User talk:Sam Spade/ - archive Dezember 2004

Questions (motivated by the ArbCom)

Sam, you've been accused of and admitted vandalism in the past but have claimed to have changed. That makes me curious of a few things. I like to give people second chances and believe that people can change, but also know that few really do. so 1.) What do you think motivated you to be a problem user when you were? 2.) What has changed 3.) Why? - Taxman 23:44, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC) (feel free to answer here for better continuity)

I have never committed vandalism on the wikipedia. Therefore your questions are founded in a faulty premise. I will attempt to answer you regardless, for sake of propriety:

1. I never was a problem user, rather I have been at times a user with whom others had problems, most of which now resolved.
2. Nothing apparently, it would seem like you have a problem with me yourself. Why is that?
3. n/a

Sam Spade 10:45, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough, and no, I certainly have no problems with you. But I swear I have seen you comment that you have caused problems in the past and want to change. I could be mistaken, but I believe it was in the Requests for adminship voting. No offense meant. Simply would be valuable information to consider in voting for arb committee. - Taxman 00:26, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Thats very odd then. I can only assume you are talking about my conversation with RickK about the time I called him a vandal for an edit he made to my user name space? Please give me more info, so that I can adaquately respond to your concerns.

Curiously yours,

[[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 13:55, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well no, and sorry, but I don't have time to sift through diffs and find it either. Sorry to waste your time, but I don't have time to carry it further. - Taxman 13:04, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Very well then, good day. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 13:48, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

from Flamekeeper

Thankyou Sam . I need to correct endlessly - or rather the corrections need to be made . I will try and educate myself wikiwise . I am particularly interested in the problem of wiki's use by revisionism and posted into the Village pump the relevant questions under Clones ,Errors , Diputes & Clones downstream - feeding thereof . I fear for the long term good name of the wiki unless this is quickly resolved but the world of copyrights and licensing is as turgid as the Widerstand . I do not think this can be answered simply by stating this is bound by licensing or copyright , any more than this new interactive history can in the long term ignore the necessity to overcome these same issues . Truth is more important than copyright surely and so the courts may have to argue that future crossing of copyrights be indeed justifiable under fair-use . I thank you and whilst having to reserve my almost complete distrust of academia and intervention hope to receive your and anybody else's counselling with continuing gratitude . I will end by saying that we see today this very day a manifestation in Ukraine of a very similar factors to that which drove Germany from its' inception as a single state ,namely that of language wishing a territorial co-extension .Flamekeeper 10:24, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Interesting thought about Ukraine. I'm watching that situation closely. Keep in touch, [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 11:10, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Re: welcome

Thanks for the welcome boilerplate. Having been here a while, the links weren't particularly useful, but the thought was nice. CXI 05:49, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Cool, glad to have you! [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 08:18, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Misplaced rant

I cant speak for Sam's past but I can for your current behaviour. I see him as a problem user. Specifically him sending a private abusive and obscene e mail to Felonious Monk following a discussion on the Talk Atheism pages - something I see as completely beyond the pale, and something for which he has expressed not a hint of contrition over.

For failing contrary to Wikipedia guideline to answer a direct questions at least 3 times on the Talk Atheism pages about why he will not concede the point supported by multiple strong well sourced references in support that the definition of weak Atheism is in widespread use question--Nick-in-South-Africa 12:47, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Email is not governed by wiki-policy. My email did not contain any obscene material either, but rather only a bit of tame abuse (I insulted his ancestry and his wisdom) one sentence long. I did not flood his email, or send him links to Goatse.cx, or whatever. It was a one-time correction, which he may reflect upon at his leisure.

As per "direct questions" (read ad hominem’s), they were followed by direct answers, answers which you chose to ignore. Since I have time for neither fools nor slanderers, I refrained from lengthy reply. Due to your abuse on the wikipedia proper, and unwillingness to respect direct answers, I moved on to other things. Such is to my credit, not to my shame. The cherry picked references you invoke above are only slightly more helpful here than your inability (I assume it was incompetence and not malicious vandalism) to properly format in your note to me here. I, being a forgiving man, will assume the best. A good day to you sir.

