User talk:Bobak

Welcome to my talk page!

Please add new comments to the bottom of the page.

Something regarding my Photos? You're welcome to look/comment at my Photo Gallery's talk page.

Don Clark

I've just added some more info, clearing up the issue of his family/business connection. MisfitToys 21:05, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Image:09-02-06-OriginalWaltons.jpg

Could I upload your image to the Wikimedia Commons?
Best regards, Yuval Y • Chat • 20:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I've uploaded your image and it has almost the same text as you wrote here. Yuval Y • Chat • 19:31, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Lil Tokyo images

Good work! falsedef 07:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: Editor review request

Hello, I noticed you've participated in RfAs, and I'm trying to get some feedback on "my Editor Review" (which is sort of like a pre-RfA/overall performance opinion) from admins/editors with experience. I wouldn't normally solicit, but it appears Editor Review doesn't get nearly the attention RfA does (and understandably so). Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading. --Bobak 06:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Your answers to the questions are wordy but they don't actually say very much. Can you please provide diffs to examples of conflict and how you resolved it and pick out what you think are your best contributions to Wikipedia? I can start to form an opinion when I have some evidence to start my research. (aeropagitica) 13:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Editor review

Sure, I'll check your editor review right away. Lately there has been a really huge number of editors requesting reviews, that's why they're not getting the amount of feedback they were supposed to. Regards.--Húsönd 20:12, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Compton

Very nice photos! Postoak 02:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Long Beach, California

I think that it is great that you are adding historic photos to many Wikipedia articles. I do, however, have a comment about a specific photo (Image:LongBeach-oilfield-1920.jpg) which you added to the Long Beach, California article. I recognized the photo from looking at the LAPL website almost two years ago. According to the description page at the LA Public Library, it specifically says "date unknown" and "Date ca. 1920; 1930s." Since oil was discovered in the area on 25 June 1921, it can't be from 1920, as you wrote in the description. That also leaves only a 18 month window for the cutoff date of 1 January 1923 for the public domain tag that you used, while the photo might be from late 1922 through possibly 1927-8.

Also, I have a book on Signal Hill history. It turns out that photo is actually from the Cresent Heights area of Signal Hill. The book has a much crisper and cleaner version of the photo than what is on the LAPL website, so I may try to look for the same photo on the Library of Congress website.. ^BlankVerse 10:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

When I first started uploading a few images to the Wikipedia, I'd seen so many abuses of fair use that I decided that I wouldn't use that as a justification for any of my image uploads except for logos. Since then the Wikipedia has greatly tighted up its Wikipedia:Fair Use policy, mostly for the same reason.

For the Long Beach oil field photo, I think that it shouldn't be too hard to find a pre-1923 replacement, although probably not as densely populated with oil derricks, nor as dramatic with the oil gusher.

[I've seen a nighttime photo of an oil rig fire (I think it was at the local McDonald's which has a bunch of old Signal Hill photos on the walls} that'd I'd like to find and get a print of—both the LAPL and Library of Congress will make prints of their photos.]

The problems that I found with many of the descriptions on the LAPL website for the photos that I was most interested in for use on the Wikipedia is one of the reasons that I decided that the Library of Congress website was a better choice. For example, look at the description of Image:Signal Hill.jpg from the LOC website. The copyright is May 1, 1923. However, it's usable on the Wikipedia because for copyright up until I think the 70s, the copyright had to be renewed after a certain number of years (25 years?). The LOC description says that the copyright for that photo was not renewed, so it is in the public domain.

BTW: You may be interested in this article: LA Times: A site worth 70 million words: If a picture is worth a thousand, that's the value of the 70,000 historical images on the L.A. library's website. Also, it looks like the LA Times also goes data-mining at the LAPL (see this webpage). ^BlankVerse 05:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

One section I thought was very interesting at the LOC was their collection of Panorama photos. When I first found them, I couldn't see any easy way to use them except doing a crop of the photo like I did for the one I used in the Signal Hill article. Recently I've seen seen a few panorama photos that have been put into a scrollable box, which makes the whole photo usable in a Wikipedia article. See Santa Catalina Island, California for one example. I also uploaded a few images from their North Africa collection because I know that articles on African topics have even fewer photos than North American articles. ^BlankVerse 06:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

PS: I don't know if you have it on your watchlist, but I updated the description for Image:LongBeach-oilfield-1920.jpg. (Another problem with the LAPL website is that although you can get a permanent link for the image that you use, I haven't figured out a way to get a permanent link to the image's description.)

Awesome Photo!

