRC, in the past crews would often use different numbers at different rallies. Now the numbers are fixed for the entire season. The rules make it very clear that they are seasonal numbers. They tell is clearly what "permanent" means in this case.

This is factually incorrect. From 1994 to 2019, numbers were assigned based on each team's finishing position in the previous championship—the same system that Formula 1 used prior to 2014. You also assert that "the rules make it very clear that they are seasonal numbers. They tell is clearly what 'permanent' means in this case". Except that they don't. This is what Article 26 of the Sporting Regulations say:

26. SEASONALLY ALLOCATED COMPETITION NUMBERS

26.1 MANUFACTURERS

P1 drivers may request a specific number provided that the application is endorsed by the FIA and the Promoter. Number 1 may only be chosen by the World Champion driver of the previous season. Requested numbers may not be greater than 99.

26.2 OTHER DRIVERS

Competition numbers shall be allocated rally by rally, according to the provisional classification of the Championships concerned.

The only place the phrase "seasonal numbers" appears in the regulations is in the title of Article 26. The body of the regulations uses the phrase "permanent numbers", which is also used by the four sources I mentioned earlier. Furthermore, if you Google the phrase wrc "seasonal numbers", the only two hits you get are the WT:MOTOR discussion where you first made the claim and the WP:NORN discussion where I pointed out that this was original research. And yet, you continued to insist that you were somehow right on 18 January, twisting one of the sources to show how it really meant that you were right all along. You even went out of your way to say the following:

Crucially none of your sources actually talk about "career numbers" or "numbers being fixed for their careers".

Now, I acknowledge that I had initially used an improper term to begin with. I said "career numbers" when I meant "permanent numbers", which I acknowledged and sought to correct. Crucially, I did this before your post on 18 January. Why did you continue to use the phrase "career numbers" after this when I had a) corrected myself and b) I felt it was pretty obvious what my intended meaning was?

At this point, I think Tvx1 needs to do something to demonstrate that he is serious about reconciling. I think of two things that he can do; I'll give him the choice as to which one it is:

1. He can provide the source(s) that he used to justify his original claim about "seasonal numbers"

OR

1. He can acknowledge that he never had those sources in the first place and explain himself and why he is apparently free to ignore existing sources that, in another context, he would readily accept

I think that's a pretty reasonable request for starters. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 02:41, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Let's keep this away from blame, it's not going to help anyone. Tvx1 can you supply a source for your assertion that permanent numbers are "a number that a driver only uses for one season"? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:35, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mind if I tweak that a little bit? This was the original claim, which was made on 22 November:

Having taken another look at the sources in the article, as well as at the sporting regulations, I'm no longer convinced that these drivers/crews have chosen career numbers. Neither the sources, nor the regulations mention "career numbers". They all actually talk about season/seasonal numbers. It seems like they only reserve a number for the duration of a season. While it is likely that crews will pick the same numbers over multiple seasons, we can't really be certain of that.

I have highlighted the most relevant part. This is in direct response to Article 26 of the Sporting Regulations, which I posted above. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 07:56, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's fair. The normal way I'd suggest dealing with this is to raise an article RFC. Did anyone raise one previously? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 08:11, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If Tvx1 had produced a source, then an RfC would certainly be valid. However, there are four sources which refute his claim, all of which were raised in the WT:MOTOR discussion and are used in the 2019 championship article without problem. They are:

1. The FIA is the governing body of international motorsport. They are the only ones with the power to make or change rules.
2. wrc.com is the official website of the World Rally Championship.
3. Autosport is the most widely-used third-party source for motorsport.
4. Speedcafe is another reliable third-party source. It is not as widely-used as Autosport, but still good.

All four of these specifically use the phrase "permanent numbers". The Autosport source also specifically compares the numbers used in the WRC to the system used in Formula 1 (where Tvx1 is a regular editor and has never challenged the concept of permanent numbers). If Tvx1 had provided a source that detailed his idea of "seasonal numbers", then the next step would be an RfC to discuss whether or not his source could supersede the provided sources. But without a source, there should not have been any contest over the sources describing "permanent numbers". Mclarenfan17 (talk) 08:54, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chris.sherlock, for start I really would like to understand why this dispute is still being treated as me vs Mclarenfan17. I would really want to kindly request you to actually take a thorough look at the |the discussion at WT:MOTOR. You will see that it was actually an extensive discussion with multiple participants and I was not all the only participant disagreeing with Mclarenfan17.

Now for my participation, the source I provided when I initially voiced concerns that we couldn't be certain that these numbers would all remain the same from what they were in 2019, was indeed the World Rally Championship Sporting regulations (specifically point 26 on page 38). There the concept in itself is named "seasonally allocated numbers". That should really be a no-brainer. It would like to point here that my point my claim was never "permanent numbers are a number that a driver only uses for one season". My point was that there was reasonable doubt that they all would automatically stay the same fore there entire careers.

Mclarenfan17 did indeed provide 4 sources they insisted that supported their stance. However, all of the participants in the discussion independently reviewed these sources and repeatedly pointed out that they did not conclusively support Mclarenfan17's stance. There were three reasons for that. Firstly, all the sources deal with the 2019 season and none refer to 2020. Secondly, none uses the word career. Thirdly, one of them (the Autosport source) literrally mentions "this is the number driver XYZ will use this season.

So the group of editors including me agreed that it would have been a better approach to omit the numbers until such time that actual 2020 usage of numbers was confirmed. This seemed like a proper prudent encyclopedic approach to us. After all the numbers were not a vital part of the article at that point. Mclarenfan17 however refused to agree to this. And I really wonder whether it would've killed them to accept it. Because we knew that this new information would be published sooner rather than later (the first rally of the season happened last weekend) the RFC wasn't really mentioned, because that would have initiated a typical 30-day process on an issue that would have come to a natural solution in a shorter timespan.

Indeed the entry list for the first rally of 2020 was published on 13 January (and second rally's entry list fourteen days later) and confirmed some crews using different numbers than they had in 2019. That did bring somewhat of a natural end to the discussion and we have now been listing numbers of crews who not yet entered a 2020 rally as "TBA". Though Mclarenfan17 kept repeatedly reinstating the affected numbers with the numbers used in 2019 on multiple occasions ([1], [2]). They did eventually stop and since there really hasn't been any controversy surrounding that content in that article.Tvx1 01:37, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It would like to point here that my point my claim was never "permanent numbers are a number that a driver only uses for one season".

Except that this is what you said:

They all actually talk about season/seasonal numbers. It seems like they only reserve a number for the duration of a season.

You cannot argue both things.

My point was that there was reasonable doubt that they all would automatically stay the same fore there entire careers.

Doubt based on what? Your interpretation of the regulations. When you were asked to provide sources, you either ignored it or refused. I provided sources that clearly outlined the use of "permanent numbers" and you dismissed them because they did not define the phrase (though ironically, they never mentioned "seasonsl numbers").

That did bring somewhat of a natural end to the discussion and we have now been listing numbers of crews who not yet entered a 2020 rally as "TBA".

But it did not prove your original claim. You could only demonstrate that some of the numbers had changed.

I think it's pretty obvious at this point that Tvx1 never had any sources to back up his claims—but for whatever reason, he cannot or will not admit it. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 05:26, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tvx1 and Mclarenfan17, this is a lot to absorb. Let me read through this. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 11:43, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mclarenfan17 baring in mind I am not a subject matter expert on the topic, but for the article 2020 World Rally Championship it does look like they only allocate seasonal numbers for the drivers, with the exception of #1... I read the regulations you pointed to and it states that:

P1 drivers may request a specific number provided that the application is endorsed by the FIA and the Promoter. Number 1 may only be chosen by the World Champion driver of the previous season. Requested numbers may not be greater than 99.

