User talk:Beyond My Ken

It is The Reader that we should consider on each and every edit we make to Wikipedia.

(Thanks to Alan Liefting)‎

When determining what course of action should be taken about a disruptive, tendentious or bothersome editor, the primary concern – more important than precedents, consistency, fairness or even AGF – is which option will best serve the building of an encyclopedia.

Beyond My Ken

"[Internet trolls] are characterized by personality traits that fall in the so-called Dark Tetrad: Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy), and sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others)."

Chris Mooney
"Internet Trolls Really Are Horrible People"
Slate (February 14, 2014)
citing research by Erin E. Buckels, Paul D. Trapnellb and Delroy L. Paulhusc

We all tend to take Wikipedia much too seriously. It's certainly important to provide a free first-class online encyclopedia for the public, and no one can dispute how central Wikipedia has become to people searching for accurate, unbiased information, but there's little excuse for the bitterness, in-fighting and bitchiness with which many people approach editing here, which makes the experience difficult and unpleasant at times. I am generally in favor of removing the worst of those transgressors permanently, which, of course, leaves me open to the charge of not assuming good faith. Actually, I have little trouble assuming good faith, I simply refuse to keep the assumption alive in the face of evidence of misbehavior.

Beyond My Ken

"Beware of the 'innocent' man who plays his part too well."

Old theatrical proverb
(made up by me)

"Having an open mind doesn't mean you have to let your brains fall out."

James Oberg (paraphrased)
via Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World (1995)

"A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing."

William James (attributed)

"He used . . . sarcasm.
Oh, he knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire."

"The Piranha Brothers"
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Episode 14, "Face the Press"
(15 September 1970)

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof
is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."

Douglas Adams
Mostly Harmless
(1992)

Wikipedia is a project to create and improve an online encyclopedia which is as accurate and as useful to its readers as possible. It is not an MMORPG, a debating society or an experiment to create the ideal online community. Activities which do not, in some direct or closely indirect way, contribute to that goal are a waste of the project's resources and should be minimized as much as possible.

Beyond My Ken

- Learn the lesson that collectively, Wikipedia doesn't want to be saved, it's not even very concerned about being fixed. It is quite happy being what it is, flawed or not.

- Most importantly: Stay uninvolved, learn not to care.

Beyond My Ken
excerpt from "A personal prescription for surviving Wikipedia"

Waiting for "R" to arrive...

PUBLIC NOTICE

Wikipedian looking for new members for activist left-wing cabal to keep Wikipedia Marxist-Leninist-Maoist and pure. No one to the right of Trotsky need apply. Send writing samples and 100 pre-1991 rubles to:

Wikipedia Spartacus League
Democratic National Headquarters Building
Fidel Castro Suite
1917 Ralph Nader Hero of the Revolution Drive
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Become a charter member of

THE INTERNATIONAL
BEYOND MY KEN
APOLOGISTS CLUB

and get a subscription to Apologia Today magazine, plus a free secret decoder ring!!

  FUN!   LIES!   CRUDITY!   DISRUPTION!

Bad pennies always turn up.

...but wait, R is busy! Could he be blogging? Good work, R!

If I left you a message, please answer on your talk page, as I will be watching it.

If you leave me a message, I will answer on my talk page, so please add it to your watchlist.

Please note that the title of any comment posted here may be altered at my discretion. One thing you can do to prevent this from happening is to make your comment titles short and succinct. Comments themselves may be deleted when I feel it's warranted, but, in accordance with policy, will not have their meanings changed.

A word of warning: I'm not here to validate you. If your contributions to Wikipedia suck, I'm not going to slap on a pair of rose-colored glasses and tell you what great potential you have for the future, I'm going to tell you your work sucked, why it sucked, and what you can do it make it not suck in the future. Spades will be called spades, and words will be pointed and direct; I will not pussyfoot around your deficits. For those unfamiliar with the concept, this is called "honesty."

If, on the other hand, your work on Wikipedia has been productive and helpful, and your comments intelligent and perceptive, you will have my help, my trust and my collegial respect, which will be difficult for you to lose.

