User talk:Robert Horning

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

Jump to: navigation, search

I've been getting so many messages here that I need to start an archive.

For older messages please see Archive1

Contents

[edit] About Introdução á programação

Thanks very much, Robert!!! I'm lightningspirit from the portuguese project of Wikibooks, and i saw that you posted Introdução à Programação book for Wikimania Awards... Awesome :D The book is a Finalist! Thank you very much! Pela nossa grande aliança entre Ingleses e portugueses. Muito obrigado! :)

Da nada. Eu gusto Wikilivros e acha que esta livro e o melhor livro do entro mundo de Wikibooks projectos. Sendo uma finalista de Wikimania certamente e uma marca de distinção. --Rob Horning 16:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Checkuser

Thanks for the vote on WB:RFA. I have to say that I don't particularly want the checkuser rights, but I think that we do need them, and that I could get the votes together to make it happen. I agree with you on all counts: Bureaucrats probably should get checkuser rights immediately and the bureaucrat creation process should be more strict. I would like to incorporate text like that into the new administrator policy that I am drafting, but I don't know how best to do it. Certainly, we can't make our policy say that "every bcrat automatically gets checkuser", because the stewards have their own policy on the matter, and they are unlikely to follow ours. However, i think that an RFA vote for a bcrat should be done in conjuction for an RFA for checkuser rights. For instance, all the votes to create a bcrat, if successfull, would be automatically rolled over to support that bcrat getting checkuser rights as well. If a bcrat is elected with 10 votes, that means only 15 additional votes would be required to get checkuser rights.

On my policy proposal, I state that a bcrat candidate must currently be an admin, but we could make the requirements more strict then that: there are plenty of admins here (mostly inactive) who simply don't deserve to have any additional tools at their disposal. I realize that I am more strict when it comes to admins then you are. Perhaps we could include text that a bcrat candidate must be an admin in good standing, who is "reasonably" active, has no recent history of abuse, and uses the admin tools to benefit the community.

On a personal note, I've considered for some time now nominating you for the position of bcrat, I'm sure you could get the votes without any problem. If you feel like you are too busy with your other projects, I can understand that. If you are not too busy elsewhere, I would like to see you get nominated for it. Let me know. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, before I even had a chance to nominate you for bcrat, User:AlbertCahalan has nominated you for checkuser rights. I'm in favor of it, if you will accept your nomination. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:07, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mentor

Hi, I'm looking for a mentor -- see here. I saw your name on the list of mentors, and I see your not at your limit of 2 Probationaries like sebmol, so I was wondering if you would take me on :) Let me know on my talk page, or here --Deon555 08:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC) (currently 61.68.178.39)

[edit] Wikistandards

Robert. I notied that you played a central role in the voting for wikistandards. I have a thread going on foundation-L where I proposed such a project. And I was directed to meta where I eventually found the now-defunct effort. Can you tell me in your opinion why it died, and whether I can work to revive it? The thread on foundation-L is titled "proposed new project - wikistandards." My name shows up there as "No Spam." The first standard I want to get going is a Project Management standard (similar to the for-profit effort at PMI.org). Cacace 00:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome back!

Welcome back from your wikibreak, Rob! I've held off proposing some new projects so you had the opportunity to comment on (and hopefully help out with, if you have the time!) the projects. Hope to see you around a lot more, hagindaz 23:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ht wikisource

you proposed yourself as an admin for ht.wikisource.org. currently this site is not maintained at all, and we are wondering whether it should be closed or not.

could you please become a sysop there (ask a steward, eg Yann), and import all the pages in Haitian from wikisource.org ?

thanks,

ThomasV on ws.org

[edit] Hi Robert!

Good to "see your face"... how's the press idea coming along?

BTW, Import is actually enabled now... there's a request in at bugzilla for the transwiki namespace, hopefully they'll get to it soon (currently you have to import, then move to transwiki, then delete the original file... total drudgery, but a lot better then the copy-paste of yore). Keep an eye on WB:RFI for incoming requests. --SB_Johnny | talk 21:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Just read the start of your blog... I'll definitely be following :).
I was going to leave a comment there, but I have way too many accounts and passwords to keep track of these days. OTOH I've been thinking of blogging myself lately... was it easy enough to set up? --SB_Johnny | talk 20:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Starting the blog wasn't all that difficult. The hosting company is one of the "Google" related companies and applying for a new blog was about as difficult as registering an account with Wikimedia projects... well, almost. But I have put a little more thought into the structure of the blog and while at first it was going to be just general musings of mine, I think something more dedicated to the free textbook "industry" might be a little better. And certainly here on Wikibooks we are right in the thick of that philosophy and concept. --Rob Horning 19:27, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Untagged Images

Hey Rob, I just wanted to let you know that there are currently 4 untagged images to your name, and we are going to move forward with mass deletion of untagged images within a month or so.

Since it is you, I have no doubt that these images are under an acceptable license. If you let me know what license that is, I will gladly tag them all for you.

--Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:56, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Robert - I still need your help!

I need to move Algebra 1 in Simple English to Simple English Wikibooks. You said that you would move it several months ago, but I guess you forgot. I'm getting lots of contributions, but unfortunately they're from people who do not understand the meaning of Simple English. I need the book to be on the Simple English Wiki so that people will be more likely to write in Simple English. I'm making a big presentation at a Math conference on Dec. 1st, and I really need this situation cleared up before then. Please point me to someone else if you don't have time or can't help me with this.--HSTutorials 05:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I just asked the staff lounge if there was someone there who could help me out.

[edit] Acetone peroxide synthesis

I have proposed the acetone peroxide synthesis for deletion. What do you think? Ewen 14:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mentorship on Wikiversity

Would you mind being my mentor as a custodian? I wish to become a custodian to further my contributions on Wikiversity and to improve this project. To tell you a little about what I have done so far, I have set up the Spanish Language Division and am the instructor of the Spanish I and Spanish II courses. I have also done some work on templates such as talk header, Spanish language, to do list, and others. -- J.Steinbock

[edit] Medicine4Kids

I'm interested in your opinion on the VfD for Medicine4Kids. Both specifically as it regards that title and more generally how the quoted policy appies to WikiJunior. --xixtas 23:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tut tut

Very naughty - moving a VfD to speedy like that - well I got my wrist slapped earlier so... Of course I agree with you <g> Regards --Herby talk thyme 19:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikibooks Newsletter, Volume 1

(Wikibooks gazette home | Discuss | Bulletin board | Subscription list)

This is a short newsletter that is being distributed to all active wikibookians. You are getting this message because you are recognized as an established contributor to the project. This newsletter will be distributed on a regular basis to help share news, information, and tips. It comes from a bot account, User:The Staff. User:The Staff is currently operated by a team of wikibooks admins, the complete list of which is available on the user page of the bot. If you would like to not receive this newletter anymore, please remove your name from the list at Wikibooks:Active wikibookians.

The work you do at Wikibooks is greatly appreciated. However there are plenty of other opportunities for you to get involved and help us to create a thriving Wikibooks community. We are sure that there are things we can do to help you and your understanding of Wikibooks and similarly there are certainly things you could do to help Wikibooks become a better place.

We would like to ask all wikibookians to add the Bulletin Board to your watchlists. The Bulletin Board is a fast and easy way for wikibookians to communicate important news and events to the entire community. If you have important news to share with the community, you can feel free to add your own entry to that page.

If you have general questions or comments about Wikibooks, you are welcome to post a message on The Staff Lounge, a free discussion area. Your input would also be welcomed in the Votes for Deletion and Requests for Adminship discussion pages. These pages are all active discussion areas that help to shape the Wikibooks community as a whole.

Sometimes it is easy to forget that the Wikibooks community is much larger and more diverse then the people who work in a single book, or on a single bookshelf. Hopefully, together we can all make Wikibooks a better place, and a more valuable educational resource.

The Staff
04:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

Blindingly obvious when put like that and thanks. In practice last time the talk page was also used as an apparent "dump" of fiction which made me enquire in the lounge. In practice I feel less deletionist as time goes on so views on "if they put it on the talk page" again at all? Thanks and regards --Herby talk thyme 14:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stub deletion

Have you seen that What is Wikibooks unstable page and the accompanying talk page lately? I thought it was interesting you commented "at least as long as we don't have a stub deletion policy" as justification to keep Toki Pona. Specifically the following.

"It may be that, even though a textbook meets the criteria specified in this policy, it is unsuitable for Wikibooks for other reasons. For example, it may be in such a state of disrepair and no one wants to revise into something workable."

While it doesn't directly come out and say it, I could imagine that being used to justify deleting stubs. --Iamunknown 15:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

But that is a proposed policy and IMHO has not been thought through either, nor has the full definition of a stub been brought forth. I do believe that there are some stubs that can be deleted that are a paragraph long or even just a few words. But it is an area that we do need to be careful over and not treat lightly. And what we currently think of as a very old Wikibook (no activity for two years or so) may not seem so old here in a few years. There are only two really good reasons to remove very old stubs:
  1. Server disc space - And this isn't really an argument as Wikibooks take up so little space that it hardly matters, especially compared to Wikipedia. And besides, the deleted pages still take up server space even after they are no longer "visible" to ordinary users.
  1. Dealing with indexing of Wikibooks - Acting under the assumption that having more pages to "watch" is going to become an administrative burden for those charged with maintaining Wikibooks as a project. There is some merit to this idea, but I don't think it is as big of a deal as everybody seems to make it out as.
I would like to see a better justification to deleting stubs than this before they are deleted in large numbers. I also don't believe that Toki Pona fits the minimal definition as an insignificant stub. --Rob Horning 15:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I understand that it is a proposed policy. And I only partially agree with it. And I do not think that Toki Pona should be deleted. I was pointing the page out to you because I think that it will be adopted regardless of how well-thought out it is. For one thing, on the talk page Whiteknight has already put up a vote. For another, on IRC, the admins (that are on there) talk about it almost as if it is already adopted. --Iamunknown 15:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Publishing, etc

Hey Rob, it's been a while since you were around alot, so welcome back! I wanted to ask you specifically, what needs to get done for a wikibook to get published? What if we publish through an external publishing house, and dont involve the WMF in the process directly? Many of the policy pages that we are working on now will have some effect on our ability to publish our books, and if we all know the ramifications better, and if we know the current status of the project better, perhaps we can make our decisions better. Would you mind writing up some kind of notice, or even an essay about the status of this? What do we need? What is the stance of the WMF? Who do we need to talk to? I think you are currently the most knowledgible on this topic, so anything you have to say about it will be appreciated. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 02:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

We (meaning myself and Gabriel.... er User:Munchkinguy), have been successful in obtaining some ISBNs for several Wikibooks, and have set up the PDF files with Lulu Press to do the actual publication. I'm not entirely happy with this arrangement, but it is a way for us to get started and get something going. Keep in mind that we are doing this on the ultimate shoestring budget, and unfortunatly the prices of the books we are publishing reflect that as well as they are a little high by my taste, with nearly all of money going to publications costs due to low volume.
My ultimate goal, and what I would really like to accomplish here in terms of a long-term goal is to set up a publishing cooperative that Wikibooks contributors would be able to join and "publish" their books through this "company". The purpose of it really is mainly to get the books actually in the hands of kids and "readers" in general. The problem is trying to find a "white knight" (no pun intended here to you) that would be able to help us out here and help us with the business side of things. I've talked to Jimbo briefly about this, as I think it may be something he might want to get involved with independently of the WMF (like he did with Wikia), but at the same time we may not want a target that big at the moment either.
This "cooperative business" (see w:Cooperative for similar businesses) would not be "owned" by the Wikimedia Foundation, but instead would be jointly owned by Wikibooks users/contributors. This is important in part because the WMF doesn't want to get into the game for legal reasons, and because I also want to set this up in such a way that those who do the work will get rewarded for their efforts, including contributions to Wikibooks. Part of that reward certainly is altruistic for the most part, as in giving to the rest of "mankind" in terms of content. But at the same time, there is nothing explict that is stopping any of us from making a little profit here as well off of our efforts.
Note that the WMF's "official stance" is that they want nothing to do with being a formal "publisher" of Wikimedia content. That is something that the Wikimedia user community has to try and come up with on their own without any assistance from the WMF.
As far as using another "external publisher" is concerned, I'm not completely against that either, but I want to make sure that if it is done that those who put the content together will be properly acknowledged and potentially be able to "give back" to the WMF some financial support for even hosting Wikibooks in the first place. A private for-profit company may not do this as well as everybody would like.
I know that there are many Wikibooks users who wouldn't mind trying to get the publication of these books going, for other personal reasons. I have a little bit of a vanity streak in me as well to doing this, but it has to be a practical business situation as well. --Rob Horning 13:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Checkuser

Morning or similar and best wishes for 2007. I think I made it 24 not 25 tho (never mind the discussion on consensus now rumbling!). I do appreciate the thoughts and the comments. While I do tend to shoot from the hip and be a bit of a deletionist I am getting better I assure you - hopefully I am still well aware that there are times to ask others for advice, when I know it all it will be past time to leave! Regards --Herby talk thyme 09:48, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikibooks content

Don't talk to strangers if you don't want them to talk to you!! I will pursue this in an appropriate spot when I've thought it thro some more. I should say I am not a fan of rigid policies and rules (make of that what you want).

I have posted before in the Staff lounge (& been largely ignored) about the quality of the content of Wikibooks and your posting on original research made me think again. To me we have many "books" that follow the rules in terms of subject matter etc that are frankly dire. In the past week there was a "complaint" about lack of content on one of the IB books talk pages & I had to point out that if no one was able to contribute the book would remain dormant sadly - not what I would like to be saying. Any time I look at Wikijunior I realise just how good the offerings here can be. To me original research or anything else that is of a high quality seems to offer the reader of Wikibooks something we could be proud of?

Of course the flip side is that I would like to delete (de-list?) books that did not meet a standard - there that should be fun.

I know it would fly in the face of policy etc etc but am I way out of line here? Thanks and regards --Herby talk thyme 13:33, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I completely support those who want to help improve the overall quality of Wikibooks, and that I why I support things like the Book of the Month and "cleanup" campaigns in general.
My main concern over hard core "original research" here on Wikibooks has more to do with procedures the "cull out the cruft" rather than any real issue over having a place to put some of the better original research. Frankly, admin Wikibookians for the most part simply aren't equiped with the tools necessary to judge original research, and as such it is much easier to simply remove it altogether rather than trying to judge each case by its merits.
All this said, a scholarly book that happens to incorporate a few good new ideas should not be rationale to delete the entire Wikibook, nor should even those few extra pages that help give further insight into a topic that might be called "original research" necessarily be reason for deletion. In other words, there is no real hard and fast rule about this concept. But the problem here is that when pages become sufficient to become "citable" in other context, perhaps this "original research" needs to be examined.
One of the current outstanding problems with Wikibooks, BTW, has to do with mainly indexing, searching, and bringing up what exactly Wikibooks has to offer. There are a variety of ways to get this accomplished, which is one of the reasons why I tried to get the Card Catalog Office going. It really needs to be restarted in some ways, or at least significantly expanded. Your comment about why a certain IB book doesn't have content should also be somewhat termed "why can't I find what I want on Wikibooks?" At least with Wikipedia you can reasonably find an article about the topic comparatively quickly, with only a minor search or two to get to the page. Wikibooks seems to be much harder to get the same sort of task accomplished, mainly because of the larger structures that are a part of Wikibooks. That many redirects get deleted that might gently assist with that task is also a minor issue, even though I will admit that redirects are not the answer here on Wikibooks as they sometimes provide on Wikipedia. --Rob Horning 16:45, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Rob - much sense there but I do think we need to look for quality. Johnny has just started a "request for comments" page (WB:RFC) which might be useful. I confess a real peeve of mine is the extremely poor categorisation here - I was amazed that virtually everything in Cookbook was under "C" when I arrived (tho it helped my edit count no end). I am now running AWB as a licensed bot so adding or amending categories which should help with searching would be easy. If you have any views on how I can help with anything like that I'd be happy to know - regards --Herby talk thyme 16:57, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
The WB:CCO - is it worth putting it in the next Gazette (should go out in Jan sometime)? The worst that can happen is no one bothers. --Herby talk thyme 13:01, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrators

Hi Robert. The problem with not having a "system" in place is because in the past it hasn't worked so well. I arbitrated a situation recently, using the informal system you seem to prefer, and it's been a miserable experience. Not only that, but while I was watching that one, another user was asking for arbitration, but I didn't want to take on 2 at once, and no-one else stepped up. Having a "formal structure" says: "this is serious, and needs to be addrressed now." It might also be useful in cases where one arbitrator needs to step out and hand the magic wand to someone else. --SB_Johnny | talk 13:56, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

This is something that has been debated endlessly for more than a year here on Wikibooks. The problems involved are both need, and find somebody who is willing to take on the job. Both have been rather lacking here on Wikibooks in the past, although there certainly seem to be some very active users that may be able to take on the job. BTW, can you point to a specific situation here on Wikibooks that your arbitration skills were invoked? --Rob Horning 17:56, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
That would probably be between Panic and me, I would imagine. Could you provide some more insight on Wikibooks_talk:Ownership? Not sure if it will do any good as far as clearing up any difference between Panic and me, but might help in providing what more may need to be added to WB:OWN. You seem to have some insight into this issue that Whiteknight and others turn to for clarification. --darkYin yang.svglama 20:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Culling on a talk page?

I replied to your comment on my talk page, but due to the nature of the crime, I wanted to bring it to your immediate attention (in hope of swift redemption — I honestly can't see any content missing). --Swift 08:38, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Just so you know...

User:Panic2k4 is blocked again. He can still edit on his user talk page if you'd like to chat with him. --SB_Johnny | talk 22:34, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Current events

I'm sure you will have noticed - given I have noticed your recent creation - Wikibooks:Administrators'_noticeboard#Block_review_needed - my 0.02. Regards --Herby talk thyme 18:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally I am not certain who the dispute is between tho --Herby talk thyme 18:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration

Rob, I'm not an admin, but I would be willing to participate in the arbitration process you've set up. I support the structure you have created, and feel that is the best way to achieve a fair result. I am interested in participating because if (as it seems) we are setting a precedent for the future I would like to help make sure that the process is done right.

