User talk:BrownHairedGirl

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Wikipedia Admin I have been an administrator since May 2006. Administrators have access to a few technical features which help with maintenance. I regard admin powers as a privilege to be used sparingly and judiciously, but if you require the assistance of an admin, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page. If you want admin help, please do try to explain clearly what you want done, and why, and please do remember to include any relevant links or diffs. I'll try to either help you myself or direct you to a more experienced person if appropriate.

comments regarding Sandra Gidley MP article

I have taken to monitoring and editing this article as it has been repeatedly vandalised and despite my requests for it to be protected from further editing this has not happened. The statement that her majority was reduced in 2005 is true however adds nothing to the article and the statement that she "made clear she no longer relished her role" is untrue and therefore I am sure that it could not be substantiated.

Other malicious edits that have taken place have accused her of endorsing drug taking to 18 year olds and misrepresenting her position in the removal of Charles Kennedy using emotive language to cast this MP in a very poor light.

Whilst I no this does not really matter I would like to point out that she is my MP and has been a great help to me when I have written to her so I feel that protecting her from malicious online attavcks is the least I can do.

If I have inadvertantly caused an incomplete sentance or some other mistake I do appolgise.

yours

Nathan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.198.223 (talk) 86.143.198.223

Hi Nathan, sorry for the delay in replying to you.

It's great that you are keeping an eye out for vandalism, because unfortunately some people do try to abuse wikipedia's open-ness.

It's important that articles should be properly sourced, particularly with biographies of living people, and you are quite right that the unsourced comments about about her political position needed to be removed.

However, we do need to remember that wikipedia's aim with every the article is not to present someone in a good light any more than it is to cast them in a bad light: the article should take a neutral point of view.

So, for example, it would be quite proper to include something about Gidley's role in the forced resignation of Charles Kennedy provided that the issue was covered in a balanced fashion and properly referenced. She was one of the MPs who wrote to Kennedy asking him to resign (see for example [1], [2]), and her role in that episode is a notable part of her career. (It's not necessarily a negative part; there was plenty of news coverage commending the MPs who forced the issue).

Similarly, her electoral history is a matter of record, and it's important. Gidley's seat is one the most marginal in the country, and there is obviously a strong possibility that she will be defeated at the election; a politician's record in elections is a fairly crucial issue, and its inclusion is not a tangential point. Please don't delete it.

Final suggestion: have you considered registering as an editor? It's a quick and easy thing to do, and offers many advantages. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou for you carefully considered comments, I accept all of your points with only one caveat.

Her role in the deposition of Charles Kennedy has been used as a negative regarding her career by her political opponants who I believe originally posted it as part of her biography. Whilst there is nothing factually innacurate about the current inclusion that I see you have references. Your own reference lists 11 initial MP's only one other of whom have this as an entry in their wikipedia biography. Indeed Ed Davey who wrote the letter than Sandra Gidley Later Signed, has no mention on his wikipedia entry about the episode at all. For this reason I would venture that it's inclusion can be seen as negative rather than neutral.

otherwise I am happy that someone else has been paying such close attnetion as previous posts as I mentioned were quite clearly negative an in several cases completely untrue.

yours

Nathan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.198.223 (talk) 23:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

If that episode is missing from the other articles, it probably ought to be added to them! It remains a crucial point in the recent history of the LibDems. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:20, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kelly Martin 2

You, Alison, Giano and me are all agreeing on something - is this a first? All we need now is Kittybrewster & I think that's the set... — iridescent (talk to me!) 22:27, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh I dunno, I think there's a lot of agreement around :) The Kelly Martin RfA is a sad thing to read and I'm very surprised that Moreschi and others thought that it was a useful nomination to make. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:25, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Richard Charles Mayne

This fellow is of some significance here in British Columbia. The article suggests that after retirement, he became an MP. I assume that means your parliament. Could you point me to any kind of index that would verify this claim? I can't find anything to confirm this. --KenWalker | Talk 03:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, he was MP for Pembroke and Haverfordwest from 1886 to 1892: (see http://www.angeltowns.com/town/peerage/pcommons1.htm), and I have added this to the article.

Hope this helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks --KenWalker | Talk 09:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

John Peel

No worries, I missed the reference I'm afraid, & was too snappy anyway - rather a bad hair day. I should be the one apologising, and I do. It's good to see you back on the block btw. There was a wierd period 2 weeks or so ago when no-one seemed to be commenting on debates. Johnbod 13:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Glad we're all sorted, then :)

I got rather fed up with CfD for a while over the summer, but it now seems quite a relief after getting involved in a horrendous RfAR. I do miss Dr S, but at least CfD does seem at the moment to have some several folks who are keen to consider things carefully, wich makes it more interesting. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

Orange institution

[3]. I'm afraid I'm bothering you with this as you're the only admin I can see about! The edits being made cannot be allowed to remain, even if what it is removing is unreferenced. In placed the removing is highly, highly selective.Traditional unionist 14:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Please discuss the issue and try to reach an agreement; if that doesn't work, try some of the furher steps set out at Wikipedia:Resolving disputes.

I have issued WP:3RR warnings to two editors, and further edit warring is likely to lead to blocks and possibly to the protection of the article. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks. I wont be around much longer today, but the information removed by BigDunc, while unreferenced, was in places very important to the paragraphs they were in. Their removal placed the article in a compromised position.Traditional unionist 14:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

BigDunc evidently takes a different view, and I'm not going to set myself up as a one-woman arbitrator. Both of you have your 3RR warnings, so please take the time to find a solution, face being blocked. Both of you are also under scrutiny in an arbitration case, and this episode doesn't help the prospects of either of you escaping sanction when the case closes. Go and sort it out! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Purely because I don't want you accused of bias there there is none - you haven't actually warned me yet!Traditional unionist 14:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The material removed was fact tagged nearly 2 weeks, that was plenty of time for you or anyone else to provide sources, I also ask you to self-revert your last revert on your talk page as you had made 4 reverts today on this. If the information is that important as you claim then you have had more then enough time to provide references.--Padraig 14:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, my warning to Traditional unionist was delayed in an edit conflict, but please consider them as simultaneous warnings.

My talk page is not the place to resolve this conflict, so please stop trading accusations here. Take it back to the article talk page. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:45, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Ambulatory

Hey, thanks for your note, BHG. As Johnbod just said, glad you decided to come back. I think my, er, "baptism" at CFD would have been much more bearable -- hell, even enjoyable -- if you had been around. Don't ya know, I jumped in big-time not long after you departed for the summer. (Just my luck.)

So anyway, I mainly came by to mention that we now officially have (drumroll, please) Category:Pedestrian circumnavigators of the globe. And more importantly, to tell you that when I read your remark about "emergency vehicles for British Conservatives" I burst out laughing so hard that I damn near woke my wife up in the other room -- and then I would have had to explain how I'm carrying on with this brown-haired Irish lass with a wicked sense of humor... LOL - Believe it or not, I've gone back to that discussion several times to see how it closed, and each time I saw your comment I burst out laughing all over again. (Really!) Cgingold 15:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! BTW, as trailed at that CFD, I have now created and populated Category:Single-handed circumnavigating sailors. I don't think it's the best possible name, but this is a clearly notable group of people, so I thought it was worth creating ... but maybe you or someone else can come up with a better name. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The Troubles ArbCom

Seems to be in Limbo once again, and the natives are seemingly getting restless (see Orange Institution for the latest kerfluffle, as you know :)). Obviously, we need to get folks used to the fact that it looks likely that the law of the land going forward is going to be 1 Revert per WEEK (not counting reverts of anonymous IP addresses).

As a suggestion, do you think that all of the admins involved could impose a "psuedo-probation" on these users until ArbCom's end? SirFozzie 15:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

At this point, I do wish that that ArbCom would bring the proceedings to a close and issue their rulings. I'm sure they are busy folks, but this delay is not helping.

In the meantime, though, I'm wary of pre-empting arbcom's decision. I think that you are likely to be proven right in your assessment of ArbCom's intentions, but are you really sure that it is appropriate to pre-empt it?

BTW, having re-read some of the background to today's kerfuffle, I think that Talk:Orange Institution#Big_Duncs_revert is pertinent. The "Republican editors" do seem to have been trying to press for references, and it's notable that the outcome of today's edit war was that some refs were provided, tho I note that there is a dispute about their relevance. Without taking any view on the merit of either side's perspective, it does seem to me that the republicans were closer to following good practice, and that TU was pushing his luck in making a complaint to me. However, I didn't want to appear to be taking sides ahead of arbcom, and as usual in these instances it takes quite a bit of research to try to follow the lead-up to each outbreak. :(

It seems clear that there is still no sign of good faith in either side's approach to the other, and in those circumstances the whole area is an edit war waiting to happen. I think that 1RR is going to be an important part of a solution, but that it would be useful for arbcom to also give some guidance on wider principles. If that's not forthcoming, admins may need to try to figure out some principles to apply to issue like the referencing dispute, and then to try to devise a common approach. I don't want us to get back to the situation of individual admins steping in to try to sort things out and then finding themselves under fire: a collective approach would give everyone more certainty.

Anyway, hurry up ArbCom! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

(Chuckles) Agreed. And While everyone knows ONiH and I are friends, and I am thus, possibly biased, I do agree with you. I'm not sure about the sources (at least one source that I saw was a blog of an Orange Order higher up accusing their opponents of being behind a wide-scale attack on them, for example). With this group, perhaps we can press for a principle that.. "Wide-scale changes to an article should be discussed on the talk page before being added to an article."

The problem is WP:BOLD, WP:BRD and WP:IAR have been twisted into a mobius strip. I even joked on Allie's page that we need to remind folks that it's Bold, Revert, Discuss, not Bold, Revert, Revert, Revert, Revert, Revert, Revert, Revert, Revert, 3RR blocks on both sides, Discuss. Both sides are pointing to Wikipedia rules to back up their claim. (some of the rules are rather shoehorned in, but it can be argued they believe what they're saying)

Anyway, I'm just afraid it's going to get worse and not better. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to provide one reminder on everyone's talk page that: "WP:3RR is the absolute limit, not an entitlement. Anyone caught editwarring WILL be blocked." SirFozzie 17:34, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I see that Alison agrees with that, and as I suggested on her talk, it's fine by me, so long as we at least alert arbcom to what we are doing.

You're quite right about the twisting of policies and guidelines. There's really only one guideline needed here: "don't edit war". 1RR is a very clear way to enforce that. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:45, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

done! :) SirFozzie 18:07, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that

Thanks for that, [4]. Regards --Domer48 08:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

• You're welcome! That IPs' contribs list seems to consist entirely of vandalism. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Irish Hunger strike

Can you comment on this content dispute please? [5] Thanks, Valenciano 13:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Category:Jewish football players

Hi there, BHG: I very nearly passed on it, but then I wound up posting a novel and I think important proposal on Category:Jewish football players which I hope you'll be able to find time to give some serious thought to. Cgingold 15:41, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. Sorry, but on this occasion you haven't persuaded me ... yet! :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:18, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you semi-protect Olmec?

Hi BHG, The Olmec are obviously on the curriculum of US schools and the article is getting a lot of puerile IP address and school vandalism at the moment. Could you semi-protect the page so that only registered users can edit it. Semi-protection has worked well on Alcoholism to reduce inane edits. Nunquam Dormio 06:16, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

You're right, there has been a lot vandalism and silliness to Olmec, so I have indefiniely semi-protected the page. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Nunquam Dormio 08:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

On the nature of categories

So I was playing a little with WatchFlickr the other day, looking for pictures in Category:Pennsylvania railroads and noticed that it was trying to dredge out pictures for some articles that really didn't seem apropos. Upon further inspection, the cause seems to be that WatchFlickr iterates through subcategories, and the categories for major railroads passing through Pennsylvania (e.g., Category:Amtrak, Category:CSX) are all subcategories of Pennsylvania railroads. Now, neither of those two railroads operates exclusively in Pennsylvania, so it seems to me that while the Amtrak and CSX articles belong in the Pennsylvania railroads category, their categories do not. I am tempted to break open a can of WP:BOLD and go in and change them, but I know I've seen similar patterns of categorization elsewhere on Wikipedia (it's why WP:MILHIST's bot-tabulation of article ratings gathers in half the encyclopedia). Since I know you are wise in the ways of CfD, I thought I would ask you if you know of any discussion about this sort of semantics, and whether this (IMO overbroad) categorization has advocates before I start laying into the rail categories. Choess 14:24, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't think offhand of anything directly relevant, though there was some discussion in the last few days (I can't remember which) where someone pointed out that as a general principle, the general category should include the specific, rather than vice versa. I'm not sure whether that applies to this situation, and I can see cases both for and against the current setup. You may want to raise the point at Wikipedia talk:Categorization, possibly with a pointer at the appropriate wikiprojects (WikiProject Trains??) and/or other places such as Category talk:Railway companies of the United States.

Hope this helps! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:36, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

CFD

Maybe WP:POINT wasn't the ideal place to point at, but I still think you would have made your point far more efficiently without such heavy sarcasm. Heck, just not using the ridiculous name as if it was the proposal (but still mentioning it) would have been an improvement. Circeus 21:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll just put this down as a culture gap. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:51, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Ghost in the Machine - I'm fwightened!

