User talk:Tamzin/Nice things

Thank you so much, Joshua Jonathan. It's funny, it started just as this weird feeling based on the RfD !votes... We get weird !vote patterns at RfD all the time, usually when a number of non-regulars wander in and don't understand how the forum actually works. The weird thing, though, was that they did seem to get the basic premise of RfD, but were still !voting for a conclusion that made no sense. But still I didn't have that high an index of suspicion, and also I was rather busy, and was this closed to dropping it. But instead, kind of on a whim, I asked Blablubbs to take a look. I was only suspicious about the four who'd !voted consecutively, and I was frankly surprised when Blablubbs turned up evidence tying not just all four of them, but Apollo too. I had no previous exposure to this topic area, and didn't know any of the players, so I really though I'd just be dealing with a few SPAs, not someone with 2,000 edits and PCR.

I think it was also Blablubbs who first suggested Moksha as part of it, as we looked at other players in the topic area. Then I found the comment from the Swami sock accusing them, and there went the next few hours of my life, digging through a history that grew more and more horrifying as the behavioral similarities mounted. I've really never seen something that elaborate fly under the radar, except reading early (pre-2010) ArbCom cases.

It's a shame we'll likely never know exactly how many people were behind these six accounts. My personal hypothesis is that it was six people who knew each other off-wiki, with one, perhaps Moksha, ghost-writing some talk-page comments for the others. (If true, that would mean they were done in by that one person's micromanagement, which is a funny thought.) But that's just my guess.

So thanks again for the barnstar. :) I kind of hope I never get this particular barnstar again, though, at least not for the same kind of thing. Mass gaslighting is a demoralizing thing to work against. I'm happy to go back to just dealing with vandals and spammers. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 06:14, 25 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@L235: Thank you—for this barnstar and for your own diligence. I was worried that someone would look at this and see it as too complicated, and as involving blocks that were too likely to cause drama, and just punt on it and leave the whole topic area still in disarray. As someone who's always favored making lots of small improvements over a small number of big ones, it's rare that I get the chance to look at something and say, "Here's a way that I really, noticeably, made the encyclopedia better through one single effort." Which I hope I'll be able to say here, depending on how the POV cleanup goes.

As I said to JJ above, I just hope that I don't run into another case like this for a while—both because I (perhaps naïvely) hope to never see anything so egregious, but also for the sake of my sanity, and the sake of whichever CU is crazy enough to take on that case. :) So again, thanks for all you've done here. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 17:04, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

​​Thank you both. <3 While I don't think of myself as an incivil person, I'm not sure this is one I ever expected to get.

As someone who both likes to assume good faith and has a low tolerance for bigotry, I always see this kind of thing as a win-win: If the assumption of good faith was correct, then we avert more hurt feelings; and if it doesn't, then people can't plead ignorance the next time. I'm glad that this appears to have been the former. "Lord's work" is a compliment I'll happily (flatteredly) accept, be it meant proverbially or literally. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 00:11, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see great minds think alike. I wasn't aware of the incident that led to the creation of your essay prior to today, and had only created mine in response to seeing "he/she" a lot around here. I must say you articulate it a lot better than I do, though! Patient Zero^talk 04:11, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd just like to thank you as well for your well written essay. I hope this essay helps inform future editors and, in doing so, reduce the instances of misgendering. Isabelle ^🔔 02:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

תודה רבה, Claudia! A pleasantly synchronistic treat to find immediately after submitting my first foray into your neck of the woods.

Despite my well-known affinity for Queen Esther (Esther 8:6 tattoo pic forthcoming on Commons once I've got the enby and agender colors touched up), I've never done much for Purim. Don't really know why that is, just how it's sorted out. But I'll never say no to something tasty! Chag sameach to you too, friend.

