User:Geo Swan/wub

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I am requesting my block be removed. Before I explain why I think it was inappropriately applied, I will acknowledge User talk:Geo Swan#I did fall short of my usual standards of behaviour.

I did fall short of my usual standards of behaviour

I believe my record shows I am almost always refrain from responding in kind to inflammatory language, from uncivil accusations.

In my 15+ years of contributing to the Wikipedia there have been multiple occasions when I played a role in interacting with third parties who have requested images be deleted, or have requested articles to be deleted. I think I have shown patience and restraint with these individuals.

I was triggered by Imissdisco's provocations.

Regarding the claim I was pursuing an off-wiki dispute...

HJ Mitchell's #Only warning admonished me for "... writ[ing] Wikipedia articles about people with whom you are in dispute elsewhere."

I am not in a dispute with Dan Trotta. I have never met Dan Trotta. I don't know Dan Trotta. Yes, in September, 2019, I cropped ten headshots from File:Gale Anne Hurd Masterclass 2 (6829984489).jpg, including [[:File:|Dan Trotta at the Gale Anne Hurd Masterclass (6829984489).jpg]]. The Canadian Film Center holds about a dozen events per year, where a photographer circulates, and takes photos they then upload to their flickr page, under a free license. Since 2012, when upload one of those images that include multiple individuals, have cropped headshots. The individuals in those headshots are either figures from the Canadian film or television industry, or some kind of VIP. So they are all properly licensed and in project scope.

I am not the only individual who has uploaded images from the CFC's flickr page, and I am not the only individual who cropped headshots from them. But, I did the lion's share. I found we already had one hundred or more BLP articles on these individuals, that lacked a headshot. I added the newly cropped headshots to those articles.

I thought that was a job well-done. I did not think I owed an apology for anyone for doing so. I still don't think I owe anyone an apology for doing so.

I did not take the photo of Dan Trotta. A CFC photographer asked Trotta and his colleagues to pose for the group photo. Trotta had the option of stepping out of camera range, and sitting out the group photo.


I have 
of

Courtesy deletion is not automatic

The first two instances where I was involved with requests for courtesy deletion. The wording of the wikipedia's policies, on courtesy deletion, authorize the closing administrator to take the third parties wishes into account, during discussions. My interpretation of this clause is that taking their wishes into account means closing an AFD on an individual of marginal notability as delete, rather than no consensus. Several individuals suggested administrator HJ Mitchell would have been authorized to speedily delete the [[]] article. I strongly believe their suggestions were incorrect, and that complying with a request for courtesy deletion never justifies speedy deletion. A third party who raises a concern about an article about them that genuinely measures up to the criteria to be considered an attack page? That would be a different matter. That would not be a courtesy deletion.

Was HJ Mitchell reckless to call the article an attack page?

Yes, I believe he was

cropping Canadian Film Centre images

I am interested in film. I am interested in Canadian film. The IMO prestigious Canadian Film Centre is a rich source of images of figures from the Canadian film industry. They hold a dozen or more events a year, inviting figures from the Canadian film industry, and other notable people. They hire professional photographers to mingle at these events. They uploaded about 5,000 images from these events to flickr, under a free license. Over the last decade or so I have uploaded many of these photos to the commons. Over the last eight years or so I have cropped headshots of these individuals. Once I crop the headshot of a figure from one of those photos I go see whether there is an unillustrated BLP about them, and I illustrate that BLP with the newly cropped headshot.

I am not the only contributor to upload images from the Canadian Film Centre's flickr stream, nor am I the only contributor to crop headshots from them, or use those images to illustrate unillustrated BLPs.

That I spent hundreds of hours, over the last ten years, uploading these images, cropping headshots, using those headshots to illustrate articles, would be irrelevant, if this was inconsistent with the goals of the commons and of the wikipedias. But I believe my activities were completely in line with goals of both projects.

Improving the experience of third parties with genuine requests for courtesy deletion

Four individuals have requested courtesy deletion images cropped from the Canadian Film Centre flickr stream. I re-read them, after my block, and re-read the other discussions

I suggest that, in addition to allowing third parties to initiate a dialogue with the trusted members of the OTRS team by emailing [email protected], we should provide a simple special purpose page similar to the simple page you get when you click "email this user".

What we insiders don't appreciate is that it seems genuine third parties are daunted and confused because they don't know what happens next. This special purpose page should tell them, briefly. They fill in a brief form where they state their private email address, the file or article that concerns them, and the nature of their concern. They should be told, briefly, that a trusted OTRS team member will have to first confirm they are who they said they are.

They should be sent a confirmation email, that gives more details of what to expect.

IMO it is essential that all individuals making third party requests confirm their identity through OTRS

In my experience the Wikipedia has shown it is vulnerable to spoofing and dirty tricks from determined vandals, impostors, and other bad actors.

