User talk:Mandarax/Archive 7

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Archive 1

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Archive 5

Mandarax!

Happy New Year! Drmies (talk) 03:09, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I hope you have a good 2011! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:14, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Rinaldo Cuneo

On 4 January 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Rinaldo Cuneo, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that a critic said that landscapes by Rinaldo Cuneo (self-portrait pictured) "are the very soul and essence of California materialized in line and color"? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Thank you Victuallers (talk) 21:43, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy Mandarax's Day!

Mandarax has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian,
so I've officially declared today as Mandarax's Day!
For being a great person and awesome Wikipedian,
enjoy being the star of the day, Mandarax!

Signed, Neutralhomer

A record of your Day will always be kept here.

For a userbox you can add to your userbox page, click here. Have a Great Day...Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:11, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you so much! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 09:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

You're Welcome! :) Keep up the great work! :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 09:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Listas

I think you and I are the only ones who are working on Category:Biography articles without listas parameter. I do not work nearly as quickly as you do and prefer to do small chunks at a time so I am concentrating on the articles with "special" characters in the first or second space.

I asked at WP Biog for a bot to replace Listasbot when Matt did not respond to my request for a Listasbot run. I have not found errors in the work Listasbot did but I have not looked for them either. After all, Listasbot did at least 250,000 listas values.

I do not support a bot to concoct a sort value. For the most part the articles I am finding have sort values on {{DEFAULTSORT}} and enough of them are correct that I think a bot can be trusted to copy that value to |listas= on the talk page. (These articles also tend to consist of a sentence or two and a dozen category tags.)

I think any effort that gets us closer to having to learn complicated or esoteric naming conventions seems to be a good thing. Right now, I would be happy to see the number of pages in the category drop to a new low, somewhere around 35,000.

JimCubb (talk) 20:34, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I did do some cleanup after ListasBot, but not too much. For example, I find that many people, especially newer editors, will copy the DEFAULTSORT and categories from an article on a similar person, and neglect to change it to the correct sort key. Then ListasBot came along and copied that incorrect sort key to the listas.

You "do not support a bot to concoct a sort value"? Well, you apparently don't realize that that's exactly what you did at WP:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 19. Yobot will not be copying the sort key from the article's DEFAULTSORT as ListasBot did; it will be adding its own sort key, determined by AWB. This is usually a very good value, but there are so many quirks and exceptions and special cases that, as I mentioned on the bot approval page, I personally wouldn't be comfortable allowing a bot of mine to add them because of the small amount of errors which would inevitably result. Ideally, all sort keys would have human input, but as you say, there aren't many people working on them. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:26, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

If that is what I did I had better run over and correct it. I have found a few like you describe in your first paragraph. The ones we, you and I, do not catch will be very difficult to find later on. However, they do not upset me very much because they are mostly team mates on a football team and are only of interest to members of their families.

Would you be able to participate in the review that Mag mentioned in the Rfa? JimCubb (talk) 21:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Checking over some of the bot's edits for accuracy? Sure, I could do some of that. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:01, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi (editing without registering)

I'm only adding links to articles of | Galician wikipedia] because some of them appear as inexistent in the List of Absent Articles. See you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.117.78.74 (talk) 22:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that useful work. As I said in my note, welcome! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:20, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Icelandic names

I added Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests#Improve_HumanCatKey. Can you please tell us how they names should be treated? I noticed name variants:

PAGENAME (i.e. as is without commas) with special characters converted
First parameter of the template
Second name, first name (I guess this is 100% wrong)

-- Magioladitis (talk) 12:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

While I believe your first variant is correct, the confusion surrounding Icelandic sort keys caused me to just stop adding them a long time ago. I've left a note with WikiProject Iceland, hoping that we can get some definitive answers. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:19, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

74.5.74.21

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME? i AM PUTTING IN VALID EDITS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.5.74.21 (talk) 08:38, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Your edit to Andy Whitfield restored your obviously unconstructive comment. Most importantly, it's false. But even if it were true, your comment was very unencyclopedic, and would require a reliable source. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 11:17, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Revert to Classicism

My, you're quick. My nudge at the Classicism page was just a naughty dig at the needless 'Not to be confused with', which I've now removed. This is a serious edit. 112.118.152.231 (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program is looking for new Online Ambassadors

Hi! Since you've been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, I wanted to let you know about the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, and specifically the role of Online Ambassador. We're looking for friendly Wikipedians who are good at reviewing articles and giving feedback to serve as mentors for students who are assigned to write for Wikipedia in their classes.

