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User Talk: Valjean

Server-side rendered snapshot of this editor's Wikipedia talk page discussions.

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{{Press
| subject2 = article
| author2 = Ashe Schow
| title2 = Wikipedia founder advocates for updating policies following 'The Hunting Ground' controversy
| org2 = ''Washington Examiner ↗''
| url2 = https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wikipedia-founder-advocates-for-updating-policies-following-the-hunting-ground-controversy
| date2 = November 25, 2015
| quote2 = Another editor, whose username is BullRangifer, suggested Wikipedia not become "a kangaroo court or lynching" by rushing to ban accounts who break COI. BullRangifer suggested following seven steps to determine whether "The Hunting Ground" crew member should be banned and whether his edits should be removed. Some of the steps included how he handled questions related to his edits and whether he stuck to discussion pages to ask for edits rather than making them himself.
| accessdate2 = February 8, 2020
| subject3 = article
| author3 = Marcus Gilmer
| title3 = Wikipedia demotes Breitbart to fake news
| org3 = Mashable ↗
| url3 = https://mashable.com/article/wikipedia-breitbart-ban-fake-news/
| date3 = October 3, 2018
| quote3 = Support. If anything, it's even more unreliable than the Daily Mail, as they at least use trained journalists, whereas Breitbart is a fringe propaganda organization which lets its extreme partisan bias get in the way of how it reports things, and whether it does so, just as Fox News does. It too should be deprecated, but let's start with Breitbart (and InfoWars). — BullRangifer 17:51, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
| accessdate3 = October 5, 2018
| subject4 = article
| author4 = Alexander Hall
| title4 = Report: Wikipedia Editors Censoring Evidence Supporting Michael Flynn
| org4 = NewsBusters ↗
| url4 = https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/techwatch/alexander-hall/2020/08/13/report-wikipedia-editors-censoring-evidence-supporting
| date4 = August 13, 2020
| quote4 = Liberal user Valjean responded by condemning this revelation as 'conspiracy theories' and 'part of a cover-up,' even 'when it comes from the now-sitting government of the USA.' Valjean specified that 'Nothing coming from Trump's Justice Department, FBI, CIA, anything, can be trusted.' Breitbart alleged that Valjean, formerly under the name 'BullRangifer' has been 'previously involved in slanting articles about the Russia investigation.'
| accessdate4 = August 15, 2020
| subject5 = article
| author5 = Raymond Sturman
| title5 = Top 5 Editing Conflicts in Wikipedia Pages on Religion
| org5 = World Religion News
| url5 = https://www.worldreligionnews.com/wikipedia/top-5-editing-conflicts-in-wikipedia-pages-on-religion/
| date5 = October 23, 2024
| quote5 = Located on the Catholic Church Wikipedia talk page, the screenshot below details a recent discussion of the tension between the Roman Catholic Church and other branches of Catholicism. Editor 'Valjean' is protesting that the word 'Roman' has been removed from the title, arguing that there are other branches of Catholicism, while the Roman Catholic Church says it is the real Catholic Church.
| accessdate5 = October 24, 2024
}}{{clear}}
<!-- {{semi-retired|Some may have noticed that my activity level isn't anywhere near what it used to be. Well, being a Wikipedia editor is just not that much fun anymore.

Wikilawyering has become a fine art that's exploited by partisan POV pushers and, predominantly right-wing, paid political whitewashers (the Koch brothers control many articles), and NPOV is pretty much impossible to maintain on such articles. It's not worth the effort (which is more like a battle), so a lot of the time I now avoid such conflict zones.

Fixing commas and grammar is pretty uncontroversial. It's a shame that talent, knowledge and experience are wasted. Experienced editors get burned out, and there is not an endless supply of such editors, so Wikipedia is bleeding. Until the community does something to rectify this situation, it will lose out on such talent and the editing pool will become more and more dominated by political hacks and amateur jerks.}} -->
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{{Talk header |bottom= |custom_header=Welcome to Valjean's talk page! TBIP ↗ |wp= |display_title= |arpol= |sc1= |sc2= |sc3= |sc4= |sc5= |demospace= |hide_find_sources= |search_term1= |search_term2= |search-domain= |noarchive= |search= }}
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<!--* Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of bias ↗-->


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My email works



I welcome personal contact by email. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:25, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

A webhosting division....



