User talk:John Broughton

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I'm bewildered

How does the administration system actually work here? I requested a Mediation Cabal case on the Lyndon LaRouche article over two months ago, and it hasn't gotten off the ground. I also put notices on the BLP and COI boards, as you know. This article is a mess -- it has everything wrong with it. I give you credit, John, for being the only person to respond at all. I note that you warned Dking about personal attacks, and that you added a helpful note to the COI board entry, despite the fact that you evidently don't like LaRouche (which should, of course, not be a consideration anyway.) I am a relative newby at Wikipedia, and my question is, why have these noticeboards, if nothing happens? Am I not following procedure correctly? --Tsunami Butler 15:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your response. --Tsunami Butler 00:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

John, if you are interested in this case, we at the Mediation Cabal would be very grateful if you volunteered to mediate it. --Ideogram 05:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Bush Twins/Al Gore III

John Broughton left this message on my talk page: Political tit-for-tat is, in all probability, a violation of WP:POINT. As Kaldari said, the solution to a problem in one article is not to create a problem in another, as retaliation; it's to fix the problem, and to request help if you're not able to do that alone. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 05:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what you are talking about. I have not been engaging in "political tit-for-tat." Does this repeat of what Kaldari said change things? I don't think so. Have a good day!--Getaway 13:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Pablo Ganguli

Why are you still trying to publish an article on Pablo Ganguli? He created one and it was deleted as a piece of self-promotion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Pablo_Ganguli

And now another one has come up! Wikipedia should not be a showspace for self-publicists. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.121.200.9 (talk) 13:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

To respond to what you just said:

• No, I'm not "still trying" to publish an article; I was not involved in any of the earlier efforts to crate such an article (in fact, I voted in the AfD to delete the article as it was in November).
• And now another one has come up! Yes, I'm quite aware one has come up again - I played a large role in creating it. (If your statement was simply intended for effect, rather than trying to communicate information, I apologize for missing your point.)
• He created one and it was deleted as a piece of self-promotion; Wikipedia should not be a showspace for self-publicists.: If there is a Wikipedia policy that says that an article, once created for bad reasons, can never be created again, please point that policy out, and I certainly will admit I violated it. Otherwise, I'm going to continue to believe that each effort to create an article should be evaluated on its own. (If I had been involved in an early effort to create the article, perhaps it would be reasonable to suspect bad faith, but that is a counterfactual - as I said, I was not involved in creating any previous version, and don't know anyone who was involved in such earlier versions.)

More to the point:

• The article underwent a deletion review before being re-established, and an admin decided it was acceptable to re-establish: - see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 January 8 The admin who closed the most recent AfD as a delete chose not to participate in the DRV, and another admin (above) has said that he agrees that the article, as it now reads, is quite acceptable. If you have problems with Wikipedia processes by which article deletions are reviewed, I recommend taking the matter to Wikipedia talk:Deletion review.
• As hard as it may be to believe, I got involved in creating a new and improved article on the subject because another editor convinced me that there really was a "there" there; no of the research and writing that I've done since has persuaded me to change my mind that in fact this is a worthy article to have in Wikipedia.
• If you believe that the article, as it now, with 19 notes/references and five external links, somehow fails WP:N, please let me know exactly why. And if there are unsupported statements in the article, or wording that violates WP:NPOV, please let me know that as well; I'll be happy to do what I can to fix anything that needs fixing -- John Broughton (☎☎) 21:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Posting by User:69.76.46.169

all the sources to eusebius and africanus and Septuagint are all here in wikipedia and apparently youre too stupid to link it as you read it or too lazy to go look thru Wikipedia to find it and see its there. You know-it-alls are like those who negligently built the dykes of new orleans, you should die with the victims who did in new orleans when you negligenlty take any structural matter into your hands, your wives and children should right before your eyes due to the evil in your atitude to correct. You killed Jesus beacuse you think you correct his behavior. Your turn is coming soon, watch your back, God is there. 03:23, 3 February 2007 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.76.46.169 (talk • contribs)

Response from User:Noclevername

Thank you for responding.

I wish to clear up a miscommunication: my reference to "defensiveness" was referring to the tone and content of his posts, and was not intended as a personal remark. If Dreadlocke has also made this mistake, I believe that may be why he kept referring to me as "commenting on [him]". I will attempt to convey this information to him, and apologize for being unclear. Thank you for providing an outside point of view; sometimes that's all it takes ;).

