User talk:Raul654

For your tireless work in making Wikipedia better, for keeping Template:Feature up-to-date, for doing the grunt work of cleaning up Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, for mediating in disputes, for adding lots of really nice pictures, and for still finding the time to work on articles! In a few months you've already become a highly valued member of the community. Stay with us and don't burn out, please. --Eloquence Apr 10, 2004

For wounds suffered in the battles of Wikipedia, I hereby award you this Purple Heart. May you continue to be a valued contributor to Wikipedia for many years to come. Neutrality 05:22, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Archive 1: August 2003 - July 2004
• Archive 2: August 2004 - July 2005
• Archive 3: August 2005 -

Raul's laws

I'd like to suggest another law, but have so far not found a good wording for it. I am talking about the fact that nobody ever is banned or blocked because of extreme opinions, but many (most? all?) fanatics/monomaniacs/POV pushers eventually get banned or blocked on grounds of behavior. (This does not seem to be due to circumventive tactics on the side of their opponents, but to the fanatic's inability to remain within the limits of civilised discourse whe constantly challenged to defend their views.) What do you think? Kosebamse 11:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I've added a first draft →Raul654 22:07, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

status Schiavo whipped into shape, but with controversial areas...

Mark,

you will find that I have whipped Terri Schiavo back into shape, and she is almost ready to come back from the grave and kick Judge George Greer's butt! In case you wondered how I knew how to navigate these seas, these sites will verify that I almost saved Terri's life in my recent court petition. Yes, I went to court for Terri and almost won:

• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%224-3%22+watts+schiavo
• http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%224-3%22+watts+schiavo&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8
• http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/clerk/disposition/2005/2/03-2420reh.pdf
• http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/2/prweb212613.htm
• http://www.rense.com/general63/shc.htm
• Etc.

...regarding my recent court battles, in which I lost a "next friend" petition to save Terri's life by a 4-3 margin. I did better then the governor, who lost 7-0 both times he was permitted before the court: http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/clerk/disposition/2004/10/04-925reh.pdf

• The most notable area of improvement is the newly added references section.

• Also improved is the addition of a "see also" section.

• I added some missing court battles in re the Oral Arguments and corrected numerous spelling, puntuation, grammatical, and factual errors as well.

Areas of controversy still are present.

• Most notably, a small passage that appears in the Chinese and Spanish wikis, gleaned from an earlier version of the English wiki reads: "The judicial and legislative battles over the removal of her feeding tube spawned considerable media coverage during the last few weeks of her life and sparked a fierce debate over euthanasia, bioethics, legal guardianship, federalism, and civil rights, both in the United States and worldwide." That is factual -uncontroversial -straitforward, and even boring, but it had rubbed some anti-Terri folks the wrong way, with them claiming it was somehow POV or something, so be aware of this. FuelWagon and Neutrality were the major critics, but a recent vote on the issue Talk:Terri_Schiavo/archive32#Distinguishing_one_dispute_from_another here was 4-2 in favor of some version of that passage.

• Also, there has in the past been opposition to me listing any links to stories that I have written. You know that the Wikipedia policy discourages vanity linking, but it does not outright prohibit it. In a few cases, I found that The Register, the paper I used to manage, was the only news media to appear at some Schiavo court functions, and so indicated in the edit comments when editing, in case someone is curious, but the items need to be included.

• Lastly, less lentient, but still important in the world of "vanity" is the fact that I also wrote commentary that stands up there with the other "blogs," and it should probably be included in the "outside links," so I am making my request for you to look this over when I expand that "outside links" section. OK?

Thx,--GordonWattsDotCom 15:17, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Jean Schmidt

Raul,
Thanks so very much for your help with the Jean Schmidt article. I did a bit of editing on the text for the main page, changing it to reflect that she's to be sworn in on the sixth, the day it's to be featured, giving it a bit more immediacy. I left the article itself alone for the moment. Again, thanks for featuring this on our front page. PedanticallySpeaking 16:08, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Protect Request

per my prior post, I request a protect request on Schiavo while we all can look over the disputes. You are welcome to review the page before you protect it: Maybe I inserted something objectionable that needs to come out before it is protected.

by the way, the page -at my last edit (before Wagon removed a small section) was ready to be a featured article candidate AND a featured article -not just a candidate. "Protect Request"--GordonWattsDotCom 16:36, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