Hey buddy,

I stumbled across this photo while reading the article on the USC Trojans, and I must say I am quite impressed. Good job! —Lantoka ^{( talk | contrib)} 13:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Do you go to USC? If so, fight on! —Lantoka ^{( talk | contrib)} 13:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for the compliment. Yes, I graduated from USC in 2000 with a bachelors in International Relations (and the U. of Minnesota in '05 with a JD). There are small but determined number of us Trojan Family Wikipedians. --Bobak 17:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

That's awesome dude. I'm also pursuing a major in International Relations (with a minor in Spanish). We'll see where it takes me, although honestly sometimes I wonder if the B.A. that says USC on it is more important than the major. ;) Congrats on the J.D.! —Lantoka ^{( talk | contrib)} 21:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Did you know?

On 7 December, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Naftalan, Azerbaijan, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 15:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Congrats, Bobak. You did an outstanding job, as usual. Grandmaster 17:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Image:PeteCarroll-USC-mediaguidephoto06.gif

Hey Bobak . There is a lively debate about use of promo photos on wikipedia. My name is Jeff and I Do not support the interpretation of WP:FU as implemented by user's like User:Chowbok. They believe that Wikipedia should be free of all promotional photos that are "replaceable with an equivalent" (i.e. an amateur photo from flickr). Their rationale is being debated in many places, and take it a step further believing that all promo photos should be deleted and let someone else deal with finding and uploading a free alternative.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fair_use specifically this thread
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Chowbok
• Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Chowbok
• User:Chowbok/Robth's_RFU_Explanation
• Image_Talk:Jennifer Granholm.jpg

And many other places I've no doubt missed.

I and many others who support use of fair use promotional photos have not been successful in changing the actions of Chowbok and rampant deletion and changing of many hundred's of useful images from Wikipedia articles continues. One good example is the Jennifer Granholm article which had a great promo photo replaced by a terrible photo. I seek to raise the profile of this issue through challenging promotional photos on high profile article's like this one. I'm sorry, really I am, but fair use policy as implemented by Chowbok has left me with few viable options.

I invite you to join the battle for Promotional Photo usage on Wikipedia and the protection of Fair Use concepts. --Jeff 08:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of your comment

Hi, thanks for your message. I looked at the edit and can't figure out either why I did that. However it happened, it wasn't intentional on my part and I'm sorry if it left you confused, because I'm confused too. Glad you caught it. Badagnani 22:26, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Re:Thanks for the feedback

I will be glad to support you. Grandmaster 05:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

An Idea

You should see if you can get a USC-related photographed featured. The campus is packed with great architecture and beautiful sights. – Lantoka (talk) 07:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

DYK

On 19 December, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Yerazi, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Yomangani^talk 13:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

RFM request (self added)

The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to Example. As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. The process of mediation is voluntary and focuses exclusively on the content issues over which there is disagreement. Please review the request page and the guide to formal mediation, and then indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you, [signature]

Request for Mediation

A Request for Mediation to which you are a party was not accepted and has been delisted. You can find more information on the mediation subpage, Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Mark Sanchez. For the Mediation Committee, Essjay (Talk) This message delivered by MediationBot, an automated bot account operated by the Mediation Committee to perform case management. If you have questions about this bot, please contact the Mediation Committee directly.

This message delivered: 16:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC).

Your article, John G. Downey, was selected for DYK!

On December 23, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article John G. Downey, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Thanks for your contributions! (this one was a bit dicey, it arguably wasn't a stub before but what the heck) ++Lar: t/c 23:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Your article, Isaias W. Hellman, was selected for DYK!

On December 24, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Isaias W. Hellman, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Thanks for your contributions! ++Lar: t/c 06:35, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Thank you for experimenting with the page University of Minnesota Law School on Wikipedia. Your test worked, and it has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you may want to do. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Bushcarrot (Talk·Desk) 17:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I apologize. I wasn't paying attention, and I clicked the rollback link. I reverted the article to your version. Thank you for pointing that out. Bushcarrot (Talk·Desk) 18:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh i guess it was a bot. Anyway, your latest edit doesn't improve the article, in fact, it reverts to misspellings and deletes relevant info and goes against wiki-convention. If you can improve on it, you should do so now, or leave the changes and improve upon them later. Taco325i 18:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• to be specific i mean the following: section titles are always in lower case unless it's a proper noun. some of your edits contained POV statements. the school has alot of notable alumni, it should be listed, you'll see that you won't find another school with so many alumni listed in paragraph form. you deleted notable faculty, which takes away from relevant info.Taco325i 18:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

2006 Insight Bowl

Yes, I was thinking of nominating it, and I was asking for feedback. I didn't even see the game because I don't have cable right now; I used Internet reports to create the article. If anyone wants to improve the article, go right ahead! — Dale Arnett 21:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Unblock request

((unblock-auto|1=208.54.15.1|2=cplot vandalism, apologies for any collateral damage on this range:|3=Dmcdevit))

