You have been blocked from editing for a period of 24 hours for edit warring, as you did at No Other Woman (1933 film). Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the following text below this notice: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. However, you should read the guide to appealing blocks first.

During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection.  Dpmuk (talk) 15:04, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If at first they don't succeed... etc _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 15:41, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I think this was a bit silly from you, BMK (perhaps ironic coming from me) - I'm afraid even I, as a non-Film editor, have to agree with the removal of this, as it does appear quite trivial, even if it is sourced. That said, I also agree that the complaint about your signature was equally lame. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 16:04, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  @Lukeno94: See my comments about the matter here.

  @Beyond My Ken: I'm disappointed that the other editors were trigger-happy in reverting the content, especially how little it matters to them in the long run. I see a case for inclusion, and the others have not really commented to that end, with one reverting editor even claiming that it was unsourced. This incident is ugly to me because it's a case of ganging-up with no consideration for how to rework the information better. But I ask you to temper your response to such cases. If there are similar ones in the future, let me know, and I will try to help figure out a resolution past this edit-warring either/or proposition. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:14, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning the actions or ganging-up of the other editors, Erik. It's the sort of thing that really isn't worth edit warring over, and the article is not really any better or worse without it. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 16:19, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• @Lukeno94: Why do you think the article is not any better? It is a specific insight, and it can be expanded upon with additional information like what I mentioned on the talk page. Calling it a "cast note" does cast it as trivia, but if we could take steps toward actual prose in the "Cast" section, it would be less disputable. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:22, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Because to the average Joe Bloggs who knows very little about films (like me), it does seem like it's just been tacked in there as a bit of filler without any real purpose. If the cast section contained actual prose, then it would possibly make more sense to have it in the article. :) Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 16:33, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

...except to echo Charles Dickens and say "The law is an ass."

That certainly seems to be the case here, but what do I know, I'm only a 9-year veteran prolific Wikipedia contributor with 130k+ edits on my ticket. I obviously don't know shit compared to admin Dpmuk, who's semi-retired, with 9,974 edits to his credit - obvously, a much better judge of Wikipedia behavioral norms than I am.

In any case, I'm gratified to know that the reward for expanding an article 2, or 5, or 10 times the size it was is to get pissant editors crawling down one's back, insisting that every "T" has to be crossed in exactly the same way as every other "T" on Wikipedia, and that every "i" must be dotted in precisely the same manner as every other "i".

No matter, personally, this too shall pass. The root problem for Wikipedia is, though: how will you keep those editors involved who will flesh out your stubs and starts into real articles if you allow petty editors who only deal with the "T"s and the "i"s to harass them? That's a question which really hasn't been dealt with, and which will become much more important as Wikipedia goes forward, and deals less and less with creating new articles, and more and more with improving the ones that are there.

But that's not my problem now, I'm on an enforced Wikibreak for what remains of 24 hours. See ya around. BMK: Blocked Grouchy Realist (talk) 17:14, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I just thought of something else. In a Philip K. Dick novel, I think it was Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, society has evolved in such a way that being arrested for picking pockets, or other petty thievery, had no more stigma attached to it than getting a parking ticket does now. That's kind of the way I feel about this sort of block. BMK: Blocked Grouchy Realist (talk) 17:25, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You definitely have some points worth considering. My observation is that you don't seem to be enjoying your editing here lately and I think it may be influencing the way you are interacting with editors with whom you disagree. I wouldn't have blocked you (and I am not an admin), I think it would have been better to just ask you to take a break and have some fun elsewhere for a bit. Wikipedia can be grinding, thankless, and frustrating at times. I hope you enjoy all your pursuits and find it more rewarding upon your return. If you find my comment in any way preachy or unwelcome please remove it. Take care and have fun. Candleabracadabra (talk) 18:23, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I suspect BMK feels a little like me; trapped in a cycle where discussions surrounding things involving them and their work are constantly appearing, and thus feel unable to even take a short break (by choice) as a result, in fear of someone uninformed doing something rash, like this 3RR block could be said to be. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 18:28, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm trying to figure out what was supposed to be wrong with your user name/signature, and I'm going to have another look at the accusations Lugnuts threw your way. Drmies (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The basic principle, which I was unaware of, was that the actual user name has to appear in a signature to avoid confusion. I don't havea strong opinion one way or the other. I wonder if it would be okay to move a userpage to the desired new name even if only temporarily? Anyway, sorry Blocked Grouchy Realist for cluttering your talk page. I wanted to express some support and I hope that comes through in some sense. Stay warm. Candleabracadabra (talk) 23:19, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's only a RECOMMENDATION to avoid confusion. WP:UNC actually recommends that you change your signature instead of changing your username. Thus, the sig policy does not say that you must include your username, but suggests it. The links to either your user or usertalk page is non-negotiable ES&L 12:03, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) Correct. My sig simply reads "Doc" to anyone who sees it. But I am hardly the only "Doc" on this site. Anyone who clicks my sig will know, through the link to my user page, the same thing. Doc talk 12:18, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Does Doc James know that? I think there's a few more whose name is not in their signature. Drmies (talk) 00:55, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Ah, I just saw that thread. Well, that was fun, and it got laughed out of court pretty quickly. Drmies (talk) 03:55, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

_{{ { giggles } }} --My name is not my signature ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:51, 23 January 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.130.242.235 (talk) [reply]

Wikipedia beats it out of you - the fun, the enjoyment, the pleasure of editing, improving, creating.

