SEMI-RETIRED

Because I have had enough of pile-ons, timesink dramas, the relentless quote-mining in dispute-resolution, and the fundamentally broken "arbitration" process.
For a full explanation see this post
This user is no longer very active on Wikipedia as of August 2023.
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This talk page was last edited (diff) on 3 December 2024 at 06:48 by Pppery (talkcontribslogs)

Sorry for your trouble

Hello BrownHairedGirl. I have just discovered the giant and overwhelmingly lengthy and detailed narrative of your eviction from the Kingdom of Wikipedia.

It's a shock, and it is disgusting to witness the ejection of one of the most prolific and esteemed contributors to the encyclopaedia. I have not tried to read all of the vast quantity of legal-forensic argument pertaining to this incident (I value my mental health) but it's appalling that the banishment of such an intelligent and skilled contributor could not have been avoided.

This outcome counts as a true convulsion and upheaval in the annals of Wikipedia. Three million edits, and now – "fuck off"! It's confounding and upsetting, even for a bystander.

Your user ID and mine can be found near each other in the edit histories of many articles but we barely had any mutual contact. My User Talk edit history shows only five edits of mine on your talk page (plus today's remarks, and edits of them). I have used the edit Thank feature to show appreciation for fewer than a handful of your edits.

Nevertheless, like so many others, I'm sure, I have borne silent, respectful, and dazed witness to your prodigious, spectacular, and unpaid labours in service to the encyclopaedia over the years. You have contributed a very significant portion of your life to this vast edifice. Your omnipresent work is a waxed thread binding together the calfskin cover and parchment pages of the Book of Everything read by more people than any other, all over the world. Your neverending contribution history is your monument.

It must be bewildering to be cast so unceremoniously into outer darkness from a satisfying daily activity to which you devoted so much time. As wonderful as the project is, it is also at times a lunatic asylum of disputation and rows cunningly designed to wreck anyone's delicate psychology – the Hell of Wikipedia. I try to avoid getting into lengthy wrangles with other editors as much as possible for that reason: they can be a source of profound and damaging frustration which eat so much of your time, which consume and disappear so much of your life.

It is about nine weeks since you stopped contributing so I don't know if you will ever see these belated remarks of mine, if you ever come back occasionally to read late additions to your talk page. You deserve every one of the appreciations and tributes left by other editors but perhaps you may no longer visit here, for the sake of your health.

If I was in your "Current location: Connacht" (according to your user page) I would invite you to share a few soft, creamy pints to wet your sorrows (my family roots reach deeply into dark Connacht turf).

It will be lonely not to see your name in article edit histories and I hope that after a period of deserved rest and healing you may eventually consider returning, perhaps as the older and wiser GreyHairedGirl. May you always dream of dmy dates. You are missed. O'Dea (talk) 00:27, 2 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

Dear BrownHairedGirl. I am sorry that you have been banned indefinitely, I hope that you will have a successful ban appeal in August. I only took a quick look at the arbitration, and I believe all sides should at most just go with a topic ban, after this much sacrifice and volunteer time. I think the sentence is too harsh, but it's not necessarily partial, the other side received a slightly harsher punishment than you. I read the scholarly analysis of Arbcom by Florian Grisel of the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies which you provided, and it does not appear to apply in this case, and with good reason as you are a giant contributor with three million edits here. I sincerely hope you can be granted reprieve and move past this! Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 22:26, 10 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
My User Talk edit history shows only five edits of mine on your talk page (plus today's remarks, and edits of them). I have used the edit Thank feature to show appreciation for fewer than a handful of your edits.
Nevertheless, like so many others, I'm sure, I have borne silent, respectful, and dazed witness to your prodigious, spectacular, and unpaid labours in service to the encyclopaedia over the years. You have contributed a very significant portion of your life to this vast edifice.
O'Dea, I second this. I don't think I can say all this better. It's one thing to see people I look up to retiring due to fatigue but quite another to see them cast off like this without even being able to reply on their own talk page. Something reserved for the lowest and worst offenders; surely this could have ended less cruelly knowing you and all the work you've done for 15+ years. I avoided reading your case because that defeats the purpose of my wikibreak. I refrain from editing too much or looking into the happenings here but when I see something like this, I cannot ignore it.
To me, we crossed paths first roughly in the 2014s when I was a mere stripling of an editor. All I saw was an admin who really was approachable and advised me against my way of handling a minor issue regarding vandalism when I approached you. I stalked observed the way you work and learnt things that shaped my own editing pattern and behaviour. A minor editing tip I embraced wholeheartedly was your 99% commitment to meaningful edit summaries.
Hope real life is treating you much better. Wishes from India. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 07:18, 15 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
word ---Sluzzelin talk 02:18, 27 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Opting out of mass message delivery

  Courtesy link: WT:Twinkle § Blocking notification messages

I am boldly adding Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to this page, to attempt to bring some peace and quiet to all those editors who have been patiently removing mass-mailing messages from this page for some time now. This will hopefully put a stop to it, and give y'all some time to go out and smell the roses, or write a poem. Or maybe just to switch over to editing something else. BHG doesn't like "time-sink drama", so I hope and expect she would approve. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 09:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

I've noticed another Twinkle template message on here which I've removed, seems like some thinking will be needed in order for peace and quiet on this talk page and bloating the page history. Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 07:27, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, I guess those are not considered mass-mailings, then. I wonder if there's another way to block them. See WT:TW#Blocking notification messages. Mathglot (talk) 08:45, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
The only way I think would be to apply full protection to the talk page. But then that would block out people who want to leave genuine messages for BHG for any reason (assuming she actually reads them, we have no idea on that point). Perhaps a way around that would be to start a sub-page on which genuine messages could go, and which would presumably not be used by Twinkle messages.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:20, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I liked the (archived) suggestion of creation of a {{no twinkle}} template. Mathglot (talk) 20:08, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

You can come back

Editors with as many edits as you who have been blocked indefinitely have come back before, even after a long hiatus. See the 3-year gap in this user's edits. So, don't lose hope; you can, too, if you want to. Mathglot (talk) 04:59, 14 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

I second this motion. In six weeks' time, you can appeal your Arb ban, per the wording of the ruling. Softlavender (talk) 07:21, 14 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yes, please come back. Just the other day I was joining in the frenzy of editing our newly-elected MPs, working on someone who'd had an article for a while for some reason before being elected MP, checked to see whether they had a redirect from the full Sunday version of their name... and, yes, it was there, created by BHG years ago. We need your helpful and thorough editing. PamD 09:46, 14 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Absolutely, BHG, there are too many elections and not enough yous. Hope life is treating you well elsewhere, meanwhile. ——Serial Number 54129 10:03, 14 July 2024 (UTC)Reply