If that sounds like you and you're interested, I encourage you to take a look at the Online Ambassador guidelines; the "mentorship process" describes roughly what will be expected of mentors during the current term, which started in January and goes through early May. If that's something you want to do, please apply!

You can find instructions for applying at WP:ONLINE. The main things we're looking for in Online Ambassadors are friendliness, regular activity (since mentorship is a commitment that spans several months), and the ability to give detailed, substantive feedback on articles (both short new articles, and longer, more mature ones).

I hope to hear from you soon.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Improve HumanCatKey. Status update

Icelandic names obstacle seems to be past
A new question came on a Turkish honorific.

Please help me to collect more exceptions, etc. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:28, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I was watching the Icelandic names discussion and I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't want to unnecessarily complicate things. My only familiarity with the subject is what I've read on Wikipedia so I had nothing original to contribute. But since you brought it up, I don't mind mentioning a few thoughts here on my own talk page.

I was very disappointed that more Icelandic people didn't participate. Even the person who made the suggestion which was adopted was "not keen on this solution".

I have mixed feelings about that solution. I guess it's okay to sort things "incorrectly" if it actually makes it easier for people to find them. But, for consistency, shouldn't the same solution be applied to other names which are sorted similarly, such as Chinese or Arabic? But I don't think it could possibly work for Arabic names, as I've noticed that previous attempts by others to do any kind of sorting of those names according to Lastname, Firstname rules always result in strenuous objections.

I also seriously question the appropriateness of WP:Manual of Style (Iceland-related articles) being marked {{Historical}}. This was done by someone from Ireland, not Iceland, and the reasoning in the edit summary does not seem valid to me. Just because a page is stable, not requiring frequent edits, is no reason to apply a template which states that "the page is no longer relevant, or consensus on its purpose has become unclear". It appears that the user may have really objected to the page's title rather than its content.

Honestly, I almost always restrict my sort key efforts to names which appear to fit Western naming conventions, because other names may have so many unusual rules and exceptions, and I don't want to unintentionally do things incorrectly. I figure it's better to have no sort key than an incorrect one. Ideally, I'd like to see those "special" cases handled by people familiar enough with the culture to really know what they're doing.

I will keep an eye out for Turkish exceptions, but with my current strategies, I'm unlikely to encounter many. Good luck with your efforts. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:42, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. It's clear to me now that the problem is not that a bot can't cover all the rules but that they are no rules for many cases. I think we care too much for some things we could fix later retaining a backlog for special cases not many people care anyway.

The "Celebi" situation reveals that these names were (correctly or incorrectly -who knows?) categorised in various ways by various people for a long time and had nothing to do with AWB. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:57, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations!

You've won a Wikimedia t-shirt (not this t-shirt, but an equally lovely t-shirt) as part of the Great Backlog Drive. Thank you for your hard work and perseverance and we hope to see you next week!

All Hail The Muffin Nor does it taste nice... 13:40, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you very much! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 17:43, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

...I've been Working Man, dang near all my life...

	The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar
	You haven't had one of these in a while, yet you keep plugging away. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 21:41, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! A barnstar from such an excellent user as yourself means a lot! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:39, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for cleaning up. Drmies (talk) 15:38, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Sure. Looked like someone had a bit of a grudge against you. Speaking of IPs, this morning I encountered a bit of a strange situation. I went about my usual routine of patrolling my Watchlist, expecting to revert the usual vandalism, but instead found page after page of constructive edits. It's a world gone mad! I issued four Welcomes in a row. Maybe there's hope for the world after all. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 16:44, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I share your hope. Going through Recent changes, I see constructive IP edits all the time, and that pleases me. But I don't look at my watchlist anymore. I'm using Twinkle, and that adds everything I twinkle to the list, so it's got a million pages now. Well, keep up the good work. If you're bored, I think there's a few more Marshall amplifiers that need articles. ;) Drmies (talk) 17:44, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

It's ridiculous that Twinkle's default is to watchlist everything. Fortunately, you can regain control of your Watchlist by overriding the default. Add the following to your vector.js and/or monobook.js (removing any lines for things you might want to watch). See the Twinkle documentation for more info.