So it looks like they may request the same number, but they don't get the number guaranteed, except for number 1 which is reserved by the World Champion driver of the previous season. Also, as Tvx1 said, it appears in 2020 that some drivers got allocated a different number, so that indicates the numbers only get allocated for the season. For instance, Sébastien Loeb driver number in 2019 was 19, and in 2020 it is now 9... that does not seem like a number someone has all their career.

That looks fairly cut and dried - but I may be missing something.

Tvx1 apologies if it looks like I've singled you out, that was not my intent. The only reason this has come about is because of the issues that you and Mclarenfan17 may have been having. My general approach here, and I should have made this more clear, is to first work through the specific issue, as this will help me work out what is actually going on. I hope this is OK! - Chris.sherlock (talk) 11:54, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I did look into this a little further - so it does seem that a few news reports have said that drivers can have permanent numbers, but the rules actually say they can request their numbers and if the FIA and the promoter approves them they can use them. So this looks like it is done by convention, and it only started in 2019. I looked through the 2019 and 2020 rules and regulations and I couldn't find anything about permanent numbers. Mclarenfan17, could you point to which rule you are referring to? This might help clarify the matter.

That said, I have to say that I believe that you are taking things way too personally. I have had a chance to look into this dispute more closely and I'm afraid I cannot see any evidence of you being harassed unfairly. I do see a content dispute, but as Tvx1 says, many editors disagreed with you. What I'm about to say I fear you may not like, but on Wikipedia we must make decisions on consensus. The key part of this policy is the following:

Limit article talk page discussions to discussion of sources, article focus, and policy. If an edit is challenged, or is likely to be challenged, editors should use talk pages to explain why an addition, change, or removal improves the article, and hence the encyclopedia. Consensus can be assumed if no editors object to a change. Editors who ignore talk page discussions yet continue to edit in or revert disputed material, or who stonewall discussions, may be guilty of disruptive editing and incur sanctions. Consensus cannot always be assumed simply because editors stop responding to talk page discussions in which they have already participated.

When I checked the discussion on Wikiproject Motorsport I saw thoughtful discussion... and then a dispute blew up and derailed this discussion. Tvx1's only real mistake I can see is when he wrote "Too bad it isn't your judgment to make. Attacking the contributors isn't going to help you in any way in this discussion. Seems like I have plenty of credibility with the other participants here." I think this was unfortunately phrasing, but in a way he was correct. You were unfortunately in disagreement with a majority of editors - not for no reason but because they had decent and valid arguments. I cannot say I was surprised that SSSB got frustrated with both of you, things got personal and were not helpful.

My suggestion is that the best way forward for both Tvx1 and Mclarenfan17 would be to both stick to the factual points (which I have to say, I can see that Tvx1 actually has made an attempt to do) and not make any more allegations against each other. I think it was probably not wise for Mclarenfan17 to take his dispute to ArbCom. I suspect if they do in fact take the case - which I think they won't, and they don't have to as it's not at all clear to me that it should have gone straight to ArbCom and there are many other ways of resolving disputes - then what might happen is that they will look at the conduct of all parties and it may not work out so well for either side. It might, as it so happens, also be the case where they look at the conduct of a particular party and decide to make a decision you might not like.

Mclarenfan17, though it pains me - I think the best thing you can do is withdraw the ArbCom complaint, stop focusing on the actions of editors and realise that if there are multiple editors making reasonable arguments against your own that it would be best to accept the overwhelming consensus and move on with other editing endeavours. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 13:10, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's disappointing. I'm not challenging this consensus, but rather Tvx1's conduct. I feel that he has clearly a) made claims that were not supported by reliable sources, b) ignored multiple reasonable requests to provide these sources and then c) hidden behind a different source, one that did not fully prove his claim, as a way of avoiding accountability. There is no way that this behaviour is acceptable, and giving him a free pass will only normalise it. The content of the numbers discussion was never the point of Arbitration—Tvx1's behaviour was. And every single discussion involving him is like this. He only ever observes Wikipedia policy when it suits him, but insists everyone else follows it to the letter.

The conversation in question should have been over when I provided the four sources. If Tvx1 wanted to re-open it when the Monte Carlo entry list had been published, that would have been fine. But in the period between the four sources being introduced and the entry list becoming available, his conduct has been appalling and this conduct needs to be addressed. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 20:51, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are focusing on Tvx1 when in fact I can see a number of people who disagreed with you. Unfortunately I cannot agree that Tvx1 has done anything wrong in this case. All I can suggest is that you recognise that you are fixating on one person and that it does appear to me that you are arguing against consensus. Until you can acknowledge this, I’m not sure there is much more I can do in this mediation. I even checked your own sources and can clearly see what they are saying, and they do t seem to agree with you. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 08:31, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately I cannot agree that Tvx1 has done anything wrong in this case.

I agree it's unfortunate because now all that he—or anyone else—has to do is ignore WP:RS if observing it is inconvenient and drag things out until another source comes along.

The articles I provided cited the numbering system used in Formula 1 and made a direct comparison between the Formula 1 system and the WRC system. Tvx1 is a regular editor of Formula 1 articles and has never questioned or challenged the concept of "permanent numbers" there. The idea that he suddenly does not understand it in the context of the WRC beggars belief, but if he genuinely does not understand it in the different context, then he probably should not be editing those articles in the first place. Mclarenfan17 (talk) 10:55, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I read the rules myself and they definitely talk about seasonal allocation, the rules state that the drivers apply for their numbers and they are ratified by FIA and the WRC. This indicates that the permanence will be fine through convention, but is flexible enough that at times they may vary the numbering. I think you need to bow to consensus, and I think it would be best to stop making things so personal. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 11:26, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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Fixed. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 15:36, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Chris.sherlock. You have new messages at Template:Did you know nominations/Shortarse feelerfish.
Message added 10:03, 8 February 2020 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Talkback)) or ((Tb)) template.

Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:03, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, Chris.sherlock, and welcome to Women in Red. The percentage of biographies about women is now in fact 18.25% — not good but rather better than 14%. Thanks for your two recent articles on headmistresses. For future women's biographies, you might find it useful to look through our Ten Simple Rules. Please let me know if you run into any difficulties or need assistance. Happy editing!--Ipigott (talk) 08:28, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You'll find links to missing articles on our Redlist index. Those about Australia include Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by nationality/Australia and User:The Drover's Wife/womenbios (which you seem to have found).--Ipigott (talk) 08:34, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ipigott thanks! That is very helpful. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 09:55, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I'd long forgotten about that page! It was a combination (I think) of all the women in the ADB who didn't have articles plus some notable Australian women I thought of who also didn't have articles (and a few organisations etc). I've long-abandoned it, so you are very welcome to add to it, move it to your own space and take it on, move it to a WIR subpage somewhere, or do anything else that might make it useful! WIR is a great project, seems like a good fit for you! The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:06, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop closing the discussion at ANI that you brought. I removed your closure yesterday, and I removed your partial closure just now. If you want to suggest some kind of closure in the thread itself, you're welcome to do so, but you cannot be the editor who actually closes it. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:17, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bbb23 that’s a bit surprising. Can you point me to the guideline or policy that states this? I might be a bit rusty, but it was never my intention to prevent an editor from closing their own complaint after they escalate it to ArbCom, and certainly it never occurred to me that if the person feels that the issue needs to be closed would not have the ability to close it.