• I maybe should reduce my "Red Alert" here to a Yellow Alert because things seemed to have calmed down (maybe Schiavo doesn't need to be protected -yet) The article continues to improve -and is good, except for any (possible?) image copyright issues; I think that length notwithstanding, or mabey BECAUSE of the length, the Terri Schiavo article is excellent.--GordonWattsDotCom 06:53, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you so much for processing my username change!! Happy, happy! :-) - Pete C ^✍ 23:07, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

username change!

hey, thanks alot for chaning my username. means alot to me! CrazySunshine 23:07, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Pan American World Airways - FAC problem (too little attention paid to it)

I have nominated the article for a second time due to the fact that it didn't get a lot of votes or comments (the first time it got one comment and one support vote). However, I have a feeling that this article might get the same amount of attention, if not less, as the first FAC attempt. Do you have any suggestion for this problem? Thanks. Pentawing 23:25, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

• Sorry to bother you on this, but can you suggest anything for the problem? Thanks. Pentawing 01:52, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • This is, unfortunately, not the first time that this problem has occured. (Johnleemk nominated Smile (album) 3 or 4 times before it got enough supports that I was confortable promoting it) There's no magic bullet. Normally, after 5 or 6 days on the FAC, I'd fail that nomination, but I can sympathize with where you coming from, so I'll leave it up there a bit longer than I normally would. Also, you might want to drop a message to user:Taxman or user:ALoan on their talk pages asking them to take a look - I particularly value their opinions. →Raul654 01:59, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

W00000000T!

<3 Iron Maiden.

This message was pointless...

Redwolf24 (talk) 04:07, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for changing my username. I would add a barnstar but "Secretlondon" claims I do it for bribery. V. Molotov (talk) 14:17, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

On second thought, who cares what someone that arrogant thinks.

I, User:V. Molotov hereby give you this Working Man's Barnstar. as you are always willing to go the extra mile to help Wikipedians.

Take care,

V. Molotov

20:26, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

"see also" is deprecated?

I noticed this in an edit comment from you on Terri Schiavo. I don't see any reference to such deprecation in Wikipedia:Manual of Style, nor in the associated talk page. I'd be grateful if you could point me to the relevant discussion - it sounds like important reading. Hv 23:00, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, I don't remember where I first read it. The logic behind it is that if it's sufficiently relevant to merit a mention, it needs to be in made as a prose statement (and not a list); if it's not worth making a prose statement, then it's not worth mentioning. →Raul654 23:28, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

(chiming in) I think sometimes "see also" can be quite useful to highlight a broad article on a related topic, even if it's linked to in the article, but it can also be quite overused as well when linking to more trivial or overly generic things.--Pharos 23:40, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah I'd have to say they certainly can be valuable. I think there are plenty of situations that don't warrant discussion in the article because it is simply not high enough on the priority list to make it in, but the topic is related or similar enough to be valuable as a see also. For ex, something that is covered in a sub article. It's especially valuable for developing articles and less so for FA quality I suppose. For ex, every non fully developed article should have see alsos to every important related topic that is not yet fleshed out in the article. Sorry for the butting in, but I wanted to voice my support of them. Anything that increases the connectedness of the encyclopedia is valuable. - Taxman ^Talk 02:06, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

"...if it's sufficiently relevant to merit a mention, it needs to be in made as a prose statement (and not a list)" It was a prose statement, one that you had approved, but recently FuelWagon has removed that vital introduction: this diff here, the Revision as of 17:15, 30 August 2005. You also may have later removed it, but I don't recall. However, when it was removed and all efforts to restore it were resisted, I put the relevant info in the "See Also" section. I am the one who created that section, and this was the reason why: Relevant related materials should be somewhere in the article. You recall that I left you a message here about this very topic, but the Ghosts of the past now haunt us, because I received no support for this particular repair of the article, back to it's uncorrupted state.--GordonWattsDotCom 14:22, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard

Mark, I have created a new project page at [[]], and user:SecretLondon suggested that I tell my fellow bureaucrats about it. It's designed as a forum where users with bureaucrat rights can discuss difficult situations, either beforehand (for advice about what to do) or after taking action (for review and feedback). It's similar to another page I created, which is starting to catch on (e.g., Jimbo used it this month): Wikipedia:account suspensions, which is not for 3RR or simple vandalism but for close calls and disputed blocks.