I would love to see the Wikimedia Foundation create a sort of "Geocities", for profit, webhosting division for personal websites using the MediaWiki software. It could be a profit-making endeavor. There, anyone, including editors, could pay a yearly fee and own their own websites, with personally registered domain names. It should be connected to Wikipedia in such a way that one-way wikilinks to the encyclopedia worked. It would thus be a feeder driving much more traffic to Wikipedia. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:38, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

:Dead internet theory ↗ is more likely as bots eventually surpass human traffic (it was falsely reported that they already did five days ago). Find yourself a nice, uncontroversial topic area to work in and let the past go. Maybe archive this page and start fresh. Ruminating isn't going to help you move on at this point. Also, you don't want to violate your topic ban. Think of it this way: it's not the end of the world, it's the beginning of a new one. Viriditas (talk) 18:32, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

T-Ban violation?



Hey V, I think your revert ↗ at Michigan prosecution of fake electors ↗ is a violation of your Trump topic ban as the article is completely about Trump's BS about election stuff. &#126;2026-30734-89 ↗ (talk) 20:25, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:I looked, and I think the temp account has a point, although I'm fine with someone else reverting it. It's a debatable call, but I'd suggest self-reverting to be on the safe side. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:45, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:: I have self-reverted, out of an abundance of caution. That it could be a tBan vio didn't cross my mind. I was undoing a policy-violating edit. My focus was not on the topic of the article, but on the edit, which did not mention the topic of my tBan. I did not intend any violation.
:: I think that the IP's history here should be examined and their real identity should be questioned. They seem to have an unusually close association with a certain editor who is the fault of all this misery.
:: Otherwise, it seems to be as I feared. This tBan means I can hardly make any edit at Wikipedia as the subject touches everything imaginable in one way or another that can then be called "broadly construed". This is an odious tBan. It should be modified. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:04, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::There are ~7.2 million articles on English Wikipedia. I think you can find a few that don't have to do with Mr. Orange ↗. Viriditas (talk) 21:28, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::: Yes, there are many subjects that don't interest me.... but there is no subject of interest or consequence that he has not touched. A subject needs to be interesting to me for me to bother spending time here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:31, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::There's no need for you to edit topics that don't interest you. But if things that interest you are within the t-ban topic area, you have to stay out of them, full stop. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::: I fully agree. I did not intend to enter the "topic area". -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:40, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::I think it's very clear that you were acting in good faith, and that you are cooperating now that other editors have pointed it out to you. I say this, to make it clear to anyone who comes here looking to make an unnecessary issue out of this. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
Pinging {{ping|Muboshgu}} as they have reverted a temp account's other edit. I reverted ↗ another one of their edits and now am being accused of violating my tBan. Other editors should delete that policy-violating addition of unsourced personal commentary since I apparently can't do it and have self-reverted. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:26, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:Thanks for self-reverting, and I fixed it myself: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michigan_prosecution_of_fake_electors&diff=1360040677&oldid=1355383712 ↗. Valjean, I don't think it's as bad as you are describing it. It's just common sense that something about the false electors controversy is going to be within the topic area of the t-ban, and you need to take all that stuff off your watchlist. The temp account is no emergency that would require your attention, and the fact that Muboshgu recognized it at another page just goes to show that other editors can take care of this, and you don't have to. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:: I agree. I'll have to delete my watchlist. That amounts to leaving Wikipedia. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:42, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::There's nothing wrong with cutting back on your efforts here, especially while pursuing your interests at other websites. But I hope you don't leave, and that you don't take other editors' user talk pages off your watchlist, because you are always welcome to chat, even if there aren't any mainspace pages you feel like working on at the present (and in the future – who knows?). --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::: I have now added you to my new watchlist. It used to be over 10,000, plus talk pages. Now it's three. My interests here are not primarily social. That's just a side benefit when being HERE. I have never been NOTHERE, as accused. I have FB, Twitter, and Bluesky for social stuff. As an aspie, social contacts are of interest when discussing common interests. Without the common interests, such contacts tend to fade. I do appreciate your friendship. I am "aspie-lite", and not very seriously affected. I wish I could share what I'm doing elsewhere, but without your email or some other private way to contact you, I can't do that. I have written a lot, including song lyrics, and a FB friends has used AI to create a pretty cool song. It would be a tBan violation to post it here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:57, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