Please click here to leave me a new message.

Note to self

Too much blue, do more red. BMK (talk) 22:26, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Re:User page blanking

Hey, for whatever reason I didn't notice this when you did it. You might want to be careful when blanking other users' sincere statements of intent to semi-retire because of on-wiki harassment. It's not a violation of WP:POLEMIC to post such a statement on one's userpage, or even to state the reason; it's apparently even debatable whether specifically naming the other user in the dispute is a violation.

I'm not going to restore it, though, since my recent work on the Miyazawa Kenji article has given me a new lease on wiki-life, so my previous statement is invalid.

So no harm no foul, I guess.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:54, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

By the way, I learned this here. If my userpage violated WP:POLEMIC then you might as well remove my username from that page. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:57, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

If it's "no harm no foul", then why did you bother to bother me about it? And, yes, it certainly violates POLEMIC to name the other party. BMK (talk) 18:10, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Then why did you not say the same thing to said other party when his user page named me? Or to Bagworm, whose user page redirects to his talk page and whose talk page makes a false claim that User:Lukeno94 and I hounded him off Wikipedia, when everyone else thinks he left Wikipedia because he was told he wasn't allowed honk his own off-wiki products or go around reverting my edits because I was the one who made them? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:19, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

What am I, the POLEMIC police? I saw yours, I didn't see the others. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, live with it. BMK (talk) 03:37, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

A pie for you!

You can either eat it or throw it at whomever deserves a pie in the face the most. MONGO 15:44, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks. I'm not sure that my choice of face-pie recipient would be the same as yours. BMK (talk) 18:08, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

• You could always throw it at me! You would not be the first I assure you.--MONGO 20:03, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

• To tell the truth, although I generally love slapstick humor, pie-throwing is my least favorite variety of it. Perhaps I grew up on too many Three Stooges shorts on TV, where the pie-throwing scenes were generally pretty lack-luster. I did think the Monty Python pie-in-the-face lecture-demonstration in Live at the Hollywood Bowl was well done, though. Good pace, and just the right amount of surpirse. BMK (talk) 21:12, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree with your observations about the Stooges and MP:LatHB. Thank goodness that SK agreed as well! After looking at these photos I wonder if Dr, Strangelove would have its iconic place in cinema history if that ending had been used. Cheers to you both. MarnetteD|Talk 21:38, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm very glad that Kubrick made the choice he did - with the caveat that if he had chosen the pie fight, being Kubrick, it might have been great. BMK (talk) 21:59, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Another example, Blazing Saddles. (And given his username, we'll see what MONGO thinks about this.) Really funny film, but the pie fight sequence is such a let down, especially coming after "The French Mistake" number. But then, Mel Brooks is pretty hit or miss (no pun intended) as a director. BMK (talk) 22:03, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Brooks is hit or miss but all the MONGO scenes were classic comedy, least I thought so. The pie scene was lackluster I think.--MONGO 03:32, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree totally re: Mongo scenes. "Candygram for Mr Mongo." BMK (talk) 03:35, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

And Mongo's punch of the horse ranks right up there with the drunk Lee Marvin sitting on a horse, both of them leaning up against a wall in Cat Ballou. (I haven't mentioned the farting scene because I assume we all agree that it's earned its rightful place in film history). BMK (talk) 03:56, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Whitney Museum of American Art (original building)

We're clearly looking at the page with different size windows. With my window at the standard width on a macbook the way you've set up the gallery and photos puts them on three levels with a great deal of white space as the gallery isn't below the infobox. You need to ensure that the gallery will be below the infobox at typical viewing widths or else you create the very problem you claim to be fixing. Djkeddie (talk) 21:34, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

