User talk:Beeblebrox

Welcome to my talk page

I prefer to keep conversations in one place in order to make it easier to follow them. Therefore, if I have begun a conversation with you elsewhere, that is where I would prefer you reply and is probably where I will reply to you.

If you would rather communicate by email, it will expedite matters if you leave a note here to inform me you have sent an email.

Do you actually want to be blocked? I'll consider your request iff you meet my criteria, Click here to see them.

please stay in the top three tiers

Pending Changes

Hey Beeblebrox. I've spoke to Erik and Howie; they report that the original plan is still very much valid, if the community comes back with a "yes, we want this tool". Having said that, further development will need to be fitted around the other tools we're working on at the moment and in the near future. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for the link. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:05, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and thankfully Oliver can work full time only liason work between the community and engineering this time. :) It was really just a triage effort for me. Cheers, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Pending changes/Let's move

I've closed it, since it didn't have time to get started, and since it's clear that there is work being done on the more structured one. I'm going to get flack over this, so please make sure you deliver, and soon, on this RfA. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:26, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Sven. As soon as we have three uninvolved admins on board to administrate I'll be moving it to project space so they can take it over and get it running. we only need one more.... Beeblebrox (talk) 03:12, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

link?

Hi, before I started my proposal I've been searching for a while if there isn't any similar somewhere. I couldn't find it, and that's why I started it. If there is any rfc regarding PC it would be nice if you could instead of telling me how bad it is to start similar talk beside of existing one, tell us, where this "good proposal" actually is. Be sure that if I knew that there is any, I wouldn't start this. There was no notification on wikitech-l, neither any notification board (for developers or community). And yet I still don't know where it is, although many people "slapped" me for starting own while there is clearly "some proposal" already going on (I am definitely not talking about WP:AN which is only a noticeboard for administrators and not really important for the encyclopedia itself) Thank you Petrb (talk) 12:05, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

While I'm not involved in this, I am, of course, quite interested and in checking to see whether it was ready to launch noticed your message. :) The RFC was discussed 9 days ago at Talk:Pending changes, and linked from there. The conversation is here. The RfC is under development at User:Beeblebrox/sandbox. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, I didn't really noticed that "f 400/150 users wanted this, then 150/65 editors removed it... Why did the later group get its way" was actually a thread related to open rfc, neither I have User:Beeblebrox/sandbox on my watchlist. I quite agree that it's my bad I didn't check further, but I still don't see what is so wrong on asking the real community of wikipedia, and not only a small part called administrators to start a wider discussion on this topic. Petrb (talk) 13:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid that would be a discussion between you and those people who you feel have chastised you, and I have no input there, as I'm not one of them. :) I'll have to let the person you asked handle that one. But I am concerned from your note here that you might misunderstand what Beeblebrox was doing at the administrators' noticeboard; he wasn't asking admins to be participants in the discussion, particularly, or to start a discussion, but to agree to close the RFC when it is finished. There's been a recent movement towards getting three people to close contentious or particularly important RfCs. It does not necessarily need to be admins who do these closes, but admins often do. I feel pretty confident that Beeblebrox intends to open the RfC to comment by everybody, and it seems that he did invite anybody to help shape it at the thread I linked. I'm sure he'd welcome your collaboration, whether you're an admin or no. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:12, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

My RfC was closed before it even properly started with comment "don't do this this way" I am trying to find out what is wrong on "my way" and correct on "his way" and I still see that only difference is that his RfC is about to be managed and closed by local sysops while mine was started by me and was about to be closed by wikipedia community. Does it imply that only correct RfC on important topic is the one started by user with sysop flag, or something like that? Thank you Petrb (talk) 14:03, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I hope not. That wouldn't be a direction I'd want to see the community moving. :/ Beeblebrox will correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure, but from my observation I think the concern was simply that this RFC is likely to be tremendously controversial and likely to deadlock if not carefully prepared to avoid that. I don't think there was any issue whatsoever with you starting an RFC, but simply that under these circumstances this time being "bold" in starting it may not be the best approach to get a good outcome. :D (My bold comment is a reference to Petr's edit summary, by the way, for those who haven't seen it. :) It amused me.) Personally, I appreciate your willingness to get going on it, as it's important; I think you're to be commended for that, and that's in no way diminished by the fact that somebody else was working independently on another RFC. I don't know if there's ever been a situation where two people have worked independently on the same RFC; I imagine it will never be a simple matter in such cases to settle the best way to proceed. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• My apologies for seeming to ignore this, I apparently got numerous new messages while away and didn't even notice this thread until just now. Peter, last year I did pretty much the same thing that you did, just throw open an RFC about PC and hope that it would result in a usable consensus. While Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment February 2011 did produce some results, it utterly failed to resolve the main issue of whether we would ever use PC again or not. In short, it was a disaster and caused a lot of hurt feelings all around. You can read more about how it went down in this signpost article. So, a year later, I gathered up the shattered bits of what little was accomplished in that fiasco and used it to lay the groundwork for a more structured discussion carefully designed to avoid such problems. I then asked for a "jury" of admins to run the RFC and close it. And then, your proposal opened and was linked from the exact same noticeboard. Your "I'm so bold" edit summary when opening it led me to believe that you were aware of all this and were just pushing ahead anyway. I apologize for that misunderstanding, and I hope you understand that this is in no way about elitism or an idea that only admin opinions are important. It is about learning from the mistakes, my mistakes, of the past and trying not to repeat them. I've now moved the draft RFC into project space at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012 and "turned it over" to the admins who volunteered to help out with it. It should be up and running soon, there will probably be a site-wide notice about it but at the very least it will be listed at WP:CENT once it is ready. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Department of Corrections (New Zealand)