-- Noclevername 06:14, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your (second) response. I did not realize that one seemingly harmless word could cause so much trouble (although Dreadlocke had been at me about percieved "insults" since before I posted that comment). I will try to be more careful in the future. Noclevername 07:04, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

John, thanks so much for your sensitive handling of this situation. I used WP:NPA to deal with what I perceived to be an aggressive, continuing and worsening series of comments by Noclevername about the contributor (me) and not the content - this is the main point of NPA: "This page in a nutshell: Comment on content, not on the contributor." That sort of commentary was exactly what I was trying to nip in the bud before it could possibly become a serious violation of that policy. I always try to WP:AGF, but when someone starts of by saying "that's just your opinion" and accuses me of making "lofty proclamations" - which to me dismisses my opinion - then follows up with a series of rather derogatory comments about me (the contributor), well let's just say that the discussion started off with what I perceived to be an insult...then deteriorated from there.

I would just like to make it clear that I was not falsely accusing anyone. Essentially, I was asking for Noclevername to quit making negative comments about the contributor - which I believe to violate the spirit of Wikipedia NPA policy on that regard - and I don't think commenting on the contributor has any valid point to make - unless you're pointing out uncivil or personal attack behavior. I felt his remarks were dismissive of my own views, and I do not think such commentary adds any value to an argument. I just don't see the purpose in continuing to make comments along those lines.

However, I do agree that I could have handled it more diplomatically and applied more good faith. I will make peace with Noclevername and we'll hopefully edit in good faith, making Wikipedia articles so much the better! Dreadlocke ☥ 07:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Seeking your advice on survey help

Hi, John. I seek your advice on this request to place an online survey link posted at the Village Pump (assistance). Thank you for your reply. --WikiInquirer 06:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC) ^{[talk to me}

Thank you for your very swift reply and your help. My sample size is 200-300 respondents. --WikiInquirer 07:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC) ^{talk to me}

Thank you very much, John, for the good advice. It feels very comforting to know that I have some help/guidelines here to follow. I'm gonna check back here with you soon because I have tied down my list of survey questions with my professor. <erased my email address> Mighty thanks --WikiInquirer 08:15, 3 February 2007 (UTC) ^{talk to me}

Hi, John. I have sent my survey details to you by email. =) --WikiInquirer 16:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC) ^{talk to me}

First Amendment

Under the 14th amendment, the US Supreme Court has expanded the freedom of speech and expression to the states and to all groups. The photos are permitted because it is needed to show the event that occured. The side against the photos have not proved they are biased.

WikieZach| talk 20:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Please inform me of how i may comment on the page. WikieZach| talk 20:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Violations of policies

Please cite exactly which part of my comments broke these policies instead of wholesale asscusation of the violation, point by point - if you dont mind. I followed Wikipedia's rules and stated the obivious, I have not made personal attack to any particular person by name - WP:NPA is out of the question here, as for WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL, neither applies to my comments since it was not an uncivilised comments although it may have been a rather brute assestment of the reality. so if you truly believed that I have broken these policies, please educate me where and how precisely. Okkar 22:11, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Index and notes

Thanks so much for your note on my talk page, I really appreciate your fair-mindedness. And I really, really like your index! Wow! It's so comprehensive, and the amount of work that must have gone into it is incredible!

It's a new and strange experience for me to have a new editor like Noclevername give me advice to "keep my cool" - the first person to actually tell me somthing like that, and I'm known for my civility! [1] This is my third year editing Wikipedia, and I'm approaching eight thousand edits. Something new every day, I tell ya!

Nice to meet you, John! I hope we get the chance to work together again! Dreadlocke ☥ 23:11, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of the index, which I also like, this makes me realize there is no built-in indexing feature in MediaWiki. Such a feature would be nice to have. For example, I would like to automatically generate index pages for all the (main namespace) articles categorized under some particular category. As I'm sure you know, this sort of thing is taken for granted in technical publishing software such as DocBook (see Making an Index). Has there been any discussion of adding indexing tags to MediaWiki? I looked on John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia/Credits and further work but there seems to be no summary of background discussion that may have motivated the indexing effort. I did a cursory Google search on Meta without finding much. This might be semi-related: m:Help-style indexing. --Teratornis 20:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

John, thanks for your extensive reply on my user talk page. I would like to respond, but a substantive discussion like this needs to be in one place. Do you mind if I move our thread to User talk:John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia? Since that would be in your user space, and you have not started the page yet, I thought I would ask before just blasting in there. --Teratornis 18:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Talk Pages

I'd love to talk with you about talk pages, their role, purpose and limitations some time :) Mathiastck 11:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Your Mario GabellI "Edits"

If find it interesting and revealing that you compare a civil suit brought by an uninterested party against a related Corporation that resulted in a private undisclosed settlement to a Federal Felony Guilty plea(Abramoff)of an individual who is now doing time for Federal Crimes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lsantang (talk • contribs) 16:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

Removing personal attacks

Generally, the guidelines permit removing personal attacks from the webpage, do they not? No text that I removed from Talk:Unwinnable had anything to do with the topic of the page.--Prosfilaes 20:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

A belated thank you

Thanks for all your help of the last few weeks John. I hope I wont have to bug you again for a while.--Cailil 00:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. Feel free to post a message at any time. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 01:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I thought I could handle this on my own...