The wikipedia's history shows there are individuals, like Template:U who are prepared to spend hundreds of hours making good policy compliant contributions in order to mask their hidden disruptive intent. Template:U would be another instance. I do not believe they are the only examples.

I had run-ins with two former contributors who turned out to be sockpuppetmasters, who had been entrusted with administrator authority.

For an individual like that, claiming to be a poor, put-upon subject of a BLP, in order to win an argument, is much less effort than making hundreds or thousands of good valid edits, to mask a disruptive intent.

Adminstrator HJ Mitchell was, IMO, reckless...

Adminstrator Template:U was, IMO, reckless.

  1. HJ Mitchell usurped the very important role of our OTRS team. It is essential, IMO, for WMF projects to confirm that third party individuals are who they say they are. WMF projects, like the English language wikipedia, have proven very vulnerable to deep trolling. Examples include Template:U and Template:U. I had unpleasant interactions with Template:U and Template:U.

    The wikipedia has been trolled by individuals who were prepared to make tens of thousands of valid edits, over the course of years, to mask their intent to troll the wikipedia, and cause chaos. <p>Putting forward a hoax, where a troll masquerades as a third party individual, and demands a courtesy deletion represents a trivial effort compared to the huge investment some hoaxsters have put forward. <p>The simple and obvious counter-measure to allowing the wikipedia to be trolled by hoaxster is to be inflexible with the requirement that every third party request be put on hold, until the third party confirms their identity through OTRS.

  2. HJ Mitchell in #Only warning wrote "(1)Do not write Wikipedia articles about people with whom you are in dispute elsewhere, (2)and do not use your superior skills as an editor to get one up in a dispute." <p>HJ Mitchell, I think my record is clear. I reject the idea of "getting one up in a dispute". My record shows that I have written essays, and voiced the opinion in many fora, that all truly policy compliant wikipedia contributors do their best to consider the possibility the person they disagree with may be right, and that they themselves are wrong. Our goal should not be winning arguments, or to use your term, "get[ting] one up in a dispute" We are all fallible - a point I routinely make in fora discussions. Even the wisest and most experienced of us is capable of normal human error. So, occasionally, even the rawest newbie will turn out to be right, the rawest newbie, or the individual whose comments are poorly expressed, because they have dyslexia, or because they are not a native English speaker. I think my record is very clear. I think my record shows I do my best to respond to what my respondents actually meant to say. If I find a correspondent has written something that could be misinterpreted I ask them for clarification, where I am afraid some other people rush to counter the poorly phrased comment with a strawman argument. <p>Part of my dedication is to openly acknowledge when I made a mistake. And I think I have done a pretty good job at living up to this. <p>I wrote an essay, Wikipedia:Every question, every disagreement, is a teachable moment.
  3. HJ Mitchell, you do realize that most of Template:U's edits, prior to your speedy deletion, were vandalism? Why would side with a vandal, with no track record, and not even seek clarification of whether their claims held merit, when they accused a contributor with a strong history going back over 15 years?
  4. HJ Mitchell, Template:U asserted "things got silly, things got ugly". Over on the commons Imissdisco was the one who got ugly and silly. I do not believe the record shows I was either ugly or silly. HJ Mitchell, I think you owed it to me, and owed it to the project, to have looked into Imissdisco's activity enough to have realized they were acting like a vandal.
  5. HJ Mitchell, your deletion log entry for Dan Trotta says "(G10: Attack page or negative unsourced BLP)". How do you figure that? It was sourced, not unsourced. I assert it was a fair and neutral article on Mr Trotta. Imissdisco made a claim it was wildly inaccurate, without saying how it was inaccurate. Wikipedia contributors who comply with NPOV, REF, BLP and our other policies are generally not admonished when their good faith efforts end up including an inaccuracy. I very strongly suspect the article was accurate. <p>BLP has protections for private persons, protections which do not protect individuals with a public profile. Mr Trotta is a senior producer for a very popular long-running television show, with a world-wide distribution. He has agreed to grant scheduled media interviews. I suggest this means the BLP protections for private persons should not apply to him. <p>Not only do I not believe WP:CSD#G10 applied, I don't believe WP:CSD#A7 would have applied, either.
  6. HJ Mitchell, the wikipedia's policies and procedures are complicated, baroque, can seem to contradict one another, and are in a constant state of flux. You may have thought that, as an administrator, you had the authority to delete an article, on your sole judgement, in response to a third party request. I direct your attention to the DRV and subsequent administrative AFD for Jeffrey H. Norwitz. Norwitz contacted OTRS, and requested deletion of this version of the article I started on him. The administrator he contacted misinterpreted our policy, as did several people who commented on my block at ANI. Administrators are authorized to consider requests for courtesy deletion -- when closing xfd. Administrators are not authorized to speedy delete articles based soley on a request for courtesy deletion. That is not what our policies and procedures say, and it is not what the DRV and AFD I pointed to concluded.
  7. HJ Mitchell, you, and subsequently other people, have asserted I carried to the wikipedia an off-wiki dispute with Mr Trotta. Where did you get this idea? When I cropped the headshot of Mr Trotta I didn't know him, had never corresponded with him, been introduced to him. <p>The Canadian Film Centre hosts film industry events, for the last fifteen years or so they have posted photos taken at those events to flickr, under a free license. The photos they posted have been a rich source of photos to illustrated articles about the film industry, and to illustrate some of the articles on noted philanthopists, politicians, and other VIPs who attend those events. I started cropping headshots from those images in 2012. I am not the only contributor to crop such headshots, but I did most of that work. Commons now has about 900 headshots cropped from those CFC images. When I found we had an unillustrated article on an individual whose headshot I had cropped I added it to the article. <p>I don't believe I have done anything a reasonable person could complain about in cropping those images, or in adding them to articles. This was not harrassment.