When I first made an account here, I used my real name. I thought that was important, that hiding behind a false name in some way belittled the importance of the project. How could people take an encyclopedia seriously when it was edited by "Horse Faced Harry" or "Bandits at 12:00" or whatever? So I used my real name, and my user page was chock full of things that were important to me in my life: my work, my accomplishments, my first computer, my first online services, the books I read and the music I listened to and the films I liked.

Of course, predictably, it got used against me. I was harassed and hounded, and the information I had shared was utilized ro plant false information which was then used against me in a dispute. I tried to get away from the harassment by changing names, got caught, got blocked, and got let off. I'm not complaining about that, I shouldn't have done it, and I'm grateful that I was allowed to continue editing. Of course, I wouldn't have had to do it if there was a reasonable process to deal with harassment and hounding, but there wasn't. There still isn't. It's still much easier for one editor to hound another then it is to prove that the hounding is going on, and harder still to get anyone to do anything about it.

Just like it's easier to wield the banhammer than it is to actually dive in and try to understand what's going on, and sort out the wheat from the chaff, to see who's actually trying to improve an article, and who's just editing on reflex, like a robot, without thought or contemplation, just crossing Ts and dotting Is without ever considering whether perhaps other letters ought to be there in the first place. Nope, the BOOK says you gotta do it this way, and to hell with IAR, it's only a pillar. So the hardliners keep their lines hard, and those trying to bring in a little air, to make sure this project is a living, breathing, evolving entity get the shaft.

Not every time, of course. As in any collection of people, the admins here probably fit a normal bell curve, or maybe because they're essentially self-selected and then thinned out the curve is probably skewed a bit to the front, which is why my experience is that the admin corps is, overall, pretty good; it's certainly not as bad as some make it out to be. But there are bad admins, and there are sloppy admins, and there are lazy admins, and there are admins who don't have the temperment or character to be an admin, and there are even admins who are just perilously close to being bad people.

But, as I wrote to one of the Wikipedians I think highly of of earlier today, it wasn't an admin's fault that I was blocked - they were just the agent. It was my fault. But not necessarily because I "edit-warred" (a concept which really should be closely re-examined) but because I should have known better.

I am, I say without false modesty, a very smart guy. I'm also a pretty old guy, almost 60, and I work in a field in which the exploration of emotions, motivations and the meaning of words and behavior is constantly ongoing. All of this means that I'm petty damn good at "reading" people, knowing what they're thinking, and why they're doing what they're doing. Of course, in an online environment like this, most of the cues which help one to make that evaluation are missing. One only has words, which few people really know how to use effectively and with precision, and a few feeble emotional indicators such as emoticons and <grins> and such. Still, even with most of one's senses cut-off, it's possible to get a read on the personalities of the editors here, when one has contact with them over a period of time. What I did was to forget what I knew about some of those editors, and based my actions on logic and reason and what's best for the article (which I, essentially, wrote), and it bounced back, right in my face.

I'm a smart gut, but I'm human, I fuck up.

But if Wikipedia wasn't set up to be a dog-eat-dog community (and yes, I know that the idea was that it was to be a civil and collegial community, but the harsh reality is that if you don't have an institutional framework that forces people to treat each other well, many of them are going to act like assholes - something that libertarians have never understood) - if it wasn't as "red in tooth and claw" as it is, there would have been nothing to fuck up, or, rather, the consequences would have been less stark. If the system wasn't such that hardliners can get away with murder, while those who want to use a little imaginative thinking end up swimming upstream against a hard current (yeah, mixed metaphors, I don't care), then it wouldn't have happened either.

OK, it wasn't exactly the perfect storm, but a number of elements did have to align: the systemic bias, their behavior, my not being smart about how to deal with their behavior, and a lazy admin.

So... so what? A 24 hour block, not exactly a big deal. It gave me a break, got me some sleep I needed. Not exactly a net positive, but not all bad. So why the geschrying?

Well, it's just another thing, another of the little things that grind you down. Like the admin some years ago who after I reverted something one time, came on my talk page and told me if I reverted again, he would block me. No explanation of why, just a confirmation that he was serious. Of course, he's armed and I am not, so I had to do what he said. I don't even recall if what I did was valuable enough that it would have been worth another revert. (There's that concept of "edit-warring" again, gotta fix that.) I was just... taken aback, nonplussed. I don't even think I had edited the article before, and wham "It you make a move, mister, I'm gonna blow off your head."

It all grinds you down, beats the fun out of you, makes it harder and harder to enjoy being here. Of course, you can't actually stop, it's addictive. (And when I wrote, saracastically, that Jimbo would burn in hell for creating such an addictive thing, some idiot actually demanded that I apologize for the remark - I can still feel the grinding from that episode every time I see the editor's name. So you learn to try to stay away from certain names, not to rub up against them, but then they always seem to be around, getting in the way, making things unpleasant, grind, grind grind, grind. Some of them are even good editors, but they're just too damn toxic for words.)

So, like any good addict, I'm back, and it's unlikely I'll be going away any time soon. But I probably won't enjoy it as much. I'll try and force myself to stay away from the places where the jerks hang out (which, unfortunately, is one of the places I like to go -- grind, grind, grind), and I'll try to be smarter and not get myself blocked again, but it's undeniable that I'm a bit sadder, 24 hours later, kind of melancholy.

I guess I've just had too much of the fun beat out of me. BMK (talk) 22:15, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]