. . . in appreciation of no-nonsense clarity, incontrovertible facts, and masterfully diplomatic turns of phrase :-) . Writegeist (talk) 17:03, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Writegeist: Thank you. I dislike when anyone tries to create their own version of reality, it makes it more difficult to address actual problems. The only way to prevent repetition from becoming reality is to challenge it. Jbh^Talk 21:01, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But sometimes, I'm afraid, you might as well try to have an intelligent discussion with this. Writegeist (talk) 22:44, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Writegeist: :) Yes, sometimes that is true but even then discussion lets me check my cognitive bias and prevents me from just pigeonholing someone. Often in disputes I will see an "opponent's" words and actions through a lens distorted by the conflict and might miss their actual motive/intention/meaning - of course sometimes I don't. Other times it is just nice to chat, even if it is a bit tense. I have found very few people that do not have something worthwhile to say and I usually learn something which is the whole reason I edit here. Jbh^Talk 00:12, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

about this - we have been trying to teach Ross WP's policies and guidelines and explain why we cannot make the changes he wants. we have gotten back WP:IDHT and he keeps pushing anyway. You will see this if you review the article talk page. I tried to help him and gave up. Maybe you will be able to get through to him, but that would be surprising. Good luck! Jytdog (talk) 17:18, 27 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Jytdog: Thank you for the heads up. I initially thought he was just a BLP subject with an issue (since he was posting to BLP as an IP). I now see he has been at this for a while. I am particularly concerned that he says he does not have an account here yet there is a Rick A. Ross who was active on the page recently and has been on Wikipedia both earlier this year and in 2008.

Oh well... I will try my best to get through to him and see where it goes. Cheers! Jbh^Talk 18:17, 27 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes he seems to keep "forgetting" or something. Jytdog (talk) 20:24, 27 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry that I don't know all the Wikipedia rules and policies. I am doing my best to comply and post within guidelines at the Talk page of my bio. At this point I remain blocked. I have emailed the appropriate people/committee within Wikipedia, but have received no response.RickAlanRoss1952 (talk) 15:55, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Thanks for spotting this rather odd edit [1], I simply used the AFD tool to redirect the BLP so I honestly can't understand or even explain how on earth Primeval ended up being redirected on itself ?, Anyway thanks again for spotting that, Happy editing, –Davey2010^Talk 02:15, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Software does weird stuff sometimes... No problem... Cheers! Jbh^Talk 12:25, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

vs. TRUTH Erlbaeko (talk) 19:38, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Erlbaeko: Not sure of the point you are trying to make but I think it is really cool someone actually used the WP:TROUT button! If you are arguing for the old "Verifiability not truth" that old saw is long depricated and we use editorial judgement when examining sources. Whatever it is we should discuss it over on Talk:Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war. Cheers! Jbh^Talk 19:48, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Re: [2]. I would have self-reverted, if you had given me a couple of minutes. Sorry, I did not know.Erlbaeko (talk) 16:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. It is kind of a hot button issue for me. Apologies if I jumped too far down your throat. :) Jbh^Talk 16:50, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes. I felt like that was kind of a hot button. Apologies accepted. Erlbaeko (talk) 17:08, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Re:[3] You can post on my talk page, if you like. I just had enough of that "why did you informed me of the sanctions" discussion. Take that to ANI if you believe I did something terribly wrong. Erlbaeko (talk) 16:15, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Erlbaeko: OK. Understood and thank you. I had hoped to find a middle ground between you and MVBW and thought the self-notification might help take the sting out of it for them. You can see where I did a similar thing on User talk:Jbhunley/SanctionsNotice when I notified an editor of DS, in fact it is my policy to self notify whenever I notify another editor to avoid just the issue you ran in to.

Personally I could care less, in general, about being notified of sanctions as long as it is done properly and in good faith. I think where people got concerned is the Syria sanctions regime is not like typical DS which are placed with {{Ds/alert}} and kept track of in software. Since the Syria sanctions are logged on their own page, and almost all have been logged by an admin, it can feel more like your name got placed at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions for doing nothing. This is more an issue with how the sanctions are administered than how you notified people per se. The procedures seem unclear even to experienced editors and I think a non-acusitory AN thread might be good just to clear it up. You might even want to bring it up there as a 'is this the right way to do it' question. I can not imagine anyone sanctioning you for that even if it was not the right way to do things. I would definitely support you and speak to your good faith if you did something like that. Everyone makes mistakes and I really do not know if you did or if those of us who were concerned did. For me it all boils down to intention and willingness to address others concerns. God knows I have had my share of screw ups and even pissed of people when I did not screw up. It all comes down to figuring out ways to deescalate those kinds of situations so we can all get on with building Wikipedia.