This range is used by Starbucks (in conjunction with T-Mobile) for its wifi network. --Bobak 20:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Bobak, I tried to replace this block with one which only impacts new account creation and anon IP edits, but I've never tried that (or working with range blocks) before so I'm not sure if it will unblock existing accounts as I intended. Please reply here if you still can't edit. I'll leave the unblock request in place for now in case I've got it wrong and someone with more experience on these stops by. --CBD 22:06, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope, you got it. Let us know if you have any further problems editing. Luna Santin 22:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Editor review

Thanks for having requested an editor review. A month has passed since it has been posted there, and it has been archived. You can find it at Wikipedia:Editor review/Bobak, where you may read last minute additions. We would really appreciate your help in reviewing a random editor. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 08:00, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Image:01;2007-PanamintRange.jpg

Please can yon give more precisions of the location of this photo according to categorize it? Thanks.--Alexandrin 10:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

An article which you started, or significantly expanded, Darwin Falls, was selected for DYK!

On January 14, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Darwin Falls, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Thanks for your contributions! Nishkid64 15:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Reverting deletion of ranking info from law school articles

Hey man., could use your help in reverting the edits made by 75.69.241.162 to the law school articles. I noticed that you caught some of that as well. "I am not forming a legal relationship with any of you bastards." ahahha awesome. -Taco325i 19:33, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Recent block of IP 280.54.15.1

You were recently blocked from editing by a block of 208.54.15.1|. An admin CBD metnioned T-Mobile Hotspots regarding the block. We've been trying to determine which IP addresses are used for T-Mobile Hotspots. Were you indeed using a T-Mobile Hotspot? Or were you connecting through some other T-Mobile network? Again, we're just curious as we're trying to document this better for consideration of the collateral damage in blocking various IPs. Thanks for any help you can offer. --ChilledToTheBone 09:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the informaiton. That's just what I was wondering. A group of editors who use T-Mobile Hotspots started trying to raise awareness about that at various places on Wikipedia ([1], [2]) and Wikimedia ([3], [4]). Administrators are very fixated on open proxy servers because those are usually used to achieve complete annonymity and engage in illegal activity (whatever those laws may be around the world). The administrators also seem to have some small awareness of dynamic IP assignments that change frequently and after shor durations. However, they don't seem to understand RFC 1918 - private networks used by T-Mobile Hotspots, where T-Mobile uses just a few IP addresses to fun private networks of hundreds of thousands of other private IP addresses. We were not trying to stop them from blocking the IPs, but rather to get them to understand that the consequences are bigger than they think.

208.54.95.129, 208.54.95.1, 208.54.15.1, 208.54.15.129 are the involved IPs we know of so far. There may be others, but we don't think T-Mobile is using that many public IP addresses for its network of over 9,000 accesss points. If you'd like to help us raise awarenes, we would appreciate it greatly. Also if you discover any other IPs while at a T-Mobile Hotspot, please let Steve Tinsky know. Thanks. --Xenocentrist 03:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

You might also want to know that this is the latest Cplot sock... SirFozzie 01:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• The guy talking to you is the one at fault for the blocks, actually. He's a sockpuppet of the banned User:Cplot, and the IPs were blocked because of his use of them for dozens upon dozens of sock accounts that do nothing but insult and attack people. These messages are just a bunch of trolling. --tjstrf talk 01:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

First, to learn about the Cplot sockpuppets see the village pump history. There you'll see that any blocks related to the Cplot sockpuppets are definitely not Cplot’s fault (nor the Cplot sockpuppets for that matter, but instead the inappropriate acts of a group of editors, administrators and checkusers who are alleged to be US Government officials acting unconstitutionally; nothing like taking an oath to uphold, but instead subvert).

Regardless tjstrf, you're not making much sense here. This very large T-Mobile range was blocked only after editors tried to raise awareness about this issue. So after several editors provided administrators with information that T-Mobile hotspots were using just a few IPs for very large private networks, a very irresponsible CheckUser administrator blocked the entire T-Mobile range (not just the Hotspots). And if the Checkuser administrator pulled his head out of his ass he would have noticed that Cplot sockpuppets were only using a few IP addresses (208.54.95.129 and 208.54.95.1, etc?) out of this very large range. Regardless, the only justification for blocking a large range like that would be if the Cplot sockpuppets were being dynamically assigned IP addresses out of that range. If you listened to these T-Mobile editors you would have learned that that's not the case. The only blocks needed, if any (since they're only needed for corrupt purposes), are just a few specific IPs and not the whole range. Again, way to much suppression of important information is going on: information needed for responsible administrators and checkusers to do their work effectively (and without unnecessary collateral damage) --Xenocentrist 03:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed

I removed the trolling on this page by Cplot per WP:SOCK. --Wildnox(talk) 03:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Luck? Yeah, that would be nice. Luck like him contracting really sudden arthritis so that he couldn't type would be ideal. On the plus side, there are now a bunch of people watchlisting your user talk page who can now stalk you forever help you if you need it. :-P --tjstrf talk 08:30, 17 January 2007 (UTC)