ArticCynda

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Hello ArticCynda, and welcome to the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! This website is for coordinating and discussing all Wikimedia projects. You may find it useful to read our policy page. If you are interested in doing translations, visit Meta:Babylon. You can also leave a note on Meta:Babel or Wikimedia Forum (please read the instructions at the top of the page before posting there). If you would like, feel free to ask me questions on my talk page. Happy editing!

-- 09:33, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Your ban on the English Wikivoyage

AC, you cannot go against community consensus and claim to use Wikipedia's standard offer. The community voted for an indef ban against you. This isn't Wikipedia, so w:WP:SO is not valid on Wikivoyage. You could have apologised against the bigoted content you added in mainspace, and for all that you've caused offense to, but you've been given three years to do so, and you didn't. I don't know what "indef ban" means to you, but you yourself chose to think that indef bans don't apply to you. In my opinion, the best way to get out of a ban is really, nothing. You've lost the chance 6 months ago, and you had ample opportunities before that. But as ThunderingTyphoons! mentioned on User talk:87.74.197.32 "Your attitude and mindset are incompatible with a wiki". And you still haven't largely learned off it. --SHB2000 (talk | contibs) 09:30, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

User:SHB2000, I'm curious how you got to that opinion, since it's the complete opposite of my own. Some of the points you raised above, such as the pretense of a consensus, are also factually incorrect.

• I have been on Wikimedia for 12 years, and made a lot of edits across Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Commons, Wikidata, ... yet across all those projects, only on Wikivoyage just a handful of editors somehow insist I lack the "attitude and mindset compatible with a wiki". Odd how no one ever questioned my competences on other wiki projects, including other Wikivoyage language editions. I have noticed it's always the same tiny minority of users on en-voy that complain, most Wikivoyagers appear to have no issues with my contributions at all. So far I've only seen positive feedback on my contributions on en-voy. The very same edits that said tiny minority objects to as supposedly "controversial" have been praised by ordinary Wikivoyagers on the respective talk pages, see examples for my work on Brussels and Dagestan. In the last 3 years I've made 5000+ substantial edits to the English wikivoyage article space, written dozens of new articles, of which some (for example Igls) have even been nominated as Destination of the Month candidates. Articles like Tiski, Galtür or Workington were written by me single-handedly, yet I've not seen a single concern or complaint voiced on any of their respective talk pages. How is that possible, if I were a problematic editor?
• Then there are the false accusations of bigotry. In the aftermath of my Dagestan work, it was User:LPfi I believe who warned for supposed biased or false content in those articles. Well, where is the evidence? I'm still waiting for "examples" of bigotry to be found in any of the Dagestan articles. The "Stay Safe" section of Dagestan, supposedly the most controversial part of the article, has largely remained unaltered since I wrote it. That alone says a lot. Since I started work on Tyrol the number of articles and content in that region quadrupled, and I've pretty much rewritten/updated half of the entire island of Tenerife over the course of a year. If bigotry were so plentiful, why hasn't any been found in any of those regions so far? Sure, I've made mistakes in the past (haven't we all when we were young?) but I've learned from those mistakes, applied more rigorous fact-checking, choose words more carefully in article space edits, and I'm very proud of the contemporary quality content I'm contributing to Wikivoyage. I've already apologised for these mistakes on at least 3 different occasions, too. For what it's worth, I think I was treated far too harshly as a non-native English speaker, dealing with a language barrier, and obviously making mistakes in translation. If I'd treat contributors the same on nl-voy we wouldn't have a single editor there any more.
• As for the supposed "consensus" on a ban, I think we can all agree that's nothing more than a laughable hoax. Once again that same handful of dissatisfied editors just kept repeating the vote until they ended up with the result they wanted, and even then only with the smallest margin. Repeating a vote until you get the outcome you want is anything but democratic, even here in Russia that wouldn't be taken seriously. Would be the same as repeating the Brexit referendum until you get a "Stay" vote. The outcome is therefore meaningless. The fact that it took them 3 attempts to swing divided opinions is already a clear indication that it's not a consensus, and whoever would call it a "consensus" should probably look up the definition of the word. I refused to take part in those childish games, but could easily have "won" by signing up for 2 dummy accounts to swing the outcome in my favour. I do recall User:ThunderingTyphoons! trying to encourage Wikivoyagers to vote in the poll with an announcement in the Pub, but pretty much no one fell for it. Also, according to Meta statistics, there are about 300 active editors on en-voy, of which about 3% voted to maintain the ban. Which confirms what I said above, the other 97% of Wikivoyagers doesn't have any issues with my contributions there. So even if it were not a hoax, the only fact the abysmal participation numbers of the poll proves is that the large majority of Wikivoyagers have no issues with ArticCynda as editor. We'll never know the real numbers anyway because as you may recall, unregistered users (which make up a substantial fraction of our editor base) weren't allowed to vote in that poll. It was rigged from the very beginning, the only goal was to use it to try justify a ban that lacks broad support among Wikivoyagers.
• And regarding Standard Offer and Second Chance, these were procedures that were actually proposed by other Wikivoyagers on the talk page, I didn't know these even existed before they were mentioned. It was not my idea to apply Standard Offer and/or Second Chance in the first place. If there were reasonable objections against the validity of these procedures then there was ample time to point those out, but I have not seen any such concerns on my talk page. Whoever objects has had over half a year to voice their concerns, and refer to the correct applicable procedures.