Please take a look at these new project pages and give some feedback. Good idea? Bad? Needs improvement? --Uncle Ed 11:55, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Per some of the comments on the talk page there, I'm not really sure it's necessary. →Raul654 22:12, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

Caulfield Grammar School

This article's nomination has lingered in limbo on the Tomorrow's featured article suggestions page since July 20. I figure there must be a reason why it hasn't yet been featured, and this doesn't bother me too much (I could probably guess the reasoning), but if you could give me a quick explanation as to why it hasn't be featured on the Main Page and whether it is likely to be I'd really appreciate it. Don't worry, I'm a realist :) Thanks. Harro5 11:03, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Harro - I actually owe you an apology. I've been meaning to discuss this with you. Long story short - I am unsure whether or not to put that on the main page. People complained when we featured a Vanilla Ninja on the main page in July. I think featuring Caulfield_Grammar_School would cause a (much larger) uproar. Also, I think it would also exacerbate a lot of the tensions surrounding VFD, as well as causing a similiar balkanization on the FAC. →Raul654 19:49, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

That's fine. Thanks for the explanation. I figured some people would get pretty annoyed if another school was featured (eg. feedback: "I went to South Philly High and why isn't it on the main page?" "Yeah, what about my school? It's got an article.") Anyway, I can still have it featured on the Schools Portal and it's still a fine benchmark for other high school articles. Feel free to remove it from the Wikipedia talk:Tomorrow's featured article page if you like. Just drop a note in the edit summary linkiing to this conversation if you wouldn't mind, so others know the reasoning. Thanks again. Harro5 21:29, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

Fairuse

I was wondering, can we use AP Images under the pretext of fair use, or are AP images a no-no? Also, I tried creating an ap templete sample, which can be viewed here, and I was looking for some input on whether or not it would be a good idea to use this. TomStar81 00:08, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

There's no hard and fast rule when it comes to fair use - it always depends on the specific circumstances under which you use the copyrighted picture. There's a checklist somewhere that you might find useful (it asks you questions and you use the answers to judge whether or not your use if fair use). However, I am not sure where it is. →Raul654 15:49, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

What about creating the ap templete? Do you think thats a good idea? TomStar81 19:42, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think so. Quite frankly, I think the last thing we need is yet-another-template. →Raul654 19:46, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

So frank. So Honest. Why can't everyone by more like you? OK, I I'll scrap it. Thanx for the input. TomStar81 19:51, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

what now?

I saw your old comments on the Schiavo page:

Object strongly. Here's the short list of what's wrong with the article: TOCright breaks the manual of style, the TOC (with its 37 sections) is quite overwhelming, the article has no introduction, it has no references section to complement the inline linking, it has a see also section (which should be converted to prose, inserted into the article, and the section deleted), every image used in the article is fair use, and it's 80 kilobytes long and should be shortened and/or broken into subarticles. →Raul654 04:34, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

And the only thing that remains regarding the fitness of the article is your concerns that all the images are fair use. If it would be helpful to get a photo of the grave, I would like to know: I rarely go to the Tampa/St.Pete/Clearwater area of Florida because it is distant and unfamiliar, and (especially considering price of gas), my 1984 Chevy Monte' Carlo doesn't want to make the trip --not counting costs of camera, film, and developing + scanning to upload the image(s) at a Kinko's copy. (I don't have a scanner.)

Costly. Time-consuming. Stressful. Necessary?? What now?--GordonWattsDotCom 15:18, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

The article is still unbelievably long, it has no copyleft compatible pictures, and the external links section is a mess (also, the titles of the references are capitalized, which is a terrible style, IMO) →Raul654 15:46, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

• Article length: I addressed that, here, in the Fac talk page, by comparing the article to another article of good quality.
• Copyright-compatible pictures: I will meditate on this further. It has two sides to it, namely (a) that we are following "Fair Use," and are OK; and (b) that we have "higher standards" for a Featured Article, and must strive to get as little of Fair Use as is possible. (I will think on it...)
• "the external links section is a mess" Huh? I don't understand.
• "the titles of the references are capitalized" Yes, they are, in some cases, because they were capitolized in the original; I am merely being faithful to reproduce what is in the original, but I am "neutral" on the format used. "Either way is OK," that is, we can either display them "as in the original," or we can "make them look 'normal' by using standard capitolization.

--GordonWattsDotCom 16:10, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Not quite DYK, but. . .

Hey Mark, if you get a chance take a look at Pancho Barnes and Happy Bottom Riding Club. I found several interesting facts for these articles, but, alas. . . these are not brand new articles. Could some factlets nevertheless be featured somehow? Or is there a way to get these pages some extra exposure short of FAC? (smile) --avnative 19:57, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

You might want to try wikipedia:Peer review, which is an optional step prior to the FAC. →Raul654 22:10, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

DEAR GOD! MY EARS!

