User talk:Peter1c

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Some words of encouragement

Hey, I'm new here and, admittedly, so far, mostly interested in improving the sometimes very poor quality of more conservative-leaning political articles. Now, you seem to have created or extensively contributed to many of these yourself, and, commendably often, given figures that appear to be somewhat of an ideological antipode of yours, a fair hearing. Thanks for your efforts over the years! Biohistorian15 (talk) 16:44, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for this, @Biohistorian15. Peter1c (talk) 17:14, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Edit recommedation

Hello again, I've noticed that you've been creating various psychologists' articles recently, and thought, you might - at some point - also want to clean up the horrendous template associated... Biohistorian15 (talk) 13:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Biohistorian15. Thanks for your message. I agree the psychology "template" is a mess. It seems to have been copied from Wikipedia and not maintained. Should I nominate it for deletion? Best regards, Peter Peter1c (talk) 13:32, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Matthew 20

A page that you have been involved in editing, Matthew 20, has been listed for deletion. All contributions are appreciated, but it may not satisfy Wikiquote's criteria for inclusion, for the reasons given in the nomination for deletion (see also what Wikiquote is and is not). If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Matthew 20. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Thank you. Markjoseph125 (talk) 19:32, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

United States involvement in regime change

A page that you have been involved in editing, United States involvement in regime change, has been listed for deletion. All contributions are appreciated, but it may not satisfy Wikiquote's criteria for inclusion, for the reasons given in the nomination for deletion (see also what Wikiquote is and is not). If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/United States involvement in regime change. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Thank you. HouseOfChange (talk) 13:10, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Note

Yes, after being called queer and faggot for most of my life, I have adopted a confrontational style in defending my right to exist. Yes, when I see other communities being viciously attacked and denied their right to exist, I will react with similar vehemence. If the Wikiquote community is going to exclude everyone who adopts queer modes of expression, it will end up excluding all the vocal queers (and other oppressed peoples) from the project. I understand that my tone is confrontational and I am doing my best to moderate it. By enforcing a certain tone, the WQ community is in effect excluding people whose communities do not use that tone. This is how I perceive these unfounded accusations of lack of good faith. The reference point of comparison should be my own community. And as I have stated, my tone seems acceptable even in a court of law. This is a big mistake to try to silence me by making me act like a different kind of person than I am. This kind of silencing and demand for conformity are what I have experienced and resisted for my entire life. The world is trying to silence me and intimidate me into acting like some prototypical bland heterosexual image of conformity and complacency. That is not me. I am trying my best to fit in, but the demand that I become a completely different person in order to participate is unreasonable and excessive. I am loud and queer and I feel the community needs to make some effort to accommodate me as I am and stop demanding that I become someone else. After being verbally abused for our entire lives, queers are catty. I am trying to moderate it, but at some level, you will have to accept some degree of cattiness if you want us in your community. Peter1c (talk) 16:43, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

You need to find a way to interact with others without assuming bad faith and casting aspersions. You need to do it now. GMG^talk 13:48, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

OK I will take a break. Thank you for the warning. Peter1c (talk) 14:16, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

And yet it continues, because based on edits I made in 2022 or 2024, "the modus operandi becomes transparently obvious: (1) remove anything I disagree with, and (2) use disingenuous claims about quotability to mask illegitimate enforcement of a personal POV." I would welcome a focused complaint by Peter1c at WQ:AN so that I could respond in one place, but instead he is sprinkling claims of bad faith widely over the project -- as well as sleuthing over my past edits to undo them.[1][2] HouseOfChange (talk) 16:15, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello HouseOfChange. That is a fair point about "sprinkling claims of bad faith widely over the project." However:

(1) the damage caused by the inconsistent quality of your deletions is also spread widely across Wikiquote;

(2) I am not interested in escalating a case against you. I just want to make clear that

(a) future edits must be transparent in terms of motives, and

(b) indicating POV-pushing as a motive for an edit is seen by many in the WQ community as inconsistent with WQ:NPOV and established Wikiquote precedent; and

(3) the continued pattern of leveraging the vagueness of "quotability" to disguise the actual agenda of edits is relevant in all places it is happening.

