User talk:NateBumber

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Forum post
No problem, but in the future, if someone has replied to or referenced your post, you must correct it in a new post, not in the original. This is to avoid confusion. Shambala108 ☎  00:46, October 17, 2019 (UTC)

Re: 10000
Hi, I'm not going to go over every point made in the original forum threads, but my main concern came from comments (or quotes) by the author regarding other people using his licensed characters. This was mostly mentioned in the original post, so we don't have a record for it, but that was my concern, that the freedom with this licensing would lead to later abuse. Since you've participated in many inclusion debates you will probably have noticed that there are users on this wiki who will vote yes for inclusion for pretty much anything that comes along. There was an earlier inclusion debate (and I spent a lot of time looking for it and still hope to find it) where User:CzechOut decided that the story in question was not worth including because of other issues it would cause (and, since I can't find it yet, I don't remember the details). Sometimes we have to vote against something because including it isn't worth the trouble it could/will cause.

And please don't nit-pick my words into claiming that this decision now means that Benny and Iris, two long-standing series on this wiki, should be declared invalid. They are not even remotely similar to this case.

As for your questions about Death's Head, I didn't close the one of those that allowed inclusion, but it was established long ago that most of the Marvel stuff is not valid, just because one or two stories are.

Basically what this one boiled down to is that three admins felt this work did not follow our requirements, and while I tried to address several points in my closing post (obviously not making myself very clear), it's the issues raised by these three admins that pointed me in the direction I took.

Hope this answers your questions. Shambala108 ☎  22:42, October 23, 2019 (UTC)

"The Minister of Chance"
I didn't know it at the time, but I certainly do now. Thank you nevertheless!

And indeed, I intended to restart the inclusion debate on it when I'm fully caught-up, although actually, you might do it, if you're more knowledgeable about it than ?

See — don't know if you're aware — there was a Minister of Chance inclusion debate, closed because… the author doesn't have the rights to the Time Lord species, and so this technically cannot be the same Minister of Chance. Which, I mean, is IMO an unbelievably weak sort of rationale given that by this same reasoning Iris Wildthyme and Faction Paradox should be invalidated en masse even though the decision in both these debates was that no, the character is still the character even if the story isn't specifically allowed to say they're a Time Lord. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  15:21, December 13, 2019 (UTC)

Re: NPA
Hi, there are a couple of things I want to say about the post in question. I have noticed several times in the past that you have gone to great lengths to make sure someone isn't offended by something you've said. Hopefully you would appreciate having admin input to protect you from someone who might accuse you of personal attacks.
 * First of all, I was merely trying to restrain some of the crap that we had in the first two versions of this debate, where we had people constantly accusing each other of off-topic, personal attacks, etc. My main goal was to keep everyone else on track.
 * Second, while your reading of Tardis:No personal attacks makes theoretical sense, it has two practical flaws:
 * First, only admins can block people, so obviously admins have a say in the matter.
 * Second, many new users don't realize how strict we want to be about personal attacks. Many sites allow all kinds of rude crap out there, to the point that some people think that's the norm. That's why admins have to step in and define personal attacks for people who don't realize that we don't allow that.

Thanks for your attention. Shambala108 ☎  01:19, January 12, 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes and that balance is better than Universe C, where people get offended easily, even when one of their edits get reverted, and run to an admin complaining of personal attacks by users who never meant such a thing. Shambala108 ☎  03:27, January 14, 2020 (UTC)

It would have been impolite not to respond
Oh, Nate, the ever polite, ever sincere editor, who always tries to follow all wiki policies and the general rules set out in Wikipedia. At least, here on the wiki. Outside, you are free to say exactly the opposite (as I demonstrated with "nobody wants a free for all" on the wiki vs. "there is no gatekeeping" outside the wiki) example. You can even summarily criticise and condemn the whole wiki community, as if you are not a part of it. But, just like there is no explicit policy against self-publishers, no explicit policy against publications on blogs, there is no explicit policy against hypocrisy. In fact, there is a policy for hypocrisy. Help:Assume good faith prohibits anyone from even suggesting that the reason for the discrepancy between your behaviour here and your behaviour outside might be because of an ulterior motive, such as, for instance, "I'm working on a project that may or may not turn into a new Doctor Who spinoff. If it did, I'd obviously rather it be valid on the wiki than the opposite."