As sad as it is, this ban is unfortunately not an isolated case. I've seen new editors with only one or two edits getting banned on the English Wikivoyage for nonsense reasons like being from Australia, having a specific ISP, adding a red link to an article, or having numbers in their user name. There are even "policies" that allow them to cover up this misconduct by deleting commit summaries or page history entries. The WMF is already aware of the misconduct but it will take time for them to take action. So where does that leave us? Well, Wikivoyage is a collaborative project and everyone who has the best interest of our readers in mind should feel welcome there. I'm there to write the best travel guide on the Internet, contribute my knowledge, and help other editors get involved in the project, too. I'm not there to argue, however, all points have been made crystal clear, and my lengthy track record of constructive and good faith edits speaks for itself. If there is any doubt about my positive effect on Wikivoyage as a project, just take the article on Derbent as an example. When I started work on it earlier this year as part of my overhaul of Dagestan, the Derbent article was 2 kB long and had barely seen any edits since the fork from WT in 2012. The current article, in comparison, is 10 kB long (+ 400%), already features several See/Do listings, and looking at the history, my work on the article inspired 5 other editors to also contribute to the article. The same positive patterns can be observed with other articles in the region: Dagestan (+ 120%), Izberbash (+ 90%), Akhty (+ 153%), and so on. Of course I'm not claiming sole credit for those contributions, these numbers include many intermediate edits from other Wikivoyagers too. And I'm definitely not saying that article length always correlates with quality and/or reader experience. But what the numbers do prove is that my contributions directly or indirectly lead to growth one way or another, and that's what Wikivoyage needs. So from that perspective, it doesn't make sense to me to stop contributing quality content and inspiring others to do the same. It would punish the entire Wikivoyage reader base, only because a handful of editors refuse to collaborate and/or is still butthurt about beginner mistakes from many years ago. Of course it's much easier and less controversial to write a Do listing for a rollercoaster in Disneyland than writing the "Stay safe" section for Dagestan or the "History" section for Chornobyl. So it's up to experienced editors like myself to stick our hands in the fire and get the job done, as difficult as it might be, with all sorts of sensitivities in mind.

Anyhow, I thought that the self-imposed 6-month moratorium was a nice gesture from my side to give that handful of uncollaborative Wikivoyagers an elegant way out and end this time wasting dispute for once and for all without feeling like the sole losers. Conflict resolution often boils down to meeting in the middle and both sides making concessions. Sadly they don't seem to have understood this, and instead chose to further alienate themselves from the English Wikivoyage community with their uncollaborative attitude. I can already predict there will be a near-constant whining about ban evasion for years to come, which without a doubt will also be largely ignored by the English Wikivoyage community. One of the many great things about the WMF wikis is that they are set up in such a way that it facilitates genuine contributions and at the same time makes censorship or other unconstructive behaviour very hard. In the aftermath of the Dagestan overhaul, one of en-voy's most respected contributors, User:AndreCarrotflower, already pointed out that the ban is de facto unenforcable. The ban hasn't prevented dozens of articles from being written. Its only effect is that it causes a lot of confusion among new contributors (such as the French teacher) and occasionally erupts into edit wars (Igls' page history is a good example of that). And it is because of those adverse effects that I wanted to resolve the conflict by doing an effort. For the project it doesn't matter in the end: Wikivoyage as a travel guide will be written, with or without their collaboration. And I can't force people to collaborate if they don't want to, neither is it my job here to try. But it should be everyone's preference to collaborate constructively with others rather than to waste time with disputes, which no one gains anything with, certainly not the Wikivoyage readers who should be our primary concern.