As politely as possible,

[[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 13:52, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

RfC on CheeseDreams

You'd be interested in this - your comments would be appreciated as well. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/CheeseDreams --Josiah 04:05, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

thanx. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 09:27, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Accusations of fundamentalism

Hey- I've seen you accused of being a fundamentalist. Can you please affirm or deny this rumor? --Librarian Brent 03:25, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Its not a rumor, its based on cheesedreams user page. He started making a list, and I signed it. I am a fundamentalist, in the sense of "strict adherence to founding principles", and opposition to secularlism. I'm not exactly a religious, or christian fundamentalist or believer in biblical inerrency however, my founding principles are my existance, God, and logic. If your curious as to my views (as opposed to others views of myself), see User:Sam Spade/Theoretical Biases. Cheers, [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 10:44, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh, okay. Thanks for clearing that up for me. --Librarian Brent 23:21, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A evil man

I saw your defence on Hitler and I think you are a evil and corrupted man User:132.70.218.126 (sig added by [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 10:44, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC))

I saw your un-neutral edits, and you are a silly one. Why you would assume I am "defending" Hitler is beyond me, what I'm doing is insisting on a neutral article. I'm pretty unhappy w the guy myself, but having a biased article doesn't help much. Have a look here, where I describe him as having been demented due to syphilis, and excessive methamphetimine and qualuade usage. Next time get to know me a bit before you judge my character, my feathered friend. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 10:53, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Conflict over the Doomsday Argument

I think I'll need help in a conflict over the Doomsday argument article with User:Schaefer. I've taken out his "Singularity" sections and he takes out my "Many-worlds" sections. I argue that von Foerster's population growth theory has nothing to do with the probabilistic reasoning used by the Doomsday Argument. He argues that my many-worlds contributions are based on my own theories and thus do not belong in the wikipedia.

User:John Eastmond 30 Nov 2004

OK. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 15:14, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Proposal

My objection is that what you are adding is too insignificant for the main article. It belongs in a subarticle and nowhere else. Could you not expand the Esoteric Hitlerism page rather than the main Hitler page? I must say I can't see why you think it is so significant as to merit mention in the main article. Mind you, it's not the only minor point that has been added to the Hitler article. Methinks a trim and slight refactoring (the health bit is growing too much and is out of place as the rest of the article is chronological). jguk 21:48, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Clearly I think it is signifigant. If you have some specific compromise in mind, fire away, but us repeating our positions isn't likely to get us anywhere. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 22:36, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Shall we go for RfC and let the majority rule? If you agree can we agree on a short paragraph to introduce it on Talk:Adolf Hitler and both agree to make no comments of our own (at least on the Talk:Adolf Hitler page) until the (10 day long?) comment period is up? jguk 22:42, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I really don't think a RfC is needed, but if you do, feel free,I seriously doubt your average viewer of RfC has any knowledge of the particulars. Since nobody else is removing it, but rather more than once my version has been reverted to as a stable version, I feel that it should stay. Andries seems concerned (as he always has, in a disinterested way) about the suggestion that Nazis had mystical tendancies, and I have advised him to come to Talk:Nazi mysticism and work that out w me there, so he could almost seem to be somebody in your corner. Unfortunately for me, the most likely people to agree w me would be nuts who might believe in this sort of amusing nonsense ;) I have thought of one compromise however. How about I scan thru the Hitler page and find bits to trim, merge, and make new articles from, so as to get it closer to the sort of size necessary for a FAC? [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 10:59, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We're both listed at "Requests for Arbitration"

I've just found out (largely by chance) that CheeseDreams has brought a case for Arbitration against us two, and others. Maybe you'd like to comment on WP:RFAR. I don't know when he was planning on telling us. Seems strange though, engaging in a reversion dispute on one page and being accused of being part of a cabal with you at the same time:) jguk 22:42, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wow, what cabal is that? And whats our POV? Pro-Jesus? Anti-Cheese? How about pro-NPOV, pro-wikiquette ;) If thats our cabal we should start recruiting more members :D [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 22:49, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the links, you have my vote. Erehtsti 22:59, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hooah! Glad to have you, [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 23:03, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Using Holocaust Revisionism as legitimate sources

Sam, if you knew the first thing about history you'd know that the FIRST thing one does is question the reliability and validity of their sources. To cite self-described historical/holocaust revisionists as legitimate sources for anything (except, perhaps, an article on historical revisionism, of course) is an affront to historical epistemology. It is a question of sources, Sam, plain and simple. It is the same reason that one does not cite the Deutsche Physik advocates when trying to talk truthfully about Einstein: they are known for their dishonesty as historical witnesses and have the worst of intentions.