::::::For what it's worth, I lurk quietly at a certain external website devoted to criticism of Wikipedia, and I laughed out loud at a song I saw there. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
::::::: Good! Can I contact you there? You can dm me there. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:06, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
::::::::No, because I don't have an account there, and it would be weird to post something there addressed to me when I'm not a member. There's a moderate chance that I will see things that people post there, because I look there from time to time. I have my reasons for making it difficult to contact me, and I just have to ask you to understand. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:11, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::Delete your watchlist. I deleted mine a month ago. I feel like I have been freed from a life of slavery. Try it, you might like it. Don't be a slave to habit. Viriditas (talk) 21:53, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::: Now I have placed my user space stuff and archives on my new watchlist so it won't get vandalized without me knowing it. I have also deleted a few things. Since my selfworth is closely connected with what I do, this topic ban has significantly made me a very small person without much purpose in life. That sucks. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:41, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::Nobody can make you a small person or take away your purpose in life. Please find ways to publish the stuff you care about somewhere else. There is genuine value in putting that information out there. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:45, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::: That's so easy for others to say, but my reality is not theirs.
:::::::: Doug Weller is one of the people here I have held in the highest regard. This comment ↗ by him is one of the most painful things I have ever experienced here. It felt like a real betrayal, a knife in my back. I can't think of it without crying every time. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:49, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::We ''can'' take responsibility for how we perceive, respond, and react ''to'' reality. That's the key takeaway. Viriditas (talk) 22:56, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::If it helps (and I never want to see anyone feeling sad), I can tell you some things from my own life. As you may know, I'm a former tenured university professor. I had quite a bit of respect during my career. Some new administrators came into my university, and for some very stupid reasons, they started to make life extremely difficult for me. Eventually, it got to the point that they broke the law, in ways that were harmful to me personally, so I hired an attorney, and sued the university, and won a large amount of money, because I was in the right. But part of me getting that result was that I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and I agreed to retire from my job (something I intended to do soon anyway, but this made it happen at that time). (I could have declined to do those things, but my lawyer advised me – wisely, I think – that I would jeopardize the money if I pursued further litigation, and there could be no guarantee of continuing to get a good outcome.) So I left academia, with the money, but with no public apology, and no public acknowledgment that I had been wronged. (Although, I subsequently heard through the grapevine that those administrators were fired, after a brief face-saving interim.) I'm telling you this stuff, all of it exactly true, because I know from personal experience how you can feel the way you do. For me, it was kind of a "grieving" process, that never really goes away. I know I was right, and they were wrong, but that university continues to exist as if nothing really changed. I continue to be surprised at how much it bothers me that I don't get some kind of public acknowledgment that I was treated badly, and I still kind of miss running a lab. It's something I still live with. I'd like to think the experience made me more sensitive to how other people feel when they are given a bum deal, and I dunno, maybe, it helps me be better at some of the things I do here at Wikipedia. So it makes sense to me, what you are saying about how you feel now. I'm not going to try to put a good spin on it, but I will insist that these things that the world does to us are not our own faults, and no, other people do not get to define who we are. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:11, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::: Yes, it does help. I don't know anything about you IRL. That experience was painful to you. I can understand that. Living with injustice and unfairness really sucks. That's where I'm at. The lack of respect hurts. The failure to value editors sucks. I do know that "time heals" a lot, but it's still a painful experience that leaves permanent scars. It has really soured me on the "Wikipedia experience" front. This place is full of vipers. It's a Lord of the Flies place. My childhood left me with serious scars that affected me deeply. That, with other factors, made friendships hard, and school a place of torture. Through shear effort and natural intelligence, I made scholastic achievements my lodestar. I excelled with little effort. I built a good career, have a wonderful wife, but then stalking and legal threats tore it all away. Then the fire took what was left. Even many of my memories are gone. When one doesn't have any pictures, memories fade. I have a hard time recalled what people looked like. I built up a place here that filled my life with meaning. Now that too is gone, and in my old age, I am very reduced. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:25, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::::I'm glad it helps, even if just a little. As I've also posted on Wikipedia in the past, I had been sexually abused as a child. I reacted to that, in part, by making my own scholastic achievements my lodestar, so you and I have a bit of that in common. That's why, for me, taking away my academic position was so painful: taking away this big part of how I defined myself, even though my lawyer would say that I "won" the case. The way I perceive it, though, is that even when I ''feel'' reduced, I'm not reduced, because I'm still the same human being, with the same self-worth. You might, perhaps, find it useful to read up on the concept of "radical acceptance". --Tryptofish (talk) 23:35, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::::{{tq|This place is full of vipers. It's a Lord of the Flies place}}. I'm pretty sensitive to that kind of thing, and this place isn't it. You're projecting your own fears, I'm afraid. Viriditas (talk) 00:24, 19 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::::: Okay, I'll strike the imprecise hyperbole: :{{tq|This place has <s>is full of</s> vipers.}}. Better? Those are the ones I've encountered. Maybe they are 1%, but to me, they appeared ''en force'', so the 99% good people don't really count in that situation. (Only a couple people offered any defense, for which I am grateful.) They carry grudges, dig up old imperfections that have long since been resolved, etc. Then used them as a Gish gallop ↗ to crucify me in a kangaroo court where it was impossible to examine and debunk dubious "evidence". This didn't ''just'' happen, it was ''allowed'' to happen. That's a systemic fault at AE, ArbCom, and some drama boards. "Justice delayed is justice denied." Should I appeal? No, that would be pointless. I can not expect justice here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:54, 19 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::::::{{tq| Maybe they are 1%, but to me, they appeared en force, so the 99% good people don't really count in that situation.}} Bingo. This is a very important observation, and it's one I would encourage you to spend weeks, maybe even months, thinking about, not intellectually, but in terms of experiential, in the body, of the world participation. It is exactly this narrow perspective that is causing you so much pain. Once you widen your view, your entire outlook will change. Why limit your consciousness to this 1%? We both know that it is this small minority of people (oligarchs, billionaires, science-denying fundies, and the neo-reactionary recrudescencists of the MAGA movement, the dark enlightenment and the far-right, postliberal class) who are causing all of the problems, while the vast majority of us suffer under their ideological tyranny. But we can still get on with our day. Don't be "The Princess and the Pea ↗". Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. Don't get trapped by your own thoughts. Liberate yourself from them. Viriditas (talk) 02:09, 19 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::::::: LMAO! Now you're sounding like a Buddhist, and that reminds me of a short period of my youth. We encountered an older lady, and she was a real Buddhist. We'd smoke my best weed (I bought it by the kilo then.), and while we were all high together, standing on our heads, and humming OM, she'd keep preaching Buddhist teachings at us, how we weren't real, how the world wasn't real, how nothing was real, etc. We didn't convert, but thought she was fun. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:16, 19 June 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::Nothing is permanent, including thoughts, which come and go. That is the beginning of the journey. To be like water means to adapt and overcome, like a stream which runs over a boulder in a river. Do not think in terms of obstacles. Think in terms of pathfinding. When you do, you will discover something very unusual. I hesitate to reveal it because it is far more fun for you to discover it on your own. Viriditas (talk) 02:23, 19 June 2026 (UTC)
{{od}}
:Not directed to you, specifically, and not intended as canvassing, but if anyone watching here wants to see another place where some Wikipedia-related justified venting is going on, see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#They have updated Wikipedia again ↗. Grumble, grumble. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:39, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