Incidentally, rolling back the change with not even an edit summary doesn’t give me an indication of your intentions. Just saying. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 18:58, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I thought you meant this edit but it appears it was someone else. Apologies. Still would like to know the guidelines or policy on this matter. Looks like you are making stuff up. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 19:46, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how I erred but I mistakenly ended up using rollback on one of your edits that I didn't mean to revert. I'm sorry, it was unintentional. I rollbacked myself on the edit and I just wanted to say it was a mistake and I apologize. I only noticed that I had done it when I went to look at my own list of contributions and saw that I had made the mistake. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:22, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Liz it’s ok, thank you for letting me know. That makes sense now :-) can you redirect it if you haven’t already? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 18:54, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

	The Barnstar of Diplomacy
	Knowing nothing of motor sports myself I was impressed and humbled by the amount of time you dedicated to resolving this dispute in a diligent and calm manner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Chris.sherlock#Arbitration I hope it can now be settled between the relevant parties and they both feel more at ease. TFJamMan (talk) 03:15, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

TFJamMan thanks! - Chris.sherlock (talk) 09:48, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Motorsports. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Motorsports/Evidence. Please add your evidence by March 13, 2020, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Motorsports/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 00:41, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

An arbitration case regarding Kudpung has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

• For his failure to meet the conduct standards expected of an administrator, Kudpung's administrative user rights are removed. He may regain them at any time via a successful request for adminship.
• Kudpung is admonished for failing to meet the conduct standards expected of an administrator. In future, he is urged to ensure that he remains civil in his interactions with both new and regular editors, and responds to feedback on his conduct objectively and with an assumption of good faith.
• Arbitration is supposed to be the final step in the dispute resolution process. The community is reminded that attempting to have a community-wide discussion of problematic behavior early on can prevent unnecessary escalations.

For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 22:51, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, unfortunately that's been my experience of writing articles on Australian judges. There's nowhere their biographies are officially recorded (unlike politicians) and they're rarely profiled except at the time of their appointment (except possibly in legal magazines you won't find in Google or library subscription digital archives and you'd have to actually subscribe to to come across stuff), and even then not including all the information we'd like to have - so we're left to work with what we can get our hands on. Good job with Archer, though - that's a pretty good effort for the sorts of sources we tend to have on hand.

A couple of us went through and did most past and (then-)present Australian women judges during some sort of WIR-related contest 2 or 3 years back if I recall, but everyone missed WA entirely (I think maybe we didn't have a proper judge list then for some reason?) and there's a bunch of more recent appointments that are redlinked, so it's really nice to see someone targeting some of these. The Drover's Wife (talk) 17:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I see you are adding post-nominals to biograhies. This can be done by using ((post-nominals)). See an example (and how to categorise) here. Cheers, Number 57 09:33, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, the post-nominals template should only be used after someone's name, and not in the infobox. You also need to add the country identifier to it (e.g. ((post-nominals|country=AUS|OBE)) for Australia).

Similarly, the name given in an infobox should match the article title, not their full name. Cheers, Number 57 17:52, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Number 57 thanks - however in Infobox person it states that "It is permissible but not required to use the ((post-nominals)) template inside this parameter; doing so requires ((post-nominals|size=100%|...))". I do see that I made a mistake with the name parameter though. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 17:56, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but a direct link does the job better than having to alter the template's text size. Number 57 18:02, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Number 57 Sort of defeats the purpose of the template though... others are using it, with the sep parameter. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 18:04, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, but there's no point in going round in circles over this when I'm sure we both have better things to be doing Cheers, Number 57 18:09, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Zara Aronson, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Nora Kelly (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 12:08, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Chris, I wasn't sure what you meant in your edit summary: 'and yet no they red links removed!' I removed one red link per MOS:DABRL and used redirect for one per MOS:DABREDIR and the presumption that we should avoid piping on dabs (see WP:DDD and MOS:D). Thanks, Boleyn (talk) 07:46, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Boleyn hey, I added a query to the talk page. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 11:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Was uploaded as part of the #Art+Feminism and #WikiD and #KnowMyName campaigns around International Women's Day to increase quality content around [and by] women on Wikipedia. These are endorsed by the Australian branch of Wiki and are official Wikipedia I have been editing/tinkering on and off for nearly 2 decades and have participated in a number of official wikipedia edits since 2015 - Bebe Jumeau 08:15, 8 March 2020‎

Hi there, I have received an excel list of NZ artists whose work is held in a particular gallery and I would love to convert it to a WP page so our local WP group can work on it collaboratively as a project - improving and/or creating articles for the artists on the list. How would I go about doing that? TIA! MurielMary (talk) 10:40, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chris.sherlock, while this looks to be an excellent article to nominate, I think you will want to review the WP:DYK page because there are a number of problems with creating this nomination's hook that the instructions there would help you avoid in future. In particular, the section headed The hook mentions a few things that your hook fails to adhere to.

The first bullet reads, The title of the new article (or the text that pipes to it) must be in bold and linked to the new article.; your proposed hook has no bold link to the article you're nominating, just a regular link.

The third bullet states, The hook should be concise: fewer than about 200 characters (including spaces and the question mark, but not including the ... or any (pictured). While 200 is an outside limit, hooks slightly under 200 characters may still be rejected at the discretion of the selecting reviewers and administrators. Again, your hook is far from concise; indeed, it's 291 characters in total, very far over the limit, and that's without the required ending question mark (see the second bullet).

You will want to adjust your nomination so the hook meets the guidelines for format and length while retaining its interest. Thank you. Best of luck with your submission. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:33, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BlueMoonset do my changes make a difference? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 03:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chris.sherlock, yes, that looks good. Thanks. I already moved the nomination's placement on the nominations page from December 3 to March 15 (it should go under the date when the article was moved to mainspace, which you'll want to be sure to do with your next nomination). BlueMoonset (talk) 03:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BlueMoonset ah, thanks! Sorry, I spent more time on the article than the nomination, I’ll be more careful in future! - Chris.sherlock (talk) 04:24, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Chris.sherlock

Thank you for creating Sylvia Rose Ashby.

User:Abishe, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Thanks for creating this article.

To reply, leave a comment here and prepend it with ((Re|Abishe)). And, don't forget to sign your reply with ~~~~ .

(Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

Abishe (talk) 16:05, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Abishe: thanks! - Chris.sherlock (talk) 22:22, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for uploading File:Mrs Right and Mrs Wrong - Sylvia Ashby.png. However, there is a concern that the rationale provided for using this file on Wikipedia may not meet the criteria required by Wikipedia:Non-free content. This can be corrected by going to the file description page and adding or clarifying the reason why the file qualifies under this policy. Adding and completing one of the templates available from Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your file is in compliance with Wikipedia policy. Please be aware that a non-free use rationale is not the same as an image copyright tag; descriptions for files used under the non-free content policy require both a copyright tag and a non-free use rationale.

If it is determined that the file does not qualify under the non-free content policy, it might be deleted by an administrator seven days after the file was tagged in accordance with section F7 of the criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions, please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you.

This bot DID NOT nominate any file(s) for deletion; please refer to the page history of each individual file for details. Thanks, FastilyBot (talk) 01:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, get a grip. You're introducing errors into WP articles. Read MOS, and do NOT do this. I'm not going to bother edit-warring on that article, but this is going to end badly if you persist. Tony (talk) 11:51, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds rather... threatening!

Could you detail what form of revenge or punishment you will be inflicting on me?

Am I a pest who wrote that entire article? Can you tell me why you took out the date fields? And why you think Australian English in an article about an Australian is “ugly”? Kind of insulting really.

I wrote that entire article over the course of a week. The overlink, guideline, by the way, reads:

"Unless a term is particularly relevant to the context in the article...”

She was born in England, but is an Australian so it is highly relevant to link to her nationality. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 11:53, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nor do we link to "the US" or "the UK", or to many other country-names expected to be well-known to English-speaking readers. Many editors work hard to correct such things, which is why your actions are tiresome. But we'd much rather work with you, collaboratively. Would you like me to edit that article more fully? Tony (talk) 12:14, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you could explain why you made this edit? You removed citation parameters and damaged the references. I think you at being very WP:POINTY. Could you also explain why you removed the ((nee)), ((date)) and mdash entities? I think you are getting quite disruptive. I have demonstrated that I can accept changes - I deferred to the advise on removing parents and children in the Infobox though it does dishearten next a lot as I felt they were important to her life.

