I removed some information about a supposed pseudonym from one of the articles under the [[WP:BLP|biographies of living persons]] policy because there were no [[WP:RS|sources]] listed for it, and suggesting that the chef in question was actually a gay porn actor could certainly be something he might object to - either if it were untrue or if it were not widely known. Belief that the two people are the same, because their pictures look alike or something, isn't enough for Wikipedia. Nor is direct personal knowledge. We collect information only on things which are already public knowledge and reported in reliable media. Maybe this connection between the chef and actor ''has been'' reported in such fashion, but if so the sources for that need to be cited. --[[User talk:CBDunkerson|CBD]] 00:52, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I removed some information about a supposed pseudonym from one of the articles under the [[WP:BLP|biographies of living persons]] policy because there were no [[WP:RS|sources]] listed for it, and suggesting that the chef in question was actually a gay porn actor could certainly be something he might object to - either if it were untrue or if it were not widely known. Belief that the two people are the same, because their pictures look alike or something, isn't enough for Wikipedia. Nor is direct personal knowledge. We collect information only on things which are already public knowledge and reported in reliable media. Maybe this connection between the chef and actor ''has been'' reported in such fashion, but if so the sources for that need to be cited. --[[User talk:CBDunkerson|CBD]] 00:52, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
== List of major Konoha teams ==
Could you tell me what the image use controversy over this page is? Every time I put a picture on this page someone takes it off.
I saw you had some recent trouble on WP:AN/I, so I hope you're not too busy to help an ex-admin, admin-hating, user. I've been blocked on my current account under the most ridiculous of accusations, for 48 hours no less, for merely stating my case on WP:AN/I and insisting sources be cited. I'd appreciate an unblocking so I can start an RFC, but if you're reluctant to help out the infamous... I understand. -Freestylefrappe
Thanks for the assistance thus far. Unfortunately, the version you have reverted to on Vicente Fox has vandalism on it - some anon inserted "blah blah blah." Before I am blocked again, please either provide an email or email me at danofalltrades7@hotmail.com. I have some diffs I'd like to show you. I know I'm not supposed to evade a block, but since my talkpage on User:Ya ya ya ya ya ya is protected I have no way of conversing with you. Please unprotect that so I can communicate with users. I promise to remain as civil as can be expected given the circumstances. Regards, Freestylefrappe/Republitarian/KI/Tchadienne/NOBS/Republitarian (freestylefrappe20:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC))[reply]
Ok. Just to note that I believe your view of the matter is correct. I don't buy that "don't criticise an admin's action". If I see how cases are handled by the ArbCom some admins would possibly be surprised how their behaviour would be taxed by the ArbCom. But I have no intention to blow this thing up either. I just don't like double standards. Anyway, time will tell. --Ligulem16:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"block people for things they are doing themselves"
See, quotes like that are really not good. They really do equate long-time administrators with simple troublemakers and trolls. I know you don't have much gratitudude for what we've done, but it still hurts the project to try to drive away the people who actually contribute to it. --W.marsh14:19, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Might I suggest that your time could be better spent on something other than tracking my contributions in search of things to complain about? Various admins involved in this dispute blocked for incivility and personal attacks while themselves engaging in incivility and personal attacks. It is thus unfortunately not I who equate them with "simple troublemakers and trolls" as you put it, but rather their own actions. You are entirely mistaken in your accusation that I here "try to drive away" people. I don't want anyone to leave. I just want them to understand that their actions are also going to "drive away the people who actually contribute". You know. People like Tobias Conradi? Or Masssiveego? Shouldn't we be trying to encourage them to positive action rather than deteriorating the situation further by insulting them? I have criticized you, made you angry, and crossed the line of civility as this argument has gone on and for that I do apologize. But I sincerely believe that it would be better for all involved if my 'fellow admins' would examine just how 'beneficial' to the encyclopedia their actions in these instances have really been. --CBD15:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Meh. I do hope that some day you can see all admins, even yourself, are guilty of "abuse" and personal attacks by your standards, and that chastising them over a single incident while defending troublemakers and turning a blind eye to trolling really, really makes productive users feel bad. But I guess we're really never going to agree on this. See you around. --W.marsh15:34, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, CBD, I totally agree with your point on AN/I that admins just shouldn't get by with making personal attacks because they are admins. It doesn't matter if they "contribute heavily" to the encyclopedia: rules are rules, and should be upheld no matter what status the user has. I'm saddened that the post was removed from AN/I because I think the message was a good one: no one should make personal attacks. These standards aren't particularly high, so I'm not sure why the message was so poorly received by some users. The bottom line is that calling someone a troll repeatedly is a personal attack, and personal attacks never make the encyclopedia better. I wish you much luck in your campaign to get users to just be more civil to one another. Firsfron of Ronchester19:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Trolling is an action, not a personal characteristic. That's what seems to be totally missed here... if I say someone is trolling, I think their actions are hurting the project in some way. I don't really care about who the person is or what kind of person they are, I just want them to stop trolling. I don't mean it as a personal attack, and never have. I didn't even take it as a personally attack when CBD called me a troll, it was just a criticism of my actions. --W.marsh23:23, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is edifying to note your reversal of the facts here. I said "trolling"... you said "troll". Yet here you present it as if the opposite had taken place. We all view events through our own perspective and take them in ways that might not have been intended. I would never call any user who attempts to contribute in good faith a troll, because it implies that they are always so. Even saying 'trolling' in regards to specific actions is incivil (and thus I apologized for that) though not technically, as you note, a 'personal attack'. --CBD23:45, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's absolutely fine, I was just scrambling around that ifdef block at the time. There's a bit of a flurry of admin action that seems to be flying around on Freestylefrappe and his other accounts right now, and I'm worried that hasty things are being done. See the bottom of WP:AN right now and also see the tag just slapped on User:Tchadienne. Yeah, a checkuser showed he's the same guy as Freestylefrappe. We absolutely knew that already. I don't know what the best thing to do is. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:27, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to pester -- you should know that none of his new accounts were admitted alternate accounts "from day one" like you said in that edit summary... but they were eventually admitted. If memory serves, the admitting has always come about around the same time the new account runs into edit-warring or civility troubles. Anyway, thanks for looking into it. I don't think he'll want me having much to do with it -- last I checked he still seemed to hate me quite a bit. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:58, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you can point to an instance of that actually being true please do so. However, in my experience he has always done so before being 'found out'. Nor has he ever used two accounts to 'vote together' or 'edit war together' that I know of. Again, if I am mistaken then by all means please show me evidence of it. Otherwise, I think these repeated accusations are not helping the situation. --CBD17:28, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, CBD, I think the instance of one of these "other" accounts running for adminship is pretty serious. Wouldn't you say that the community has a right to know that an arbcom-desysoped admin is running for adminship under a different name? Incidentally, your characterization of the Ya ya request as an IP outing attempt is quite wrong. People often list observed IPs along with usernames in a request and we always ignore them. Listing only an IP along with the main account cannot be anything other than an outing request; listing multiple usernames is a different matter. Mackensen(talk)23:29, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mackensen, when you say "your characterization of the Ya ya request" I assume you mean the request by Chacor about Ya ya (rather than vice versa). Note that you also say, "Listing only an IP along with the main account cannot be anything other than an outing request"... and thereby answer your own question. Because that is exactly what Chacor did. It was a request to verify that Ya ya ya ya ya ya = IP address. 'Tchadienne' was added to the request a day later... again, not to check if Tchadienne = Ya ya ya ya ya ya (because the user revealed that himself), but as another account to check the IP address against. Chacor stated that his entire purpose was trying to prove a 3RR violation by Ya ya... the fourth revert having been made by that IP address. Ergo, it was every bit as much an 'IP outing' request as the one for which Ya ya has been criticized and blocked.
On adminship... sure it would be nice to know a user's entire past history in judging an RfA, but do you seriously think that none of our thousand admins ever got there after getting into trouble and then creating a new account? We have never required such disclosure before... our policies even state that you CAN run for adminship with a new account. The only restriction placed is that you can't have two admin accounts at the same time. If we don't want to allow users to 'start over with a clean slate' we should say so... rather than calling it a 'serious' offense - despite the fact that it was implicitly allowed by all past practice and policy. --CBD00:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
CBD, a further point. I dislike being contrarian and dislike even more assuming bad faith, but I'm puzzled by your attitude throughout this affair. Freestylefrappe isn't misunderstood and he certainly isn't being picked on; rather he's one of the most unpleasant people I or anyone else ever dealt with, who was desysoped for those reasons alone. Any user who has ever disagreed with him (or even came to his attention in a few cases) has found themselves harrassed, belitted, and falsely accused (such as when he accused me of sockpuppetry during the Arbcom elections for no apparent reason). He's run for adminship under false pretenses and repeatedly disrupted the encyclopedia. Why, exactly, are you so intent to find fault with the harrassed parties? As I said, I'm not trying to stir things up and I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm just completely mystified. Best, Mackensen(talk)23:34, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I know you weren't asking me, but I could be seen as doing a little of the same, Mackensen, and my answer is straightforward -- I just didn't like seeing people get the facts (a little) wrong, because every little incorrect thing gave Freestylefrappe more fuel for his red-hot anger furnace and made life that much more unpleasant for the admins trying to deal with the situation. (I think the new ArbCom motion is spot on, anyway.) —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:45, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As Bunchofgrapes says... I'm just trying to keep the accusations true and 'fair'. We don't help anyone by accusing him of things he hasn't done or giving him unequal treatment. He was criticized and blocked for that 'IP outing request'... but Chacor did the same thing and nobody has said 'Boo' about it. He was right that there were WP:BLP violations on the Vicente Fox page (like... a full paragraph calling Fox a racist with zero references backing it up) that started the dispute (making that 3RR check moot BTW - 3RR doesn't apply to BLP) and nobody seemed to care that blocking him allowed those violations to be restored. In the above you describe it as 'Freestylefrappe' vs 'the harassed parties'... but FSF considers himself the 'harassed party' and unfortunately there are some valid reasons for that. I try to look at the facts rather than picking one person to define as 'the bad user' and ignoring any legitimate concerns they might have. Look at the realities of the situation from his perspective;
He is accused of using that IP as a sock to violate 3RR... when he didn't need to do since it was a BLP issue
He suspects that the person filing the IP check (Chacor) made the IP edit himself and asks for a counter IP check
He is blocked for this... because we don't allow 'IP outing'... but Chacor isn't blocked
He complains... more and longer blocks.
He complains ALOT... more blocks
Et cetera. Now, people can disagree as to how much of 'his perspective' is valid and whether they assume that IP really was him or not, but it isn't like he has no reason at all to be upset. --CBD00:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The input parameters of Template:Babel-N is different from Template:Babel (with the addition of "User_"), so the two templates are not prepared to be merged.--Hello World!13:27, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've no idea quite what makes you think that, I honestly do believe that you should be in charge of the site. Your level headed way of thinking typifies all that is decent about Wikipedia, and I believe the site would be vastly improved if more people were to follow your lead. Again, apologies if you have presumed my motivations to be different from the intent. --Pussy Galore23:39, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
He has been targeted by much sarcastic commentary from uncivil admins, I think your remark just got caught in the crossfire, dont take it personal. --User:Zer0faults14:21, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, if CBD takes a swipe at ye, it's a misunderstanding that you shouldn't take personal. If anyone else dangles a participle or asks a question, it's an attack and evidence of a massive admin conspiracy. The rules to Fizzbin are easier to follow than this. Please explain the double or even triple standards you apply to help clarify this. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 15:37, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please review Wikipedia:Harassment. I'll cite an example for your review: [4]. I believe you are attempting (clumsily) to harass me because of our recent disagreements. I'd like to ask you again politely to stop. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 04:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
AGF please, do not be offended by your own comments, you stated its harrassment to edit talk pages that you have edited, did you not? Or are we still complaining that I added sources to that Idaho article ... Ohio? Who knows anymore, anyway please stop following around my edits, considering you made this edit after the one stating Galore was indef blocked, I am sure you did not expect a response from him. Good day. PS I am starting to assume that you do not know what assume good faith is. --User:Zer0faults16:04, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, CBD, I was wondering if you could use your admin powers to official-ize the proposed merge that was proposed here. The debate — the formal word for it as I know — has been in a consensus to accept the merge and it's been there for a couple of days. —Mirlen23:10, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
ME-ref template
It took some careful reading of the template, but I see how it works :)
As for other texts, if I come across any sure I'll add them. I guess the logical way to go about it is by adding references to existing articles, any M-e related book not yet in the list can then be added. That's why I added the Roman numerals: I usually refer to the HoMe books as HoMeII p123 or VIII p16 etc., the same style CJRT uses. -- Jordi·✆07:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, i recently edited the BFME2 units section and you claimed that I posted nonsense. Which of course is completely untrue, I was merely correcting mistakes, as well as adding three confirmed new units. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.27.221.31 (talk • contribs) .
Hi. Sorry, but I'm not sure what you are talking about. You were apparently using a different IP address because the above was the first edit made by this one. I am guessing that 'BFME2' is The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, but I only edited that article once... in February... to add info, and I've never edited the associated List of units in The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II at all. Looking back through my contribution history for the past few months the only thing I've called 'nonsense' in an edit summary was when someone added 'Chris Jones' to a list of hobbits. Could you give me some more info about the incident you are referring to? What article was it in? What date? Et cetera. --CBD12:17, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
After further research I am guessing that you are referring to these edits of yours (which look fine to me) and this message of mine on the talk page of the same IP address. Note that my message is dated April 12th... more than five months before your changes to the list of units and thus completely unrelated. My message was actually directed at this edit from that IP address listing "Adam Wisbrock" as a famous resident of Lossarnach. Most likely your ISP randomly assigns IP addresses and the IP you were using at the time had previously been used by someone else. This also makes it difficult to get back in touch with you... because if I left a message at the talk page of the IP address you most recently used you probably would get a different IP next time and not see it. You might want to create an account to help avoid confusion like this. --CBD12:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would be very interested if you would find at least one diff where I have ever reverted J.R. Hercules or re-inserted old comments on his talk page.--Konstable12:45, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was actually not even asking him to "keep the warnings". I was asking participate in discussion or at least reply to my comments rather than tag the article with {{NPOV}} without explanation other than throwing insults at everyone who has ever edited the page.--Konstable13:29, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop. Now you are harassing me. Stop accusing me of thinks I have never even considered doing. Provide quotes of my words with your accusations and I think you will find that none of them are true. WP:AGF.--Konstable20:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Re: User:Pewlosels
I wasn't making a pre-emptive block; I honestly have neither the time nor the inclination to pre-emptively block anyone on Wikipedia. My argument was that this user was another incarnation of the AN/I troll. It appears no one else believes that, though, & another Admin has already reversed my block. -- llywrch16:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You could be right. The possibility occured to me when they first showed up... but barring absolute checkuser proof, self-declaration, or some form of actually disruptive behaviour by this account I just can't see blocking. Even if we 'guess right'... I'd still rather 'assume good faith' and let some random troll get in their five minutes of disruption then adopt the practice of blocking people because we think they might be trolls. --CBD16:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the invite and no worries on timing. I hadn't signed up previously because, other than Cyrillic, all of my (non Latin) writing system knowledge relates to various dead and/or fictional scripts... most of which I think have been covered pretty well. I'll look around and see where I could help out. --CBD13:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's okay if you don't plan on being a die-hard member....look at most of the people on this project. Many of them want to work on certain things. If you would want to join, but you feel that you won't spend a large amount of time with the topic, you could write "part-time contributor and template manager" ;-) Anyway, thank you all the same for what you've done so far. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 20:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Invalid Warnings
Thanks for the heads up. I think I might leave the warnings for a few days now, I feel kind of bad at how I flew off the handle at Swatjester like that. I probably just made things worse; I didn't realize how suspicious he was of everybody who was an anon. I mean I know most users on wikipedia are suspicious of anons immediately, but Swatjester takes it to a level I haven't seen before. No offense to him, that's just how he views the wikipedia, and if I was aware of that previously I probably would have been more understanding. I don't hold anything against him anymore. Anyways, thanks again for the notice. 69.124.143.23000:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Issues of tense
As you know, the debate on whether novels related to Tolkien related articles should be in past tense or not is going on. I was thinking of involving WP:Novels (after all, they too were involved in the collaboration of making The Lord of the Rings a FA article) and presenting our case with solid, justified reasons (and perhaps a bit of passionate pleas in there as well) here. But before I did so, I wanted your advice and feedback on whether that plan of action is either good or ill. —Mirlen14:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like there is just one person arguing for present tense. I'd really like to see if he has a reason other than 'because that is the way it is supposed to be'... which isn't strictly true (there are exceptions) and doesn't explain what is 'good' about it in this case. Explaining how Tolkien's texts differ from other novels may be more difficult with people who are not all familiar with them. Opening it up for comment by more people may be needed if he is set on this, but he has to at least give some reason other than 'following what I think a guideline says' first. --CBD14:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your advice, CBD, and I do agree with what you said. The other reason given was confusion, which I did not consider it as a justification. I did post a comment on the talk page of where the dispute resides but he has not replied yet. If no reply is given in 1-2 days, should I revert it back to past tense, or should I prod the user (for the third or fourth time as you can tell by reading my comments) for a reply? Frankly, I'm for the first plan because I am tired of prodding for a reply (since unreplied comments w/clear majority seems to me as a settled dispute)...but I don't want it to turn into an edit conflict, so perhaps waiting is the best course of action...? —Mirlen00:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd go ahead and put it back, but not repeat if he reverts it. If he reverts to enforce his version, but can't give a solid reason then I guess we'd have to take it to the next stage of requesting comment from a wider audience. I agree that 'possible confusion' doesn't seem like a big issue as alot of people won't be familiar with the guideline, but most of those who are might well also know that it has caveats... and in any case, as was noted, we can point them to both the Wikiproject standards and the guideline itself for explanation. --CBD00:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Your disambiguation page info was in the 'deleted revisions' list at Agdam. I'm not sure how it could be separated out, possibly by moving 'Agdam' somewhere else first but I'm not sure if that would move the deleted history also. For now I'm going to restore the history and then add that info into the district article to indicate that there are other places with the same name. That's an important fact to make note of and normally we would do it with a disambiguation page as you did, but until articles on the other locations are created the argument will be that we 'only disambiguate articles which exist'... which doesn't work so well when it is important to note different uses on things that don't have articles yet. I'd suggest creating stubs for the new articles first and then restoring the disambig page... I don't think any of the 'Agdams' are likely to be much more likely to be searched for than the others and thus you are likely correct that disambiguation makes sense. --CBD14:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
thx for undeleting. I could then use this to redo the old dab.