I took those


Most of those

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2011_September_28#Jeffrey_H._Norwitz

to take comment from a third party at face value, when the third party had not taken the step of confirming their identity through OTRS.

Adminstrator Template:U was, IMO, reckless to take accept, at face value, complaints that I attacked anyone. That third party, whoever he or she was, stated "things got ugly"', "things got silly". That third party's three dozen edits were almost all edits that could be classified as vandalism. The ugliness and silliness? It was all from that third party.

A fair and neutrally written article should not be characterized as an "attack article", for any usual definition of "attack article". Third party Template:U claimed the article misrepresented Dan Trotta. Neither HJ Mitchell not Imissdisco said why they considered the Dan Trotta article misrepresent Mr Trotta.

I puzzled over what justification the third party might have offered for claiming I misrepresent Trotta. I wrote he was an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre. Here in Ontario there are about two dozen Universities, and a couple of dozen Community Colleges, officially recognized as degree granting institutions. The Provincial legislature passed a law authorizing each one. The CFC is not a degree granting program. However, it is my impression that it is more prestigious to complete this one year program than to have earned a film degree, because of the prominence of those who were selected and completed the program.

The English language Wikipedia has multiple millions of BLP articles. We don't contact BLP individuals prior to good faith efforts to cover them with BLP articles. Only a tiny fraction of those BLP

Blocks aren't supposed to be punitive

Blocks aren't supposed to be punitive. They are supposed to be administrative, administered to prevent errant contributors from damaging the project. They are, in general, supposed to follow one or more clear warnings, and only imposed if those warnings were ignored and the contributor in question appeared incapable of understanding them.

Rarely, when an errant contributor is on a roll, and causing damage so quickly there is no time for prior warning, they get blocked first, with a clear explanation afterwards.

I don't think the block Template:U hit me with measures up to the kind of emergency that merits a block. The block log entry they left was "Personal attacks or harassment user needs to actually explain egregious BLP violation."

I dispute I committed any personal attacks. The article I started on Mr Trotta was a fair and neutrally written article and it is a disservice to the wikipedia community to characterize it as a personal attack or an attack page.

Cropping a headshot of a public figure from a properly licensed free image is not harrassment and it is a disservice to the wikipedia communitty to call that harrassment.

In #March 2021 Drmies wrote "You cannot just move on as if nothing happened."

Who says I was "moving on as if nothing happened"? As above I think HJ Mitchell was reckless, and made numerous errors in judgement. They said " the only reason I didn't block you straight away is that I won't be able to be around for the fallout" In other words they were taking a wiki-break.

The corps of wikipedia administrators includes some excellent individuals -- individuals who are capable of considering the possibility that they too are capable of normal human error, and who therefore are civil enough to people they disagree with. Unfortunately, the corps of wikipedia administrators also includes some rigid thought, who expect a high level of deference, who go radio silent when it becomes obvious they made a mistake. Some few wikipedia administrators expect a level of deference normally reserved for totalitarian dictators or murderous druglords.

So, when I get a warning which seems to have questionable elements, from an administrator showing a surprising level of hostility, I like to take my time in drafting my reply.

  • 2021-03-02 18:35 HJ Mitchell's warning
  • 2021-03-03 10:10 Drmies block
  • I made six edits in the 17 hours between when HJ Mitchell left his troubling warning with questionable elements Drmies questionable block. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. <p>Who says I was "moving on as if nothing happened"? As I made those edits I was giving serious thoughts as to how to respond to HJ Mitchell's misconceptions without further escalating matters with someone who had already seemed prepared to show themselves to be reckless and unfair.



Personal attacks or harassment user needs to actually explain egregious BLP violation.

Administrator Drmies erred very badly with this block, they owed it to me, and to the project, in general, to have recused themselves

Template:U wrote about me, in June 2018, that "I do not believe in their good faith anymore".

I assert this block was a lapse from WP:BATTLEGROUND, that it appears they had been waiting three years for an excuse to block me.

As above, I have no, had no, personal dispute with Mr Trotta. Mr Trotta is a public figure with enough notability that


#March 2021