Also, a question about that edit summary. What capitalisation changes did you make?

I think your general threatening tone is hardly conducive to collaborative editing. If you could acknowledge the hard work I have done on the article, the consideration of template choice and the fact that that I have actually followed the MOS, I’d appreciate this. I gave an explanation, a reasonable one, about why her nationality should be wiki-linked. Your response is not convincing or persuasive. And I have bowed to consensus on some of the Infobox changes, albeit reluctantly.

I would appreciate an apology for calling me a pest as that is a personal attack. If you could also refrain from making threats and perhaps cool down, that would also be appreciated. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 12:23, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I apologise for calling you a pest – I think you're the one who needs to "cool down". I don't understand what you mean by: "it does dishearten next a lot as I felt they were important to her life". Unless her relatives were WP:NOTABLE, they should probably not appear in the infobox. WP is not a genealogy source. Likewise the multiple divorces and marriages I've seen in infoboxes – potential invasion of privacy, rarely referenced, often quick to change, and of highly questionable relevance. I'm unsure what you mean about capitalisation. Could you take a look at the sentence I've cited at the talkpage of that article? Where did I call AusEng ugly? Please read my posts carefully. Tony (talk) 12:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Could also clarify what you meant that things would end badly for me? Could I also clarify, I am a bit curious how you can call me a pest, and make threatening comments and simuktaneously deescalate a tense situation? Also, I’m curious about you calling Australian English “ugly”? I don’t feel it is, but I’m an Australian. FWIW, I have responded to you civilly and with respect. I have not insulted you and I have tried to keep to the fact and arguments of the case. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 12:35, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, please don’t edit that initial comment. I absolutely read what you wrote and I feel you are trying to disguise your threatening behaviour. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 12:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tony1 it's not a good idea to rollback and not check the edits that you are rolling back. The fact that you just asked me why I asked about capitalisation style issues but your edit summary is: "Em dashes must be closed, not open. "Australia", etc, should not be linked. Script-assisted fixes: per MOS:NUM, MOS:CAPS, MOS:LINK". You literally referenced the capitalization style guide. I'm quite concerned that you quoted a MOS style you didn't change in the edit summary, then come to my talk page all guns blazing and accuse me of not following the MOS. I don't appreciate being told to "get a grip" either, nor do I appreciate you saying "this is going to end badly if you persist". That's a clear threat and not acceptable.

I would also appreciate it if you could explain why you removed important referencing information? For instance, you removed the publisher and publication-place parameters on a number of citations. This was done by a previous editor. You seem to have rolled back to his edit without checking the errors introduced. Did you do this because you were trying to defend someone?

I'd really like an explanation on this. You have made me feel awful, and I have done nothing to you to deserve the language you used against me, nor the intimidating behaviour. I don't react well to bullying, so I will probably take a break soon. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 12:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• It's a generalised edit summary for the script. "Roll back" is the verb; like "set up", which needs to be changed in the lead of the article. You're responsible for the title, now: I disowned it and apologised, so you might have the good grace to accept that change, rather than being combative. It's as though you're gunning for a fight. I'm sorry if I offended you; why don't we move on? Perhaps we could collaborate to make an already-good article better. And please don't take a break: we need you. Tony (talk) 12:49, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tony1, thank you. I appreciate it. I am a hot head sometimes. Right now I'm quite upset, but not sure why. I think if anyone else had written to me like this, I might have brushed it off, but I have incredible respect and admiration for you so it cut deeper. Peace. :-) Chris.sherlock (talk) 12:52, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Peace, Chris. I suspect we have a lot in common, and I really am supportive of articles on women. Tony (talk) 12:54, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks. I think so too! I’ve changed the title. Sorry it’s probably a bit cheeky. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 13:27, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a reference " in Australia, suicide hotlines are exempt from confidentiality if the caller gives rise to a belief they are in imminent danger of death and authorities will be called."

I assume you mean they can report to further services such as EMS. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:47, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Doc James see Lifeline Privacy Policy, section 6.1. They specifically put it in their privacy policy. In Australia, they don't report to an EMS, instead they call the police. This is in line with legislation such as the NSW Mental Health Act, which empowers police officers to detain a person without a warrant if they suspect them of suicidal thoughts. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 10:56, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So not exactly exempt from confidentiality but "the disclosure is otherwise required or authorised by law; we reasonably believe that the disclosure will prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to somebody's life, health or safety (including your own) or serious threat to public health, property or public safety;" but this also applies to physicians aswell. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:37, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

DocJames I see what you mean. I’ll come up with a rewording at some point and consult with you. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 03:43, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Chris, Are you sure you have the right Mrs. James Alston in the reference for a birth date in Draft:Mary Sophia Alston? Do any of the other references make her that old? The ADB reference I added to the talk page earlier has her born in 1856. --Scott Davis ^Talk 07:04, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ScottDavis I think I haven't! Thanks, good catch. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:06, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I kind of just drifted past after seeing your comments on WP:AWNB. I don't think I'd even registered that the initiator of that thread was the same person as the author of the draft. I agree with TDW, you're doing a good job. I find biographies quite difficult, they are interesting to read, but I never enjoy writing them. --Scott Davis ^Talk 10:39, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you ScottDavis! I find it hard to get started on biographies, I think to myself "oh man, I'm never going to get a full article out of this", or alternatively I think "oh boy, this person has done so much, how am I going to cover it fully?!?". Then I do a Trove and Google search, a quick State Library search and compile the references on the talk page, it seems to circulate around my brain... and then after I've written about their parents and their early life... and after that it all seems to start flowing. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 11:42, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Stellar job on Mary Sophia Alston - you've done a really good job with a very difficult topic to research! The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:02, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Drover's Wife thanks! It was probably one of the toughest ones I've had to research yet... your comment means a lot to me. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 09:03, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Thanks for your input and support at File talk:Seattle Reign FC crest (alternate), 2013.png. Unfortunately, another user has not listed the file for deletion discussion. It would be great if you could chime in again there — thanks again! Mightytotems (talk) 20:37, 22 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

April 2020, Volume 6, Issue 4, Numbers 150, 151, 159, 160, 161, 162 April offerings at Women in Red. Online events: New: Gender studies / Dance / Geofocus: Caucasus Photo and image campaign: #VisibleWikiWomen Continuing initiatives: #1day1woman / Sports! Editor feedback: Schedule planning at the Virtual Ideas Cafe Join the conversations on our talkpage Social media: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter Stay in touch: Join WikiProject Women in Red / Opt-out of notifications

--Rosiestep (talk) 14:58, 23 March 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

• Chris, having noticed Rosie's message, I've joined the Wikiproject. On the Ashby article – do you prefer open en dashes for interruptions – or closed em dashes—for this purpose. These are the two options according to MOS, which says that usage should be article-consistent (minus direct quotes and titles, of course). I introduced the former without checking, but either way is fine. Just needs a choice by you. Tony (talk) 07:49, 24 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tony1 I actually didn't know the difference! I'd prefer closed mdashes though. Sorry for the delay in responding, I got flat out at work. BTW, awesome to see you joining Women in Red!!! - Chris.sherlock (talk) 13:41, 27 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are using spaced em dashes, which is not allowed. Use either spaced EN dashes or UNSPACED EM dashes, or desist from editing. WP:MOSDASH. Tony (talk) 07:58, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I got very confused. It didn't help when you reverted all the entity encoded dashes with that script, which you know is not what should be done. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 08:05, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. @Tony1: I notice you don't follow your own advise. See this diff, which is why I got so confused. After you made that change with the script, you produced the following:

She returned to Sydney and from between 1903 to 1904 she worked on the monthly magazine The Home Queen, where – according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography — she was the editor.