Anyway I will stay out of that thread unless addressed. Also you still might want to look into ProMedMail, they get reports of suspected chemical incidents from all over the world and do a good job of analyzing the evidence. They are mainly an infectious disease surveillance system but they watch for any event which causes 'symptoms' and their editors are top quality. They also have archives going back many years so you might find some other incidents as well. I hope to work with you in the future on this and other topic areas. Cheers. Jbh^Talk 17:02, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You recently commented on a brainstorm that discussed banning administrators from paid editing. A concrete proposal to amend the administrator policy to this effect has been made at Wikipedia talk:Administrators#Proposed change - 'No paid editing" for admins. Your comments would be appreciated. MER-C 08:13, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How wouldn't you require a panoptican of surveillance if your admin model is to track down and punish wayward posters? This IP people are complaining about is doing what it takes to evade Wikipedia tracking him down under current rules. But if you change the rules, he can just do whatever else it takes. Unless you insist on being able to track him down everywhere, with all the oppression that requires. Wnt (talk) 15:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's fairly unlikely any change of rules would be needed. As with most ISPs in the developed world, Telstra already has the right to cancel service if [4]:

use your service in a way which we reasonably believe is fraudulent, poses an unacceptable risk to our security or network capability or is illegal or likely to be found illegal; or

Continually making death and rape threats is something that Telstra could resonably construe as being illegal. More complicated but it's likely that Telstra could argue that the behaviour is fraudulent or poses an unacceptable risk to their network capability. And Telstra, as with mosts ISP in the developed world, undoutedly already has logs that are allowed by their customers terms, that last at least a few days and can determine which customer is responsible.

If whoever is behind the IP decides to start war driving or using a bot net or whatever in the future, or if they are already doing it now, then our options may be limited, but it isn't unresonable to ask an ISP to enforce their T&C and stop their customer or someone authorised by the customer from using their service in a way which causes significant problems for us. It's something that already happens a lot with spammers etc, it's just that some ISPs are more slack, particularly for something which is out of the norm of what they normally deal with. There no reason to assume that every problem editor is going to go to the extremes of bad behaviour, if we did that we might as well not block any editor because they'll eventually be back and using a botnet.

Nil Einne (talk) 16:46, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(EC) BTW, there is perhaps some resonable debate about whether or not we should expect ISPs to act against more run of the mill persistent disruptive editors, like those who engage persistent wide ranging vandalism using (intentionally or not) many different IPs. I know from some ISPs POV, it's our fault for allowing editing without accounts. However we shouldn't conflate that issue, with a more serious case like this where only a really unresonable ISP would consider the editor's behaviour an acceptable use of their service which isn't and shouldn't be forbidden by their customer terms. Nil Einne (talk) 16:56, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) @Wnt: I do see how you have concerns about using IT infrastructure track people but that train left the station years ago and there is no practical way to call it back nor would failing to addresss the current issue contribute to rolling those capabilities back other than in an exceedingly minor and completely symbolic manner.

My main argument was prevent people who are posting death/threats from being able to do so as a first step to managing the situation. From there the only 'admin model' is to get the Foundation to engage with the service provider and law enforcement and it is a matter of national politics that determines what tools those authorities have. My point is we should never use the safety of a victim to debate national and international ideals that we have no effective control or immediate influence over. Doing so causes harm to an innocent person for no marginal gain. That is the personal equivalent of 'destroying the village to save it'.

Personally I fear the idea of a surveillance society but that is a 'big picture' thing. The little picture thing is that there is a person here who is being traumatized by rape/death threats. Maybe the stalker is far away, maybe they do not know who the person is, maybe they are just talking and will never actually do it. No matter what the threat can ruin the quality of life of the threatened person - living in fear is hell. That is the best outcome of the 'do nothing' your idealized reaction leads to. However there are some red flags that say this is a more serious situation: The threats are repeated and have been going on for a long time and posi-likely come from more than one person. Based on the mild, historical, ones I have seen, they are ethno-politically motivated and have to do with ARBPIA issues. That is a real threat and as I said, without identifying the stalker there is no way to do a real threat assessment so we must assume it is a legitimate threat. The resources, methods and procedures for identifying the stalker is a law enforcement matter - if you want to talk civil liberties they are the ones to discuss it with.

Changing the world is a great goal. There are a lot of things that 'should not be' yet 'are' and even more things that 'should never be' and I admire the people with the drive to make the world a better place. My view on making the world a better place is to do whatever is possible to prevent people from being terrorized, raped, killed or any of the other horrible things people do to one another when their views of 'how the world must be' collide. No matter how strongly you feel about an issue I guarantee there is someone in the world who feels more so in the opposite direction and is willing to use violence or the threat of violence to see there ideal is the one that wins out. Always remember that when pursuing high principles and ideals there are real people whose minds, bodies and/or lives are shattered, not only in the conflict but in the collateral damage caused by the blind application of those ideals.