I do not have any preconceptions about the situation, do not know any of the parties involved, and feel I can be entirely neutral in this situation. These qualities may be a rare combination around here. --xixtas 23:22, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey Rob. I saw the arbitration thing, and while I support the process, I worry about a few points:
  1. Arbitration typically requires arbitrators. Who is going to fill this roll in the current case, and how will arbitrators (or is it "arbiters"?) be chosen in the future?
  2. It would seem to me that applying arbitration would require some sort of policy in place that will make the result of the arbitration binding. No sense setting up a whole judicial system if it has no authority.
  3. Typically, I would say that Panic2k4 is reasonably unpopular, while SBJohnny is reasonably popular. asking wikibooks locals to make a decision on this matter (considering the small size of the community), would likely be an unnecessary bias immediately. Conversely, asking outsiders to come take care of our affairs opens a much worse can of worms that I dont think any of us want.
I like the idea of an arbitration process, but I would hate to see us all rush into it without thinking it through. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
It should be noted that I am acting as an abritrator at the moment, but "self-appointed", mainly because this has been agreed upon by both Panic and the other parties involved. It is more mediation, but I'm forcing to arbitration by virtue of being an administrator, and acknowledging that I can reblock using my tools as an administrator, with a decision like this through this process making it "stick". I don't think once this process is completed and most of the current admins can agree to the ultimate decisions made (not to mention vetting of the issues involved) that there will be anybody arguing against the ultimate outcome.
We really do need to come up with an arbitrator committee, and that is certainly something that needs to be determined in the future. I have a few additional thoughts about the topic, but I'll add to that once I've gone through this meat grinder process.
It should be noted that I'm hoping (against hope) that everybody will come to an eventual concensus and not even really force me into a "decision" process. This is more a fact-finding process that I hope will reveal plainly who has screwed up here the worst, and I'm not trying to rush to a judgement first. If Panic is making as many problems as is alleged, it should be pretty obvious. I'm also hoping that he realizes that several people are very upset with his actions, regardless of if he is "in the right" or not. Johnny and Darklama are both creating waves as well, which is another reason I'm forcing their hand to participate here.
I'm formatting this as a legal proceeding, as such is really just a formalized debate anyway. The terms and names could certainly be modifed, but the whole point here is to get the information out in a structured manner. I've framed how the issues are going to be aired, but it is up to the participants who are complaining to bring the actual issues up. Again, I'm hoping just to be a referee here and not really make the ultimate decision unless it is being forced. --Rob Horning 00:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
What I would hate to see is for you to come to a conclusion which not only puts you at odds with the rest of the community (you may be neutral, but much of the community is biased against the defendant). In such a situation, especially without some sort of policy background, I can't imagine that the community will allow you to make a decision "stick". We also run the risk of establishing feuds between the admins here (which generally represent a tight community) which is much much worse, in my opinion, then not dealing with the issue at all.
As to arbitration, as I think about it, I disagree with it more and more. Wikibooks does well by avoiding the bureaucratic nonsense that has plagued wikipedia. In general, the community here favors the "less is more" approach to administration (policy, judiciary, etc), and setting up another level of administrative overhead is more then en.wikibooks needs or (i think) wants. Be careful in this Rob, you're a good wikibookian, but even the best intentions sometimes lead to the worst ends. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Herr hope that your removal of the block will not get you in any trouble, that done and since the unblock is made, the problem in particular was partially addressed.

I would ask that for a clear process you place a restating of the warning User:SBJohnny intended or as he said (and now clearly have done so) you are blocked because you started moving talk pages around (actually it was more like "re-moving" them), as you were warned not to do., so something like You shouldn't further reformat(change or alter the format) of work C++ Programming that originated the initial dispute involving User:Panic2k4 and User:Darklama both in my talk page and User:Darklama, ask User:SBJohnny to step down and let you take any administrative actions necessary on that subject in the future, so we don't get into any unnecessary (my interpretation) blocks/disputes in the future.

I would also like to have all blocks made by User:SBJohnny to me analyzed and failing to provide validity to them removed from my block log and some consideration given to what to do to User:SBJohnny in sequence to the findings.

As for the format dispute with User:Darklama, they can be addressed partially (since they go above and beyond the actual policies), I will once again state the points here to you and you will see what can be done.

Will this be possible and acceptable to all parties ? --Panic 02:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I do want to let you know that your concerns will be aired. As I tried to point out, this was a fight and edit war between two different users (yourself and Darklama), to which unfortunately SBJohnny became a party instead of a moderator. There is nothing directly wrong with that, but this is precisely why I have requested that this go to a formal arbitration, particularly given an admin involved here.
I have recieved a general agreement that a cooling off from the C++ Programming Wikibook will happen for the time being, particularly from the two users you have mentioned above, although there is nothing directly here that will stop other editor/contributors from editing the Wikibook. I have suggested that if this whole thing gets completely out of hand that I will simply freeze the C++ book through page protection, but I don't want to take that very drastic step at the moment.
I'll let you know when the "plaintiff" has decided to end their list of charges and you can start to formally display your defense here. BTW, in this whole thing, make sure you are also listing what you saw may have been abuses by Darklama and SB Johnny, including being blocked and why you think it may not have been appropriate. --Rob Horning 16:49, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Since you are considering the "plaintiff" as User:SBJohnny I must point out that this can probably lead to error, as plaintiff is by definition a person who brings an action in a court of law, in this case the definition would more directly apply to me, as I'm the plaintiff appealing on action by an administrator. No big problem I think I get your point but we should be careful not to mess this up. If legal term are to be used, User:SBJohnny is the "defendant". You should probably take this in consideration and be sure no confusion is generated.
It all depend on how things are stated (there is still a missing statement that defines the procedure), Is the arbitration about the request of unblock or a justification for the block, that is am I to accuse the other user or wrong doing and invalidate the block or is he to prove my wrong doing by that justify the block ? --Panic 19:21, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
As it is your intention to have User:SBJohnny write his POV first (I have no problem with it), he must provide information on the actions that created the block dispute, the why, the who, and the how (or other points that can be cross examined/contested by me) and you should give him a time frame to do so, some time constraints should exist in every step of the process.
I have noticed in Wikibooks talk:Arbitration/Panic2k4 vs. SBJohnny/Plaintiff Charges
a post from User:Iamunknown, and I agree that any other person with other disputes against me should be encouraged to vent them out and see them registered. But they should be signed posts and with the indication of the person involved and the topic of the dispute they also propose for analysis (if not directly related with the actual motion) and with enumerated points so I will be able to address them point by point and reduce confusion. --Panic 19:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I do want to point out that I have repeatedly asked several of those involved, including Johnny himself, to rename these pages if he doesn't want to be named in the dispute, or to be considered the "plaintiff". In this case, he is more like a beat cop who perhaps stepped over the line (as you are asserting here) that regardless of what happened certainly performed an action that ultimately precipitated this current course of action. He was also the one who tried to get me involved, even if this isn't exactly the way he wanted it to go down. His assertions (as well as Darklama, who perhaps is better named as the "plaintiff") were also given to me on the Wikibooks IRC channel, so I tried to make them official. It is not too late to name the "parties" in this arbitration case, but I also consider that to be a trivial detail.
As far as signing the posts, I think that is being covered fairly well. Instead of "signing" the posts, they are being seperated by section heading for each individual who is offering an opinion. You are, of course, free to use whatever formatting you would like in your reply, including using the more traditional wiki sig. --Rob Horning 19:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I also do formally request that the unblock request (and only that) be moved from my page to an addendum to the arbitration process (for historical reasons) and protected from edits, as it is it's causing problems on my talk page, txs. --Panic 19:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Seems like a very reasonable request. I'll go ahead and do that right now. --Rob Horning 19:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
After User:SBJohnny last post to me here, it seems the he is unsure what you intentions are and how the Arbitration will proceed, after thinking about it, I must ask if he did agree to it or not ? If he didn't then this will invalidate the Arbitration, did he retract in any way the block or any blocking action ?
Based on his last post I can see that he had no problem with the lifting of the block and he thought your function would be different, if he is willing to remove all my blocking logs and admit that he probably did them in haste or not in a clear way (even if off the record) and wants the proceeding ended, I will agree if you indeed take care of the other disputes and User:SBJohnny refrains to take any other action on those subjects, I have no personal grudge with him and I'm not here to humiliate or degrade his image in the community.
It would be a loss to Wikibooks as he is an really active administrator, to make him lose interest in the community or feel that he have lost face, by my actions or yours.
As an aside and this must be made clear, if there is offside talking of the arbitration subject, they should be avoided, (I know that User:SBJohnny has an IRC presence on the Wikibooks channel and even User:Whiteknight mentions that some information regarding the blocking did occur in public with other Wikibookians and that there isn't a record of, as it is stated here, it is even my view that User:SBJohnny may even have been misinformed due to such discussions and lead to actions he normally would be more careful on performing.
I didn't have a particular problem with this cross talking in the past, it is not my main motivation in wikibooks to have friends and know people in general build up a social network here or my ego, but at present it must be made clear that I really don't wish to participate on said offsite discussions, or on site parallel discussions on the subject at hand and I ask you also to avoid doing so (on subject not on format), I don't want to have to deal with the other users and even future participants on the discussion at hand to be influenced by and from such discussions, my task on fighting a decision from a known administrator will be hard enough, a fair "jury" will probably be impossible but I will do my best, please ask (as it can't be imposed or verified) that other participants refrain on extending the already present social influences so to keep the proceeding clear, if I feel overwhelmed or I find other users participation unfair, as it is my right I will have no other resource that to appeal to a hight instance for any decision I fell was a result of an oriented attack to my defense, this indeed would create a huge problem to the whole community. --Panic 04:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Since this is in active arbitration at the moment, I'm going to refrain from trying to give my opinions on this prematurely. I do want to assure you that I intend to address many of these issues in my formal opinion that I intend to write, including in reference to the IRC conversations that seem to have occured, and the actions of SB Johnny. This opinion will be a part of the formal arbitration page. As far as if SB Johnny has agreed to this course of action, he certainly is participating, which implies conscent here. I think he was hoping I would rubber stamp his actions, which I have not done, but rather have made some serious inquiries as to what has happened. What I really need is information, not heated opinion, and that has unfortunately proven difficult to get. --Rob Horning 10:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
You think I wanted you to "rubber stamp my actions"? --SB_Johnny | talk 11:15, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps too harsh of a term. I was pressured into performing actions on IRC that I thought were too drastic and getting involved with the dispute directly as a party. I'm still not completely sure why you pulled me into this, but I'm involved now. I do know you (Johnny) were seeking approval of your actions. --Rob Horning 11:49, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

(reset tabs) Um, I don't know why you thought you were pressured... as was mentioned to you on IRC, someone else had already offered to step in (I have the logs if you'd like to review them). My message about the block on this talk page was becaue you were in a dialog with him on another page, and wanted to make sure you knew why he wouldn't be replying there (but that he could edit his talk)... see above[1]. My interest is not in getting approval for my actions (I'm perfectly comfortable with them), but rather in having someone else handle this, because I'm tired of it. As I had said to Panic, I'm not willing to adopt his case as a full time job, and at this point they really need another arbitrator because I'd really like to focus my energies elsewhere.

I've asked one of the Stewards to have a look at the situation just for good measure, as it's clearly getting a bit over the top now. --SB_Johnny | talk 12:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The information I'm looking for here and seeking to gather is going to be needed if the Stewards try to "intervene" anyway. I highly doubt they will get involved until this process is completed, and then only to review the actions taken, not to directly get involved. That is not a can of worms that they would care to open for a great many reasons. --Rob Horning 12:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
He's not "getting involved", he's just having a look-see (he knows more about wiki-arbitration than I do). --SB_Johnny | talk 16:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Please address the problem that exists at this Arbitration talk page as soon as you can, and I request that you ask user Darklama to close his comments so we can pass to the next phase. --Panic 19:16, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What a mess

I've looked at the Talk:C++_Programming history and I don't find any recent discussion between SBJohnny and Panic2k4 there. The discussion seems to have occurred on User_talk:Panic2k4 and Wikibooks_talk:Ownership. The History of Talk:C++ Programming is interesting, though. Manual revert of 37 edits by 4 different users. --xixtas 04:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Most of my dispute with darklama is on my talk page it started after, if I remember correctly (don't go by my word) he moved the MFC part out of the C++ book without discussion. But my first interactions with darklama content deletion are in his talk page, as for any missing history I don't know if the previous administrator did merge the talk pages content (he should) and darklama did merge the "forked" book talk pages under consensus.
If you were checking the why of the block there isn't a reason for it, but my page moves were based in that darklama doesn't like the (actual) structure, the structure was not created by me but by the administrator that forced the merge, as for why he doesn't like it, well I don't know he never did explain it in detail, the changes he made to those pages (and that I reverted) were done while I was under a 2 week block (on a unrelated problem, and I still state wrongly so, but that is another problem), after that I restored them to the same state moved some posts to the proper places (context, like discussions on content etc), humm as I remember Paddu before the "fork" did do some reverts and I also, on that case the disputed changes were based my need to have specific guidelines and order on the discussion (I will see if I can get an example and post it here later), but you can probably mail Paddu, darklama and SBJohnny did contact him after I was blocked, see the other user talk page (the one on the C++ / Q&A page, the post in response to SBJohnny questions), if you have any more questions on the C++ book I will try to address them. --Panic 04:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry to have replied to you on User:Robert Horning talk page, but I would probably have to state some of this things some were later for him so it serves a dual purpose, please delete if it is a problem. --Panic 04:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I have checked the talk page history it seems all history before the "fork" are missing, if you can see what you can do User:Robert Horning, txs [User:Xixtas]] for pointing it out, I didn't check it because I didn't know talk history logs could be merged at the time. --Panic 07:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't have any questions for you, and I wouldn't ask them here anyway. This was intended to be a message from me to Rob in response to a query on my talk page. My interest in this action is strictly in what's fair, setting a good precedent for the future and avoiding further damage to the Wikibooks community as much as possible. --xixtas 20:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

It's all fairly civil but this Discussion removed from Talk:C++/Programming Functions is interesting reading. This happened right before the second block. --xixtas 01:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's a Copyvio Tag Discussion and warning from Panic's talk page that has since disappeared that I hadn't seen before. --xixtas 01:42, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blogspot

The link on your blog to http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2006-October/002670.html is broken. I would have commented there but I do not have a Google account. --kwhitefoot 10:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sending Wikijunior Big Cats for Legal Deposit.

I need to send Big Cats in for Legal Deposit to Archives Canada. Are there any additions that should be made before I send it off (disclaimers, etc)? --Munchkinguy 01:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "What a mess" is an understatement

This is not a time to wax philosohpical Robert... nor is it a time to go asking opinions about what to do next. I have serious doubts about your judgement at this point (I have no doubts about your good intentions), and if you are unwilling or unable to take this process by the riens, I suggest you ask someone else to step in for you. I'm willing to take over until User:Swift has time to do this as a temporary measure, or else you can choose someone else. The way you've been handling this is unfair to me, and unfair to User:Panic2k4.

Wikibooks isn't a "neonatal" project anymore. Your hard work has paid off, and we have grown! Stand back now and be proud. --SB_Johnny | talk 23:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The process that I've taken has been under attack, and I've tried to defend that. Unfortunately, I also seem (from my viewpoint) to be under attack right now because I'm not rolling over and agreeing with your decisions here 100%. And as I've said earlier, you were drawn into this fight and have become a party to the whole thing. It is a very natural and human thing to do, and I'm not necessarily suggesting you are any less of a Wikibookian for having done so. But to continue to pretend that you are completely neutral in this matter is also not admiting to what is going on here.
BTW, I havn't really done much of anything here anyway. I certainly havn't "made a decision" or done anything directly to support Panic or your actions, or suggest that you should be deadmined here. I do think it is very reasonable, however, to question your actions (or mine for that matter) and to do a reasonable investigation to see if the actions taken were warrented. Performing a user block because of a content edit war is always a tricky action, and is something that should be strongly cautioned against except as an ultimate last resort. Much of this whole process is to see if your use of the user block was in fact justified and perhaps needs to be reimposed.
I am not asking opinions on what to do next, as I have been very clear about what I intended to do here. And you have participated in that process. The next step, BTW, is to let Panic have his chance to spill his guts and explain why he did everything. --Rob Horning 11:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Robert, I know you mean well, but you've really misunderstood the issues here, which is completely understandable because you haven't been around much lately. In you absence (an absence spent doing good things!), wikibooks has experienced something of a growth spurt. You're not being recieved well because you're a bit behind the times. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I think you need to try and see how others see you right now... some of our "community leaders" don't know you at all, some (like me) just barely know you, and others who know you a bit better are getting very frustrated with you (especially with the textbook-l stuff).
Neither of the two metaphors below entirely fit the situation, but they do capture some of what's going on, and why you're getting into trouble. Don't take this too seriously. Do try to take a step back, breathe, and think.
  • First metaphor -- A Good (but divorced) Father goes away for a while to try and do some good in the world. He comes back to find his little girl is a young woman now, and tries to enforce some rules for her own good. When he was gone, the family got bigger, now with step-siblings who don't know their Good Stepdad. Good Stepdad makes a big show about telling Mother that he can handle this, and botches the job from step one (at least in the eyes of the kids... maybe in the eyes of the other Stepdad and Mom too).
  • Second metaphor -- A community in a snowy, long-wintered place finally get's itself organized, and arranges for regular snow plowing. One particular street never gets plowed, because that particular street has cars parked along the street, and the plowing company is worried about liability. The community bands together and insists that that street should be plowed too (the people who live there are community members too, after all!), but when it comes up in a council meeting, an elderly gentleman starts into a diatribe about how we (the townspeople) did perfectly fine without plowing before, and shouldn't try to force the plowing company to clear that street.
Take a step back, breathe, think. --SB_Johnny | talk 22:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images used in Wikijunior Big Cats

Robert, please take a look at the section titled "Unspecified source for Image:Snowcub.jpg" on John Burkitt's tak page. I know that you were involved with Wikijunior Big Cats and am wondering if you may be able to give any insight into his images. Many of them have no sources given. I came across a couple that were already tagged and then tagged a few mysyelf that were also on Commons but then stopped. I don't want them to be deleted if there is any possible way that we can find out their source — I stalled. Any information would be appreciated. Thanks, User:Iamunknown 06:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AP Computer Science Textbook

In the Computer Science wikibook discussion page you mentioned a textbook (written in the first-person) that you thought was very good for studying for the exam. I am self-studying, and am trying to find a good textbook to start out with. What book/s do you recommend? Please post your response on my wikipedia talk page if you can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WIZARD826 Thank you!! WIZARD826 07:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Done

Finished, uff, Whiteknight did lend me a hand with the spelling. --Panic 05:17, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikijunior New Title Policy/Unstable

I've edited this document and changed it so that it reflects my understanding of the new title practice currently in place. Please give it a look-see and comment. I think there has been a lot of confusion about Wikijunior's new title policy and that confusion may be adversely affecting potential new contributors. --xixtas 06:00, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Do you want to volunteer as a potential member of editorial boards?

See Wikibooks:Volunteer_editors

Also Wikibooks:Editorial board,Wikibooks:Wikipublish and the discussion in the staff lounge. RobinH 15:09, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Appologies

I would like to appologize to you if some of my earlier comments on the arbitration process came off as petulant or otherwise unfriendly. While I have some strong feelings on the matter, I don't want them to serve as some kind of dividing line between you and I, or between any other groups of wikibookians. Good luck on this and all your future projects. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your apology. I understand that this is a heated process, where some very different opinions have been offered. I am not trying to belittle you either, and I hope that we can also work together to try and make this an incredible project that we all know it can be. I do believe that we have far more in common than what may divide us, and on that note, thanks again. --Rob Horning 16:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your thoughts on the staff lounge

If you have time and would like to get involved, please consider adding your thoughts to my staff lounge brainstorming page. --User:Iamunknown 05:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Note on Wikibooks:Deletion policy/Unstable

Just to inform you that the policy is up for discussion. --Panic 05:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration Finale

I don't mean to step on your toes here, but considering the inactivity on the arbitration hearing, I've posted a potential solution on the talk page. I'm proposing that the arbitration be closed, and that no further action be taken against Johnny or Panic (with certain warnings sent to both users to avoid conduct like the kind that brought us into this mess in the first place). If everbody involved can agree, I think we should end this now, and focus our energy instead on ways to prevent these kinds of situations, and to formalize the arbitration process in a way that we can implement in the future. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Panic doesn't seem interested in my proposed solution to the problem, and instead is opting to hear what you have decided on the matter. With that in mind, you haven't spoken word one on this matter in nearly two weeks by my count. I request that you do whatever you need to do to end this matter, and soon.
This arbitration, while entered into with good intentions, is an open wound for our project. Some of our most valuable and prolific editors recently have been upset by the process, and the longer it continues, the more we risk to lose. A pervasive negative feeling has entered our community, and we are starting to pay the toll for it. I've been very patient with this whole thing, more patient perhaps then anybody should have been, but I'm prepared to raise hell if this whole mess doesnt get resolved. I don't mean to sound hostile towards you, but I am very serious about this matter, and am not willing to wait any longer. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

After talking to a large number of wikibookians, both publicly (on wiki), and privately (IRC and email), I have decided to end the arbitration hearing early. I have asked User:Withinfocus to read what information is available, and decide if action is necessary against either Panic or Johnny, if any. This arbitration was a deplorable mess, and I could not stand to leave it open any longer. I also feel that you have not met your commitments in this area, something that many wikibookians agree with.

