A brave closure,[1] and as per my word, I will go ahead and carry out the purge of all people and groups listed in Category:antisemitism and its subcategories in the coming days, as you've decided consensus is that such a purge is long overdue. I don't intend to violate the letter of WP:3RR, but if I am otherwise blocked you'd better have my back. -- Kendrick7^talk 05:19, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Kendrick7: No, I did not say that there is consensus for any "purge". The discussion was about whether to remove instructions from the category page, not about whether to remove pages from the category, and it did not result in consensus. You should obtain explicit consensus for any potentially controversial mass edits in advance, or you risk being blocked for disruptive editing.  Sandstein  06:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Um... what part of "This category... must not include articles about individuals, groups or media that are allegedly antisemitic" were you unclear about when you closed the purge debate and decided to keep that instruction? I've already purged Category:Antisemitism in Germany and Category:Antisemitism in Romania. I was the guy insisting this was a bad idea in the first place. Now I'm getting it both coming and going. I refuse to be crucified just because the administration can't make up their damn minds. Mixed messages herein abound -- Kendrick7^talk 03:22, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion was about whether text should be removed from the category description, and it resulted in no consensus to do so. My administrator authority does not extend beyond establishing this. If you interpret the outcome of the discussion as anything else, you do so at your own risk. I or "the administration" have no power to decide anything else. I recommend that you work together with others from the discussion to set up a cross-category RfC, as many have suggested, to explore further options about what to do now.  Sandstein  06:41, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, you actually could have decided to enforce the clear reading of WP:BURO, that our rules should reflect actual practice, not the other way around. Your dismissal of the rule as mere "text" suggests you hardly took into consideration the matter at hand. Our existing policies should actually override mere nose counting.

Furthermore, I am hardly inclined to open up the discussion so that this cancer can spread to who knows how many more categories beginning with the phrase "anti" given the ongoing indifference of the administration towards taking our most fundamental policies into account on this topic. I will rather magnanimously carry out the order. Sadly, I haven't run into anyone else who cares so far.... -- Kendrick7^talk 01:58, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sandstein, Stephan Schulz said he'd be satisfied with a statement from me saying I wouldn't do that again. I added that. My explanation of things was to show what I was thinking at the time I made the edits. It didn't seem to me a problem, especially as the complaint was coming from MastCell who bears no good will towards me. However, uninvolved admins have weighed in and I agree I should not have edited there. So please, do not block me. Thanks. SW3 5DL (talk) 14:02, 5 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You commented repeatedly on a thread entitled "people associated with the Tea Party movement". If you lack the judgement to recognize obvious violations of your topic ban, what meaningful assurance can you give that they won't continue to happen? MastCell ^Talk 03:22, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@MastCell, comments from you with attitude and tone like you are displaying here are the reason I deleted your comments as trolling. You are an administrator on WP and should know better than to take a hectoring tone and make disrespectful statements stating that I lack judgment. Go back and review what you've written on my talk page, which btw I'm sorry to have to tell you this, I didn't even read before I deleted it. That's how negative, not here to be helpful, an impression I have of you from the ArbCom pages. I saw your edit summary and immediately thought you were just there to harass me because I didn't agree with you on the article talk page.

Editors listen to those they respect because those people have also shown them respect. Do you know why I immediately respected and accepted what Sandstein had written? Because I've had positive experiences with him in the past. The same with the others. I don't know Stephen Schulz, but when he said there was a violation, I immediately believed him. He didn't use sarcasm or personal attacks. He was civil and identified my error straight away. Same with Ed Johnston when I realized he was reading Collect's comments, and not mine. He immediately came back, made a new comment, asked me if I'd mind if my comments on the article page got strike outs. Nobody has personalized anything. No insults, no sarcasm.

If you had said, "Hey, I think you've got a problem here. It seems you've violated your topic ban. . ." I would have engaged with your comment, we could have had a discussion, and I'd have gone back to the article talk page, done a strike out on my comments, apologized for my mistake, and left immediately. I don't lack judgment. It was not obvious to me that it was more than a BLP issue, as I've explained. But you apparently refuse to believe that. There's nothing I can do in that case. That is up to you, not me. So here is the answer to your question, but it's just for you, it doesn't apply to the rest of the WP community: There's nothing I can say that will assure you that it won't happen again. Because I can't make you listen if you don't want to listen.

But I can assure Sandstein and Stephen Schulz, and Lord Roem and Ed Johnston and the WP community that it was an unintentional mistake and that it will never be a problem again. It's been a year since the ArbCom topic ban, and in all that time I've been editing, I've not had one single violation. This was a mistake, and I think they can see that. SW3 5DL (talk) 03:49, 7 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Polandball. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. 185.49.15.25 (talk) 06:27, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How recent the diffs should be to be considered an evidence at WP:AE?--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 14:09, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It depends. Generally, to be actionable, an AE request should include at least one diff of very recent misconduct, about a week old. Older diffs can be included if necessary to show the persistence of disruptive conduct.  Sandstein  14:12, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]