Hi John, sorry I'm back to you so soon. I need a bit of advice about dealing with an IP user, I thought I could handle this one but I was wrong.
Project Gender Studies has had to be protected twice since December 2006 because of non-consensus WP:POVPUSH alterations to the project's outline etc. This same user has mutiposted a particular criticism to (widely speaking) feminist pages 4 times (talk:feminism; the same on WP:GS, same comment again on Talk:women's studies, and once more on WP:GS). They call themselves (drop in editor) and have been trolling Project Gender Studies Talk page adding long passages from a book about misandry and accusing feminism of being "fascist" etc. another exmaple here. They keep using the term "POV Check" - I've never heard of this. I've advise them to RfC the articles in question but they haven't done so. I've repeatedly asked the user to cite specific examples from feminist article on wikipedia that are sexist but instead they post quotes from the book. Recently they've made changes to the to do list on Talk:Gender which as far as I can see break the policy on how to use to do lists. I'm not sure exactly what to do about this editor. Here are the IPs they used for "(drop in editing)" 128.111.95.47 (talk · contribs), 128.111.95.217 (talk · contribs), 128.111.96.152 (talk · contribs), 71.102.254.163 (talk · contribs) & 128.111.96.152 (talk · contribs). If this person had an account it would like a single purpose account If you wouldn't mind taking a look I'd really like to know what can be done to solve some of their complaints and to have Project Gender Studies safe to be unprotected again. I'd love your advice on how to deal with this civily.--Cailil 15:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

My RfA

Word of thanks for John Broughton Good morning (GMT time); I'd like to thank you for supporting, opposing, taking a neutral stance to, closing, suggesting I close or otherwise contributing to my recent RfA; unfortunately, I felt that although there were more support than oppose votes, the weight of the latter was too great for me to accept the promotion with so many not trusting me with the janitor's trolley - I therefore decided to end my nomination prematurely. The feedback I received was invaluable, and I am striving to start afresh with all of the advice my fellow Wikipedians offered. In order to meet the aim of adapting to your advice, I've drew up a list of aims (located here) which I intend to follow from this point onwards. If you have any further advice or comments for me, don't hesitate to post me a message at my talk page where it will be graciously and humbly accepted. Once again, thank you and I do hope to bump into you around the encyclopedia! Regards, Anthonycfc [T • C]

Behavioural Aims: User:Anthony cfc/Aims/Behavioural Participation Aims: User:Anthony cfc/Aims/Participation

Don't hesitate to add to these - just drop me a message so I know!

Editor's Index

Great job on that Editor's Index of Wikipedia! - Patricknoddy (talk · contribs) 9:35am, February 10, 2007

Department of the Air Force vs. USAF

The United States Air Force is a military service. It has a command structure and a civilian leadership. That civilian leadership is provided in operational matters by the President and the Secretary of Defense and his civilian deputies with the Department of Defense, and in matters other than day to day operations by the Secratary of the Air Force and his civilian deputies within the Department of the Air Force. Just as the Secretary of the Army is not in the Army, but in the Department of the Army, the Secretary of the Air Force is not in the Air Force, but in the Department of the Air Force.

As far as Wikipedia goes there are two issues here

1. The USAF and the Department of the Air Force are not the smae entity; hence I edited the USAF article.

2. Just as there are separate articles for the Army and the Department of the Army, so there should be separate articles for the Air Force and the Dpeartment of the Air Force. But I will look through former Department of the Air Force articles to find ones more inofrmative than the one I created. -Mikedelsol 00:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This link shows the DoD org chart. The most accurate description is to say that the USAF is an element of the Department of the Air Force, which itself is a subordinate division of the cabinet-level Department of Defense. --Ntmg05 00:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: your message on my talk page. Read the chart again. First, you'll notice that the boxes "Undersecretary and Assistant Secretaries of the Air Force" and "Chief of Staff Air Force" are both listed below "Secretary of the Air Force." It would be illogical to assume that either of those posts is equal to the Secretary of the Air Forc, thus it's clear that the boxes do not necessarily need to be separate to establish hierarchy. Second, the term "United States Air Force," while not explicitly printed on the chart, is most commonly associated with the uniformed service, not the civilian appartus. On that chart, the uniformed service is represented by the highest ranking uniformed officer, the AF Chief of Staff, and all subordinate commands... all of which are listed below the Secretary of the Air Force. Also, compare the organization for the Air Force Department to the Navy Department. Using your argument that the term for the uniformed service within each department is interchangeable with the name of the department, the Marine Corps could be called the Navy! --Ntmg05 02:33, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