I ask that you do not attempt to reopen the arbitration case, or undo any of my actions or User:Withinfocus' actions on this matter without receiving agreement from the community beforehand. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you are assuming a huge amount of stuff here, and presuming a whole bunch on your part. You, Whiteknight, have been highly critical of this whole process and claiming that I was going to spell ruin to either my reputation. It surprises me that you are instead going to be taking the arrows in the back on this issue when clearly you wanted to keep yourself so clean from any final outcomes of this action.
BTW, excuse me (speaking rhetorically) for being a volunteer instead of a paid professional staff member here. Perhaps next time I need to start charging some sort of "court fee" or some other silly nonsense if I become a moderator? This is simply a very confrontational attitude to have toward this whole thing, and you seem to have missed the point of what I was trying to do here. The whole thing needed a chance to cool down and let everybody take a break from trying to be so confrontational. It appears as though you have decided to enter the fray here and be confrontational to me as well.
Unknown to me when I started this whole process, I ended up having a few personal issues that have come into my life where I havn't been able to spend quite so much time on this one particular issue. Especially over the past couple of weeks. I felt that to properly come up with some proper remedies and to hear everybody on a fair and impartial basis, as well as to review logs and other items, I needed some more time to go through everything that was presented and give it a good review. Full-time professional judges in similar situations would demand nothing less, BTW. And they are people with considerable experience and several full-time assistants who are able to work with them to help prepare formal briefs and do other tasks that I am only able to do on a very part-time volunteer basis. There have been other issues in my life that have been much more pressing, especially as they relate to trying to teach an adolescent on how to live his life where I have primary parental responsibilities. Enough said. Please in the future learn how to treat volunteers much better than this, if you ever care to have any stick around. --Rob Horning 23:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Rob, I'm hoping that you can see that the decision made isn't an attack on you; it was a collective, collaborative decision made for the best of the community. I wasn't involved in that, but as it seems to me that you were not able (and this is no criticism; life takes priority over Wikibooks) to notify people of your absence or an expected return date, I can understand that the consensus was that action was appropriate in your absence. It might be good to take some time to consider that others were not intending to be confrontational; as an observer, your willingness to revert actions of others may be well-intended but could itself easily be seen as confrontational rather than consensus-based. I believe you meant well, and that your contributions are valuable -- in this case though, circumstances meant that you were not in a position to address the community's perceived needs. I hope that soon you will see this largely unfortunate episode not as one of adversarial stances between admins but as one where there were difficulties in resolving a situation and a number of people with good intentions had troubling finding common ground. In the last few days I've seen new names editing the C++ Programming book, and if that's a sign of a trend then it's a good thing; whether the calming effect of this storm on that book is involved or not we will probably never know. It *is* tough handling perceived criticism when working as a volunteer -- but do try to remember that, online as in life, it's best not to assume malice where incompetence or misfortune is an equally good explanation.
Thank you for your efforts in working to resolve this. There was no win-win situation available, I fear, but the damage still need not be extensive or lasting. Accepting that all admins involved have acted in good faith, even when there are differences of opinion on how best to proceed, could go a long way towards reestablishing a cooperative atmosphere. -- James Dennett 02:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I do see this as a very personal attack against me, particularly when threats of wheel warring have been made against me. I am very curious about what forii were being used in this situation for achieving a "concenus" on this issue? IRC? off-line e-mail exchanges? Phone calls? It certainly was not transparent, nor was the discussion directly listed or even pointed to and discussed on the decision page. I don't even see who was pushing for this final outcome.
Furthermore, what I strongly resent was that the process I had established to try and come up with a formal resolution to this (trying to decide what actual actions should happen) was not followed nor apparently even understood. Precisely to stop the mob mentality that seems to have taken over here, I requested that those who wanted a certain course of action to take place (like a six month user block) speak their piece with room for the "defendant" to reply and suggest perhaps another course of action. This did not occur, but instead "frontier justice" took over. This was not a community decision, but rather the decision of a minority of Wikibooks users who happen to be in close contact with each other. What happened here with Panic is a miscarriage of justice. --Rob Horning 14:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
First off, I do not mean this to be a personal attack on you, more an attack on the process. I never threatened to wheel war with you, I asked only that you receive community support before any attempt to reopen this matter. Even the notes to you that I have struck out did not contain any such threat, and I would appreciate it if you didn't accuse me of that sort of thing. We may not agree on this issue, but that doesn't mean that I am being uncivil, unhelpful, or breaking any sort of rules around here.
I don't feel like you got enough community support to start this process in the first place, a fact that has been bothersome from the beginning. You meant well, that much is undoubtedly certain, and you certainly care for this project. I won't question your motives, nor will I disparage your volunteer efforts here when there are clearly more pressing matters for you to attend to in your real life. However, nobody asked you to take these responsibilities onto yourself, and nobody forced you to start a long and convoluted arbitration process to deal with this mess. In starting this process, you made a committment, and in the end you were not able to do what you needed to do in a reasonable amount of time.
Even if you aren't able to spend lots of time on this project, there are several users on this site that do spend many hours on a daily basis here. We have an amazing core of active people here who, every day, are here breathing life into this little project. What alarms me is when a number of these users start talking about leaving this project forever because of this nonsense. Besides the people who felt victimized by Panic originally (and threatened to leave because the administrative staff here were apparently unable to take decisive action), there was also User:SBJohnny went from being a mediator in a content dispute to being a defendant in an arbitration. We went overnight from a community who prizes trusted users who are encouraged to use their judgement, to a community where suddenly that judgement is suspect and open to endless attacks and accusations of "abuse of power". There was no disagreement, except from the defendant about disciplinary action taken against him at the time, and the only criticism came from people who felt the admins did not act quickly enough. On Panic's request, you created an arbitration that this community did not agree to, and one for which there is a precident against. You expect us all to just wait around for you to return in this condition?
I ended the arbitration because I perceived the negative aspects of it as far outweighing the potential positive ones. I've used my best judgement in resolving this problem, and I don't think that I violated any policy, any guideline, or any behavioral norm in doing so. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 04:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration Decision

There are many things to say about this issue. Unfortunately you were not available during an extremely important time here and you're seeing the necessary actions that had to be taken, actions that didn't have to happen if the process and Panic were handled appropriately earlier. Let me remind you that no consensus ever established your "arbitration process" as the proper solution, even though several parties participated in it for some time. As the "arbitrator" you had the crucial duty of watching this process which you abandoned for over a week, an unacceptable lack of action.

For one, three extremely prominent users and admins here were so distraught over this process and stagnancy that they seriously considered leaving the project, something that would have been terrible for the community. In many ways this process ripped apart the sense of community we have here with its rushed set-up and use. You might consider my action blunt, but I considered it the proper solution to end the already lost process. Panic's comments became more and more insulting, abrasive, and uncivil, never approaching a solution but merely trying to justify himself as doing all the right things and being some sort of victim. Numerous users across the project have noted their agitation towards what was happening and became more and more angered as Panic continued his soapbox. Plenty of opportunities for comments were given and a solution became less and less achievable as time went on.

Panic had months to remedy his attitude and actions and continued to verbally abuse his once-enthusiastic fellow book-writers through the arbitration process. Panic repeated the same statements again and again that he doesn't think he did anything wrong and that no one can prove anything, yet he somehow continues writing because he's "trying to learn" or something along those lines. We have all spent way too long playing along with this fruitless game of arguing and so it was stopped.

You can see the boost of community involvement and relief here now that the arbitration has been ended. The performed action was what the community wanted and so Whiteknight and I acted on it, representing the community. I have no vendetta against Panic and have had little to no contact with him before this process. I read all the "choice words" he and the other parties placed on the page, listened to what many users thought I should do and what they thought of the process, and performed an action I truly believe is correct. That it differed from your process that no one approved of is not an issue. I was not hostile whatsoever.

Panic needs to leave the project for some time to get his attitude straight and over these six months he will hopefully learn how to better interact with users and be a thoughtful, collaborative contributor to a book. Panic would have never stopped responding in his currently abrasive form and no one active was interested in wasting time with the argument. Since Panic has been stopped at our site, he has gone to a Steward who has also denied any requests of his. Jimbo Wales will also most likely ignore his e-mail entirely and the process will hopefully truly end. It may even take a block at Meta to stop his comments.

Almost nothing has been immediate in this drawn out process. We have all heard the issues over and over again. There should be no appeal process. This was a community decision and you are going against that decision, something that I am greatly disappointed with considering all this talk about fairness. This decision has positively impacted Wikibooks and the community wishes that it not continue. -withinfocus 02:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand what "not being available" here meant. You certainly did not e-mail me asking me for any help or advise, or asking me if I was willing to turn this over to anybody else. You did not post this on Textbook-l asking for some general help, or in your case even ask me politely even on this talk page if it would be reasonable to take over from me. There is enough information on my various pages that if you wanted, you could have even given me a telephone call. There have been other ways to contact me if you had cared.
What I see here is a virtual equivalent of an unruly lynch mob that has taken over, by a very small sub-set of the Wikibooks community where you and Whiteknight have assumed you are speaking for the "majority" of the community but I am insisting that you are speaking out only for a very vocal minority. This is one of the things I was specifically trying to protect again, and I believe you have gone way beyond your "authority".
I also fail to see why you had to perform the actions you have done here to this degree.
As to why Jimbo is ignoring his e-mails on this issue, all I can say is "Wow"! You apparently have not been following that Jimbo is intentionally stepping back from Wikimedia projects in general and refusing to become an arbitrator for petty little decisions like this in particular. To suggest that you were trying to bring Jimbo into this process speaks volumes about what I think happened here.... this is just a lynch mob where a bunch of people didn't like one particular user.
No justice or reasonable impartiality took place in this situation, and the preceedence in regards for Wikibooks is going to be permanently harmed if this sort of situation is repeated. This is not the end of this particular situation. --Rob Horning 13:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice in the future that if you have a response to me, please indicate it on my talk page like all other conversations around here go. Nonetheless, I believe this will be my final comment on this issue since we're all moving on (besides yourself perhaps, but there are no further places to take this issue in Wikimedia and I consider all this over). Perhaps in six months we can discuss it again in a celebratory sort of way when we welcome Panic back.
You were definitely unavailable. For one, this is the Internet and doing something like calling you on the phone I find ridiculous and would never do. Whiteknight wrote many messages on your talk page over several days and also e-mailed you. I find those actions more than enough of an attempt to get your attention and am not interested in mailing lists. Since you were so caught up on not being a professional but a volunteer here, I don't see how we're supposed to use any other communication methods to contact you. You should be active at the site you had a duty to and we shouldn't have to hunt you down wherever you are about a process that you neglected. Furthermore, I don't remember signing over legal Wikibooks rights for you to handle business here. Again, since you're a volunteer, others can come in and volunteer too. We don't need your permission to do something here and the matter was becoming especially urgent as well. Even though we don't need that permission, we still tried to talk to you about it anyway and you were unresponsive. I care plenty about Wikibooks and for you to suggest that I don't is offensive to me, but I'll move on.
I'm not buddies with Wales nor do I care to be and therefore I'm not up on his recent moods and fancies. Wales shouldn't be involved in this at all and it's Panic ridiculous attitude that even suggested he be involved. Redux seems to have fully convinced him however that this is the end and the action is final. I don't understand what you're saying about me involving Wales since I have no interest in that whatsoever since I believe our community took care of this. Also, I have had no interaction with Panic before this besides possibly one or two talk page messages about trivial matters. I developed my decision through Panic's arbitration write-up and constant bad attitude which I'm mentioning here again for probably the twenty-fifth time. Don't try to say I'm "picking on him" since he created that opinion himself.
If this arbitration had gone through and you had not blocked Panic for a significant period, there would have been a large portion of active users leaving the project. I hope you would have gathered that before making a decision had you been active these past two weeks. I still am one hundred percent confident that I was impartial in this matter due to my almost total non-contact with Panic before this process began. I formed my opinions and ideas from reading the process. You are far less impartial than I am in this matter. Wikibooks users are quite pleased that this process has ended and are now working on forming an actual consensus opinion on how to handle this now at Wikibooks:Resolving disputes. We certainly will avoid this situation in the future since none of us want to do it, including this unfortunate first and last time it will happen by the looks of how users are commenting on the above page.
The actual decision had nothing to do with you other than you didn't do the job you took on and so others had to try to repair it. There is no personal attack and I have no problem with you. Next time make a mention of your absence at least so that we can try to work with it if you're doing something crucial in the future. -withinfocus 17:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I take some offense to the accusation that because we have disagreed with you, or because we have acted against your plan or your wishes that we either (a) don't understand the wikibooks community, or (b) we have descended into an "unruly lynch mob". Any kind of accusation of mob mentality, or an accusation that we are acting without the appropriate forethought in this matter is highly offensive, and I believe that it is groundless. User:SBJohnny was completely neutral during the original mediation when he decided that Panic needed to be disciplined. Because of my involvement in the matter, I asked User:Withinfocus to handle the final actions in the arbitration, because I knew that he was completely neutral. I went so far as to ask User:Derbeth, our only other active bureaucrat, to avoid the discussion entirely, for fear of getting him involved in the situation (and therefore, potentially, developing a bias on the matter when and if it devolved after the arbitration was ended). Forethought, planning, contemplation, and reflection have all been properly exercised in this matter, and everybody acted in their best judgement, without reducing to a mere "lynch mob". --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 04:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
PS. As an addendum, I wanted to point out that I did propose a solution to the problem that would have ended the arbitration, and not taken any disciplinary action against panic. I offered him the opportunity to end the arbitration, return to work on the C++ book or any other book he saw fit, on the requirement that he be extra careful not to be uncivil, and not to be perceived as uncivil. He declined this request, despite my sincerest efforts to convince him otherwise. I doubt strongly that any lynch mob would have offered this solution. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 05:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An example of on-wiki discussion

You may interested in a post on my user page. I noticed Whiteknight post a note to you asking you to stop the arbitration [2] to which I replied Whiteknight should e-mail you [3]. He responded on my talk page that he was very agitated and would not for a while, but solicited my opinion, noting that he and I tend to disagree on almost every subject. [4]. I replied with (what I consider) three significant points: that I did not consider your actions reprehensible, but a good-faith effort to solve a problem; that, if I were in a position of power, I would attempt to contact you before any action was made; and that I would ban Panic if it were my choice [5]. You were not contacted prior to the block, but you will note that I was at least one community member who was in support of the block and was engaged in on-wiki discussions. --Iamunknown 03:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

As an additional note about this topic (one that I did not talk about in my lengthy response above), I would like to point out that many of the discussions on this topic were simply not appropriate for posting here on the wiki, and a conscious effort was made to move such discussions off wiki. This is especially important for discussions where people are making accusations, where people are making insults or ad hominem attacks, or other instances where discussions are unlikely to remain civil. As a matter of not only policy, but also common courteously, many of these discussions were not posted in a public forum.
As Iamunknown pointed out above, he did advise me to email you, and I admit that I did not do this, as I likely should have. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 04:38, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I am rather curious about how much of this discussion about this situation was with Panic and insults and exchanges where made off wiki (on IRC or e-mail exchanges) or if this was merely people who felt that Panic had gone too far and talked among themselves, fueling the fire among themselves thinking Panic was far worse that I can possibly see from his edits here on Wikibooks. For just about everything I have seen so far, Panic himself was not a part of the IRC conversations, and he has shown a general relutances to get involved with e-mail exchanges, and in particular has been very civil in all of his correspondance with me. I just don't see what the big hurry to block his account was really all about here and why it was such a priority to be done in the way it happened. --Rob Horning 19:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
In the vast majority of exchanges with me, Panic has been very civil as well. SBJohnny and myself spent some time (several weeks, if I remember correctly) on IRC consoling Darklama about the issue. "It can't be that bad", or "We've never heard other complaints about him before", and "Just ignore him, do your own thing". to his credit, Darklama did seek help off wiki, and did not attempt to start a flame war or a wheel war in a more public forum. Wikimedia does have a policy forbidding transcripts of IRC chats from being copied or distributed, and we also don't have any policy or guideline saying that such conversations should be documented or summarized (whether we should create such guidelines now is an issue worth some consideration). So unfortunately, a record simply doesn't exist. My point being that no short amount of time passed between when the initial complaints were made, and the time when Panic was blocked. The first block was even a nominal short one, 2 hours at a time of day when Panic didn't edit frequently. At no time was anybody jumping into some kind of witchhunt to block panic, or "punish" him, or anything like that. A slim minority has called for panic to be blocked indefinately, a result which I was strongly opposed to.
The big priority was not to block panic (at least not on my part), but instead simply to end the arbitration process. My first attempt to end the arbitration was by offering Panic an informal "probation" instead of any kind of block continuance or extension. He opted not to take the offer, and two days later the negative effects of the arbitration became more then I could accept.
I would hope you could take me at my word on the things for which there is no record, but I have no illusions that you think i'm particularly helpful, trustworthy, or honorable at this point. There is some discussion brewing that panic's block should be reevaluated and possibly shortened. If you feel the 6 months is too long a time period (and I make no real assumptions about your thoughts or conclusions in the arbitration) you would do well to join this discussion. If we decide within two weeks (a short time for any decision, I know) that panic's block should be removed, he will have only been blocked for the amount of time he would have been in lieu of the arbitration entirely. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Indeed I first went to the IRC channel to ask some questions, because I thought it was likely inappropriate for the wiki and to seek the advice of others more experienced then myself and to vent a little. Most questions where in the form what should I do or not do if anything, because I couldn't find anything having happened before or any help file or policy with advice that covered what I was frustrated over. I was ready to assume the worst and that I was somehow completely at fault and ready to hear what others thought I might need to do differently and take blame for it completely. Through discussion, time passing and following advice and seeing other people experiencing similar problems, I no longer shared the view that it was entirely my fault and even for a time thought it might just be due to miscommunication.
I don't seek to punish Panic by my belief that he needs to be blocked indefinitely, but rather a reflection that Panic is detrimental to the mission of Wikibooks and my belief that this will not change. Based on recent efforts by multiple people to reason with Panic in what I believe to be a reasonable requirement, even though Panic has turned each one down, I'm willing to emend my view a little in that I think he should be blocked indefinitely until such time as he demonstrates through his own words that he understands why I and other people find him difficult or impossible to work with and any other issues that people may wish him to show he has an understanding of, and explains what he is willing to do differently to prevent this from continuing to be a problem. After which I think if everyone is satisfied with his response, he should be allowed to return on probation and be required to do as he said he would do to prevent this from being a problem, even after the probation has ended. The probation would involve him getting blocked indefinitely if he breaks the agreement, without any additional warnings and without any more chances to redeem himself. --darkYin yang.svglama 21:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why the 6 months?