For the record, I sought clarification here ↗. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:04, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

''The Signpost'': 21 June 2026



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TBAN violation



Stating that Larry Sanger's views align with MAGA ↗ ({{tq|His solution is to name and shame editors whose edits differ from MAGA.}}) is a violation of your topic ban. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 00:11, 8 July 2026 (UTC)
: Really? I'll take your word for it and strike it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:59, 8 July 2026 (UTC)
::I'm glad that you did, and I'm glad that this appears not to have gotten blown up into a big drama. For what it's worth, my opinion is that you violated the letter of the law, because the sanction is "broadly construed", and you need to be careful about this, going forward – but it's a stretch to say that you violated the spirit of the law. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:05, 8 July 2026 (UTC)
::: I would obviously strike an inadvertent violation. I wasn't thinking of or referring to the tBan person at all. After it was mentioned, I can see it's possible to connect the two topics, but I was so far away from ''that'' connection that I didn't even imagine it could be a violation. It hadn't crossed my mind at all. There were no alarm bells going off in my mind alerting me that I might be in dangerous territory, but now I know that some people think that way. It caught me totally by surprise.
::: When people start using such mental gymnastics to "gotcha" me, well, I'm an easy target, because I am always about two atoms away from the tBan person. We all are. The collection of utterly boring and meaningless topics that are not potential violations is pretty small. Anything meaningful is within the danger zone.
::: Six degrees of separation ↗ doesn't begin to work here, because we are always never more than about two degrees of separation from the topic. It's hard to find an article that does not include a wikilink that is somehow related to ''this'' bannable topic.
::: For any other topic, "broadly construed" has somewhat reasonable limits. Well, in this case, the topic touches on nearly every imaginable topic in existence, making it nearly impossible to not violate, unless one stops editing Wikipedia completely. Do you see the problem? (Don't answer that, because it's pretty obvious that was the whole idea behind the tBan. It was one big IDONTLIKEIT clusterfuck.)
::: When dealing with this topic, "broadly construed" is totally out of proportion to the alleged (including several false allegations) offense. Has a mainstream editor ever gotten this tBan before? I hadn't heard of it. I am as anti-fringe and mainstream an editor as there can be, yet this happened to me! The fringies are rejoicing. ("Fringies" are editors who use unreliable sources and advocate lies and conspiracy theories. They are still allowed to edit in this topic area.) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:34, 8 July 2026 (UTC)
::::As I think you now see, the literal "letter of the law" made it an (inadvertent) violation. If you had said something like "right-wing" it would have been OK, but the M-term is strongly associated with the person in a much more specific way. It was pretty obvious to me that the AE discussion among the admins was not about things like this, so in that sense, you didn't violate the "spirit of the law". But they decided to go with "broadly construed", so that's that. I've seen lots of "mainstream" editors get various t-bans. And I've seen lots of nit-picking gotchas based on "broadly construed". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:09, 8 July 2026 (UTC)
::::: Yes, I'll have to try to follow the letter of the law here. Have you seen any tBans exactly like the one I got? And has it been a mainstream, non-combative, and cooperative, editor? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:33, 8 July 2026 (UTC)
::::::It's very difficult for me to define "exactly like" in this case, as there are always individual differences. And there's a lot of ambiguity in defining "mainstream"; I could argue that you base your edits on mainstream reliable sources, but I could also argue that you present a view that is left-of-center and your perception of good content differs from the consensus view of the community. I don't want to get into an argument with you about that last part, and I'm not looking to find fault, but I'm just saying that it gets very difficult to point to some other tban and say it's comparable. What I will say is that I don't think your tban is anything exotic or outside the bounds of other tbans that happen here. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:48, 8 July 2026 (UTC)
::::::: I'm just wondering if there has been any tBan about "Donald Trump, broadly construed". The circumstances can be different. (I hope my using of his name there is not a violation.) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:32, 9 July 2026 (UTC)