if( typeof( TwinkleConfig ) == 'undefined' ) TwinkleConfig = {};
TwinkleConfig.watchRevertedPages	= [];
TwinkleConfig.watchWarnings		= false;
TwinkleConfig.watchSpeedyPages		= [];
TwinkleConfig.watchProdPages		= false;
FriendlyConfig.watchTaggedPages		= false;
FriendlyConfig.watchWelcomes		= false;

And you can easily clear out your existing bloated Watchlist by "Edit raw watchlist". MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, geek! (Sorry...) Listen: [1]. How about that, huh? I think I intersect with them quite a bit also. Drmies (talk) 19:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that and I wondered if you would check back and notice it. Well, you finally know who joined you for those beers and whatnot! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:19, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I've added the code. I'm going to give you a level 4 warning for something, and then see if it works. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 02:19, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for the cleanup! LadyofShalott 23:49, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. Just a few very minor things. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 23:56, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Admit it, Mandarax. You are a writer at heart, not a gnome. Tonight, I will have a cigar in honor of you and your old pal Kurt. Drmies (talk) 02:06, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're gonna get a much longer response than you may have expected. Well, first the short answer: yes.

It would be great if the enormous amount of time I've put into gnomishness could have instead been spent writing articles. However, there's a bit of a Catch-22. I think that, because I want to write articles as well as I possibly can, I have a much more difficult time writing about subjects which are important to me, but I don't really want to write articles about subjects which aren't. Having said that, I'll add that it's not exactly easy for me to write about anything. So the few articles I do end up writing take an inordinate amount of time and represent a huge amount of effort.

I've previously mentioned a list of articles which I intend to write/expand some day. I finally wrote one from that list but that was a month and a half ago. Rinaldo Cuneo, incidentally, got on that list because I saw one of his pieces in a museum and, even though I'd never heard of him before, I knew he had to have a WikiArticle. While I admire the efforts of you and others to get unreferenced BLPs into shape, I've gotta say that I really liked writing an article about an artist who's been dead for over 70 years (my previous four articles were all about more recently departed or still living artists), which means that all of his paintings are freely available. See? I've gone and strayed. I guess a part of my writing difficulty is my constant fatigue, which makes it hard to concentrate. I'm also a very imperfect perfectionist. Okay, enough of my rambling.... MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 05:05, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, Mandarax. About that BLP stuff, for me that's maybe what gnoming is for you--I don't necessarily enjoy it (often I don't enjoy it at all) but I feel it must be done. I usually don't write about things in my own field, and when I do, it is with great trepidation--tonight I made a small edit to Edwin of Northumbria, which took me hours (or so it seemed). Can't screw that up! (But it was fun to cite someone I know, haha). No, I really appreciate someone writing about the things they care for, especially if they do so with care and expertise. The Lady's article is an example of that too, I believe. And there's folks who share their expertise in a genuine effort to make this a better place--Kelapstick, for instance, with all those esoteric mining articles.

Isn't it terrible, how long something takes if you want to do it right? Even three-sentence articles on lighthouses? Well, if it isn't hard, it's probably not worth doing it! Take care, Mandarax--I toasted you with a Warsteiner as well. Bis spaeter, Drmies (talk) 05:43, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

← When I wrote the above note, I was in the midst of a weeks-long writer's block, trying very unsuccessfully to write one of those articles on my list. After our exchange, I decided to challenge myself and see if I could completely write an article in one day. I went off-list, taking a middle ground, writing about an art subject, but one which held no special significance to me. Well, it was still a struggle, and ended up taking three days. But that was still significantly less than my average time required to write an article. It usually takes months, or at least weeks. Oh, and it wasn't one of those dead-over-70-years guys I like. Georg Muche only died in 1987, so I couldn't go wild with the images, but I found two on Commons and I uploaded a Fair use photo of him. Ironically, even though Muche is not so important to me, the article may have more worldwide significance than most of my others, as it had five preexisting interwikis. (Yeah, I could've tried to translate one of those, but that's not what I wanted to do, and, besides, I just checked it out, and Google seems to do a particularly poor job of translating the German version.)