Notice the spaces between the mdashes? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 08:08, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are doing a profound disservice to new editors. Now you've finally got your em dashes properly formatted, ask any editor whether they find it easy to recognise your gobbledy html squashed into the text in edit mode. Ridiculous bee in a bonnet. Don't count on any help in fixing your casually imprecise version of the English language. I'll just turn my nose up at a distance and smirk, rather than assist as I'd begun to. And you'd be best not to reintroduce breaches of our style guides. Tony (talk) 08:15, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Probably best for you to keep your distance from me altogether I think Tony. I don't particularly like people who "turn my nose up at a distance and a smirk". I think we'll be better off without interacting. I certainly didn't start the interactions with you, I never asked for your help (though I have appreciated it) and I'm fairly certain we'll do just as well not being around each other. The fact that you are so upset that I prefer entity encoded html, and you can't actually follow your own instructions (you used spaced mdashes! lol) says more about you than me. I'm not sure why you are so upset, but I think it is safer for me if you would cease interacting with me given you have so far told me that you have "smirked" at me, and called me a "pest" and threatened me. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 08:19, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To make this very clear, don't post to my user talk page again. Please take your unpleasantness, overweening sense of superiority and talk of "gobbledy html" (whatever that means) and leave. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 08:24, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Your submission of Sylvia Rose Ashby at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 23:35, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your recent edits on Joan Stevenson Abbott. There was, however, one error in your coding. For post-nominals in infoboxes, you need to use size=100% (not width) to get the desired effect. For myself, I need to remember to use this parameter when creating new infoboxes of people with post-noms! Happy editing... Oronsay (talk) 22:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oronsay oops, sorry about that! Thanks for letting me know, I’ll watch out for this in future... - Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:54, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hattie Hasan, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.

The article has been assessed as Start-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. Most new articles start out as Stub-Class or Start-Class and then attain higher grades as they develop over time. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

Since you have made at least 10 edits over more than four days, you can now create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for creation if you prefer.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk. Once you have made at least 10 edits and had an account for at least four days, you will have the option to create articles yourself without posting a request to Articles for creation.

If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider leaving us some feedback.

Thanks again, and happy editing!

DGG ( talk ) 01:04, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Chris for your help in cleaning up this article so that it can be published. I appreciate it :) TealTortoise (talk) 11:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Zara Aronson you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Eddie891 -- Eddie891 (talk) 21:02, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In what way is it a BLP violation to provide d.o.b.? Consider WP's policy, "Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object to the details being made public." The subject provided birth date (and other details) for SBS-TV's Who Do You Think You Are? (see first ref in article). The birth date is widely published by reliable sources.

Why add the Categories 20th-Century Australian women and 21st-Century Australian women? These are already covered by 20th-century Australian actresses and 21st-century Australian actresses respectively.

I have reverted both of these edits. If you wish to discus the matter reply at the article's talkpage, Talk:Toni Collette.shaidar cuebiyar (talk) 05:11, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's hardly a reliable source, just because she said it on Who Do You Think You Are, she may have said it wrongly. At any rate, I feel we should not include the DOB, only the year per "err on the side of caution and simply list the year". - Chris.sherlock (talk) 05:14, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please have a look at WP:SUBCAT. People in Category:20th-century Australian women artists (for example) do not also need to be included directly in Category:20th-century Australian women (example edit) because the former is a diffusing subcategory of the latter. Mitch Ames (talk) 07:29, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Mitch Ames: Except that is only for diffusing categories. The category I am changing is a non-diffusing category. This means it can be in the parent and the subcategories without any issues. The Category:20th-century Australian women artists is a subcategory of Category:20th-century Australian women}. Why do you think it cannot be in both categories given the category is a non-diffusing category? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:41, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category:20th-century Australian women artists (for example) is a diffusing subcategory of Category:20th-century Australian women - subcategories are diffusing unless stated otherwise. Being a non-diffusing subcat of "Australian artists" does not make it a non-diffusing subcat of "Australian women".

Per WP:DUPCAT: "if the pages also belong to other subcategories that do cause diffusion [e.g. ... Australian women artists], then they will not appear in the parent category [e.g. ... Australian women] directly."

Mitch Ames (talk) 07:53, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No actually, what it says is "there is no need to take pages out of the parent category purely because of their membership of a non-diffusing subcategory". - Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:55, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think between us we've given her a creditable page, and how well she deserves it! https://allpoetry.com/Where-The-Pelican-Builds. Best wishes, Brian Bmcln1 (talk) 10:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bmcln1 I can’t take any credit, thank you for your amazing work! - Chris.sherlock (talk) 11:11, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that you recently added links to disambiguation pages.

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(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 13:43, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion regarding your conduct over at ANI.Rain the 1 22:49, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On 20 April 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Sylvia Rose Ashby, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Sylvia Rose Ashby, an Australian market researcher, was once threatened with arrest if she did not stop surveying popular opinion on the Second World War? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Sylvia Rose Ashby. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, ), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

—valereee (talk) 12:02, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Reading the discussion you pointed to I do not see any consensus for the course of action you are taking in deleting Category:20th-century Australian women artists . Also it should have been discussed in relation to the Category:20th-century women artists which until recently had over 2500+ entries and of which 20th-century Australian women artists is one of several sub-categories. In the past few weeks I have populating these sub-cats as the parent has become so large as to be of limited use.14GTR (talk) 12:50, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's not correct at all. It was discussed, extensively. The Drover's Wife did you want to intervene here? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 12:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussed extensively ?? Really, the discussion you pointed to dosn't mention artists at all and where's the Wikipedia:Categories for discussion entry ? 14GTR (talk) 13:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it was! You don't seem to have been following the thread terribly well - the issue is that we don't want Australian women + occupation. That was the wider discussion, artists included. The only tricky one is actors vs actresses, where I have started a new thread. By all means, you may participate but you are a little late to the party. We did extensive discussion to find a compromise in a tricky issue, all the many parties agreed that this was probably the best way forward. Given that as a bunch of Australians who are extensively researching and documenting Australian people, we have a reasonable take on the category structure for Australian people. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 13:57, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Are these not useful categories? E.g. Category:20th-century Australian women writers. Ditto women artists. I'm surprised to see these being depopulated. SarahSV ^(talk) 15:37, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Slim :-) we are particularly concerned that the category system for Australians violates the principle espoused at WP:EGRS#General. One of our members, Gnangarra probably put it best:

being a 20th century Australian woman writer is not an occupation, nor is it a defining characteristic, or subset of 20th century Australians by occupation... there are people who wrote especially for women and or about women in various magazines, those writers were of all genders. 20th century Australian woman writers are a subset of the 20th century Australian women, and 20th century Australian women by occupation.

In particular, under point 1. WP:EGRS#General states that:

Do not create categories that are a cross-section of a topic with an ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, unless these characteristics are relevant to the topic.

I hope that makes sense. There was a lot of discussion about this amongst the Australian contingent. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 15:45, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But see WP:CATGENDER. We have lots of categories that are women + profession. Dora Ohlfsen-Bagge, for example, was one of just a few well-known female Australian artists in her early career, when women weren't even allowed to join certain related institutions. Anyway, I'll stay out of it because I'm not a categories person, but I did notice the removal and wondered why. SarahSV ^(talk) 16:10, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For example, Category:19th-century American women politicians. Would you say being a woman isn't a "defining characteristic"? I would say that's wrong given how difficult it was for women to be active in public life. SarahSV ^(talk) 16:15, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I didn’t do it in a vacuum :-) it was discussed fairly extensively here. I’ll check out that link. We all concur however that in Australia it’s considered somewhat problematic to call someone a “women writer”. We just don’t do that. A journalist, for instance, is a journalist, there gender has no baring on their occupation. Perhaps that’s how it works elsewhere, but us Aussie’s tend to pride ourselves on egalitarianism. Most of the time :-)

As for being a women politician - no, our populace doesn’t think so by and large. We were the second country in the world to give women the ability to stand for parliament and we have had a woman Prime Minister, and even the Conservative party prides itself on a high(ish) number of women in its party. Being female or male is kind of irrelevant.