Okay. Image:Marriage_of_Figaro.ogg has to be one of the worst renditions of this piece that I've ever heard. I'm not a huge Mozart fan, but I do enjoy that piece, at least I used to... now, I will never get the mental image of ninja squirrels playing kazoos out of my head. I'm convinced that a half decent rendering from a midi file would be preferable... or maybe I could sorta drum it out in my kitchen using a cheesegrater and a spatula. --Gmaxwell 10:20, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Beggars can't be choosers :)

It might not be the best, but it's the best available for our purposes. →Raul654 17:10, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Request for information of Image:Smith chart.jpg

Hi, Raul654. I request for licence information of Image:Smith chart.jpg because following:

• Smaller version made by MediaWiki's graphic resize engine is copied to ja.wp.
• I thought to copy Image:Smith chart.jpg to commons and delete ja.wp local version.
• But Image:Smith chart.jpg is now {{unverified}}, so I can't copy to commons.

--ja:PiaCarrot 12:18:59, 2005-09-04 (UTC)

I remember extracting that picture from a PDF file, but I cannot remember the source. I have been meaning for some time to replace it with the one from the german wikipedia here →Raul654 17:12, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for information. de:Bild:Smithdiagramm0.PNG seems licensed under GFDL, so I copied it to commons:Image:Smithdiagramm0.PNG. --ja:PiaCarrot 00:07:20, 2005-09-05 (UTC)

Memo

I left a barnstar at my old message on this page in case you might miss it.

V. Molotov

20:28, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Good job, unthanked one!

Raul, I think that you and Fred are doing a good job on arbcom. It is indeed a thankless job, even more so than medcom.

I appreciate the good advice I've gotten from arbcom members about how to be a better admin / bcrat, and I admire the wise and sensible decisions you and all the others have made to settle disputes.

I intend to help you out more in coming months by devoting more attention to the medcom, so incidents don't "skip steps" in Wikipedia:dispute resolution. Uncle Ed 23:27, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome, Ed :) →Raul654 02:34, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

9/11 Conspiracy theories

Mark, if you look at the article you'll see that almost all of the Jewish/Israeli stuff is now duplicated. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:45, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, there is some redundancy now. Unfortunately, that was the inevitable result of collapsing 3 conspiracy articles together. They need a very hefty copyedit now to cure that. →Raul654 03:06, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Most of images are now NOT "Fair Use" in re Schiavo

Mark,

In case you missed it, I fixed the problem on Schiavo by ensuring that MOST of the images (well over 50%) are NOT "Fair Use" by replacing the offending image, and, in it's place, using several others.

(I prove that these are MY images to release under GNU Free Documentation License, by going to special efforts to include a few "extra" pictures depicting me or a sign with my name on it --next to Terri's grave or her former hospice home. That was very hard. Of course, these pics are not useable for the article itself, but they are **mandatory** if someone wants to verify whether or not I stole some pictures under "Fair Use," and I verify my claims on the image pages, as I am required to. What else now, eh?)

I did my part, and accordingly, I posted a message to your friends, Violet Riga, at this permanent link, responding to his recent edit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Violetriga&diff=22595846&oldid=22595787#Our_editors_have_addressed_your_Fac_editor.27s_concerns._What_gives.3F

--GordonWattsDotCom 04:28, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Nobody Believes You, Raul

You slandered me in 2004 by calling me a "troll" and saying that my articles were "far from original". Oh, and I well remember how you "entitled me to my opinion". Let's see, "political correctness is something I despise" and your reference to my supposed "PC pushing" show how tolerant you were of me. Sure, Raul, my only problem with a link to a deviant site solely focused on a private area of Jennifer Love Hewitt's anatomy is that it's "provocative". I'm sure that old close up of Kylie Minogue was really essential for the article to be informative. Oh, and it's also perfectly fair and certainly not a POV to list women's "measurements" but not men's. C'mon, you don't seriously believe this nonsense? I edited out unprofessional, biased garbage from some articles and you lied about me for it. As I said before, if you have a sister, would you want her written about or photographed in that way? People on Wikipedia know too much about this stuff, Raul, so give it up. Case closed. Felix Frederick Bruyns 05:12, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

First, regarding the "far from original" comments, I think you have me confused with someone else. I don't believe I ever made such comments. (If I did, I apologize). I did call you a troll, which might have been a mistake, in the sense that your actions were misguided-but-well-intentioned (well intentioned, I think), whereas a troll's actions are misguided-and-ill-intentioned.