Of my last six articles, you provided the inspiration and/or impetus to write at least three. (Oh, but the fact that I selected a German subject had nothing to do with your German salutation. [... or did it? The subconscious works in mysterious ways, especially when German beer is involved.]) MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 11:39, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

That is a fascinating photograph of Muche in the infobox. That he should come from a town called Querfurt (didn't even know it existed) is no surprise. Excellent article, by the way--I learned something. Drmies (talk) 03:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. But if I'm completely honest, I think that it was one of my weakest articles. Yeah... that photo! I had found another photo, but I opted for the more intense-looking one. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 06:07, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Question Regarding Style

Hello Mandarax -- I was just working on the article for Matt Walton, generally doing some copyediting and wikifying, and noticed that you had replaced the bolded titles of films and plays with italics. I am a relatively new editor on Wikipedia -- what is the rule regarding when to bold vs. italicize? Thank you for the info -- I'm not sure what internal style page contains this information.Neumannk (talk) 19:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Bold is very rarely used other than for the first appearance of an article's title; for example the first time Matt Walton is mentioned in the article. Italics are used for titles of many things such as films, plays, TV series, music albums, newspapers, etc. (Short works such as song titles and individual TV episodes are put in "quotation marks".) See WP:MOSBOLD and the section below it, WP:MOSITALICS. And welcome to Wikipedia! Thanks for your contributions. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Talk:François Asselineau

Hello, Mandarax, you put a banner in the talk of François Asselineau saying that the article may not respect the policy on biographies of living persons in the reason that is poorly sourced. All the sources (17) are coming from the French national press. --Lawren00 (talk) 00:18, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

No, I did not. I added a "listas" value – the sort key for determining the order in which to list the page within categories. Furthermore, the notice does not say any such thing. It is the standard one which should appear on the talk page of every article about a living person. It mentions BLP policies, but says absolutely nothing about any specific article. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 00:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

All right, thank you for the explanation :) --Lawren00 (talk) 05:35, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

They are at it again

Hi, i noticed you have previously blocked User talk:79.140.211.253 before. Well it appears they have been at it again and have now recieved two final warnings, the second just there now by me. I think they warrant another block. Mabuska ^(talk) 23:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, so I've never blocked anybody. I only issued a couple of warnings on their talk page nine months ago. If you want, you may report it yourself to WP:Administrator intervention against vandalism, but I wouldn't recommend it and I don't think any action will be taken unless they vandalize again soon. Their previous final warning was twelve days ago, and with IPs the presumption is that someone on an IP now is not necessarily the same person who was warned about vandalism on that IP previously, unless their editing pattern indicates otherwise. Their only edits today were an act of vandalism, then reverting their own vandalism, so a block is unlikely at this time. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 23:28, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

new article

Dear Mandarax, if you have a moment, could you unleash your sharp pen on Lorene Cary? Thanks! BTW, I heard about an interesting book on the radio. Drmies (talk) 04:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks good! I made a few minor edits. The big question is, should the DYK run on March 8 for International Women's Day, or sometime in February, during Black History Month? MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 10:02, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, when I wrote that, I didn't think you'd even submitted it to DYK yet. But I see that you already did, it was approved 21 minutes later, and it was, indeed, moved to the March 8 area shortly thereafter. I got two of my DYKs for female artists, but I don't have any more women on my list of articles which I intend to write in the hopefully-near-future. I guess I could go "off-list" again, as I wrote to you above about doing with Georg Muche, but I'd hate to postpone the list items any further. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 10:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Mbz1 made the same suggestion. Thanks for your help. This one went quick--the entire DYK nomination and approval took only a third of the time it took me to write it. That's what you get when you paste together biographies from Google News scraps--it's not my favorite thing in the world.

BTW, I wrote the article since she is a featured speaker at a conference I'm going to next month. I may get one of her books; I think Mrs. Drmies might like it. As for women...I expanded Renate Mayntz (an unreferenced BLP), and that made me think that there's probably tons of notable female scholars without articles. Do you want one in my field? How about Clare Lees? Or Gillian Overing? (see [2]). Or Helen Damico? Or Marijane Osborn? Or Roberta Frank? Get to work, Mandarax! Drmies (talk) 15:36, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Say--do you know how to do this? Drmies (talk) 16:17, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