I recognise it’s probably different in the U.S.? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 16:18, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I just read that link. It says to only split by gender when there is a specific gender split, like in sports events like golfing. The categories we are changing should be gender neutral, in fact the article you link to specifically says this :-) - Chris.sherlock (talk) 16:23, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and another P.S. :-) in terms of usefulness, it would be great to have a way of doing a set intersection of Australian women AND Australian writers. That would achieve the same thing. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 16:24, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(2 x ec) It's usually men who make those arguments (that being female is irrelevant). Women tend to think that sex/gender matters and makes a huge difference. Obviously even more so in the 19th century. With every possible respect to Australians, I'm not sure one Wikiproject should decide which categories to depopulate, because we need consistency across countries. This is more about women than about Australia, at least from my perspective. SarahSV ^(talk) 16:26, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We have a wide cross section of views on the debate. Females included (I assume, it’s hard to tell on Wikipedia). The guideline I point to and the one you referenced actually supports our decision. And I definitely acknowledge that men have been making these arguments, and I am obviously a male. We are, however, trying our best to be as gender neutral as possible and only categorise with gender specificity where it makes sense. I also don’t think our Wikipriject is doing anything outside of the guidelines. That said, I totally respect you may have a different viewpoint, and I am listening because of my deep respect and friendship I have had with you over the years :-) - Chris.sherlock (talk) 16:35, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As I see it, it's the effort to be gender neutral that's the problem. It feels like white people telling black people that race doesn't matter. It was significantly harder for a woman to become an artist in 19th-century Australia, never mind an internationally known one. But in an effort to be gender neutral, Wikipedia has depopulated the category of women who tried or managed to do it. That's a pity. The world isn't gender neutral. SarahSV ^(talk) 16:50, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t disagree, groups of people who have been discriminated against and oppressed have had a dreadful time of it. I recently wrote the article Ellen Atkinson and my blood was boiling what white people did to Ellen and her community. It makes me sick to my stomach what she, her family and her wider community endured, just because she was an Australian Aboriginal.

FWIW, I don’t think gender neutrality on this matter is an attempt to whitewash history as you can still derive the categories via an intersection. The truth is also that the guidelines are pretty clear and it looks like they are being ignored, whereas it seems those on AWNB (not a Wikiproject, btw) are making an attempt to fix the issue. The person who is most in favour is The Drover’s Wife, btw. It was her suggestion AFAICS. I ran with it as it seemed well thought through :-) - Chris.sherlock (talk) 16:57, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop your disruptive editing at Mary Bryant. You were bold, you were reverted, the next step is discussion. The correct venue to seek deletion of a category is WP:CFD. DuncanHill (talk) 14:07, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Duncan, you were told not to post on my talk page. Go away. If you continue to do so, I will ask ArbCom for an interaction ban. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 14:08, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. DuncanHill (talk) 14:16, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That’s right, straight to the drama boards. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 14:16, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, you gotta chill. I know people are going nuclear on you and I know that's something you've had trouble coping with before, but even if you've gotta step away for a few hours, don't take the bait.

I know you were trying to come to some kind of compromise with Mitch, but the impact of that move on the global category tree didn't come up in that discussion, and this has inadvertently blown up into something worse. (For what it's worth, I absolutely should've pushed harder for my preferred option of "tell Mitch to jump in the lake" rather than staying silent when I was indifferent to it, in which case this wouldn't have happened.)

I think it's probably time to go back to the drawing board on this one and follow your original instincts about the original issue. But also - you gotta use WP:CFD to do these things or, if like here, you haven't realised it's a contentious issue beyond what you'd thought of, people are gonna get riled. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:07, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not true, @The Drover's Wife. Nobody has gone nuclear on Chris, and nobody is baiting him. The only going nuclear has been by Chris and The Drover's Wife.

Multiple editors asked Chris to desist from emptying categories out of process. Chris ignored them.

DuncanHill asked Chris to stop, and was met with a dismissal and a threat. Since Duncan was asked not to post here again, he took the only step available, which was to go to ANI. That was entirely proper.

At ANI, Duncan was met with an allegation by Chris that Duncan was harassing him. No evidence was supplied for this allegation, and the allegation appears to be false and possibly malicious.

Also at ANI, The Drover's Wife has been riding shotgun alongside Chris, repeatedly attacking, smearing and misrepresenting DuncanHill.

I get that The Drover's Wife may be trying to help Chris come to terms with the fact that he has acted entirely wrongly here. But that process will not be helped by falsely accusing others of going nuclear. FWIW, I support sanctions on both Chris and The Drover's Wife for their highly disruptive conduct. In Chris's case, the best way to avoid sanctions would be to promptly apologise for not using CFD to establish a consensus ... and to promptly begin completely reverting the out-of-process depopulation of categories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:12, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl, you've already been the subject of negative findings from the Arbitration Committee about bullying behaviour at least once. Please drop the stick, stop threatening people, and work towards trying to resolve this dispute in an amicable way. This is an eminently resolvable content dispute made vastly more complex by your incessantly aggressive behaviour, which has served to attempt to escalate personal conflict at every turn in the face of (apparently successful, at least when ultimately executed) attempts to resolve the actual dispute. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:19, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Drover's Wife, you are projecting. The aggression and bullying has been entirely by you, with your repeated, unevidenced smears of DuncanHill. Your sustained efforts to shoot the messenger are the entire opposite of an attempt to resolve this dispute in an amicable way.

This would actually be quite simple if it wasn't for your bizarre attempts to pour blame over everyone except Chris, who repeatedly ignored requests to desist.

If you genuinely wanted to to resolve this dispute in an amicable way, you would not be engaged in your smear campaign; you would be helping Chris to back down, apologise, and self-revert. And if you really really want to try to make a case that challenging your vicious and sustained smear campaign is bullying, then you know here ANI is. Enjoy the WP:BOOMERANG. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:01, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Drop the stick already. Stating that someone's engagement with another user is unhelpful and that they should stop is not a "vicious and sustained smear campaign"; your twenty-odd-and-counting personal attacks in spite of repeated efforts to de-escalate the issue and refocus on solving the dispute, on the other hand, resemble that description rather well. The Drover's Wife (talk) 02:05, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Stop the gaslighting. Your repeated and unevidenced efforts to smear DuncanHill are the precise opposite of efforts to de-escalate the issue and refocus on solving the dispute. On the contrary, they are an attempt to deflect from the simple fact that Chris ignored advice from multiple editors. You have offered zero evidence that anything which Duncan has done in relation to Chris in this episode or any previous encounter is any way out of order. Unless and until you have that evidence, you should not be making such allegations. Chris has had a WP:IDHT problem with everyone who asked him to desist, and that's solely Chris's problem.