Would appreciate your input. Discussion on possible COI is proceeding here and who outed whom is a bit confusing. You presumably have the details so could advise and also guide to avoid re-outing or further outing. My post to COIN is my first on this matter, not otherwise involved. Thanks. Babakathy (talk) 12:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thankyou. Babakathy (talk) 06:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Hello again, I am concerned that the page protection is about to expire and the involved editors have not yet started discussing change to content. Is it appropriate to extend the protect? Or hope someone else will edit it?Babakathy (talk) 07:31, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

OK ...

this did make me smile. .. ok, I chuckled ... all right then ... I actually LOLed .. cheers. :) — Ched :  ?  18:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• Note, my pants split. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 06:13, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

What gives?

So this is the third time I've started a thread in good faith, and you've come by to derail it with dismissive comments. Is this intentional? Or just an unfortunate coincidence that makes it look like you're trolling me? 28bytes (talk) 16:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Coincidence. I assure it is not personal, it appears we are interested in the same policy areas but have differing views on many of the issues and/or their relative importance, that's all. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:09, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thanks for the reply. 28bytes (talk) 17:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Agdaban AfD

I believe you misjudged the situation at this AfD. The quality of the sources was being questioned mostly along the lines of the sources being from Azerbaijan, something that is being used by the same editors to delete other articles on alleged massacres. Most of those objections came from people who support the Armenian side in the dispute and I think their reasons for wanting it deleted are not really based on sources at all. What I think is that the dispute was not one that would merit deletion, but one that could be addressed through making edits to the article or merging to another article as was suggested by one editor.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

AFD closes are done based on strength of argument, not who is making the arguments. The argument that there are not sufficient sources was not effectively refuted during the debate, so the article was deleted. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Please don't focus on just one reason I gave. I cannot review the article to see what sources it included, but it appears those editors were mainly upset about a POV concern, not notability. An article being biased is not itself a legitimate reason for deletion. That area of the world, and its history, gets very little attention from Western media and Western scholars so difficulty in finding English-language sources should be expected and frequent mentions, trivial as they may have been, in such sources point to the likelihood of wider coverage in non-English sources. Here is a translated page from an Azeri newspaper's website (I had to google the Azeri words for the subject to find it) that gives substantial coverage: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ayna.az%2F2011-04-02%2Fsiyaset%2F5476-kelbecer-agdaban-soyqirim%2Fprint&act=url.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 20:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

My job was to determine what consensus was reached during the debate, and I believe I did that. I'm not going to re-run that debate with you here. You are free to try and create a properly sourced article and/or a userspace draft that addresses the issues that led to the deletion. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Question

Beeblebrox,

Why are you going thru a blocked editor's user space and nominating harmless pages for deletion? --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

MFD is pretty routinely used to remove pages of no benefit to the project. Feel free to comment there if you object to any of these nominations. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not a frequent participant at MFD, so I'll poke around there and see if this really is common. If it is, then I disagree with the practice in general, but then I guess my disagreement would be with the system, not this particular instance. After I've poked around, I'll comment, but to save me (and everyone) from copy-pasting comments, could you combine them all into one MFD? --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:14, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

They are not all nominated for the same reason. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:16, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You've got mail. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:08, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure why would need to have this discussion off-wiki, the short answer would be that I consider this nothing more than housekeeping, it is not part of any dispute, and the community will decide what to do with the pages through the usual consnsus based processes. How I came across them was nothing more than random happenstance, then I noticed there was a whole pile of subpages there that either served no purpose related to Wikipedia, were unused userboxes, or were in violation of policy. That's all there is to it, there is no hidden agenda or subtext. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I see you have decided that i am lying and you want to make the deletion discussions about me instead of the nominated pages. Classy. This isn't about me, and really it isn't about Proofreader either, it is about a bunch of useless pages with no relation to this project. Please stop attacking my motivations, which you imagine anyway, and comment on the actual topic under discussion, the pages themselves. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:27, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