::::::::I'm not aware of one, but that doesn't mean anything. (I'm pretty sure it's not a violation when one is asking about the sanction itself.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 9 July 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::Not sure if I'm welcome on your talk page, Valjean (and if not then I can certainly leave), but the more typical sanction for disruption in the AP2 topic area would be a blanket topic ban from the AP2 topic area (post-1992 U.S. politics, broadly construed). It seems to me that the custom topic ban you received (Donald Trump, broadly construed) is ''more lenient'', not less lenient, than the enforcement actions taken against so many other editors at AE, drafted to preserve your continued ability to edit in the AP2 topic area outside of the subset of articles where there was consensus that your edits were disruptive—not that this is a bad thing if the evidence failed to establish (or little/no evidence was presented) that you had engaged in disruption outside of the relatively narrow sub-topic of the ban. Even in this specific example, as Tryptofish noted, ↗ merely calling out Sanger's views as "right-wing" would '''not''' be in violation of the sanction.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:22, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::: I see that now, and I'll avoid the M word in the future.
:::::::::: Otherwise, it's very notable and exceptional that I, without creating any "disruption", without edit warring, and without committing any other behavior normally considered seriously disruptive, got this tBan. Disagreement over some edits or content is not normally considered anything other than the normal wear and tear all articles and talk pages undergo in the normal course of editing, and there had not been any such thing recently worthy of a drama board. Whenever I have been confronted on an article talk page, I have not edit warred or caused serious disruption. I have engaged in discussion and often conceded that improvement would be welcome, including the changing of edits I have made. Have you ever seen anyone get a topic ban with so little "disruption"? I did get a bit uncivil by repeating your own words back to you, so you started it, but got away with it. You need to stop misusing WP:PROFRINGE. You are using it in the same way the far-right people at Breitbart use it. I am as far from fringe as one can get. I am the opposite of profringe.
:::::::::: As for whether you are welcome here or not, I welcome civil discussion. I do harbor bitterness over your premature and unwarranted action of opening a discussion at BLPN and not following normal procedure by using Talk:Steele dossier. You assumed bad faith and did a dastardly unfair thing with serious consequences. That was itself normally a sanctionable offense. That was nasty of you. This has caused much misery in my life, hence the bitterness. You have robbed me of a significant factor in my quality of life, what's left of it. I did not do anything that could not have been dealt with through calm and civil discussion. No drama boards were ever necessary. Any of the issues mentioned could have been resolved peacefully, and some of the things mentioned were either false or misunderstandings, but I was never allowed a chance to debunk those bogus accusations. So yes, I am bitter. Thanks for that. You may not believe in the power of curses, but at least keep in mind that karma exists. Nothing supernatural is required. It is simply a law of human nature that those who act unjustly toward others lose any right to live in peace, for their fate awaits them, and their dreams should haunt them. I hope you consider making reparations for what you have done. We would both be better off. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:48, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::::oof, are you are still on the I did nothing wrong and this is a great injustice done by a kangaroo court? I don't think that will fly well in a future appeal. Also cursing another editor to {{tq|lose any right to live in peace}} is not a good look. &#126;2026-39217-02 ↗ (talk) 13:45, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::::: I have never claimed I did nothing wrong. I did make mistakes and admitted it, and improvements could be made to some edits, but nothing worthy of a drama board. All could have been dealt with peacefully on a talk page, but it wrongfully was taken directly to a dramaboard, bypassing normal procedure. That's just wrong. Don't ignore that fact. We are supposed to deescalate, not escalate, conflicts. I didn't curse anyone, but I know that some people are superstitious, so I mentioned that. I certainly don't believe in them, but karma is a thing. No, I clearly said that "nothing supernatural is required" for natural law to work. Read more carefully.
:::::::::::: I am not trying to make an appeal case to overturn this tBan, at least not now. The process is flawed, and everyone knows it (as currently discussed at User talk:Jimbo Wales), so I do not expect justice here. I'd just like to see the system improved. This is not a court or legal system, but at least they claim to aim for fairness. We don't even do that here. Instead, we accept accusations as if they are legitimate evidence. They are not. We accept accusations without evidence. We don't allow defendants adequate opportunity to defend themselves. We allow piling on. Whoever opens the case has the advantage. The deck is stacked against the accused, and everyone knows it. It's a rather hopeless situation. Is anyone interested in doing something about it? If improvements were made, I'd be more inclined to appeal. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:42, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