I would also like to clarify that I have nothing against you as a person, and I find a lot to agree with in your edits, including many of your deletions. It is just this particular MO you are adopting to silence quotes that disagree with your personal POV that I am objecting to. If the scope of my complaints seems to exceed indignation with this particular pattern, this is unintentional and I hereby apologize for it. The fact that you continue to engage me in discussion despite my lack of diplomacy shows a truly remarkable patience and good faith, perhaps even superhuman, and I am very grateful for that. Peter1c (talk) 16:21, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

I HAVE been transparent. My concern for quotability is just that, not some coverup for a plan to "silence" quotes. Your fantasy about me has progressed from days of uncivil abuse into hounding behavior. You are way out of line here. Stop. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:40, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

I appreciate your response on this. My concern is that your concerns about quotability are (1) selectively applied, and (2) not substantiated with any kind of objective analysis or rubric. You know that if you were going to fire a slacker or fail a student for being unemployable, unteachable, etc. you would need to provide some objective justification for your actions. That is what I am asking for. The usual format for this is a rubric, as I have proposed on Talk:United States.

Regarding the accusation of hounding:

(1) I apologize that my comments come across as hounding.

(2) w:WP:HOUND states:

It is also not harassment to track a user's contributions for policy violations (see above); that is part of what editor contribution histories are for.

I hereby assert that my intention in our interactions has not exceeded an intention to monitor your contributions for policy violations, clearly explain why I perceive certain edits as policy violations, and suggest ways in which future edits can better comply.

(3) I can appreciate that my repeated confrontation with you over what I interpret as policy violations might be perceived as personal, but it is not personal. My extended rants are intended to offer suggestions on how you can better conform to WQ policy and the precedents of the WQ editor community.

(4) The repetition has been necessary because, while you reply admirably to some of my concerns, you have still failed to offer a detailed response to my concerns about your interpretation of WQ policy and precedent. If your best alternative to a negotiated agreement is to just ignore me, then what incentive do you have to negotiate? I am confronting you repeatedly with your refusal to discuss the issues I am raising. In a colloquial sense, it can be called hounding. But in the WQ context, it is just calling you out for refusal to discuss certain questions.

(5) The fact that you have taken all the time to have these discussions with me is admirable and I very much appreciate it. I insist on further discussion only because your replies are somewhat selective in which concerns they address.

Peter1c (talk) 17:02, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

It seems to show a considerable lack of judgement to get a warning and immediately return with the same approach and tone as before. It is not sufficient to thank someone for tolerating you or thank someone for issuing you a warning. This would just seem to indicate that you are quite aware others have taken issue and you simply don't care. GMG^talk 17:23, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello GreenMeansGo. I appreciate your input on this. I hear you saying I am not doing enough and I will try to do better. Speaking on my own behalf, I did apologize. I am aware others have an issue. I do care. On the other hand, no one has responded to my concerns that insistence on flawless tone can be a way of dismissing oppressed people from participating in the discussion. Doesn't assumption of good faith also imply assuming I am making a good faith effort to be diplomatic? I am honestly feeling personally attacked also, and I am making a sincere effort to try not be angry. I read and reread everything I write. Even now it seems to be about the same level as in my experience in courtrooms and depositions. I understand the standard is higher here, and I promise to try to achieve the higher standard. Peter1c (talk) 17:45, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

There's no "try to do better", simply stop speculating on the intentions of other users and stop accussing them of acting in bad faith.

If you think someone isn't following policy you can discuss that with them, or if needed you can report them at an administrators' noticeboard, but there's never really a reason or need to speculate on their intentions. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:23, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, IOHANNVSVERVS. This is a clear and reasonable demand and I agree to it. I will stop speculating about motives and intentions and focus on compliance with WQ policy. I am very grateful that House is still engaging in the discussion despite the flawed way in which I am raising these issues. I also feel that we are making a lot of progress in understanding our points of agreement and disagreement in interpretation of WQ policy. At present I do not see any insurmountable obstacle to a successful resolution of all the issues I have raised. Peter1c (talk) 21:41, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Also I would like to state for the record that my allegations about insincerity of motives are not coming out of thin air. On multiple occasions, House has argued for deletions on the basis of "POV-pushing" and seeing that these arguments were gaining no traction, he then switched his tactic to arguing on the basis of quotability. This switching of argumentation tactics gives a reasonable observer the impression that the second argument is not the true cause for the deletions. Peter1c (talk) 19:05, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

