User talk:A Man In Black

Hello there. If you're going to leave me a comment (or yell at me, which is seeming increasingly common lately), please start a new header at the bottom of the page (or add to an old one), and sign your comments by adding ~~~~ to the end of them.

If you're here about a specific page, be it an article, talk page, user talk page, AFD page, or whatever, PLEASE LINK THAT PAGE. Odds are I'm going to have to check back to it anyway to reply, and more than once someone has left a comment about an unspecified page and gotten no help from me because I had no idea what they were talking about. LINK THE PAGE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

IF YOU'RE COMING HERE TO REPLY TO A COMMENT I MADE ON ANOTHER PAGE, STOP, GO BACK TO THAT PAGE, AND REPLY THERE. For example, if I made a comment on your talk page and expect a reply, your talk page is on my watchlist. I'm not interested in starting parallel discussions on my talk page.

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• Miscellanous archive
• Random awards and other crap left on my talk page

File:Nixon.jpg

A Dick on my talk page

Minomadam

Note to self: hack {{Pokémon species}} to make Minomadam work. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, make {{Infobox Air character}} and {{Tenchi Muyo Character Infobox}} not suck. Plus any other template still using {{Oh My Goddess Infobox-Generic/Text}}. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:03, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and credit Mark Newland (ahuxley in #alephone) for the M1 scan. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:26, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Wrestling

Do you know of any Admins who freqeunt pages related to World Wrestling Entertainment? I could use one's support on an issue. Please reply to this one on my own talk page. Drake Clawfang 00:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

So, um...do you know anyone? If not, could you support me? The issue in question involves D-Generation X and the peripheral members sections I've removed: it's really just OR and up for interpretation. Look at the talk page and the section itself and see what I mean. Thanks. Drake Clawfang 16:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

D'oh, missed this. I really don't know anything about wrestling, but I'll take a look. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Parser question

I'm trying to tweak the Comics Project infoboxes to support default image sizing and I'm running into a problem.

I'm using the Infobox Comics creator template as a starting point. (I had created this based on the Bio Project 'boxes.) It includes a nested if parse to deal with the image and image size.

When I try using the same logic in the Superteambox it loses the image information and treats the image file name as part of the caption.

I'm looking for some help on this from someone who is better versed in how the parser formatting works and how the older 'boxes are set up.

— J Greb 20:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Do you have a scratch page I can look at, or links to the templates you're talking about? I'd be happy to help, but I need more info. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The templates I'm looking at are:

Template:Superteambox and

Template:Infobox Comics creator

I've put what I was able to get to here.

Thanks for taking a look... — J Greb 02:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay. It's a fairly simple case. The teambox just makes you put in the image code raw. You pass the entire "[[Image:Imagename|size|alttext]]", whereas Infobox Comics creator only wantsyou to pass Imagename.

Personally, I'd rather do it the teambox way, since the ICC way screws up some bots and doesn't allow you to fiddle with image display parameters.

So, how do you want to do it? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:38, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually the ICC box does allow for fine tuning the image size with the "imagesize=" argument, it just enforces a default if the argument isn't there.

What I had thought of doing was changing the 'Team to the ICC standard. It seems a bit more common sense to me, the image only needs the "file" name without working out the code add-ins. It also takes the image down to 'box size since most images used have been imported at 300px+.

How exactly though does the ICC format cause problems bots?

— J Greb 04:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Supreme Commander

I noticed that you removed my recently article about the Armored Command Unit citing that it failed the WP:ATT. This is however not original research but rather information taken from the game manual. I realise that the fault is mine for not citing my sources and apologise.

However you also deleted the article on the UEF faction within the game witch in my opinion is completely without cause. Not only do the other two factions of the game have seperate articles of theyr own but almost every game faction or race have similar articles on wikipedia. It may only be relevant within the game world but as the first point on Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not states wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia and thus there should not be a limit as to how many subjects it should be able to cover. Thus the fact that the article bears relevance to the game would be eanough to justify its existance.