I will desist when you stop your smear campaign. And no, telling you to stop your smear campaign is not a personal attack ... and it is highly alarming that after twenty posts asking you stop, you still won't stop blaming the messenger. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:22, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BHG, please desist from messaging me. I’ve never encountered you before and you do seem like a bit of a bully. That’s how you come across in the messages you are sending me, and I don’t particularly think you are treating TDW very civilly. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 03:45, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just accept you were wrong, Chris, and drop it. MiasmaEternal^TALK 04:34, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I didn’t initiate the original conversation. Happy to drop it! I’ll get on with editing for WiR, though it is interesting to me that guidelines can be so flagrantly flouted. FWIW, I appreciate the The Drover's Wife’s counsel. I had thought we had a good compromise, but that all went to shit when a certain party baring a grudge came along. It’s a great pity we don’t follow our own gender neutrality guidelines for categories, but as with so many of our established guidelines, essays and policies when the mob has spoken, you are wise to shut up and “drop it” (which is sort of funny in a ha ha ouch sort of way because that essay reads “ Just drop it" is not a very useful response in either case.” which I think rather proves my point). - Chris.sherlock (talk) 05:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Just drop it" is not enough. You need to revert your mass depopulation of categories, and not leave others to clean up your mess. If others have to clean up after you, your chances of being sanctioned for your misconduct increase significantly.

And no, those categories do not breach our own gender neutrality guidelines for categories ... as you would have learnt in discussion at WP:CFD if you had opened a discussion instead of acting outside process, ignoring requests to stop and edit-warring with those who reverted you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:26, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If my punishment must be to be blocked, please feel free to do so. I’m happy to be sanctioned as penitence for a bad judgement call. How long would you like me to be blocked for? Or would you prefer to refer me to ArbCom to make this decision? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:33, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See my reply below[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Chris.sherlock&diff=952454201&oldid=952442467 where you asked the same question again. Note that blocks on en.wp are not punitive; they are preventive, and the aim of a block here would be to prevent you from repeating this. So far you have not acknowledged that you should have used CFD, have not reverted your edits, and instead have been busy shooting at messengers and cheering TDW for doing the same at a higher rate. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:40, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I’m curious, when did you acknowledge your mass deletion of portals was wrong? And when did you ever apologise for your personal attacks? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 13:28, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop attacking other editors. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Comment on content, not on other contributors or people. MiasmaEternal^TALK 05:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What attack are you referring to? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 05:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

MiasmaEternal that was not a rhetorical question. You have threatened to place sanctions on me for allegedly making personal attacks. I would like to be able to address this, so I respectfully ask again - what specifically did I write that caused this threat of sanctions? A prompt response would be appreciated, it’s fairly cruel to have a threat like this hang over ones head and then leave and refuse to clarify what the problem was. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

MiasmaEternal I’m not sure what I need to do to get a response. Given this is a threat of admin sanctions, I feel I may need to take this to ArbCom if I don’t get a response soon. Currently I consider this to be an attempt to chill speech, and unless I get a response soon I will have to find the very limited time I have available to have this reviewed. Please note that I do not really want to do this, but you are leaving me with very few options if you do not respond. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 13:32, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Chris

I have reverted[3] a post by you[4] at ANI which was placed in the middle of my post.

Per WP:TPO, "you should not break up another editor's text by interleaving your own replies to individual points. This confuses who said what and obscures the original editor's intent.".

Feel free to repost your comment AFTER my comments, not in the middle of my post. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl Please go away. Your comments to TDW were mean and unfair. In particular I found your comments to her that she has “been playing a nasty game” to be completely unwarranted. If that’s the level you stoop to, I think it best we do not interact lest you treat me the same way.

There is a spot of irony, by the way. Many years ago when I was feeling suicidal, DuncanHill repeatedly leapt to her defence (not that she needed it) when I was having a mental breakdown. So ironically, TDW is actually someone who doesn’t necessarily get along all that well with me at times, and has at times been highly critical of me in the past. Nevertheless, TDW has been able to put that aside and when I wrote some articles for WiR was able to be encouraging and kind to me. It’s something I wish others, yourself included, could exhibit. In fact, she hasn’t been all that pleased with my actions and doesn’t actually agree I went about things the right way with the category changes, something I have to admit on reflection was a bad judgement call.

So you’ll have to forgive me if I find it slightly ironic and a mischaracterisation that she has had it in for DuncanHill.

Now if you don’t mind, I have had a bad day as I lost my job today because of COVID-19 and I must work out with my wife how we are going to survive and provide for my kids during this time of unemployment. Forgive me if I feel that my misguided attempt to find a compromise on AWNB for a thorny category problem has gone awry and yet is lower down my lists of priorities at the moment, or that I wasn’t aware of an archived discussion from seven years ago that is not reflected in the current guidelines.

For the record, I appreciate the parts of your feedback where you gave me your viewpoint and some interesting insights into how things have turned out how they are at the current time, but I give you no thanks that you decided to use my talk page as a battleground, and I stand by my observations and opinion that you are a bit of a bully. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:18, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Striking the “please go away” bit given I asked BHG a question about what sort of punishment she would like me to be given. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:39, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Chris.sherlock, if you don't revert all the edits which you did to empty categories out-of-process, I would like you to be indef-blocked for disruption. If you were acting in good faith and were genuinely unaware that you needed to seek consensus at CFD, and were not persuaded by no less than 3 editors coming to your talk and asking you to stop, then the ANI discussion should have persuaded you. If it hasn't, then you have some WP:IDHT issue which means that there is every likelihood that the disruption will recur.

Note that by indef-block I don't mean perma-block. I mean a block which will last until you give clear assurances that you have learnt your lesson and that this won't recur. It would then be up to you to choose how long the block lasts.

As to the history of who said what years ago, I am not interested at all. I have no interest in what old personal history may or may not exist between DuncanHill and TDW. What I am concerned about is that on this occasion, TDW behaved viciously and unjustifiably. On this occasion, DuncanHill acted entirely properly, following the WP:BRD cycle to the letter. However, TDW has mounted a sustained smear campaign against Duncan, falsely accusing Duncan of misconduct and bad faith while offering precisely zero evidence for either of those assertions. As I wrote above, that is a very nasty game. Most of that nasty game was happening at ANI, but sadly TDW chose to bring their smear campaign here too, which is why I replied here too. If you don't like the fact that this happened on your talk, blame TDW for bringing their smear campaign to your page. And if object to that nasty game being called a nasty game, then we have very different ethical values.

As to your calling me a bully, if that is the way you choose to label someone who challenges a sustained smear campaign against an editor who has acted entirely properly, then again we have very different ethical values … and I stand by mine. I have stood against this sort of conduct when the accusers have been pointing loaded guns at me, and I would do so again.

Similarly, your complaint that I wasn’t aware of an archived discussion from seven years ago that is not reflected in the current guidelines is a complete straw man, because absolutely nobody expected you to know about that discussion. What nearly everyone else who has commented on this sorry saga does expect of you is that instead of acting unilaterally and out-of-process, you bring proposals like this to CFD which other editors can offer whatever they know. Your choice not to go to CFD was a choice not to learn that and much more, and instead to charge ahead on the arrogant and policy-defying basis that Australian editors have WP:OWNership of articles within their scope.

I am very sorry to hear that you lost your job. That must be a hard blow for you, as it has been for so many other people. Howver, it doesn't justify or excuse your conduct on en.wp. You may want to take a break from en.wp (or at least limit your participation) until you have stabilised the crisis. That's only a suggestion, and it's up to you take it or leave it … but it's not acceptable to use a life crisis as any sort of defence or excuse for coming to en.wp and creating widespread disruption.

Even now, if you turn about and post at ANI to say something like "sorry sorry, I screwed up, I get the problem, I will use CFD and will revert all my edits£ … then you may yet avoid sanctions. In that context, I would support a final waring instead of sanctions, and in that context a brief "I was having a very bad day" may well help; but in any other context, it just digs you into a deeper hole.

Your call.

Best wishes, --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PS the "notice to Duncan Hill" which poste yesterday[5] at the top of this page does you no favours at all. It alleges a vendetta, with no evidence to support that claim. If you have evidence, take it to ANI; but do not make that sort of accusation without evidence, because without evidence it's just a smear.