the admin who deleted, said that red links would be ok for him. So IMO he himself could have made internal redlinks next to the external links. If you undelete Kangarli I can make there redlinks too. And I also can create one more stub to be sure there is no policy conflict at all. I will also re-read WP:CSD to see whether he violated policies once again. He is very well aware that I am absolutly against use of admin privileges in editorial conflicts which are not covered by policies. He also wants to delete documention on former abuses Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Tobias Conradi/admin right abuse. Tobias Conradi(Talk)15:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I eagerly anticipate your reply to [5] and [6]. I will be terribly disapointed if you once again excuse Tobias's incivility while leveling continued criticism like this at other admins. Please step up to the plate, Tobias listens to you and would benefit from your insight as a calming influence. Anything that can be done to bring him back from the edge of the precipice would be beneficial. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When have I ever excused Tobias's incivility? Or were you just trotting that falsity out again in hopes of getting a rise? Of course Tobias should have chosen different comparisons. Even if he 'did not intend to equate' there are plenty of less potentially inflammatory comparisons... or no comparison at all. It would have been fine to say, 'Calling admin rights abuse, 'admin rights abuse', may be upsetting for the admins, but that does not mean we should not do it and thereby encourage further abuses'. Makes the point clearly without potentially mucking it up with comparisons to other things that people might take as including closer parallels than were intended. As to 'bringing him back from the edge of the precipice'... I think not harassing him would be really beneficial in that regards. --CBD13:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you have reached the point where you would claim that "Of course" is synonymous with "no"... well then there doesn't seem to be much point to further communication. --CBD21:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize, then, because I missed the edit you made telling Tobias that his behavior in those diffs I provided was not appropriate. If you could provide those, I would really appreciate it. If you spoke with him off-project, then let me know too. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think you well know that I have stated both publically and privately that Tobias should not respond to conflict with incivility and have cautioned him on this more than once... including in relation to the specific instance you are harping on (most recently when I said so again above). It's over. The discussion was closed. I warned him about those comments, others warned him about those comments.... now you are bringing it up again after the fact... why exactly? Because the three or four warnings on those specific lines he received at the time weren't enough? It needs to be repeated again? --CBD12:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Howdy! I've created Wikipedia:Administrator Review as a process proposal, and I would like your thoughts on the subject. You and I have regularly disagreed on subjects related to admin interaction (I'm still waiting for that diff above, btw, but that's a seperate issue). I'm trying to figure out a way to make it easier for users who feel they have been wronged to get immediate, organized feedback from the community that will either satisfy them that an abuse has not happened or gives them the foundation for a legit RfC. I'm sure you have some thoughts on the matter, I'm trying to make WP better, but if it's not a good proposal, I'm counting on folks making that clear. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 06:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Generally seems like moving the place for 'informal complaints about admins' from AN/I to this new area and putting more process around it. Dunno whether it would be better than the current system or not... the added complexity of the process (as opposed to just writing a note) might deter some users. I'd probably go with something more like an 'intervention help desk'... you are focusing on whether "an abuse has not happened or ... the foundation for a legit RfC". Most of the time arguing over 'who is more at fault' just exacerbates the issue... there is a disagreement and people are unhappy. We should generally acknowledge/discourage repetition of mistakes on all sides, but be trying primarily to resolve the dispute rather than deciding who to blame. --CBD12:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Date template
Hi Conrad. I know you have been involved in date templates before, and I was wondering if you could help with an idea I raised at Talk:Hurricane_Katrina#Dates_lacking_years. It involves the tendancy for people to give dates without years (ie. day and month only) for current events. Unfortunately, as at the Hurricane Katrina articles, this can be confusing over a year later, as sometimes it is no longer clear which year people are referring to. The ideal situation is for people to use the year when they first write the sentence, but in articles with lots of dates the repetition of the year can be annoying (and anyway, a well-written article will make clear what year a series of yearless dates refers to). Still, I was wondering if some date template magic using "current date" could be used to construct something that displays the day and month for a year after the date entered, and then displays the day, month and year after a year has passed? If this would only work for wikilinked dates, it might not be worth it. If it can work for all instances of a date, that would be great. Maybe something like this already exists? I haven't found it yet though. Thanks. Carcharoth09:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I'll raise this at MOS:DATE as you suggest. I'm not actually surprised that it doesn't mention it. A lot of guidelines that superficially look good miss out basic stuff. Though sometimes they have been removed under the mantra of anti-instruction creep. Carcharoth12:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
New text now in place here. I'm sure you are aware of it, but I thought I'd also point out Wikipedia:As of, the rather long-lasting stop-gap measure implemented until "someone comes up with a better idea, perhaps using a template" - can you think of a suitable way to tackle recentism in dates using templates? Carcharoth23:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I hadn't seen Wikipedia:As of before. Reading up on that it looks like a template of the form, {{update after|2008|11|4}}, was recently developed at {{update after}} for this purpose. After a specified date it displays an 'update needed' superscript note and adds hidden links to the day, month, and year so that people can check all pages needing update in the current month. If enough people use this for tagging and perform cleanup it should do a pretty good job. --CBD10:36, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great. I've been tempted to just take it out of the 'common.css' to spur cleanup, but this list will help alot. --CBD11:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
CBDunkerson, I am having a problem with a very aggressive editor. It is wikipediatrix. I am a new editor and have created several articles in which she has either put up for deletion or has raised issue with repeatedly. She has her own favorite Administrator and editors that will agree with everything she says even while admitting that she is very aggressive. I created an article for Christian Recording star David L Cook. It has been hell from day one. Now here is the issue we are having now. I use AOL and some of the other edits are coming from an IP address that is used by AOL. So therefore the IP address seems to be the same. [7] She is now alledging that I am making all of these edits when I simply am not! I cannot control AOL or how they use their IP addresses. This has been an issue for Wikipedia for some time and I am very aware of it. However, for her to go onto various editors and Administrators talk pages and say that Junebug52 and the IP address user are one in the same is simply absurd. That is her personal POV and should not be allowed. When I first stareted editing I did create a user name that was part of the compnay that I work for. I found out that I could not do that and so I changed to a private name of which I am the only one to use my account. She claims that I work for David L Cook. I do not! I work for a company that handles various artists and Mr. Cook happens to be one of them. The fact that he is handled by the company I work for has no bearing on the fact that I do not use my companies resources or time to edit or contribute. I do not use their data base to contribute. These are my own projects outside of whatever company I work for and I do not work for Mr. Cook. She has littered the talk page with nothing but negative statements and I am just at my witts end. It has been explained to her that before she makes edits to the page that she should introduce her thoughts onto the talk page and then allow me or another editor to make suggestions. Oh no, she has not done that one time. She goes in and makes aggressive edits and then will not tell anyone why she does them. If you review her talk pages you will see that I am not the only one that she does this to. When you question her, then she gets even more aggressive and comes back with this thing about me being uncivil to her or throwing a tantrum? Today I requested another editor look at a discography page on CD Baby and tell me what he thought of it since she removed David's discography. She immediately came back and said "It's so amazing that it just showed up on CD Baby when it was not there 48 hours ago" She said she cached the information and it was not there. Well I wrote her back and gave her this cache cite [8] She had nothing to say about that except that it ws not the one she was refering to. Note: I did not add it to the page, but just asked another editor to look at it and give his opinion. After he gave his opinion I was fine with it and it them became a moot point. But not with her. She had to keep on and now she has me listed for blocking and saying I am editing under an IP address and all kinds of crap. That is not Wikipedia, that is her own point of view. I can take her editing, what I cannot take is her disregard for me as an editor or making false accusations. I am humbly asking for your help in this matter. I am at the point of removing myself from Wikipedia all together because this has really hurt my feelings. She has even went as far as to say that David L Cook and Junebug52 are one in the same? How can she say that without proof?
It would not surprise me if she finds this request as I feel she is watching everything I am doing and making remarks to whomever I reach out to. PLEASE HELP! Junebug5213:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi CB, got another programming request for ya...
As you've probably noticed I work with lists a lot, and one thing that takes up an inordinate amount of time is columnization. Do you know of a way, or could you whip up a tool, to add columnizing markup code automatically? Counting the column of links and placing the tags manually is extremely tedious, and must be repeated for each heading section. And there are hundreds of lists which need columnization.
For simple lists I think that the easiest markup to use is just;
{|
|-
| A || B || C
|-
| D || E || F
|-
| G || H || I
|}
However, for lists with indented sub-headings like on the page above I think you are pretty much stuck with a method like you are using on that page. The easiest way I know of to split up the lists manually would be to copy them into a spreadsheet program like Excel or Lotus 123... then you could highlight the full list to get the complete count of entries, add rows with the markup tags at the appropriate spots, and then copy the whole thing back to the edit window. --CBD15:53, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I use Excel as well. It is a simple way to concatenate different mark-up tags and coding together, if you don't really know enough programming to use a proper editor that will do things like that for you. Have a look at the CONCATENATE function in Excel. Search and replace is also useful for manipulating and rearranging data, as are the data sorting functions in Excel. Carcharoth00:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't worked with Wikipedia bots at all, but I'd suspect that the general concept wouldn't be too bad. The problem area would be any sort of decision-making. Should a particular list page be columnized? How many columns should it use? Should the column breaks be made at different points to accomodate indented lists? Et cetera. It would likely also get confused by any images, comments, or other 'non list entry' text as there would be no way to distinguish those. I think there is always going to have to be human input and review. Where are you running into hangups? It might be possible to put together a macro to automate any task that takes a while. --CBD11:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For Service Above and Beyond the Call of Duty
The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
As a supervising admin, CBDunkerson helped resolve one of the most contentious, mind-numbing, extensive disputes in Wikipedia history over the naming of state highways. For this commendable and exhausting work, he deserves the eternal gratitude and Wiki-love of every Wikipedian. Xoloz17:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above.
Ed Poor is placed on Probation. He may be banned from any article or set of articles by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive editing, such as edit warring, original research, and POV forking. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2#Log of blocks and bans.
Thank you for your participation as a judging admin at WP:SRNC! We appreciate your willingness to be involved in a contentious situation, and to deliver an unbiased verdict.
It looks like they just substituted a template onto the page blank... which isn't useful in any way that I can see. I just deleted the template info. This can actually be corrected by anyone with a normal revert or edit. Since the substituted logic added things to Category:Country subdivision infobox templates that category can be used to see the pages it is on which aren't 'Template:' pages and corrected there. --CBD16:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The only 'special' admin ability in this regards is the 'rollback' button... which is basically a revert with an automatic edit summary. Just saves a second or so over doing it manually. However, rollback is only supposed to be used on vandalism... and while adding blank infoboxes isn't helpful it could certainly be well intentioned and does not appear to have been a deliberate effort to cause problems - ergo not vandalism and rollback shouldn't be used. I've just been undoing them manually. --CBD16:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for fixing my erroneous transclusion of the discussion - too much cutting and pasting! You had fixed it by the time I noticed and went back to correct myself. -- ALoan(Talk)15:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You make a comment about "some incivil comments (e.g. 'monster') around" the WP:RFAR Brya case. This is my original comment:
"However, because Brya was given an infinite number of chances without ever being blocked, imo, the community created the monster that Bray became. By monster, I mean not the person, but the large and unwieldy resulting behavior exhibited that has wasted so much time in botany pages, continuing to do so now by having to discuss it here, on WP:TOL, and all over the place, and caused so much damage, the ferocious edit wars and rampant speculation and Brya's POV all over the place, and endless discussions about what to do about Brya."
This has been going on for months and, indeed, has become a "huge thing: something extraordinarily or unusually large," or a monster. Please don't accuse me of making uncivil comments when I've carefully said exactly what I mean: the situation is huge and out of control and disproportionate to what is going on.
And MrDarwin saw it accurately for what it is: an accusation that the community shares some responsibility with Brya for what is going on, because they failed to give sufficient, gentle warnings, that they really meant early on.
You're essentially making a misplaced personal attack on me, about my lack of civility with this comment, and removing the careful and civil context I placed the word in--and no other word in English means precisely what I meant as this one does. You also singled me out with your comment, that I was uncivil, when the person who has requested arbitration has been posting threats and making personal attacks on me and others on my talk page, their talk pages, anywhere they have access.
I wondered when I first came to Wikipedia to start cleaning up the botany pages, why so many were so poorly done, a disproportionate number, compared to many other categories. It's because every newcomer runs the danger of running afoul of Brya's POV and carefully guarded pages and getting squashed in the process. Most simply won't bother once they see the records of the dozens of edit wars, and all the other evidence of disruption. However, I think Wikipedia owes a responsibility to the community to not spread false information. And I am simply perplexed as to why it has been allowed to go on for so long. From a newcomer's perspective and still relative outsider, it is incomprehensible.
My point about the monster is the behavior that resulted from plant editors not dealing with the problem earlier. It is, in fact, a civil comment, in a stream of people putting the blame on Brya, when Brya doesn't have a voice, to point out that Brya isn't the only one at fault.
Since I apparently don't use your English language dictionary and that's the only one allowed on Wikipedia, I'll leave you all to your own devices. You should, however, put notice as to what dictionary is the only one allowed on Wikipedia. KP Botany17:29, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a more efficient way to encode this signature?
My new sig has received a complaint. It's 6 lines of wikicode. Is there a way to reduce the code and achieve the same visual effect?
This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above.
Upon returning to active editing, Pat8722 is placed on Probation for one year. He may be banned for an appropriate period of time from any page or set of pages for disruptive editing. Should Pat8722 violate any ban imposed under probation, he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeat violations. After 5 such blocks the maximum block period increases to one year. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pat8722#Log of blocks and bans.
...and several other moves as well! See the talk page. Do you know enough about page moving and page histories to undo this mess? Thanks. Carcharoth00:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Conrad. I must stop getting distracted by talk pages. I think perusing something above led me to a recent (September) contremps at AN/I, and this led me to start my personal wiki-philosophy page with the following:
Lead by example.
Always be civil - especially to people who are uncivil.
Never edit when angry.
Always take the time to explain things.
Don't use lack of time as an excuse - if you don't have time to do something well, leave it for someone else to do.