I guess my user talk page has become a user forum here, but I am still not sure why the six month user block here. If there are so many people who say he won't be blocked indefinitely, six months seems to me to be essentially the same thing, at least from the viewpoint that I was dragging my heels for two weeks and was being an incompitent arbitrator. This seems like overkill to me, and an attempt to do the next best thing to an indefinite block. --Rob Horning 11:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Post-arbitration-decision "coaching"

Considering all the troubles that have come out of the final decision about Panic, I've decided to get involved again to see if there's a way of re-integrating him into the community. My approach will be to engage in calm dialog with him, as a "coach". You can see the beginning of this here. My intent is to get to a point where he makes it clear that he (1) understands the problem, (2) will try to avoid the problem in the future, (3) will make a commitment to not getting into trouble again, and (4) will understand that we will prevent him from causing further problems. I've made a more formal proposal of this on Matt's talk page, since he is de facto the current arbitrator, and therefore the person in charge.

I must ask you to stay out of this for now (especially during the first step), unless you feel that I'm being horribly unfair. Panic needs to focus on this first point, and having more than one person to talk to will (in my opinion) just spur him into playing us off one another. He needs to look at his own behavior in an objective way, and I'm going to do my best to help him in that task.

I should point out now that while step 4 might seem harsh and threatening, it's meant to be the opposite. If further blocks are performed, I'd like these to be "time outs", rather than punitive measures... little breaks where he is given time to rethink and explain. I know this guy a bit now, and I know he likes to see how far he can push any envelope. The point is to allow no games. I strongly suggest that his block be considered indefinite until he agrees to get along, and that he should not be threatened with an infinite block unless he really games this system.

This might be a wasted effort, but it's worth a shot. I'm asking for your support. --SB_Johnny | talk 22:49, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to get at here, as Panic percieves you to be an "enemy" now after a sort. I still fail to see how this is really more than a content editorial dispute, with perhaps some personal attacks (going both ways, mind you, even if subtle) and some issues about multiple reverts on the same content. But nothing I've seen on the part of Panic has approached the level of blatant vandalism, or being accused of being a "troll", whatever definition you may be using here (your words, Johnny, on the block log). Even the points that were brought out in the arbitration pages by you and those issuing complaints against Panic were nothing more (from my perspective) of being more than a strong clash of egos over the direction of the C++ programming Wikibook. I have seen much worse behavior and much stronger clashes of egos on Wikipedia, where new user contributions are openly reverted on the basis of ignorance and having not participated in the previous discussions, and not being a "major contributor".
This isn't to say that I necessarily "approve" of all of this behavior... far from it. But I just don't know what all of the problem is here that it rises to the level of a user block, or that it has risen to the level of a major controvercy for all of the Wikibooks admins to be dealing with this issue.
I know, this is all stuff that has been said before, and I was "warned" about this issue that you, Whiteknight, and others have been saying that Panic is trying to expand this whole thing to deliberately blow this out of proportion. But at the same time you and the others who have been responding here on my talk page are also letting this get the best of you as well. I think it might be better if perhaps a completely neutral party other than those who have been involved so far try to help out in this situation. I do think that may be possible. --Rob Horning 12:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
It's nice to "hear you talk" in the calm manner I'm more accustomed to, Robert. Please consider talking to me (off wiki) before you retaliate in your argument with WK and Matt... I really think you've misread them, but even if you haven't, hitting back is not going to be a constructive move. I'm reachable over IRC, email, or phone if you prefer.
As for Panic, I'd like to stay involved now (a bit of a break from him has allowed sufficient cooling of my head). I don't expect him to to see me as neutral, but he can and should still work with me anyway, given our history together. The way he's talking now, I can't imagine he would see anyone as neutral unless they agree with him, as he's apparently quite firm in his belief that the problems lay with others, not with him. He's a very hard person to talk to, and a slow, patient (but firm) approach is the only way out I can see right now. Working with me rather than you might be problematic in some ways, but the problem with you running it by yourself is that you're just not around enough lately, which is a rather serious issue since Panic needs to have questions repeated rather consistently before he answers them. Earlier I had tried to get him to talk about it, but he kept avoiding the topic... and unfortunately I ran out of patience for a while and stopped trying to interrogate him. Should I lose patience again, I'll arrange for someone to take over before I remove myself.
One other favor I'd like to ask of you is that you please refrain from stomping off. "I'm taking my toys and going home"[6] isn't a great approach in this atmosphere, and your blow-up with Matt last night was a blow-up with Matt, not necessarily a blow-up with anyone else. If you're going to help with this, you need to maintain a thick skin and see it through (and please let us know if you need to take a break for real-life stuff rather than just mysteriously disappearing). Resolving this will not be easy, but will be a lot easier if we can keep cool heads. You've got to be in or out on this, period... and if you feel that this really is beyond us and should be turned over to the Stewards, that's fine too, since each turn lately seems to be a turn for the worse. --SB_Johnny | talk 17:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IRC

For probably the fifth time here, I did not use IRC to have any sort of discussion. Please absorb this before you continue to repeat it again and again. -withinfocus 13:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

So how did you achieve "community concensus" on this decision? --Rob Horning 13:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Again, try to comment somewhere so that I can see it more easily. I have mentioned several places that I discussed this and Whiteknight has as well. Iamunknown even gave a fully documented discussion. Your comments are becoming quite hypocritical. I've reverted your edits on the arbitrator page since they are both incorrect and inappropriate for you to edit. You must be quite uninformed if you think the original process is going to be resumed, especially with you leading it. I'm not interested in discussing the issue as a whole, but I will certainly comment to no end about never using the original process if necessary. You should know quite well that almost no one supports that procedure. -withinfocus 14:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I'll leave this alone. Good bye for the next two weeks. --Rob Horning 14:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I too plan on leaving this alone. Although I don't understand the specific two-week window, by now both you and I are unsuitable people to discuss this matter, Whiteknight as well. The community needs to do their thing and for the best we should be uninvolved in some of that. -withinfocus 14:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] my "threats"

I did not threaten you with either a wheel war or an account block. I am tired of your false allegations on the subject. You may not like what I did here, but trying to demonize me with false accusations is neither helpful nor particularly civil. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah... but a wheel war is happening... and a revert war on the arbitration pages. Good luck on trying to resolve this issue, and my hands are now completely wiped clean of this whole issue. I don't think that either you nor Withinfocus really care to get down to the truth on this matter, and have targeted me personally in part because I'm not rolling over and insisting that Panic got what he deserved. Wikibooks is a much weaker place because of all of this, and I am not going to even have a role now with Wikibooks for awhile. So long and good bye to everybody! --Rob Horning 14:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
A wheel war may be occurring, but one that I did not threaten, and one in which I am not involved. "Truth" seems to be far from your motivation, considering the number of false statements on the matter that you have made recently. Accusations both of threats and of collusion, and inflammatory name calling ("unruly lynch mob") are hardly your brightest shining moments ever. This entire fiasco has been little more then an exercise in your perceived authority here. You created an arbitration mess that ignored previous community precedents, you failed to get any kind of community agreement at any step of the process, and you ignored and dismissed all criticisms on the matter (from myself and others). This whole mess that you created led wikibooks into the flames, and now you are "washing your hands of it". The people who really care about wikibooks will still be here every day cleaning up your mess long after you've left. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Apologies

Some of the discussions between us did get a bit heated. I removed the block because of Xania's actions of restoring an arbitrary (to me) block time period. His action invalidated my actions and so I "restarted" the decision process by letting Johnny step in and say his piece on Staff Lounge. I felt that ending the arbitration that so many people disagreed with would be better than reverting Xania's actions since the community should have its say fully and officially (even though I believed my decision had the backing of many community members). We are by no means enemies and I have no problem with you. Some of your opinions I disagree with from time to time but like you said that's natural. You too are a valuable contributor here and since I have, with help from others, brought us out of the arbitration situation, we can work on forming community standards for all future decisions. I don't believe I'll be participating too much in those dispute resolution discussions, but will be reading them over to see how things are adapting here. -withinfocus 23:24, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

I have had second thoughts about whether I did the right thing, and many small regrets along the way, but have come to the conclusion that what I did was the right thing to do, and that this is a necessary process. --xixtas 14:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Main page

I have started a discussion about this at Wikibooks:Staff_lounge#Changes_to_main_page where it suggests Wikibooks:Nearly_complete as a main page. RobinH 13:39, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Panic2k4 sockpuppet block

I do not know the nature of the dispute and decided to provide my outside opinion. It is intended to be my opinions/advice in the matter. Nothing more.

From what I understand, User:Panic2k4 was blocked and his/her sockpuppets continue to edit during the duration of his/her block. There has been checkuser evidence and confessions to back this sockpuppet allegation. However because of the absence of a policy on wikibooks some people feel the block of sockpuppets is unwaranted.

I am a commons admin, and we too do not have a policy on sockpuppets on commons. However aggressive sockpuppets are blocked on commons left right regardless of the absence of a policy to do so. There is no point in having a checkuser on wikibooks if such sockpuppets are not to be blocked.

--Cool Cat 16:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

In all wikimedia projects, disruptive editors can be blocked, policy or not. Drini 16:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I am not objecting here to having others try to help mediate this, or to have some Stewards try to review the situation as well. The whole thing with Panic resulted in a formal arbitration situation that was by itself (the arbitration process, not necessarily the issues in the arbitration) hotly contested, with individuals hostile to the process and circumventing the arbitration process performing the block. I also believe that they were biased parties who had reasons to perform this block, but that is water over the bridge.
As far as if the block is legitimate is irrelevant at this point. Blocking the duplicate accounts (read here as a sock puppet but IMHO not strictly the same thing here) by this same individual person simply as a means to block this same individual shows more the weakness of the MediaWiki software and the social policies we have that encourage anonymous individuals to be able to edit here. I could post more here, but the fact is that Panic2k4 has been largely discredited by many members of this community and the value of having a formal account is moot in his case. It also demonstrates proof that the behavior of those who want to kick this individual out of the project is likely to encourage vandalism. I hope this doesn't come into a situation of "see, I told you so". --Rob Horning 18:35, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Robert, I hope you didn't take offense at my use of the word 'absent' on the latest 'mediation' page regarding Panic. I was trying to provide Cool Cat with a brief summary of all the events so she knew what was going on. Panic hadn't given any details about the history so I decided to and described you as 'absent' as this was the cause of most of the recent disagreements (although I had absolutely no problem with you being 'absent' as this is your right and it was hardly for several months). You'll notice that I have blocked Panic again in the past few days. I felt the block was better coming from me than from SBJohnny again. Panic had been winding SBJ up, going off on tangents and refusing to address the actual issues of the mediation. I didn't want an indefinite block but this was the feeling I got from most other users and I understand that by 'indefinite' we mean that he can be unblocked at any time and as soon as he cooperates a little more with the mediation and assumes some good faith with regards to SBJohnny. Xania Flag of Poland 2.svgtalk 21:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I think this is coming close to "see, I told you so" in regards to Panic. It also shows the futility of trying to push somebody off simply because you don't like them personally, when we otherwise welcome anybody and everybody to edit these projects. It would be a different story if we had a closed list of users that was by approval only or by invitation only. There is no "approval" process to become a registered user and Panic is unfortunately (through "sock puppetry") proving this in an oh so clear manner. He has also been backed into a corner where he is being attacked on a very personal level, and this whole affair is going on in part because of several individuals who want to "stick it" to Panic.
As far as the general issue of trying to control/remove a problem user, I think the aggressive approach that seems to be used against Panic is not working. Even if Cool Cat agrees with the user blocks that have been done, it still doesn't really deal with Panic other than turn Panic into a Wikibooks-specific vandal that we will have to deal with over the next several years. And it has turned into a fun game for Panic that will do nothing but cause further aggrivation for all of those admins involved, particularly those who have been trying hard to "reign in" Panic. The only other potential solution would be to close up Wikibooks and force new users to seek permission to become an editor on Wikibooks. I highly doubt that the WMF will accept that as a solution to deal with only one user who not necesarily the entire community feels is so problematic that he needs to have the welcome mat pulled out and told to go away.
The real value that is gained by having a "registered user" account is that over time, you accumulate what could roughly be called "karma" or some other social value, where you are noticed and have value due to the value of your contributions. Performing a user block under our current system merely throws out any accumulated value from using that account. That IP blocks may also occur helps to block some users, but it really is an imperfect system. There is no way on a Wiki such as ours that you can completely kick somebody off.
I hope that some cooler heads will prevail here and try to show some genuine leadership that seems to be missing. What I see is a certain group of administrators that are letting their position of "authority" get to their heads and acting in a despotic manner. This isn't necessarily something unique to Wikibooks either, and I've been seeing this attitude even on the foundation level. The situation with Panic is merely the embodiment of this attitude rather than necessarily the real problem here.
My religion has a scripture that deals with this very thought: "We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion." (See [7]) I do think that is what is happening to a small extent here on Wikibooks, where people are taking that authority to their heads and are not seeing the larger picture of what could happen if they had but a little patience.
My big complaint now is that the attacks are moving from Panic and instead headed directly in my direction. This is something that I don't necessarily want, but I'm willing to defend my actions and stand up for those who I feel are being bullied. What happens to Panic is now largely out of my hands at this point other than I will continue to be an advocate in defense of Panic and try to see that he gets a fair hearing if he wants to get use of his original account. --Rob Horning 19:30, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent Comments

I've gotta say that I find some of your recent comments disturbing and hypocritical. After returning from your earlier absence and viewing what had taken place, your eventual comments on mine and others' talk pages is quite different from what you're saying now. I read statements of yours like on Cool Cat's dispute resolution page and don't understand why you write what you write. It's like a long list of excuses and a big blame sheet for what's occurred. I don't see how you haven't understood the community's voice by now or why you choose to take such a soapbox with this issue but Panic has greatly disturbed Wikibooks. I'm not going to waste the time in responding to each of your excuses and the blame you've wrongly associated me to but as you continue to prolong this issue, something that could have ended some time ago and is now actually over, I am losing faith in the rationality of your edits. I have to discount your earlier apology since it now seems to have been merely an appeasement. -withinfocus 21:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't understand those like you who seem to be speaking on behalf of the "community" here. You can speak for yourself, but when you try to speak as though you represent the entire community I think you have gone over the top. Certainly I was not happy with the user block on Panic, even though he has certainly had room to dispute the structure, content, and flow of the C++ Programming Wikibook. This was a content dispute that has simply gone over the top. I am also very vocal that I did not like the way the arbitration ended in regards to Panic, and I still think that it was ended by hard-core opponents to Panic, not by people who were objective in seeing a judicious resolution that would come to a conclusion with ultimately Panic realizing that he needed to clean up his act a little bit and some legitimate restrictions within his books. I believe it is precisely because of the way that you, Whiteknight, Darklama, SB Johnny, and some others have acted that will prolong this mess way beyond what could have been had you simply tried to work within the arbitration process I proposed.
Indeed, what I take objection to here is that there was so much opposition to even the idea of formal arbitration, even after I obtained implicit and explicit acceptance between the main parties involved and Panic, that I was essentially unable to continue nor really able to act objectively as an arbitrator. Usurping my role as an arbitrator when the parties involved did not agree (clearly Panic was not one of those agreeing to your intervention) threw out any legitimacy of the eventual outcome, including your user block.
What has happened now is that I am being personally attacked, and those attacks are continuing where I think incomplete truths to even out right lies are being perpetuated about my actions here. I have tried to bury the hatchet, but at the same time I feel that Panic does deserve some support. And if I am attacked in a public form, my gloves are off and I will fight back with a vengance. And this time I'm the one who is going to be seeking formal arbitration over what seems to be offenses against my account and edits I have been making.
Did you really believe that by "going over my head" that I was just going to be happy about this whole situation? --Rob Horning 18:47, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
The only lies that have been propagated so far have all come from your account, Rob. Your continued insistence that you are somehow being threatened or personally attacked, that there is some kind of insidious "cabal", or that any of us have acted against Panic for personal reasons are both hurtful and offensive. Ever since this whole issue started, you have failed to assume any good faith on the part of other wikibookians. You have referred to people who disagree with you as being a "very vocal minority" in a way to marginalize and dismiss any criticisms. You have referred to us as an "angry lynch mob" and a "cabal", and you have called this entire situation a "witchhunt". You have said repeatedly that we have acted without logic or proper forethought. What "offenses" have there been against your account? What offenses have been made against your edits? What is it that has been done to you that you have not done worse? What gives you the right to repeatedly post, in public forums, long monologues filled with lies, accusations, and misplaced blame? Not once have Withinfocus, SBJohnny, Darklama, or my self used such disgusting or offensive tactics as you have demonstrated recently, Rob. I see in your actions a complete lack of respect or even civility, and considering your history with this project, you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:30, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I wrote a decently long response to this but as I tried to post it and saw that Whiteknight responded already (edit conflict), I realized that it's not worth prolonging the argument since you're just way too into this personally. What Whiteknight has said is quite correct and you're being irrational. "Don't disrupt Wikibooks to prove a point" even though I would say none of your points will ever be proven since I am confident the community will dismiss them should you continue. As far as your personal arbitration is concerned, I don't know what you're thinking of doing but it can't be here as of yet and I definitely won't be involved. -withinfocus 19:48, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I say this is a "Cabal" mainly because it was a self-appointed group that sought to overturn any and nearly all of my actions in this matter. There was no attempt at all to try and find a neutral party that could take over that would be agreed upon by all parties before action was take in the form of a user block. And furthermore, as you have both done here on of all places my own talk page, gone after me with very personal attacks. I believe this to be a very vocal minority and not the will of a majority of Wikibookians, and that both of you are fanning the flame even more. BTW, how am I disrupting Wikibooks at all right now? What have I done in terms of edits that have rewritten either policies or content that either of you two have written recently? I'm speaking my mind and defnding my actions. And I do think that Panic is unfairly being singled out when I know for a fact there are other users who are just as strong willed as Panic that are editing both here on Wikibooks and other Wikimedia projects.
Where it is going now is that this is no longer an issue between you and Panic but with me as a party instead. And I will not go down quietly. --Rob Horning 21:05, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
This is absurd. There are no personal attacks occurring and to throw a tantrum like this is pretty disappointing. You seem to be living in the past and I see no value in you continuing your rationalizations about the failed arbitration, something that is long gone now. You are disruptive because you're running around writing your personal opinions about how you think you're correct and stirring up old battles that people don't want to be a part of. Maybe this is how you think you'll redeem yourself after your previous errors. Adding all your drama such as "I will not go down quietly" is quite silly; I picture you defending a civil war base with a flag in your hand and the national anthem playing in the background as you say that. I am not doing anything with Panic anymore and am discussing matters with the community. Whiteknight is helping mediate with Panic and find a future resolution. That's just the two of us, but the other cabal members / conspiracy legionnaires are trying to make progress as well. I won't be responding here anymore due to the offensiveness and sheer incorrectness of these comments and I definitely won't be doing any sort of arbitration or mediation with you either, so I'm considering this matter closed. Maybe if you continue to read around and see what's happened lately you'll realize what's actually occurring. -withinfocus 01:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The absurd part is that you call us a "cabal" because a group of wikibookians decided to defy the Rob monarchy. Wikibooks is about collaborations, not having to do as Rob says. Why is it that you are the only person who gets a license to be bold on matters like arbitration, and you are also the only one who doesn't have to be nice and civil when you post here? You post lies and accusations about me and other wikibookians, in addition to insults, and somehow i'm fanning the flames? You've posted a series of angry, ignorant, lengthy monologues that i've largely ignored until now, and i'm prolonging the fight? When you started the arbitration, you didn't ask a soul. You never said "i think we need to find a better solution", or "I think we should bring in a neutral party". I talked to over a dozen people before I shut that disgraceful failure down. I'm not going to claim that a dozen people is enough to make large decisions here, but it's certainly better then zero.
And you've claimed on numerous occasions that I can't speak for the community, and that I dont know what the community wants. Does that imply that you do know? I am here every day, on email, on IRC, talking with wikibookians. What have you read that I haven't? Who have you talked to that I haven't? What do you possibly know about this community that I don't? How is it that you seem to speak for this community, but that I am not qualified to do so? I will not claim that my activity is a metric of my quality as a wikibookian, because we both know that it is not. I will, however, claim that I am more in touch with this community then you are. Withinfocus, SBJohnny, Darklama, and a whole slew of other great wikibookians are more in touch with this community then you are. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 02:17, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
WB:CIVIL
Get a life, both of you! --Rob Horning 16:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Robert, that's not productive (nor of course is most of what the others have said above). Y'all might to consider the possibility that the current group of vocal wikibookians both has cabalish aspects and reflects the community rather well. --SB_Johnny | talk 16:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Having had a couple weeks to calm down here, I do want to point out that I am still not happy with the process that happened here. I do not think I was given a reasonable opportunity to mediate in this situation, and the "change of venue" was done without the cooperation of Panic. I also do not believe that Whiteknight and Withinfocus had the full community concensus to act the way they did. In fact, that the user block done by Withinfocus was overturned is a clear demonstration that such concensus was not achieved. This whole thing (IMHO, and speaking just for myself) would have been much better resolved had both of these individuals just had patience to wait for me by just a couple of days. The wheel warring and edit wars over the arbitration pages were especially disturbing to me, and I feel that I was bullied into giving up there. That was completely unnecessary and it was a very direct and personal attack against me.
That there were some individuals very pissed at Panic is true. And those who weren't upset with Panic had many more important things to do with their time. It is this reason why I think I can say that this was not a community decision, as those Wikibookians who weren't already involved in the dispute wanted to stay away from the clashing egos. Time is on my side of the arguments here, and will more clearly seen based on how other actions are done. That I am now in nearly constant disagreements on multiple issues with Withinfocus is something that I lament now, and certainly this confrontational attitude has spread to other areas of development on Wikibooks.
The root causes of this dispute have not been resolved, but instead it has become a wider and more diffuse personality conflict that is happening on several levels. I can't re-open the arbitration I was doing at this point, and the situation with Panic has been resolved more or less. It isn't perfect, and there are still individuals who would love to see Panic blocked again, this time on a permanent basis. At this point in time, I will continue to be a staunch defender of allowing Panic (if he wants to) as a contributor to Wikibooks. As I have said earlier, by kicking me out of a role as a mediator, I feel that instead I have to be a defender. I don't understand why there are individuals (not just Whiteknight and Withinfocus, but many others as well) who can't comprehend my actions here in this regard, but as a general rule I try to assume good faith, particularly on the part of brand-new contributors. If it is a choice between a brand new contributor and an old hand, I will defend the new user on the (perhaps mistaken) idea they should have a thick enough skin to take constructive criticism. --Rob Horning 14:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WB:FbN