Please see Claricia - then try to edit it. Or is it just me? Thanks Johnbod 03:22, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Well spotted! It's not just you. The text had been added to {{artist-stub}}, and I have now reverted it and protected the template. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Keith T. Monda. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I should have guessed it was template trouble! Johnbod 03:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Orange Institution editprotected

Hi BHG, should we start to put edit requests on the discussion page for these changes we would like to see made. I have put two forward, and BigDunc has just made two on the sandbox you provided? Thanks, --Domer48 12:14, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I suggest putting the {{editprotected}} requests on the the talk page, but I think that for those requests to be acted on, it would be best to have:

1. Evidence of dialogue between the warring parties on the edits sought, and of consensus.
2. A clear description of exactly what change you are seeking, so that the reviewing admin can see preciseley what the proposed change is, preferably with a clear block of formatted text to paste in. Something like this intentionally fictional example: "In the section Orange Institution#The_Twelfth, replace the sentence beginning "The Orange Institution has organised marches..." with this "The Orange Institution and its sponsor [[Del Monte]]<ref>[http:www.fruitymarchingstories.com/a63bb339b.htm Del Monte and the Orange Order]</ref> organise more than five hundred matches each year, mostly in the month of July.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.therockalltimes.co.uk/story/juice_on_the_streets/ |title=Statistics from the Marching season |publisher=The [[Rockall Times]] |date=2009-13-41}}</ref>"

A reviewing admin may approach things differently, but that's what I'd suggest.

Given that the page was protected after an edit war with User:Traditional unionist, I expect that an admin would want to see some evidence of an attempt at dialogue. TU hasn't been around for 24 hours, and I suggest that before applying an {{editprotected}} tag you should seek TU's comments, by a note on his talk page and possibly by dropping him an email.

As I say, the reviewing admin may take a different view ... but if I was the reviewing admin (which in this case, I won't be), I would not be in a rush to implement the changes until I saw some evidence of a consensus, or at the very least of a reasonable period of time for other parties to offer their views. The ideal situation is that someone makes a proposal, it is discussed and revised if necessary, before being distilled into a precise edit for the closing admin to make.

Hope this helps! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

RE: Constructive Changes

Hey there! You poindexter bitch. Oooh a bit harsh maybe! I have been making accurate changes to some pages on this website and do not appreciate being interrupted. Catch you on the flipside bitch! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.202.47.79 (talk) 01:12, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

"Accurate changes"????? You were vandalising wikipedia by inserting spammed porn links (see this edit and this edit). And I'm not at all surprised that you do not appreciate being interrupted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Irish politics by county categories

discussion moved to where it started, at User talk:Ardfern. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:54, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Editing

I don't have access to the Internet at many of the places I find myself during an average week, so I will appear and disappear at random. That is why I haven't been engaging.Traditional unionist 17:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I understand ... but if you aren't there to take part in the discussions, I hope you won't blame other editors if they go ahead and edit as they see fit. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:09, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I won't fail to point out POV. As I have done already tonight. But I wont be here for long.Traditional unionist 17:15, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

War crimes

I was just looking at this category and the related CfD here. Would I be right in thinking that the vague consensus that came out of it is only to include incidents that have been verifiably described/classed as "war crimes"? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 18:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I have just re-read that CfD, and it rambled around a bit, so it's a little hard to interpret. There as certainly no consensus to delete; but otherwise I think that the consensus was to use the definition at War crime#Definition, which is drawn from the International Criminal Court. Trying to tally that with WP:RS gets a bit difficult, but I think that a reliable source describing the episode as a war crime according to that definition would suffice.

This is obviously going to be difficult in some contexts, such as the Irish one, where until the last few decades the events which might fall into this category received little external scrutiny.

There was also a brief (and apparently inconclusive) discussion at Category talk:War_crimes#Defined_standards. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

That sounds a bit too much like original research for my liking. I seem to remember the addition of "genocide" to Great Irish Famine based on definitions was problematic at the ArbCom in question. I'll look at the articles in question and see which merit the category in verifiable terms. Thanks. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 21:18, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it is potentially a bit of a WP:OR problem. I don't see an easy solution, but good luck on your quest for one! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:33, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Harry Kirkpatrick

Is it possible that you could arbitrate? Aatomic1 21:01, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

See Talk:Harry Kirkpatrick#Edit_war. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:26, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Roy Hattersley

Hi, I was adding the new category to pages, and I was adding all the links from the Daily Mail page Writers sectionhere (see link for list). And the name of the person was there as well, and it also has a description " former Labour Party deputy leader". So I thought this was adequate (although I was suspicious that it was a Labour guy for a right wing paper). If i was wrong to add the category than i'm sorry.Pafcool2 16:16, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply and the link -- I see what you were doing.

However, I don't think that it's appropriate to add every columnist to a general category about the newspaper's holding company. If there was a specific writers-by-newspaper category, that might make sense, but there isn't yet a category for the Daily Mail in Category:Newspaper people by newspaper in the United Kingdom.

So I have just created Category:Daily Mail journalists, and added Roy Hattersley to it. Would you like to move the other articles on Daily Mail writers in there ? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:32, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks alot, it may take a while so I won't start today, but it should be done by the end of the week! Pafcool2 16:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Great! good work :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:37, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Waterford

Is this what you call a Freudian slip? —Angr 19:26, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. When I spotted that typo, I considered deleting the article and then recreating all except that edit, to hide it. But then I thought, no, don't be silly ... nobody is going notice it, and even if someone does, it's clearly just a typo. Wrong again! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, you're secret's safe with me. I doubt that page is on many people's watchlist. —Angr 19:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

This page, on the other hand... *Evil grin*

How much are you willing to pay to keep my mouth shut? Waltham, The Duke of 22:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll just have to pay up. I'll give you all my potato peelings if you keep shtum .... :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I saw it! I saw it! I'll give it pride of place on my userpage, right next to my favourite vandal edit (stayed up for 27 days before anyone noticed!) — iridescent (talk to me!) 22:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Really, BrownHairedGirl, you might have to prematurely archive this section of your talk page. The news are spreading dangerously rapidly...

And I scorn your potato peelings. I want home-made chips—I love the taste and I definitely need the calories.

Now that I am here, it is a good chance to ask you this: will you please review your addition of the dates in the British Parliament's succession headers? We have had a vote in SBS and so far the results are: 4 in favour of the removal, 0 against the removal. We have not had a chance to gather more comments, but it is a unanimous decision and the arguments are worth looking at, too. Really, we have grown rather tired of them (no offense). Waltham, The Duke of 12:22, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Another category question

Is Category:Sinn Fein MPs (UK) really supposed to exist? I know you're more informed on the complicated category structure for all the MP categories... One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 22:21, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

That's odd, I had never seen it before, which is strange, because I had have burrowed around the MP categories a lot, but it seems to have been created last year. It's not properly parented, which is probably why it has only one member. But since there have been (I think) only 5 SF MPs since 1922 (i.e. the current 5, though ISTR someone in the 1950s), it seems like too small a category to be viable. I'm inclined to nominate it for deletion: what do you think? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Butting in on someone else's conversation here, but if the category survives, ought it to include the pre-1921 SF MPs — iridescent (talk to me!) 23:02, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I've no objections to the category as such, it just seemed strange as it only had one person in it, so I wasn't sure if it was supposed to exist. Looking at Category:British MPs by political party it does look like it's supposed to exist. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 23:12, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Looking again at Category:British MPs by political party, I think you are probably right that it should exist. I had it in my head that there tended to be higher threshold, and then wondered if hat was being applied only to English parties, and notice I myself had created Category:Common Wealth Party MPs, with only 4 members.

However, Iridescent's question is pertinent: should it include the 1917-1922 Sinn Fein MPs? My instinct is that it shouldn't, because the two periods are so widely separated. I suggest splitting it into two new categories: Category:Sinn Fein MPs (UK) 1971-1922 and Category:Sinn Fein MPs (UK) post-1922. How does that sound?? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Yikes - what happened??

Hey, BHG - I just checked in on the CFD for Category:Jewish football players and got seriously confused, because there was stuff missing that had been there when I looked at it this morning. I felt disoriented, rather like the time I came out of the library and couldn't find my car, which I had left parked right in front. (It had been stolen). Anyway, I checked the history, and lo and behold, it disappeared in the course of your last edit. It's very bizarre, I really can't figure out how you somehow wiped out two separate sections of text at the same time you were adding your new comment. Spooky. Cgingold 22:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out! I'm not sure how that could happen. I had started drafting my comments a day or two ago and left them in an open tab on Firefox. When I came back to finish them, I assumed as usual that if something else had been added in the meantime, I'd get an edit conflict and have to sort that out ... but when I went to save, there was no edit conflict, so I assumed all was OK. That's a bit worrying for the future -- I always thought I could rely on the edit conflict checking mechanisms to stop that happening. Thanks gain for pointing that out to me: removing XfD !votes is something I deplore, and I'm glad you spotted it in tine for it to be fixed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:34, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Except that in restoring the other comments, it looks like I didn't succeed in pasting my own comment back in. Thanks for fixing that! I need to take a break from this screen, if I'm making that sort of mistake. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, BGH. Lest anybody reading this get the wrong impression, I never for a moment had the slightest thought that it was anything other than some inexplicable, freakish occurence. Now go get some sleep. :) Cgingold 23:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

British military personnel etc. CfD

I've written a comment at CfD explaining the backstory behind my nomination. Basically, I started moving articles from the "personnel" to the "officers" category, attracting the attention of Kernel Saunters, who found the latter superfluous and emptied it. While process was lacking here, I did note that only one or two articles in "personnel" did not fall into the "officers" category (before the latter was emptied), so I think the arguments for deletion are still sound. Best, Choess 17:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Choess, thanks for your reply. I have just been reading the discussion between you two, and it seems to me that at the point when KS suggested the category was a bad idea, it should have been taken to CfD rather than emptied. I guess what made me growl at it was that this CfD came after a series of similar pre-CfD category emptyings, and this is getting very disruptive. However, the arguments for deleting this one do indeed seem sound. I think I'll leave it to the closing admin to decide to what extent Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy applies here. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Fatimah

Just wanted to let you know that I unprotected the article. There's an attempt to get it to good article status and nobody noticed that it was protected. It's hard to claim a stable article if it's in permanent protection. Feel free to change back if you think it should be kept protected. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 04:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It was left semi-protected because User:Klaksonn, who is now blocked, was inclined to use socks, but that was 6 weeks ago ... so you're quite right to try listing the protection at this point and see if it's now free from that sort of attack. However it is highly contentious topic, so I won't be too surprise if it faces more attacks. But let's see how it goes. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm hoping the discussion will continue on the talk page. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Why Was I Blocked

i know i accidentily vandalised Iron Maiden but it wasnt my fault i was writing positive remarks about Bruce Dikinson with my friend, Scott, then my other friend pressed many keys and clicked save. Please forgive me and my friends.
sincerily, Nolimitownass —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nolimitownass (talk • contribs) 11:31, 10 October 2007

You can use the {{unblock}} template on your own talk page to request unblocking, but you had better come up with a better reason for unblocking. (If you save an edit you didn't intend to save, you can undo it). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Orange Order

What time frame do you recommend I give on this issue[6]. I have refs regarding triumphalist marches and the OO's anti Catholicisim that could be used here. I left this notice on talk page as per your suggestion during the page protection thanks. BigDunc 17:54, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd say give it a few days, say until the end of weekend. TU doesn't seem to be around much, but if he doesn't do the work by then, you can't wait forever.

I'm glad that you are going about things in this way. TU does seem to me have some potentially valid concerns, but has so far been slow to do the spade work of getting the refs to start discussing an agreed version. I don't want to see the article becoming another edit war, so if you can give TU a reasonable time to respond, there are no grounds for him simply jumping in and reverting if he doesn't contribute and doesn't like the outcome. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:03, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Thats great I will wait till Monday. I have no intention of getting into an edit war. BigDunc 18:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

{{Ireland-road-stub}}

Hi - I see you have recently created one or more new stub types. As it states at Wikipedia:Stub, at the top of most stub categories, and in many other places on Wikipedia, it is recommended that new stub types are proposed prior to creation at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals, in order to check whether the new stub type is already covered by existing stub types, whether it is named according to stub naming guidelines, whether it is otherwise correctly formatted, whether it reaches the standard threshold for creation of a new stub type, and whether it crosses existing stub type hierarchies. Your new stub type is currently listed at WP:WSS/D - please feel free to make any comments there as to any rationale for this stub type. And please, in future, consider proposing new stub types first! Grutness...wha? 00:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

What bureaucracy of a five-day delay? It's a speediable type, so once it was double-checked to make sure it wasn't going to cause problems (such as "is this for the whole of Ireland or just for the Republic?"), it could have been created immediately. Grutness...wha? 22:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion continued at WP:WSS/D. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Scottish Islands project

I thought from your recent edits, you might be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Scottish Islands - come on over and have a look. --MacRusgail 16:02, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but much as I like the Scottish Islands I don't think I'll get involved. I just dived in briefly when I saw that Category:Uninhabited islands could do with sub-categorisation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

Constantinople

I really hate to ask for this but it appears the Constantinople page is on the school curriculum somewhere and has been vandalised several times a day for the past month. Would it be possible for you to limit the page to registered users only for a few weeks until it abates? Thanks. Galloglass 16:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I put two months semi-protection in it. With any luck they'll have moved onto something else by the times that expires. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks. Galloglass 20:15, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

"County" CFD's

Hi, I just closed all of your CFD nominations from Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 October 6, and I had a question. After cutting and pasting to WP:CFD/W, I saw some potential problems, which I removed. Can you take a look at this diff and let me know if my edits are ok? There were a few instances of "Foo in County Bar to Foo in County County Bar" and "Foo in Bar to Foo in County County Bar". You'll see what I did in the diff. Thanks. --Kbdank71 13:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks v much for closing them all (big job!), and for spotting and kindly fixing those glitches in my nomination. Your correction looks perfect, and sorry that it was necessary. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

No problem at all.  :) --Kbdank71 14:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Holy God!