:::::::::::::So do you think the sanction you received was appropriate and fair? What do you feel you did wrong in this situation? &#126;2026-39217-02 ↗ (talk) 19:02, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
::::::::::::::I hope that Valjean feels no obligation to reply to that question, because it is only baiting.
::::::::::::::I agree with the comment that a tban from writing about one person is a more lenient sanction than a tban from writing about the entire topic area. (On the other hand, admittedly, that one person pops up almost everywhere within the entire topic area, which certainly complicates things.) My reading of what the AE admins discussed is that they did that in an intentional effort to be lenient. Valjean, I also think that the way things were handled at AE was within-process, although one can always make constructive criticisms of flaws within the process. I hope that you will be able to see the other side of the argument, with respect to whether you were in any way "disruptive". As you know, I'll defend you strongly against any claim that you acted maliciously towards other editors, or attempted to disrupt discussions, because you didn't act disruptively in those ways. But you ''did'' create content that violated SYNTH and you ''did'' move it into mainspace when it wasn't ready for mainspace (much less DYK). You created the appearance that you are inclined to create content about that person that ''does'' involve SYNTH and the like, and the admins decided that, even if you would not edit war and even if you would discuss content problems civilly and make a sincere effort to correct things that were pointed out, you would still be predisposed to bring forth content that would need correction for these things, and that editing overall would be more peaceful if you were prevented from doing that any more. There was never an intention to deprive you of something that is important in your life, but they put the best interests of the community overall above your personal best interests. And nothing is stopping you from publishing the kind of content you want somewhere else. ''That'' is not hopeless. I'm saying these things so that, I hope, you will be able to see this from the perspective of the other "side". --Tryptofish (talk) 23:47, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
::::::::::::::: Yes, I do see that "other side", but I was very collaborative, apologized, and promised I would not create that content again, yet that was ignored, so your recollection doesn't seem to match what happened. I made a mistake and acknowledged it. I withdrew the article and said I would not do that again, would stay away from that topic, and be more careful about sourcing for BLP issues, so what followed seems punitive, not preventive.
::::::::::::::: They were not AGF toward me. I have a good history here since 2003, so they should have AGF, but didn't. If I had a history as an edit warrior, used unreliable sources, pushed fringe POV, lies, and conspiracy theories, etc., then AGF toward me would understandably be problematic, but that was not the case here. I was treated just like some stranger who suddenly dropped in and threw bombs into article and talk pages. The disrespect hurts. Long-time faithful editors are normally treated better.
::::::::::::::: From the accusations by the admin involved, he was clearly offended that I was even interested in the whole topic area at all, saying I had done nothing else in the last ten years. That's BS, but it is also not a violation of any PAG to have interests in that huge topic area. Myriad other editors have a focus on that area, yet nothing happens to them. We only show concern when SPIs focus on only one single article and create problems by doing so. I am not an SPI in any sense. I have had a watchlist with over 10,000 articles, plus the same number of talk pages. When I deleted my current watchlist, it had over 7,000 articles, plus talk pages. Most of them were unrelated to AP2 or the now forbidden person. I edit all types of articles, but even if I had edited nothing but five articles on a related topic, that would not be a PAG violation. Lots of editors do that. So that admin's objections are themselves objectionable. I am also anything but a fringe editor, contrary to TTAC's claims. Their claim is a counterfactual personal attack.
::::::::::::::: BTW, I have created a whole lot elsewhere, enough for a book, but I can't inform you of it because you haven't activated your email. Please email me and provide some other method to send you a URL. You must have at least one editor at Wikipedia whom you do trust, so let's communicate through them. I think you'd find what I've written interesting. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:30, 11 July 2026 (UTC)