I saw that you were doing some work on the featured books thing, I hope you don't mind that I joined in the fray as well. I've already updated Wikibooks:Featured books, and Wikibooks:Good books to point to your new nominations page. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 22:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for this effort. I know the Good books page had a sort of nomination process, but I would like to get this to be a more prominent feature, including eventually a link right on the main page (next to or near the featured book itself, like the Book of the Month had been earlier). --Rob Horning 22:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry for all that mess

Hello Robert, just to say tanks for all the support, sorry to get you placed on that situation. --Panic 05:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

As long as what we do here is to help grow this project and make the best books we can, I'm glad that I was able to help out in my small part to let you know that you weren't alone. I (and others) really would like to see you continue to be involved in helping develop Wikibooks if you are willing. --Rob Horning 06:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Can you give your input on this User_talk:Cool_Cat#Sorry_about_all_that... see last posts, I can't seem to be understood and I don't agree with some of the points made or the views expressed stating that it is irrelevant. --Panic 04:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)


I don't want to get directly involved here, but I think Cool Cat is completely mistaken on the part of dual licenses. You certainly can have very incompatable licenses that are dual-licensed material. For example, you can have content which is licensed simultaneously under the GFDL and Microsoft EULA. There is nothing wrong with that. If you choose one of those licenses (the Microsoft EULA) and decide to stick with its terms, you have to ignore the other one, the GFDL in this case. All you are doing is offering multiple alternatives for legal republication of content.
Also the notion of that all Wikimedia sponsored Wikis are under the terms of the GFDL is also flat out wrong. Wikinews is under the CC-by license, and some of the Wikimedia Foundation pages are a strict propritary copyright... no license for republication at all. The Wikimania pages are "free to use, but not to modify". I don't know where Cool Cat gets his notion that the GFDL is so universal. That the WMF is a supporter of copyleft publication is true, but they are not 100% consistant here.
I would also discount most of the other legal advise that Cool Cat has offered to you. Read the GFDL for what is strictly required and stick with that... or go to http://www.gnu.org/ and get some real advise from some people who actually understand the GFDL... as they wrote the thing in the first place. I did find this post from over three years ago from Richard Stallman that dismisses nearly all aggrigation arguments that have been used for fair use and license combining on Wikipedia. How it applies to your situation will vary, of course.
You own all your own contributions, and can relicense them any way you see fit. The only requirement we have here on Wikibooks is that you give us a license to use them under the GFDL. If you want to use another license, including CC-by-SA-NC or anything else, you are welcome to do that and even post that on your use page (to drive the point home). But that also applies only to your individual contributions and not to what anybody else has done on previous or subsequent edits. Since the GFDL is (most likely) the only common license for most Wikibooks contributors, as a practical matter you could say that only the GFDL applies. But you can seek relicensing from other users as well under other terms, if they are willing to join you in those terms.
As far as establishing a policy on a particular Wikibook to have all contributions to that book be under a dual license, that is a bit harder. I would suggest that it may be possible, but is a very grey area of Wikibooks policies. There certainly would be many individuals who would object to allowing such manditory dual licenses to be enforced in a particular Wikibook that is different from the rest of Wikibooks. The GFDL must always be there, and at any time we could simply say that the second license no longer applies for future edits. This is also something that should be established when the Wikibook is started and can't be retroactive, unless you have the full unanimous agreement with all previous contributors including anon edits. --Rob Horning 04:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Yup more or less on the same ideas I have on the subject, but I would even go a bit further (I have mentally toyed with the idea), and I know it would be morally wrong, I could publish as an example the C++ book under a non GFDL license without any input from any other contributors (since the changes Darklama made to the authors page), I'm the single author under the letter of the GFDL at the moment, no one else has "signed" the work. My national copyright law (that can't be much different form the international standard, and a bit more protective than the US version) any work contributed that doesn't constitute a significant change (on the GFDL derivative work) doesn't give authorship, and if the author doesn't expressly state so on the authors page (as required by the GFDL) any work contributed and not expressly authored reverts to the original signing author(s) (there may be a problem with the edit clause), and for instance the FSF expressly states that it will only help actions started by authors of works, the only mine field I have identified is only the edit notice but I think it can't be defended that it applies to the whole site or inside the book's license. To simplify things I could print a full copy as is and then use it to publish the work under a new license, bypassing that barrier. (this is speaking theoretically, I have nor the inclination or intention to do so) --Panic 05:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I would have to agree here that making an administrative edit (adding or removing a category/VfD notice, etc.) does not constitute being considered an author. Certainly reverted vandals don't count, even though I've seen far too many given credit when it was completely undeserved. You might be interested in a proposal I made on meta here: meta:Summer of Code 2007#Authorship determination The issue of authorship is indeed something that has not been seriously considered at all. I even added a bugzilla request here (Bugzilla:2993) that would have addressed some other authorship issues in at least a voluntary manner. It seems as though deliberate action on the part of several "upper" Wikimedia Foundation members is explicitly trying to stop any kind of authorship recognition. A proposal was even made here on Wikibooks to explicitly ban author pages entirely as being against the WMF privacy policy, and had the support of at least one member of the WMF board of trustees. See this edit by Angela Beesley (former vice-chair of the WMF board) for an example. I successfully blocked that attempt, BTW.
Again, as a practical matter, if you have contributed nearly all of the content to a Wikibook, removing those minor sections that may have had other contributors is not going to be that difficult to achieve. You do not automatically lose your ownership of those words as soon as somebody adds a comma. Since you own the content, you are certainly capable of republishing what you actually wrote yourself under any other content license including none at all (completely propritary copyright).
Keep in mind that explictly "signing" an author's page is not required either, or unfortunately. From a political point of view, I support the idea that for copyright enforcement you need to explicitly "register" the copyright, but that doesn't seem to be how most international copyright treaties view authorship any more. Copyright instead occurs when it is "fixed" in a tangible medium, like a computer hard drive. In this case, the MediaWiki software does list who the contributors really are, and any author pages are merely a tool to help sort out additional details.
To effectively defend copyright, you need to have the actual legal name of the person making the contributions, their nationality (what nation's passport they hold or citizenship), where they are currently living, and when they were born, and when they died (especially because of the life+70 copyright laws) or if they are still alive. This is all required for copyright registration, and at least in the USA is required before you decide to enforce copyright (you need to file for copyright registration if you are going to take legal action). While I could argue that other contributors still don't lose their copyright if they don't provide this information, I don't really know what courts would do with people who insist upon maintaining an alias in terms of being able to force compliance to the terms of the GFDL if they choose not to stand up and assert their copyright. I should note here this is one of the reasons I edit with my actual legal name here on Wikibooks.... I assert copyright on everything I contribute. And it is very difficult for somebody else to claim they are "Robert Horning" as I am not using an alias. This is my actual name.
Yes, I no longer enjoy anonymity here as a result of this, and I am also a bigger target in a libel situation, but I am also very concious about what I write in that regard. Perhaps not at much as I should be, but it still is a problem. And this is a choice I have explicitly made, so I'm not requiring this from anybody else. Posting you name on your user page does effectively the same thing, so I'm not necessarily saying you have to switch the name of your account, but it has become an issue for some individuals, notably w:User:Essjay, if you have been following that situation. He was presuming anonymity and he hit a situation he had to put up and show who he actually was. I am not going to face that same situation because I'm up front about who I am. --Rob Horning 06:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
  • reset

For what I understand (I did try to find it out), US law doesn't account for the anonymous author, my local code does, protection is granted to the work based on the publication date on those cases, it is up to the author to disclose the information, I can't believe the US doesn't give that protection to authors. On that search I have found that the authorship may be limited by age on the US (I can't get my mind around the logic of that).
I have no problem with Wikimedia or even the community blocking or working to make attributing copyright harder (this ultimately will benefit us all, as consumers), I do consume more than I produce (and most people do if not closed in a box), what irks me is not stating that openly and let people know it, to me it is working equal to be in bad faith against the users. As an creator my main motivation to participate here was to build stuff and to be able to point to the things I create, by diluting the work one makes how does one state his achievements, or why bother to perform a greater contribution of content if any one can claim to have done it.
I assure you if I had understood from the beginning the implications I would not have used Wikibooks and would have created the content outside even under the GFDL (I have no problem with the freedom of the license), for instance I contribute from time to time to wikipedia but I do it anonymously, what I don't like is the convenient way people brush aside the pieces they don't particularly like. (Referring mostly title/cover pages stating the authors or credits given, granting authorship based on the weak history logs, or just because of spell correction or even the rewording of the text, without taking into account the size of contributions, this to my view will only reduce contributors if they are properly informed of the facts, and I don't see a logical reason to do so since the license gives freedom to the content).
This is also a poor way of educating people, I can't understand how can anyone claim to have built a house if all they did was hammer a handful of nails.
As for anonymity or even stating an "visible" identity it all comes down to how things are verified, for instance I don't particularly like some of the tags people use on their userpages as they can easily be ego builders (ya, I know good faith), the world is as it is and I'm a bit paranoid by nature, having good faith doesn't mean to be blind to reality, people are of 3 types ("idealist", "realist" and "radical"). My stock of idealism is very low and things have not been as bad to make me a complete radical :) --Panic 07:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Signing" an author's page is required to be counted as an author (GFDL - This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License.) the license states the authors page as the place to do it. --Panic 07:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the counter argument to this is that you "sign" as an author when you hit the "Save Page" button and your edit gets into the page history. While the fundimental capability is within the page edit histories to sort out ownership, it is only a theoretical exercise at the moment. In this case, you can (with a bit of work) be able to identify at least those authors who are willing to stand up and take credit for their work. I completely agree with you that this situation can and should be explained much more clearly.
As for anonymous authors, there is sufficient grey area of the laws that I wouldn't try to assume that what they have written is in the public domain, but as I was trying to say, if you aren't willing to appear on a witness stand, clearly state who you are in court, I don't see how you can practically enforce any kind of copyright. And the nationality of the author is necessary to even determine what court has jurisdiction. This is why authorship nationality is even requested at all. You are protected under the laws of your country, even in USA and other Berne convention countries. In other words, when your content crosses international borders, what is or is not copyrighted does not change. This hasn't always been the case, but it is international law at the moment. The only case where there are differences is for older works that were created prior to the Berne convention.
While not strictly necessary in a legal sense, I think it is strongly recommended that you do sign an authors page, and it certainly helps to simplify trying to determine authorship as required by the GFDL (v 1.2 - section 2-b). I do not accept the argument that you can choose any random five individuals on the history page, including vandals who have not contributed to the content creation at all and in fact have been counter-productive.... particularly when such authorship claim is at the expense of very legitimate contributors who have made considerable effort to make the content and have stood up to be noticed on the talk pages and elsewhere. --Rob Horning 13:56, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
But the when you sign with the save button you are using a generic GFDL (no work is specified or by default the Wikibooks namespace), under the aggregation of independent works, the edits you do inside the independent works are not covered by the general license (hence independent) and you are agreeing to the GFDL of the virtualspace you are editing. That is why disagree on how page moves and merges are performed on Wikibooks (most of the time without giving reference to the original work, I have done so in the books I've worked).
Another important point is that history logs are not exact they are easy to be corrupted, for instance Darklama has in several pages os the C++ book mered old pages into a new ones (even on his user space) and deleted the originals the history of the originals were lost, he is now by using the history logs the "creator" of all the content. (I have asked the correction of this to him and WK (he recognized the fact at least) and so far no actions was taken, this is a further example on not performing the required moves we talked about)
I agree with all your points except the faith you put on these history logs and the requirement you make that would make it a default to have a reference to a real person to let a user be an author, it should be up to them to decide if in the future they would like take any action that would then require the information to be public, in all the rest I'm in complete agreement with you. --Panic 18:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I really don't have all that much faith in the history log, and the page merger feature does add additional complications that pull edits out of context. Going through merged page history is very difficult to determine exactly who wrote what and when, or to follow a natural progression of the page as is typical of most edits. It sounds like Darklama is not doing a proper page merger here. If there are specific pages that you want the history restored from, I can go back and at least add back in the original edit history to show who added the content originally. You should not do a page merger by doing a simple cut and paste, and the original edit history ought to be preserved in most cases in some fashion. This is why we are now using the page import feature for transwikied content from Wikipedia.
If you want me to review some of the deletion log of Darklama, I would be willing to do that. --Rob Horning 18:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
In going over Darklama's edit log, he certainly has been one very busy admin! The pages that you mention are not quite so obvious to me, so it will take quite a bit more work to see where there might be some problems. If you can identify what pages were deleted that you have a specific complaint about, I can see if I can get at least the preivious edit history restored. Please let me know how I can help here. --Rob Horning 18:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
  • reset

Gezzz, he has made so much structural changes that I couldn't point all out but consider examining every one that he is one of the 1st contributors or pages that state a recent creation date, for instance C++_Programming/Programming_Basics is a merge of 3 pages (and the example I gave above), if you see my Watchlist I remember it could be done (has it changed ?) you can see several pages that were deleted, and he has moved over several original pages with edits or constructs. I can't see anyone being able to retrace all the changes that created corruptions of the history logs, for instance if a move of content is not performed in block (page) it is a simple edit to another location (if the original page is erased and restarted the log is lost) and attribution of the content to the original contributor is impossible. --Panic 19:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I see that even Darklama noted that he copied the content directly over from what was a transclusion earlier. I can also see that substantial portions of the edit history certainly are missing. And because of the massive use of transclusion in the early edits of this page (one of my major complaints about using page histories.... transclusions are the current version not the historical version), it is very difficult to see just where all of the content came from. As you said here, this is very ulgy in terms of trying to recreate the actual authorship, and you certainly have reason to be upset here. With the massive use of moving pages to user space and back again, this complicates matters even more as it appears as though talk pages have been removed, moved or deleted completely as well. Ow, this is a complicated mess, itn't it! --Rob Horning 19:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not seeing the same as you (I can't as a user), but not all must be blamed on Darklama, remember that the book was forked, and forced merged (during the merge the original pages may have been mangled, I'm not an administrator so I can't be blamed and I even opposed the merge on that basis), but as for Darklama he was aware of the problem and I stated it so especially on that particular page, I did go as far as mark it for rapid deletion with the bases of duplicating content on the book namespace (he then moved it to his userspace), I have informed him of what he was doing and the results (at least 3 times) we was perfectly aware of the consequences I state this fact as it has implications on other discussion I was having on the level of trust and knowledge one deposits on administrators, that discussion is on Whiteknight talk page and I saved it here User:Panic2k4/Sandbox/RapidEdit as it is indeed troubling, it was a result of the discussion about limiting the arbitration to only administrators), btw I've used some of your references and wordings without attribution (so not get you into the discussion or seem offensive to Cool Cat). --Panic 19:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sex!

I do actually agree with you in general on this - my worry is that I just don't believe it will be fixed - there are already far too many books out there that have had maintenance tags on them for quite a long time. Frankly I am not a policy person at all - I do however care that the readers of Wikibooks are pleased with their experience and are hopefully tempted to contribute constructively. This one seems to fail that test (IMO & the talk page tends to bear this out).

In addition there are certainly other chapters that are not well crafted either but I don't see bringing the whole book in as an option (tho I did think about it).

The Island one - one other vote & I will happily "speedy" it myself but I had serious doubts on how many admins had looked into the category. --Herby talk thyme 16:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] That was hillarious :)

I had a nice giggle over the Chess book oopsie... how the heck did that happen?