An interesting conversation starter for the after-conference cocktail party: "I wrote your Wikipedia page"! I would've thought that your wife's name would be "Mrsmies" rather than "Mrs. Drmies".... Thanks for the article suggestions, but I think I'll be sticking to art-related articles. I wasn't especially precise in what I wrote above. While there are no women on my very short list of articles which I want to write first, there are plenty on a secondary list. I was also imprecise about Muche. He wasn't completely "off-list"; he was on a tertiary or perhaps quaternary list. Oh, I just looked over that list and promoted someone to high secondary status. Given sufficient time, I could probably figure that out, although I'm not sure if the Linux machine I have access to has the proper software installed. Are the current weekly updates insufficient for you? MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:02, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

A weekly update? I've been at 59,653 for weeks or more now--this has me a bit farther. Drmies (talk) 21:42, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I somehow missed your note. (I always wonder if people will see my note when I reply to an older one.) I was referring to the weekly updates here, where you're currently shown at position 311 with 64,464 edits. It updates every Tuesday (for me; it would generally be Wednesday for you). I made a userbox for my userpage which displays my rank from that page. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 10:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Edward Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings of Loughborough

Hi! I'm trying to help out in the clean up articles missing "listas" parameters. Would welcome an expert opinion here. The above article gives an unusual format of name for a member of the British nobility - I've not seen an AB, Baron X of Y before. Did I get the DEFAULTSORT/listas correct?

Thanks VinculumMan (talk) 21:36, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I would say that, according to WP:PEERS, it should be Loughborough, Edward Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings Of, but sort keys for nobility are so complicated that I'm never too sure about any of them. Even though I've added/fixed tens of thousands of sort keys, there are so many special cases and exceptions that I still don't consider myself an "expert". Thanks for your work! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:46, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - I'll go with your suggestion. VinculumMan (talk) 07:56, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Georg Muche

On 23 February 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Georg Muche, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that works by German artist Georg Muche were confiscated by the Nazis and displayed in their 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 00:03, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for an interesting person. He now appears on Portal:Germany. Please feel free to place future DYK related to Germany there yourself, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:26, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I wasn't aware that Germany-related DYKs were collected there, but I'll keep it in mind if I have any more. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 08:42, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

The showing was there before, but I started the collection only this year, when found out that so far DYK went to two different archives. Just today I suggested something similar for Opera, to celebrate Handel's birthday, smile --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Spirit of the Dead Watching

On 24 February 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Spirit of the Dead Watching, which you recently nominated. The fact was ... that the strong colors in Paul Gauguin's Spirit of the Dead Watching (pictured) are symbolic of the native Polynesian belief that phosphorescent lights were manifestations of the spirits of the dead? If you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 00:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

What do you say...Nancy Mowll Mathews? You know I hate writing biographies, but she seems deserving... Drmies (talk) 20:36, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, based on my interactions with you, I had already found the subject – a female sculptor/painter – for my next article. Let's see if I can get that done in time to appear on DYK for International Women's Day on March 8. Sorry I don't do much with your article suggestions, but it's difficult enough to motivate myself to write articles of my own choosing.... Oh, I didn't know that you hated writing bios. That's all I seem to write these days. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Stars!

Thanks Mandarax! That's very kind of you. Oh, had I mentioned that it turns out my neighbor has a real plexi? Tell that to your brother! Drmies (talk) 19:59, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. (BTW, if I had some Good Article credits, I'd probably additionally do some userbox bragging about it.) I hope your neighbor lets you use his amp. Hey, maybe you can do all of your playing over there, and save your daughter's ears. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Better yet. We might buy his house (Marshalls probably not included, but the pool is, and he'll throw in a Mercedes--though I'd rather have the plexi). Congrats on the DYKs, above! Drmies (talk) 20:34, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm still at a stage where every DYK for an article I write is still exciting. As a matter of fact, my rate of output is so low that I may never become blasé about them. Of course, the last one above is just a nom of an article written by 99 JNW. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Haha, nice catch. Have a nice weekend, Mandarax! We're off to the carnival tomorrow morning. Drmies (talk) 21:38, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

User Who Has Been Warned About Vandalism Is Still Doing It

Comment - This user:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:217.33.79.34

Has been vandalising Wikipedia articles for some time and has been warned repeatedly about it. By multiple editors (including yourself) and they are STILL doing it.