To get back to your question on Jimbo's page, no I do not want to see a panopticon or surveillance state, not even a little bit but I will never let an innocent get run over by my ideals. There are enough screaming nightmares in the world and we should not contribute to them especially when it is an academic point of principle vs a real person's immediate terror. Jbh^Talk 16:53, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The train may have left the station, but there are still a lot of semi rigs and at-grade crossings between it and the final stop. I don't want to put pressure on the relatively few methods by which people might get on the Internet with more genuine anonymity; so long as any remain there is still a shadow of hope.

The safety of the victim is important, but what actually makes someone safer -- to let a troll rave on as we bury him under an ever more sophisticated non-legal community response, or to get him thrown in jail with hardened criminals for a little while? If the victim is in terror now, just wait until his release date! Now just getting him thrown off his ISP might be a more measured response, except... either he has an easy competitive option, in which case this has no impact on his crusade, or he doesn't, in which case he's screwing around with wardialing and such just to use the Internet at all and we have more trouble, OR the ISP, finally convinced that a violation of law demands they terminate his service, follows that up by making the legal report itself, which then leads to an investigation and divulgence of personal details of the victim and the rest of the situation and we're with the jail scenario. However you do it, starting a war is not a safe act. And when we start tracking people down and trying to make it personal, war is exactly what we're doing.

Now I won't say I totally oppose inaction, because there are few phrases more liberating in the English language than "there's nothing we can do about it". Indeed, that seems like the only really socially acceptable way to uphold any right, however basic. More to the point though, when you close off every single possible dumb idea for handling a problem, occasionally people will grudgingly resort to something smarter. If we would simply line up a group of editors to deal with this person, make it clear to all what his agenda is and where to look out for him, preferably design some tools and abuse filter notifications to help track him down, then we could say the person he's picking on is free to stand down from the conflict a while while the rest of us stand up to work on pissing him off ourselves. So what I'm thinking here is to combine safety in numbers with a refusal to escalate, and that way we manage the risk. Of course, it's never totally impossible to rule out any risk at all - ultimately editors have to have some tiny iota of courage, I mean, less than you need to bite into a McDonald's cheeseburger really, but some determination not to be cowed by threats. Wnt (talk) 17:20, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Wnt: I do see what you are talking about, community based technical solutions are a part of the response to any form of abuse but they are neither the best nor most appropriate response. What I fear you could be missing is that this is not a Wikipedia problem the situation with Telestra is a real life threat of which Wikipedia is a part. That is a pretty major distinction. If it were simply a Wikipedia problem then the community can figure it out however, these are death threats made via Wikipedia. Just like threats made by phone, mail or broadcast by short wave radio. If we were to take only the actions you propose then Wikipedia and the individuals who said 'we can handle this' would be responsible for the outcome.

All of the if's and or's you propose are possibilities but you are using them as an excuse to take no action when you have no idea whether action is needed. The victim is the one put primarily at risk by your if's and but's so it is their decision (hopefully counseled by a professional whether they want action taken. They spent two friggen weeks trying to get the WMF off of its ass. I can not express how shameful that is. Existing policy is to block those who make threats of harm and to range block IP hopping abusers. I can see how no one really wanted to range block Australia but the WMF should have made a definitive decision in a maximum of a couple of days. That this was still an open issue with no definitive plan of action or guidance from the WMF main office is shameful and Jimbo saying, to a person who wants to keep their identity hidden, take it to the press shows shocking ... well shocking something I mean take it to the frigging press! what is that man thinking!!! Jbh^Talk 18:34, 13 September 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Nothing I can say or do takes away the right anyone affected has to go to their local law enforcement and file a complaint. It may well be effective. But what we don't need is to create this notion that we as third parties have to get involved in that process. We shouldn't go the route of universities that start setting up their own phony tribunals and then people wonder why they give a slap on the wrist for rape or whatever. I don't suggest we should pretend to replace an editor's right to go to cops, but we don't have to encourage it either, let alone try to make the decision for them. Wnt (talk) 23:53, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely agree we should not go the university tribunal route. Those are nothing but travesties but I do not think anyone has proposed to do such a thing here. We can agree to disagree about whether the provider of a pubic place is responsible for maintaining a safe environment and supporting law enforcement in the area.

On a different note. I see you are interested in studying ways to avoid surveillance on the net. If you are not aware of it there is a community involved with The Program on Liberation Technology "Liberationtech" at Stanford University with an active mailing list [5]. They discuss what is going on the ground in various countries and work to support journalists, political activists, NGO's etc. Cheers. Jbh^Talk 12:55, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.

Jbhunley/Archives/2015 (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

I am caught up in the range block for 69.80.96.0/20 placed by Callanecc [6]. I guess my router just changes addresses via DHCP. I am not editing through a proxy and my VPN is off. Can you please fix it so I do not need to VPN in to edit. Thank you. Jbh^Talk 12:07 pm, Today (UTC−4)

Accept reason:

Done for now. No reason to suspect editor is up to no good. NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:15, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

	The Original Barnstar
	Thanks for clearing up the logo issue. Will the exclamation box still remain there? Ronald Sexton (talk) 19:26, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]