On an unhappier note, what's your opinion on this Wikipedia policy? A few poor souls are really trying to update and improve our policy structure, but it's becoming rediculously difficult to do so. --SB_Johnny | talk 17:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The "nominate featured book" link was to the VfD page. I may even be the guilty party on putting the wrong link there, but instead of creating a new section on the featured book page, it was turned into a VfD. I'm just glad that I caught the mistake right away.
I'll look into that policy and add my own comments to it. --Rob Horning 17:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I have said most of what I can say about this on Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Arbitration, as it applies to Wikibooks. Certainly the Wikipedia policy does not apply here on Wikibooks other than as a very informal guideline. Most user bans are for blatant vandalism, and I don't think that is even under dispute at the moment. Where it gets tricky is in dealing with users like Panic who have obviously made some very good faith efforts but have also creating a screaming lynch mob that is out to kick him off the project.
Note here that I'm not trying to accuse any individual or reopen wounds, but making enemies and inciting hatreds is not a way to be cooperative. If you've pissed off so many people, even if what you are doing is completely within the technical side of within project policies, you might want to cool it off for a bit and try to regain some friendships instead. When working with others, it is far better to be nice and cooperate, even if you have to back down and not get things accomplished exactly the way you wanted them to be working in the first place. --Rob Horning 18:03, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
That's a very good way to put it :). I find policy writing frustrating to begin with, but I've thrown a monkeywrench in a gear or two as well when I'm worried that a policy is too open to harmful interpretation (like you (I'm pretty sure), I am very much an anti-deletionist except for the obvious "no can do" books). We need some sort of solution for this kind of trouble though, and I'm drawing nothing but blanks, because it seems every attempt at solving it (including yours and mine) causes even bigger problems. It's a really tough call for anyone to make, and the task of making that call is a lot to ask of anyone, especially in light of our ideals on Wikibooks. --SB_Johnny | talk 19:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Frustrations aside, I dont really believe that blocking is going to solve this particular problem. Wikipedia has a much higher volume of disruptive people, and trying to accept them (or even ignore them) is likely much harder then it is here. For them, to prevent a complete shutdown of the system some elements really do need to be removed so the rest of the community can get on with business. I think we need to remember a point from the decision making guideline that a single stubborn, difficult, or eccentric person isn't enough to stop the forward progress of the community at large. Consensus only requires consideration for all reasonable objections. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, that doesn't address the (perfectly valid) frustrations of the users being affected by trolling. We are talking about trolling, which is (thankfully) more common on web forums than wikis, but the pattern is the same: trolls try to get other users/contributors to debate or argue endlessly with them on any subject they can find, often using the other persons words against them in order to keep their opponents on the defensive. It's not the same as vandals... vandals are uncreative, and have no desire for dialog. Trolls want dialog above all else, and while they may make constructive comments or contributions as well (usually they make a point to do this, in order to keep the community from deciding that there's absolutely no reason for tolerating them), they spend most of their time and energy "trawling for suckers" (apparently the etymology of "troll"), and baiting people into further dialog. It's a very hard call, because while on the one hand there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be in a dialog with members of a community, there comes a point where insisting on that dialog gets in the way of the community members' ability to do what they're here to do (in the case of a web forum, the reason people come to a forum is to discuss whatever the forum topic is; in the case of wikis, people come to wikis to create content). If someone is consistently disrupting the flow or conversation (on forums) or creative progress (on wikis), continues to do so after warnings, and clearly has little interest in moving the project forward, the community needs to have the power to shut them out.
There's been a lot of loose talk about "consensus" lately, and in particular some have either taken it to mean "unanimous agreement", "majority opinion", or "a new concept that isn't well defined". All of these are rediculous. As I might have mentioned before, I am a Quaker, and we Quakers have governed ourselves through consensus for a few centuries. I suppose we're famous for "shunning" (a very rare practice that I've never seen), but we also have a process of "standing up", where the meeting members silently object to inappropriate messages (messages against our faith). I've also seen people (usually over-enthusiastic evangelists who have been disruptive in the past) stopped at the door to prevent them from disrupting a meeting (similar to what a "block" does here on Wikibooks), and it's not done because we love them less, but only because we know they're up to no good. Consensus isn't magic, and you can respect someone as a human being without letting them disrupt your community. Both of you need to stop fucking around with notions of "users' rights and dignity", and focus on the goal of creating textbooks that are free for the use of all (or even policies about textbooks that are free to all). This has gone on far too long. --SB_Johnny | talk 20:38, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I am trying to get on with textbook development. I have spent far to much time on policies and such, with the arbitration experience taking up far too much of my efforts as well. I have one textbook (Serial Programming) that I really need to get back to working on. And there is another textbook that is related which I'm trying to work on with a relatively new Wikibooks user that looks like it could be very interesting if we put it together, going over USB devices. I'm still trying to come up with an outline and title for that book, however. This is above and beyond my efforts with History of Wikibooks, which I also want to get going on. So there are plenty of areas for me to push forward with that don't deal with policy matters. --Rob Horning 00:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I'd like to help on the History of WB project as well, but honestly I'm feeling pretty exhausted by the same issues (I'm working on the garden book as always of course, but that runs on a whole separate fuel tank). BTW, I hope you don't think that I think that you are trolling! (I only mention that because I've been misinterpreted so often lately that I'm in "better state the obvious" mode... trying to parse my every word for possible double entendres has been the most tiring part of the whole mess, to be honest!) --SB_Johnny | talk 02:35, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright

You Wrote: "Reever2, I would like to let you know that I'm not so concerned with the "external links" as Herbythyme has expressed here, but I am concerned about the potential copyright violations. We are cautious, almost to the point of paranoia (some would say even beyond that), to make sure that all of the content which is contributed to our project is contributed legally. We go way beyond what is legally required in terms of being a "safe harbor" and aggressively go after copyright violations which we detect through a number of methods. One of the reasons for this is that we do intend in the future to be able to redistribute and possibly sell the content here on Wikibooks in other formats besides just web pages.

A general assurance that you have permission to copy this content is not very comforting, especially when we aren't completely certain that you are who you claim to be here. It makes our job much easier if the web page itself grants explicit permission to use the content under terms like the GFDL, or we have some way to verify independently that permission has been formally granted to this project. This is mainly trying to build some sort of trust relationship that the rest of our on-line community can also rely upon, and to make sure that if we reuse this content elsewhere (under the terms of the GFDL) that we can do that legally. We do not permit a license "for use only on Wikibooks". I hope you can understand this. We are not asking you to give up copyright here, but you must explicitly grant us a license to redistribute this content to other places, including commercial usage, under the terms of this specific content license. Most of our participants understand this philosophy, so it generally isn't a problem, especially when content is added a paragraph or two at a time and heavily edited and rephrased.

As far as the external links are concerned, we tend to discourage redundant links unless they add significant additional value or are of a bibliographic nature. I understand the desire to try and build up external links to your website, but explicit links with what appears to be a desire to improve page rankings with search engines is seen as a form of link spamming. We deal with this so often that the automatic response is to remove any such links until somebody can give a strong reason for including them in a page. This is nothing against you or your company, but we say the same thing to everybody who tries to do this. I realize that the video files themselves to add some value to these recipes, but our desire is to have all multimedia like this to be included under the same terms as the text itself as well. That isn't strictly necessary, but it does help as we intend to redistribute this content on CD-ROMs and other sorts of formats where an on-line link may not always be easy to access this content.

The Cookbook has a long history with this project, and in fact pre-dates the creation of this website and domain name. I would like to encourage you to continue to make contributions here as long as they are either original creations or you have been given (and are able to document) permission to relicense the content under the terms of the GFDL. --Rob Horning 11:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User_talk:Reever2"

Hi, Thanks for your comments. I have read the copyright obligations for Wikibooks, and am happy with your explanation. So can i get this straight- as long as i have permission to distribute this content i am ok to post. You can contact me on robert.reeve@videojug.com if you would like verification that i am in fact an employee of this company, and therefore have copyright permission. As for the external links- Google do not add page ranking (give added Search engne ranking benefits)to our site from any wiki pages, so we are not doing it for those reasons. We are trying to add good quality content to your site, and hopefully (i'm going to be honest) gain some referrals to our site. If you do distribute this material onto CD-Roms etc- our copyright will remain (that is correct isn't it!)

[edit] Sidebar...

Two things: first, please run that by the community before making the sidebar bigger. We've always discussed changes to the sidebar, sitenotice, and other highly visible css changes before making them.

Second: I can see the change on the mediawiki page, but not the sidebar itself. Aside from purging, do you have any good ideas? --SB_Johnny | talk 15:32, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

One, I did run it by the community... and this is a very easy thing to change back. I was merely being bold here. I mentioned I was going to do this on the Staff Lounge, but ok, I didn't wait. I am hardly the first admin to make changes like this. See Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Chat#Moving on policies where I did discuss this, or at least talk about ways to help improve learning about current policies under discussion.
As far as why it isn't showing up yet, that is because the sidebar is cached on the foundation servers and it takes about a day before it is refreshed. That is just one of the tweaks that Brion and his crew has done to try and improve CPU processing times for making project pages. The change will show up, but it takes a little bit of time to happen. --Rob Horning 15:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikibooks:Be_bold

I don't think Be bold can be improved further, I was going to propose a vote to make it a guideline, but you are proposing a change on how that is performed, would you like to put this guideline trough that motions ? Txs. --Panic 18:35, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

How is this page? --Rob Horning 20:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
 :) It is rolling now, txs. --Panic 00:41, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

I have placed a request in User_talk:Xixtas#Need_some_fixes, so links can change, but I think this is more your subject so I'm asking you. C++ Programming/TOC2/Print Version uses the template Template:Excerpt version notice I have some time ago added the GFDL (it was first objected to by Darklama and SB Jhonny) but no reversion was performed so they must agree to it being there, I noticed that the authors copyright page is still missing (I have no problem in not having in on the TOC2 but print version is different as it is to generate a stand alone work), not wanting to get into any discussion I ask you if a book even marked as an excerpt does or not require the GFDL and the authors copyright statement on the print version ? Txs. --Panic 01:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

You don't explicitly need a "author's page" transcluded here, but I think it would be one heck of a very excellent idea. I don't understand the whole controversy or why anybody, especially Darklama and Johnny, would be objecting here. This is so silly that there is any objection at all that removing this sort of stuff is IMHO unjustified.
On the other hand, the author page is desperately in need of fixing up and actually showing the real authors that have contributed to the creation of the content. Where possible, you should allow people to put their actual names and even where they live, or at least the country where they are living at. This is important author information and necessary for copyright enforcement. I completely disagree that the information in the page histories is sufficient to contain this information. There is enough information there to glean out the information necessary for a minimum level of authorship recognition, but that is all there really is. It would take in my mind a very burdensome effort to realistically even determine who the principle authors and contributors to the content are. I know, I've tried to build such a list for several Wikibooks, and it is not a trivial task at all.
And, for this to be truly a "printed" version, a hyperlink is not sufficient to build the list of names of authorship needed for section 2(b) of the GFDL. You need to have the actual names of the authors. For a web environment, the hyperlink is sufficient, but not for printed matter.
There are some tools available now on the Wikimedia toolserver to somewhat help with the task of counting edits, but as I have mentioned earlier, that is not really an effective method of determining authorship or quantities of contributions. And furthermore, as you also pointed out, the repeated page moving, merging, and deletion is something that has lost a significant portion of this edit history as well. I can totally understand why you are very concerned about authorship of this particular book. You should not be the only author listed, but there is no realistic way to determine who else should be listed there either.
What a mess. I'll see if I can help find a solution to this and at least try to create a realistic list of contributors to this Wikibook. --Rob Horning 04:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, btw you noticed the dates ? I ask it because you made a reply, one could said it was/is useful as it will correct the other statements, any way txs again for the input.
(At the time, I even tried to email FSF and send a fax to Jimbo I was really frustrated...) --Panic 05:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spam

For your info that is the second user to spam us from the same IP address in six weeks --Herby talk thyme 15:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Did you do a check user scan? If so, thanks. I'm just trying to watch this user, and I'm trying to see if they might do more blatant vandalism. --Rob Horning 15:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Yep - CU checks out on same IP as previous. Derbeth gave me a tips sometime ago about the transient nature of CU info so I learnt to get around it - interestingly (& unusually) the IP has no record on WP. IP now blocked for longer this time. Regards --Herby talk thyme 15:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
BTW - my policy on bots would be to block them on sight if not authorized but I have been accused of being hasty! --Herby talk thyme 15:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Just don't block the CommonsDelinker bot :P. (We should probably put a flag on that one, really.)--SB_Johnny | talk 16:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
My only problem with the CommonsDelinker bot is that it removes evidence that the image was even in the book module in the first place. Often a "red link" image will stand out enough that somebody might want to replace the image with something more acceptable. This is particularly a problem if the text of the article is referring to the image that no longer exists, although I've discovered that the internet archive can put some context back into deleted images and articles like this. --Rob Horning 17:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, a lot of the time it's just replacing "problematic" images with good alternatives. We're probably in no desparate need of a flag though, since most wikibooks don't use a lot of images (unfortunately, I think). --SB_Johnny | talk 18:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I really wish that we had CommonsTicker. Then we would at least know when an image is going to be delinked. You'll see evidence on Whiteknight's and my own talk pages and scattered elsewhere across Wikibooks that we tried to get one going; Whiteknight, however, never got a response from the CommonsTicker operator. I might try again at Meta, where he answered an unrelated question of mine. --Iamunknown 18:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
We still don't have it?!?!? Iamunknown: if you have time, hang out on #wikimedia-toolserver (freenode). Ask for Deusentrieb... he's the guy with the keys to the bot. --SB_Johnny | talk 18:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 90 days, fancy laws, "admins in trouble", etc.

Reading your post on the staff lounge has pretty much brought me over to the camp of those who say you're more interested in being important to Wikibooks than you are in the importance of Wikibooks. I won't waste time reading your wordy comments in the future Robert, because it's pretty clear you're more interested in being a "player" than you are in the simple mission of providing free content to all, and helping to encourage those of good faith to contribute good content.

You are nothing like the person I once thought you were (and admired). I will never again see your comments as anything other than some wacko political ploy. You really need to stop playing this game with us.--SB_Johnny | talk 22:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I am not. I am so sorry you are so pissed at me and have decided that I am an enemy of yours. I hardly say that about you, or at least I hope you won't be. And who is playing games here? Are you trying to kick me off this project? Saying "I will never again see your comments as anything other than some wacko political ploy." is such a strong personal attack that I have no way to respond here. I tried to calmly explain why I felt that the content needed to remain here, and you have done nothing but do very direct and personal attacks, and quote me out of context, just like you have done here. And since I got involved with Panic, you seem to have completely mis-interpreted nearly everything I have said.
The DMCA is hardly a "fancy law".... it is the very basis to force removal of copyrighted content from Wikimedia servers if there ever is a copyright challenge. Please re-read (if you care) what I've said here, and that you can remove copyvios but you shouldn't delete them on the spot. --Rob Horning 23:55, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Puh-leeze. First, stop being paranoid about people wanting to kick you off the project. There are a few who might wish you'd go away (I personally wish you'd just mellow out and listen, rather than writing lenghty orations), but no-one wants to kick you off (how on Earth could you be kicked off?... I'm not being in any way flip or sarcastic: Wikibooks just wouldn't be the same without you!).
Your explanation was not calm. First you implied that someone (not sure who still) was "flaming" a new user. Then you stated that you would undelete if anyone deleted (despite the fact that the people you were talking to all felt it was problematic to keep it... if you're so certain about the "silent majority" you keep alluding to, just ask them to speak up rather than pretending to speak for them). Then you imply that anyone who deletes without your saying it's OK are somehow going to be sued in court.
And please stop waxing on about how "we" Wikibookians have always done something this way or that. It's great that you've been around long enough to provide us with a living memory, but most Wikibookians aren't from that old guard (most of them have long abandoned the project), and there are more than a few (me definitely included) who feel rather strongly that wikibooks has been mismanaged in the past (not intentionally, just not enough highly active admins like Az_1568 and Herbythyme around doing good gatekeeping, or "structural maintenance" folks like Jguk, Iamunknown, and me). For example we still have over 1,000 uncategorized images, and uncategorized means no copyright label. It's only been a few months since we even had local checkusers! And in the present case, it's just rather fishy for a commercial site to add all their content onto wikibooks (always with some external links to that commercial site).
We're all grown up now Robert. We aren't desparate enough to take content that isn't free, because we're getting new free content added every day, and there's no reason to think we won't have even more the next day. There have been massive additions of new, top-quality content to Wikibooks over the past year (there's also been a lot of garbage, vandals, spammers, and iffy stuff too, but of late that's been dealt with in a quiet, professional manner by our "staff" of admin volunteers. --SB_Johnny | talk 18:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Johnny, why do you keep flaming me and attacking me so much here, particularly on my user talk page? And for somebody who is a wacko that you won't listen to again, you certainly are responding to quite vigerously. I want this to end, but I will defend myself when flat out lies about what I said are made. And you have completely misquoted me on the Staff Lounge page, and are doing that here as well.
All I was trying to get across here is that a simple discussion about somebody who may have violated copyright was getting way, way out of hand here. Particularly when you said that the content needed to be deleted. Please, and I say this again, please re-read what I said here. I did not want this individual (User:Reever2) to think we were going to immediately delete this content if he was able to provide proof that he had permission to add this content to Wikibook, and it was your comments that IMHO went way beyond this to be critical about my suggesting the WMF didn't need to get involved. In fact, I see far too much of that around here, where people go running off to Jimbo to ask him a question or two to arbitrate a debate, or complain to the chair of the WMF. In nearly every case where these individuals (meaning Jimbo, Anthere, Danny Wool, or others) get involved with Wikibooks it has been to the detriment of this project, except when they are helping quietly to build content. In their official capacity to make a call on policy, somebody here always gets pissed, and some really pissed.
Please, take a chill pill here. I admire the very positive work that you have done here on Wikibooks, and I don't want to get you so steamed at me that you will thwart nearly every effort of mine here on Wikibooks. It isn't worth it for either of us to be this pissed. You are completely misunderstanding what I am saying here, and your anger toward me is clouding your judgment about what I am writing. Please relax, and note that I am not trying to wheel war with you or block your efforts if you keep helping out with Wikibooks like you have in the past. --Rob Horning 00:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FHSST images

Rob, I know you were around when the FHSST books started being imported. Many of the images are untagged. You may know that we have {{GFDL-presumed}}. I assume that the people who imported the FHSST books knew that they were submitting the textual content under the GFDL; is there any reason to suggest that the images would be licensed otherwise? If not, I will start tagging them with GFDL-presumed. Best, Iamunknown 19:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I would have to say that if the images were added about the time that the content of the FHSST books were added, that {{GFDL-presumed}} is the correct tag to put on them. All of this content came from another website (it was more static HTML at the time) where there was some effort to create the textbooks, but found that Wikibooks could offer them a supportive community that could reach out beyond their core development team.
Like this last situation we encountered with the VideoJug addition, the FHSST folks did have to learn a thing or two about copyright, but in this case permission was granted according to the GFDL and acknowledged by the entire group of developers of the content. The images that were added at this time were imported from this now non-existent website. While I don't know if they were as vigorous about determining copyright status as we are here, they did believe they had not only copyright permission to use these images but also to copy them to Wikibooks. I say this with a little reservation, because my experience in dealing with instructors is that they claim educational fair use on just about everything they find and largely act as if copyright is something left as an historical footnote belonging to the realm of "other people" than themselves. The text is rock-solid for sure GFDL, but the images I would hesitate a tiny bit, which is precisely why we even bother with tagging images.
Thanks for this effort.... it is very much appreciated. --Rob Horning 00:13, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Replied on my talk page

Robert, thank you for your kind note. I have replied on my talk page. Best, Iamunknown 06:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese Medicine section in Wikibooks

Hey Rob,

I saw that you were editing a wikibook on Traditional Chinese Medicine. Is that because you were correcting something or because you are a teacher or student of TCM? I would like to generate some serious effort and establish a larger TCM section in WikiBooks and would like some assistance in just starting off.

Thank you in advance,

Michael J

livinginspired@gmail.com

[edit] Reply to your comments

Hi Robert, Thanks for your message (over a week ago). Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time at the moment and so I tend to forget to reply to messages unless I do so immediately.

I can understand your frustration with Wikibooks at the moment and I know only too well that you have always worked for the good of the project. I see that you are a bit active again at the moment and I hope that you decide not to leave the project. I don't think people are trying to kick you off the project even if they might give such an impression - everyone reacts badly and on the spur of the moment at times. All good organizations relish discussion and disagreement otherwise they will remain static and eventually deteriorate. Your disagreement helps the project in many ways and makes people think before the leap.

Good luck and I hope to see you around on Wikibooks in the future.

Xania Flag of Italy.svgtalk 23:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ...