End of rant. Sorry. This post is a lot longer than I intended it to be, but it's of vital importance that the facts are presented clearly, for future reference. ArticCynda (talk) 18:21, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

ArticCynda, while I understand how frustrating it may seem, I cannot go against community consensus, and I also cannot entirely agree with you there. The fact that in your rant that you completely avoided the fact that you added your anti-Jewry comments in articlespace is a problem here. If I were to analyse these comments, here it is:

I have been on Wikimedia for 12 years, and made a lot of edits across Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Commons, Wikidata, ... yet across all those projects, only on Wikivoyage just a handful of editors somehow insist I lack the "attitude and mindset compatible with a wiki". Odd how no one ever questioned my competences on other wiki projects, including other Wikivoyage language editions. I have noticed it's always the same tiny minority of users on en-voy that complain, most Wikivoyagers appear to have no issues with my contributions at all. So far I've only seen positive feedback on my contributions on en-voy. The very same edits that said tiny minority objects to as supposedly "controversial" have been praised by ordinary Wikivoyagers on the respective talk pages, see examples for my work on Brussels and Dagestan. In the last 3 years I've made 5000+ substantial edits to the English wikivoyage article space, written dozens of new articles, of which some (for example Igls) have even been nominated as Destination of the Month candidates. Articles like Tiski, Galtür or Workington were written by me single-handedly, yet I've not seen a single concern or complaint voiced on any of their respective talk pages. How is that possible, if I were a problematic editor?

It wasn't a couple of editors, it was nearly the entire community that voted and indef ban in March this year. It's not "a small minority", it was nearly the whole community that gets involved into the janitorial things Wikivoyage that found either your bigoted statements in article space as disruptive, derogatory, and offensive. There was not one person who disagreed with that.

Then there are the false accusations of bigotry. In the aftermath of my Dagestan work, it was User:LPfi I believe who warned for supposed biased or false content in those articles. Well, where is the evidence? I'm still waiting for "examples" of bigotry to be found in any of the Dagestan articles. The "Stay Safe" section of Dagestan, supposedly the most controversial part of the article, has largely remained unaltered since I wrote it. That alone says a lot. Since I started work on Tyrol the number of articles and content in that region quadrupled, and I've pretty much rewritten/updated half of the entire island of Tenerife over the course of a year. If bigotry were so plentiful, why hasn't any been found in any of those regions so far? Sure, I've made mistakes in the past (haven't we all when we were young?) but I've learned from those mistakes, applied more rigorous fact-checking, choose words more carefully in article space edits, and I'm very proud of the contemporary quality content I'm contributing to Wikivoyage. I've already apologised for these mistakes on at least 3 different occasions, too. For what it's worth, I think I was treated far too harshly as a non-native English speaker, dealing with a language barrier, and obviously making mistakes in translation. If I'd treat contributors the same on nl-voy we wouldn't have a single editor there any more.

Those were not false accusations, but voy:en:Special:Diff/3574130, which identifies your bigoted comments is very concerning. While I could not find any bigotry in Dagestan articles, the fact that you added them in the Brussels articles hasn't changed.