Hi Conrad. I wonder if you'd be able to have a look here, and see if my concerns about what I did are justified. It's a little trick I discovered using templates and categories, but I suspect that (a) there is a simpler way of doing this, and (b) doing this sort of thing this way is mildy disruptive. I'd appreciate any advice you could give before I ask around a bit further. Thanks. Carcharoth22:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm hoping I can get my previous accounts consolidated into my current one, but I'm not familiar with this aspect of Wikipedia. I look forward to your reply. The Transhumanist 01:28, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi CBD, I liked your randomized Featured content page so much, I "borrowed" the technique for Portal:Dogs/Selected breed. I also would like to randomize the "Did you know..." list, but I don't know how to prevent duplicates. Would you be willing to give it a go, or send me off to someone else who could set up the control structure? Thanks. Rfrisbietalk20:49, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure if this has been pointed out, but it looks like AfD screwed up. Just to start the ball rolling and institute a culture change, I'm trying to get all admins closing things at AfD to remember to check the page history of an article before deleting, so that drastic changes in the nature of a page are spotted, and also urging those voting at AfD to do the same. See the following for details:
Thanks for restoring that talk page, and for the suggestion over at Afd. I was wondering if you would be able to help with some other red links I found a week or so ago at the assessment log for the Tolkien/Middle-earth articles. They are mainly orphaned talk pages, some where the article page seems to have never existed! I'm not quite sure what to do with them. Would you be able to have a look at them? They are at User:Carcharoth#Orphaned_talk_pages. Thanks. Carcharoth12:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I deleted most of these. Wasn't sure what to do with the two that are redirects. I don't think redirects really need a talk page, but there are different methodologies of tracking these right now... the redirect category, the talk page banner, article lists, et cetera. Think that all needs to get sorted out to some sort of consistent method. Let me know if you have other ideas for handling these and the other articles on that list. --CBD12:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I started the redirect category method for the ME redirects. Quite a few now. See Category:Middle-earth redirects. For some reason I am having problems putting the Bard II redirect into that category (Database error: A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "Article::updateRedirectOn". MySQL returned error "1062: Duplicate entry '7724316' for key 1 (10.0.0.235)".). I agree that redirects don't need a talk page, but deleting blank ones is probably not worth it. Articles, templates, categories and Wikipedia namespace pages are being tracked with talk page banners (specifically, Template:ME-project (with importance and quality assessments for articles and class=NA for Wikipedia namespace pages) , Template:ME-template, Template:ME-category), thus a default article list if they have all been tagged with the talk page banner, and once the categories, templates and redirects have been weeded out, will be at the list starting here. That then needs to be compared with the old list mentioned at User:Carcharoth/Desk#Clean-up. I want to eventually move that list to Wikipedia namespace, and also update the category structure at Portal:Middle-earth/Categories, which is also now rather out of date. Carcharoth13:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi CBD, it's me again. In the spirit of "whirlwinds" and "going for it", I've created a new forum for intermediate editors to ask questions and receive guidance from more experienced users and admins, called Wikipedia:Admin school. Someone has nominated it for deletion, but in addition to this, went around and removed links leading to the page, including its notice on the Community Bulletine Board, thereby denying access to the deletion discussion of the very people the page was designed for. Is this appropriate? Based on the way the person is aggressively going after the page, it appears the person may have removed the links to improve the chances of deletion. I don't know what the policies are concerning this technical and politically sensitive issue. Wouldn't removing such links be considered manipulation of the deletion discussion process? Your assistance and oversight would be appreciated. Sincerely, 02:45, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Blanket removal of the links prior to conclusion of the MfD was unnecessary / confrontational, but I wouldn't worry about it. I think alot of this is over-reaction to a new idea being 'sprung' on people. When I built Wikipedia:Featured content (as a portal originally) I didn't tell anyone about it... it was just sort of there for a while and people (you, for instance) stumbled upon it and started making changes / telling others about it. People could have reacted badly... 'hey, who are you to create a top page for all featured content!', but by leaving it be I think I gave them time to get used to it and adjust so that they liked it. Obviously this took a few months and 'hey look at this!' may have been quicker, but I tend not to go that way unless something is going to be obviously accepted right from the start... which is almost never. :] I think the open discussion board on editing / adminship could be very beneficial, but would suggest allowing it to grow naturally rather than trying to 'jump start' it. --CBD15:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comment on that MfD page. As an editor, I really appreciate the sentiments in what has been a frustrating discussion for all involved. --Wolf530 (talk) 16:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tolkien terminology
Hey CBD, could you give your comments considering this issue here? (I'll even hand out free chocolate! ;) Surely you can't resist that...^^) It's about standardizing terminology usage in Tolkien articles, so it's crucial and a consensus is needed. Thanks! —Mirlen05:21, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
User interfaces and admin coaching
I've been assigned a couple of students in Esperanza's admin coaching program, and have set up a coaching subpage in which we are holding a virtual classroom of sorts. Currently, we are comparing user interfaces, and I was wondering if you'd stop by and share with us what programs/tools/features you use to make use of Wikipedia. And any and all suggestions are also quite welcome. (And perhaps make sure I don't steer them in the wrong direction). The Transhumanist 23:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I want to thank you for all the help you gave me on the David L Cook page. Since your intervention I have had no further issues with Wikipediatrix. I have went in and edited the Country Gospel music page, it was a mess. There is another page called Christian country music that is the same genre and content. I feel it would be better if these two articles were merged into one. We can change the name of the article I edited to "Christian Country Music" as that is generally what it is called anyway. The content from the article Christian country music will not be needed as both articles would contain the same data. I feel my edited article is far more superior. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated because I have not become savy enough to merge pages without causing some serious havok LOL. Junebug5210:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I put merge notices on the two pages to see if anyone else wants to contribute comments. There may not be any if these pages weren't very active. In any case, the actual 'merge' should be easy, but let's give people a few days to respond. It'll probably be easiest to just move 'Country gospel' to 'Christian country music' if everyone agrees that is the preferred name - though then the intro and infobox should probably be renamed as well. --CBD17:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate it. I did a lot of work on that Country Gospel article. Hope it looks ok to you. Junebug52 1:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Hey CB, I have done some more work on the Country Gospel page and we have had people weighing in on merging the two articles. Everyone seems to agree that we shoud merge. If you could help me I would certainly appreciate it. We need to loose the Christian country music content and use the Country gospel content. We need to use the title Christian Country Music only. I did go into the article and rewrite the header paragraph and other data included into the article to show Christian country music. I think that will solve the redirect concerns for article content. I appreciate all your help. Also, I nominated an article for deletion TJ Smith. The article subject has no notability nor can I find source material for the subject. I am not sure if I nominated it correctly. Could you check it and tell me if I have not, which template I would need to use in the future if I come across something that needs to be nominated for deletion? Thanks man! Junebug52 7:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
CB, I am having another problem with Wikipediatrix. I went onto the David L Cook article and I put all of the proper names of albums in bold text. She reverted everyone of those edits. I have found no rules about bold text except that it should be used for proper names, titles or priorities. If I am wrong I will accept that, but I do not see where this should be an issue since it has no bearing on the articles integrity. Someone needs to tell this woman that she cannot go around tearing peoples work apart. That is what the talk page is supposed to be for. If someone did that to one of her articles, she would have a cow. Could you please advise? Junebug5210:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, you forgot to tell him how amazingly condescending and rude you were about it on my talk page. You also forgot - or maybe you never knew - that MOS:BOLD is very clear about how to use and how NOT to use bold face. Spare me the power trips and get your facts straight before you insult editors. wikipediatrix03:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As you can see from her last entry here, there is no talking to this woman. Even if I was wrong, she could have gone onto the talk page and said that we needed to fix it. Instead as always, she is rude about not talking things out and discounting the work of other editors. Only her feelings are supposed to count and if you mess with those you are rude and uncivil. But one must understand that she can do it to you and you are supposed to just lay down and take it. Look at the history page on the David L Cook[10] site and look at what she put into her description of edits. Is that needed? "Junebug52 is on his little power trip again?" I am just asking a simple thing of her. Put it on a talk page. That is why I get upset with her. She never seems to get it. Junebug5211:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipediatrix, citing WP:BOLD in your edit summary would have been considerably more informative than "Junebug52's on his little power trip again". Junebug52, phrasing your message on her talk page more like, "Hi, I saw you made some changes to bolding on the David L. Cook article, but I don't know why. Can you explain please?" would have been less confrontational and likely gotten to the answer more quickly and with less annoyance all around. See assume good faith and civility. If either one of you had followed Wikipedia's suggested practices, to politely explain or ask about the situation, the argument could have been avoided entirely... instead you kept escalating it back and forth. Assuming "there is no talking to this woman" and "Junebug52's on his little power trip again" are entirely the wrong attitude... assumptions of bad faith. When in fact both of you were doing what you thought was right and should have been able to sort it out peacefully if you hadn't assumed the worst of each other. --CBD11:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you look again, you will notice that my "power trip" edit summary comment was made AFTER Junebug52 left the obnoxious and insulting WP:CIVIL-violating message on my talk page, hence my lack of feeling I owed him any assumption of good faith. It's easy for someone else to call it "escalating" when you're not the one who's been unjustly and personally attacked, and in an unforgivably sexist manner. wikipediatrix14:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
LOL, CBD I tried to tell you that dealing with her is impossible! That is why I came to you to start with. She ended up on your talk page because she follows me through Wikipedia. Every article I am involved with it seems or everyone I talk to she always chimes in. She does not realize that not putting that on the talk page is rude and discounting to the editors involved in the article. But, any time you say something to her about it, it is always rude or uncivil. She likes to cite that WP:CIVIL- rule but for some reason it never really applies to her? I have had other editors look at my entry on her talk page and they have all three said that they did not see anything rude about what I wrote. They did say that they looked at her talk pages and saw that she has a problem with other editors in general. You know I am a fairly new editor to Wikipedia and from day one she has been very aggressive towards me as I was learning. I have learned a lot and I have to thank her for that. Because out of her attacking articles I have been the editor on I have learned rules and applications. But, from this point on I would ask that maybe she be banned or asked not to be involved in editing articles that I am involved with and I too will stay away from her. Just like the bold thing. If she would have just gone to the talk page to start with and said lets discuss this or go here and read the rule, After review, I would have gladly made the changes back as I have done. However, she goes to the point of doing stuff and not letting other editors know that it needs to be fixed and they feel she is overstepping her bounds and attacking their work. I just do not want to continue in that fashion. As far as a sexist manner, I have no idea at all where that came from. I guess it's one of those personal attacks I supposedly made on her again? Oh well. Junebug5211:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I repeat, all I originally did was correct Junebug52's improper bolding and left a perfectly civil edit summary in doing so. It's all there in the history and the diffs if you just go look at them. I will continue to correct articles when they violate Wikipedia policy and will continue to respond less than enthusiastically when personally attacked for doing so. wikipediatrix17:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you CBD for trying to help. I am just going to avoid this editor at all costs. If I cannot seem to get anywhere with her I will bring the issue back to you for your help. It might be noted that even in our responses to you, you might want to look at which editor is using more aggression. Junebug52 1:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
ISO 15924
Clearly it was not time to unlock the ISO 15924 page. I was requested by Ikiroid and Mr Conradi if the text was OK. It was not. I edited it. Mr Conradi simply reverts everything I do, and calls me "suppressor". Please revert to my edit (where I said it was OK) and lock the page. That, anyway, is my request. -- Evertype·✆20:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Persistent and unending dispute with Mr Conradi
I am, apparently, a newbie at this kind of dispute resolution. I have no idea what to do, but ask you, since you have dealt with Mr Conradi before, to please see [11] and advise me what the correct procedure is. I have endeavoured to correct material errors in his edits, as well as to remove inappropriate references to myself, and he simply reverts every time. He is well over the three-reverts rule. I am probably also over the rule, but my reverts have in every case attempted to correct and improve the article, while his have simply been gainsaying. Please help. Thank you. -- Evertype·✆13:34, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The links that start "https" - meaning they are "secure" links - hence the padlock sign. Let's try an example... (Hope you don't mind me butting in here, Conrad). Carcharoth23:25, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I used www.example.com as an example, forgetting of course that it probably is a real webpage. Try www.example.co.uk, and it asks you for a password! I'm thinking that typing random URLs into browers might be a bit dangerous. Carcharoth00:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As Carcharoth said, it's just an identifier that the link goes to a 'secure' (https) web site. Also note that not all browsers display the arrow/padlock. --CBD11:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your input on my (nearly recent) Request for adminship, which regretfully achived no consensus, with votes of 68/28/2. I am grateful for the input received, both positive and in opposition, and I'd like to thank you for your participation.
Well, we've moved on to our second lesson in the Virtual classroom, though each lesson is continuous so we may see more additions to the interface share and compare discussions as well. The current topic of discussion is "stubbing," with a short course to kick things off provided by our resident expert on the subject, Grutness. Please feel free to add your comments and questions.
To help keep track of what's going on, here's a template you can place at the top of your userpage or talk page:
Please don't go around defending disruption...its not like you haven't had your arguments with others, so linking me to a page I am well aware of is both insulting and unnecessary and you know that.[12]--MONGO15:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Gently reminding you of the need for civility does not 'defend disruption'. It seeks to end the disruption you are currently causing with your antagonistic responses. If you wish to disagree with people that is your right, but to be disagreeable when doing so is not. --CBD13:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)The Swadesh list I think works fine on Wiktionary and can be linked to in the Quenya article. I moved the other to User:CBDunkerson/List of Middle-earth Men for now. Obviously it is better to have the one list than dozens of little articles, but it needs to be cleaned up and expanded first. --CBD12:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think the Middle-earth men list should be designed similar to List of Hobbits... and at one point it was. People just had different ideas and mangled the heck out of it. I'll try to clean it up again and just put in the 'As' or something to get it started. --CBD12:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You created a redirect to the copy of the List of Middle-earth Men in your userspace from the Main article space. I have tagged it for speedy deletion in accordance with WP:CSD#R2. You are welcome to work on it in userspace and then propose it for undeletion at DRV but until then the article should stay deleted (i.e. a red link). Note that I will probably still argue for deletion in the future given the arguments I made in the AfD. One, since Wikipedia is not an indiscrimnant collection of information we don't need any information about the most obscure characters; and two that lists of this type should be deleted in favour of categories like Category:Middle-earth Men. Eluchil40421:12, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Using a category encourages creation of separate articles for each character... whereas a list helps to consolidate them in one place. As to 'obscure'... everyone is going to have different estimations of the point at which that becomes the case. Rather than fighting endless battles over whether each individual character article is notable a single article listing all (with links to separate articles on the most significant characters) avoids the problem and is surely notable. In short, I don't agree with your conclusions and maintaining such information as a list is the usual standard on Wikipedia. As you'd seemingly be aware given your involvement in Characters from the Incredibles. About the redirect - sorry, just didn't think about the fact that moving the page would leave one behind. --CBD12:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. I'm hoping you can help (are willing/have time). I would like to make some upgrades to Template:Infobox U.S. Covered Bridge, basically upgrading it to something more along the lines of Template:Infobox Bridge. I contacted the originator of the CB template, asking if we could add a parameter (there are others that could definitely be beneficial, but I just wanted to start small). He was receptive, but says he has not had time to make improvements (testing, etc.) to make it more like the Bridge template. I don't understand all of the coding that's involved, so this is where I'm hoping you might be able to lend a hand. Let me know if you're able, and I'll get the creator involved in this discussion as well (on the Talk page for the existing template). — HomefryesSay•Do20:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Did these examples materialise? I have some examples as well, if they would be helpful. Probably very inelegant, but I find the examples useful. Carcharoth14:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not yet. I have to make some updates to the Featured content page that will involve Excel and hope to write up that as an example then. Hopefully tonight. Please go ahead and post up anything you have in the meantime. --CBD16:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Needed
Hey CB, I need help with another merge if you don't mind. I helped to creat the page for Gary S. Paxton. This page was created [13] and I feel it would be better to put these two articles under Gary S. Paxton and just create a sub heading in the article that outlines NewPax records. What do you think? If you agree, could you help me merge this into the Gary article? Thanx Junebug5213:27, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
CB I went ahead and included the info on NewPax Records on the page. So I guess we could just redirect the NewPax page to the Gary page. Thanks bud. Junebug5215:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. The usual way to merge pages is to change one into a redirect with an edit summary linking to the new page and then add any new content to the other page with an edit summary linking to the old. The reason for this is to preserve attribution... the 'merged in' content was originally developed by other people, but so long as there is a link to the prior page someone can go look at the history there to see who did what. I made a redirect and set up this cross-attribution so this page should be all set. --CBD13:30, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please help
Dear Mr. Duckerson, I don't think I have thanked you enough, but I just want to let you know that User:WGee guy is back to harass Georgia (country) article and I would really appreiate if could keep an eye on him and rv his edits, because otherwise I might just lose my patience and get blocked for another month or so. SosoMK03:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've been watching this, but it looks like your explanation (of the 'observer' status) in the most recent edit summary resolved it. Try to keep cool... people make mistakes and polite explanations / discussion can usually settle things. --CBD13:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Blocking users for removing warnings
Hi, I don't think we've run into each other directly, but I've noticed your comments on the issue of harassing users who remove warnings from their talk pages, and I fully agree with you and think you express it very well. (I might also add that I've disagreed with you on other issues!) I recall that you posted somewhere (I can't remember where) about an ordinary user who removed something from his talk page and then got warnings and then removed them and got more warnings and ended up getting furious. If you have time, could you take a look at the case of User:Certified.Gangsta. Centrx sent him a warning at 22:53 (UCT) on 3 December and then removed the silly "you have new messages" practical joke banner on his talk page at 22:59. Certified.Gangsta removed the warning and restored the joke banner at 23:03[14], and then for the next 45 minutes a very ugly edit war followed with Centrx and two other users descending on his page to revert him repeatedly. In the middle of this, Centrx blocked him for one second,[15] so that there would be a record of his behaviour in the block log that administrators could see, since he was refusing to leave the warnings openly displayed on his talk page. See also here.