It seems unfortunate the way things have turned out. All the contributions of yours that i have seen, I remember them all being constructive and positive for the community. Perhaps this essay on Wikipedia - "Ignore All Users" - would be of interest. Wikiversity is another rather interesting Wikimedia project, with seemingly boundless long term potential; if you felt like checking that out, I'm sure you are welcome there too. --Remi 22:29, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Main page and other issues

Hi Rob. I am glad you are sticking with us. I am vaguely happy with the way the main page is turning out but would prefer more books "up front". There is a lot of good faith at Wikibooks but people do get carried away on specific issues. One of the problems with a purely written mode of communication is that we cannot reassure each other after bust ups. As you say, the presence of an elder statesman like Karl Wick might help us. RobinH 15:57, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks...

...for replying on the RFC. I haven't replied yet because I was (to be honest) waiting for you to comment :). I think it's better to leave it open for a couple days (and add some "kink-fixing stuff" on it, and actually announce it in one of the public fora (Staff Lounge/Chat? I definitely don't want to establish a tradition of announcing these on the admin's noticeboard, because that would only serve to strengthen the impression that Wikibooks is "ruled" by administrators, rather than just maintained by them).

While I'm on that subject: I didn't respond to you on the RFB page (because I was worried that you'd take my response the wrong way), but while I do understand that there's a prevalent impression that "tools = political power", I really do feel strongly that this should not be the case. They're just tools, which should be given to trusted users that might need to use them from time to time. The "tools = political power" thing is, in my opinion, a distortion of the Wikimedia community, and the reality of that equation on Wikipedia is one of the reasons I think (English) Wikipedia's community is corrupt (the other reason I think it's corrupted (or perhaps "tainted" is a better word) are the endless restrictions on administrative "power", but you generally don't get insurrections without bad government, and the best way to create a bad government is to put a government in power in the first place). Webaware, who is an amazing asset to our project, apparently rejected his nomination because he didn't like the political connotations. I think RobinH's reasons are along the same lines. They're just tools, Robert! Tools! We don't give them to people we think might abuse them, but other than that, they really are just access to a couple buttons that we don't give people the first day they decide to pop in.

(Just one thing though: why would you threaten something-or-other if I "refuse" to respond to the RFC? Heh, just reread and figured out what you meant... but the rest still holds). I initiated the RFC, so why on earth would I not respond to it??? That kind of goes to the heart of what I've been saying to you on a number of occaisions: you have a tendency to assume the worst intentions in those who have a clear history of having good intentions, and that applies to Jimbo (he's just some guy who had a nice idea, after all), Jguk (who really was just trying to help organize wikibooks on his "category spreee"), and Whiteknight every bit as much as it applies to me. It just really puzzles me why you so quickly go on the attack, and even more so when you accuse people of attacking you. You and I (and the 3 others I just mentioned) share many of the same desires, and we almost always agree on how to get there! Why does it have to be a battle every time? --SB_Johnny | talk 19:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

My striked comment above more or less illustrates why I think you should request a user RFC... it's gotten to the point now that I just expect you to "attack" me (or others), even though I know deep down that you don't really mean to attack anyone. User-conduct RFCs on wikipedia have a decidedly negative connotation (in fact they have an alternate version for the positive called "editor review"). What I'd like to see with our RFC process is more along the lines of "what do you think of this user's contributions/behavior/etc.?" Same process for both the "positive" and the "negative", aimed at helping the subject of the RFC becoming a better Wikibookian. --SB_Johnny | talk 20:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
My main concern about RFCs is that there really is only three possible outcomes: The person who filed the complaint is marked as a loony and discredited for even bring the issue up; the complaint turns out to be a massive misunderstanding and the issue is dropped peaceably; or the person for whom the RFC is raised is censured or other significant action like a user block is performed. In short I don't see the real value to these sort of call for comments unless there is a serious issue that needs to be resolved that normal discussions havn't already dealt with. And the ultimate goal should be to see how drastic of a censure ought to take place, not if it should happen at all. The act of raising the issue has already pushed the issue to the point that something (from the opinion of the person raising the request) ought to happen that may require invokation of administrator tools.
BTW, my main objections about Jguk's actions really didn't center around his implementation of categories (which I considered to be mainly harmless but irrelevant), but around his massive deletion of content on Wikibooks. During his tenure of being an active administrator, the number of content pages went down significantly, and I believed that he was removing some content perhaps too aggressively than he should have, and in many cases without even so much as a VfD. In particular a policy he added to WB:DP regarding the deletion of a significant number of redirects that did not get any sort of widespread policy discussion among Wikibooks users, and then he proceeded to act as though such a policy had concensus. Some of what he did was of a cleanup nature that really did need to be done, but my strong concern was on where to draw the line and say "STOP". He and I did disagree on some content, and I forced a couple of VfD discussions where earlier it had simply been deleted.
Regarding Jimbo's actions, he is a man who has been pulled in a dozen different directions and simply doesn't have the time to seriously get into project minutae to really understand the fine points of the discussion. He certainly has not been an active Wikibookian, although Jimbo does like the general idea of using Wiki software to develop textbooks. Compounding this disconnect by not being involved with the project (Jimbo certainly has not put any substantive effort to the creation of actual Wikibook content), he is also seen as the court of ultimate appeal with regards to policy disputes, and it was on this basis that I think he came in regarding the Video Game guides and a few other issues here with Wikibooks: Some people complained about the issues in external forums including personal e-mails to Jimbo or at public conferences and other places, and Jimbo felt compelled to raise a stink. What seemed to be missed was that in most cases there were existing fora (such as the VfD pages) where legitimate objections could have been raised without having to do something drastic like invoking steward tools and attempting to delete content. Furthermore, Jimbo displayed a significant lack of knowledge in the use of MediaWiki software and naming conventions on Wikibooks by only deleting the "main page" of each Wikibook he objected to. I suggested that if he really wanted the content to be deleted, that a simple notice to a couple of Wikibooks administrators used to the idea of deleting whole Wikibooks would have been a much better way to deal with the issue. Also, I felt that the Wikibooks community was very capable of dealing with these issues, even though the opinions of a well respected individual like Jimbo carried some weight in those discussions.
I just don't agree with a knee jerk reaction that everything Jimbo says is the gospel truth and significant disagreements with his opinions should not be considered. Jimbo is capable of making mistakes, and I think far too often his words have been used as official policy when they shouldn't be used as such. To give his words weight is fine, and to seriously consider suggestions from Jimbo is a good thing. But it shouldn't end discussion. --Rob Horning 19:09, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the thoughtful reply Robert... I'll try to get back to you later this eve, but Real LifeTM has me in a panic (crops getting in late due to absolutely crazy weather). --SB_Johnny | talk 20:23, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Have a few mins this morning (raining). I agree that RFCs have become that on Wikipedia, but there's no reason it needs to follow that example here. The primary goal should be to repair broken lines communications, or at least undo and prevent damage from miscommunications.
I don't agree with knee jerk agreements with Jimbo either, but he did have a good argument for why they're not appropriate. If on the other hand he is speaking for the foundation (as he was with the VGG stuff), then we can look for exceptions to the rules, but we can't simply ignore things. I'm suprised he used admin tools at all, but perhaps it was just to make the point clear. --SB_Johnny | talk 11:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Actually, Jimbo was not "speaking for the foundation", but was talking on his own. At the time the video game guides became a significant issue here on Wikibooks, the WMF was already well established and anything "official" certainly would have been a joint action. I'm just saying that his opinions are just that.... his opinions. They should not have been given more weight than that, although his opinions certainly should have carried some significant weight. What surprised me more than anything else was a bunch of individuals who were previously saying one thing (to keep the Video Game books here on Wikibooks) and suddenly they changed their tune when Jimbo spoke in a sort of "Jimbo can do no wrong" attitude similar to a cult.
And I agreed that there were changes that needed to be made on these and other issues within Wikibooks, I just didn't think such changes needed to be as drastic. In other words, something that could have been reached with true consensus rather than the bullying that did occur. And some compromise on the issue could have happened which did not occur either. --Rob Horning 18:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Books a big hit

On a more productive note, you might want to direct you attention to the Wikibooks:Featured books/Nominations page, that appears to be a big hit with the locals. Also maturing quickly is the Wikibooks:Featured books/Templates page, which is used to prototype book blurbs for the main page. Since you played a big role in getting this project up and running, you should be happy to see it become so popular. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2 other things...

Would you mind keeping an eye on Television Manufacture and Repair? The main author is a retiree who was "recruited" to write the book by User:Bastique. There are serious formatting problems, and User:Editor at Large is trying to help clean it up, but the author has apparently been reverting. Seems right up your alley (walking him through the ropes, I mean).

Second, there's some rumbling on commons about the problems in our Image namespace, namely the copyright issues. Apparently there have been images moved from here to there, which subsequently needed deleting. I'm not sure about the details, but at least one prominent sysop is considering getting the foundation involved. --SB_Johnny | talk 11:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What is Wikijunior

What is Wikijunior is proposed as a policy and has been included on the Wikibooks Policies and Guidelines Voting page. Please take time to comment and express your opinion in the referendum. --xixtas talk 03:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please offer your opinion about Template:GFDL

Robert, I'm afraid a legal mess has been made with Template:GFDL. It does not directly affect us but, if individual Wikibooks were to be published, it would. You are aware that the GFDL indicates that one must "Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers." If you look at the history of Template:GFDL, there was a point in time where the template was subject to Wikibooks' disclaimers, then later subject to Wikipedia's disclalimers, then finally subject to no disclaimers. Technically this needs to be sorted out; how to go about it, I don't know. Do you have any suggestions? --Iamunknown 09:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hey!

I know you and I rarely like to acknowledge seeing eye-to eye on things, I really am worried about letting WB:AN become something other than a maintenance tool. Power corrupts, so we should avoid giving it and/or having it... so if you might weigh in here, I'd deeply appreciate it.

BTW: I don't think the guy did anything wrong by asking there, nor do I think WK did anything wrong by answering there, but it's very dangerous to consolidate the SL into WB:AN. --SB_Johnny | talk 02:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Wikibooks Organization

It's my opinion that Wikibooks:CCO Librarians can likely be replaced by a link to the staff lounge or even the Wikibooks:Study help desk, which is another under-utilized resource. Condensing under-used resources could help to create a smaller number of resources which are easier to maintain, and easier to watch.

As for Wikibooks:CCO Resources, I agree with you that it either needs to be drastically expanded, or deleted entirely. I would far prefer the former option, but if we just can't find enough material to fill it with, I dont see any reason to keep it around. I'm not looking to delete anything just yet, or make any changes that are irreparable (or only repairable through an intense amount of work). I have made a number of changes already, and it's my hope that as people see progress being made, that they will be more warm to the idea of further improvements. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] meta:Wikimedia Pennsylvania

Unfortunately, we aren't looking at a national USA chapter, we've been encouraged to think more locally. We were going to do a "Wikimedia Philadelphia", but we were likewise encouraged to think a little bigger, and so now we are looking at a state-level chapter.

We will be the first state chapter, and as far as I know we are the only one in active development (although I've heard some rumors of a florida chapter and a New York chapter). Depending on interest and response, we very well might be able to expand our operation to cover a larger area, and possibly the entire US.

If I may ask, whereabouts are you located? If you're in the pennsylvania area and are interested in joining a local chapter, let me know. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your message of support. One of the things that Johnny and I really wanted to do, and the issue that sparked the entire discussion of creating a new chapter, is a grass-roots movement to advertise Wikiversity and Wikibooks (these projects specifically, although others as well). We wanted to keep it local and very hands-on, which is why we originally had wanted it to be "Wikimedia Philadelphia", instead of a state chapter. I live near philadelphia, and I'm not sure how familiar you are with PA geography, but the western portion of this state may as well be on a different planet some times.
What we want to do is hop in the car, go to some place or some group, and sit down with them to show them Wiki. We want to go to schools and talk to teachers. We want to go to Universities and talk to professors. We want students in college and even in highschool to be starting "Wikimedia Clubs", campus-based organizations that would work with our chapter to perform "charity" editing on WMF projects. I know that highschool students especially are always looking for those extracurricular activites for their college applications, and WMF-related group may be just the thing to get many disenfranchised students active, and set them up for a better chance at college success.
We also want to get in touch with local groups, to try and raise interest in writing books. An idea that we've been kicking around is to talk to locals like the Quakers, or even LGBT groups to write books about their particular movements.
And if you know anything about the Philadelphia-area school district on the news, you will know how much they would benefit from a free textbook alternative. If wikibooks became the "official textbook supplier" of the Philadelphia school district, it would be an amazing boon to our project.
All of these things really require a hands-on approach. I need to be able to say "Hello, I'm andrew, and I'm here on behalf of Wikimedia Philadelphia", because having that amount of officiality is going to help people to take us seriously.
Anyway, i'll stop wasting your talk space now. I'll let you know how things are going as they progress. There is a philadelphia wikimeetup coming up this month where we want to make an "official announcement", and after that we are going to start spamming the foundation-l and wikimediaus-l lists to get some participants interested. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 12:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Subject-specific templates

Maybe we would do well to create a set of new templates like {{software}} or {{programming language}} that will handle the LOC and DDC subcategorization automatically? Just an idea, would probably save us alot of work, especially since all those books fit into the same subcategories. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The beauty of using a single template for "Programming languages" is that we can alter the template to automagically move all the pages to a more appropriate category, if we need to. You are right that the Q subcategory is in need of heavy subdivision, and I am wondering if any of the other categories need it as well. The newly-revamped Wikibooks:CCO Resources page contains links to online LOC pages too, which should help us until we splurge the money to buy a copy (which we could probably ask the WMF to do, if needed). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:51, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
It's almost enough to make us reconsider the idea of a proprietary "wikibooks organization Number" or something. I have to look through the staff lounge to see what it was called, but when you start comparing a free system to one that is either crippled or expensive...well it might be worth some kind of thought. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LOC: Category F

I replaced category F in the LOC template. Even though E and F are similar, they are different. E is for the history of the USA specifically, F is the history of the remainder of the americas, not including the USA. A small difference perhaps, but a difference nonetheless. Hope you don't mind. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

What I would like to avoid is having a person type in {{LOC|F}} and get some kind of error when it is an acceptable code. I know that there are some books that are classified as F and some that are classified as E in the Temple University library, and i like to think that there is some kind of rationale to differentiate between the two. However, even if we keep strict separation in the LOC template, we don't have to enforce it strictly (especially if we have a very small number of E and F books). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:40, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
In the long term, I think a few people would like to use the categories to create better indices, not rely on the categories themselves as the only listing. If we use DPL, we could have a page like "Subject:History", and use a DPL list to automatically include all books from E and F. Because of this, I don't really view the category pages as being the "result", but meerly as a means to an end. If we could magically convince the developers to set us up with the newer version of DPL, we could do all sorts of fancy magical things (Transclude lists from LOC/E, LOC/F, Shelf/History, DDC/900 together, etc.).
There was some discussion on staff lounge about creating a new "Subject:" namespace that we could use as a meta-organizational namespace to group together books into different logical arrangements. For instance, we could have a "Subject:Programming Languages" that would transclude the relevant LOC categories and the relevant bookshelves. We could also use even less traditional groupings such as "Subject:Books that meet California curricula guidelines", or "Subject:Books for Plumbers", etc. Instead of using categories directly, we could have a hierarchy of subject pages that automatically transclude category listings in a more aesthetic and useful manner. It's all a lot of wishful thinking at this point, but it really has gotten my attention at least. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:54, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, I've taken a preliminary count of books according to LOC subject area, and posted the list on my blog. It should be visible on planet wikimedia within the hour or so (depending on how often it updates). After we get all the sub-categories complete and populated, I would like to get a more precise count and break down all our books by specific subject areas. Considering how much work we have left to do on the basic categorization still, this kind of project is still a long way off. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge edit histories of First Aid/Tick removal and First Aid/Wilderness First Aid

You asked here that the edit histories of First Aid/Tick removal and First Aid/Wilderness First Aid be merged, but I don't know how. Would you please close the vfd, merge the histories and delete the page? Thanks. Mike.lifeguard 05:02, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hope it's OK...

I moved the Dewey categorization thread from WB:SLN to the project chat page, as it seemed a bit too complicated for that page (and might scare new users a bit!). Hopefully it will get some replies now... sorry I didn't reply, but I honestly haven't the faintest idea what you're saying :(. --SB_Johnny | talk 15:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimedia Pennsylvania

Hello there!

I'm writing to inform you that we are now forming the first local Wikimedia Chapter in the United States: Wikimedia Pennsylvania. Our goals are to perform outreach and fundraising activities on behalf of the various Wikimedia projects. If you're interested in being a part of the chapter, or just want to know more, you can:

Thanks and I hope you sign up! Cbrown1023 talk 16:37, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Damn the Torpedos!

It's a classic case of everybody having an opinion, but nobody wanting to actually do the work. too much management, and too few employees. And I knew this going in that foundation-l was going to bring more criticism and nitpickery then it would bring actual help. There comes a time when you just have to say "it's not possible to make everybody happy, so we all just need to deal with this compromise".

As for work not going unnoticed, you're pretty near the top of the "deserves a barnstar or two" list yourself. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Muggles Guide

I'm sure that mailinglist discussion was sparked by a recent blog post that I made on the planet about the muggles guide. I talked about how the community was excited about the new book, how we were preparing for the influx of new readers/writers, etc. Of course, this being the internet, some people need to jump directly to criticism. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:11, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Also

You've got mail. Mattb112885 (talk to me) 13:18, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adminship Policy

The whole system of desysopping old administrators has been policy for about a year now (i dont know the exact dates of it), and in that time both affirmations and criticisms have been leveled against it. I am certainly in favor of the current policy, but I also feel that all controversial policies should be reviewed and reaffirmed regularly.

I tried starting a discussion about this issue at Wikibooks talk:Administrators, in an attempt to give the opposition a good place to make an argument. The only critical comment we received was from User:Xania, and his comments were more focused on where to discuss the issue, and not in discussing the issue itself. That conversation has since died out from lack of interest.

There is a well-publicized unstable version of the policy being formed at Wikibooks:Administrators/Unstable. This draft reflects a tightening of activity requirements on admins, not a reversal of it. Discussions on the talk page of that version have not even mentioned removing activity restrictions, but instead are discussing how much tighter those restrictions should be. Of course this draft only reflects a small portion of active users, but users who don't speak up can't possibly be heard.

The only real vocalizations I have heard against this policy have come from User:Xania and you, although I wont venture to guess what the general sentiment is among unvocalized users. I do believe that if the opposition effort was more organized and centered it's arguments on the relevant talk pages there would be a clearer result. The argument on RFA right now is about not desysopping on one side, and about holding the discussion in a better place on the other. It's apples and oranges, and no results either way are going to arise from it.