i/j/nb/s -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 03:51, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much, Gerda. This means a lot to me, especially given the circumstances and given the date (see userpage footnote 2). After years of, as you allude to, mostly working on improving articles by trimming them down, it's been a very eye-opening experience to build a full-length article from the ground up. I'm glad I got to have this experience with a list that's meaningful to me, although the downside of that is being very aware of how quickly this list grows. A small fraction of those killed overall, but as Masaq' Hub says in Look to Windward, "It's always one hundred percent for the individual concerned". -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 02:13, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, this means a lot to me, - see my talk today and 23 March. We have one name in common even, and named victims stand for all the unnamed. - "Stand and sing". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:02, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: Oksana Shvets was on my mind when I suggested at Talk:List of journalists killed during the Russo-Ukrainian War that perhaps a List of artists killed during the Russo-Ukrainian War is in order—also to list Artem Datsyshyn, Brent Renaud, Mantas Kvedaravičius, and perhaps Maks Levin. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 20:42, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

yes - just working on Maks Levin --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:51, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Pharos: Okay, I think that's the last of them reined in, aside from a few buffalo who had already been taken in by loving adopters like Jeremyb. One hopes these buffalo do not feel buffaloed. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 03:06, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Bagumba. :) (Incredibly slow response, sorry.) At some point soon I'd like to write up a self-audit of my blocks to make sure I'm staying true to my stated principles in blocking... We'll see. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 00:53, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Hawkeye7. :) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 17:06, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• @Aoba47: Aww, you're so sweet. You know, WP:CIR gets cited in a lot of horrible and mean-spirited contexts, but there's a valuable lesson in there if one takes the time to read it, which is that no one is competent at everything. I'd like to think of myself as a fairly well-rounded editor—2 GAs, lots of projectspace work, some technical work including a bot—but there's still dozens of areas of this project that I have literally no fucking clue how to manage. And it's really only luck that I haven't in recent years had the pleasure of having some admin show up on my talk page and say "Umm, that's not at all how this thing is done. I've unbroken it for you. Please be more careful."^[a] One thing I've never done in 10 years here, for instance, is get an FA. Hell, didn't have a GA till 5 months after my RfA.^[b] You have... holy shit, 45 of those.^[c] If I live a long life and continue focusing on content^[d] maybe I'll hit that number before I die. When I do go for my first FAC, you can bet it'll be with oodles of behind-the-scenes hand-holding from friends who've done it before, to make up for my near-complete cluelessness about that venue. So.
  If I can summarize this wall of text, it's
  🪞
  at both you and CT55555 because like... holy fucking shit this site is toxic sometimes. And it's been so incredibly refreshing to see two experienced users^[e] be so relentlessly civil to each other and to me over a relatively minor, totally good-faith misunderstanding, to the extent you're following up on it weeks later. I love it. If there were an inverse version of WP:STOCKS I would put you both in it, no ifs, ands, or buts.^[f] Thank you for this barnstar, but really it's y'all who deserve it for this truly exemplary conduct. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 21:25, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for adding more rays of much-needed sunshine on this site. Peace. CT55555(talk) 21:50, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your response and the kind words. I will read through WP:CIR in the near future. I enjoy reading through these kinds of essays, and I agree that no one is great or even competent at every single aspect of Wikipedia because this site is so vast and dense. I think it is good to have a healthy dose of perspective and humility, and I have learned from this experience. I has been a while since I did anything with page moves and the like that I genuinely forgot how to do any of it.

Congrats on the two GAs, and I think it is awesome that you've done technical work as well. I have absolutely zero ideas how to even remotely do anything with bots so I am impressed by that. I am proud of my work in the FAC process and very thankful for all the editors and reviewers who have helped along the way. If I ever do it make it to 47, I will let you know if something special happens, and if you ever decide to pursue a FAC, I would be more than happy to answer any questions or provide any pointers. It can be a very intimidating space, but there are also a lot of wonderful editors over there.

You are right that this site can be toxic at times, particularly from experienced users, and I've definitely reacted poorly in the past. The best I can do is to try and learn from each experience and hopefully be better for the future. I'd be curious on what the reverse of WP:STOCKS would be. I am glad that this experience ended up in a positive place in the end and hopefully, this will not sound super sappy, but it was wonderful to meet and interact with you and CT55555. I hope you are having a wonderful 2023 (knock on wood though as I do not want to jinx anything). Aoba47 (talk) 22:26, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your Guide, I found it very interesting, very thoughtful and reasoned, and I appreciate the time that you put into it. --Elonka 22:49, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Diannaa. This means a huge amount coming from you. After a year and a half as an admin there's only a few admins left who feel to me more legend than colleague, but getting a barnstar from Diannaa is one of those things that just... oh I don't know how to finish this sentence without sounding too fangirlish but... well, again, thank you.