BHG, my extensive watch list has been utterly overwhelmed by your bots and semi-bots and gargantuan tools. No wonder you have clocked several zillion edits. When will the storm pass over?! (Sarah777 21:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC))

Well, Cydebot isn't my bot, he's the bot who implements CfD decisions.

As for when it'll all be over:

"I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher."

<grin> --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:14, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of Dublin Shopping Centre Articles

Oh, and I'd be very interested in your views on this: Talk:Shopping in Dublin (Sarah777 20:38, 13 October 2007 (UTC))

Ireland-geo-stubs

Hi BHG - just tp let you know I've deleted the misspelt redirect at T:Roscomon-geo-stub. Were you getting some sort of karmic revenge for the ireland-road-stub business, misspelling my ancestral homeland county? :) Grutness...wha? 23:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair enuf, it wasn't worth keeping. Caused by karmic exhaustion, rather than revenge :( I'm not a revenge kinda person, even if I do sometmies growl at bureaucrats ;) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi, there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot 15:29, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

That's you told — iridescent (talk to me!) 16:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Sinebot, you are a hyperactive cretin. You have busily adding my sig to modifications I have been making to a CFD nomination, and I have been busy undoing said sigs. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:09, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

If Sinebot's bugging you, you may want to look at how to avoid its watchful bot eye! Regards, Bencherlite^Talk 16:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

It got you again! Bencherlite^Talk 21:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I don't mind that sort of thing: if I put in the wrong number of twiddles, it's kind of sinebot to add the datestamp, although it is far too quick (is it tracking me specifically?). And it's a dumb bot in its inability to distinguish between an unsigned comment and the work of a CfD nominator. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, BHG, the bots ARE out to get you because of all the work you create for them through your painstaking nominations at CfD. (deliberately unsigned to see whether Sinebot is listening in to me too)

Sinebot is evidently not watching you, or at last not watching my talk page. It's a plot! I tell you, its' all a plot, involving the International Marxist Conspiracy, The Forces of Reaction, The Spanish Inquisition, the CIA, the KGB, Mossad, the International Jewish Conspiracy, The Muslim Threat, and Tuvalu Secret Service. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

		The XfD Barnstar
		Awarded to BHG for all her careful hard work in nominating and commenting at CfD, most recently displayed with a veritable mountain of Irish county categories. BencherliteTalk 21:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

CfRs for Media in the Northern Territory

Thanks for bundling the above. I was planning on doing it myself except:

• Some people don't like bundled XfD's. In this case as one is a parent of the others I still would have bundled except for;
• I didn't know how! I wasn't sure of the correct format so it was better to be safe than sorry.

Thanks again. Cheers, Mattinbgn\^talk 02:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

category help

thanks for your help with Category:Alliances, and also for giving me that template information. Your page is interesting...you look like a good administrator. I may contact you again for some help on different things. thanks again. --Steve, Sm8900 11:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Jewish history of Wales & N. Ireland needed

Hello BrownHairedGirl: Hope all goes well with you and yours. The series of articles on the History of the Jews in Europe is complete. All the European countries have articles, even if they are stubs for now. However there are still two more: History of the Jews in Wales and History of the Jews in Northern Ireland (see related articles History of the Jews in England and History of the Jews in Scotland) that are listed as countries in template {{|Europe topic|History of the Jews in}} that require someone to add information and start the article. If you are able to, your efforts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, IZAK 13:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

• Hi IZAK, yes I'm doing OK, and hope you are too. Sorry, but this is not an area where I have much expertise. I'll enjoy reading the articles, but I don't think I am in a position to add much to them, and definitely not to start them. I thought of asking my rabbi friend, but he's very English, and not much intersted in Celtic countries. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:43, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

• • Hi, I am working on the Jewish history of Wales. Northern Ireland is covered by Ireland... I have already written most of the Scottish equivalent. --MacRusgail 15:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Heather Mills

Please would you semi-protect this controversial page 1 month. - Kittybrewster ☎ 14:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Done! Definite WP:BLP problems here. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Another one

moved from user page

BHG, for your humongous work on Irish Categories I hereby award my first ever barnstar; the The Irish Barnstar of National Merit: (Sarah777 21:33, 14 October 2007 (UTC))

Thanks for your help

Many thanks for helping tag those categories! --RobertG ♬ talk 09:20, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome! By the time I got there, you had done most of them by hand. Sorry for not spotting your request sooner (it's v quick with WP:AWB). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

help on a survey

Dear BrownHairedGirl,

I am extremely sorry to bother you, but I need some assistance on conducting a survery among Wikipedia contributors. I am a student of linguistics at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. In my MA thesis I would like to discuss some issues connected with Wikipedia. To get a wide perspective on the free encyclopedia, I would like to conduct a short survey among the contributors. Unfortunately, I am not yet fully acquainted with the system of Wikipedia and I don't really know how contact them all. I would be very grateful, if you could give me some advice on how to post the survey (it is a one page Word document with 5 questions) to the contributors. Thanks in advance, Anna —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jibberbogger (talk • contribs) 15:10, 17 October 2007

I don't know any generic way of doing it, other than asking individual contributors, but you could try asking at the WP:HELPDESK. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Admin help required with vandalism of nomination page

Hi BrownHairedGirl: Unfortunately, there is a user Ludvikus (talk · contribs) who is tampering with the formatting of a nomination page [7]. See the wildness of what he is doing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Protocols of Zion (imprints). He is inserting and changing the original formatting and even the wording, totally unheard of. Please take a look at it. Thanks a lot. IZAK 15:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I see that someone else has reverted his changes and warned him, but I have added a further note of warning at User talk:Ludvikus#AfD_changes. I won't be watching the AFD, so please let me know if there is any further trouble at that AfD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the fine rules of WP. I'm involved now in a complex effort by very experienced Wikipedians to delete a set of articles. I therefore need asistance in seeing to it that there is a balance of fairness representing the other point of view. For example, I know that Wikipedia encvourages Boldness. What you call Moving was in fact a Good Faith effort to Rename an article. Best wishes, --Ludvikus 16:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

replied at User talk:Ludvikus#AfD_changes_Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion.2FThe_Protocols_of_Zion_.28imprints.29, where the discussion started. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:21, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Upmerged baronets

I cam across Talk:Sir Hugh Arbuthnot, 7th Baronet whose article has been upmerged. There was also a Talk:Sir John Miller, 3rd Baronet. How do we find and identify all the similar upmerged pages? - Kittybrewster ☎ 16:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that there is any generalised way of looking for this sort of merger. The best way of looking out for this sort of thing is by monitoring your watchlist. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Neither was on my watchlist. And corollary question, what do I do with them having found them? - Kittybrewster ☎ 17:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Reversing a nomination on page

Hi BHG: A user is reverting the legitimate template on the Żydokomuna page [8] that is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Jewish Bolshevism that is already underway, under the pretext that it is "mass filing" when this involves only three articles with duplicated content about Jewish Bolshevism. Your admin expertise would be appreciated. Thank you, IZAK 17:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Peace and geese

		The Barnstar of Creativity
		For writing one of the funniest song lyrics I've heard or read, and thereby making editing here more enjoyable: In most countries, songs about peace have a definite bias to the inner spiritual tranquility angle, frequently along the lines of "O glorious motherland, land of our birth//To your valleys and hills we bring peace//By killing the (insert chosen enemy) with joy and with mirth//And feeding their corpses to geese". – Black Falcon (Talk) 18:10, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:20, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

As I read through the lyrics of Bogle's song, it was funny to be sure, but I have to admit that I wasn't entirely sure what made you suggest it as one of the funniest songs ..... until I reached the 11th section. :P Very nice indeed. Thanks, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 15:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Could you semi-protect First Battle of the Marne?

Hi BHG, Could you semi-protect First Battle of the Marne? About three-quarters of the edits are vandalism or reversing vandalism at the moment. Once again, I suspect the battle is on some school syllabus somewhere hence, the heavy levels of vandalism for a battle that few remember any more. Nunquam Dormio 20:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I have semi-protected it for 2 months. Hopefully that'll be enough, but I don't like excluding well-intentioned anon IPs, and with any luck the mischief-makers will have moved onto something else in 2 months. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:05, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, the young shavers will soon be studying something else and vandalising elsewhere! I'm hoping that German experiment works and we can all spend our time doing more productive things. Nunquam Dormio 07:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Cat: Zim women writers

Hi there, I've asked for advice about Category:Zimbabwean women writers over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Gender_Studies#Category_advice_wanted. You started the cat, so your suggestions would be particularly appreciated. Many thanks, JackyR | Talk 22:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

See my reply at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Gender_Studies#Category_advice_wanted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Dear BrownHairedGirl,

You're the only Wikipedian whose been of any use regarding advice on how to proceed. Maybe that's because your a Girl - I mean that as a compliment - and I hope you accept that as such.

• There are quite a few articles up for deletion. And so there is much to be said in defending them. It appears to me that my "adversary" (often "men" attitudes) will not co-operate with me. I've tried to come to terms with him on his talk page - but he's not responded. As You know by now I'm sure, he finds my position as bizarre while I hold that his is one out of ignorance. Since there are so many articles involved which have been put up for proposed deletion, I need some guidance and assistance in expressing an opposing position. I do not think its Good for Wikipedia to just have that one paragraph by the Proposer which says why the articles should be deleted. I do not see why I should not be permitted to give an opposing paragraph to the readers and administrators, so they could make up their own minds. That, in fact, is the American way when it comes to our judicial system. I cannot imagine that Wikipedia Rules prohibit me from doing what I propose. I do not intend to delete anything. I merely want to put up the opposing anti-bizarre position. Can you advise?

Thank you, Peace promoting BrownHairedGirl, Yours truly, --Ludvikus 23:04, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for being so nice :)

The basic situation is that wikipedia makes its decisions by building consensus. The guideline Wikipedia:Consensus is well worth reading, but basically it means that we discuss things politely and try to reach agreement.

A with any discussions, there are some rules and guidelines about how we discuss things: see in particular WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA and WP:TPG, as well as WP:CHILL. In summary, make your point politely, don't attack anyone else (even if you feel that they have attacked you), and in discussions add your comments below other comments and sign it.

I'm afraid that you have got some of these things wrong, and I'll list sme of your mistakes here not to get at you, but to help explain how to get things right.

• You felt provoked, and got angry on a few occasions. Never do that; if you feel angered, take a break (see WP:CHILL)
• You added your comments in at above other comments, which is a bit like interrupting someone else's speech; don't do it. (see WP:TPG)
• You repeatedly criticised the motivations of other editors. Bad idea (see WP:NPA); you are required to assume good faith (see WP:AGF), which means assuming that the other person genuinely and honestly believes that that what they are suggested is a good idea
• You posted pictures and templates to the talk page, which is not allowed (see WP:TPG). Your comets should be made in plain text, with links as appropriate, but with other formatting (such as bold and italics) used only very very occasionally.

OK, so that's what you got wrong. What you need to do is to write your explanation of why you think that the article(s) should be kept: make sure it's polite, and that it discusses the issues and the arguments made by other people rather than the people themselves (for example, if you think that User:SomeoneWhoSaysNothingYouCanAgreeWith is a nasty person, you must still stay polite and explain why you have a better solution, and not attack that user, even if they have attacked you).

I'll make a further suggestion. You obviously feel strongly about this, which is fine, but that's not always the best situation in which to participate in a discussion (see WP:CHILL). So write what you think needs to be said, but as a draft, on your own computer or on a subpage of your own userpage (e.g. at User:Ludvikus/sandbox). When you have finished writing it, take a break from your computer for an a hour or two; eat a meal, have a bath, watch some TV, go for a walk, dig your garden, wash your car, or anything that takes your mind off the subject for a while (if you are really annoyed, stay away overnight). Then when you've had a break, go back and look at what you have written, and make sure that it really does come across as the friendly and thoughtful comments of someone who believes that there is a good reason for keeping he article, a reason which others have overlooked.

