User talk:Shambala108

If you need to leave a message here on my talk page, please follow a couple of guidelines: --
 * Please don't forget to sign your posts. I won't answer any post that doesn't have a signature.
 * Also, if you are starting a new topic, please add a new heading.

Master images
Sorry about that. Was transferring information from my Master sandboxes over to the main page, and some images got transferred over by accident as well. Although I did leave the images on the appearance section there on purpose, since it made sense to have a visual reference on that section.

Actually, I've been meaning to ask you about the possibility of reopening the debate to make separate Master pages. I've been experimenting with it on my sandbox, and you can find the results here.BananaClownMan ☎  02:03, January 28, 2019 (UTC)

Reply Problems
Hey there....I hadn't been able to get on the discussions page of the wiki for a while and now that I can, I am not able to respond to conversations. Wondering if I've been blocked again or if there's something wrong.

thanks User:Mister_Fifty

"Personal attacks"
Hello!

First-off, let's clarify that the remainder of this message is purely object-level and not an attack against you as a person. (I'd hope this'd be obvious, but I might as well be careful considering what just happened.) You no doubt committed the error detailed below with good intentions, and simply got carried away because running a Wiki is hard. ( I know, I run one too, though it's smaller than Tardis by a wide margin. )

So. You blocked me for three days, three days ago, with the rationale that a comment of mine on Thread:171578. I'm sorry but it very much wasn't. For one thing, I used a silly "nonsense word", not some actual serious insult; it's an incompetent bully indeed who'd expect "Poppycock" to be taken as actual offensive name-calling these days.

But more importantly, even if it were an attack (which really isn't how I meant it), it was in no way a personal attack. The whole point of "personal attacks" as defined on Tardis:No personal attacks is that they're attacks ad hominem — insulting a person instead of disputing their ideas. Well, I did no such thing. Even if we ignore that the "Poppycock" declaration was not at all meant to be taken seriously, you yourself, in your blocking rationale, seemed to get that it was about AdricLovesNyssa's comment — nay, a specific idea therein. Not about AdricLovesNyssa themselves.

So first, whatever of the rest, I meant no harm, and if AdricLovesNyssa perceived such I'm sorry but that was in no way the intent of my words. But second, I don't see how my comment in any way fits Tardis's (or, indeed, most any) definition of a "personal attack".

Obviously, this is hardly a first-priority message, though I'd very much like to get a clear answer at some point. Reply whenever you find the time. In the meantime, I'll be back on the Forums, very much not insulting anyone thank you very much. Blah. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  23:21, February 13, 2019 (UTC)

Scrooge MacDuck's block
Hi. As you suggested, Scrooge MacDuck contacted me. I wrote a response explaining why I stand by my block. I also noted in my response that I am not quite sure why Scrooge MacDuck persistently misspells your name in a way that might be interpreted as an offence. This hesitation caused me to abort the idea of shortening the block. However, if you do not find this misspelling offensive and are satisfied with Scrooge MacDuck's reaction to the blocks, I would not object if you shorten my block. However, I remain of the conviction that the second block must remain longer than the first. Amorkuz ☎  01:16, February 15, 2019 (UTC)

Doctor Who spin-offs
Amorkuz removed Free-Fall Warriors from Doctor Who spin-offs because it was implicitly listed in the "Spin-offs set in the DWU" section of the page, while no inclusion debate has actually made that conclusion. In the meantime, the position of our wiki is that the Free-Fall Warriors spin-off is not set in the DWU (see also Amorkuz's deletion of the page Free-Fall Warriors). Rather than simply re-adding something an admin had deleted, I was moving it to the appropriate section of the page (namely, the "Spin-offs not set in the DWU" section). At the same time I was also adding to the list and fixing multiple formatting errors, all of which was also reverted in your undoing of my edit. Now I've written all this explanation (satisfying, I hope, the "talk to an admin about it" part of your requirement) I'm going to go ahead and undo your undoing of my edit. Thank you regardless for your thoroughness in double-checking! – N8 ☎ 03:04, February 19, 2019 (UTC)

Re: Party Animals
Before I hand you a list of pages to delete (if that is your implication) out of my own free will, I must say pages like Captain Britain, Bart Simpson, Sapphire and Steel, John Steed have been on this wiki for a few years and have never been subject to scrutiny by an admin until now.

A Dalek or a Meep can be identified without being named with no argument. As for non-DWU characters, Worf, Death's Head, the Thing, and the Human Torch are in a similar situation. They are not named in Party Animals / The Incomplete Death's Head but do appear in stories ruled valid by this wiki.

Some characters are named in DWU stories (e.g. Hulk, John Steed), so at the very least a mention/image of their appearance in Party Animals in a behind the scenes section would be warranted.