No it doesn't. It suggests to a reasonable person that lacking quotability is a good reason for deleting a quote. "POV pushing" is not a justification for deleting a quote. "POV pushing" is a shorthand description of a very common problem here, that people who come here to push some POV want to lard WQ with long unquotable assertions/accusations from their favorite voices. But congrats on finding so many "clues" in your investigation to demonstrate (to yourself?) how right you are to violate AGF. HouseOfChange (talk) 19:42, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

OK I understand you are not persuaded by this argument and I will drop it. You are also right that it is fundamentally counter to an assumption of good faith even to entertain the possibility of its absence. You obviously know what your motives are, and I trust you.

Yes, I see "POV pushing" is commonly used in the way you describe on Wikipedia. On Wikiquote, I see it very seldom. This is based on my own experience, not a thorough analysis. The justification of POV-pushing, even as shorthand, doesn't really make sense in light of the WQ:NPOV policy, which recognizes that individual quotes more often than not do push a POV, which is remedied by adding additional countervailing quotes rather than by deletions. I see you have been on Wikipedia far longer than Wikiquote, so perhaps I should be more patient.

If a judge referred to testimony as "blather", it might raise a red flag that the Judge was disqualifying testimony a priori and refusing to hear it. This might lead a good lawyer to look for an appeal on that ground.

For me personally, having had to stand up for my right to exist for my entire life, I am accustomed to arguing constantly and vociferously. In a just world, this personal struggle would be taken into account in adjudicating the appropriateness of my responses. When I see someone dismiss as "blathering" a text arguing that oppressed and marginalized people have a right to be considered and heard, this is a trigger for me. Accusations of POV-pushing are also a trigger for me, since it seems to imply oppressed people have no right to push the POV that we are oppressed and have a right to demand an end to this oppression. For my entire life, I have had to push the POV that I have a right to exist.

I am not intending to state or imply that I have a right to live in an environment free of triggers. I am only asking for your patience in evaluating how I respond to them.

Peter1c (talk) 20:07, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

You still need to follow WQ policies about civility and AGF, as has been explained to you many times now by many people. My telling you that one (ONE) quote by Jeffrey Sachs was unquotable POV-pushing does not mean that I desire to "silence" Jeffrey Sachs and to "murder" underrepresented voices from WQ by abusing my admin powers -- because I'm ignorant, bucolic, and afraid to let anyone else hear THE TRUTH, as expounded by profs in your adult ed classes. You are disruptive and you need to stop. HouseOfChange (talk) 02:01, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello HouseOfChange. I have already agreed to stop imputing motives to you and made numerous apologies, retractions and other efforts at reconciliation. This final word reiterating accusations of violating civility and AGF is entirely inappropriate and escalatory. I have searched for the policy you cited, "Wikiquote is not an evidence locker" and I find no evidence that this is a policy or precedent. You are fabricating policies out of whole cloth and trying to pass them off as established Wikiquote policy. In accordance with the desires of other editors, I refrain from imputing any motive to this fabrication.

With due respect, you are clearly pushing the boundaries of assumption of good faith with many of your statements and actions. When we began our discussion, it seemed to me that you were holding yourself to be "above the law" and not accountable to adhere to Wikiquote policies. This is the main reason why I began early on to question your good faith. AGF has limits and is not intended to be a method for covering up lack of accountability and transparency.

From w:WP:AGF:

• This policy also does not mean you should ignore clear evidence of disruptive behavior or violations of site guidelines or accept all edits without question. Some bad actors may insist that trust in them should be immutable, per "assume good faith", even when there is evidence against this. However, editors should remember to not disregard patterns of harmful editing, nor should they overlook obvious attempts to deceive, vandalize, or push a biased agenda.

From WQ:AGF:

• This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Actions inconsistent with good faith include repeated vandalism, confirmed malicious sockpuppetry, and lying. Assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized, but instead that criticism should not be attributed to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice. Editors should not accuse the other side in a conflict of not assuming good faith in the absence of reasonable supporting evidence.