- NateBumber on his goals in inclusion debates

Nor am I allowed to treat your repeated attempts to get some personal information out of me (see, e.g., the second attempt to get me to do a podcast) as phishing. Asking once I could understand. But insisting after the first rejection? How does this comply with the FANDOM Terms of Use, specifically this part: "You agree not to use the Service to: Post or transmit any communication or solicitation designed or intended to obtain password, account, or private information from any Fandom user"

- ToU: No private information solicitation

A user was recently indefinitely blocked for exactly the same attempt (see the block message from CzechOut at User talk:Time Lord). Of course, a podcast is a much more fertile ground for extracting private details. But some form of external communication was clearly required to initiate the process. You would have gotten some personal data on me one way or another, were I to agree. Since I am not allowed to suggest foul play on your part, I guess, we will have to wait and see whether FANDOM cares about protecting my personal information from unwanted solicitation.

I truly admire how you and other authors learned to weaponise T:SPOIL against disclosing your conflicts of interests. If somebody is hiding their involvement with a particular person or publisher, as the claim goes, the wiki policy bars them from disclosing this, until at least the publication of the story. In the meantime, they are free to participate in the inclusion debates, edit relevant pages in preparation for the publication. On the other hand, if somebody calls them out on the apparent and provable conflict of interests, T:SPOIL is used to quash such complaints, even if the complaint provides absolutely no details of any stories. It is truly beautiful in its simplicity. Of course, you personally always claim to be a Wikipedian and follow their best practices. But their policies on disclosing conflicts of interest Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia, which by the way relies in part on US federal law and, in this part, is not optional,---these policies you summarily ignore despite me repeatedly informing you about them. As I said before, this wiki has no policy against hypocrisy.

It is also beautiful to see how T:FORUM is used to disqualify any information critical of the author/publisher whose validity is being pushed. One is not allowed to compare the case under consideration with the past practices because they are supposed to be "off-topic". So, in cases when the only source of information is a blog fully controlled by the author, validity is almost guaranteed. Well, in case of initial sloppiness, it happens after the blog is cleaned up based on initial criticism.

Needless to say, none of these applications of our rules to cover up any negative information were envisioned when the rules were written. Firstly, because authors were not envisioned as an active party in these debates. Secondly, because it was hard to imagine an episode, or a printed book, or an interview printed in DWM modified in order to better fit our validity rules.

A case in point is a cover artist notified that his post is preventing the validity of the anthology and immediately removing the offending language. Of course, he added a hashtag "Oh no not dw fanart again", where he generally keeps fan art of TARDISes, the Thirteenth Doctor, etc. But I am sure that he will be quick to remove that too, after being notified of the lapse.

I congratulate you on pioneering the Credits for Edits scheme, a symbiotic relationship between editors here on the wiki and small-time publishers, whereby active defenders of the publisher are awarded with authorship and, who knows, maybe even editorship. As you explain your involvement with writing the Faction Paradox, "when I was lucky enough to be asked to write for [the Faction Paradox]"

- NateBumber on being invited to contribute

Assuming this was not similar to Russell T Davies inviting J. K. Rowling, to be asked to contribute... You are very clear in the interview that you had no writing credentials ("My main creative outlet is school! I do also have plenty of fiction and nonfiction writing projects in progress"). The only plausible explanation for the preferential treatment is that it was a reward for your FP advocacy here on the wiki. (Which, before you accuse me again, is not illegal or against the wiki rules.) Seeing your success, it appears that others are following in your stead. (I personally think that Borisashton has definitely earned at least one story.) This scheme benefits both editors and publishers. The only loser is the credibility and reputation of the wiki, if it tilts too much in favour of publishers represented by editors. But clearly this is what the community wants.