If it's taken from the game manual, it's attributed to a primary source, does not claim notability, and is inappropriate game guide, so my reasoning stands. Likewise for the UEF. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 20:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Seing as it is lore related information to the game world it would not fall under gameguide. As for the UEF article i still hold that the fact wikipedia alows several hundred if not thousand similar game faction articles, among wich two of them concern the remaining factions in the exact same game, speaks quite heavily in its defense. --Taurmin 07:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Game lore = primary source. WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is no reason to ignore WP:N, WP:ATT, and WP:WAF. Please don't spill your soda just because the janitors haven't mopped the entire floor yet. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

GA Status of Megaman articles

Thanks for the offer, but Mega Man Zero 4 is already GA status. What we need now is to boost it up to Featured Article status. But, Mega Man Zero requires boosting up to GA status. It's well on its way and should actually get through with a tiny bit of tweaking. As for Mega Man Battle Network 5, I've never played it, so all I can do is edit from an outsider's point of view.

EDIT: I've just noticed your edit of MMZ4 article. Indeed, you make a good point. The information is not Game Guide information, but has been presented in a way that makes it look like it. Seeing as I had difficulties finding references to that section anyway, perhaps it will need a bit of a trim. Wolf ODonnell 16:09, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Variant Magic: The Gathering formats

You've added a couple of tags to this page, and while I do agree the page is barely above a stub right now, I'm not sure that the tags you are using are appropriate. This article is in no way a game guide (as I said, there's no information on how to construct a deck for any of these variants, not even examples of decks on it, hence, not a guide to the game). And I don't think notability is the same as what you were going for, which might be unreferenced, but it has references for several of the variants (though it does need some more, I don't consider being from Wizards.com a problem, it's an odd case of being a reliable source from the primary make of the product, it's still not a primary source). Still, maybe you could bring this up on the talk page instead of the tags? That might help explainN what you're concerned about better? Templates are nice, I use them myself when I'm hitting random articles I see need a problem, but in this case, I think further discussion might be worthwhile. Mister.Manticore 14:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be a guide to playing the game well; if all it does is tells you how to play that variant, it's a game guide.

Additionally, it fails WP:N completely. You don't just make a gut call saying "Well, I think this is important, so it's notable"; you add non-trivial references in reliable sources.

Frankly, I'm not entirely sure there's a great deal of encyclopedic value in a list of variants of MTG. Most of them are house rules, a number of them seem to be some guy adding his personal variant, and even the "notable" ones are side games in organized play.

Is there an article about tournaments or organized play to put the 2HG mention in? We could probably just ditch the rest, since I highly doubt there are going to be any sources. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 18:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe that you are mistaken about what a game guide is. The article on chess tells you how to play the game. So do the articles on chess variants. (and I see over 50 of them with articles of their own! Yowza! ) Providing this information is essential for explaining the subject of the article. Game Guides are instructions on how to play the game better, strategic ideas, which this article simply does not contain. Really, I cannot see how anything in this article could be construed as a game guide at all. If you could perhaps go to the talk page and point out something, maybe I'd see where you are coming from, but right now I can't.

And yes, I do agree that various minor house rules or individual variants don't belong on the page. I've removed several, and I'm debating pruning some others if I can't source them. I've tried to keep this page limited to only those variants of substance, such as the multi-player ones, the vanguard (and don't tell me that product isn't also keepable content), or even peasant magic.

Sure, more real-world content would be nice, some magazine articles or mentions of tournaments (GenCon, for example, has unsanctioned peasant and 5-color tournaments, information about which could be included here). And yes, Scrye, Beckett, and Inquest have mentioned these variants in articles, I just don't have the issues, so I haven't added them as sources. I have added the Wizards ones, as they are a reliable source, as mention on their website is something I'm comfortable saying is a good sign that it's not just a minor individual thing. They aren't just a primary vanity source, they are providing content of interest to the players who read their site. Are they completely independent? Nope, but it's not a case where they're just publishing press releases either. Their authors produce actual content. Thus I can't see any objection to them as establishing notability through coverage.

Anyway, I do think this article could be improved, but there's no question in my mind that it is appropriate for Wikipedia. Magic the Gathering is notable, unquestionable there. The two major variants have official standing, either in the rules, or with official products. The others do need some clean-up, but I've been holding off on that for a while. But at least some of them are played by lots of people. Mister.Manticore 20:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

PS, if you've got any suggestions about the page, let's go to Talk:Variant Magic: The Gathering formats. As I said, the page does need work. The subject, however, is fine. Mister.Manticore 20:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The article on chess tells you how to play the game as necessary context for the history of chess and for chess's place in history. Additionally, there are a variety of non-trivial works about chess (many of which are cited in chess), so there's no notability issues. Variant Magic: The Gathering formats, on the other hand, only tells you how to play these variants. I think much of this can be scrapped (I don't think most of the variant ways of playing Magic multiplayer have had any real commentary in independent, reliable sources), but there is an article here.