That block is currently being discussed here, and I'd appreciate if you could add a comment. I admit unashamedly that I came to you because I felt you'd be likely to agree with me. But actually, I feel this is something that most admins agree on, and I have felt in the past that you expressed yourself very well when you were posting about the very limited benefit weighed against the huge disadvantage of forcing people to display on their talk pages notices that they find harassing or annoying or embarrassing. I'd like to ensure that this practice of giving one-second blocks to users who remove warnings does not become standard. Thanks. AnnH♫12:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ann. I have also seen you around, almost always agree with and appreciate your comments, and have noted with sadness a few things on which we do disagree. I will of course put in a comment on this issue, and as it is on the noticeboard would have done so anyway as that was my next stop to catch up on. Thanks for the heads up. --CBD13:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In all fairness I am going to revise my section a bit taking into account what you stated, however I am not sure how far you digged. If you view pokipsy76's edit history with Morton, Mongo, Tom Harrison etc. you would see many many reverts without explanation, just "revert" or "revert (name)" type of situations across a few different 9/11 related articles. I hope you will examine [16] particularly events around the beginning of May->June 18 (date of block) to see the full picture. Thank you. --NuclearZer013:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly... and if you look at the edit histories of Morton, MONGO, Tom, et cetera for those same articles/time periods you will see exactly the same sort of edits/summaries on their part. It is called a 'content dispute' / edit warring. Some especially strict admin might have warned all of them against performing more than 1RR per day and then blocked them all for violating it... but no such restriction was ever imposed and the block came from an involved party who was every bit as guilty of the 'infraction' as their target. If that block was 'justified' then weekly blocks on MONGO and numerous other people would be equally 'valid'. --CBD14:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry I wasnt attempting to justify, however pokipsy76 cant be a victim if he too was wrong is what I am pointing out. Also pshemp who was not involved specifically rejected the idea that Mongo as being involved in the dispute couldnt block pokipsy76, this was recently further supported when Mongo went to AN/I recently over cplot who he blocked and was in a content dispute. Just to reiterate, I am not attempting to provide evidence for anyone, just provide greater context to the evidence that has been given, and as such expanded my section with a response to what you state, further expanding the context of the issue further back in time to the beginning of May. Do not take my section to be rebuttals, just expansions on what I feel is limited context in the evidence being given. For example the context you frame the situation in seems like a limited example to me because you only examine edits on that page, negating a pattern of editing or history between the users, it seems from a little scope that they just bumped into eachother once on one article and Mongo went out of his way to block pokipsy76 over it. --NuclearZer014:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, it was not my intent to create an impression of the 'block coming out of the blue'... note that I stated the block was due to conflict between them (meaning the longer term issues) and several of the links I provided make reference to the earlier history of conflict. I thought that was self-evident. Also, I disagree that Pokipsy76 'was not a victim'. He absolutely was. Yes, he was guilty of 'low level edit warring'... but we seldom block for that in and of itself. If we did then MONGO deserved to be blocked just as much as Pokipsy76 did... and the disparity of MONGO placing the block, without prior warning, but not himself being blocked was clearly unjustified. --CBD14:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Since I doubt you expect Mongo to block himself, Mongo not getting a block is really the fault of other admins who are suppose to provide oversight, however Pshemp and Tom felt it was ok, pshemp being an outside 3rd party admin, tom being invovled so less of a meaningful person in that respect. I posted all the reverts and who they were in my "response to you section". My issue was your difs show a string of edits in that one article, however the issue to me branched further back and on multiple articles. Anyway as always CBD I respect your opinion greatly, since I do not want to be seen as endorsing anyone, I am attempting to stay neutral, I will not add something stating I feel Mongo was also wrong, even though in this respect I feel everyone was wrong in revert warring. As I said, just trying to show greater context, not support or condemn anyone. Thanks for the quick replies. --NuclearZer014:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, just to share.., in my experience when mongo's vigor fails, Tom is always around, silently running, doing his binding, keeping things tidy… well, don't mind me… later.;) Lovelight16:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Lovelight, Tom and MONGO seem to have several similar views and interests. I do agree that they should not act as 'impartial reviewers' for conflicts they were both involved in, but otherwise the overlap is largely harmless. --CBD16:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
NuclearUmpf, no problems. We disagree on some matters of application, and I very much am 'taking sides' in the Pokipsy76 situation, but nothing to worry about. My feeling is just that most admins would never block for '1RR violation' unless there was an ArbCom finding/instruction in place to do so. Thus it is not 'the fault of other admins' in not blocking MONGO for his various 1RR violations... that just isn't really a blockable offense under normal circumstances. For instance, I didn't block MONGO for it and will not now even though he continues to do this... because it just isn't a blockable offense. Even a 'completely uninvolved' admin issuing a 1RR block without warning would have been draconian at best... doing so on one involved party and not the other certainly biased... and an involved party issuing the block themself completely unjustifiable. Finally, even if pschemp was a totally uninvolved admin (I don't really know if she took part in any of the associated conflicts)... her conclusion/action in protecting the talk page was still clearly wrong. Or at least so this totally uninvolved admin found it. --CBD16:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
After being told 3 times that his unblock request was denied I would have though it was warranted. However I guess you would have just let them keep adding the request to the page and clogging up the unblock system? --NuclearZer017:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it was denied twice... once by Tom Harrison (who was NOT impartial) and then once by pschemp (who was at best simply wrong). Absolutely, I would allow them to keep requesting unblock. I don't care if the unblock request is denied by one admin or thirty... the block WAS wrong. Clearly. Blatantly. Absolutely wrong. Even if the block weren't such a travesty I see little harm in allowing the unblock request to stay up... some minor delay to possibly one or two other admins before the block expires versus the clear negative of admins preventing a user from challenging a potentially unjust action. Maybe on a month long or indefinite block it might eventually be proper to protect the page, but doing so because three admins agreed is unjustified because, as this case shows, three admins can be wrong/biased. --CBD17:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Timeline:
Initial Request: [17] Toms doesnt remove unblock request, just comments: [18] Pshemp agrees with block: Unblock denied 1x: [19] Second request: [20] Pshemp denys 2nd with warning: [21] 3rd request [22] page locked: [23]
So 3 requests all together the 2nd denial of unblock carried a warning and on the 3rd the page was locked. Tom did not ever deny the block by removing the unblock request. --NuclearZer019:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So... you are saying that only removals of the unblock template 'count' and thus ONE admin (pschemp) denied the request three times? Who could possibly have a problem with the impartiality of THAT? :] I, of course, was counting the number of admins who wrote that they were denying the request... regardless of how many times they did so or whether they removed the template. --CBD11:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That is actually quite normal that the same admin would reply if you put the unblock template back up right after it being taken down. the use of {{unblock}} is not to play a game of chance hoping you eventually get an admin that is willing to unblock you. So yes the point is your first sentence is wrong, and most admins would not let someone constantly keep putting up the unblock template, as I stated its for review not a game of chance. You state the block was wrong, 2 other admins, 1 involved, do not agree with you. For you to keep stating "the block WAS wrong" is certaintly your opinion in which you are entitled, however not the concensus at that moment, or apparently even now. Even your sentence "the clear negative of admins preventing a user from challenging a potentially unjust action" is also on faulty ground now that its apparent the user was spamming the request. --NuclearZer013:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously I strongly disagree. I consider the block to have been an obvious and fundamental violation of bedrock Wiki-policy (not to mention basic fairness) and thus place little weight on the 'number of admins supporting it'. If a hundred admins said it is ok to vandalize articles I would still disagree. No less so in this instance. If that block were 'proper' then it would be equally proper for me to have blocked MONGO, for exactly the same 'infraction', virtually every week since. Which is, of course, absurd... as was the original block. On unblock requests you may be right that it is 'quite normal' for some admins to prevent users from repeating the request, but you asked MY opinion and I personally disagree with the practice. I see little harm in allowing users to speak their peace/request further review and great harm in preventing them from doing so. --CBD13:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sisterlinks template mystery
Hey! Pegship just asked my why a template is broken, and I originally suspected someone did some deletion sans checking into what links here. After looking at it, seems to be a parsing issue or mystery, so taking both together I reason we need an admin that is expert in templates to see what happened and is up! Guess who is elected? <G>. See this and see what you think. My worry is more what other templates may be having the same issue, vice fixing this test or template set; this was a test of the competing system I applied in a few cats only herein.
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In actual fact, once you take a look see (You'll have to go back in history, I saved the page with an inuse and added lts in front of the funny output... which is also manifesting in the component template 'parts' (such as this one) as repeated sequential line filling 'Template:Void 3 Template:Void 3 Template:Void 3' redlinks) and figure out what happened, we should just delete it in both cats too. In sum, I have no clue why those are appearing in several members of the set.
After you investigate, we probably need to speedy-D the whole set (consider them db-authored if we can expedite things so since I ported them, that should do.) as like I told Peg, was a test so I could argue virtues and vices with Jimbo and commons bigwigs. There are only two cats affected here, and several user pages. With them being broken, I wouldn't worry about any of us users... mine is certainly on a temp scratch page.
Well, Thanks. I have no real objection to them staying, but we might consider the matter at WP:TFD. Should I raise it, or let it ride. The commons will be using theirs for the forseeable future, though it's frequency of use has hardly grown at all in several months. I think they've lost enthusiasm for such since it's so cumbersome, ugly and large in edit space. I sure do like my one
line version better there!
I have to deal with real life for the rest of today. Can you take a look at Template:Wet noodle award(edittalklinkshistory) and figure out how to get the links and signature to behave. The fonts sizing just jumped on me too, so check the last few minor changes I made in diff to see the issue. I've an edit window open for to apply this unfinished, overdue tool! (Slavering at the bit, so to speak! This is my biggest pet peeve here for sure, and a way to fight it!)
If easy, let me know by email what the trouble was in sisterlinks. Thanks as always. Should be back available late evening or at least by Midnight. (Social thingy too!) // FrankB20:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I had explained the problem on Talk:Pegship rather than here. Basically, the 'void3' template was deleted a couple of days ago and I just had to change references to that template to instead call Template:Void (which does the same thing as Void3 did).
For the wet noodle template, I made some adjustments for what I think you were looking for. The signature will now work if the template is substituted (i.e. {{subst:Wet noodle award}}). There is no way to force a signature without substitution because the person calling the template would change each time. Most such templates leave off the sig and expect the user to add one manually. --CBD15:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Request for advice
Hi there, I am a recent contributer to Wikipedia. Within one week an administrator, user:jayjg blocked me for 3RR. Being new to wikipedia, and obviously having made an innocent mistake, I erased his "notice of blocking" from my talkpage. I quoted wikipedia policy that says "Deleting the comments of other users from Talk pages other than your own.. is considered vandalism." He continues to revert my erasure, citing a rule from wikipedia policy that was erased six months ago. More problematic is that this user also erases my own comments from my talkpage without any explanation which is definitely vandalism (see [[24]]). Please see my talkpage here User talk:68.198.236.57 and the history there. I only ask that you monitor the situation in case it escalates and to give me an opinion. In no way do I want to contribute to any escalation myself. Thank you for your help (I also asked some other users to watch the situation, it seems that numbers carry weight on wikipedia) 68.198.236.5718:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the opinion. As a new editor it is gratifying to know that if I am bullied, there are administrators who care enough to give their time and respond. Thanks again. 68.198.236.5700:59, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. The Featured content page doesn't work like the Main page. Rather than having one article/picture/list per day it shows randomly selected items each time the page is refreshed. If your browser is set up to reload on every page view then you should see different content every time you visit/refresh the page. Otherwise, there is a 'purge' link in the description at the top which will force a refresh. Since there isn't a fixed schedule there is no page corresponding to the 'article of the day nominations/coordination page'... just a randomly selected list at Wikipedia:Featured content/Lists. Eventually all of the featured lists will be include in the choices for selection, but it takes a little time to set each of them up and we haven't completed the process yet. --CBD08:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The Fish Portal
Hi, User:Melanochromis has done a great job getting the Fish Portal up an running. At this point, more sets of eyes can help make it even better. If you can offer some tips on the portal talk page about how to improve Fish up to "featured" quality, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Rfrisbietalk13:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, in a hidden comment as part of the edit you included "See Wikipedia talk:Featured lists for an explanation of this and other inclusion tags below"
People need to seriously 'chill out' and discuss these issues calmly. Intemperate comments like the above aren't helping anyone. Presumably there is some uncertainty as to definition of terms here which the ArbCom is working out. In most cases a 'desysoped' admin has generally been presumed to remain that way unless re-instated by a community approved RFA (with the ArbCom sometimes even putting limits on when the community could do that). A 'suspension' which is instead appealed to the ArbCom itself might thus be meant as a less severe penalty... needing only to demonstrate to ArbCom that there haven't been subsequent problems rather than requiring ~80% community approval. However, since there is also now some precedent for ArbCom getting involved in 're-sysoping' issues directly there is talk of appeal to ArbCom being a valid route for 'desysoped' admins as well. Semantic distinctions which need to be sorted out. Not cause for continued incivility and attacks. Finally, before invoking 'the will of the community' you might want to consider how that was expressed here. --CBD11:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I think you are right CBDunkerson, it appears like it is a lesser action.
Side note.
In regards to: "People need to seriously 'chill out' and discuss these issues calmly."
CBDunkerson, I don't know if you ever saw the rather forgetable movie Red Eye (film) but at the very beginning of the movie, the ditsy new red headed hotel clerk, Cynthia, is simultaneously on a cell phone with the star, Lisa Reisert, while talking to the uptight, irriated hotel guests (Bob and Marianne Taylor) trying to book the Taylor's room, and Cynthia says:
"I know, Mrs. Taylor, calm down."
Lisa on the cell phone worryingly cautions: "Don't say that. No..."
The Taylors then rant: "Calm down? She told me to calm down. Don't tell us to calm down. We've been very calm right up until now."[25]
I think Lisa has a point. Have you ever actually had anyone calm down when you tell them to calm down?
Here on wikipedia, for some really silly reason, whenever I get uptight, everyone seems to tell me to drink hot tea. If I had a nickel for everytime I read this on Wikipedia, I could become the Juan Valdez of Tea.