They recently vandalised this article about comedian Gina Yashere as you can see in the history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Yashere

How many times will this person be warned about multiple cases of vandalism on multiple articles before they are stopped/blocked? Please look into this, thanks!12.196.37.227 (talk) 17:57, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

First of all, I'm not an admin, so I can't do any blocking. There is a presumption that IP addresses may be shared, so that the same IP may indicate different users at different times. Thus, someone using the IP now may not be the same person who previously received warnings. This particular IP doesn't appear to be very active, and, in fact, the edit just prior to the two most recent edits was constructive. I've issued a level 2 warning, but based on their recent activity, a block would not be appropriate at this time. If you discover them committing any more vandalism, you may warn them and, if appropriate, report them to WP:AIV. I know it may be frustrating, but we must be fair to other users who may end up on that same IP. Thanks for your concerns and for your many useful contributions to Wikipedia. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

- Comment - This user is now sending me messages on my talk page bragging about vandalising Gina Yashere's page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:12.196.37.227&redirect=no

How much is Wikipedia going to put up with from this troll before they are blocked?12.196.37.227 (talk) 18:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

That's a very different IP, although both are in the UK. It's probably the same person, but it's possible that there may be two people intent on vandalizing that page. I've issued a final warning to that IP, and if they vandalize the article again, you or someone else may report them to WP:AIV. Sorry it may seem to take so long to get vandals blocked, but that's just the way it works. Thanks again for your contributions. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment - Ok, thanks.12.196.37.227 (talk) 19:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

DYK question

Hey Mandarax, can you have a look at the DYK suggestions page, to Pym (novel), and weigh in on the sourcing matter, the Twitter thing. That is, if you're sober enough--I only just now noticed the bottle of rum on the top of this page. I see that Bacardi 153 should be invented before the end of the month. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 02:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

OH! PS! That Washington-book I referred to above (yes, I do follow up on old comments--thanks for the edit-countitis update), it's a BLAST. The foreword already is great--it's funny, serious, meaningful, everything you could want in a book. Well, in an academic book, I guess. It deserves to be a best-seller; no doubt it will be in paperback soon. Drmies (talk) 02:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I was replying on T:TDYK about Twitter and got an edit conflict with Materialscientist, who covered the issue, so I scrapped that part of my note and just left my suggested alt. Hmmmm... I don't think I've ever actually had Bacardi 151. However, I've got a bottle of 100 proof cinnamon schnapps which includes flakes of real 24 carat gold. I've never opened the bottle, but occasionally I'll shake it just to watch the shiny gold flakes dance in the liquor. I hope you had a good time at Carnival. You helped me stump some people with a Jeopardy!-style answer. They guessed that New Orleans rather than Mobile had the oldest Mardi Gras celebration in the U.S. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 09:14, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I removed the 151 from the top of the page since I am now at 153, but I've put it here, so that future archaeologists poring through my archives will know what we were talking about. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:49, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
BTW, I just noticed that you did precisely what I was going to suggest you do before you do what I think you're going to do. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:07, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes, you're too deep for me. Hey, thanks for helping out at DYK. Your help is greatly appreciated, and not just by me. It's nice also to see you out and about. And Mardi Gras was fun (I ate a bacon-wrapped hot dog--deeelish), though I have a house full of beads now, and I keep pulling them out of the girls' beds. My sister-in-law, with whom we stayed, hasn't had enough and went on down to New Orleans for some more. She's an excellent-beer drinker, by the way, which is great. I hope you're having a productive/restful/exciting/calm week! Drmies (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words. It's good to hear occasionally that my efforts are appreciated. (I don't do nearly as many DYK reviews as I used to, but I still do lots of gnomery and sometimes suggest ALTs.) • A friend (who's an excellent wine drinker) does Mardi Gras in New Orleans every year and says I have to go some time. • I don't think I ever had bacon-wrapped-anything. The camp I stayed at for my first Burning Man supposedly served Bacon Explosions the next year. There were also rumored to be Veggie Explosions using, I think, strips of zucchini. • It would be rare for me to have a week which was any of those things, but I hope you're having one or more of them too. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 01:59, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Claire Falkenstein

On 8 March 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Claire Falkenstein, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that a critic described the work of abstract sculptor Claire Falkenstein as "a Jackson Pollock in three dimensions"? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:03, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Excellent work, Mandarax. Congratulations. Drmies (talk) 19:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Of course, you get partial credit, as I wrote it after being inspired by your first article for International Women's Day. This was the first time I selected a subject and wrote an article specifically for an occasion. And I think it was the fastest I ever wrote an article (other than stubs). Devoting a whole day to IWD DYKs was such a wonderful idea. (The resulting irony, though, is that there were no DYKs about women for a few weeks prior to today.) I might've never written the Falkenstein article otherwise, and after looking at her accomplishments, I find it astonishing that she didn't already have a WikiArticle. I should go on a pilgrimage to visit all of her public art in southern California. Congratulations on your 3+ IWD articles. This marks the first time we've each had a hook in the same set. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