After a break, you may well feel that what you have written needs to be toned down a bit (I have often come back to a draft after a break like that and then decided that I should say nothing at all!) Once you reckon you have it right, then add it at the end of the discussion. If you do all that, and someone removes it, let me know and I'll try to help --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Protocols of Zion (imprints)

1. I've tried to re-name that. But it appears I may have inadvertently violated some rule.
2. I wish to do this Protocols of Zion (imprints) → List of the Protocols of Zion (imprints)

• The intent is to have just that - a list - of all the notable imprints warranted. I cannot imagine that that would be deleted. Is there any reason why I cannot do that now? That would be a mere improvement to the article. It makes no sense to make me waite until deletion has been accomplished.
• Also, how am I supposed to make that change proposal on the already over-cramped deletion-proposal page? Yours truly, --Ludvikus 23:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

"obscenities," "vulgarities," and "four letter words"

Dear BHG,

• It would be helpful if you were to intercede on my behalf regarding baseless charges by User:IZAK against me,
• He has charged, on the Jewish Bolshevism deletion proposal page, that I've used "obscenities," "vulgarities," and "four letter words."
• I deny this as a reckless accusation that is in violation of Wikipedia policy.
• Please ask him either to account for this charge, or have him retract it as baseless. Yours truly, --Ludvikus 06:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Please provide the diff where this allegation was made. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Um Ludvikus: Can't you read your own words? You wrote the word "SHIT" at least twice at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/The Protocols of Zion (imprints)#Comments & Discussions: "There only are all the many different imprints of the same SHIT which too many people believe" and "I'm only interested in identifying the exact imprints of this antisemitic SHIT" and as far as I know the word shit is an obscenity. Then you used this language when talkng to another user at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Jewish Bolshevism: "Fork? Fork you Mikka (just kidding). You're misrepresenting my position..." [9] (where you also use a vile ethnic slur: "Hey, I've met stupid Poles - but I would never say that being Polish means being Stupid!!!" [10]) and you seem to think it's funny to say "fork you" clearly intending "fuck you" (since you have to add the disclaimer "just kidding") since these are clear obscenities. No doubt there are many more cases like this 'cause I have just had the great pleasure of meeting you now as an editor. And let me tell you, you cannot fool me with either your claim to innocence (when you deny your own open obscenities) nor with your self-righteousness. Thanks, IZAK 13:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

IZAK, please don't stir things. Your comments about self-righteousness is a personal atyack. There has been some disruptive editing, but please don't provoke, even if you feel provoked. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Club Competitions pages

Just noticed your editing of the templates set up for FH/LM/SO, I'm wondering is there any way you could make them viewable in full on the page, i.e. that they aren't collapsed and need to be clicked upon to view the contents. This happened before but I'm not sure how to change it. Owenmoresider 00:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

They should only collapse if they are two or more other collapsible templates on the one page. Wikipedia:Collapsible tables says that there are only two options: making them auto-collapsed (if there are two or more on the page) or making them always collapsed when the page loads. In this case, many of the calls to the template (such as in Fermanagh GAA) have another template piggybacked in, so the collapse is unavoidable. It seems to me that this is probably a good thing, because it applies to so many nav boxes that the issues will have been well-debated before 2 was set as the threshold. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Lords of France

Hi, I'd appreciate your comments here. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 11:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

That's one very big mess. Time for some mass-PRODding. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

It needs someone who can use a bot. I know somebody like that. - Kittybrewster ☎ 22:28, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

One of these days :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Dublin Shopping Centres

Hi, I replied to your last message on this talk page. Pathless 12:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

History of Britain

Hi - do you know why was this category debate closed and a solution that had little support imposed? (Sarah777 18:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC))

Discussion of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 October 12#Category:History_of_Britain] at User talk:Kbdank71#History_of_Britain. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Protocols of Zion (imprints)

1. I suspect that any mistake in form I make in the above will be used by you as an excuse to Block me.
2. The Talk page reference you've sent me to is not helpful.
3. So I've asked you to explain further certain fine points of Format so that I may avoid any mistake which you might use as an excuse to block me.
4. Furthermore, what are you going to do about getting User:IZAK off my back?
5. During my Block by you he has expanded the charge against me that I even altered his words.
6. That charge is still pending. Having observed what I consider recklessness on your part, I am nnow forced to spend my time on Wikipedia Procedure, instead of defending the very important articles which User:IZAK has put up for deletion.
7. It is clear to me that he is guilty of Troll (Internet) in his behavior towards me.
8. It is your duty now to clear me of his trolling charge that I even altered his words. You already have investigated the matter and you know, and have so concluded, that I have not done any such thing, but merely been disruptive by posting my comments out of sequence.
9. Furthermore, his misleading, conclusory, false and dishonest, charge that I used that most famous Anglo-Saxon four-letter word (regarding the sexual act) is in fact a word he's using against me to discredit me.
10. At the very least, in light of you having blocked me for his provokations, I hope you have the decency to clean up after him.
11. I expect all those unfounded accusations by him to be deleted in accordance with the very same Talk page regulations you have asked me repeatedly to read and which I have done.
12. I also expect you to take at least as harsh disciplinary action against User:IZAK who has persisted in his inflammatory behavior against me while I was being blocked by you and after you had repeatedly worned to disengage himself from such behavior.

Yours truly, --Ludvikus 15:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Ludvikus, I have one piece of advice for you: move on. What's done is done, and unless you let go of the personal disputes, you'll wind yourself into more trouble again.

You were being highly disruptive, and IZAK repeatedly asked you to stop. I don't think that everything he said was appropriate, and I have already warned him about WP:NPA, so I see no need for any further action there.

If you want to make a complaint about IZAK, you may do so at WP:ANI, but I doubt that it will succeed. You are of course free to try.

But above all, Ludvikus, please please please please please please please please please please please please calm down. I would like to see continuing to contribute to wikipedia, but if you keep on getting so worked up about things, you are likely to find yourself being blocked again.

Good luck. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

You've partially answered some of my questions on my Talk page. Thank you. But either you are not listening to me, or I am not being sufficiently clear. So I'll try to clarify.

There is an outstanding charge by User:IZAK that I've even altered his words. It appears to me that you have found only that I've placed things in improper Form or Order. Knowing how things are (at WP) regarding discipline, I expect new charge - based on what you've already acted up - to be dismissed as having been already disposed of by you. Why is that so hard for you to understand? The charge by User:IZAK that I altered his words - have you not disposed of that already? Why cann't you be clear instead of giving be behaviaral advice as if I were a child? Did you, or did you not decided that what I've done is cause disruption by posting comments all over the place? Or are you, or some other reckless Adminstrator, going to Block me tomorrow for the same conduct yesterday which you have effectively found did constitute changing User:IZAK's words? Why can't you simply answer this question unequivocally, rather than keep reinforcing you firm belief that I'm an nundisciplined child who does not know how vto behave and needs to be punished?

You have asked to read the WP page concerning guidelines as to Talk pages. I have done so. Now I'm asking you to follow that same procedure. The Talk page in the article named above is full of personal attacks against me by User:IZAK. I'm affraid to touch it because I suspect that you might charge me again with the same sort of disruption for which you have unfairly just finished doing. According, I ask that you WP:cleanup that page of all its accusations, involving the alleged use of four-letter words. Why is that so hard for you to comprehend? I'm asking that that very policy youv asked to abide by be followed as to my person and as to what is currently posted there by User:IZAK. That remains unresolved. The effect of that is to make me appear as some sort of a fanatic, mad-man, lunatic, etc. (I believe which I've seen you still hold - no doubt in my mind that that's the work against me of editor IZAK).

So if you really wish that we MOVE UN I think you need to address this unfinished business first.

Cheers, Yours truly, --Ludvikus 15:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Ludvikus, move on means move on. Just let it go.

I do not intend to take any further action against either you or IZAK over what has happened already with regard to that AfD, and I will object if any other admin does. You were blocked for the disruption, and that issue is done.

I do not intend to do any further cleanup; there doesn't seem to me to be anything sufficiently outrageous to justify removing it.

I don't see personal attacks against you by IZAK which warrant any further action (sucha s a block or further warnings), but as I said above, if you want to pursue a complaint or to ask for comments to be deleted, you can raise a complaint at WP:ANI. I have said before that I think that will only serve to prolong the dispute, and that I think it would be a bad idea, but you are always free to make a complaint if you want to. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

• Hard to see the forest because of the trees.

• You say: I do not intend to take any further action against either [of] you . . . over what has happened already with regard to that AfD, and I will object if any other admin does. That's what I needed to know. Thank you.

Yours truly, --Ludvikus 21:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The crucial point is the bit where I say "over what has happened already with regard to that AfD". Further disruption will be dealt with in the usual way, but I hope that the trouble is all in the past. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

Dalys Cross

BHG, just wondering about your tag on this stub asking for "reliable references". I cannot see a single thing in it that would require a reference; maybe you'd tell me which piece of information needs a reference?! (Sarah777 21:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC))

These pieces of info:

• that it a village
• that it is on the N7 national primary route
• that it 12 km (7 mi) from Limerick city

Apart from the railway info (which is referenced), that's about all there is in the article so far. I hadn't noticed until now that you had written it, and I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with creating a stub article ... but everything is supposed to be reliably sourced. As WP:V says, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source."

So if you have been to Dalys Cross and checked it out for yourself (which you presumably did to take the photo), that doesn't count (see WP:OR); what matters is that the info has already been published in reliable source. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:05, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Good God!! it's on the main Dublin-Limerick road, has HUGE big signs on all approaches and appears on OSi maps. Is a photograph original research - I have pics of the signs. Maybe a reference to the OSi map would do? If you are serious here (and I don't doubt it!) then I have about 200 similar stubs of well-known (in Ireland) inhabited villages that will need an OSi reference! We'd need to get one of your Bots on the job! (Sarah777 01:45, 20 October 2007 (UTC))

Sarah, it's on the maps, so I don't doubt that it exists! But the references serve two purposes. First, they demonstrate that it's not just something you made up with a few edited pictures; and secondly, the references are the means by which notability can be established. Non-trivial coverage in multiple independent sources is the requirement for notability, and I do wonder how many of the hundreds of stub articles on Irish villages and townlands could meet that test. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and while I would like to think that an island like Ireland with such a rich history has many many notable places, that notability needs to be demonstrated. An OSI reference would help to verify that the place exists, but it doesn't establish notability. I haven't been tagging the Ireland-geo-stubs with a {{notability}} request, but unless steps are taken to establish notability, someone else may do so. I don't want to see mass-deletion of Irish places, but unless efforts are made to assert notability, and preferably to demonstrate notability, someone else may do so. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd have little doubt that any of the hundreds of towns/villages would pass any notability test. After all, people are forever being born and dying and getting married in them. That mythical reporter fearing the sack knows he must write about the village if he wants to sell any papers there. Townlands are an entirely different matter and they tend to be inserted by locals.(Sarah777 09:00, 20 October 2007 (UTC))

I suspect that you are right that they could pass the notability test, but the crucial thing to remember is that unless the references are there, they don't pass the notability test. To do so, they'd probably need to have more substantial coverage than simply recoding the births and deaths of non-notable people, and show some wider significance. For example, one of the main parts of The Sligo Champion is reports from all around the county, every week. Those are mostly at the parish level, and they are wonderful records of social history, but I doubt that many of the reports establish notability. Notability involves more than mere existence! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:17, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Do not use vulgarities

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Luvicus: Kindly stop using obscenties/four letter words repeatedly. That is a clear violation of Wikipedia:Civility and the way you are addressing people here comes across as a violation of Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Take note. IZAK 16:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately you are not controlling yourself in this regard, see this [11] at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Jewish Bolshevism, it is not acceptable. Please stop. IZAK 17:20, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Please be more specific as to your accusations against me. As my accuser you should not leave such charges to my imagination. I should not have to guess what you have in mind. --Ludvikus 17:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
• In addiotion, you should stick to the topic, and not refer to other articles. Let other issues be discussed elsewhere - not here. Things are already complicated by there being many articles grouped here for deletion. --Ludvikus 17:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• You, User:IZAK, are apparently a very experienced Wikipedian. It seems that you believe that I've used "vulgarities". However, you have not kept the principles of Good Faith in that accusation. You are talking about conduct in a totally different space, namely: The Jewish Bolshevism. If that is your opinion, please feel free to bring it up there - but not here. You are apparently merely attempting to portray my conduct, once again, as bizarre. I do not deny you that opportunity. However, you must not do that here. The topic here is already far to complicated - you are already forcing me to defend several articles that you believe should be deleted. It is not good for Wikipedia for you to bring in my alleged use of improper "vulgarities" elsewhere. I therefore ask you to cleanup (from here) all references to what I have done regarding a totally unrelated article. Cheers, --Ludvikus 22:20, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Um Ludvikus: Can't you read your own words? You wrote the word "SHIT" at least twice at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/The Protocols of Zion (imprints)#Comments & Discussions: "There only are all the many different imprints of the same SHIT which too many people believe" and "I'm only interested in identifying the exact imprints of this antisemitic SHIT" and as far as I know the word shit is an obscenity. Then you used this language when talkng to another user at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Jewish Bolshevism: "Fork? Fork you Mikka (just kidding). You're misrepresenting my position..." [12] (where you also use a vile ethnic slur: "Hey, I've met stupid Poles - but I would never say that being Polish means being Stupid!!!" [13]) and you seem to think it's funny to say "fork you" clearly intending "fuck you" (since you have to add the disclaimer "just kidding") since these are clear obscenities. No doubt there are many more cases like this 'cause I have just had the great pleasure of meeting you now as an editor. And let me tell you, you cannot fool me with either your claim to innocence (when you deny your own open obscenities) nor with your self-righteousness. Thanks, IZAK 12:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

I'm moving on as you advised. The above is a Cut & Paste from the Talk page of the Page you've found me disrupting. I strongly disagree with regarding you view that there is nothing wrong, or some cognitive to that effect. I consider the above as not only an attack on may person, but also as inappropriate material that remains posted on that Talk page. Accordingly, I intend to clean it up. If I do so, will you consider it Disruptive and Block me for X amount of time (accordingly to User:Banno, X may mean forever)??? Please advise according, as I do not intend to be disruptive, and I consider my contemplated action to be in keeping with WP regulations.

• I must advise you again, that Administrator Banno has said that the next time I'm Blocked, it will be forever. So it is important that you give me sound advise concerning my next move. You've just created an ambiguity by saying that there is nothing wrong which needs addressing. I strongly disagree. Please advise according, and please, please, please, don't waste my time and yours telling me about complaints which did not express an interest in persuing. I also will not go to France tomorrow (that too is irrelevant). The issue is that you, and Administrator Banno have created a situation in which I have no idea what either of you consider disruptive behavior.

Yours truly, --Ludvikus 22:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Ludvikus

If you want the text, removed, ask IZAK to remove it or lodge a complaint at WP:ANI. But don't go removing it yourself, or you may be blocked.

I have had enough of this. I am fed up with my talk page being filled with huge cut-and-pastes from a row which is over.

You have had enough of my time, and enough advice. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Chinese in the Russian Revolution and in the Russian Civil War

"An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure." I believe that User:Mikkalai has been vandalizing my substantial work at the above article.