Anyway, have a great night. I have been waiting for months to say this to someone, thanks for giving me the opportunity CBDunkerson. Travb (talk) 11:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
hi, I've had an article waiting to be approved for a while. I was told not to repost until an admin had seen it. Glen S(admin staff) helped me initially but doesnt seem to be replying to my messages. Could you take a look at the page and tell me what else needs doing to it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:I-to-i/I-to-iI-to-i11:46, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Looks like Glen hasn't edited at all for a few days so apparently not around. The primary issues here are establishment of notability, which I think you have covered, and avoidance of 'advertising'. It is always difficult for people involved with something, as I presume you are based on the name, to write about it in a 'non promotional' way. I made some adjustments to the text in an effort to sound more 'dispassionately descriptive' and less 'enthusiastically supportive'. Basically trying to keep the same information with toned down adverbs. :]
One outstanding issue is the 'User:Glen S/Title' template which Glen added at the very top. That basically hides the normal page title behind one which has been specifically formatted - in this case to show the correct lowercase 'i' rather than 'I-to-i' as limited by the Mediawiki software. If/when we move it back out to the 'article space' that'll have to be removed because that template is considered kludgy and only allowed on pages in the 'user space'.
You may want to further tweak the wording, but I think we can move it back to an article any time. I can't guarantee that someone else won't disagree, but it seems like a solid article to me at this point. Let me know if you want help with moving it or have other questions. --CBD12:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, if you could move it into article space for me that would be great. Is there no way of having the title in lower case? Its not that important but it would be better.
I-to-i13:08, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, no. It's a fundamental limitation of the Wikimedia software that page names cannot start with a lowercase letter. Fortunately, if someone types 'i-to-i' into the Wikipedia search box or links to i-to-i they will still get to the right page... just the title on the page itself is capitalized. This may be fixed in a later version of the Mediawiki software. Also, as you can see from the link in the earlier sentence, I have moved this back to the article. You can continue working on it there, but just try to keep in mind that it should be written as a description of the company from a neutral party. --CBD13:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wanted to stop by and say hello to you. I also wanted to tell you that the editor Wikipediatrix has found herself to be in some serious trouble. If you go to her talk page you will see the drama as it is unfolding. I had always suspected that she was using sockpuppets to make her random edits and arguements, but I guess it has finally caught up with her in a big way. She has been blocked from Wikipedia for her blatant violation. This does sadden me because although we did not get along and I felt she was just stalking me through Wikipedia, I also felt she added a flavor to Wikipedia that lent to good editing. I have to follow that up by saying that with all of the wrongful things she accused me of doing, it is funny that she should be found out doing the very things she was accusing me of. I am saddened by this. I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season and thanks for all of your support. Junebug5204:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Previously there was an Ages of the Sun article. I redirected that to (and created) Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar to reflect the actual situation in the books (it is a very common misconception that the 'First Age' began with the first sunrise, but all the texts are absolutely clear that this was not the case). I agree that some kind of merge with Ages of Middle-earth makes sense and will comment on the talk page. --CBD12:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm stacked up in several Wikipedia page edits, and along the way needed and wanted a quick way to access the talk page on a shortcut page (Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion or the analog of WP:CFD, so to speak). I'm not sure of the url expansions and precedents, much less the causal needs to derive the desired link given the 'CFD' as a second perameter once I stubbed something out. Not even sure this is possible, but figured you can assess that quickly.
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If you have a moment, can you take a look and leave a suggestion or impliment. Seems like a useful template to have as an alternative, since will access all the Wikipedia talk pages if we can build one that is generic. 'WT' AND 'WPT' are preused disambig abbreviations, so I figured the name to be 'WP/T' ala 'WP:AN/I' as a good choice. The effort is here] with my meager success. (?Why aren't we both watching Bowl games? <g>) Happy new year! // FrankB19:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Frank. Ok, the problem you are running into is that 'CSD' isn't defined as anything. There is a page at WP:CSD which is a redirect to Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. There is also a Wikipedia:CSD page which redirects to the same spot. However, there is not a Wikipedia talk:CSD page. The 'CSD' by itself doesn't mean anything... only the full 'WP:CSD' string because that is a specific redirect page set up in advance. So to get this to work as I think you intend you would have to set up redirects to the talk pages. There are some examples of that like WT:AUM, which redirects to Wikipedia talk:Avoid using meta-templates. Obviously that would take alot of work to set up all the redirects. --CBD22:20, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also found WT:CSD after posting this to you, but that 'many redirects' solution was what was trying (hoping) to avoid. Have enough trouble remembering shortcuts, so thought to pervert them to need if wanted to refer to a talk instead. (You DO have a habit of referring me to interesting talk pages! LOL. This one's a good one to keep in mind. I'm somewhat guilty, I think.)
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I guess UR saying there couldn't be a general solution as I'd hoped using localurl's and other esoteric link build avenues. Sigh! Guess on reflection, that would violate causality... the shortcut expansion would have to know the WP:CSD belonged to a given namespace page. I was thinking fuzzy I guess. I had it in my mind that perhaps another sub-template could return the proper namespace link, and this concoction would massage that with prefixing 'Wikipedia talk:'. Duh and oh dang! Thanks as always! // FrankB
Protections
CBD, about your recent protections, what criteria was used on these pages to qualify for your "Heavily used meta-template which is seldom updated. Protected due to vandalism concerns"? A specific example would be: Template:Country alias Saint Pierre and Miquelon, this "template" is used on all of 6 pages? (please reply on my talk) — xaosfluxTalk06:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See the recent discussions on this issue here and here. Ligulem, Metros232, Naconkantari, Luna Santin, and others were protecting these templates piecemeal. As that sometimes leaves gaps, which had been used to vandalize the article of the day each of the previous two days, I took a more systematic approach to protecting as many of them as I could find. They should be marked with a template, but many of those which were protected by others also are not. Thus, I wanted to complete protection first and then go back and (again systematically) apply templates - including to the ones I didn't protect in the first place. All of which may change if a suggested redesign of how these templates work (to drastically reduce the number of them) is accepted. In that case I'd concentrate on converting to the new system and then deleting all of these. --CBD11:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for interposting here. These templates should be protected due to their complex usage and because they are part of a complex template scheme. If these are vandalised chances are quite high that nobody understands what is affected and how. Or the other way: it's difficult to track a penis on a page to such a template. Combined with the rare cases where one of those templates has to be changed, there is little reason to keep them on default open for everyone to hack around. Per adding a "this template is protected tag" I would propose to add {{permprotected}} to talk pages. For example there is little purpose to add these more than 1'500 templates to a category, besides that these are not templates in the common sense but data points in an array. Or you could say "variables", mostly "constants". If there is anything to change on these, requesting edits per {{editprotected}} seems efficient enough. See also my admin log. --Ligulem12:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you both for your reply, most of these templates seem like a pretty cludgy way to get something done, reform would be welcome! What brought me to this is that without these being categorized as hprotected/permprotect/etc they have caused flooding on Wikipedia:List of protected pages. I'm going to go take a deeper look at the Ideas_for_reworking section and see if I can help out there. Thank you, — xaosfluxTalk12:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Adding one of the templates explaining the reason for protection would cause the bot to remove these. I think we need to either do that or change the structure to reduce the number of templates. I looked at Special/Allpages for these templates and it turns out that we have only covered a small fraction thus far (though I went through five different 'list of countries' pages with these icons and protected all of those). --CBD13:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As you evidently discovered there was alot of vandalism coming from that range. Mostly Cplot. Dmcdevit blocked it entirely, but that was hitting several actual contributors so I changed it to an anon-only block. This was previously discussed on AN here. --CBD11:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
CBD - just wanted to say thank you for taking Hipocrite to task for his incivility and bullying attitude. I have come across his interventions on the Reference Desks and associated talk pages. I feel his approach is appallingly combative, unpleasant and offensive, even in situations where I might have agreed with his underlying intentions. One of his tactics when challenged is to assert that you are the only person who has any problems with his behaviour. Just wanted to let you know that this isn't true ! Gandalf6112:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. FYI, if you have alot of problems with someone the best course is to stay polite and then take it to WP:PAIN if they don't stop. Hopefully Hipocrite will stop and various people can get back about their business. --CBD17:18, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You mean other than the bit where I encourage him to stay polite? Because his incivility was (comparatively) minor and I felt it might be more effective to point him towards useful avenues for dispute resolution. --CBD09:14, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth...
...there is no better summary of the situation than this. You really hit the nail on the head. I wonder if things might have been different with MONGO, if someone like Durova had stepped in and taken a stand with him. But nobody ever has the guts to do what Durova did - and after seeing how much flak she took I can understand why. I hope, when all is said and done, Durova will be known as someone who perhaps prevented another ugly MONGO-like arbitration - and despite what everyone thinks about me and JzG, that's not what I want. Honestly. ATren13:13, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. That is my hope as well. I like JzG and don't want to see these kinds of conflicts continue to simmer and grow. He has handled it pretty well... it's everyone else who needs to calm down. :] --CBD17:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Featured Gallery
I believe a featured gallery would be the proper analogue to the featured topic. Sorry to hear the logic of featured template. I had thought the featured content is as important of an interal motivational and signalling device as it is an external signaling device. TonyTheTiger14:56, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
CBD I need your help
CB, Happy New Year!! I wanted to ask you if you could help me. I have a feeling that we have a vandal on our hands. Saidtruth created an account and then moments later went onto the David L Cook page and wrote some very defaming things that were not true. I reverted the edit and went to look at the individuals log and contribution only to find nothing. I find it strange that this article was the only one they chose to attack. Maybe we can watch this user and their contributions. I will wait to see if they attack this article again. Can you advise of what we should do? Junebug5222:02, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Junebug. The relevant policy is WP:BLP. Basically, any potentially defamatory information must cite a reliable source or it can be removed on sight. Repeated addition of such things without references will lead to a block. I'll try to keep an eye out, but hopefully it was a one time thing, but don't worry about serious problems over this... there are very firm policies against it. --CBD22:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks CB for your attention. I hope this is a one time thing. I would hate that someone would try to hurt a public figure in such a way. Junebug5222:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hey CB, thanks for your help. I have not had anymore instances of vanadlism from Saidtruth, however I was wondering if we can go onto the history page for the David L Cook article and remove that entry from the history. I have received about 5 e mails from people, one of which was very very upset about that entry. I feel this could continue to cause problems and may even cause a problem for this artist. David is a very popular Christian recording star and that entry has offended a great many it seems. Taking the rumor off the page is one thing, but people are still going to the history and seeing that entry. Can you please advise? Thanks again.. Junebug5217:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
CB, thank you for your help. I did report it and they removed it from the history. I am glad you are watching out for me LOL Thanx again. Junebug5220:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Arbcom case and your evidence
Hi Conrad. The Husnock case is moving quite quickly now. I've commented at the proposed decision talk page and at the Workshop page. I linked to the evidence you provided, and I thought you might like to know that I found another example where Husnock stated very strongly that one of those posting was not a sock puppet. It seems relevant to the evidence you gave. My post is here, though note that one edit later I corrected one of the links. Carcharoth03:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Blech. The whole thing is a mess. If he would just let it go... I was trying to push for swift closure with fairly minimal sanctions. Oh well. I think it'll shift to the 'Proposed decision' phase soon and then its the arbitors' problem. --CBD08:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
i-to-i again
Hi there, is it possible to put tracking codes on the outbound links on this page? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-to-i I'm assuming the answer is no, but I thought I'd ask anyway?
If you mean tracking where people go when they leave that page then no, I don't know of any way to do that. Inbound Wikipedia links to the page can be viewed here. --CBD10:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I phrased that badly. We have codes that tell us how much traffic comes to our home page from specific links. Can we put a code into the i-to-i website link on the wiki page so we can monitor how much traffic is coming from the wikipedia site?
I-to-i12:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Again, so far as I know there is no way to track destinations for users leaving Wikipedia pages... either to a specific site or in general. You could ask at the Reference desk or Village pump, but I don't think there is a way to do this. --CBD13:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for opting not to pile on Hypnosadist at a time when it seemed like a happy bandwagon to join, I think it helped ease the situation a bit. KP Botany03:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. These snippets are displayed on the Wikipedia:Featured content page. Every time that page is loaded/refreshed it displays a randomly selected featured article, picture, portal, and list. You may have to scroll down to see the list. You can see how this will look for the page above by using {{list preview|Locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal}}. I have been formatting featured lists to do this in groups and will get to 'List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset' and the other outstanding lists eventually. --CBD22:08, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Civility
When behaving like an arse, one should not consider it uncivil to be asked to desist; which is to say, where I come from, that is regarded as civil. And effective. --Tagishsimon(talk)
Cumberland, Maryland page/Metros232
Starting today user Metros232 began editing the Cumberland, Maryland page. He put up several "reference" tags (some information can't be referenced like past history, utilities, and notable natives/residents), I tried to meet him in the middle with the reference tags, but he would not hear it. I referenced many sections even though I doubt they are proper references. Some information was deleted from the page entirely including the very large links section which had be discussed in the Cumberland, Maryland talk page. It was decided that the information in those links was local and many people spent ALOT of time looking those links up, so the links stayed. This is another point on contention. I moved the links to it's own page to appease Metros232, he quickly nominated it for speedy deletion.
To me it feels like Metros232 is out to undermine and ruin a page that many people work very hard on cause it doesn't meet his standards and it puzzles me as to why he is doing this as Cumberland, Maryland doesn't seem to be a section that he has ever edited nor something that he would go to (by looking at his contributions).
I just feel that Metros232 is overstepping his power as an Admin (whether he is one or not) and ruining a page without talking to the people who wrote it, following the talk page, or at least meeting someone in the middle on some things. I have done all that I can to keep the Cumberland, Maryland page as it is, but I feel that it will get, in my opinion, vandalised by Metros232 further in the coming days as I continue to find middle ground on this subject. PLEASE help!
Thanks, I will add this to the Cumberland, Maryland talk page so everyone can take a vote on it. I was not aware that there was such a site. I appericate your help and am glad there are admin that are helpful. Thanks very much!
I noticed that you've worked on the flag icons templates in the past, and wondered if you were aware of the debate here? Any input would be appreciated. Thanks. Carcharoth11:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have seen it, but I don't really have strong opinions on the use of the flags... I've just been looking at options for simplifying the template system used to produce them. Though there's alot of confusion / discussion around that as well. --CBD13:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old South Road
Do you have any idea how confused you made me? ^_^ I thought I was loosing it, "What was I talking about article doesn't exist? Why didn't I go for the merge anyway?" /* scratches head */ brenneman05:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. It's all in your imagination, the 'Roads of Middle-earth' article was there all along. :] Actually it was Fang Aili who started it. The Middle-earth Wikiproject has been moving towards merging everything into lists like this for a while now... there is just so much stuff that it is going to take a while. --CBD09:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But the roads article looks good now. We now have a merged weapons article, roads article, rivers article, minor places, horses. Now I just need to figure out how to use embedded anchor links to take people directly to entries in those lists (using redirects per the new 'anchored redirects work' thing). Don't want to use subheadings in all the lists. Any tips? Carcharoth12:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. I changed that, but still not working. Click around the above links and for me Adalgrim Took (a redirect to the anchor) takes me to the list, but not down to the entry, whereas List of Hobbits#Adalgrim takes me straight to the entry. In contrast, Bill the Pony, anchored to the heading, not a div-id tag, goes straight to the entry. Hitting the browser 'back' button on Bill the Pony takes you back up to the top of the article the section is in, but hitting the 'back' button for List of Hobbits#Adalgrim takes you back here. I wonder what happens with Horses of Middle-earth#Bill the pony? Hitting the 'back' button there doesn't take you to the top of the article, but takes you back here. Any idea what is going on? I suspect that going to a section through a "section heading anchored" redirect such as Bill the Pony acts like a double redirect (but is allowed), and going directly there, such as by a piped link like Bill the pony is not a double redirect. But going to a div through a "div-id tag anchored redirect" doesn't yet work. Probably something to do with the way the anchored redirects feature was enabled (see meta:Help:Redirect#A_redirect_to_an_anchor and bug 218 and meta:Help:Section_linking_and_redirects#Section_linking_and_redirects). Any idea what to do? Carcharoth12:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The 'Adalgrim Took' link in your first sentence above has worked correctly for me since the first time I tried it... which was after you corrected the anchor point to '#Adalgrim' from '#Adalgrim Took'. If you tried it prior to that it would have failed and maybe now you just need to clear your cache or something. --CBD13:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Aggh! I tried clearing my cache. But that didn't work. It works now, for some reason. Strange. Oh well. Glad that wasn't anything major. Maybe a job queue thing, though as it worked for you, probably was a cache issue. F5 normally clears my cache. Maybe I needed a more vigorous way to clear it? Carcharoth13:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Page caching invariably annoys me so I have long since turned it off entirely by setting the cache size to zero and instructing my browser to reload every time a page is visited. Seems to be the only thing which always works. Otherwise, even when you clear the cache sometimes it has a copy of the page in memory and you have to close and re-open the browser before it will display correctly. --CBD13:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Post-script: can you think of an easy way to update those redirects to include the anchors pointing at the div-id tags? I'm thinking of generating a list of Hobbit redirects (which should already exist) for the list of Hobbits, then manipulating the text at List of Hobbits to find out what the div-id tags are for each hobbit, then using that to form the correct anchored link. I guess I would then have a series of several hundred AWB edits to make. Which would require me to learn how that works... I think this will gon very low down my list of things to do! :-) Carcharoth03:10, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The process you describe sounds about like I would do. One tip might be that in most cases the div id is just the first name. There are some exceptions to that where the first name isn't known or is shared by several people, but those would be a small number of cases. That said, when I set them up in the first place I did it manually and that didn't take too long. --CBD11:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
An editor has nominated the article Middle-earth cosmology for deletion, under the Articles for deletion process. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the nomination (also see What Wikipedia is not and Deletion policy). Your opinions on why the topic of the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome: participate in the discussion by editing Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Middle-earth cosmology. Add four tildes like this ˜˜˜˜ to sign your comments. You can also edit the article Middle-earth cosmology during the discussion, but do not remove the "Articles for Deletion" template (the box at the top of the article), this will not end the deletion debate. Jayden54Bot15:07, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Frank. If you check the history link you supplied above you will see that the text was there... it was just displaying outside the box over on the left. This was because the template call was on the same line as the preceding sentence and thus the text was continuing from where the other text left off. I just moved the template call down one line and now it is ok. --CBD12:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
IMO there is nothing to discuss about the deletion of a lot of sourced statements and of a whole section: It is Vandalism.