I continue to maintain that my inferences are reasonable and justified in the context of your statements, your protean switching of tactics for justifying your actions, lack of any objective support for claims of unquotability, and patterns I witness in the quotes you are eager to silence. If you do decide to prosecute me for violating AGF, I think these actions and patterns will be very relevant to my defense, and as you know I am not inarticulate in defending myself.

Please accept my apologies and my stated intention to stop speculation about motives. Please cease and desist with accusations of AGF violations and focus on resolving the issue I raised at the outset, mass deletions with no due process or reference to WQ policy. Please respond with alternatives or improvements in methods for objectively adjudicating quotability within the context of Wikiquote policy.

I concede that inferring motives contravenes the spirit of WQ:AGF. I apologize for and agree to stop this behavior. I continue to assert, however, that demanding that WQ editors and administrators reference actual stated WQ policies to justify actions is NOT a violation of WQ:AGF. Peter1c (talk) 11:28, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree that "demanding that WQ editors and administrators reference actual stated WQ policies to justify actions is NOT a violation of WQ:AGF." A violation of AGF would be, for example, describing a series of large edits by Ficaia as a "fascist coup." But I have asked other admins to figure out what can or should be done about the even larger problem I see: your IDIDNTHEARTHAT problem. HouseOfChange (talk) 02:16, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Please clarify your accusation what does "IDIDNTHEARTHAT problem" mean? This phrase doesn't produce any google results. So now you are making undecipherable accusations as part of your pattern of harassing me? I am very sorry that you are choosing to continue to escalate this conflict. Peter1c (talk) 11:25, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

w:Wikipedia:IDIDNTHEARTHAT very common term of art around here, not intended to be mysterious. You have now "heard" from more than one admin that your enthusiasm for your viewpoint is not does not give you the right to ignore CIVIL, AGF, etc. etc. Your apologies and pledges to do better have been copious. But instead of "hearing" admins, you decided you should be exempt from policies because if you don't get to spend weeks attacking others each time you are "triggered" then WQ is cruelly excluding all members of all marginalized communities. No. HouseOfChange (talk) 12:59, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

And ... AGF is not about "tone." People are not "policing" your tone but asking you to stop your repeated accusations of bad faith e.g to cite just a few

• March 7: "Ficaia calls this a clean up and party of that removes Black voices. So I guess Black people and their concerns are perceived as dirty and unclean by him."[3]
• March 8: "I have looked at your pages. Anonymous. No credentials. You do not outrank Professor Sachs. Where do you get it in your fascist punk heads that have a right to silence his voice?...Stop with your fascist attempts to silence any teacher you dislike. Soon you will be burning books. First they came for the quotes."[4]
• March 14: "...It seems HouseOfChange is trying to sabotage the pipeline of knowledge from universities to the masses because he doesn't like anyone to disagree with his ill-informed POV. I hope HouseOfChange will repent for his ill-advised rampage of destruction [5]
• March 16: "My intuition is telling me that this discussion is futile because your motivations are some kind of political partisanship, and now that we have indicated these motives are not likely to be accepted as legitimate, you will now be using other tactics like quote length that are not really important to you in themselves but merely methods to try to achieve your original political aim. If you want an article that is whitewashed of all criticism of the U. S., please be up front with me about it."[6]
• March 19: "...From actions like this the modus operandi becomes transparently obvious: (1) remove anything I disagree with, and (2) use disingenuous claims about quotability to mask illegitimate enforcement of a personal POV. I must stop people I disagree with from blathering their blah blah. I refuse to listen to people who disagree with me and I intend to make sure you do too! Horrific."[7]
• March 21: "...This escalation of a case based on civility and AGF coincides suspiciously with HoC's refusal to respond to a concrete proposal for how they can be held accountable to WQ:QUOT in making deletions based on quotability. My impression is that this escalation is being used as a distraction tactic to evade the original issue."[8]

If you had googled "IDIDNTHEARTHAT Wikipedia", one of the top results is a humorous essay Wiki:MULE about an editor who is NEVER wrong and he can "prove" it. HouseOfChange (talk) 14:42, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Documentation of research on WQ policy in response to criticisms

I am carefully studying W:WP:AGF and WQ:AGF in order to better comply with the policy. I will document some of my learnings here.

From w:WP:AGF:

• Although bad conduct may seem to be due to bad faith, it is usually best to address the conduct without mentioning motives, which might intensify resentments all around.