I'm glad you appreciated the guide, and likewise Elonka above. Although, I must say, I just discovered Teratix' painstakingly researched guide, and it so thoroughly blows mine out of the water that I'm tempted to just redirect mine. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 07:35, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Edwardx: Thank you! This is going to be one of my go-to gnomish tasks for a while—not surname articles specifically, but more generally pages in Quarry 63493, "Possible non-CONCISE titles on enwiki", which looks for cases where the primary landing page for a term is a redirect to something other than a DAB page or list containing the page title as a substring. Per WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT, many such pages are valid, and with name articles I'm skipping past any that redirect to a specific person (even if—between you, me, and 132 talkpage watchers—I think that some editors are a bit overzealous in declaring people the primary topic for a mononymous forename or surname). You're welcome to help out with the query if you'd like, as is anyone else; maybe work from the back, or skip a few thousand rows, to avoid collisions. (N.B.: I may revise and re-run the query later if I run into a streak where I'm getting a lot of false positives for a specific scenario, like I did with DAB pages and lists.) Either way, again, thanks for the acknowledgment. Been doing other stuff the past few weeks, but when I get back to this query you'll probably see me lighting up your watchlist again. :) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 04:23, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@I dream of horses: That's a very fancy barnstar for a few edits, but I'll take it! :) It's interesting how easily cruft accumulates on some DABs when it's not obvious spam (or, sometimes, even when it is). -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 18:57, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Chipmunkdavis: Been meaning to reply to this for uh... 3 months apparently. Thanks! I don't think it's even an IAR situation, really. We protect pages for as long as disruption can be reasonably expected to last. People are going to keep randomly posting their phone numbers on that page until phone numbers stop existing or people stop getting lost on the Internet. I think both of those can be fairly described as "indefinite"ly far away. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 16:50, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Scorpions13256 and The Night Watch: Thank you. I try. :) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 16:52, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Blanchey. :) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 16:48, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've been following a few of these. See https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/Mass%C3%A9nat_Emmanuel. Should Global locks be requested in view of cross wiki abuse? 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 19:48, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good call.  Global lock(s) requested. In addition, @Do not follow: You might want to take a look at fr:Spécial:Contributions/TOP_MAG_WORLD, fr:Spécial:Contributions/MJ.edit, and fr:Spécial:Contributions/RichardGPierre (cf. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/TOP MAG WORLD and block of fr:Spécial:Contributions/Massénat_Emmanuel). -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 00:41, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 11:39, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

According to https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/Mass%C3%A9nat_Emmanuel there is a link with Greatnessdev, which has not so far edited here. Knowing that blocks are intended to be preventative I am wondering what, if any, action here ought to be taken, or whether you might again use your knowledge of the global lock process to consider whether they are appropriate for thsi editor too. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 12:23, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Timtrent. :) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 12:28, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am in awe of SPI folk. While I'm capable of making a report, you all have the determination to get the drains up and deciding if all of our reports have merit. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 13:42, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Kioumarsi: Thank you! -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 12:33, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Huldra: I'm going to try to break my streak of not replying to barnstars for three months... Thank you. I genuinely never enjoy indeffing someone who's here to build an encyclopedia, which I do believe that user was. But we've still found no better way at handling long-term conduct issues than escalating blocks, and escalating blocks do, sadly, escalate. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 00:26, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@GRuban: Thanks. :) You know, I have my share of regrets as a Wikipedian, but answering that question honestly isn't one, nor is giving the community the chance to decide whether that kind of disposition made me more or less qualified to be an arb. The answer seems to have been "less", and I'm quite content with that. Just means I'm too cool. ;) I've already been to the land of burnout and back—drafted and deleted resignation statements twice—and found new priorities both off- and on-wiki. I'm happy in my current niche, wandering back and forth between content-creation periods and projectspace periods. Maybe someday I'll be stupid enough to run again, and maybe that time the community will punish me for that folly by electing me.