To make things worse, Episodiod used the more sofisticated Vandalist technique of mixing the deletion of sourced stuff with the addition of new material.
Episodiod is not a naive new user, CBDunkerson. IMO, Episodiod is a POV-pusher. A big time POV-pusher, to put it buntly.
I've been checking through that list, and I found a few things that probably shouldn't be on there, plus some capitalised versions were missing (eg. Tolkien studies was there, but not Tolkien Studies, and Tolkien's legendarium, but not Tolkien's Legendarium). I assume the latter just got missed off, but I wanted to check the way you set things up didn't strip out things with different capitalisation. I know the way I compare lists (in Excel) doesn't take capitalisation into account (there probably is a way, but I haven't found it yet). Anyway, the things that probably should be removed from the list are:
Headstrong - dab page for two music albums - neither seem to have a Tolkien link
Patience (poem) - the current version of this page attributes work done on this Middle English poem to Tolkien, but I think the person who added that was confusing this with the Pearl (poem) and other Pearl poet works Tolkien worked on. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think Tolkien worked on this poem, though he did work on Gawain, Pearl and Sir Orfeo.
Thanks. I hadn't realized that Excel's 'if()' logic ignored case... I'll have to try to find a way to get the capitalization differences back in there. I can't recall having heard about Tolkien working on Patience either. I'll look into that a bit and remove it if I don't find anything. As to the disambiguation pages, I'd prefer to keep them precisely because they get changed around and the Tolkien disambigs lost... for instance 'Headstrong' has previously directed to the hobbits page and then to one of the songs with a link to the hobbits page in a hatnote... but now the hobbits link has been removed entirely. I'll put it back into the disambiguation page. --CBD11:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, the 'exact()' function in Excel does case sensitive comparisons. I've updated the list with various case variation pages. --CBD19:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's good to know. I've used both IF and EXACT functions before, but will have to remember that the IF function is not case-sensitive. Carcharoth13:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've just been looking at those new pages. Some interesting ones there. Have you found any new sources, or is it still the same old combination of surveying watchlists, whatlinkshere, categories, and new additions at the assessment log? In particular, I'm still interested in finding the redirects pointing at these articles. Any ideas on how to do that for the 1000+ articles listed there?
In particular, I saw your addition of more deletion discussions. How are you finding those? discussions? Other than going through the entire history of VfD and AfD, I'm not sure whether any list of deletion discussions would ever be complete (though it would be nice to have one). Also, finding articles that got deleted under speedy deletion criteria would be even harder (though finding those is not as useful - you would hope most were nonsense, and that anything worthwhile was later recreated), as there tends not to be a record of those. They will be in the deletion log somewhere, but that is not really searchable or browsable. One that you did miss was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tolkien and racism - which was probably salvageable. I found an entry on Tolkien and racism in the new J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia - would that be enough to justify a Wikipedia article? Would it get out of control? (Almost definitely). Could it be kept under control? (Maybe). I think some of the recent deletion discussions listed at the WikiProject are also missing. Would it be worth listing that CfD discussion. Are there old CfD and TfD and IfD discussions missing? What about the Commons debate on the map images? Aagh! The list is never-ending!! :-) Carcharoth14:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And somehow Music of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy remained uncategorised and unknown for over a year. Actually, on closer examination, it lost its category here, and was moved to a new title at some point. The redirect (The Lord of the Rings music) is in the list at the portal, but not the new page. Can it be added to the list of pages to add. In fact, would it be best to set up a section on the talk page to add any new stuff that is found, or is there an easier way to maintain the list? I can see things slipping through the cracks unless one person (you) maintains the list. What do you think? Carcharoth01:57, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I copy the existing list into Excel as a first step in making updates. Then I compile all the pages I want to merge into a list, remove duplicates, get just the pages which aren't on the original list, and go through those. Thus, the best way to get things into the list is to just add them... they'll automatically be carried forward in future updates. They don't even have to be in alphabetical order and even duplicates aren't a problem since I cut those out before repasting the list. I've been thinking that I may also set up an 'exclude' list so that people can see things which are somehow connected to Tolkien on Wikipedia that aren't being included. --CBD21:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Games Rogers redirect
Hello,
Please allow the redirect of 'Gamble Rogers' to the article on 'James Gamble Rogers IV'. Having only one author does warrant removal.
I commented there. Now that 'imagemap' is possible I had been considering making a clickable map of Middle-earth for the portal... but 'fair use' images aren't allowed on portals. It's all very frustrating. --CBD11:42, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Middle-earth merges
I've recently done some merging into Regions of the Shire, and I see you have as well for Middle-earth cosmology. One thing I've noticed is that people might now arrive at these 'entries inside an article' in one of two ways. The first, if they click on a link from another Tolkien-related page is fine, as they realise what they are arriving at. The other way is people typing something in the search box. If you type 'Vaiya' into the search box, you arrive in the middle of a list. If you know it is a Tolkien phrase, then fine, but if you don't, it is confusing. Previously, there would have been the "this is a fictional ... from Tolkien's legendarium" bit, but now the reader jumps straight into the middle of a page. It's probably a necessary trade-off between having hundreds of stubby pages, and having well-organised list articles, but I wondered what you thought about this? Carcharoth16:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm. I think we can follow disambiguation procedures on this... if a word is only used for Tolkien or uses of it with some non-Tolkien meaning are rare / unlikely to be searched for, then we can go directly to the section on the page. If the term has one or more other meanings that are notable then typing in the term should probably go to a disambiguation page (or one of the other meanings, with a Tolkien hatnote, if they are much more prevalent)... if for some reason the term doesn't go to a disambig page, but instead direct to a Tolkien list then I think we would want it to go to the top of the list and have a hatnote to other meanings there. --CBD17:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For your efforts at streamlining the POTD system, have a barnstar. A belated THANK YOU for making the whole thing a lot easier to do! howcheng {chat}16:58, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The case has closed and the results are posted at the link above.
Husnock is desysopped without prejudice to his re-applying for adminship via a Request for adminship.
Husnock is cautioned regarding improper use of alternative accounts or inappropriate postings by alter egos.
Husnock is cautioned to conscientiously follow Wikipedia's Wikipedia:No original research and image copyright policies when he returns to regular editing.
Husnock, who has been desysopped due to unblocking himself and apparently sharing the password to an administrative account with another user, is cautioned to strictly conform to Wikipedia policies should he again be entrusted with administrative responsibility.
I noticed on another editor's talk page that you said that warnings should not be restored to a user's talk page. Why can't the warnings be kept? If the user vandalizes in the future, his previous malicious acts should be seen by those who protect against vandalism so they can take stronger action. The user in question is 89.150.150.59, who did this. Feedback would be appreciated regarding this user. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 16:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Warnings are kept. In the page history. Forcing their display on the talk page is a mis-use of the page... it is there to allow communication with the person. Not to embarrass, harass, or keep a log of misdeeds. If you want to talk to a user and try to get them to stop causing problems or work with you on something you use their talk page. If you want to see if they have caused problems before you check their block log, contributions, and/or user page history. Restoring warnings does nothing to stop bad faith users from continuing to be disruptive and serves only to aggravate good faith users who disagree with you. In neither case does it serve a needed purpose or comply with Wikipedia policy. --CBD17:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your timely response. I had been under the impression that warnings were supposed to be kept on talk pages, as I thought I saw somewhere in the past that there were warning templates for removing warnings from talk pages. I understand that warnings are kept in the page history, but it just doesn't strike me as immediately visible. However, I appreciate the clarification. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 17:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rollback
I just wanted to point out that I didn't say people should use rollback whenever they feel like it, just that it wasn't restricted to only vandalism. There was a poll on the subject last year, and a small majority disagreed with the notion that rollback is only for vandalism. >Radiant<10:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As I said that rollback was not just for vandalism myself (though originally it was) that's not a matter of dispute. What I was objecting to was your statement that Mel was essentially correct about rollback. Mel had previous to that stated, "There's also a repeated implication or even statement as here that the use of rollback is only authorised for certain situations; that was certainly not part of any policy or even guideline when I becasme an admin; has it been added somewhere since?"
While rollback is not limited to JUST vandalism it most certainly IS limited, and always has been... contrary to what Mel was arguing and you seemed to be supporting. As you say above that you did not say "people should use rollback whenever they feel like it" your endorsement of his position was presumably in reference to 'rollback is not limited to vandalism' and not to his wider 'rollback is not limited at all' claim. --CBD11:52, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, I did not mean to endorse "no limits on rollback". But in my opinion, if people are using rollback in an edit war, the problem is not really that they're using rollback, but the problem is that they're edit warring. >Radiant<12:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
page is showing in deletion
hi there,
i'm not a pro in web. I have edited my user page quite a few times but it is not showing. I coudnt understand what the problem was. I will feel much obiged if you look into the page and suggest me what to do !
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:BLP Admin
Hi CBD. The BLP Admin proposal now has been rejected. The rejected template was placed by one of the early supporters, so I think that issue is resolved. I believe this substantial change in circumstances directly affects your MfD as it creates a significantly different issue - should this rejected proposal be kept or deleted? I would suggest withdrawing your present MfD and relisting BLP Admin at MfD to determine whether the rejected project page should be deleted. -- Jreferee17:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! (No other messages since!) You must be nearly wikimissing! <G> You enjoy yourself! Sigh. Wish I could do the same in good conscience. If it's the job... condolences!
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How about adding the Template:Unicode/doc page to the protected Template:Unicode. I'm open to ideas to how best to make {{Protected}} interwikized, as I'm sure it's gonna keep biting me. Thanks for the link to WP:RT too! Couldn't find the danged page again. I'll need to add that to my patrol.
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Best guess would be to incorporate the {{#ifeq:{{SITENAME}}|Wikipedia| <!--- Template Here --->}} coding you were noticing on my email. <Funny- t'was not the topic!>
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I have to do such wherever there is a 'Wikipedia only' reference like that, including some cats declaring a parent to a 'category:Wikipedia... something', where they involve porting issues. (The skeleton of cats affected is small, but support the whole... without changing our template categorization here.) If you agree, can you update that and drop me a note so that I can then export it's doc page, and test foreign wiki waters for loacl collisions if they use a {{protected}} equivilant. // FrankB16:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC) (Edit conflict -- Fast BOT! LOL!)[reply]
I updated SIG so that {{subst:SIG}} will produce a viable signature. This can be included into other templates as {{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>SIG}}. However, this generally is not done because more people automatically type ~~~~ at the end of their message and would thus end up with TWO signatures... or not subst the top level template and end up with gibberish.
Great on the sig fix... no-one subst's the Inuse templates, and when I find them, always wish they had a timestamp and party to contact... the wording is a little weird too, so I ended up reintroducing the 'until' version as it's easier to look at the clock and estimate the task will take X mins, and compute a 'should be done' time than it is to answer the 'for two hours' question (means what sans a reference time!). Sigh.
See Template:IWTG_tagging_templates_usage, and in particular the note under the {{template doc page viewed directly}} [When viewed directly! <g>]{{I'd like to see it added to that template, or something close to it, for these combined usage pages. I'm thinking triggered by testing '{{{1}}}', as it certainly isn't needed on a typical /doc page.
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Overall, I believe many templates can be documented similar to this one and {{Indent family usage}}, and I have in mind stuff like lc, cl, ccl, where the usage tends to refer to the others of similar function as 'see also' templates. In sum, I recommend you work that into WP:DPP as a preference.
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I already did that as an alternative,iirc, but!, looks like you need to intercede with L... for me. He'd voted to delete IWTG as well, so I don't know why he'd trash that effort if the IWTG was an issue. Is he of the school of less documentation is better? Deleting the one {IWTG} line would have been enough, don't you think? Probably explains why you didn't comment on the change! 'Cept for the below, niggling problem, I've been pretty happy with it, AND {{interwiki doc page pattern}} for the most part.
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Would also appreciate you taking (and adjusting) {{interwiki doc page pattern}} to create a page as per my version of WP:DPP, as I'm confused whether I fixed it off site, or didn't save in a browser, but seems that this version never nests properly viz the second IWTG... (I'm a little woozy with a very bad weekend!)
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In any event, the template cats, and the two calls to IWTG (one self, one for the template calling) need reconciled some with self cats and template cats and interwiki's. If I've extra 'broken in cludes', by all means cut the number, but please simplify it if you can. I seem to have to wind up moving the calling template's IWTG upward all the time and nesting it against it's cats--which puts it high verses any documentation on the page. I'm sure Ligulem would prefer it down low, and so for a fact do I most of the time. Maybe just move it's catgories down instead? Well... take a look, but you'll need to see the reverted WP:DPP to see how I've been using it.
Strange to be writing you by talk instead of email! My systems unstable right now and I dare not open email again until I close browsers out. I had regedit open, and changed settings, particularly a couple for IE and email, and blewy... my whole task bar and the mail program went away. Bare desktop save for one text file. Fortunately, I pulled up the task manager, and it's letting me close out open pages and even edit... just hard to switch or take notes as I go per my normal practice. Definitely gonna get a MAC next computer. TTFN // FrankB04:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Whether the anon IP user making disruptive edits on the article is a vandal is a difference of opinion. It's hardly an insult, and I consider its use in this case an insult. You well know that I have tried to communicate with this user via the edit summaries and article talk page. Given the fact that this user has a different IP address every time they log on after several days, I don't not understand how you feel I should have attempted direct communication. You even posted on the talk pagge, but haven't tried to contact the user either. Hmmm. - BillCJ04:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Whether the anon IP user making disruptive edits on the article is a vandal is a difference of opinion." - No, it isn't. Wikipedia's vandalism policy lays out things which are and are not vandalism, and this very clearly falls into the are not group.
"It's hardly an insult, and I consider its use in this case an insult." - You consider its use, by you, in this case to be an insult? Excellent! We are agreed... calling people 'vandals' is an insult, especially when it is untrue. Please stop insulting people.
"You even posted on the talk pagge, but haven't tried to contact the user either." - False.