This is all to illustrate that Party Animals certainly is an unusual story. I think it's valuable to have a complete list of all the obscure characters seen in this story and you truly have to "see it to believe it." Perhaps a Forum thread should be opened to discuss this in-depth with other users and admins before the recent hard work of myself and others is swept under the rug. And I'm not sure how I feel about an admin wanting to make an extreme decision about pages regarding a story they have not read. LegoK9 ☎  22:56, March 2, 2019 (UTC)

Re: Party Animals 2
A potential compromise has come to mind. If the individual pages for Axel Pressbutton, Cusick and Doot, et al. must be deleted, would it be acceptable to have a gallery at the bottom of Party Animals (comic story) Showing the images of characters that cannot have a separate page for lacking mentions in DWU stories? (Edit: LegoK9 ☎  23:17, March 2, 2019 (UTC)) I wouldn't want the work I put into getting these images be erased so soon.

Also, I'm aware admins aren't employees and I apologise for implying otherwise. LegoK9 ☎  23:16, March 2, 2019 (UTC)

Images
You deleted my images for lack of info on source of work and copyright HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THE SOURCE OF WORK AND COPYRIGHT OF A MEME CAT IMAGE? GarfielfStuff ☎  14:11, March 4, 2019 (UTC)

Hi Shambala108,

I hope you can help me. I'd like to apologise for the edits on my author page - I hadn't seen the guidelines when I posted the synopsis and notes, and I didn't get a notification for the first removal, so I assumed it was a glitch.

I have now seen the guidelines for authors, and I think I understand the reasoning behind the no-self-editing rule. I can see that comments by other people would be less subjective and more detached.

Can I explain why this is important to me? I have spent the last 18 months writing a series of YA novels. Not DW-related in any way, so they won't be showing up here. For long and complicated reasons, I am self-publishing the series, and for this I need an audience. My only previously published work of fiction is the short story in 'Iris Wildthyme of Mars', so that's my shop window, for anyone who wants to find out about me, and my writing.

Self-publishing is really, really hard. I have to spend precious writing time building my presence online, and trying to reach as many people as possible. I'm putting myself out there on social media, and trying to make sure that if people search for me, they find useful and interesting resources.

A synopsis for my short story on this website would be a massive help for me - for my exposure, and as a place to direct people who want to know more about my writing. To this end, the synopsis I posted is short, accurate, and reflects the as-published text of the story. It's not DW canon. It doesn't reinterpret anything. I haven't added anything that isn't in the text. But it is the only place online where my name could be associated with information about my story.

The notes are more subjective, but I have read reviews from people who hadn't made the connection between my story and the source material, and this would be a great place to share those notes. Again - there is no additional interpretation, and nothing I have written reinterprets DW canon in any way.

So I guess I'm pleading for a chance to incorporate these pages into my online presence in a way that would be helpful to my readers. I can see that the rules are there to prevent writers from adding extras or referring to unpublished versions of the text - but that's not what I've done here. I have worked as an editor, and written blurbs and synopses for other books - that's all I'm doing here.

As an indie author, I don't have an agent or a publisher to do this stuff for me, so I have no option but to write my own online content. It seems unfair that someone with a team could use the rest of their team to post for them, while I am barred from posting at all because I have to be my own agent and publisher.

I would really, really appreciate it if the synopsis and notes could be reposted. It would make an enormous difference to me, and to my ability to reach my audience.

I apologise for the reposts yesterday - I had not fully understood the situation, and it was not my intention to break any rules or cause trouble.

Thank you for reading this far! I appreciate your time and attention.

Rachel Churcher. Rachel Churcher ☎  14:00, March 6, 2019 (UTC)

PS. I'm also struggling with the author photo on my author page. Which licence should I be using from the drop-down list? It's a photo taken of me, by my husband, where I hold the copyright, so technically I guess that there isn't a licence, because there doesn't need to be. It's me using my own photo. Any advice would be very welcome - thank you!

Novel
Hello, apologies for the move. May you please rename Destination: Bandril to Destination: Bandril (novel)? Thanks.--Crazyface201 ☎  03:34, March 12, 2019 (UTC)

IP user block
For one thing, there wasn't quite an edit war, as it did not go on for long enough to meet the technical definition at T:NO WARS. 6 month bans are absolutely correct for IP users who are outright vandalising, or disrupting the wiki repeatedly in bad faith. 6 months for an IP user is nearly an infinite block, as their IP is likely to have changed by that time.

In this case, as the block summary you selected suggests, the most said user needed was time to "cool down". As this didn’t fully become an edit war, from the outside it seems more like you were trying to silence this user for their other edits, essentially taking another POV. As it stands, we have not yet established the best way to deal with real world trans people's deadnames on the wiki, so their method of dealing with it is entirely valid.

I understand your intentions, but it was only almost an edit war, and on a point we have not yet decided. As it happens, I think the majority of this user's edits were positive. These are real world people, and we have to do our best to actually respect them. It's one thing to speak of fictional characters more theoretically; it's quite another not to do our utmost as editors to treat the real people we cover with dignity and respect. This user could have used the talk page instead of undoing edits, certainly, but they were not at all acting out of bad faith, so a lengthy ban does not match the level of that mistake. 15:08, March 20, 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry I didn't reply to your message sooner. I had some other things to deal with, both here and in real life. Just to clarify, in case I mispoke, what I was trying to get across is that to an outsider it might seem you had other motives. We have worked alongside each other as admin for many years now, and I do not believe that you would do such a thing myself. If that is what came across in my message above, I apologise.