Second, you should be made aware that Wikipedia may contain content you find objectionable, and that Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors. These are not negotiable. If you find you cannot work within those principles, then you should rethink your participation in this project.

Third, you might also want to rethink your tactic of ranting against the people you had bad encouters with last time. It seems to me that you are trying to settle old scores. This will lead to conflicts with long-time users (that, given the facts of your case, you will most likely lose). These are users who are, contrary to what you probably think, not out to get you. I suggest you try editing articles for a while (without, for that matter, resorting to the censorship behavior that caused all the problems last time).

Fourth, I note that your recent work on articles (like your work last time) has been rather good. Amaturish (in the sense that, from reading them, it's clear that you are unaware of our prefereces for formatting) but with the potential to get better. →Raul654 05:36, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

First of sorts

As you know, I want to gun for the dual status FL-FA. Since your the F-Dir, please do let me know the % of prose required for the article to be counted as FA material. Thanks. Awaiting yr response. User:Nichalp/sg 06:18, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

There's no real hard and fast number. When I sit down and look at a featured article, I don't expect to be bombarded by lists (which don't really meet the "Well-written: Compelling, even "brilliant" prose" requirement). If I had to pick a rule of thumb, if more than a third of the article is lists (this includes references), then I think there's a problem. →Raul654 06:46, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try and expand the article and submit it for your approval. The list in this case could be essential to the article. User:Nichalp/sg 07:04, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Your POV Bias, Not Mine

I didn't "censor" Wikipedia in the sense of imposing a point of view on it. Writers like you write everything with a biased point of view. Furthermore, you didn't mention the fact that some very mainstream users agreed with me about the Hewitt and Barrymore articles. Nor did you address my specific points about the blatant POV in those articles. Do you mean to tell me that the Jennifer Love Hewitt link wasn't a POV? Or that if I opposed that vile photograph of Kylie Minogue I was opposing vital information? Are you affirming my sarcastic remarks about the "measurements" bias? Oh, and I'm not trying to "settle a score" with you, Raul. You made dishonest comments about me on the administrative noticeboard. Otherwise, I would have left you alone, period. As a matter of fact, I had just written to Robin Patterson "To Raul654's credit... he has stayed silent.". A few minutes later I found your noticeboard comments. The fact is, Raul, that you'll have to face it: It may be unconscious, but you have the bias, you have the agenda, you have the point of view. Obviously, you're not alone. I can honestly say that if I went through ten articles on certain subjects I could find ten genuine libertarian points of view in each one. If I tried to impose my point of view on Wikipedia (actual censorship, by Wiki's definition), an article on Minogue would focus almost exclusively on her early years and lament the recent ones as tragic exploitation, an article on Barrymore would focus on her terrible childhood and express how that caused her later behavior and an article on Angelina Jolie would emphasize her mental problems and how the ruthless Hollywood machine has profited from them. Those, in fact, are my points of view. But I would NEVER try to change Wikipedia articles to express my points of view. I would suggest that you look over some conventional encyclopedias and compare them with Wikipedia. You will see that all I did was make some Wikipedia articles more like their articles (i.e. without a point of view). I will be honest with myself. I do have a hot temper. Now you be honest with yourself. You do have a bias. Perhaps it isn't conscious, but it is a bias nonetheless and I would ask that you not describe any opposition to it as "censorship", which is a very serious charge on Wikipedia by the official definition and something in which I never have and never will engage. Felix Frederick Bruyns 06:41, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Here's a rule of thumb you should start applying - more facts are better than fewer facts. If you find yourself removing true information from article on the basis that you think it's "POV" or biased (like you did here), then you're probably in the wrong. →Raul654 06:55, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Absurd Logic

If I applied the "more not less" rule, if I were writing an article about a celebrity, I would include every bit of tabloid material (so long as I could confirm it) and if I applied the "true information" part of your response, anything that anyone ever did would be equally relevant to an encyclopedic article. Again, if you want a "rule of thumb", read Britannica, Encarta, Compton's or any other more conventional encyclopedia and see if they do it. If they don't, then it's probably in the wrong. As for the Cary Grant article, all I did was remove some disgusting story that was irrelevant to his overall biography and was unprofessional, if nothing else. That was perhaps the least of my complaints, however, and you still haven't addressed what I said about Minogue and the women actors. Felix Frederick Bruyns 07:34, 5 September 2005 (UTC) ==User Talk Damage== Since you probably dislike me anyway, I know that you won't hold back if this is true. A user named Knowledge Seeker says that I am somehow damaging other people's user talk pages (something about pressing the "enter" key when I shouldn't). Am I causing misalignment on your user talk page? If I am, it's not intentional. Felix Frederick Bruyns 08:48, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for this. I feel flattered. Kosebamse 10:02, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome :) →Raul654 05:25, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Kudos