P.S. I always feel like it's tacky to thank someone for !voting "per" oneself, but in this case I did less for the agreement and more because it's been ages since anyone picked the third pronoun option. I've been working today on a piece of fiction where a lot of the characters take Spivak pronouns, and was thinking about how neglected my poor neopronouns are. Thanks for looking after them... Maybe someday they'll fix the Echo bug that forced me to randomize the order in my signature. Or... hey, Sammy, would some sysadmin yell at me if I wrote a script to change my signature every minute? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 01:30, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would yell at you 😌 — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 01:35, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A very belated thanks for this, @Eddie891! Got seven new articles since then!  Advisory Neighborhood Commission district 7F08 (my least-viewed article but one of the most interesting), F1NN5TER, Ray cat,  When a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they are going to have the last word (the longest GA title by words),  Terminology of transgender anatomy,  Celebrity Number Six, and  Death of Richard Swanson. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 07:56, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@The Kip: Thanks! Although I've got some bad news for you about your choice of barnstar. 😛 -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 22:04, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops, my bad haha. I'll leave it as-is, though - thought that counts and all that. The Kip ^(contribs) 22:05, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad it was you two helping The Wordsmith performing the close. I can't say I agree 100% with your close, which (by my reckoning) puts your pitch right in the sweet spot. Thanks for taking that responsibility with leek. BusterD (talk) 03:30, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have you know, BusterD, that according to (an otherwise pretty good piece by) the JTA, The Wordsmith, leek, and I are all a single editor. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 03:51, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ha hahahahaha. Hahah! Hah! Hah! Huhhah! Hooooooohaaaaaah! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hhahahahahahahaha. Haha. Haha. ha. ha. ah. Ahem. BusterD (talk) 04:40, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That would put you all in violat.... hahhhahahahahahahahaha! Hoooooohaaaaaaah! Ohhhhhhhh hahhhhhhhh! I'm sorry... BusterD (talk) 04:43, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First people called me a sock for being more than one person. Now they call me a sock for being less than one! -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 04:47, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I agree wholeheartedly with Tamzin. Right as always. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 05:05, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That would be an extraordinary claim. And we all know extraordinary claims have steep sourcing requirements. Mere accusation may have worked for some previously. Here you'd need proof AND a consensus. It's amazing how some people don't realize this almost always works in justice's favor. If ad hominem is all they've got, you've already won the argument. BusterD (talk) 05:08, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, TompaDompa, and thank you for the thorough GA review! I actually have a second candidate for this pending at GAN right now, this one a proper AfD save that I was even a delete on initially, Death of Richard Swanson (AfD). -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 18:06, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

TIL I can win a goat just by being too lazy to write an SPI myself. ;) Guess I should have been careful what I wished for in the above section when I said I only wanted to deal with normal socks. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 03:25, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@EpicPupper: Oh, and, I forgot to say: You did great! -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 03:51, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Again, thanks so much :) 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk, FAQ, contribs | please use {{ping}} on reply)} 03:54, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@MaxnaCarta: Well, I guess this goes to show I took Liz' advice to heart in terms of forgetting who voted which way. Granted, with >450 names to remember, it was pretty easy to let those fall out of my mind.

Thank you for the further compliments on my content work. I'd like to put the article up for FAC soon, I think. I'll take one more dive to see if I can dig up any post-Nieves analysis beynd Mills, and maybe add a teeny bit to §§ Prior jurisprudence and Lozman and Riviera Beach, but your comments solidify my impression that it's close to complete.

That's a lovely quote. If I may get personal for a moment, as someone who is plural/multiple, if I've spent a whole day focused on the outer world, then the moment I go to sleep will often be the one moment I check in with the others I share a brain and body with. Often what I see is love, from another self within a divided self. Which makes me think which of The Four Loves that would be, if any, which makes me think of this quote from wikiquote:C. S. Lewis § Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956):

Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, "Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words." A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?

Which I think rather nicely ties together several threads here. :)

Or maybe just seems confusing because Till We Have Faces is a weird book.

P.S. MOS:CURLY :D -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 12:10, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@TheAafi: Well pink has always been my color, and I woke up at 2 PM yesterday and am trying to power through till like 6 PM today, so yes, I'll gladly accept. I hope it's strongly caffeinated. :) I enjoy seeing you around as well. sips. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 11:44, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@TheAafi: Update: I have drunk a medium Dunkin' "chai" in honor of this gift. I am guessing tastes nothing like the drink in the image, as Dunkin' beverages have a weird ability to all taste the same by the time you're done drinking them, no matter what you ordered. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 16:51, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I feel honoured imho. The chai (tea) I offered is salty in nature. 😌 ─ The Aafī on Mobile ^(talk) 16:54, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. This definitely was not salty. More sickly-sweet. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 17:04, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@DrWho42: Thanks! :) (Working through talkpage backlog!) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 21:41, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]