And on my standard PC laptop with standard everything, your version has reams and reams of white space, the gallery is on two levels, and the door photo is a different size from everything else. I use Firefox, but I'm going to check the page now on some other browsers. ... OK, here's what I found. I checked that page using Chrome, IE, Opera and Safari, and on all of these the page looks fine when I am logged in, however, on all of them and on Firefox, when I log out, the page looks somewhat as you describe it, which is also somewhat (but not exactly) how your layout looked to me. Therefore, using those 5 browsers, I found a setting which looks fine both when I am logged in and when I am logged out, and I've put that setting into the gallery. If you check what it looks like on the Macbook, and it looks OK, then I think we've found the solution. BMK (talk) 21:56, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

The mac safari window defaults quite wide now so the issue is still is present. There's no perfect solution but I think the window should render well for most viewers. Perhaps I'll look at lengthening the article at some point so that the gallery will always be below the infobox even with very wide windows. Thanks for your efforts, I think for now it's settled. Djkeddie (talk) 22:15, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Lengthening the article will certainly help - it's always a problem when the gallery is inside the infobox's vertical range.

Just thinking - with the opening of the new Whitney, there might well be more information out there on the museum's early history which would usable in that article. Best, BMK (talk) 22:20, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:AN#Drmies_and_WPPilot

Drmies expicitly told me to open a thread in a discussion where he was complaining about me, so I told him., briefly, that I thought he acted badly, and why. He then told me to "put up or shut up". I went with the latter. If Drmies doesn't want threads up questioning his actions, he shouldn't ask for them.

Ideally, he shouldn't use admin tools when his ability to be neutral is highly questionable as well. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 11:06, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

You opened a thread, and the normal course of matters on AN closed it, once by me, and then a second time by an admin, with an equivalent result. I cannot speak for Drmies' purpose in advising you to open the thread, but the actual result of your doing so was that your complaint was found to have no merit. Since my close was affirmed by the admin close, there's no reason for further discussion of the issue here. BMK (talk) 22:58, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Das Einschlafen Bericht

As I was falling asleep last night, a line from the film My Cousin Vinny popped into my head. It comes when wannabe attorney Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci),a New Yawker defending two other New Yawkers charged with murdering two "good ol' boys" in Alabama, is called upon to give his opening statement to the jury, right after the prosecutor has given his. Vinny walks over to the jury box, points to the prosecutor and says:

"Uh, everything that guy just said is bullshit. Thank you."

Of course, his "statement" is, in fact, argument, and the prosecutor succeeds in having it stricken from the record, but it's still a lovely moment. (Not as good, of course, as when Pesci's girlfriend, "out-of-work hairdresser" Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) takes the stand and proves definitively through her automotive knowledge – "My father was a mechanic. His father was a mechanic. My mother's father was a mechanic. My three brothers are mechanics. Four uncles on my father's side are mechanics..." – that Vinny's clients are not guilty, but, after all, that's a classic scene.)

Just thought I'd share that. BMK (talk) 00:52, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

the biggest wrong

The biggest wrong was Davie's delete. That is pure vandalism. The eye opening thing that caused me to bring it to ani is that Davie is a troublemaker, having been in an ani mess just days ago. But thank you for saying that Davie was wrong.....you are the first to do so and this helps the situation. Thank you. I feel a little better already. Deepavali 2014 (talk) 06:02, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

correction. You are not an admin, thought you were. So the fact is that no admin has condemned or blocked or scolded Davie. This is so wrong. No wonder Wikipedia has a female trouble. Deepavali 2014 (talk) 06:08, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

(ec) No, it was not vandalism: please read WP:VANDALISM. It was a mistake, it was wrong, but not any more wrong than your attempted to short-circuit the discussion with a "delete" close when you have just !voted "delete" yourself. He made a mistake, you made a mistake, then you made another mistake, and then you came to complain about it all on AN/I, when you hadn't even discussed it with Davey2010 on his talk page. Whatever Davey2010 may or may not have been involved in earlier is not relevant to this case, and your bringing it up is simply a case of poisoning the well. Your hands are far from clean, and I suggest you withdraw your complaint before it bounces back on you. BMK (talk) 06:14, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I've been here a hell of a long time, longer than many admins, and I'm telling you: forget about it. No admin is going to block Davey2010, the most he might get is a warning. LibStar as well is not going to be blocked. There is a distinct possibility, however, that you might be blocked if you don't get down off your soapbox. Last warning, it's up to you. BMK (talk) 06:17, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, see, you got a 72 hour block, reasonable since you'd apparently been shopping around looking for an admin to block Davey2010. You just had to press the issue, huh? BMK (talk) 06:20, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Grosvenor Avenue