According to the DoD offical website I just accessed, "Congress, in 1947, established a civilian, Cabinet-level Secretary of Defense to oversee an also newly created National Military Establishment. The U.S. Air Force was also created, along with a new Department of the Air Force." -Mikedelsol 01:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, check out letter from SECAF and CSAF which has two flags, representing IMO two organizations. -Mikedelsol 02:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The above has been copied to Talk:United States Air Force (my mistake for not starting the discussion there); further discussion is invited at that page. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

new comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brent Morse

I added some comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brent Morse which you may want to take a look at. This is a frustrating article; I think he's notable but the evidence isn't convincing enough. --Eastmain 13:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

RFA

With the probable success of my RFA nomination of a fellow Wikipedian, I started looking for another target, and you look like a nice target. Are you interested, and do you think you're ready? I think so, but that's not the point. Xiner (talk, email) 14:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Cool. Well, you know where you can get a nominator. Cheers. Xiner (talk, email) 14:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Explaination for Actions

The reason I deleted the comment I wrote a few months back, is the same reason I deleted the title from the Filmography (where I also put it) - The hundred billion mirror-sites out there! Several rare film collectors are looking for it, and Google results are cluttered by endless repetition, if you follow. So, how the hell DO I get it off of there??? It could be argued that it was bad information anyway, since if you look it up, you'll find no other evidence of it's existance.Dardick 18:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Bad Boys Blue, vandalism by User:89.200.212.78

Hi, please protect the article from this vandal (89.200.212.78) who deletes sections of the article that are neutral and replaces them with info that is biased and favors one group member, whom he represents, while erasing all other info. he's done it repeatedly, please protect the page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.14.61.84 (talk) 00:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

User 89.xxx has done only five edits to the article, the first being constructive and the last two being consecutive, so this hardly constitutes vandalism that would justify semi-protection that would prevent all anonymous IP addresses from editing the article. I've posted a warning on his/her user talk page. Please continue to revert any unexplained deletions, and feel free to drop me another note if you need help.

Also, you can get an IP address blocked by putting in a report here, but only after the vandal has been warned (see that page for a link to the page with warnings). I've given him/her a level 2 content removal warning. The next time this happens, do a level 3, then a level 4, then if it happens a third time, do a report. (Or, again, drop me a note if it happens again, and I can do the warnings, but this may take longer to get to level 4 and thus to a block.)

(Note: the above was also posted to the user talk page of 75.xxx.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Index cool!

That is SO useful! Thank you! --Kim Bruning 20:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

11 March bombings

Hi John, nice to see you onboard again. I am intending neither to waste nobody's time nor my own. The problem here is that Washintong Post or Miami Herald do not bother to answer El Mundo because is such a nonsense that they simply ignore it. However, it is posible to show that El Mundo in this and many other issues is not a reliable source because his editor and owner has an agenda of philias and phobias and is posible to show that he has pursuit this agenda beyond truth many times. I am not going to do this now since is a long and tedious issue. Today I only want to tell you that what I am intending to do (i.e. separate in a subarticle El Mundo's narrative) is reasonable because is a source that says things opposite to all the rest of sources. Just as an example out of many, I have finished to read Jon Suskind's "The one percent doctrine" were the bombings in Madrid are named in various pages and it NEVER name any doubt about the authorship. For me this is a telltale sign that there is something very wrong with El Mundo as a source. I want to show you where all this begans and why I am following this line. [[2]]--Igor21 20:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC) Just as a litmus, on Monday a group of explosive experts selected together by prosecutors, lawyers of the indicted and police, emmit a joint report where it was said that the dynamite used in the bombings is the same found in the flat of the islamic terrorists. Today, El Mundo has a headline in the front page saying exactly the opposite. This is a clear case of El Mundo contradicting known primary sources. However, before documenting extensively these misdoings, I want to know the opinion of the comunity and specially from people like you or Durova about the best way to proceed in this case since it is a very special case. I have of course Spanish newspapers critizing El Mundo but this is used by Randroide to simulate that is a question of rivalry between Spanish newspapers. Then I have international press asuming that the bombing was done by islamists and ignoring El Mundo theories. And finally I have primary sources. The problem is that Randroide says that the primary sources (police, judges, world intelligence services) are part of the conspiration to hide the truth. On the other hand, if Randroide would accept that the El Mundo theories were reflected in a separate sub-article (as has been done in 9/11 article), everybody would save a lot of time because the process to rule out El Mundo will require a lot of attention and work.--Igor21 12:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

My mistake, thanks for the heads up! --MeStevo 20:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)