AWB + me = Get behind a big boulder

It's always nice to hear from an Awesome Wikipedian. Going to AWB is like going from a pea shooter to a Vulcan cannon. I just finished an off-line tool to scrape a WP Special: Search page and filter it to include and/or exclude certain text and then create a text list of articles for AWB, with the option to be case-sensitive. That lets me pretty closely target up to 500 articles at a time. Haven't clobbered any articles yet, AFAIK. Although I didn't mean to step on any toes, I'll give myself a pat on the back for getting out in front of you for a few minutes. Any time you want to discuss how to make the best use of AWB, or if you would like me to generate one of those fine-tuned article lists for you, I'm all ears. Happy editing! Chris the speller (talk) 18:48, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow! Thanks, I'll let you know if I need a fine-tuned list. As I said on your page, keep up the good work! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:16, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Please help

Hello, I'm a Belgian citizen and I found you in the "Art" discussion page, I would like to ask you some help concerning a wikipedia article about the artist ben heine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ben_Heine. Please let me know how I can do to improve this article or to have someone do it as I really find it difficult to edit stuff properly on Wikipedia, I can't do it myself... (and each time I tried to improve it in a neutral way, someone removed it) --Caring-writer (talk) 22:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I have no interest in editing that page, but I see that you've canvassed many other talk pages, so you'll probably find someone else to help you. For future reference, such requests for help should probably be limited to the article's talk page and perhaps the relevant WikiProject page(s). I've removed the very long and detailed follow-up note which you added here, about the article, its errors and publications, because it was just cluttering up my talk page. Good luck. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 01:40, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Happy First Day of Spring!

Just wishing you a wonderful First Day of Spring 2011! Mifter (talk) 20:44, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

If you live in the Southern Hemisphere and are entering the season of Autumn not Spring then I wish you a happy First Day of Autumn 2011!
To spread this message to others, add {{subst:First Day Of Spring}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Thanks! I hope you're having a springy day. Here in southern California, today's actually the wintriest it's been for a very long time. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:38, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Mildred Pope

Thanks for your help, Mandarax--as usual! Drmies (talk) 18:22, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

No problemo. Just doing my gnomely business.... MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of spring--I rode my bike to work today. It's glorious weather here, and we've already had to run the AC and buy more t-shirts for the girls. Happy days, Drmies (talk) 18:35, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Mandarax, can you help? I am not sure if I made [[Category:South African medievalists]] correctly. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 15:32, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

It was mostly fine, but some of the stuff was intended for a broader category. For example, I removed Category:Categories by nationality. I linked to Medieval history (which redirects to Middle Ages), but I'm not sure whether the "M" should be upper or lower case.

I hope your pleasant weather continues. We're having a brief springlike day today sandwiched between the cold, windy, rainy times we've been having, and more of the same predicted soon. But I can't complain, because in February we had days which were just like summer. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:05, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Categories are just too complicated for me. I'm working on a new, fun article (with GA prospects), Sir Degrevant. If you have nothing better to do one of these days, can you gnome that up a little? There's no rush at all. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 19:16, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I'll have a look at it. BTW, are you aware of WP:Credo accounts? They're giving away 400 free accounts to Wikipedians to help with their research. I got one last year; although it hasn't proven to be of much help on my articles, it may have better coverage in your areas of interest. It includes such references as The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, which has a brief entry on Sir Degrevant. Sign-up begins tomorrow! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:30, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

<--Hey thanks! That is an excellent suggestion, and we don't subscribe to Credo. Feel free to add the info to the article, and you'll get DYK credit! ;) Also, check your mailbox in a day or two. Drmies (talk) 19:56, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Mandarax--I've asked the same question on SlimVirgin's talk page, but I'm hedging my bets. I'm about to get on a plane and will be traveling all day. Could you put my name on the Credo list? It's not open for business yet... thanks, Drmies (talk) 15:14, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Sure, I'd be happy to. SV may be reluctant to do it for fear of the appearance of a conflict of interest, since she's so involved with the running of the "event". Hopefully a sign-up by proxy will be acceptable. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 17:57, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey, thank you for looking after me. I have internet access here in the lobby, and fortunately the front desk of the hotel had a power cord for my laptop that someone had left--I knew I forgot something! This comes in extra handy since I'm giving a Wikipedia presentation tomorrow at this convention, and a dead laptop can't wiki very well. Thanks again Mandarax--if the bar is still open I'll raise a toast to you. Drmies (talk) 03:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. Have fun with your presentation. Hey, maybe while you're there you can take a better photo of Lorene Cary for her page. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 05:20, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Good point! Drmies (talk) 12:33, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