• This is a new issue, by the way.
• I would appeciate it if you could advise, and or, deflame the volatile situation in the above.

Yours truly, --Ludvikus 17:47, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

See my comment at Talk:Chinese in the Russian Revolution and in the Russian Civil War#Repeated.2C_arbitrary.2C_capricious.2C_and_unreasonable_reversions. I see no evidence of vandalism (a good faith edit is never vandalism). Please discuss your differences with User:Mikkalai, to try to reach a consensus. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

It turns out it's Edit Waring. You know that. I just learned it now. I now understand the distinction.

So my request is that you help us avoid edit-waring. I've spent some time writing on both pages, and I've tried to come to some understanding with User:Mikkalai. But he merely reverts what I've done. He ignores my discussion on the user page. So what am I to do? Can you talk to him and ask him what the problem is, ""please, please, please" (to use your bown words)?

Thank you, --Ludvikus 18:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

No. I am not a one-woman mediation team.

Ludvikus, if you want to talk to him, try messaging Mikkalai in a friendly way at User talk:Mikkalai, and try posting on the article talk page in a friendly way. That means saying "please" rather than calling him a vandal, it means assuming good faith, and it means not approaching the whole situation as if you want a fight. If that doesn't work, try dispute resolution. But I doubt that anyone will bother to get involved until you start to approach other editors in a WP:CIVIL manner. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:00, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

You're not listening to me. I have contacted him on his talk page in a civil manner - but he just wiped out my posting, with no response, nada. You should also look at his Talk page which he has changed recently. He says he will not respond. So there is no way to communicate with him. As to the Talk page, heb has simply ignored what I have to say there. So that kind of action is fruitless.

So why can't you just ask him what he wants? How he would like to end this Edit War - or is it an Edit War?

General advice on politeness are not useful. I've had contact with other editors. It is only an extreme minority that I have a hard time finding a peaceful solution with. That's why I'm asking for your help.

Are you giving him any counsel? Or is it just me?

Please ask him what he wants. Obviously, he does not want to be contacted on his Talk page. At the same time he does not respond on the varticle talk page to what I have to say.

I really think that you could do a lot of good if you tried to speak to him yourself.

Why will you not do that?

Please & Thank you, BrownHairedGirl, --Ludvikus 19:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, BHG. I've just noticed that you've given the matter some balance. Much appreaciated. And have a nice day!!! --Ludvikus 19:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Scottish Islands project (2)

I thought from your past edits, you might be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Scottish Islands - come on over and have a look, if you haven't done so already. --MacRusgail 16:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Umm, thanks for the friendly invite, but we had that conversation before: see above User talk:BrownHairedGirl#Scottish_Islands_project. Of course if you can promise to banish all the midges I might change my mind ;)--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:06, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I must be losing my memory! I've been inviting a number of people who've made good edits to various island articles... --MacRusgail 16:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

No prob. But I'm still hoping that you can evict them midges ... :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Missed Limerick

BHG; Category:Towns in Limerick still survives; I've checked and it is the only one. Can you zap it? (Sarah777 22:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC))

Done it as a self-speedy. It doesn't technically fit the criteria, but in the spirit of WP:IAR and WP:BURO and a strong sense that the good folks at CfD have Irish county-fatigue after 726 squillion of these categories were pumped through there, I just done it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Doubt there will be any complaints! Thanks (Sarah777 23:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC))

Cleanup by Administrator of article Talk page allowed?

Was it OK for Mikkalai to delete this comment from the Talk page on the "Chinese at ..." page as he has just done?

“

• • I am repeating for the fourth time: I will contribute professionally to this article only when trolling stops. I don't care about my "credibility". I don't think my credibility means much for a person who passionately wants this article destroyed. Finally, in case you didn't learn this yet, wikipedians' credibility has nothing to do with article content: please spend some time perusing Wikipedia:Attribution and all policies mentioned in it. `'Míkka 18:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

”

Yours truly, --Ludvikus 19:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

User talk:170.185.144.19

Could you have a look at this editor User talk:170.185.144.19 vandalim on Spanish-American War have asked him twice to stop but dont think he will thanks BigDunc 19:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Blaa

Could you take a look at this and also [this section] of the Waterford City article - I want to confound expectations by NOT getting sucked into an edit war!(Sarah777 22:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC))

Mikkalai and Ludvikus Redux

Hi BrownHairedGirl. Just so you know, the whole ANI issue may be rearing it's ugly head again. Mikkalai has been deleting non-free images uploaded by Ludvikus (see here). I was trying to help Ludvikus with the copyright issues (scans of book covers as fair use), but the images got deleted pretty quick. I'm not enough of a copyvio person to know if that was a justified deletion, but it seems odd given their history (inherent COI, etc). Anyway, I hope you don't mind that I'm passing the buck to you, but I was hoping there was a way to prevent this from getting out of control again. Best, --Bfigura ^(talk) 04:48, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

A book cover looks to me like it might be fair use (tho I'm no expert), but I'm staying out of this. When I took Mikkalai's conduct to ANI the on sunday, I got shouted down by a group who think that because Luvikus is so disruptive, Mikkalai should be allowed to do what he likes.

After that, I'm afraid that I see no point whatsoever in my remaining involved. You may, of course, raise the issue at WP:ANI, but on recent precedent, you are likely to find yourself in big trouble for doing so.

It's all rather a pity. After sunday's episode, I had a large postbag of supportive emails from admins who disagreed with Mikkalai being allowed to remain outside control, but who felt too intimidated to speak out at ANI. It's not a good situation to be in, that ANI is perceived by some admins to be a place where there is mob rule, but there we are. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

For what it is worth, as someone who had a full understanding of what was going on, I think you acted correctly. The "mob" does have an unhealthy tendency to protect long term users when perhaps they should be treated more equally. It does not serve the community to allow even established users to act in such a fashion. 1 != 2 08:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I know that you have been watching the situation carefully, and it's good to hear your take on things. I can see the short-term temptations in following the mob's position, but it doesn't create a healthy climate. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:48, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I haven't read the entire thread at AN/I, but I agree with your actions as well. Too many times around here people turn a blind eye simply because the editor in question has been here forever, or is an admin. --Kbdank71 21:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

You'll get nowhere with Mikkalai. Don't even try. People who like him call him grumpy, and, despite that, they will quickly unblock him and let him get away with pretty much anything. I know it's frustrating, because you did the right thing, but hang in there and don't let them get you flustered. -- But|seriously|folks  00:55, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty sad. --Kbdank71 00:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot 12:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

You are sometimes a useful bot, but your messages can get very tedious. Yes, in commenting at zillions of CfD discussions, my sig sometimes missses its date, due a typo, and I do appreciate your botship's kind help in adding the date. But these are typos which I try to avoid, and your messages seem like nagging. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Ireland tagging

I see that you have been retagging several articles but notice two things about the way you tag. First, I have not noticed you filling in the image-needed or infobox-needed parameters. Whenever I tag an article I try to add the yes or no parameters, so that it does not need to be revisited until either has been done. Would you possibly do that? You are looking at the article anyway, so deciding if it needs either is an easy task. The second thing is that your summary on my watch-page does not indicate your edits (the ones I noticed such as Talk:Fenit Harbour) are merely a retagging but, to me, imply a completely new tag, which technically they are, where there was none before but when I look at the difference I don't see any significant change except that you are substituting the full preferred tag. Maybe you would rephrase your summaries because then I will know what was done and not bother review your edit which may well be perfectly fine. I often use the word "rate" or "add params" when that is all I actually did to the tag even though I inserted the preferred tag instead of the old one. Hope that makes sense. Cheers and keep up the good work. BTW what do you know about having a bot tag all the untagged Irish stubs? (When you reply, please do so where I started the discussion.) ww2censor 15:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

OK first thing is that I have not been looking at the articles; as you may have seen from the edit summaries, I have been using AWB, which only shows the page being edited, and from which it is difficult to launch the article page if viewing the talk. So while viewing the talk page, I have no idea whether the article is a bare and unsourced 1-line sub-stub or a feature-grade 70K article.

So what I have been doing is looking for articles which are not already tagged, and adding a bare {{WikiProject Ireland}} tag, with the following parameters filled in:

• class=Category (for category)
• class=List (for a list)
• class=Template (for a template)
• priority=(whatever) for a very few articles where I felt able to make a clear assessment of importance without seeing the article

... but to the others I would either have to guess (bad idea), or to stop, tab across to my browser and open up the article, which massively slows the exercise.

Initially, my AWB run was including articles tagged with the old template, so on some of those (depending on mood) I substituted the new one, but most of them I skipped; I have now set AWB to skip those articles (sorry for putting a few misleading edit summaries your watchlist when I was replacing them)

The outcome of this run will be a huge increase in the of articles with blank tags, which is not as useless an exercise as it sounds, because they will then show up in Category:Unassessed Ireland articles and Category:Unknown-importance Ireland articles; the additions to those categories can of course be tracked by using Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Unassessed Ireland articles and Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Unknown-importance_Ireland_articles. The same goes for Category:Ireland articles needing attention, Category:Ireland articles needing images, Category:Ireland articles needing infoboxes, etc ... which means that anyone wanting to complete the tags has an accurate list to work from.

As to getting a bot to help, yes, that would be brilliant. I have already asked for a bot to get to work: see Wikipedia:Bot requests#Tagging_for_WikiProject_Ireland.

Hope this helps! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you are doing and understand that using AWB does not allow seeing the article itself to make any judgements on its merits. Leaving out already tagged articles from your AWB runs seems a better idea unless you actually see them. I do all my edit through the browser unlike you. I am well aware of the Category:Unassessed Ireland articles pages which I had actively been trying to reduce down to zero but only got it down to 16 recently, but now you have filled it up again, damn!! I am also aware of the Category:Unknown-importance Ireland articles pages but the others special pages you mentioned are new to me. Asking a bot to do the initial tag job seems like a good idea. Thanks for that but do you really think there are a squillion Irish articles? One last thing is that I favour the sequential tag layout because it takes up less visual less space in the page when editing, and especially where there are several tags, rather then the vertical layout that you use and have asked for the bot to use. It's just a small point. What do you think? Thanks for the work. I see that the assessment bot is on one of it longer intervals rather than the usual 3-day schedule. Cheers ww2censor 17:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for a belated reply. Well, there aren't millions of Ireland-related articles, but there are nearly 3,000 categories and over 25,000 articles.

I find that tag parameters are much more easily read if they are laid out on separate lines, as is one in programming. If there are only one or two parameters, they easily legible if laid out one line, but in a case like this where there are about 7 parameters, the vertical layout makes it much easier to identify which tags are blanks and which aren't. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:10, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I am interested to see where you got those statistics from - 25,000+ Irish articles - wow. Can you tell me how to get them? You are probably right about the parameter layout from the ease of legibility though I prefer the other way myself. Did you look at the list of cats here yet? Thanks ww2censor 16:41, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I got the count when using AWB's "make list" feature to list all the articles under Category:Ireland and its subcats, using the "Category (recursive)" option. I wanted to do a few checks on the list to see what was would included if a bot did a mass-tagging, and found some things which should not have been there. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Could you dump a list of those articles by category somewhere so we could all see them? That figure is 2.5 times our highest estimate! (Sarah777 19:37, 26 October 2007 (UTC))

The list is a bit of a jumble, and not really sorted by category (because most articles are in several categories), but I'll post it later in its raw form. Meanwhile, have you seen Special:CategoryTree? e.g. Special:CategoryTree:Ireland --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:44, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Holy (BH)G! I hadn't seen that...thanks. (Sarah777 20:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC))

(de-indent) OMG !!! ww2censor 03:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Fox family of Falmouth

Fox family of Falmouth: Thanks for your advice about this article. I hope that the new version is some improvement. --Vernon White ^{. . . Talk} 19:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That's great! Not that the previous version was bad, but this is much improved, and gets further wa from the note format I commented on before. It is a fascinating account of how family remained influential and prosperous over several generations.

If you want to take the article further, I think the question I would ask is what happened to them in the later nineteenth century, and early twentieth century, when coverage seems to just fade out. Did the next generations enter the professions, did the businesses fold, or what? But maybe that;s just me eager to know more :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

G.C.Fox (shipping Brokers) ceased trading in 2003. The "Poly" in Falmouth flourishes. The family became global and many ceased to be Quakers. There is still one family in the membership of Falmouth Quaker Meeting. None of them became MPs or Baronets, except the Backhouse and Pease spouses. I expect there are many Quaker families who are Foxes through their female line. I don't want to tell the tale as far as grandparents of living people, without consultation and permission. I would hope that some of them might add more accurate data to the WP article.

My aim was:

1. To provide background information for readers of the Journals.
2. To record the influence that this Quaker family had on Science, Technology, Industrial Development and culture in Cornwall.

I now need to check that all the linked WP articles are up to a reasonable standard. Caroline and Barclay's Journals should be fairly readily available through public libraries or possibly your local Quaker Meeting House, or Friends House Library. --Vernon White ^{. . . Talk} 08:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Category:School districts at the top 7% etc

Category:School districts at the top 7% in Pennsylvania on Pennsylvania standardized tests

I'm retired, but(in response to [14]) I am just dropping by to apologize for creating the above category for Garnet Valley School District. I must not understand how cagtegories work, and thought that other users would expand it.--U.S.A.U.S.A.U.S.A. 19:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey, that's good of you to pop back, and don't worry too much, we all learn as we go! But looking again at the CfD discussion, I owe you an apology. There was no need for me to so caustic about the category, and I'm sorry for being so rude. I'm sure you created the category in good faith, and I shouldn't have sneered. I hope you'll come back to edit again! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I just wanted to clarify that my retirement had nothing to do with this. Just some real world issues. It was always my pleasure to help out the project in any way I could!--U.S.A.U.S.A.U.S.A. 23:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Heads up

Just to let you know that three of the categories nominated at CfD so far today have been the work of Emesee. I've left a comment/suggestion on his talk page about future category creation, but an extra pair of eyes wouldn't go amiss, just in case he starts creating categories about bishops... Regards, Bencherlite^Talk 09:04, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of 1910s in Ireland

A tag has been placed on 1910s in Ireland, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia per CSD G2.