Mark, as part of my involvement with the asthma article (that you've graciously promoted to FA, thanks) I've been reading the various FA processes and policies. It seems pretty apparent that you're doing an enormous amount of work here. Appreciation of good work is not as often expressed as it ought to be, so I just wanted to say thanks for a job very well done. Rgds—encephalon | ^ζ  10:19:44, 2005-09-05 (UTC)

9/11 conspiracy theories articles

Hi Raul. I completely agree with your massive merge the various 9/11 conspiracy theory articles. However, please see 9/11 U.S. complicity theories, especially the history [1]. There are a handful of editor trying to eliminate the mention of the term "conspiracy theory", leading to an extended period of page moves and a huge number of redirects (and double redirects). I'm not sure how much luck you'd have dealing with this, but I'm out of ideas. Thanks! Carbonite | Talk 16:37, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

featured article lists

Hi - Per the thread above (new topic so you don't have to figure out why "new messages" showed up), I've posted lists of featured articles by year (Wikipedia:Featured articles nominated in 2003, 2004, and 2005) and a revised version of Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations. The list by nominator can be automatically generated from the by year lists, which were partly generated from the FA logs. I noticed in March 2004 mav (and some others) added the featured tag on a whole slew of articles which I've listed as having been "nominated" in March 2004, even though they don't seem to have been done that way (and a relatively high number of these have been defeatured as well). I don't know the history of what happened then. I also haven't listed (can't find) nominators for about 100 or so of the articles. Please let me know any comments you might have on any of this. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:44, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

I think it's pretty nifty :)

To answer your qustion directly, not all featured articles went through the FAC. Check out my response to Paul's question from a couple weeks ago for more detail here.

The edits you are talking about in March 2004 was mav going back and retroactively tagging featured articles with the then newly-created {{featured}} tag. →Raul654 21:01, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Quatermass and the Pit

Hello - as you requested on the article's talk page, I've expanded the lead section of Quatermass and the Pit to include some details of what the serial is actually about. I hope it's what you're looking for - if not just drop me a note and I'll have another go. Angmering 19:39, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Pic of the day

Hi Marc,

Just to let you know that your photo Image:Wfm stata center.jpg is due to make a reappearance as Pic of the day on the 9th September. I've reused the caption from last time, but you can make any changes at Wikipedia:Picture of the day/September 9, 2005 (nice one by the way, but then I'm biased towards architecture...). -- Solipsist 21:33, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

You are mistaken.

you are the one that is mistaken. please read the policy guide lines and take some time to think about what a wiki is and what is required to get along with tohers and work cooperatively. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 21:53, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Ok, since you claim that such a policy exists, please cite it (with specificity). I want to see exactly where it says that a vote is required in order to merge two articles. →Raul654 21:56, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

then read it. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 21:57, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Which policy? You haven't actually answered my question. Please provide a link to said policy that you claim exists, that requires a vote in order to merge articles. →Raul654 22:04, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

I am protecting the page from vandalism. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 21:57, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

I'm reporting you for violation of the three revert rule, and unprotecting the page. →Raul654 21:59, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Raul, after listening to Sasquatch's outside opinion, I am going to unblock User:Kevin baas, provided that he not edit any of the disputed pages. I feel that this is a good example of following WP:IAR; I don't see the need to keep him blocked for 24 hours as long as he doesn't touch those pages. I urge both of you to reconsider your options next time and not become locked in a bitter revert war. Sound fair to you? Thanks for your understanding. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 23:45, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Poll

Hello Raul. As the guy with power to loose and to bind on FA noms, your opinion would be especially valued at Wikipedia_talk:Be_bold_in_updating_pages#Poll? JDG 23:03, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Jeez, well that backfired. Would you take a look at the poll again and reconsider in light of my comment inline with your vote? JDG