I totally spaced on Vanguard, but, again, I think it's been crammed, ill-fitting, into this article.

I'm still curious about the article about tournament play. Is there an article on one? I think one article on Type-2-turned-"Limited" (a concept that is now pervasive among collectable games), the various type 1 variants, block play, Vanguard, multiplayer variants; I think there's an article in there, and there will be much more to say than just how you play these variants. (Type 2 alone could possibly merit its own article, between the circumstances that led to its creation, the controversy around same, and its impact on other games. This is pending sources, of course.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 21:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

And since its necessary for Chess to tell you how to play the game for context, or a variant is set up, it's neccessary for this article to tell you how a deck is constructed in order to play the variant. Thus you see why I don't see your objection that this page is a game guide has merit. It'd be one thing if the sections mentioned land mix ratios, or strategies in building emperor decks, or casting costs, but it doesn't. No deck lists, no descriptions at all. It provides no strategic value whatsoever. Thus I would say it's clearly not a game guide.

And yes, Chess does have a bit more of a scholarly body of work than Magic, but there are magazines that cover Magic and other TCGs, so it's quite possible that these variants are covered in articles there. I recall reading about many of them, but not having the magazine, I can't quite cite them as references myself. I do, however, feel comfortable in asserting they exist. And as I said, coverage on Wizards.com is enough for me to be satisfied that there's content there.

Now as to your questions about organization, well, I'd agree the sections Vanguard could be expanded, but even if a page on it was made, it would still belong here. So, if you want to expand it, go right ahead. Unlike when it was part of Magic: The Gathering, there is plenty of room to grow here. In fact, tournament play is still mostly there, with a few bits on Duelists' Convocation International, Pro Tour (Magic: The Gathering). Mister.Manticore 17:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Would an article that told you how to play Magic be a game guide? After all, it's not giving you advice on how to do it well. Raw rules are how-to, and that's okay when it's context for more content, but this article doesn't do anything but tell you how to play these variants.

I think an entirely different article, covering some of the same topics, may be appropriate, possibly with merges from the DCI and Pro Tour articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 19:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but there's just a fundamental disconnect here. This article does not in any substantial way tell anybody how to play these variants, not as is meant by a game guide, but merely describe the game in the same raw sense as you say is appropriate for the describing the context of the content. I'm removing your tags again, they're just not appropriate, unless you can give me some real examples of what you're talking about. I do think the page needs improvement, but the tags you've chosen do not apply as far as I can tell. Maybe you should expand more on the article's talk page as to what you do want. I will leave {{expand}} though, since I do agree with it. Mister.Manticore 19:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd also not object to a generic {{cleanup}} if you want to add it. Beyond that though, put something specific on Talk:Variant Magic: The Gathering formats so I can understand what you think needs changing. Mister.Manticore 19:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Please don't remove {{notability}} or {{originalresearch}}; there aren't any references for most of these, and none of them establish notability. As for the game guide content, we can discuss this more on the talk page. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, I don't see the notability problem, nor an original research one. Sorry, but these templates are just not used for what you think. I can concur with unreferenced, but original research requires some theory or speculation, which is not something this article contains. Or if it does, those sections should be edited or removed. And notability? Sorry, but I'm just not seeing it. What would you think would establish notability anyway? Mister.Manticore 04:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, let's say whoever published Uno publishes a handful of house rules for Uno. Should we make Variant Uno formats? We need references showing that these variants are the subject of commentary independent of the company promoting them.

Original research because many of these are some variant someone made up. Original research is a fancy way of "I'm publishing my new idea here," and these are new ideas. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Template:F-Zero series

I never added the information back but should the non-games be moved to its own template? Like what Zelda has (Template:Zelda)? or should it just be removed? FMF|contact 00:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the places have their own articles at all. They're not even important in the context of F-Zero. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Children of Men