Comment: This seems true. Proving motives is very difficult and an attempt to infer motives is more likely to produce resentment and hostility than persuasion and resolution.

• In addition to assuming good faith, encourage others to assume good faith by demonstrating your own good faith. You can do this by articulating your honest motives and by making edits that show your willingness to compromise.

Comment: Also helpful advice. I have been trying to be honest about my motives of bringing my adult education research to the Wikiquote community to assist in building what is, in effect, an adult education project. My contributions have been appreciated with very little conflict until I began sharing quotes that are more politically contentious. I am open to discuss my motives and whether they need to be modified to be genuinely helpful to the project.

The hierarchy of disagreement: aim at the top! From w:WP:NEGOTIATE.

From w:WP:NEGOTIATE:

• Discussing heatedly or poorly – or not at all – will make other editors less sympathetic to your position, and prevent you from effectively using the later stages of dispute resolution.

Comment: This is key. I am self-sabotaging the prospects of resolution by making heated arguments that are clearly falling far below the top level of the pyramid of effective dispute resolution techniques!

From WQ:AGF:

• Assuming good faith is about intentions, not actions. Well-meaning people make mistakes, and you should correct them when they do. You should not act like their mistake was deliberate. Correct, but do not scold.

Comment: This is the fundamental problem with my approach: I should be assuming edits that appear to me to be motivated by political bias are mistakes rather than deliberate attempts to impose political bias. I should be assuming policy references that seem to me to be fabricated are mistakes rather than attempts to deceive. My tone is off the charts in terms of scolding, and this is not helping the situation!

Peter1c (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Blocked

You have been blocked temporarily from editing for abuse of editing privileges. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions to Wikiquote. If you want to appeal this block, add the following tag: {{unblock|your reason here ~~~~}}

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If using the above tag does not help, either an administrator may have declined the request after the unblock request was reviewed by an administrator or you may have been blocked from editing your talk page.

A number of other users have been exceedingly patient and you have received repeated warnings (e.g., [9], [10], [11]). Your recent activity on WQ:AN (here and the string of edits immediately prior) can hardly be seen as anything but a dare for someone to block you.

The duration of this block is one month, which is lenient considering a user who was not a long term contributor would have already been blocked indefinitely for the same behavior. You may appeal the block by following the instructions above. If you misuse access to your talk page your access will be revoked. If you continue the same approach after the block has expired or been lifted, the next will likely be indefinite. GMG^talk 19:55, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

The sudden ban tells me the administrators' noticeboard was not an appropriate place to make my defense. Which is odd because that is where the prosecution, judgment and sentencing were happening? Perhaps this was the appropriate place? First, a one month ban is fine with me. Second, I had one more thing to say regarding the Administrators' Noticeboard discussion. I am being criticized for promoting a "bad epistemology". I agree this is a question of epistemology. Two widely discussed epistemologies in the domain of history are often called "monumental history" and "critical history". Monumental history is history commissioned by the king to be written in such a way that his rule is the logical, inevitable, moral outcome of history. Critical history is history that seeks to uncover epistemic distortions in the process of writing down history. Example: The colonizer's histories of colonized lands can be criticized for adopting the colonizer's perspective, as in Edward Said's work. One advantage of critical history: it doesn't need to be purged and rewritten every time a new king comes into power. If you apply a unitary epistemology "there is one truth", this can easily lead to silencing voices of people who experienced history differently and can offer a different perspective. Example: Research at UCSB is working on uncovering the voices of slaves in the antebellum era by looking through archive documents. The honorable judge has characterized my defense without allowing me to speak. He says, my defense is, "I am always right." No, that is not my defense. If you had not silenced me, you would have known that. My defense is that oppressed people have a right to speak about their perspective. Even when you are very certain they are wrong. When you guys talk openly about your hostility to academia, and call us blatherers, is that supposed to make us feel welcome? What is the purpose of these speech acts? Why are you surprised when we are offended? I am fine with a time-out. You are certainly right that I'm getting overheated and need a break. Obviously I have other things to do. Best regards, Peter Capofreddi

About your style

Hello, do not use the box when you commenting, it's not the correct style, thanks. -‎Lemonaka‎ 08:00, 24 March 2025 (UTC)