The other user's failure to communicate (beyond edit summaries) or seek compromise is no excuse for your own incivility and failure to compromise. It is possible the user is just not familiar with talk page usage, but in any case simply reverting over and over again is not the way to handle disputes. Nor are false claims of vandalism. Try including a link to the talk page in your edit summary if someone isn't responding to comments there. Try understanding the reasonable basis for their objection and trying to devise wording that you can both compromise on. And don't go around being hostile and insulting to others. --CBD12:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
YOu are being far more hostile and insulting to me than I have been to anon IP. I HAVE tried to devise wording that might be acceptable to him, but he still takes those lines out. He has reverted your attempts to compromise also, taking out the references to the strike that your put in. Does this sound like someone who wants to compromise? - BillCJ18:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have attempted to contact the user via e-mail and reverted with a link to the talk page in the edit summary. If that doesn't get a response then we should ask some uninvolved admin to semi-protect the page. No need for accusations, hostility, annoyance, whatever. The anon user has been uncommunicative and stubborn about his edits... neither is a big deal (and both are specifically not vandalism). Hopefully they'll start talking, but if not the problem can be dealt with sans the drama. --CBD22:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for making the changes. I do hope the user will respond to your outreach, but my gut tells me this won't work either. I do hope I'm wrong about that. My goal is to have the best page possible, not to have my view enforced. I think the changes you have made are fairly neutral, and are acceptable to me. That was my goal, but it's hard for me to "write" neutral when I have a definite non-neutral POV on the issue. It's just hard for me to think of alternative ways to present something contrary to my viewpoint without any outside input. So far, you've been the only one trying to do that, and for that I am sincerely grateful. It may have seemed like I was not trying to compromise on this, but I genuinely was. Had I not been, I would never have tried posting on the article talk page at all.
The majority of my experince dealing with IP users on Wiki has been with genuine vandals (the kind who put "poop" in the text, or blanks sections or pages, etc.), and this definitely colors my attitude on IP users. I know they aren't all bad, and most are just newbies or casual editors. You are looking out for their interests, and that's good. Happy editing. - BillCJ23:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Todd Kessler
I see that you have deleted the encyclopedia page 'Todd Kessler'. What led you to do this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.242.119.95 (talk • contribs).
I didn't. That page was deleted by Kusma because it had been marked for proposed deletion for six days. I then deleted the 'Todd kessler' (lowercase 'k') page which re-directed to 'Todd Kessler' (uppercase 'K')... since the latter article no longer existed and the redirect did nothing.
I have restored Todd Kessler since you appear to be objecting to its deletion and the 'proposed deletion' policy allows restoration in such cases. However, the original deletion was on grounds that the article was a hoax. I'd recommend locating and adding references to support it or there will like be a deletion discussion followed by more permanent removal of the page. --CBD12:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Out-of-process deletions of templates
Having returned from my January vacations I discovered that you have deleted a template linked from my user page. Now I have to replace it with an alternative template of inferior quality. I hope that you will reconsider your deletion. --Ghirla-трёп-16:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, if you read the link you attached above you will see that I deleted a redirect which no longer went anywhere. The actual content you are looking for was deleted by Nihonjoe here. --CBD18:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
re: Can you update this back to my code plus add the missing pipe after 'SISTER'... I just found the same goof on Meta, I'd tested it using the front-end templates tlxm/tlxc/tlxw, so didn't see the affect on normal usages. Thanks. Makes for a nice extended capability though! // FrankB21:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I put in the bit, but didn't convert it to use the /doc sub-page. While it makes sense to have a doc sub-page for that template I think it needs to be discussed on the talk because the documentation on the sub-page is very different from the current - in part because it is used by multiple templates. --CBD01:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Re: thanks, but Querp? The display's the same, which is what makes SISTER pragmatic. The other three are just empty shells passing numbered parameters to this... 'filter macros' in effect.
Template:Tlx/doc(edittalklinkshistory) / Template:Tlx(edittalklinkshistory) Could it be you got faked out by a noinclude block on the /doc page? I needed someway to track updated or not on versions, so hiding a brief summary with sig stamp cum date seems pretty efficient... and so the top of the doc page viewed directly vanishes in use on the actual templates. Thought that was a good compromise, meself.
... the newest included doc page is has two line brief acknowledgement of the front end templates, and from this following line and downwards:
is what's been around for a while, though 'that' exact format of the expansion originated on the commons or Meta... with the same guy that doubled the capacity, from three args to six, iirc.
So I took the best of two /doc versions (that weren't really all that far apart) about a week back and made them all equal and less prone to interwiki issues. But if you have a concern, I'm all ears! The usage talks about tlx, and has that table as it has for months. The only variation therein is the names were for a time W2, not X4 or whatever this one uses. Most sisters HAD W2, and don't have any of the X#'s.
I did just see something on the talk about either splitting that table in two, or eliminating the empty call cases.
I did reconfigure parts of that so the Doc also tests against PAGENAME iirc for proper categories (i.e. internal versus Interwiki link templates; though with SISTER=, in there will cat to both of those itself) or perhaps adds or subtracts a line by PAGENAME calling specific to that pagename. That's what I've been doing with combined usage pages for a few weeks now, especially those which refer to a lot of others. // FrankB04:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Need to settle the above concerns
Can we settle-up on whether or not there is needed discussions on Tlx, or can I count on an inter-site version as I'd written the /doc page? All my IE6 browsers shut down on me abruptly two nights back loosing all kinds of almost ready inter-related edits, amongst which I'd had a suffixed version rear end for Lts called ltsany by which I mean, I'd created a general version of Ltsmeta, including a parameter to specify site language prefix. OTOH, I may have saved that on Meta or the commons, and I need to go look... but in the meantime ... Think that Language wrinkle should also go into Tlx, the concept being to suffix the three letter project mnemonic 'mta/wpd/wbk/... /wvy' in small front end filter templates ala {{tlxw}}/{{Tlxm}}/{{Tlxc}} which provide the site routing definitions "|SISTER=...|LANG=|" from the filter--The CAPS flavor being the call into the output template the lowercase, the pass parameter into said front ends.
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OTOH, I suspect your concern is the /doc page links now evince as and devolve to a full url link instead of a local wikilink, and so maybe we should be discussing all of such on a wider forum? --Not so sure that's not a bad thing, as it does decouple the 'what links here' from the docs pages. --But some may see that as a problem not a benefit.
Regardless, it's clearly getting near if not past time I need to involve others in scheming this as well as actiely doing some of the remaining work. -- Among other factors, the project really needs people on each site now 'in the know' about local wikipolitics, in particular, category and template practices, -- and essentially the main project page needs: (1) finished and refined by community discourse (2) moved to Meta along with Doc page pattern ASAP, and (3) the other sisters to have local wikiprojects 'chapter houses' as it were, where local site co-ordination occurs.
Bottom line, there is a lot of wikiwork I'd rather be about instead, and is going neglected in the meanwhile... I've somehow managed to put myself trudging away endlessly on a treadmill, attempting to empty a lake with a teaspoon, or move a beach with a thimble! So, I need some overt support and assistance for a while as I'm not even sure when to trust my judgement right now. It's got to have a coming out party and be accepted here soon as well, and if it's rejected here, then I've lost a good month of wikiwork for nada. Recommendations?
My concern with the /doc page wasn't any of the various things above. I just thought it was hard to find the basic TLX documentation in amongst all the other stuff that was on the page. I tried to re-arrange things a little so that the documentation TLX users are used to seeing appears at the top and the other stuff is minimized. --CBD00:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sister issues
Several things that've come out crystal clear in sister porting are: a) /doc pages which display as redlinks are not welcome b) Even Tlx is not always sister appropriate, particularly on village pump pages where curly braces and expanded font face ends up being a little funky looking breaking the narrative flow, c) There exists a element of the population on some sites who are very anti-template. I don't know for sure why, but it smacks of cultural biases perhaps rooted in past recommendations (e.g. the dead issue about parserfunctions?), or people that don't understand templates as labor savers (out of personal preference and typing skills, work methods, or such? Or subconscious bias, perhaps even fears and which wouldn't let such people realize they are discommoding others manner of thinking and doing work, for it's certain we all think differently and work differently--so I'm thinking that such disruption must needs be subconscious or they're controlling people).
When you next be active, can you take a peek at this and see if you can get V0 to represent "V0"... this looks like a great little asset for Wikibooks and Wikiversity, but something about the tech coding seems not to like the <sub/sub> nesting? Can that be fixed? If not, then the /doc page ought to spell out the proper work around that would work within the first numbered parameter. I haven't ever played in depth with the 'math' wikimarkup modifier, but would suspect one could flip out and then back in at need using "</math><sub>0</sub<math>"? If that's valid, submit that could be generalized as a sub-template {{sub}} which should be mentioned in the /doc page as well. (What to my wondering eyes but appears, a blue link doing precisely that, in a category I've never seen! BTW-- what's the cat for the parserfunctions themselves--or are they keywords with no template part at all? But check out the 'code' behavior with the change I just added... to 'equation'.
Most other projects don't use /doc sub-pages at all. They came into existence on Wikipedia solely because of the template transclusion limits. The other projects don't use anywhere near as many templates as we do and thus likely haven't even noticed that there ARE limits on how much can be transcluded onto a single page. As such they probably aren't familiar with /doc pages at all.
Parserfunctions do not use any templates. They are like the {{NAMESPACE}} and other 'magic words'... the Wiki parser picks them out and performs special handling in the php code. Thus, there is no way to see a category or 'what links here' for all pages with #if: and the like. --CBD00:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Conrad - you deleted the best concise description of a project that I've been working on for 2+ years.
Hi Conrad, my name is Chris Yates, a sculptor and designer in Boulder, CO. I make the photography-based comic Reprographics, that has been published on the site www.chrisyates.net/reprographics. You recently deleted a quite comprehensive and accurate wikipedia entry about this project, it's relevance to other artists and cartoonists, and it's contibution to modern-day fumetti.
While I understand that it is hard for various wiki editors to discern between what is relevant and what is not, I will put humbleness aside and tell you that the Reprographics (comic) entry was an important one, albeit for a pretty narrow audience. Yes, it looks like one of my fans penned the whole thing, so was that the criteria for deletion? I'm not exactly sure why anyone would want to delete an accurate encylopediac entry on a my fairly popular project, that has nuances that were explained clearly here at Wikipedia.
Thanks for your time
Chris Yates
superyates@hotmail.com
www.chrisyates.net/reprographics —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.174.179.111 (talk • contribs).
Actually, I deleted a page which contained nothing except, "#Redirect [[Reprographics (webcomic)]]"... which was a 'broken redirect' because the Reprographics (webcomic) page was deleted over a month ago. That page was deleted because someone proposed it should be deleted for failing to cite why the subject was notable and nobody objected. Since you are objecting now I will restore the page for you. However, note that it may just be deleted again unless third party references to the comic's notability are added. --CBD11:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
New user question
Hi CBDunkerson ,
you say about yourself:
This user is happy to help new users.
Leave a message here.
I am a new user and I need some help and some explanation,
can I ask you some questions???
Hi. Assuming that your question(s) may be related to the deletion you copied above... as stated in the description the page I deleted was a redirect to Silent 2 Targa, which does not exist. Redirects that point to non-existent pages are deleted as a matter of course. The 'Silent 2 Targa' page itself was apparently deleted following this discussion. The general objection seems to have been to the 'tone' of the article not being neutral and a lack of independent references to the craft's notability. --CBD16:40, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thank you for answering. I do not understand well the process of page deletion.
I my case, for the page: Silent 2 Targa, I had no chance to discuss, no chance to change it and no help when I asked for.
I made another page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alisport_Silent_2T and again it is up for deletion, but this time there is also a comment to keep it. Would you please read this page and express your opinion?
And make some constructive observations?
I am frustrated because of many incoherent facts, I make an example: when on the page I did use the word UNIQUE, it was pointed out that that world was improper, like very nice, good. However UNIQUE is the right word to describe a glider like no other one, with at least one notable difference from all the other, a glider that implements some genial concept to eliminate undesirable condition and increase safety.
Dansco290318:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome to the newsletter of the Writing systems WikiProject, everyone. Our project currently has 29 members.
Any questions or requests for assistance on writing system articles can be posted at WT:WPW.
Our Article Assessment Project is currently underway. Feel free to contribute by assessing and improving all unassessed articles according to the assessment page. Any help is appreciated. We would like to bring all mid-, high-, and top-importance articles to at least B class by the end of the year.
We are working on implementing writing systems templates into appropriate articles. Try to help out!
I realize we've disagreed on most issues in the past, but I'd like to thank you for your recent comments, most of which I couldn't have said better myself. —freak(talk) 01:02, Feb. 26, 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. People will always disagree about the best way to do things, but the occasional recognition of goals and ideals which are shared goes a long way towards preventing disputes from becoming adversarial. I think you're mostly right on this one. We may disagree whenever the next blow-up comes around, but it's all good. --CBD12:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Parserfunction misfiring?
Can you take a quick peek at {{ltsany}} and note how {{ltsany/doc}} is not being included during the #ifexist: check. Is my syntax off, or did this start malfunctioning recently... it's endemic to other sites too, yet I'm 99% sure I've used similar tests before. Very puzzling! Thanks // FrankB00:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks -- OIC, then my prior coding && tests shouldn't have worked either. Harumph. Good thing I'm starting to work back through those then... I'm refering to the interwiki category tagging sets. Finally figured out how switch works, and I'm going to cut things down to a basic on or two with more user friendly names. Thanks again. // FrankB05:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi CB, it's been awhile. If you can, could you help with the esoteric template {{WP Writing systems}}? I want to remove a feature which removes the "importance rating" when the "class rating" is posted as NA. There are some pages, such as templates and lists, which have an importance rating but do not fit into an article class. It's isn't urgent, but if you could get around to tweaking the template that would be great. Thanks. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me)21:56, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ikiroid. I made a change which should do what I think you are looking for. Please let me know if it isn't what you wanted or is not working properly. --CBD01:10, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. As a commenter in this thread, I thought you may be interested in replying to the most recent addtion to it: [27] . Thank you in advance for your time. --InShaneee16:58, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Amazing. Why is an editor with hundreds of fine articles behind him, a fine stylist and clear thinker to boot, being blocked for some harmless (and apparently well deserved) comments about someone who spends most of his time writing trivial crap like this. There really is something very wrong here. edward (buckner)12:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rather than respond to this same text in the three (or more?) places you have posted it, please see my responses on the AN/I thread. --CBD15:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi TH. So far as I know there is no 'magic word' or equivalent for identifying a user's skin. However, if you think about the problem 'backwards' there may be a solution... every Wikipedia user with the 'Nostalgia' skin has their display configured by the MediaWiki:Nostalgia.css page. So theoretically a class could be defined on Nostalgia.css to change the position of this link just for users with that skin. That said, since these MediaWiki pages impact all users of the skin it is sometimes difficult to get agreement on them. It looks like Nostalgia has been 'blank' for over a year since it's contents were merged into MediaWiki:Common.css (which covers all skins). You could test out changes on User:The Transhumanist (AWB)/nostalgia.css (note the lowercase 'n' for nostalgia) to verify they are working before applying them globally. See User:CBDunkerson/monobook.css for some examples... for instance there I have the 'spoiler' class set to not display. Since that class is set on Template:Spoiler and the like I don't see the 'spoiler warning' notices they would normally display. If I added the same line to MediaWiki:Monobook.css then nobody with the Monobook skin would see spoiler warnings. You should be able to do something similar to alter the position / format of this link. --CBD12:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi - You're in the middle of this. You feel attacked. You are continuing to try to defend yourself despite what you consider to be unjust attacks.
Sound familiar?
Now imagine I threaten to block you if you continue with these actions. Would you back off because "the community has asked you to"?
Sound familiar yet?
Your tagline at WP:LA says Talk to me if you feel you aren't getting a fair shake.
Let's define "fair". WT is a former admin ([29]), successfully nominated 24 articles for featured status (including such basic astronomy related articles as Venus, Mercury (planet), sun), and has been a contributor since August of 2004. He is (was) arguably one of the best contributors Wikipedia has ever seen. Would you block Raul, or ALoan, or Angela, or Redux, or Jimbo if they were somewhat quarrelsome with an admin who had blocked them (and had refused to engage them in a civil conversation about said block)?
First, I already hadn't responded to the situation at all for a day despite the continuing attacks.
Second, this makes you only the second person to claim that >I< am dragging this out. I think the fact that it goes on apace without me disproves that, but in any case prior to this only a single clearly partisan person had suggested I stop responding. That is obviously not "the community". Now that a second person has suggested it I might consider the matter. If they said that a block was imminent I would certainly discuss that with them to see how they thought it was justified.
Third, Worldtraveller had received comments telling him to stop from half a dozen people that I can recall off-hand... and I'm certain there were several more if I go back and review. Notably, there were no objections to my statement that he would be blocked if he continued or the various statements that he was harassing InShaneee until after the block was placed.