• - Just wondering - I am getting feedback via email this is suggesting that , have you had/there has been, some interaction on another wiki that has caused these nominations? Youreallycan 19:48, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what is up with the whispering campaign about this by email, thanks for asking me out in the open. I pretty much already explained this above, but here it is again:

• Yes, Proofreader was involved in the ridiculous dust-up at meta that I was also involved in, in that he also participated in the discussions there.
• As far as I am concerned that matter is in the past, having been concluded a few weeks ago.
• Yesterday, through nothing more than coincidence, I became aware of a number of unused userboxes and pages with no apparent use or connection to WP in Proofreader's userspace. I nominated them for deletion so that the community could decide if these pages should be retained or not, as with any other deletion nomination.
• That's it.
• And now Floq has decided to try and tie these nominations back to the previous incident on meta. They are two entirely separate issues, what happened over there has nothing to do with the acceptability of these pages under en.wp standards.
• And apparently he somebody is canvassing support for his position by email. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:07, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

• Ah, thanks for the fine details. I agree the nominations can stand alone as housekeeping suggestions. Just to note - Floq didn't sent me any emails. Youreallycan 20:24, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I guess I assumed that since he tried to discuss this with me by email for reasons that ware not clear to me. Striking that part. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:28, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I emailed you because I think you're doing something uncool, and wanted to give you a chance to change your mind and address it quietly first. If I intended to canvass, you would probably not have been a good person to email. I've been discussing this with PR77 via email (no other option), but not with anyone else. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:21, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's only "uncool" if you assume (as you did) that I am acting in bad faith. Asking or community input on some pages of questionable value/relevance to this project is not generally considered an act of bad faith. I'm not sure I even recall having any direct interaction with them during the nonsense at meta. I remember a lot of flowery faux-poetry postings that I didn't really read, that's about it. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:36, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Category:People educated at Edgeborough school

Hi, You deleted the page Category:People educated at Edgeborough school on 23 Feb and so have unlinked several names attached to that category. Would there be a problem in re-creating the Category? Manxwoman (talk) 18:54, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

That would be fine, the only reason it was deleted was that all edits to it were made by a banned user. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:58, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for the speedy reply & totally understood. Re-created and all done 'n dusted! Manxwoman (talk) 19:11, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

YGM

Hello, Beeblebrox. Please check your e-mail – you've got mail!
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{YGM}} template. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 17:43, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Lake Erie Drum and Bugle Corps

Just wondering why the page for Lake Erie Drum and Bugle Corps was deleted, and why I was not notified. Seems kind of sneaky and underhanded. Also, how do you justify deleting an article about an organization that holds a civil rights award? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JustRealMC (talk • contribs) 16:36, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

There was a deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lake Erie Drum and Bugle Corps. My only role was to close the discussion in accordance with the consensus established there, which was to delete the article. You were[1] in fact notified, the notice is still right there on your talk page, so your accusations are utterly without merit.Since you participated in the discussion I am puzzled as to why you would feign ignorance about it. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Einstein Swiss or German

See WP:AN3#User:MadGeographer reported by User:IIIraute (Result: ). Illraute reverted again at 03:15 after your warning at 01:37. You might consider whether this affects your closure. Curiously, the bio on the Nobel prize site says Einstein obtained Swiss citizenship in 1901 so the Swiss side of the dispute might be technically correct. He was born German, invented special relativity while Swiss, but went back to being German later. Aren't nationality disputes fun? EdJohnston (talk) 04:30, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Update about User:IIIraute: He undid his own revert, stating that it was within 24 hours. I am marking the 3RR as 'No action' in the header but you can revise that if you want to do something there. EdJohnston (talk) 17:30, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

That works for me, hopefully the message has been received by both parties. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:00, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

RFC Notification close

Good close on the RfC notification. The comments were not helpful at all.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 19:44, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

HotCat Teahouse edit

Hey, Beeblebrox, just fyi, I reverted an edit you made with HotCat on the Teahouse questions page here, since it was meant to be a wikilink to a category. I've since realized the error of my ways (i.e. realized that wikilinks to categories don't show up as wikilinks in the text), gone back and made it an external link, rather than a wikilink. Is there a better way to handle wikilinks to categories? Thanks! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:12, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind, found the ":Category:" thing in an old helpdesk topic. Thanks anyway! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:19, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I wasn't exactly sure what was going on there myself, but there was bot notification that it had been marked as a guideline, which was obviously not correct. Glad it got sorted out. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:39, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