Hey, User Ken, you seem like you might know. What neighborhood is Grosvenor Avenue in? Riverdale ends at the HH Pkwy and Fieldston at 250th St. What starts north of 250th? Thanks. Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 22:20, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Interesting question. The southern part of Grosvenor Avenue, between 246th and 250th is definitely in Fieldston, but I'm not exactly sure what neighborhood the part that heads north and then curves around back to 250th/Iselin Avenue is in. Possibly North Riverdale, but I think it's on the wrong side of the ridge (which is why I assume the avenue circles back, because of the change in elevation). Google Maps [1] includes it as part of Fieldston, which makes geographical sense. Even though the Fieldston Historic District ends at 250th Street [2], perhaps our article is incorrect in saying that the neighborhood stops there as well. The area is part of Bronx Community Board 8, but I don't see anything on their website which would help identify the neighborhood. [3].

Given the paucity of information, I'd be inclined to say that it's part of the current neighborhood of Fieldston, if not part of the original development or the area under the supervision of the Fieldston Property Owners Association [4], but I'm far from certain about that. The Riverdale Country Day School has their "Hill Campus" in that area, and carefully declines to name the neighbohood in their description;[5] Horace Mann does the same [6] If I was making things up, I might call it "North Fieldston".

Sorry I can't be more help. Do you have any idea what the people who live in the area call it? BMK (talk) 23:01, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I've asked at WikiProject New York City for anyone with knowledge of Bronx neighborhood boundaries and names to comment here, so let's see if anyone responds. BMK (talk) 23:22, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I've responded at WT:NYC, but I am also posting here to confirm. @Wikiuser100:, Grosvenor Avenue is definitely in Fieldston. Epic Genius (talk) 13:41, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I see Epic Genius has posted a response while I was composing mine. I'll have to redraft it as I had not been clear in my original post here I was enquiring about the partial loop of Grosvenor that starts at Iselin and returns at 250th St., not the part below 250th Street down to 246th clearly in Fieldston.

I appreciate both your responses. Perhaps a tentative answer to my specific enquiry lies in the second sentence of this passage from the North Riverdale page: "One of the geographic characteristics which gives all of Riverdale its suburban quality is that it lies on a high ridge which separates it from the rest of the city. The highest part of the ridge, at 284.5 feet above sea level, lies in North Riverdale, near Iselin Avenue and 250th Street."

If the high point in North Riverdale lies near the junction of Iselin Ave. and 250th St., and both Iselin and Grosvenor continue north of 250th, then it appears the Grosvenor "loop" in question lies in North Riverdale – at least according to the Federal Writers' Project (1939) cited.

Certainly the spot indicated appears to be very near the high point as perceived from the air. A good deal of very large scale residential construction sloping downhill nearby on the Grosvenor loop caught my attention flying over it the other day circling north into LaGuardia. It was hard to miss, and looks much the same as here on Google Earth: [7]. That's what got me curious enough to look it up here at WP.

So, EG, what's your call on the "loop"? Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 14:05, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

@Wikiuser100: Let's continue this on the WT:NYC talkpage, where we are more likely to get more feedback. Epic Genius (talk) 14:56, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

References

Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton/April 2015 move request

Some opposers of this move have now contended that there is a "Critical fault in proposal evidence", which brings the opinions expressed into question. Please indicate if this assertion in any way affects your position with respect to the proposed move. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:35, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Discussion of ArbCom Cases

The discussion of ArbCom cases, and questions about ArbCom cases, on the talk pages of clerks is not permitted and is considered tendentious. Consider this to be a formal caution. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:44, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Not that I disbelieve you at all, but as a matter of interest, could you point out where this rule is published? BMK (talk) 21:35, 8 May 2015 (UTC)