← Wow! When you said mailbox I thought you meant mailbox, not mailbox. Thank you so much! What an unexpected and wonderful surprise. You're very thoughtful, generous, and just plain nice. Thanks again! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 05:24, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The great surprise, my dear Mandarax, was that the Vonnegut buttons did not sell well at all, as opposed to last year. This year, the buttons with Poe saying "I hate Twilight" were the big sellers. All the best, Drmies (talk) 04:58, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

AWB/listas

I feel nervous in writing to the great and mighty Mandarax... the only person stupider than me for slaving, trudging, toiling away at listas. :)

Nobody told me about some great modules for AWB until recently. In case you don't know about them:

User:Yobot/Task 17 Overcomes this bug and autofills in listas for EVERY talk page. Great time saver.
User:Magioladitis/WikiProjects Corrects all the aliases for WikiProjects and corrects some other problems. In order for AWB to add the WikiProjectShellBanner, all banners have to be in form of "WikiProject" and not WP or other weird combination, so adds WPSB when needed and not some of the time. Module maintained by User:Kumioko.

To use both modules at same time, read here. Ignore the tweak summary and skip comments, those are for bot use. Bgwhite (talk) 05:47, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Hehe, I take issue with the "great and mighty" part, but pretty much agree with the "stupid" part. I've been meaning to congratulate you for your work; I'm very impressed that you were able to successfully clear out the "Biography articles without listas parameter" category from T through the end.

I actually already use two custom modules at the same time (customized general fixes and a completely customized custom module). I don't use any plugins, and my combination of custom modules and find/replace adds listas for any WPBio alias so the bug doesn't bug me. I took a quick look at the modules you mentioned and may check them out further. But I've gotta be honest: I may be starting to burn out on all of this AWB stuff. I had stepped it up for the Great Backlog Drive, pushing me in February to my largest number of monthly talk page edits and second largest number of total monthly edits ever. But I really enjoyed slowing down on that while I engaged in the creative (but much more difficult, for me) act of writing an article. Anyways, thanks for the note and for your contributions! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 11:04, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the barnstar and the thank yous. I've enjoyed doing the listas and the defaultsort/persondata. I too am getting a little burned out and will be doing the listas at a less frantic pace. It sounds like we are alike. Writing articles is much more difficult for me which is one reason why I've enjoyed listas. Back to slaving away.... Bgwhite (talk) 05:03, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Charles Angrand

Sorry about introducing a typo. Listen, I have a style question. You use "École des Beaux-Arts" and similar names without fronting it with an article, and "Neo-impressionistic" and comparable terms with a capital. Are there rules here? (I would do it with article, mostly, and with lower-case...) This is not intended as criticism, of course--these are issues which can be validly debated, and maybe you could tell me precisely where your rules are from. BTW, in reference to your remark above to Bgwhite, when you turn out articles, you turn out fine and meaty articles. Congrats on your upcoming DYK. Drmies (talk) 18:45, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I actually had both of those issues the other way at some point. Some sources used "l'École" and others used just "École". You're the one with all of the language boxes on your user page, while I barely speak English, so if you think the articles should be there, please go for it. As for capitalization, I've seen it as "Neo-impressionism", "Neo-Impressionism", and "neo-impressionism". While it looks like, according to the Manual of Style, it should be "Neo-Impressionism", the article on the subject uses "neo-impressionism". I compromised and used "Neo-impressionism". The MOS wasn't kidding when it said it was a "complex issue"! I'm actually now reconsidering, and may change it to fully comply with the MOS.

I was glad to see the typo. Someone had added a category but not in the order which I prefer. I didn't want to do such a trivial edit as swapping the order, so fixing the typo gave me an excuse to throw that in. Thank you very much for the kind words about my articles! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:55, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

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