Be Bold / FA changes

Can I ask you to pull back that change to "Be Bold" for the time being? The guideline is applicable to an outgoing, heated editing dispute that's led to an RfC, and user:JDG, who solicited your input, has been trying, for the second time this year, to change the guideline while a dispute to which it applies is running. That's why the page was protected and poll begun. Monicasdude 01:04, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I didn't realize it was protected. I've gone ahead and removed it and posted a comment on the talk page to that effect. However, if no one actually disagree with the change in 24 hours, I'm going to unprotect the page and add it back (and consider the dispute resolved) →Raul654 01:14, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's 24 hours. Is Mdude's objection going to keep you from adding it back?... His characterization of the situation is of course completely misleading. The page was protected due to his never-ending revert warring. In case you don't know, this user has been causing severe problems for many other editors since he registered this name last May. Please see Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Monicasdude. Also, I would like to know what is wrong with soliciting input. You make the same error on the RfC, Mdude. You seem to think there's something underhanded about alerting people to a dispute, with a view to getting their opinions. There isn't. JDG 03:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Good work

Thanks for your compliment, I really appreciate it. You do great work too. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:46, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Popups tool

Congratulations on being made a bureaucrat! I thought you might like to know of a javascript tool that may help in your editing by giving easy access to many admin features. It's described at Wikipedia:Tools#Navigation_popups. The quick version of the installation procedure for admins is to paste the following into User:Raul654/monobook.js:

// [[User:Lupin/popups.js]] - please include this line 

document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="' 
             + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lupin/popups.js' 
             + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');

popupAdminLinks=true;

Give it a try and let me know if you find any glitches or have suggestions for improvements! Lupin 02:34, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Suburbs of Johannesburg

Hey there, sorry to bother you, but I was just wondering if Suburbs of Johannesburg could be promoted off the FAC. It has three support votes and one inactionable oppose, and has been on FAC for nearly 20 days. Thank you! Páll ^{(Die pienk olifant)} 18:26, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism

You seemed to have rather strong feelings and notability and the complete lack-there-of so I figured you might want to partake in voting if not the debate. If not ignore this. gren グレン 20:36, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Re: Schiavo Fac nom.: I told you so

Mark, (and I shall cross-post it to Violet Riga’s page -and the Schiavo talk and nomination pages)

As the Terri Schiavo nomination was being considered, I hinted (and may have outright said??) that its nomination would actually increase stability (even though you thought that the article was indeed moderately stable at some point).

However, the lack of nomination has de-stabilized it. All out edit warring and a PAGE LOCK has now occurred. ~~ I told you that the article should have been nominated -and accepted -I told you so. (No offense meant.)

Here, to prove my allegations that the "Front Page" status would stabilize it are these diffs:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Template_messages/Maintenance&diff=22810758&oldid=22664771#Protections

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Template_messages/Maintenance&diff=22812630&oldid=22812588#New_template

In these diffs, the creation of a new template to handle this problem has been suggested and -even after much exposure -not opposed -and why should they be? Since it is fair to "lock" images on the front page, why not articles as well -to avoid, for example, pornographic or foul language vandalism.

Anyhow, I wanted to give the article time to be reviewed, but now I regret my decision to wait: It was ready for Fac status, but now it is sliding in the opposite direction -and the edit warring was due in large part to FuelWagon, who has, in the past, opposed clear concensus -and, yes, I provide the diffs to verify my allegations.

The page is locked, and (other than one over-worked admin who has a second job AND college classes), NO HELP IS IN SIGHT.

I made blood sacrifices (literally, due to the energy/stress expended) to obtain a relevant "references" section and non-Fair-Use images and clean up the article.

This problem happened on your watch: Help.--GordonWattsDotCom 21:17, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

My proposed solution:

• My proposed solution would be to do this, and in this order:

1: Re-Nominate Terri Schiavo, a sentiment shared by many.

2: Feature it as a Featured Article.

3: Lock the images with the existing tools.

4: Lock the article with "Gordon's Tool," the newly created template, shown at the diffs above.

5: Grab a cold one, most preferably non-alcoholic, and relax for a well-earned rest.

--GordonWattsDotCom 23:02, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Could you remove the vfd on Sam Sloan

Unless there is some other process..., could you remove the vfd on Sam Sloan? It seems that the "keep"s won. User:PhilipO sez that only admins are supposed to remove the vfd.

Terri Schiavo FAC

Gordonwattsdotcom renominated Terri Schiavo for FAC. It's protected due to edit warring, which means it definitely going to fail. Please remove it- it's only going to end really badly. I'm concerned that tempers might flare. Borisblue 17:51, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Boris Blue means well, and there is a strong sentiment against Terri Schiavo, but please take note of the fact that nomination was not my idea at all -it was the idea, principally of Neutrality and also to an ancillary degree, others -and this was back in the 1st and 2nd peer review. The article had improved then -and it had improved even more with the combined efforts of your editing, my various contributions, and help from others, such as Fuel Wagon and Ann Heneghan, etc.