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not meet basic Wikipedia criteria may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as an appropriate article, and if you can indicate why the subject of this article is appropriate, you may contest the tagging. To do this, add {{hangon}} on the top of the article and leave a note on the article's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would confirm its subject's notability under the guidelines.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion. To do this, add {{hangon}} on the top of the page (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag) and leave a note on the page's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. Jameson L. Tai 13:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Deleted it myself, it was only a test of a template. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:25, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Category:WikiProject Gaelic Games templates

There are pages listed twice now in this category , should the cat be removed from {{GaelicGamesProjectTemplate}} or should the category beremoved for the template:x such as {{2006 All Stars}}Gnevin 15:51, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK, it's not possible for an article to be listed twice in a category. Can you point to an example? Oops, I mean --Kbdank71 15:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

{{2007 All Stars}}is in Category:WikiProject Gaelic Games templates as Template:2007 All Stars and Template talk:2007 All StarsGnevin 16:04, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

That just means that the template and the template talk page (which are two separate pages, category-wise) are in the category. And just as an aside, this isn't new. Prior to my completing the CFD, they were both in Category:Gaelic Games Project templates. --Kbdank71 16:08, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Not that that means anything, of course. We probably don't need both in the category, as you first suggested. I'll just go away now. --Kbdank71 16:09, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, afore you go, thanks for closing the CfD! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:25, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

(deindent) As Kbdank71 says, no need for them to be there twice. Long-term, it's probably easier to keep them there by the template on the talk page, so I guess it'd be best to remove the categ from the template itself, and check that the talk page template is in place. Do you want me to do that? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah sounds goodGnevin 17:32, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, done now. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:59, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

People from Offaly Merge

I agree to the merge as you suggested on my page. No probs!!! Eiri Amach 04:58, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

AWB Feature Requests

I've replied on 2 of them..

Have you seen the filter button at the bottom of the list maker...?

It should do most of 2 of your requests! Reedy Boy 17:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

It's going to take a while to wipe all the egg of my face after that! I don't know how long that feature has been there, or why I didn't notice its appearance, but you're right — it's exactly what I was I after in my first two requests. Many thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:21, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Lords of France II

You have contributed at the CFD for Category:Lords of France here. The subcats have been deleted, and Category:Lords of France is being held for cleanup until Nov 5. I was wondering if you'd like to help with the cleanup, as I don't have a lot of experience prod'ing articles. Thanks, and sorry for the cut-and-paste. --Kbdank71 15:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm done. Prodded some, {{unreferenced}}'d some, and other look OK. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: removed tags

I told User:Irongargoyle to discuss the tags with you before removing any more of them. Uthanc 21:15, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I am reinsttaing them, and have left a msg on User talk:Irongargoyle. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Mass tagging

Hi BrownHairedGirl. I'm writing this note to raise my concerns about the mass tagging that you have done. In my view this sort of mass tagging overwhelms people working in the area and can discourage people from making the changes we both want to see happen. This sort of thing has happened before. Please see this archived Administrators' noticeboard discussion on what is acceptable article tagging behaviour. If you disagree with that, maybe another such discussion is needed? That case involved 193 notability tags. I believe you've added about 150. Where do you think we should go from here? As I said, I'll be away this weekend, so hopefully we can carry on this discussion on Sunday evening. Carcharoth 23:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I see that you have expressed this view, but with all due respect, you taking the same view twice doesn't make a guideline! I started tagging a few articles the other day when I first stumbled across the bridge of whatsit article, and launched a discussion at the same time, so there is nothing sneaky or underhand about it.

I'm really disappointed to see that we are still talking at cross purposes. The situation is quite simple: the overwhelming bulk of the articles in Category:Middle-earth locations either cite no sources, or cite only primary refs. In the whole of those categories, I eventually found about five articles with multiple non-primary refs, though I didn't evaluate them (I just left the articles untagged). Those tags are an invitation to editors to improve articles which don't meet wikipedia's most basic criteria for inclusion, and the only reason I can see for removing them is if someone believes that these guidelines don't apply and the problems don't need fixing. Those tags are an open invitation to fix, not a specific challenge to you or to anyone else!

In the meantime, I'm really disappointed to see that you removed the tags from The Rivers and Beacon-Hills of Gondor. After all today's discussions, I feel like a broken record restating that WP:NOTE and WP:FICTION requires multiple non-trivial references in sources independent of the subject. In this case, you added one source, so the criteria are clearly not met (even if the coverage in that source is substantial).

Similarly, Lothlórien, where you added a single ref to an encyclopedia. Compare with the requirements of WP:FICTION: only one source, and is a mention in an encyclopedia non-trivial? I have re-tagged that one too, again with {{nn}} and also with {{refimprove}}.

This what worries me. IronGargoyle previously removed the notability tag from that article when it had no references at all, and clearly did not meet notability criteria (yet it was part of your complaint at ANI). Now you have done the same thing when there is only one reference, and when we have just spent a large part of the day with me repeating WP:NOTE and WP:FICTION. Why?

From WP:NOTE A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. I really don't know whether you are finding this this hard to understand or are just resenting the fact the articles in your area of interest don't meet the standard. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:32, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, embarassing though it is to admit, I had missed the "multiple" part of the tag. Thanks for pointing that out. I have other sources to add as well, but I thought that a reference to the entries in that encyclopedia (which is a tertiary source) would be enough. Can I ask you to assume good faith and accept that as a mistake on my part? Carcharoth 00:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, of course I assume good faith! There are oodles of times that I have missed aspects of a guideline, and we all learn as we go :) It seems to me that we moving closer to agreement on this, and hope that it seems like that to you too. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:56, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

A start

(Originally at User talk:IronGargoyle)

Please have a look here for a series of 18 edits where I've added a third-party source for location articles that have an entry in J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. That is at least a start, I hope, and demonstrates that those subjects are notable enough to get an entry in that Encyclopedia (the other location articles don't have separate entries). Can we agree that this solves the problem for the moment with those articles (though they still have other problems), and concentrate on the other ones you've tagged? Carcharoth 23:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I also removed the tag here, as that is not a fictional place. It is an essay written by Tolkien. The assertion of notability is right there in the article, and the article cites where the essay (or parts of it) have been published. I'm also going to add a cite to back the notability up. Carcharoth 23:56, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. How many are multiple sources? Two, three, four? I am trying hard to work with you here. I'm not asking you to thank me for providing some sources (though that would have been nice), but let's try and improve the encyclopedia with references, rather than 'fix' it with tags. I'm nearly done for the night, but I think this has got to the stage where I'm going to try and get some fresh eyes on this. I'm going to ask at WP:AN for guidance on where to go next with this, as I find this behaviour of tag, respond to tag removal with AfD, debate, more tagging (around 150 of them), respond to reverts by edit warring to re-add tags, to be troubling. Lots of people are trying to work with you, and we don't seem to be making any headway. Some recognition or signals from you as to whether things are moving in the right direction would be nice. Carcharoth 00:36, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm tired too, so pls forgive the note-form reply:

• Yes, we are heading in the right direction, in some respects. Adding the refs was good, but removing the notability tag when there was only one ref was not good. "Multiple" means more than one, though as the guidelines say, if they are trivial refs, more may be needed. (I am assuming that the most of the refs you provided are non-trivial, tho I have questioned the encyclopedia refs: most such works have some very short entries).
• I am impressed that you made a start on referencing -- I hadn't expected it this quickly. It doesn't have to be done instantaneously, and many articles remain tagged in this way for many months. So take your time :)
• Per my comments at the project talk page, I am horrified that you were still suggesting that Christopher Tolkien would be an adequate reference. When I saw that, I thought we were taking a huge step backwards: whilst I'm sure he is a very reliable source, he is clearly not an independent source, which is what's needed to establish notability.
• By all means take things to ANI if you want to, but I do think that it would be more helpful all round for you to look again at the notability guidelines, because it still doesn't seem to me that you have really engaged with it. I'd have no objection to people taking lots of time adding refs if you weren't still arguinng against the guidelines and objecting to the tags as "intrusive".

Hope this helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:48, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

It does help. Thanks. I am posting something at AN, as I'm still concerned about getting the balance right between pushing people to improve articles, and not pressuring them with implicit threats of deletion debates and dozens of tags. I would be happy to help you develop a better approach to take to educating people about this sort of thing. Carcharoth 02:13, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Why do you fight Tolkien?

Could you please explain why you keep posting notability tags in articles about place names in Tolkien's works? Are Valinor, Fangorn, Beleriand, etc. not notable to you? Although this is material out of one of the most-read works of literature? I really suspect you are trying to abuse your administrative powers here. Instead of trying to remove said articles, you should try to expand them. Please stop your private rampage. Cush 00:16, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Rather than accusing me of a rampage (see WP:NPA), please read Wikipedia:Notability and WP:FICTION. The issue is not whether you or I consider these articles notable; there are clear objective tests set out in the guidelines, which these articles do not meet. That's why I tagged them.

No administrative powers are involved in tagging articles, and I hope that in future you will assume good faith before accusing people of abusing them. Those tags are an open invitation to editors to expand and improve the articles. You are as welcome as any other editor to improve those articles, and you would be better engaged in doing that than in objecting to the fact that the deficiencies in these articles have been noted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:43, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

No, you are asking for something that is entirely pointless. We are talking about fictional places from Tolkien's works. There are no other sources or references needed for such articles than the original works, Hobbit, Bombadil, LotR, Silmarillion. If we were talking about places or characters in Shakespeare's works, would you dare to stir such a fuss? I doubt it. And Wikipedia is still better off with stub articles than with missing articles. If you can't contribute anything to the articles in question then at least leave them as they are and have patience that someday someone might take the effort of expanding them. But what you are currebtly doing is actively discouraging people from adding anything to those articles as one would have to fear the loss of one's work because you find it insufficient and tag it for deletion. What do you want to achieve by threatening the Tolkien fan community on Wikipedia? Cush 00:52, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you are simply wrong to say that "there are no other sources or references needed for such articles than the original works". Read the guidelines, and try to understand why independent references are needed to establish the notability of the subject of an article.

You are clearly a Tolkein fan. Fine, that's great - it's often passion for a particular subject that draws people to write articles on wikipedia. But wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and you need establish that those subjects are notable enough to have an article. There is no point in expanding an article on a non-notable subject, and if my tagging encourages editors to concentrate less on documenting every minor detail and concentrate more on ensuring that their articles are properly referenced and their subjects meet the notability guidelines, then I think that's a good outcome for everyone.

Oh, and in answer to your question: if articles on anything by Shakespeare, or any part of the bible, were similarly unreferenced, I wouldn't hesitate to tag them too. This is an encyclopedia, not a fanzine, and referencing is a fundamental requirement. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:31, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Much as it pains me to disagree with you on anything, I think Cush, Caracaroth etc are in the right here; personally, I don't think fiction articles should be here (yes, even Shakespeare et al - I'm the one who got my very own Wikipedia Review thread by AFDing Antonio (Merchant of Venice)) other than very brief summaries, but, following the huge arguments over the Harry Potter pages, the consensus is clearly that fictional characters & locations in significant works do warrant their own pages, and The Lord of the Rings is certainly as notable, if not more, than Harry Potter. The consensus as thrashed out in the Harry Potter and similar AFDs and DRVs seemed to be that for works like this, the novel in question was valid as a reference about itself even though it constituted a primary source. — iridescent 01:36, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I take your point, and it may be that I'm fighting an uphill battle. But if that's the case, then let's do this properly and tear up WP:FICTION and put a big loophole in WP:NOTE. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:51, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Fiction is self-sufficient. What other sources can there really be for a work of fiction? Especially when it's created from scratch as Tolkien's work is? Maybe those guidelines need a review. Articles on characters, places, events, etc out of Tolkien's work are primarily for those who seek information on Tolkien's work, and those folks just don't care whether or not the article they were searching for meets any arbitrary guidelines. Of course this is not a fanzine, but then why have articles on Tolkien's work in the first place? Cush 02:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Cush, please don't bother posting on my talkpage again unless you have read and studied the guidelines. Your questions are answered there. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:08, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

As a note to anyone who doesn't know where to find it, the place for this debate is Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction) and not BHG's talkpage! This is a very longrunning dispute and nothing at all is served by content-forkig it to here. — iridescent 02:27, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Help! Disappearing images

Three apparently random images were deleted from apparently unrelated articles by a Bot on 26th October. AGot any idea why? (Licence was fine). Bot says "Removing deleted image" but the article record shows no prior deletion and the history of the image disappears completely along with the image.