Don't lecture me on historical NPOV. Don't lecture me on whether or not you are acting like a jackass because you chose to lecture me without actually looking at the sites in question (i.e. accusing me of unfairly labeling them revisionist when it is clearly a self-described revisionist website). You are not my mother, you clearly have no historical training, and you clearly have more of a POV axe to grind than I do at this. My entire concern in this issue has been about the use of sources. Holocaust revisionists are notoriously bad historians, not accepted by any legitimate institutions of history, who have been shown again and again to have poor methodology and bad intentions. To deny this is to assert that there is a conspiracy; I can assure you, Sam, as someone who has a lot of experience with history at the professional level, that this isn't the case.

I'm surprised you'd go out on a limb to defend using historical revisionist sites as sources for an article on Nazi Germany so close to the Arbiter election you obviously hold so dearly. It seems like an impolitic move to me. By the way, in terms of my use of language: a jackass is a donkey, Sam. Please do everybody a favor and wise up. If you look at my record of edits you'll see that I strive hard for NPOV and don't have any real axes to grind, at least not here. Questioning someone's use of sources does not indicate a problem with POV, it's the keystone of all historical discourse. Were I to wager, I'd say you had something at stake for using revisionist sources; at least, that's what it looks like from this end of things. You might want to think about your motivations here. --Fastfission 15:30, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You have clung to your POV, that divergent POV's not be allowed to be brought to the table, and insisted that your usage of insults was somehow acceptable, as well as confirmed your own arrogant ignorance by assuming I had not reviewed the link in question (I was making a broader, deeper point about the tendency to use symbolic pejorative labels to "tar with the same brush" all those who disagree with you. Your inability to pick that up is telling) and am unaware of such obvious matters as the definition of common terms. Then you proceed to make deeply uninsightful observations about my stratagem in the arbitration elections, and attempt to wield that as some sort of stick in regards to our differences of opinion on Nazi Germany. Finally, you insinuate that I have some ulterior motive, likely attempting to paint me with that same broad brush you use against "revisionist historians" in order to avoid examining their various evidence. Frankly, your lack of intellectual honesty saddens me, and unfortunately does a great deal to confirm my pre-existing lack of respect for historians generally. You have a great deal of work to do to rebuild my previously neutral opinion regarding yourself, but I recommend you focus rather on improving your character, which would appear from our communications to be sadly in need of repair. A good day to you, sir.

[[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 16:33, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Apologies for my behavior with regards to Nazi Mysticism and Adolf Hitler

Sorry for not sooner giving my opinion on Nazi Mysticism but I had been very busy with other subjects and articles. I only started to get very worried when you inserted the wikilink Nazi Mysticism directly into such an important subject as Adolf Hitler. And then I overreacted a bit. I hope that somebody can make an article Religious aspects of Nazism though this will be a very difficult subject and people who will write it may have to go to the university library. Andries 22:13, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How about you come over to Talk:Nazi Mysticism and discuss some of the particulars, and review some of the evidences. Savitri Devi and Miguel Serrano are two of the most signifigant figures, and would be worth you looking into. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 10:18, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A Message to my Fellow Candidate

Friend,
The Arbitration Committee elections are almost here. I humbly ask for your vote in this election cycle. I have been a user of Wikipedia for over a year. I was here before the Community Portal, categories, or {{stub}}. I know how Wikipedia operates, and I am prepared to do my part to deal with problematic accounts. I wish to cut out the bureaucracy that makes our website stagnate. We need solutions to our problems now. If you want an arbitrator who believes in action, frankness, honesty, and fairness in every case, I am your arbitrator. Thank you for your time. You are under no obligation to answer this message.

--Paid for by Mero. for ArbCom

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started the Free the Rambot Articles Project which has the goals of getting users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to...

1. ...all U.S. state, county, and city articles...
2. ...all articles...

using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) version 1.0 and 2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to the GFDL (which every contribution made to Wikipedia is licensed under), but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles (See the Multi-licensing Guide for more information). Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. So far over 90% of people who have responded have done this.

Nutshell: Wikipedia articles can be shared with any other GFDL project but open/free projects using the incompatible Creative Commons Licenses (e.g. WikiTravel) can't use our stuff and we can't use theirs. It is important to us that other free projects can use our stuff. So we use their licenses too.