It is also self-defeating. If you hadn't banned DH from your talk, and had instead allowed the discussion to continue, you might have learnt enough to defuse this situation before it got to ANI. The main effect of keeping that notice there is to ensure that if DH finds any further misconduct by you, they will have to go straight to ANI rather than trying to resolve the matter on your talk. Forcing escalation like that is not in your interest, because after this sorry saga you will appear at ANI with a very bad record of ignoring DH's sound advice, so editors at ANI will have little reason to cut you any slack. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:50, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is interesting to see you want me indefinitely blocked when you yourself deleted so many portals, and so far as I’m aware you never reverted your actions. Sure, you were desysopped, but even though you said you would no longer edit on Wikipedia (and yes, you did say that) you continue to edit.

You also mischaracterise my notice to DuncanHill. In fact, I asked him many months ago not to interact with me. Jwz I think you may recall this.

I’m not sure I particularly want to take advise from someone who was desysopped for bullying, personal attacks, disruptive editing and misuse of admin tools. Nor do I think that I would take it lying down to be ifdef blocked on your say so. I have, in fact, acknowledged I’ve made an error in the way I removed those categories, but not a malicious one because in fact I had genuinely thought that we had come to consensus on valid grounds for the Australian articles. I also maintain that a seven year old archived discussion page I had no idea about and which is not mentioned on WP:EGRS#General at all, which I’ll again quote as it seems extremely clear to me:

Do not create categories that are a cross-section of a topic with an ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, unless these characteristics are relevant to the topic.

For example, most sportspeople should not be categorized by religion, since being Catholic, Buddhist, or another religion is not relevant to the way they perform in sports.

It is quite remarkable that you think that editors will know about a seven year old archived discussion (which is massive but not actually all that clear to me actually did correctly come to the conclusion that women writers should be their own category and not merged) when they read that guideline.

Your characterisation of TDW as vicious does you no favour. In your ArbCom findings, I note that one of the findings against you was that you:

repeatedly engaged in personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith, including stating that editors are either liars or lying; editors with opposing viewpoints to hers in portal matters as 'portalistas', which she defined as 'those editors who have engaged in misconduct to subvert the application of community consensus to portals' (Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive311#Civility issues with User:BrownHairedGirl); and questioning the intelligence of those participating in portal edits and discussions with accusations of mendacity, 'Dunning–Kruger conduct', and being a 'low-skill group'

Your tone, accusations of vicious editing, TDW “being in my corner” (to slightly paraphrase), your accusations of gaslighting, your statement that “I hope that you are consciously fabricating it all for some reason” (which is casting aspersions), your further (racially toned Struck, I double checked and it’s not a racist term, you have my apologies for my mistake) statement “Gnangarra's writes goobledygook”, your disgusting statement that “With friends like this, Chris.sherlock doesn't need enemies.”, your statement that TDH “casts themselves as a "victim" of "bullying" when the only bullying has been by TDH” - nothing has changed in your behaviour and you have no idea that your own behaviour is extremely wanting.

I find it even more extraordinary that you are calling for me to be ifdef blocked when in fact you yourself at one point decided to be bold and deleted all those portals. You have never acknowledged that what you did was wrong. But you told me that just admitting I was wrong was not enough and will never be enough, and you want fire rained down on my head. If we had followed your example you would be indefinitely blocked until you admitted your actions were wrong.

I personally find your response to be ill-advised, horrid, hypocritical and an attack on editors who did not undertake my actions and who disagreed with you, and copped your abuse. I doubt you will see the issues I’m raising, but I can tell you that I won’t be changing my notice to DuncanHill as he has been harassing me on-wiki for years and I have quite reasonably and politely now made it extremely clear I want him to cease posting to my talk page. It is, however, quite remarkable that you are pronouncing judgement on my past interactions whilst simultaneously claiming that “ As to the history of who said what years ago, I am not interested at all.” and yet my request for him to leave me alone over the years has gone unheeded. If you don’t care about past history, I question why you are commenting at all.

As for losing my job and the category changes I made, the two are not related other than the fact that the impact of COVID-19 has adversely impacted my life and I felt I needed to explain a. how I’m feeling, and b. why I may be somewhat absent from the Wiki. I will assume good faith and take at face value you are sorry I lost my job, to which I thank you. But you are still, in my opinion, a bully and unpleasant person and I’m hoping to limit my interactions with you to a minimum in future. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 13:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chris, you continue to engage in deflection from the simple fact that you chose to ignore the community's established consensus forming processes, delete categories out of process, ignore repeated requests to stop, and made unevidenced smears against DH. You continue to complain that TDH's won smear campaign was challenged.

You also make a blatantly false allegation against me: that I at one point decided to be bold and deleted all those portals. That is completely false: I did not boldly delete any portal. I nominated portals at MFD, and many of those were deleted by the consensus of those discussion. That is exactly how it should be done, and it is exactly what yous should have done with the categories. But once again, instead of recognising your own errors you have chosen to make a bogus smear against me.

Your claim hat I am a bully and unpleasant person is pure projection by you. You and your tag-teamer TDH mounted a smear campaign against DH, and claim victim status because your smears were challenged. And now you have made an utterly bogus smear against me.

Your modus operandi is very clear: ignore established processes, ignore advice, smear, smear and smear again and then claim that that you are the victim of bullying. Disgraceful conduct. And to top it all you claim that you haven't time to revert the widespread disruption that you caused ... but you have shown you do have time to continue your smears and your blaming of everyone for your own disruption. So other editors have the task of cleaning up the mess you made, as well as of replying to the ongoing drama which you continue to stoke.

I note that you have not removed the note at the top of your page in which you make an unevidenced assertion that DH has waged a "vendetta" against you, and that you have not even acknowledged my comment about that. So I will take that matter to ANI. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:43, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PS Please actually read your quotes from WP:EGRS: "Do not create categories that are a cross-section of a topic with an ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, unless these characteristics are relevant to the topic."

So there is a judgement to be made about relevance. Per WP:CONSENSUS, that judgement is made by the community through discussion at WP:CFD. You chose to make that decision unilaterally, without any discussion. That's where you went wrong, and it seems that even at this stage you still do not understand or recognise that error.

EGRS contains guidance on how to make that judgement. See WP:EGRS#Special_subcategories:

the basic criterion for such a category is whether the topic has already been established as academically or culturally significant by external sources.

In this case, there is evidence, in scholarly sources: 128 hits on JSTOR for "Australian women writers".

Most importantly, that piece of the guideline and the evidence had been drawn to your attention already, in my observations at ANI. My post[6] pinged you, and I know you read them, because you tried to post your reply in the middle of them.

That is classic WP:IDHT conduct, and in your case it is exacerbated by your repeated choices to mount smear campaigns of falsehoods rather than engage in substantive discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:10, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chris, after saying more than 2.5 hours ago that you really needed to sleep, there is only one 45 minute gap in your editing. You also said you were feeling a lot of stress, about this and RL. Can I gently (and not patronizingly, I promise) suggest you just not post any more today? Get some sleep, take care of what you need to take care of IRL, de-stress some, and we'll be here when you get back, whether that's in one day or several months. The case isn't going to be accepted, you aren't going to be blocked. You don't need to stay online. First priority: Stay well. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:45, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Chris.sherlock's misuse of their userpage to make a prominent personal attack. . --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:46, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Chris,

I'm using rollback to undo some of your category edits, not because they are vandalism (which is typically when rollback is used), but because of their number and the fact that it is much quicker than to undo them. Please take no offense. Thanks. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

All good - no offense taken :-) I was trying to find a more automated solution, but it's a bust. I'll see if I can make some fixes for the "A" category today of Australian women, at least before my very last day of work. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 20:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm so sorry to hear about this, Chris. COVID-19 has hit the world hard. I've already lost two relatives to this virus. I hope things turn out better for you and your family, sooner rather than later. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:32, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]