While I know you want to bend to peer pressure, doing what is right and not accepting nonactionable requests, is more important -principal.

If you and the wiki-gods want to delete my nomination, even though Nichalp has assured me that it is policy to let me nominate (hinting you would violate policy), I will not make "legal" arguments, only common sense ones:

If you want to do what is probably wrong and not feature an article that was good and is now better, I will not vigorously oppose you -so long as you and the colleague decision-makers review the evidence I've laid out in my rebuttal.

I get a rebuttal, don't I -or is life really unfair?--GordonWattsDotCom 19:58, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Girl page layout edits

Hi there -- can you please explain your recent edits simplifying the page layout on girl? Is there a style guide that I'm not aware of that advises against efforts to reduce wierd-shaped white spaces? Thanks in advance for helping to educate me as a relative newcomer. Mamawrites 22:40, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Your solution didn't look bad in my browser actually, but (as a general rule) you want to avoid html and complex table layouts (like you had) because (a) they tend to break on some browsers, and (B) while they might look good on Wikipedia, they tend not to transfer well to other wikis. →Raul654 00:41, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Image:Xenu space plane.jpg

Something very strange going on with this image's coming's and going's. A couple of us tried several times and thought the problen was fixed, it isn't. The image is intermittently on the Main page, Article page and edit previews without any edits going on. At first there seemed to missing end brackets but that all seem in order now. Any ideas? hydnjo talk 04:02, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Almost certainly an issue with the image server. Give the devs some time to iron it out. →Raul654 04:07, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Fine, it was getting frustrating. I'll leave it be. Thanks, hydnjo talk 04:11, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure there's nothing you can do about it, so there's little sense in getting frustrated. →Raul654 04:13, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Main page lead-in

Needs to be changed to reflect your latest edit to the article. Although space opera is bolded "Scientology" precedes it and will no doubt be the article link first picked by some (me). hydnjo talk 04:32, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

That wasn't me - that was actually Lowellian who made that change. I have reverted and told him basically what you just said - that the first linked term needs to be the featured article. →Raul654 04:40, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

YELLOW Alert: Main page img blank

Mark,

I'm keeping your pg on my watchlist, I nocice the front page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page here has a blank image for the Scientology plane, and since you're the admin apparently involved, I am giving you the heads up. (PS: A lot of people think Scientology was involved in Terri Schiavo's death, but I hold no opinion, since I don't know for sure, what a coincidence, hmm.)

Anyhow, on the Schiavo matter, thx for keeping an open mind; If you want a "Natural buzz," just read the Schiavo Fac page twice -I'ts picking up SUPPORT vote(s) as we speak.--GordonWattsDotCom 04:48, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

About the blank image - look up two threads, at hydnjo's comment and my response. →Raul654 04:50, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not expert, but the "HTML" "wiki" code on the front page looks ok -thx for the response, and good luck & buen suerte.--GordonWattsDotCom 04:54, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

• PS: In addition to the building support (not that it makes a difference) in my FA nom., please be advised that at least one user has admitted to not having studied the Nominations page before voting!

• Ow! Here's the diff: [2] (Revision as of 05:06, 10 September 2005). Cheers.--GordonWattsDotCom 05:10, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism on the main page for Fac

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates&diff=22962113&oldid=22961898

Is this appropriate?

1st: If there is sporadic opposition like there is now, even though there are beginning to be positive votes and positive reviews -and people working on fine details -should a candidacy be prematurely removed?

2nd: If the Schiavo nomination should fail, I would like an explanation from you, because you are the decision maker here, not the other editors: If their votes are non-actionable (that is, already addressed or nonsense), then you can and should ignore them. You bear responsibility for your decision, not the others who are voting on this:

• If you feel that concensus should be followed here, please tell me so

• However, if the Fac nomination by you is made on merit, then I would like to know the specific reasons for failing it -Pack Mentality does not count, unless you are bound by rules to follow the pack (concensus), but if that is the case, I would like a cite on the Wikipedia policy.

I am sure this must be trying to you, but view it as a "test" of your skills: Since ALL of your objections have been answered in the re-nomination (Eg "Once the objections have been addressed, you may resubmit the article for featured article status"), then I would expect, to be fair, either a Featured Article -or an explanation.

Thx,--GordonWattsDotCom 08:08, 10 September 2005 (UTC)