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} template (or {{MultiLicensePD}} for public domain) into their user page, but there are other templates for other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} with {{MultiLicensePD}}. If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know at my talk page what you think. It's important to know, even if you choose to do anything so I don't keep asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk) 14:18, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Multi-licensing page explains some of the ramifications of multi-licensing and has some links at the bottom of the page that link to some alternate pages that do much the same thing. I don't know if you've looked at that. I created the page in this namespace based on the page that was in meta. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk) 16:20, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

No I hadn't, thanx. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 17:16, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've added a Multi-Licensing FAQ, in case you want to see it. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk) 18:12, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Cool. Why is yer wiki-stress level so high? Anything I can help with? [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 18:16, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Atheism

I've started an unofficial attempt to mediate the dispute at Atheism. Please visit the talk page and created a bulleted summary of your view under the new header. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 18:51, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Cool, done. Please help to promote (and enforce) civility, or I won't take much of a part in the discussions. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 19:03, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The right to vote

Hi, I've tried to follow your suggestions about ArbCom vote, but I think I've been excluded without reason from vote, as the software can't see that my first contribution to en.wiki dates back to 23:45, 11 Jul 2004. I've asked for feedback on Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004#Disputing vote exclusion. Any cues? --M7it 14:13, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I tried to provide some assistance, requesting in a couple places that others view your request. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 15:44, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've noticed. Thank you for your kind help. Ciao, M7it 15:47, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Just a note to let you know that the opinion espressed by Danny, a member of the independent election organizing committee, was against my right to vote. I respect his decision, nevertheless it gives me the sensation that it privileges the letter to the spirit... So I slightly changed the Campaign banner on my page. Thank you for your support. M/

Just curious

I notice you've edited User: Michaelnickarz's user page (not talk page); that's usually considered bad form, so I'm just wondering what the deal is. Exploding Boy 20:54, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

Its usually considered good form to make improvements. If he complains, he can revert it, and I won't do it again. Why did you post that rude form letter on his talk page? His edits wern't experiments, they were vaguely good edits. Maybe not the best, but not vandalism by any stretch. I found your posting that form letter in resposne especially bad form. Please try not to bite the nubes. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Wants you to vote!] 20:59, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's good form to make improvements, yes, but not generally to edit another user's user page unless it's to remove spam. "Rude form letter"? Don't be silly. It's a standard user talk message that says, and I quote:

Thanks for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has now been reverted or removed. Please use Wikipedia:Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing in articles will normally be reverted quickly. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks.

It's far from rude; actually, it's quite polite, and hardly constitutes "biting the newcomer." His edit (that anal sex is (and again, I quote) "extreamlty rare almost impossible without damge to the woman") was patently false and clearly designed to express disapproval which is why it was reverted -- by another user, by the way. In fact, I'd suggest that what is exceedingly rude is your adding the heading "Haughty complaint" and a post saying to ignore my message. Don't do it again. Exploding Boy 21:10, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

You appear to have missed the context, in which he was refering to a woman becoming pregnant thru anal sex. As usual your comments are hysterical and rude. If you want respect, come correct. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Wants you to vote!] 21:19, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Forget it, Sam. I'm not going to explain it to you and I'm finished with this conversation. I'm only glad that this little exchange has given me the heads up to vote against you in the Arbitration Committee election. I hope my contribution will help to prevent you from being elected. Exploding Boy 21:27, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

I'm unconvinced you are able to explain anything other than your own POV. And as far as your disendorsement, that says alot more about you than it does about me. One day maybe you'll grow to understand how to see past the blinders of your emotions. Until then, find something else to do than trying to impress me with them. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Wants you to vote!] 21:36, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Threats from an admin

Please refrain from adding subheadings above and comments about the post discussed above on User: Michaelnickarz's talk page that appear to undermine the warning in my message. Michaelnickarz will be blocked if he continues to add spam to articles, as will you if you continue this ridiculous behaviour. Exploding Boy 16:50, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

I recommend you rethink your stance, before you get yourself desysopped. Review our last convo on this subject, and move on. This is not a fight worth having. I apologize deeply for my lack of insight in having voted for your adminship, and I will do what it takes to make amends for that if need be. Think about it... elsewhere. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Wants you to vote!] 17:04, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)