Another danger, which I keep returning to, is hypocrisy. During the last period of unpleasant inclusion debates, three years ago, multiple writers professed how closely related FP was to DW (see Thread:206566), how it was definitely the same universe. Funny how after CzechOut proposed a compromise, in the name of peace, suddenly FP authors started sounding differently "The Faction Paradox universe is all about breaking the familiar and the loved, the things we’re nostalgic over. We can argue and debate all day about how connected/disconnected FP should be/shouldn’t be from Doctor Who..."

- Another wiki editor/FP author on FP vs. DW

So it is a different universe now, with the explicit purpose of breaking things we love, like Doctor Who. You might say, this is just a speculation on my part. Alas, the next phrase is: "FP was always about breaking Doctor Who."

- Another wiki editor/FP author on FP vs. DW

You might say that breaking here was meant in some benign, possibly metaphorical way. It is explained: "Taking the comfy aspects and tropes and characters and just destroying them. Running them through meat grinders, tortuous paths through shadowed valleys."

- Another wiki editor/FP author on FP vs. DW

While people like me, who do not want our beloved franchise destroyed and run through a meat grinder,---we are called small people for not wanting it.

By the way, was this why you decided to co-opt Steven Moffat's character Amy Pond (The Girl Who Waited) in your own story? To destroy and run through a meat grinder? Or simply to subvert? I mean you called her Wade (A Farewell to Arms) and I'm sure no copyright infringement has occurred. And you did not even need to edit her in. There are always eager editors caring more about your authorial intent than that of Steven Moffat or Tom MacRae. If an FP writer wishes to subvert/destroy/grind a character from new Doctor Who, this wiki sure seems open for business.

But I would like to return to good faith and wiki rules. You recently created a page The Rise and Fall of Señor 105 (novel), supplying it with the note "The first five chapters of the novella are comprised of Blair Bidmead's 2012 novella By the Time I Get to Venus, or, Recuerda, which was the third release in the Señor 105 series." Now, as a true connoisseur and practically a PR representative of Obverse Books, as well as one of the participants of that old debate, you must have been aware that the community deemed this invalid in Thread:117545, based on an explicit statement by the author regarding this very 2012 novella. So might I ask why, against the existing community decision and explicit author's wishes, why did you create a page for this story as valid, without a community discussion? Must I continue assuming that this policy violation is not in any way influenced by your connections to Obverse Books? And would you show good faith by putting an invalid tag on the page, cleaning it up from in-universe pages and, if there is some new information not taken into account in the old debate, starting an inclusion debate?

Note that both Arcbeatle stories and this novel were basically smuggled onto the wiki bypassing inclusion debates. Are there more of these?

Secondly, there is one Faction Paradox creation whose validity directly contradicts our rules. "some reference works — will present "biographical" or "historical" information about characters and situations in the DWU in a non-narrative style. Maybe this will be information on the back of playing card or a an article that's a kind of "pseudo-history". None of this is allowed."

- Fictional information presented non-narratively

I am talking, of course, of The Book of the War (novel). Lawrence Miles' description of it perfectly fits the description above invalidating it (the following quotes are from Miles' interview):

"*it's not exactly a "collection". It's more a sort of guidebook
 * even if you record it as a straightforward history rather than as a novel
 * it's an encyclopaedia to the War Era universe
 * It's got a structure rather than a plot, the way history's got a structure or a Bible's got a structure.
 * it's fake-history rather than prose"

As the person assigned to be responsible for FP three years ago, would you show good faith by putting an invalid tag on The Book of the War, which is in clear violation of our validity rules, cleaning it up from in-universe pages and, if you think our validity rules should be changed, starting an inclusion debate? Because there is no inclusion debate that validated specifically The Book of War. Its appearance on the wiki, once again, was in circumvention of our rules.

Since you always care so much about the wiki rules, including the validity rules, I'm sure you would show good faith and prove your own impartiality with respect to both The Rise and Fall of Señor 105 (novel) and The Book of the War (novel). Because choosing otherwise would be tantamount to showing that you prefer to side with a publisher rather than with our wiki rules. Amorkuz ☎  01:21, January 19, 2020 (UTC)