Greystones

1. (cur) (last) 17:36, October 26, 2007 ImageRemovalBot (Talk | contribs) (15,488 bytes) (Removing deleted image) (undo)
2. (cur) (last) 03:14, October 26, 2007 Ww2censor (Talk | contribs) (15,456 bytes) (revert unsourced edit about Lotto) (undo)

Lough Ree

1. (cur) (last) 05:35, October 26, 2007 ImageRemovalBot (Talk | contribs) (2,758 bytes) (Removing deleted image) (undo)
2. (cur) (last) 22:25, October 19, 2007 Cydebot (Talk | contribs) m (2,779 bytes) (Robot - Moving category Loughs of Westmeath to Loughs of County Westmeath per CFD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 October 14.) (undo)

Glenamaddy Turlough

1. (cur) (last) 05:35, October 26, 2007 ImageRemovalBot (Talk | contribs) (1,442 bytes) (Removing deleted image) (undo)
2. (cur) (last) 22:22, October 19, 2007 Cydebot (Talk | contribs) m (1,410 bytes) (Robot - Moving category Loughs of Galway to Loughs of County Galway per CFD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 October 14.) (undo)

Something sinister going on? (Sarah777 11:13, 27 October 2007 (UTC))

I don't think it's sinister, though it does look a bit messy. Just checking the last article, I found this entry in the deletion log for IMG GMaddyTlough2758.jpg ... it seems that the reason for the image's deletion was something to do with commons (WP:CSD#I8 was cited). I do v little work with images, so I suggest you raise the issue with the deleting admin Maxim (talk · contribs), who I'm sure will be able to explain it all. If the image was deleted because it was on commons, it seems a pity that the links to it were not updated to point to commons, but as above, I have little idea of the procedure with images. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

About the notability dispute

I think that part of the conflict here is that you are not listening to, or accepting, what people are telling you. You have continued to repeatedly say that these articles not only do not include references establishing their notability (which is true), but also that their subjects do not meet Wikipedia's notability standards (which is not). This despite acknowledging that you have little direct knowledge on the subject and having been told just as often by people who are familiar with the subject that the articles are notable and sources for such exist. This apparent unwillingness to accept what you are being told is likely related to your repeated statements intimating that those disputing you are simply ignorant of Wikipedia's notability standards. Consider that several (e.g. myself, Carcharoth, IronGargoyle) of these 'ignorant' users are themselves admins. Speaking only for myself, I am extremely familiar with WP:NOTE, WP:FICTION, and past precedent on these issues. Iridescent cites the Harry Potter decisions, but those were nothing new. Back in 2005 Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Middle-earth items established standards for articles on Middle-earth topics. That was then re-affirmed for fictional topics in general in this discussion... which was then copied to create a new guideline... known as WP:FICTION. In short, WP:FICTION exists because of past debate about these Middle-earth articles - which concluded that they should be kept. THAT is the consensus which established the guideline you are citing... though you argue the opposite of what the consensus found. Which wasn't a new development then either, Talk:Elros has a similar discussion (with the same results) in 2004 and there were others even older still. This has been accepted and repeatedly re-affirmed practice on Wikipedia since the beginning.

On Christopher Tolkien: You object that he is not independent and thus cannot be cited to establish notability. Actually, nothing in the notability or sourcing standards disqualifies family members, but I think this also overlooks the reality that Christopher Tolkien did not act alone. If CT had put up a website and posted all of his material there or gotten it published by a vanity press then it would indeed be difficult to draw much evidence of notability from that. Instead, top tier publishers in various countries around the world contracted the man... for fifteen books on the subject. Which have since been reprinted, printed in versions with illustrations by noted artists, printed in combined editions, printed as Folio Society collectors items, et cetera. Can you honestly say that is not independent verification of notability? These books have continued being published, and all remained in print, in multiple languages, for more than 30 years... without their contents being notable?

Finally, even if the WP:FICTION guideline had not been created specifically to affirm the notability of these articles, even if the notability inherent in the world's biggest publishers releasing multiple texts on the very minutiae you are challenging were somehow 'invalidated' by the person doing the work having been related to the author, even so these articles would be notable... because, as has been said repeatedly, there are multiple completely independent sources on all of them. Encyclopedias, atlases, compendiums, volumes of annotations, scholarly journals and papers, adoption into popular culture, et cetera ad nauseum. They are notable even in their own right, and not just by the long-standing practice of being part of an extraordinarily notable subject. So, by all means... observe that they, like most of the rest of Wikipedia, are not yet properly referenced. But don't say they aren't notable or that the people who disagree with you on that point need to research the standards. I know the standards. I know the topic. And I'm telling you... they're notable. --CBD 11:27, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

CBD, I find tone of your comments unnecessarily hostile, and I hope that before posting again you will consider being less accusatory and try to assume good faith.

I hope it is clear that when saying that an article is "non-notable", I have meant that those articles have not so far demonstrated notability according to the guidelines. That's a subtle but important point, and it's central to all of this: notability is demonstrated by the tests set out in guidelines, not simply asserted. I'm glad that the Gondor article which I nominated at AFD have been improved sufficiently to meet the guidelines, and welcome the speedy closure of the AfD. It's a real pity, though, that an article which so many people claimed was so important did not have those references beforehand.

Now, if you are just going to come here and hector me with statements like "I know the standards. I know the topic. And I'm telling you... they're notable", I'd prefer you went off and did something else. Don't tell me; show me.

If you read the lengthy have discussions on this, you will see repeatedly that I have asked for evidence of how the guidelines have been met, and that has not been forthcoming.

Now, you come here and point me to the first draft of WP:FICTION], and claim that as a trump card. Sorry, but that version is over 2 years old, and WP:FICTION has changed substantially in that time: I have been working off the current version, and I sincerely hope that you are not claiming that it was wrong to do so.

The discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Middle-earth_items also sheds little light on the issues at stake here. It is mostly about whether to keep or merge articles (with a clear consensus to merge the minor stuff), and has remarkably little to say about notability. The consensus to upmerge minor articles seems to still stand at WikiProject Middle-earth, and I have had no dispute with that.

On Christopher Tolkein, I'm very surprised by your statement that "nothing in the notability or sourcing standards disqualifies family members"; I have dismissed him as evidence of notability not just as a family member but because of his role. WP:FICTIONWP:NOTE(as it is now, not as how it may have been 2 years ago) very clearly says "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" and explains that as "'Independent of the subject' excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including: self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc". I see nothing in WP:FICTION which exempts fictional material from that test, and quite rightly too, or else everything fictional would become automatically notable if there had been a collaborator or third-party editor or someone to complete the work. Christopher Tolkein was not merely a family biographer; so far as I can see, he was in many respects more like a co-author, albeit a posthumous one.

You are also introducing a further test of notability: that it should be be sufficient to show that a work has been widely published. That's an interesting argument, but I cannot find it anywhere in WP:FICTION. If I have missed it, can you point out to me where to find it?

You suggest that the consensus in 2005 was that everything Tolkien was automatically notable; if so, you should remember that consensus can change, and you have not shown how the current consensus-agreed guideline supports that view.

However, all this is probably irrelevant. If, as you say "there are multiple completely independent sources on all of them", why not just cite those sources rather than angrily denouncing someone who asks for them?

I look forward to your reply, so long as you actually try to engage with the points I am making: I welcome any explanations of things I have missed or misunderstood. But if you post again to just say "I'm telling you", expect to see your post deleted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:28, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't 'angrily denouncing' you or being 'hostile'. I was trying to get you to see that the views opposing yours were not born of the ignorance you have attributed them to. Unfortunately, given your response, I see little point in continuing this discussion. I will be adding references, already cited repeatedly, to the articles, but obviously that can't be done for hundreds of pages all at once. --CBD 12:50, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Fine, I'm quite happy not to receive messages saying "I'm telling you". If you change your mind, and want to engage in a discussion, I still look fwd to hearing from you.

Good luck with adding the refs. I know it takes time, but if we agree that it needs to be done then it seems to me that we have actually resolved our differences :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:59, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

peerage-work-group

Please would you change the viscount's coronet to image:Lord_red.svg. It will affect the talk page of every peer with WPBiography. Many thanks. - Kittybrewster ☎ 09:27, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Please can you give me some clearer links to explain what you want done. What page or template us to be changed? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:39, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I have just done a bit of digging. I presume that you want Template:WPBiography changed so the peerage work group logo is changed from Image:Meuble héraldique Couronne Comte.svg to Image:Lord_red.svg. Is that correct? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes please. - Kittybrewster ☎ 09:45, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, that's done: [15]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:40, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. How come it doesn't show through? - Kittybrewster ☎ 11:04, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Which talk page(s) is it not showing up on? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Cancel. It does - it does - and is a great improvement. - Kittybrewster ☎ 11:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

When templates are changed, it can take a while for the articles in which they are transcluded to be rebuilt, and with such a widely-used tag, I can imagine it may take a long time for this one to propagate. Anyway, glad it doth look better :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:31, 28 October 2007 (UTC) trying to keep the customers satisfied

Roman Catholic Bishops

Some members of Wikipedia believe that most Roman Catholic Bishops do not merit an article on Wikipedia. Since I am unaware of a position on Wikipedia on this matter I decided to bring this to your attention. The three articles on bishops are up for AfD, they are: : John Joseph Nevins , René Henry Gracida , and Felipe de Jesus Estevez - Kittybrewster ☎ 11:56, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear. The nominator appears not to have read WP:BIO :(
All those articles clearly pass the test in WP:BIO (albeit one rather narrowly), and a discussion about the general principle of a presumption of notability for RC bishops belongs at WT:BIO, not a AfD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Category: Women computer scientists

Thanks, I'm not withdrawing my nomination, but I've replied to your comment on the deletion discussion. SparsityProblem 17:01, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:40, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

CfD Category:Oil fields of ...

This discussion relates to the debate at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 October 28#Category:Oil_fields_of_Scotland

Hi, I fear we're getting a little bit polarised over at the CfD, I thought I'd just note that I really do appreciate your thoughts on the CfD above, but I had rather hoped you'd be prepared to WP:AGF on my viewpoints in the discussion.

Technically, I thought that User:Jw2034's proposal had some merit. FYI, I once spent a solid 6 months going through the mapping, licensing & proprties of those b****y North Sea licence blocks in some detail. I therefore assure you I fully recognise what a politically loaded topic this, and I note you are not alone in making your views clear. (You might also observe that I have not stated an opinion on who should own the oil & its revenues, just on the facts of how it is managed now.) That's also why I thought that, for consistency, any claims to "English" oil should be taken out as well as Scottish. Its pointless, its use is already being misunderstood. If you've looked into the history and operation of the oil industry you'd also appreciate there are many different ways that countries can handle and redistribute mineral explotation & distribution rights, which means that ownership & control might not follow the most 'obvious' route.

Suffice to say I feel there should be a way of handling the simple classification of this, while still maintaining accuracy, and without trying to double-guess how a devolved settlement would affect rights. (Personally, I'd think that anyone seeing a North Sea field in a UK Cat could work out the obvious way...)

So WP:NPA, thanks Ephebi 00:49, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I misunderstood you, but it seems to me that you have been confusing the related concepts of "Scottish things" or "things of Scotland" with the narower legalistic one of "things currently under the control of the Scottish Government". The latter is a subset of the former, but you seem to be trying to restrict the use to the latter. I know how the oil is managed (at least in the very broad outline, that the licensing and the taxation is a reserved issue), but I don't see why you want to remove the Scottish and English labels unless you are concerned that, as you put it "we really are trying to feed these agendas".

It's not wikipedia's job to either feed or stifle any political agenda, and you'll see from the legal links I provided that the current legal division of geography is clear. If and when there is a divisions of oil assets between England and Scotland, I'm sure that the current boundaries will not be the last word. Just as the 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty included exceptional provisions about militarily-desirable sea ports and the Imperial Debt, I'm sure that neither side of a UK oil split would feel restrained from grabbing as much as it can possibly get. My own best guess is that if Scotland gets independence, the English reaction will be along the lines of "if you're going, there's one crucial condition: whether you like it or not, you are going to have to take Northern Ireland with you and we're keeping all the oil". Wars have been (and continue to be) fought over oil, and I just hope that this one never escalates to a shooting match.

But that's all crystal-ball gazing. For now the boundaries are well-enough defined that it's quite possible to objectively determine whether a given oil field is at present legally in Scottish or English waters or both. People can draw from those facts what conclusions they wish about the future, but that doesn't change the facts that the seas are as well-divided as the border at Gretna. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:38, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I guess we have been talking past each other here, while vigourously agreeing about the context! - We agree that there is no dispute that the north sea fields are associated with Scotland waters in some way (that ref. to the set of legislation was quite informative, thanks). Your amusing analogy with the 'Military of Scotland' is a good one - the army has always called the regiments from north of the Border their "Scottish Regiments" probably for just that reason, until some imaginative soul recently decided to call the 6 merged units the "Regiment of Scotland"! (And BTW the 'Military of Scotland' is a completely false category as well, IMHO!) And you are probably right - should the devolved Holyrood government be handed the rights to North Sea oil it will probably be hamstrung in such a way that such revenues that remain are channelled through the Westminster Treasury, either through exploitation rights, distribution licences or some other cunning fee structure. Thus was it everso in the land of oil! I do see the use of the "of" word as being inappropriate at a devolved level in so many of these categories, based on one of the meanings of the word. There have been wars fought over this 8-( It just that somehow WO seems to have developed a dogmatic approach to names using "... of Foo" which, in the interests of tidiness, ignores actual circumstance, when "...in ... " would be so much more accurate. Else, in the interests of accuracy, do we have to put up a health warning with each of these categories - "In spite of the name, this is a category of things which are physically in Scottish territory but are governed & controlled by the UK government" to avoid the cries of "but its ours" from the crowd? Hmmm.