AFD closure sorting category shenanigans thing

Hey Beeblebrox, whatever tool you use to close AFDs seems to have gone sideways - have a look at this. It's adding an NS:0 to the REMOVE THIS TEMPLATE template, but not actually removing the template. There were a couple others as well, though I don't have diffs handy. The result is... well, honestly, it's harmless, but I have no idea why it's doing that. Didn't know if you had any leads as to what's going on, perhaps? Thanks, UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 19:06, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. the script I am using is Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/CloseAFD. I have no idea why it does it that way, maybe the authors do. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:22, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

It looks like that script has been in place since 2008, with no problems. Hrm. I thought it might be some recent script change or some technical whatever that was causing an issue. Guess it's no big deal. Thanks! UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:44, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

AFD closure for Intent Leadership

Hi!Beeblebrox I believe deleting the article without answering the question which i have raised is not fair, nor democratic. I simply request you to go through the questions in my last few comments on the articles for deletion. Deleting without any reasons is not as per the wikipedia spirit.Thanks Vartmaan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vartmaan (talk • contribs) 04:29, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

See reply to identical post below. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:09, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I believe deleting the article without answering the question which i have raised is not fair, nor democratic. I simply request you to go through the questions in my last few comments on the articles for deletion. Deleting without any reasons is not as per the wikipedia spirit.Thanks Vartmaan Vartmaan (talk —Preceding undated comment added 04:36, 17 March 2012 (UTC).

My job as the closer is to interpret what consensus was arrived in during the course of the debate, and to take action that reflects that consensus. That is all I did, if one particpates in a discussion they shouldn't be the one to close it. the reasons for these deletions are already explained in the discussions themselves. And you should probably be aware that Wikipedia is not a democracy. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:08, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

SFL 1

Hi,
regarding Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SFL 1, I believe that all opinions made by IPs in this AfD (plus the already struck one) should have been discounted since from what I can tell they were all made by the same banned person.
I have not read the AfD so I have no opinion on whether this should have changed your evaluation of it, this is purely an FYI.
Cheers, Amalthea 00:05, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

See below. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:09, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SFL 1

Can you please re-look at the close of this AfD, as it has now come to light that the IP's 63.3.19.1 and 173.241.225.163 were socking for a blocked user, the registered user User:The Bachmann Editor Overdrive was also a sock of a blocked user (now blocked) and 172.130.252.250 a SPA is blocked for personal attacks and given WHOIS information is likely connected with 63.3.19.1. Mtking ^(edits) 03:48, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

It was fairly obvious when initially reviewing the debate that something was fishy, and of course we had one user openly canvassing others on top of it, but on the whole I found the arguments presented by both sides to be rather weak. However, I will adjust my closing statement to reflect that there is no prejudice against a speedy renomination, I think that might be the best course of action now that the event is over, the socks have been caught, and the user doing the canvassing has had it made clear to them that it won't be tolerated. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:13, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Done, I have tried to make my nomination clearer this time. Mtking ^(edits) 04:33, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

In the interests of transparency, can I please place a talk page notice on the talk page of all editors (both Keep and Delete) that are not subject of blocks about the new discussion ? I propose something along the lines of "Due to serious issues involving canvassing and sockpuppetry at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SFL 1, I have renominated the article for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SFL 1 (2nd nomination)". Mtking ^(edits) 04:40, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

My personal inclination at this point would be to not do anything that could possibly be interpreted as canvassing, but if you decide to do that be very careful to adhere to WP:CANVASS. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:53, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Hence my question here, and given your response, I won't. Mtking ^(edits) 06:07, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

AFD closure for Dissolve the box

Hi Beeblebrox!

Thanks a lot for your prompt response. I thought that the discussion was absolutely on when it ended abruptly. My point on "significant coverage" has still not been answered. I only wrote to the editors that i will be travelling and will have limited access to my mail for 3-4 days. Livitup has done a detailed study has have found one significant coverage and two minor coverage ( which is more than trivial coverage) and therefore significant as per the WP:GNG guidelines. Many more references and points are still there which needs further discussion and which may help the editors to reconsider their decisions. Help me out to put my points clearly as i believe the editors are still not clear of many aspects which i am aware of as it has not been discussed. I am new to wikipedia and your guidance will be of great help. Kindly guide.

Once again, my only role here was to interpret what consensus was wached during the course of the debate, not to particpate on that debate. Also, I believe your questions were answered repeatedly during the course of said debate, you just kept asking them again because you dodn't loke the answers you were getting. This sort of situation is exactly why editing in areas where you have a conflict of interest is discouraged. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:17, 18 March 2012 (UTC)