I can appreciate how you think that simply reverting the sentence in question serves the good of the article, but the editor I requested to weigh in was defined as neutral. You have sided with Viriditas on at least two prior occasions, which kinda negates the whole neutrality thing. There were four different, established editors weighing, feeling that the statement should belong, and 70% of the traffic (read: edit-warring) came from Viriditas, who clearly has WP:OWN issues in regards to the article. He does not listen to concensus, and is disruptive, uncivil and tendentious. All of that aside, the statemetn is about an observable part of the movie and part of the plot. It is not part of the soundtrack, nor a subjective, thematic component. Thematic implies to something which is not open to objective analysis but instead subjective interpretation. The laughter of children at the end isn't open to interpretation. It occurs.Arcayne 00:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I responded to your question on the CoM:Talk page.Arcayne 01:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no cabal, dude. Unsourced junk is unsourced junk. Come up with a non-primary source. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

You are not a neutral party in the matter. You have acted on his behalf at least twice before. When I asked for neutral opinion, that is actually what I wanted. I would like to ask you to recuse yourself from the matter and allow another admin or editor to weigh in, who doesn't have connections to either side ofthe dispute.Arcayne 01:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

What the hell are you talking about, acting on his behalf? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you really need me to point out the two separate disptures wherein you sided with Viriditas in that specific article?Arcayne 02:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

What's a dispture?

I've only ever heard of Viriditas from you, and a passing look at your talk page and contributions seems to show that you're fond of accusing anyone who disagrees with you of being a proxy of Viriditas. I don't know what your beef with that user is, but you need to find a more productive way of settling it than accusing anyone who disagrees with you of being part of a conspiracy. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

To begin with, perhaps you might want to look at my talk page a bit more carefully. I haven't accused anyone of being a proxy of Viriditas. Maybe you are confusing me with Viriditas, who was awfully fond of accusing folk of being meatpuppets of me. I can see how 'pretending' to mix things like that up works, but please, credit all of us with a bit more intelligence.

Dude, I don't think you're a part of a conspiracy. Lots of people disagree with me. It's just that whenever you seem to weigh in, it always seems to be in favor of Viriditas. I notice how yo9u never seem to find any faulkt with him, and frankly, it's a hell of a lot more telling than you riding to the rescue every time he's about to get overruled.

You know, I could point out the instances (there were actually three, not two), but what's the point? You'll suggest it is all a big coincidence. The point is,i asked for a neutral admin to weigh in on the article. Neutral would mean that you care neither one way or the other. And - to be perfectly candid, I would prefer an admin who hadn't just got off a block for tendentious 3RR blocking. I am sure you can understand why you simply aren't a good candidate as far as neutral admins go. I think what I need to do is just stay away from the two of you - you and Viriditas are chock-full of those issues that will allow you to self-destruct on your own. have fun with that.Arcayne 06:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

When I noticed that this lame, lame, lame-o dispute was being advertised, I actually investigated what it was about, and realized how simple it was, and you got your impartial mediator. I'm sorry you don't like what you hear, but the fact remains that we use attributions to reliable sources to support disputed claims here on Wikipedia. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Whatever. The thing you deliberately keep avoiding is that you aren't impartial to the dispute. Plus, you just came off a 3RR block because you couldn't control your own revert tendencies (sound like someone else?) We asked for someone not related to the article to weigh in on the subject. You've made edits and sided with one of the two parties in the dispute on three pior occasions.Please, do tell how someone cannot help but perceive you as biased in the matter? If someone who wwas actually impartial inthe matter had weighed in against me, I would have been done with it, shrugged off the article as yet another piece of trash that would have to be revisited once a solid review came in controverting everything there. However, it wasn't someone unconnected tot he article, was it.

No, I don't like what you have to say, because we don't have to cite parts of the observable plot. If we do, please point to that specific guideline that says that a retelling of the plot requires citation. Four different,independent editors thougth it should belong, as it was observable. Since no citation exists for the laughter, what are we to do, pretend it isn't in the article at all? Please, don't insult us all by suggesting you were impartial in this matter. You clearly aren't. Arcayne 07:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

You do need to cite disputed factual or evaluative claims. We allow citation of a fictional work for simple observation since there's really no better way to do it. When a factual or evaluative claim comes under dispute, you need reliable sources, because it's not clear that it's a simple fact observable by any observer. If there are no other sources, we err on the side of exclusion. If there's no citation for the laughter, we exclude it for the same reason we exclude Theo bashing Syd's brains out with a car battery; it wasn't important enough to be mentioned in any sources, so it's not important enough to be mentioned in the article.