 * Seeing your message to Amorkuz, though, I do have to remind you once again that I am not a "he". In case you hadn't realised from past exchanges, or perhaps from reading the masthead on my user page and user talk page, I am nonbinary and I use they/them pronouns. I have never misgendered you and called you anything other than "she", to my knowledge, and I would ask that you do the same. In the spirit of assuming good faith, as you point out, I'm assuming you hadn't yet realised. I did use other pronouns when I started out back in 2012, so I understand how that might be confusing.


 * Cheers, 01:27, March 22, 2019 (UTC)

Re:Images
Ahh, that makes a ton of sense, especially on long pages like Eleventh Doctor. I guess I'd be curious about how that guideline would apply to significantly shorter pages: for a relevant example, I don't think Time corridor's two images posed much of a serious burden to loading speeds, and it's a real shame to see one of them removed like that. Probably one of those scenarios where I should pester CzechOut about it?

Thank you for such a speedy reply, and for digging up that quote as well! – N8 ☎ 00:27, March 21, 2019 (UTC)

Images
I see what you mean, but having one image per section means that the plot section of, say, Deep Breath can have only one image whilst The Daleks' Master Plan can have twelve because it has different sections for each episode. If the goal is to make it easier for mobile users, this doesn't make much sense to me. -- Saxon 10:45, March 21, 2019 (UTC)

Recent blocks
Hi, Shambala108. I would like to explain why we are hesitant to put up the nascent deadname policy for public discussion. Generally, I am all for democracy and power to the people. But the recent years have clearly shown that there are wedge issues where the people's will can lead to complete chaos, which benefits no one. In addition, the rights of minorities are hard to secure by a general consensus, especially when the minority is really small and their problems are, on the face of it, alien and unknown to the majority.

It is one thing to require community consensus for policies relating to the fictional DWU. It is quite another to make community consensus the condition for respecting a group of people or eliminating things that are hurtful to them. Consensus is a matter of awareness and did fail the humanity on multiple occasions in history. At different points, there was a consensus in support of slavery, witch trials, refusing to let women vote, GULAG, etc. For instance, there is only one country I know of (Ireland) where the issue of gay marriage was decided via a referendum. In the majority of cases, it is the judiciary that decides to stop discrimination.

Secondly, such an open debate would not be academic. It will tread on people's feelings. As you could see from yesterday, some people have very strong feelings on the matter (thanks for blocking by the way) and are not afraid to express them. I'm sure trolls from 4chan would relish the opportunity to leave their footprint too. But even discounting radicals and trolls, ordinary well-meaning users cannot be expected to be sensitive of the topic they are not aware of. Upon learning about the concept of "deadnames", I've had several discussions with cis people like myself. The first reaction is normally incredulity. The closest thing in our own experience is changing a name through marriage, which is, I am told, not the same thing at all. If incredulity is met with an unabashed attack like the one you deleted, if a person who never thought about trans people is called a "transphobic so-and-so" right off the bat, the discussion will be hurtful and not very likely to be productive. And even if everyone, including new users who, as you pointed out earlier, are often drawn to the forums first, manage to keep civil, the lack of knowledge of the issues can cause a lot of hurt too. Our editors really like to argue. Just recently, User:Scrooge MacDuck was dead set on fictionalising a real-world minor with utter disregard to her or her family wishes. It took me quite a long while to explain to him why it is wrong to play with lives of real people so carelessly. He meant well, but her privacy and right to self-determination was simply not high on his priorities' list. The same is likely to happen here: cis editors will provide their well-meaning opinion on how they think trans people should treat their names. And the smallest spark will explode the discussion.

This is why we believe it is in everybody's best interests if the issue is discussed among the admin, who represent different points of view and come from different walks of life. We would be more than happy if you join this discussion. But opening it up to the troll factories of this world would not be the best course of actions, IMHO. Amorkuz ☎  16:46, March 21, 2019 (UTC)

Image debate
Hello, User:Shambala108.

I've been watching the exchanges between users about image policy. I wanted to ask you if you could share a link to this policy with me, as I wish to debate a changing to this "one image per section" rule.

Now, before I get turned away, I wanted to let you know that my mobile phone has never had trouble opening a page with lots of images, with the exception of the Master's page, but that's mostly due to length rather than content.

However, I am aware of the other reason images are restricted; "to many bakers can spoil the cake". Image overflowing has been an issue, which is one of the points I plan to make in my debate.

Thank you for your time. Sincerely, BananaClownMan ☎  17:29, March 21, 2019 (UTC)

Image policy
I'm trying to get an image policy finalized, and would like to invite you to discuss it on Thread:247941.

Sincerely, BananaClownMan ☎  22:24, March 21, 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, this link won't work because of me. BCM and I posted within less than 5 minutes of each other in separate locations, so I deleted the thread in preference for the area that already contained a good bit of useful discussion — his talk page. And the entire contents of the thread are now on his talk page. Sorry for any confusion that might have created. 03:08: Fri 22 Mar 2019