As for the supposed "consensus" on a ban, I think we can all agree that's nothing more than a laughable hoax. Once again that same handful of dissatisfied editors just kept repeating the vote until they ended up with the result they wanted, and even then only with the smallest margin. Repeating a vote until you get the outcome you want is anything but democratic, even here in Russia that wouldn't be taken seriously. Would be the same as repeating the Brexit referendum until you get a "Stay" vote. The outcome is therefore meaningless. The fact that it took them 3 attempts to swing divided opinions is already a clear indication that it's not a consensus, and whoever would call it a "consensus" should probably look up the definition of the word. I refused to take part in those childish games, but could easily have "won" by signing up for 2 dummy accounts to swing the outcome in my favour. I do recall User:ThunderingTyphoons! trying to encourage Wikivoyagers to vote in the poll with an announcement in the Pub, but pretty much no one fell for it. Also, according to Meta statistics, there are about 300 active editors on en-voy, of which about 3% voted to maintain the ban. Which confirms what I said above, the other 97% of Wikivoyagers doesn't have any issues with my contributions there. So even if it were not a hoax, the only fact the abysmal participation numbers of the poll proves is that the large majority of Wikivoyagers have no issues with ArticCynda as editor. We'll never know the real numbers anyway because as you may recall, unregistered users (which make up a substantial fraction of our editor base) weren't allowed to vote in that poll. It was rigged from the very beginning, the only goal was to use it to try justify a ban that lacks broad support among Wikivoyagers.

It was clearly not a laughable hoax. It's quite clearly not same handful of dissatisfied editors just kept repeating the vote until they ended up with the result they wanted, a lot of us wanted you back after 9 months, but then switched after your behaviour.

The standard offer is not valid here, and only 82.3.185.12 suggested that you take the standard offer. But let's take the fact, but they're an IP, and they were themselves blocked on the English Wikipedia. I cannot see where TT suggested that.

And finally, regarding Brendan/Telstra, he's nowhere near "innocent". While some of his contributions are genuinely useful, a majority of his content is copied from sources that have "All rights reserved". And then he goes and lists suburbs under "see" listings, which is an obvious sign that's him. --SHB2000 (talk | contibs) 22:23, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

User:SHB2000, when you claim that "it was nearly the entire community that voted and indef ban", which information is that claim based on? The data is public and very clear about this. According to en:voy:Special:Statistics the number of active users on the English Wikivoyage is about 390. Add the numerous unregistered users that also regularly contribute, and the current English Wikivoyage community exceeds 400 active members. This is a fact that anyone can independently verify, not an opinion of mine. Likewise, when I look at the vote you're referring to then I count a total of 12 members voting, of which 6 voted in favour of a ban. Unless I'm really bad at maths, that's exactly 3% of active users voting, and 1.5% voting in favour of a ban. So indeed the statistics don't lie, we are effectively talking about a very small dissatisfied minority of Wikivoyage community members involved here. User:SHB2000, I understand you're still relatively new to the Wikivoyage community, but if you dispute the clear fact that 98.5% of the Wikivoyage community did not vote for an indef ban and still claim "it was nearly the entire community that voted an indef ban" then that's very obviously a false claim. Ironically, the reason given for my ban on Wikivoyage was that I failed to prove information in contributions I made to article space with numbers and reliable external sources, this unproven information was then seen as "bigotry" and even "vandalism" by a few members of the Wikivoyage community. In hindsight this was a mistake, I should have done more rigorous fact checking at the time, have since improved my research skills, and have also apologised for adding information that turned out to be incorrect. So can I also request you to check the facts and numbers before continuing your argument? If you still insist that 1.5% reflects the opinion of "nearly the entire community" then I believe it's better to stop to debate right here. ArticCynda (talk) 10:58, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

@SHB2000: someone just pointed out to me that votes for bans, even if conducted democratically, are against Wikipedia policies which explicitly states a consensus must be achieved. In other words, it does not matter how many people "voted" in favour or against a ban, because the validity of the vote itself is nil per en:voy:Wikivoyage:Consensus. ArticCynda (talk) 17:58, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Was 82.132.186.67 you?

Was this IP spamming unblock requests everywhere you, or an impersonator impersonating you? SHB2000 (talk | contibs) 05:48, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

ArticCynda does not spam anywhere, ever. My edits to Wikimedia projects are solely aimed at sharing knowledge altruistically, and improving projects such as Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikidata, and Commons like I have done for well over a decade.

If this is a Wikivoyage related query, it should be addressed on the talk page of the corresponding Wikimedia project rather than on Meta. ArticCynda (talk) 18:36, 30 October 2021 (UTC)