This is the last time I'm going to speak about the rest of this nonsense: I've made maybe three edits to that article before this weekend. I've never spoken to Viriditas; I wasn't aware he existed before you brought him up on my talk page. If you're going to impuign my partiality, you're going to have to come up with something other than empty accusations or stop filling my talk page with garbage. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:53, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Turning Battle Frontier into disambig page

For the anime, Pokémon Battle Frontier and the event in Pokémon Emerald. What do you think? I think it's a good idea, because people will want to look up either the anime or the event. - A Link to the Past (talk) 06:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I've suggested this in the past, so I think it's a good idea. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:21, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I made it. Also, just curious, how much do you like the Pokémon series? Like, separately, how well do you like the anime, and how well do you like the games, TCG, etc. - A Link to the Past (talk) 06:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I keep my hand in. I don't much follow the anime any more, but I keep up. Why? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Just curious. I see a lot of people who don't do much editing on certain series of video game articles, but not usually on content. You seem to do a lot of content disputes and work on quality more so than expanding on the facts of the article. - A Link to the Past (talk) 08:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I usually adopt a neglected article and spend time on it when I'm feeling productive; I just don't shout it from the rooftops. I rewrote Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire at one point, most of Mega Man Battle Network 5 is me, I wrote 80%-ish of Solid Snake, and I used to do a bunch of personal electronics articles early on. I just need to be in the mood. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Rose (Street Fighter)

Sorry I'm kinda new to the editing game, but I wanted to know why you decided to erase my trivia of Rose whose appearance is similar to that of Anita from Darkstalker's, I found it a bit interesting and wondered why it needed to be erase.

Because it's entirely speculative. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Revmoval of sourced material

Your removal of sourced material from Leeroy Jenkins is considered vandalism. --Oakshade 09:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Read what you're reverting. MXC is sourced to nothing, the game text of the card is inane, and MTV is the publisher of Real World (and not an independent source to establish importance). - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

AfD: Electric Universe

• Of course I brought the case [1] to WP:DRV because I wanted to overturn the result, (clarified here [2]) because my evidence showed there was abuse of the AfD process. Three of the Administrators made no comment on my alleged violations of policy.
• I agreed that the consensus who voted wanted the article removed (the evidence shows that), but I think the result would have been different if my comments had not been removed, and the AfD advertised on an WP:SCI. --Iantresman 11:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• Ian, my past experience is that your input tends to increase the determination of those supporting the mainstream to remove your preferred content. And nothing you said was deleted, as far as I can tell, it was just moved to the Talk page, which is unusual but not unprecedented when argumentation gets out of hand. Actually if I'd been aware of that AfD and your behaviour on it I'd have banned you from it or blocked you to prevent further disruption, per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. This deletion was sound, and for the same reason as we deleted Aetherometry: there are no reliable independent sources of critical analysis of the subject. Guy (Help!) 21:21, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Wait a Minute (cont'd)

Viriditas thought it might be better off in the Themes section, but without citation, he knew it could not remain there. Knowing that to be the case, I wanted the mention of the laughter mentioned in the plot, as it seemed to be the denoumént of the film.

I am sorry about accusing you; it is clear from your talk you don't seem to be blindly accepting his state of affairs, which was my greatest concern - well, that and the whole WP:OWN thing (he has pretty much reverted anyone from making changes to the article that isn't following his instructions). You are now experiencing some of that heavy-duty back and forth that drove me and two other editors away for a time.

To answer your question, I don't really care where the laughter stuff is mentioned, so long as it is mentioned. I don't think it would survive Viriditas' edits, since there is no direct citation of it (the whole Keyser Soze thin, remember?), and he specifically said that he would remove any material added without citation. I could cite you at least a dozen of those exclamations. You rendered an opinion, and while I don't think it accurate, I am abiding by it. Again, sorry for all the heatedness. Viriditas has great edits sometimes, but he is a fairly unpleasant human being.Arcayne 12:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Rose (Street Fighter) (Cont'd)

That still technically counts as trivia....correct!? I said some speculate, I didn't call it a fact if you looked at what I put....

Broken link?

• Talk:Glitches found in the Pokémon video games/Missingno. (edit | [[Talk:Talk:Glitches found in the Pokémon video games/Missingno.|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Red link? I remember moving that from Talk:Missingno. for archival interest. I don't know of any speedy criteria which apply to it, but as it was originally from an article with a related AFD debate resulting in a "Merge" decision, I might have missed something. Posting a DRV request here. --Stratadrake 19:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)