Rgds, Ephebi 14:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, and glad that we seemed to have got beyond talking at cross purposes we weren't really that far apart in our views, were we? :)

I feel a bit guilty that I didn't acknowledge your evident expertise from spending 6 months analysing the drilling licenses and mapping; I felt at the time that you were rather not seeing the wood for the trees, but sorry for being rather rude and pushy. (BTW, what did you do deserve that punishment? It sounds like an alternative to a sentence of breaking rocks, imposed as only on the most hardened of desperadoes! <grin>)

I try to look at a category name as being a bit like a headline: a brief and rough outline of the contents, which has to strike a difficult balance between accuracy and brevity. I guess that an unambiguous category name here might be something like "oil fields in Scotland or in the territorial waters of Scotland as defined by SI No. 1126 of 1999", but that's a long way from the approach urged by WP:NC to "prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature".

To add to the difficulty wrt to oil fields, we have three difft sorts of territorial distinction: a) oil fields within the land area of a country, b) offshore oil fields within internationally recognised territorial waters, c) oil fields within waters claimed by a country as part of its economic zone, but not neccessarily recognised as such by other nations. To accommodate all three without turning the category name into an essay, we can't avoid a certain amount of fuzziness; and while some countries might be manageable with an "Oil fields in foo" category name, that would undermine the consistency which is important to make categories easy to link to.

So I don't see any alternative to putting some sort of brief health warning in the UK categories, as you suggest. I think that we have to be careful to make it clearly neutral, and not to give any impression that it takes a view either way on the claim that It's Scotland's oil.

May I suggest that we discuss possible wordings at Category talk:Oil fields of Scotland? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Paperwork

Glad I could do so, after a heavy week for you! Johnbod 01:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks :) I have rather stepped out my usual safety-zones this week ... --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:39, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Good Job

Thank you for nominating the Tolkein articles. I've been going through many articles on fiction like it trying to get them cleaned up for example my recent AFDs for the myst games. I had just looked at the various Tolkein articles thinking they needed cleaning up and wondered if anyone would ever have the guts to take them on. I also posted a rant on the talk page of WP:Fiction. I find it kind of funny that if you read through the archives originally it was a guideline to help clean things up, but has since been made so vague that it's now an excuse to keep everything. Is it just me or dose it seem like WP:Fiction is moving in a direction counter to other policies. Ridernyc 18:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

It's deja-vu night!

Following on from Category:Rappers currently in prison, which you kindly zapped earlier, I've now noticed another familiar name at the new pages (category section): Category:Fictional drug users, a recreation of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 May 9#Category:Fictional drug users - although I'm prepared to accept it's a good faith recreation (the user's account was only created at the end of May, post-dating your deletion of the category in mid-May). Care to do the honours again, or shall I list it for CfD to see if consensus has changed? Regards, Bencherlite^Talk 23:51, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that one. I have tagged with {{db-repost}}, and unless the creator objects promptly, it'll be on its way soon. I think we can skip the CfD unless there is an objection. --23:58, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Oh, and I saw your closing comment at the rappers about nominators using {{db-repost}} in future. Whether it's because the admins who patrol CAT:CSD tend to overlook the categories or because more knowledgeable admins watch WP:CFD, the rappers category is now gone and salted, whereas one that I used {{db-repost}} on earlier tonight (Category:Colombian men) is, at the time of writing, still waiting for a "speedy" deletion... Bencherlite^Talk 00:03, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Ta, once again! Sorry to bother you with this once again. Bencherlite^Talk 00:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Not to worry, there must have been a bit of backlog. Anyway, I have sent the Colombian men off to the saltmines ;) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

A backlog at CAT:CSD? Whatever next?! Bencherlite^Talk 00:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

The Rivers and Beacon-Hills of Gondor

discussion moved to Talk:The Rivers and Beacon-Hills of Gondor. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I've replied there. I agree that the notability tags at Ósanwe-kenta and The Rivers and Beacon-Hills of Gondor are needed, and will make a note to get around to establishing notability for those. I'm still unsure how helpful "This article needs additional citations for verification" is. In both cases the details of the publications are cited in the body of the article (maybe you are making the common mistake of only looking at the bottom of the article for footnoted citations?). For The Rivers and Beacon-Hills of Gondor: "parts of it were published in Unfinished Tales, and the remaining parts were published in the periodical Vinyar Tengwar, issue number 42 in 2001", and for Ósanwe-kenta: "published in Vinyar Tengwar (39) in 1998". Do you think you could replace the "unreferenced" tag on Ósanwe-kenta with "refimprove", or even replace refimprove on both articles with "fact" tags for the individual bits you think need citing? I'm actually rather surprised at what you tagged as needing citations in The Rivers and Beacon-Hills of Gondor - I added a citation needed tag to the most obvious bit - the third paragraph that is clearly an opinion and needs to be sourced to who said "based on what can be gleaned from this, it seems it is at this point..." etc. In some senses, the citation for the Bibire letter claim is "According to Christopher Tolkien". That is more an incomplete citation that a lack of citation. Hope this helps. I also hope I'm beginning to persuade you that discussing things in details is much better than leaving tags! :-) Carcharoth 09:02, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles closed

The above named Arbitration case has closed. The Arbitration Committee decided that [a]ny user who hereafter engages in edit-warring or disruptive editing on these or related articles may be placed on Wikipedia:Probation by any uninvolved administrator. This may include any user who was a party to this case, or any other user after a warning has been given. The Committee also decided to uplift Vintagekits' indefinite block at the same time.

The full decision can be viewed here.

For the Arbitration Committee, Daniel 08:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. It's a rather skimpy decision and rather short on nuance, but I hope that it will help. I hope that the probation will not have to be used, but it's good to have it available if needed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Erdos number evidence

If you have found evidence which meets the requirements set out at Wikipedia:Reward board#Erdos_number, please post it here. (Note that this reward relates to the CfD debate on Erdős number categories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:01, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Machine learning

Thanks for finding a parent for my orphan. These beauts come up in uncategorized categories pages - these are just a short alphabetic range. Learn something new every day. :-) Carlossuarez46 17:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Always nice to find a home for a lost child :) Well done you for bringing so many of them in off the streets :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

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

Can you take a peek at Dan_Antonioli. There is a copyright violation tag on it and I was just told the article is being deleted. Can you take a peek, and see what the fuss is about? I can't see the article anymore. There were some strong words exchanged last week in the deletion process, and I suspect this may be a continuation of the process to eliminate the article. The argument is now about how much text in the quote function of the citations constitutes fair use under the DMCA. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 22:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

A category you might like, or not...

As a / the leading light in categorization of British MPs, what do you think of Category:London Labour Party Member of Parliament? My initial thought (leaving aside the actual wording / use of a singular etc) is that it'd be overcategorization to group MPs by city and party, and I can't immediately find any parallel categories e.g. at Category:Labour MPs (UK) or Category:Conservative MPs (UK) to change my first impression. Regards, Bencherlite^Talk 02:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I think aaaargh! Strong delete pronto pronto pronto pronto (or rather upmerge).

1. It's a triple intersection (MP/party/city)
2. It's historically ambiguous (London's boundaries have been radically expanded twice in the last 130 years)
3. It will in many cases not be
4. There is general agreement at CfD that MPs are already as heavily categorised, more categories are a bad idea, and that categorisation by location of seat is inappropriate in finer detail than by country. For some MPs this category will simply be a more verbose replacement for Category:Labour MPs (UK), but for MPs who have also represented seats outside London, it's an extra category. In the current parliament that includes a bunch of Conservatives — Malcolm Rifkind, Peter Bottomley and Jacqui Lait — but in the next Parliament it will include Labour's Stephen Twigg and in previous parliaments it has included lots of notable Labour figures such as Ian Mikardo, Hugh Dalton, Brian Sedgemore, and Hyacinth Morgan (that's just a few from memory)

So I think that this orphaned category should be CfDed pronto. I'd be happy to nominate it, but do you want to do the honours? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:22, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to affect your blood pressure so early in the day! I'll nominate it and unashamedly steal your rationale! Regards, Bencherlite^Talk 08:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

As an academic friend of mine says, it's not stealing and it's not plagiarism, it's recycling :) So please go head, do your bit for the environment ... --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:29, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I hope you know this song by Tom Lehrer, which makes the same point? Bencherlite^Talk 08:36, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Friend in Omsk has friend in Tomsk ... yes, I love that song. That's the awful thing about Lehrer: so many wonderful songs that it's hard to select a clear favourite. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:36, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Notability tags

Back at WT:Middle-earth, I've proposed to replace your notability (and secondary sources) tags on Tolkien pages with a single Template:ME-importance or Template:Merge JRRT. Do you agree with the points I set out there? Súrendil 19:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

RAF Gailes article

I noticed someone (not me) removed a non cited source tag on the page. I have added an external link, would this suffice or is more information useful? Douglasnicol 21:36, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

• That looks useful, though multiple sources are usually required for verification and to establish notability. So I have changed the tag on RAF Gailes to {{refimprove}}. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of Geobox categories

I'll do as you suggested and first post my objection at this page though I don't think it's necessary, it's just polite. There are a couple of things around this template (and not only its categorization scheme) which have shaken my respect to the Wikipedia community a great deal. I'm definitely going to raise my objections somewhere, I just I don't not yet what's the best place to get more attention. I've always believed the major aim of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopaedia for the benefit of readers all around the world and that the community around this project believes in fairness, objectiveness and definitely prefers a seeking consesus in all issues. The {{Geobox}} template is a highly versatile template which can be used for virtually any type of geography related data, it's major advantages are consistent, easily parseable, user-friendly data format and a uniform data presentation with a lot of automation (unit conversions, automated locator maps etc.) It doesn't "compete" with other templates, it is not used by its creators to "eat-up" other templates as it is the case of other templates, it is just here and users/editors can decide whether they prefer this template or some other. After some users' request, the auto categorization scheme was started as no-one had come up with a better solution. It's absolutely fair to disagree with it, but these objections should be expressed in a polite and fair way which I'm afraid wasn't the case here at all.

User:Darwinek placed a suggestion (a mere suggestion) on my talk page which I answered. He didn't give any clear reason why he objected to the auto catgorization, just I think these categories shouldn't show up and another user wrote I am sure there is something in WP:MOS/WP:CAT. A bit vague, rather just personal point of view. Anyway, the sugestion got answered. Instead of clearly statting the reasons for the suggestion, this user moved to the Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Question where he made some false statements, not based on anything that was written before, to which User:Francis Schonken repeatedly added abolutely absurd and false accusations (which I believe gave me a good ground to raise an official complaint). Yet at least he/she made the objections to the issue clear. I repeatdly asked anyone to continue a normal discussion where it rightly belonged: Template_talk:Geobox#Auto_categories. Though we (the people around the Geobox) were repeatedly accused of being unwilling to cooperate it was the other way round, the people who objected just made accusations, issued instructions and didn't bother to come up with any solutions or at least suggestions (besides suggesting to ditch the template completely).

I strongly object to:

• Unwillingness to open a discussion (I requested it at least five times) and instead complaining behind everyone's back (I mean the creator's and the users' who requested this functionality and were making use of it.)
• Using absolutely false arguments and strong accusations when those making them obviusly did not understand the topic being discussed.

I didn't want to make fuss about this treatment but I was possibly wrong as it seems this behavior becoming more and more common on Wikipedia.

And you were right there would be strong oppositing to the way how the discussion was closed. As there was obviously no consensus at all. I consider the situation when one user closes a discussion based on their own interpreatation of a debate as a breach of wiki etiquette (and it would be a breach of a discussion anyplace). It was stated good reasons weren't given. How come? What wiki policy is that which would say if a feature which is found useful by many users while not breaking any of basic rules (no personal attacks, NPOV, no bias etc.), not breaking or damaging the ideas on which Wiki is built is bad just because some users are able to browse thru thousands of often contradictory policies and guidelines (which I don't think are binding but a subject of debate and opposition). You state that technical categories such "Artciles needing this or that since October 2006" are OK in the main namespace for the benefit of a reader. Is it a general concensus or a consensus of a few self-proclaimed regulators? Besides, the appropriate page says: "They should at least be acknowledged or marked as self-references but not necessarily be deleted as they serve their purpose here on Wikipedia." I boldified the last section because it seems to explain perfectly what the situation is, these templates are not officially accepted or rejected but just some users think they are useful and so they have the right to be here. I'm definitely not that well acquainted with the thousands of rules and exceptions to these rules but I daresay I know well what the principle of Wikipedia is and that is a peaceful coorperation whose main target is to create a the largest and and free source of information for anyone to use. Those, who add geoboxes to articles, do not place rubbish to their articles but supply them with a lot of neatly organised data. Each Geobox added means a lot of work done. And the categories are highly useful for them. Furthermore, it is not true there was no reason given why the template was useful for a reader, so let me just repeat: it helps the reader find out articles which contain neatly organized geodata about a place (editors don't just add geoboxes with one or two chaotic lines, they fill them with a lot of useful data). Wikipedia is not here for editors but for readers first.

There were couple of views expressed in the debate, some wanted to keep the categories completely, some suggested renaming them so that they didn't contain the word geobox (which I accept was not a good idea at all and should be changed and asked about possible alternative names but as usual got no answers). I suggested I'll make changes to the template that would satisfy both sides but that I need to work out the best solution. No help was given. (Except USer:SEWilco who was the only one who really tried to help and suggested various solutions, thank you very much indeed.) But simply some users' voices mean nothing. I do not think this is the right course for Wikipedia, that so many discussions are flooded by users putting in tens of Wikipedia guidelines and policies rather than discussiing the merit of the thing: does this help improve Wikipedia or not? Adding those categories was not my idea, I did that following a request from other users as it seemed the most elegant solution. I do not personally care much about them but I'm strongly concerned about the free spirit of Wikipedia being damaged by users imposing rules for rules, creating world of their own bound by them, not respecting other views, refusals to discuss things, imposing orders but no viable solutions … – Caroig (talk) 22:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)