Either way, I'm just giving you a heads-up. User:Withinfocus feels pretty strongly about not using WB:RFA as a discussion area for the administrators policy (I tend to agree with him), and it's unlikely that any discussion about it will be fruitful on that page. Maybe for everybody's benefit it would be a good idea to start a very centralized discussion about it at the staff lounge where everybody can participate? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:48, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I know this is late in getting back here, but here are a few thoughts. My main concern here on this de-adminship policy is a perception with the idea that the current "policy" is set in stone and can't be changed.... as is true with any Wikibooks policy. In particular this policy has so dramatically changed due to the insistance on what I claim is just a few vocal and active users, with the rest of Wikibooks users simply just going along for the ride. I will agree that the 1 year desysopping policy is something that is more or less policy, but the way that User:Withinfocus took it upon himself to enforce this policy and invoking it in such a way to convince stewards to act, but giving essentially no time for commentary on the topic from any other Wikibookians is a precedent that I would not like to see on Wikibooks. Particularly when the real precedent is to treat all desysopping of all users, even those whose "terms" have expired due to inactivity, has been traditionally something that has been open to discussion and something which took time to accomplish. That did not happen with User:Karl Wick, and I find that lamentable. That was the real reason for my re-nomination as admin, and if Karl ever gets active on Wikibooks again I will make it nearly automatic to renominate him. At least if he shows nearly any inkling of a thought of wanting the tools again. --Rob Horning 16:42, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Time in response is no big deal, this isn't an issue where changes are likely to happen fast, or where opinions are needed urgently. Wiki, like a democracy, really only functions when people make their opinions known. Even though we dont have a discrete voting apparatus, if people don't participate in discussions, they can't possibly influence the outcomes. That said, people who did participate at the time were overwhelmingly in favor of desysopping people after a long period of inactivity. I wont deny that there is more opposition to the policy (or at least more vocalization of opposition) now. One of the downsides to using a consensus-based decision making mechanism is that the status quo is maintained except when faced with overwhelming community desire to change. To that effect, the policy at wikibooks is likely to include at least some provision for the removal of inactive admins for a very long time to come, if not a tightening of it. Some opinions I have heard are calling for a reduction of inactive time to 3 months before the user is nominated for desysopping. I consider that a little extreme, myself.
There are a few reasons why Withinfocus trys so hard to keep the desysop proceedures devoid of conversation. First and foremost (and also the easiest to change) is the fact that the current admin policy says that desysop nominations for completely inactive admins do not require consensus to proceed. Any discussion then, if not required, is likely to be forgotten after the flag is removed and the discussion is lost in the archives. Another good point to consider is that the overwhelming number of opposing viewpoints cast in these discussions are against the policy, and not in favor of the particular admins. In other words, people stop talking about the candidates, and talk only about the process. And if we are going to do that, I think we should talk on the page that outlines the process, and not on the page where we're supposed to be discussing the candidates.
I can understand your feelings about Karl, I even feel a certain sentimentality about him even though I never dealt with him personally in my time here. However, several people mentioned in the RfA that adminship really isn't a badge of honor, a point with which i fervently agree. I think that there are ways that we could honor members who have been helpful to this project but have since left, besides granting them tools and flags. Maybe, considering that many of the first few generations of Wikibookians have left by now and become inactive, we could start a "user hall of fame", reserved for users who have been inactive for some time, but have a history of helping the project. Finding a fair and judicious way to induct users into this hall of fame might be tricky, but it would give us the opportunity to really express our gratitude for people who have left their marks. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:42, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I left replies to your comments on both the arbitration archive page and the decision making talk page. Both replies are relatively lengthy, so I apologize for that. I won't get verbose here, but I really do feel like you're living in the past where the kinds of catastrophes that you mention are still able to happen. I just really think we (the royal "we", both the english wikibooks project and the WMF board) are in a more stable situation where the kinds of problems from the past are less likely to happen. Anyway, I've made all my points and don't need to say anymore here. I know you are busy, so i'll try not to act either way on the addition to the decision making policy until you have time to come back, read the messages, and formulate a reply. For the sake of simplicy, would you mind trying to keep the discussion at Wikibooks talk:Decision making? If you would prefer not, that's okay too. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 04:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How's your german?

Hey rob, how is your german? We're trying to get the new logo discussions going on meta, and already there are criticisms that we haven't gotten the word out to enough non-english speakers. Derbeth is listed as de-2 also, and I asked him about doing a german translation but haven't heard a reply yet (it's only been a few minutes). de, es, pl, are the biggest projects after en, so i really want to hit them especially with an announcement. Johnny can read german, but I don't know if he can write it proficiently. I don't know off the top of my head who else speaks german around here. I also don't know anybody who knows spanish (except my brother, who I might need to hijack for this). Anyway, let me know, I would really appreciate it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

My Portuguese is pretty good, and I can write a passable line of prose to get things going. BTW, on de.wikibooks, many of those involved can read/write English, so a simple request for assistance on the equivalent of the Reading Room is likely to get a response. I can read German fairly well, and can make some replies if they are kept very simple. I can also read/write some Spanish, but it is very broken and I tend to use far too many Portuguese words that native speakers find archaic even if technically correct. I'll see if I can get some help with a German announcement. --Rob Horning 05:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I actually followed this suggestion last night, and was able to contact some people on de.wikibooks to make the announcement. You may want to check the german equivalent of the reading room, just to make sure that such an announcement actually got posted (and not just translated and forgotten). I posted a message on es.wikibooks (had some serious help from a translator and google translator), I think there is a message posted on pt.wikibooks, I contacted derbeth about pl.wikibooks, mike.lifeguard was going to handle fr.wikibooks, and I think somebody contacted ru.wikibooks as well. All in all, I would say we are pretty well advertised at this point. The only other wikibooks project in the top 10 (according to alexa) that we haven't contacted is arabic wikibooks, and for the life of me I haven't been able to find an arabic speaker. Alexa claims that ar.wikibooks only accounts for 4% of all wikibooks traffic, so that might be a casualty that we have to accept. Thanks for the offer of help though, it's certainly appreciated. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't have time to look into it today, but commons:Commons:List of administrators by language is probably the best place to find people to help with message translation. --SB_Johnny | PA! 19:30, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Hi Rob, Thanks for your participation on the categories discussion. I also have a question if you have another few minutes. For a newbee, it seems like the "old" leadership of the project is gone and that a few relatively new admins are taking a lot of space within the project (possibly just to fill the gap). If that is true, does the "older" team left because it concluded that the project was not worth it or would not "lift up"? You can answer here or send me an e-mail if you prefer. -- Jacques (talk) (email) 22:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Ouch! This is a tough and loaded question. I'll try to elaborate on an extended e-mail discussion about this topic if you are interested, but there are many factors that have gone into how there have been several generations of project leadership with Wikibooks. User:Whiteknight certainly has taken on a strong role at the moment and leading discussions on a number of key topics... although I should point out that User:Karl Wick is not completely gone from the project either.
More to the point, most of us who have participated with the development of Wikibooks have real lives and often we just can't spend nearly so much time obsessed with a major project like Wikibooks for such a prolonged period of time. I do go into manic spurts where I get back into participating with Wikibooks and even get into the troll fighting and content cleanup, but at the moment my interests have called me off to a few other places.
My love of the basic idea behind Wikibooks is still here, however, and I love the idea of a collaboratively written e-book. I guess the real point is that writing a book, especially a good high-quality book, is a very hard task. It was pointed out to me by a very well seasoned professional writer (I think it was Ray Bradbury.... but I may just be making something up here based on faulty memories) that the number of professional writers is basically the number of people who have the internal fortitude to put up with the publishing industry and get something written in the first place. He quoted all of the barriers that there are to authors on the road from a cool idea for a book until it gets in the hands of a reader in a typical bookstore, and went over some numbers in the process. As I don't want to misquote this, I'll basically jump to the conclusion: That the reason we have as many professional writers in the commercial publishing industry is mainly a function of those who are willing to do the job and plow through the BS to get there in the first place. Failed writers are basically those who haven't really tried in the first place.
I'll have to say this is more or less the same for adminship of most Wikimedia projects, and in particular for Wikibooks. In fact, Wikimedia projects seem to be much more friendly and encouraging of new talent than say the commercial book publishing industry, or worse yet the commercial music industry (don't get me started there!) But this is very hard work, and quite often a very thankless job.
Wikibooks is also tilting at windmills here in a number of ways, and to progress Wikibooks to the next level beyond just a simple website for writing professionally looking blogs (perhaps I'm being too harsh on Wikibooks here or over simplifying the analogy) is going to be hard, very hard. Especially if Wikibooks content is going to be treated seriously in the commercial book publishing realm. We are also hitting the point that we need some very real money in order to make some progress here, and it appears that the Wikimedia Foundation is in many ways thwarting our efforts to continue. I can go into specifics here, including some really bizarre responses by the WMF board for accomplishing some tasks that have been done by Wikibooks users. The point here is that even those whom I would have normally looked upon as allies in trying to move beyond the current state of Wikibooks have in fact added additional barriers and jettisoned major groups of participants. Many of those involved with the "old leadership" left with those other groups of users, I might add as well.
There has been a need for the Wikibooks community to heal, and I think some of the healing has already taken place. Wikiversity has moved on and become a very successful independent community of its own, and other Wikibooks spin-off groups have also done well. I have voiced my opinion of the "textbook only" philosophy that has pervaded Wikibooks (I'm not completely supportive of the idea), but I can live with the current state of the project and try to find the positive good that can still happen here rather than try to dwell on the problems. I've been trying on my own to seek other ways to help further the overall goals of the Wikibooks community in my own way, and I also am generally supportive of others who have done their part as well.
BTW, I hope that you get to love the Wikibooks community as much as I have. We are not nearly so bureaucratic as Wikipedia tends to be, and keep in mind that action happens here on Wikibooks on much longer time scales than does happen on Wikipedia. I think in the long run (50 years+) Wikibooks will be a much more significant project than Wikipedia, but perhaps this is only a pipe dream of mine. It is different environment, and it will take somebody willing to take a longer-term view of life to see things happening. I also wouldn't count out the old tyme leadership of Wikibooks either, as there is also a strong tendency for the old timers to keep coming back for more punishment. --Rob Horning (talk) 16:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I do not know wikibooks but I was elected, long ago, to be coordonnator of a major student body in Canada. It was a very strong organisation even though "we just could not spend nearly so much time obsessed with a major project like xxxxxx for such a prolonged period of time". In fact the leadership there changed every year. The organization was strong because it had both:
  • A very active "current" leadership
  • A very strong sense of history, embodied in a bunch of part time "older" poeple that were very supportive of the "current" leadership and could, once in a while, point out that "some things have been tried before".
Now I try to evaluate if wikibooks is a viable long term effort because I obviously don't want to waste my time (I've past that age). I certainly see an active current leadership. Mike, Andrew and darklama where very supportive right from the start and I have no doubt that they try their best to advance the project. I fully respect their contribution and for exactly the same reasons I fully respect the contibution you did a while ago.
On the other hand the "sense of history" and the "older contributors" are just not there, in my newbee point of view. There were even some very harsh exchanges, some still on your talk page, that look more like a putch then an orderly evolution.
This is by no mean a criticism, but if you combine that with the fact that the stats do not show a clear progression of the project (the database alright but not the project) someone can be prone to ask "tough and loaded questions". But I am an IT professionnal, not a psychologist so I won't bother you with those kind of questions all the time :-) BTW your response was balanced in the context that you were very involved in the project.
That said I am very open to any insigth you can give me (or any other wikibookian btw) on the project and its history. I leave it to you as for the mean of communication.
In the mean time I will continue my slow and steady work on the categorization issue. I think your can help a lot because the problem will be with the identification and clean-up of the "older books" since the naming policy makes the job much easier for newer books. So if you can find a way to contribute a little bit of time, on a constant basis, let me know (do you have a way to contact Jguk for the same reasons). By now you have already noticed the pityfull state of my english, sorry about that but at least I have an excuse, my french is better :-)
So thanks for your answer and I hope the "healing" goes well. Best regards -- Jacques (talk) (email) 20:34, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:MiszaBot archiver

I'll stay clear of the discussion above :). We have an automatic archiver bot here now, i could set it up here on your user talk page to try and keep it shorter if you are interested. It would save you the effort of having to archive things, and it would also help to keep your talk page down to a managable size. I'll do it for you if you are interested, let me know. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I can handle the archiving of discussions fairly well on this page, so it isn't a big deal for me. I like to keep discussions on here for about a year or so.... and only archive things that are more than a year old.... yeah, I guess that says quite a bit that there are discussions more than a year old, and that I'm even behind on achieving that sort of a standard.
I should note here I'm not against a bot archiving discussions on more critical pages, but I just prefer to do things manually here. I guess I haven't been as much of a gadfly over the past couple of months, which is why this page hasn't been quite so active (that and I haven't been really doing much of anything on Wikibooks lately, other than a general lurking to keep track of what is going on). --Rob Horning (talk) 15:50, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
No worries, just offering to help. I know not everybody has the time to sort and archive discussions, it certainly isn't a glamorous job. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:08, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RFC for a book

Hi Robert, when you have a few minutes, could you take a look at .NET Development Foundation and its talk page. This is an old book that I have been working on for the past month and a half. Initially the content was spread over more then 150 pages that where for the most part "link only pages". I consolidated all the content, changed the section name, begun putting structured content in the "topics" sections, etc. Now I am developing navigational templates and continuing to add content.

Since I would like that book "to progress to the next level beyond just a simple website for writing professionally looking blogs" I would really love to have pointers on what to do next. Since I know nothing about textbook editing I am essentially putting in place suggestions made by others (see talk page). I think you can really give me a hand on this one. Regards -- Jacques (talk) (email) 01:32, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Did you made changes to your prefs. ?

This was a strange edit error since the time was there. (no need for reply just an heads up) --Panic (talk) 00:16, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Got a question

When did en.wp try to get rid of non-Latin user names? I was over there with little inactivity from about July 2006 to about September/October 2007 and I was never attacked for a non-Latin user name (I am Laleena over there, and that is a Turkish name). Could be that it was against things with characters like Ł,Đ,α, et cetera, but I'm not too sure. Could you check? Thanks, Laleena (talk) 01:41, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Name

Hi Robert Horning

I'm just writing to let you know that I've changed my name from Urbane to Reece. Hope this doesnt cause too much confusion.

Reece (Talk) (Contributions) 15:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help:Wikitext

Nuvola apps important.svg

Help:Wikitext has been nominated for deletion.
You are being notified because you have contributed to this work. Please see its votes for deletion entry for the specific reasons why its been nominated for deletion, and if you wish to participate in the discussion for or against its deletion. If you haven't already, please see our deletion policy.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 20:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Your invited!

Hello,
As a previous contributor to Chess topics, I'd like inform you of the creation of a new project called Wikibooks:Chess
Recently this project page has been created and it is hoped that you will join.
To overcome issues of communicating, the project has it's own central page and talk area along with navigation system of useful pages and many new features to make communication among users much slicker and easier, including a public chess watchlist. No need to have your own watchlist anymore, one click and you can see all recent Chess edits!
Also added recently is a new opening navigator(See below), a chess diagram upgrade(looks nice), and a chess stub category. All the Opening theory in chess pages now have this built in, that's over 500 pages upgraded.

Hope to hear from you. Regards ChessCreator (talk) 19:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

This box: view • talk • edit
Chess Openings
1. e4 e5 Chess King
1. e4 c5
1. e4 other
1. d4 Nf6
1. d4 d5
1. d4 other
1.
a3 · Na3 · a4 · b3 · b4 · c3 · Nc3 · c4 · d3 · d4 · e3 · e4 · f3 · Nf3 · f4 · g3 · g4 · h3 · Nh3 · h4

[edit] Errata Book

Errata (link to prev. vote) is again up for VfD, I agree completely with your previous opinion, but an working alternative should be found and simply deleting the book seems to me wrong, If you still think the same please state you opinion/vote on the active VfD discussion. --Panic (talk) 16:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] My closing of Drugs:Fact and Fiction/General VfD

I never said that this topic could never be presented as NPOV. I merely said that what is written here is never going to reach that point, regardless of how you massage the text. I'm a little disappointed that you closed the discussion when you clearly were taking sides in the argument, but I'll leave it as it is. --Rob Horning (talk) 03:13, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The preceding Comment was copied from Wikibooks:Votes for deletion/Drugs:Fact and Fiction/General

Dear Robert Horning,

I'm sorry you were disappointed in my closing of the VfD. I don't see, however, how my closing was in any way controversial. The majority of participants in this discussion disagreed with the assertion that the content couldn't be made into a good wikibook and found it to fall under the scope of the project. The rest of the arguments against the book (that it was "irrisponsible" and hadn't been fixed yet) weren't shown to derive from policy.

If you'd like to reopen this discussion, I'd be happy to oblige. Otherwise, would you allow me to remove your comment from the Wikibooks:Votes for deletion/Drugs:Fact and Fiction/General archive. I believe that closing a VfD closing closes the discussion. I already removed a keep comment but hesitated to remove you since it might give off the wrong impression.

I have no interest in cutting valuable discussion short, and would be unhappy if anyone thought I didn't value input that I disagreed with. Quite the contrary.

Sincerely,
Martin Swift (talk) 05:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

My only issue here is that by closing the VfD with the "resolution" of the issue to have the outcome you have advocated for, it gives the appearance of strong-arming the outcome by an administrator.
At best, all I can say is that there was no clear consensus on deletion of this content.
As for if an assertion comes from policy or not.... I would have to point out that a great many policies have their origins in one form or another from the Votes for Deletion pages in the first place. It has often been used in the past to illustrate a specific issue that perhaps policy hasn't covered yet as an official policy but perhaps that policy ought to be created. Certainly there is a "policy" that was put forward by Jimbo Wales that some content simply is so offensive that it has no place on Wikibooks.... where Jimbo even decided to unilaterally delete content without even putting it up for a vote. While I don't know if this page under discussion would pass the Jimbo test, its deletion certainly is in keeping with other content that has been deleted from Wikibooks in the past.
Generally speaking, Wikibooks gives quite a bit of latitude to new contributors. I think this is a good thing, but the policies haven't really addressed what happens when those new contributions become old contributions. IMHO the standard ought to be considerably more stringent in terms of what is allowed on this project, and I still say that this page about drugs is in the long run harmful to the project. --Rob Horning (talk) 17:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I understand your point about "the appearance of strong-arming the outcome" but feel that the surrounding discussion discussion shows that I was not manipulating anything. With a strong bias towards deleting the module my closing would certainly have been controversial. In reality, however, the majority of those weighing in didn't accept the arguments for deletion and something drastic would have had to happen to convice the community to change its stance. Without a consensus to delete, I saw no problem with closing as "keep".
If you still feel I acted improperly or would like to continue the discussion, I have no problem with re-opening it. I recognise that you may feel a little betrayed and would gladly like to earn your trust. If you're fine with keeping it closed, I'd like to ask for your consent to remove your last comment from the archived page. As I said before, it would be mainly for the sake of formality, not any form of censorship or strong-arming.
On the topic of policies; I don't see how the historic factor that policies derive from VfD discussions somehow places these discussions above our policies. Quite the contrary, I'd argue that these are evidence that policies were seen as necessary to provide some consistency to community decisions. When issues not covered by policy are discussed, I would personally advocate for beginning with the policy and then applying it once ratified.
I agree that some modules are poor and will not be fixed for some time. I don't, however, see that as a great problem. I'd tend to agree with the Wikibooks:Deletion_policy which recommends that "modules that need heavy editing" be kept and listed on Wikibooks:Pages needing attention. I guess we could do this better with a nice template that mentioned that the book/module was considered to need special attention to bring it up to standard and adding pages to a category from where one could monitor these. How would that be as a compromise? --Swift (talk) 19:18, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help with transmitting data with a laser using rs-232

Hello Robert Horning!

My name is Julius Lundh and me and my friend Oscar Olsson are two Swedish students who are currently reading your wikibook Serial Programming due to a project we are working with. Your book has really made an impression and therefor we would appreciate your help, even if you do not have the time to help us very much.

We are trying to write a program that will help us to contact the serial port and from there we will connect it with a laser that will send data to a solar cell. The solar cell will receive this data and send it to another computer's serial port and our program will read and receive this data.

We where wondering if this interests you at least a little bit, because we could really need your help on a distance of course. If you are interested you can contact me on my e-mail juliuslundh@gmail.com and we can tell you a little bit more and when we have finished reading your wikibook we can start to discuss what is needed to be done.

Thank you very much

Julius Lundh & Oscar Olsson


ps. Excuse my lousy English

We have now finished your wikibook. So if you are interested, please contact us.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User_talk:Robert_Horning"