Fourth, rather than discussing these concerns Worldtraveller's response was to declare, 'I will keep on harassing'.
Finally, yes... I would block almost anyone ('almost' only because blocking Jimbo would be pointless) who declared their intent to continually harass another user after numerous members of the community have asked them to stop. It's what our policies dictate. It's what basic 'fairness' requires. It's wonderful that Worldtraveller was such a good contributor in the past, but no way no how does that give him the right to deliberately and openly do everything in his power to make another user miserable over a long period of time. Allowing that kind of behaviour because of his past contributions would have been 'unfair'. I, and others, gave Worldtraveller every opportunity and urging to resolve the matter through appropriate means. He openly refused. I find it unfathomable that people are actually arguing that we should allow anyone to openly harass another user indefinitely. Until someone addresses that point (no one has even tried thus far), no... I do not accept that I was 'wrong' here. --CBD10:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Half a dozen people? I don't think so. On the contrary, I can think of a large number of people who have said this block was wrong. Bishonen, Geogre, ALoan, Giano, Dbuckner, Rick Block, Aude, Raul654 are ones that come to mind straight away.
And I wonder whether you're being stupid or just disingenuous with your comment about mine where I said I would keep on harassing. You must know how dishonest it is to quote things so far out of context, and how important it is in this case that I preceded that statement with "if holding an administrator to account for their actions is harassment, then...". Do you think administrators should be held accountable for their actions?
And finally, do try to understand that my questioning of InShaneee was following the defined channels for dispute resolution. If he didn't want me to question him, he might have tried saying that to me directly. Have you noticed how many people have said there was no harassment involved at all? As far as I can see, more or less the only person who agrees with your interpretation of events is User:HighInBC, and he's a self confessed stoner who often completely fails to understand quite basic concepts in the discussions I've seen him take part in. I'll provide diffs for that statement if you would like. 81.179.115.18800:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
/* Don't display some stuff on the
main page */
body.page-Main_Page #lastmod,
body.page-Main_Page #siteSub,
body.page-Main_Page #contentSub,
body.page-Main_Page h1.firstHeading {
display: none !important;
}
I can't make heads or tails of it. Is "body.page-Main_Page" an HTML tag? Whatever it is, I can't find where it's defined nor any documentation on it. The same for "h1.firstHeading".
Hey guys. See Help:User style for some documentation on the various page elements (body, h1, et cetera) and examples of how to use them. Also important is Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes, where alot (though not all) of the locally defined classes are documented. The 'body.page' is a defined section of every Wikipedia page, '-Main_Page' is defining the specific page to apply this to, and '#lastmod' and the like are specific items in the body of the page. Just '#siteSub { display: none; }' should cause the "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" (the '#siteSub' element) to be suppressed on all pages. --CBD21:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, CBD! Recently, for no apparent reason at all, I thought that having some conversion templates would have been nice. Unfortunately, it did not occur to me to do a prior research, so I failed to notice that a collection of such templates is already available at Category:Conversion templates. Before I found that category, I produced the following templates: {{km to mi}}, {{mi to km}}, {{m to ft}}, {{ft to m}}, {{km2 to mi2}}, {{mi2 to km2}}, {{m2 to ft2}}, {{ft2 to m2}}, {{C to F}}, and {{F to C}}. Now, these are much nicer and more convenient than some of the templates that have been created so far ({{FootToMetre}}, for example), so at least part of my work has not been in vain. However, their functionality is not much of an improvement over {{conv-dist}} and the likes which you created. Hence, I don't see a point for me to continue with this. I only have one request for you: could you incorporate some of the functionality of my templates into your topical templates? Mine allow the users to specify whether they want the output to show full or abbreviated unit names, whether the unit names should be spelled in American or Commonwealth English if full unit names are output, whether the unit names should be wikified, and allow to specify the precision of the result. If you could do that, we can deprecate my templates and then clean the whole Category:Conversion templates up. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ezhiki. Yeah, there are several different variants on conversion templates. The options you describe all sound doable, but one difference between the templates you've created and 'conv-dist' not noted above is that 'conv-dist' only works properly when substituted while yours are designed to not be substituted (if they were they'd copy in all the conditional logic). Converting 'conv-dist' to a 'not substituted' format is easily accomplished, but I haven't been able to get it to work as both - only one or the other. I've been sticking with the substituted version because it leaves an end result which is just the actual text of the measurement(s) in whatever format specified. On the other hand, unsubstituted templates are easier to use and spread faster because people see their syntax on pages and re-use them. Any thoughts or preferences on this? --CBD03:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thanks for your support on AN:I and now. This seems to me to be such a simple situation, and I'm really not sure what the need for such a 'circus' is. As for your offer, I'm really not sure what's best; this really is a bewildering situation to me. I don't even know what to say in my own defense on RfA; this is so minor of an incident, I'm not sure what diffs I could cite to help myself. If this gets accepted, I would definatly appreciate your view on the situation, but whether or not you should before then I will leave up to you. However, since at the time of me writing this two out of three arbitrators have voted 'accept' with no further explination, that seems inevitable at this point. --InShaneee01:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Re:Block of Pigsonthewing
Hi there: My reasoning for going ahead with the block was that, after checking each diff carefully, it seemed to me that the effect of each of the given diffs was to revert another user's change. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this. As for the BLP issues: I didn't take this into account at all; my block was based solely on what I believed to be a 3RR violation (the length was also based partly on the user's history of being blocked for this sort of behavior). Anyway, suffice to say I wouldn't be offended if someone unblocked Pigsonthewings (I don't take WP:WHEEL that way). I expect SlimVirgin wouldn't be so pleased, though, so it might be worth discussing with her, too. Thanks for your input. Heimstern Läufer03:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't unblock Pigsonthewing, CB. He violated 3RR, and has been blocked umpteen times for so doing, including a one-year ArbCom ban. Whether you agree with his edits or not is irrelevant; 3RR is not dependent on content. SlimVirgin(talk)03:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This arbitration case is still in operation. He is on indefinite probation, He may be banned for good cause by any administrator from any page or talk page which he disrupts. From a brief scan of his edits, it looks to me like he has improved his behavior since his return, but vigilance is called for. --Tony Sidaway16:09, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've just been made aware of this comment of yours about "false statements from another participant." I was the other participant. It was a very obvious 3RR violation, so which false statements are you referring to? SlimVirgin(talk)14:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is the "onlyinclude" tag documented somewhere? It's not mentioned on Help:Template, and I've avoided using it because of this. It's so similar to "includeonly" that I wondered if it's deprecated legacy code. Gimmetrow14:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Huh, I thought it was documented in Help:Template. It must be documented somewhere... or I wouldn't know about it. :] Probably got removed by someone who thought it was an error for 'includeonly' - I've seen that happen before. The 'onlyinclude' tags are used extensively with featured lists. No plans to deprecate it that I'm aware of. --CBD15:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I know I've seen it. Would be nice to see documentation on whether or how it works in combination with other tags, or what happens if there are two "onlyinclude" sections. Gimmetrow15:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I can tell you that. The 'onlyinclude' tags would be better named, 'includebetween'... if you've got two sets of them then the contents of both sets are included. If you mix them with other tags then stuff between them is included along with anything so identified by the other tags. --CBD15:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That almost made sense, but usually text not between any tags is included. When the onlyinclude tag is there, it's not. This seems like a non-local effect, which is a little odd. Gimmetrow15:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I had replied before seeing this request, but the whole section has now been removed and I'm not sure what it was I said which prompted you to start cursing at me in the first place. Suffice it to say that I apologize for whatever mis-impression I gave you. I was just trying to tell Tony that when something unusual happens AGF should naturally lead us to 'oh look, an odd coincidence' and not 'it is all a heinous plot by the evil ones' as he was trending. --CBD00:04, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's in the History, or more conveniently in your own contribs. Thank you for the explanation, but that wasn't a big deal. I was more upset by your second post—waving me off with a sneer about growing a thicker skin and a finger-waggle about "profanity"—treating me as an insensate piece of internet polemic rather than a fellow human attempting to give an honest account of herself. An account which Mackensen promptly removed, as you say. Well, I understand that trying to contribute to the workshop was a bad idea in the first place—running full tilt into Tony Sidaway, after managing to avoid him on IRC for a whole month, to the immeasureable improvement of my quality of life. Anyway. I've always seen you as somebody who stands up for the underdog — I remember praising your addition of this edit to the Harassment guideline—and I was sad to see there was no mutuality of respect. Bishonen | talk02:10, 12 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]
Bishonen, I'm sorry that you were offended by my suggestion about 'growing a thicker skin', but... you were being extremely hostile. In the message above you are still being hostile. What exactly did I do to provoke this? I defended you against a charge that seemed to me to make absurdly negative assumptions. Your 'side' in this, those supporting Worldtraveller, have called me "fuckwit", "ignoramus", "twit", and the like... sworn at me, accused me of all manner of improprieties, et cetera. Despite this, I defend you against an unjust accusation and get more attacks? I'm sorry, but a suggestion to grow a thicker skin was justified by the situation and incredibly mild in comparison to the outpourings of 'respect' which I have been on the receiving end of. I'm sorry you think that admonishment somehow means I don't respect you... it doesn't. I respect Worldtraveller, and he's the one who called me stupid and fuckwit. It is possible to both respect someone and disagree with their behaviour. --CBD13:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Low Pri, oddity
(Note started last night, then I had to crash... read to bottom before following links. Some things changed in the middle period.)
This currently involves a couple of administrative pages links1, Links2 and not much else, but in a good library for WP:TSP to export. Basically, the two templates seem to be cloned from one another... and I'm not sure whether they are both necessary due to the techniques employed, or the duplication is unnecessary, making one (Lz3) essentially redundant.
Further, it looks to me that Lz3 is a pure duplicate from this direct comparision.
In the meantime, See this change, which throws water on any 'fire' and urgency on this, but creates a mystery as asked about here, since the old version seems not different. [This diff's The change in the middle alluded to above]
Bottom line, someone more knowledgeable than me needs to check those two are untangled, or tangled, and if the latter, I'd suggest making it a sub-page of Csn, which is at least semi-mnemonic. Also, note it is likely the interlinking I saw was due to the cross connect in the respective /doc pages. But also note, and perhaps as the first order of business, that the Demo page Template:Csn/Csn demo(edittalklinkshistory) or at least the two (Template:Csn/doc(edittalklinkshistory) & Template:Csn/doc(edittalklinkshistory)) pages now seems to be malfunctioning in their bottom section, and I'm clueless on why that is happening... and pretty sure it was fine before I moved it to a sub-page. So please take a look and see what I did. Sigh.
A whole lot hotter... Is there a guideline or can you tell me how to define a named parameter in Specialpages/ExpandTemplates... it seems to be hell on wheels for defining PAGENAME, but limited, as it seems to ignore everything I try in a named parameter. Reply on this soonest on my talk please. Thanks // FrankB19:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ping this here, X5 && X6, tests on Talk: X4 && Talk:X5 or X6 and email note on problem. Ware the Sandbot... Seems out of control and wiping these as a manual request. // FrankB22:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
More block of Pigsonthewing
It appears my block of Pigsonthewing remains controversial. I thought you'd want to know that I've provided my rationale for the block on my talk page and am ready to respond to comments and questions if necessary. Thanks. Heimstern Läufer03:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Worldtraveller/InShaneee
One of the reasons that this was brought to the RfAr is because the Worldtraveller incident is considered a pattern of an earlier action that is considered to be a bad action. - A Link to the Past(talk)19:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your thoughts, I have been hectic, but I finally replied on the talk page.
Invisible and inconsistent magic word
{{#ifeq:Main|{{NAMESPACE}}|Yes|NO}} and [User talk] which in an main space (article) is not displaying nor evaluating properly (gives a false) in the if statement given... got a fix you can suggest? It is also obviously inconsistent, since it's displaying here fine! Arrgh! No rush--off to my youngest son's 16th BD dinner-party. Thanks. // FrankB22:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The 'main' / 'article' space actually returns blank for {{NAMESPACE}}. So, {{#if: {{NAMESPACE}}|No|Yes}} should do what you are looking for. --CBD00:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Tisk tisk... Strange inconsistency there, but matches (consistent with! <g>) what I was seeing... just whether to cat or not for a maintenance template, but thanks as usual. // FrankB05:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Tolkien merge templates
Hi Conrad. Would you have time to pop over to the WikiProject ME talk page and comment on this edit I made? It's a template question... Also, the bit I added somewhere there about the style of introductions could use some input. (I also spotted the 'writing systems' assessment box - how did they get over 1000 articles on writing systems! :-)) Carcharoth01:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I jinned up an {{Merge JRRT}} template for them in my sandbox since I was watching a movie any way with the birthday boy. Course, I've been into Tolkien since '69-'70, so hope you don't mind me lightening your load! (That's a first! <G>) Also: On Carcharoth:
GROWL! Can you take a peek at the test in Template talk:X5 and the cases which should be meaning 'non-matching with anything' (i.e. the case would allow me to eliminate the {{CommonscatNo}} template) that invoke the second switch:{{{1|}}}... Switch characters would be !,#,$ in any combo as parameter '1' and '2'. I keep getting a display of Category:! as a category. Perhaps the proper short question is this: "can one use a second switch inside a first switch like this"? Or are the overused pipe operators likely to be 'confused' here? Thanks // FrankB23:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you can stack switches like that. I assume you are referring to this version of the logic. Looking at that I wonder if the problem might be the line, '{{#switch: {{{{{2}}} }}'. That's not a switch on the contents of parameter 2, but rather a switch on the contents of a template named by parameter 2. So, when you set parameter 2 to '!' it is calling Template:! and then trying to switch on the contents of that, which happen to be just a '|' character. I think you may need to change that line to, '{{#switch: {{{2}}}'. --CBD11:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Damn, I need your eyes... or something. Do you have any idea how many hours such things cost me? Great and thanks... // FrankB17:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I had an unpleasant run in with it yesterday, and decided to apply the KISS principle, as in the end, it's better as a robust typing-aid, suffering an occasional mal-application, vice a kludge no one wants to use. Do you see any down-side on such simplification?
Don't know if you're following Wikitech-I emails, etc. but the self-subst capability I asked for at bugzilla last week would be perfect for this kind of unwanted clutter in tagging.
Thanks for the endorsement on the commons! I'm a little intrigued no one is discussing the uplink tagging. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one editing in the default skin as a rule! Heh, heh! // FrankB15:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your change was essentially correct and 'working', but you were likely having problems with capitalization. Both the switch that determines the class to display and the template call for the box indicating the class were case sensitive... one requiring 'dab' or 'd' and the other 'dab' or 'Dab'. 'DAB' and various other options would have failed both. I've changed the template to be case-insensitive, but also got rid of the 'd' option since it would require a Template:D-Class in addition to Template:Dab-Class. You can now use 'dab', 'Dab', 'DAB', 'dAb', or any other capitalization of those three letters. The page Talk:Hieroglyphs already has the 'dab' class set and is working. --CBD11:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi CBD. I think the closest we've come to direct interaction was here, but I've seen you around and respect your judgment. I'm seeking an uninvolved admin to review the block of FNMF by FeloniousMonk. FeloniousMonk has a long history of content disputes at Christopher Michael Langan, and one this week involving FNMF. The admin who declined the unblock request, JzG, has also been involved at the article. For details, see my post here, and the rest of the relevant section at FNMF's talk page. Input from an uninvolved administrator would be very welcome there. Best regards, Tim Smith01:18, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thankyou for looking at this block and deciding to unblock. I do understand what you mean by not inflaming fraught situations, but I also feel that there have been some longstanding and serious problems with the editing of the entry.
Specifically in relation to the issue of references, I would like to point out a couple of things. First, that the original decision to remove those edits was made as an immediate reaction to the intervention of Mr Jimbo Wales. Second, that there was extensive discussion of the issue by those defending the inclusion. See, for example, here. Very little actual argument was given in response to this. And third, that an editor who removed the references was the very same editor who restored one of these references, when he wished to include a (corrupted) quotation he considered backed up his argument against Langan. This editor was none other than IP 151.151.21.103, whom I referred to in the comment you mentioned. I am confident that a review of this user's edits will provide evidence to support the contention I made about the editing practice coming from this user.
I only mention all this because I would be interested in your view of what has been going at this entry. From the looks of things, you have a lot on your plate, and may well not have the time for an adequate review of this ongoing problem. If you were to find the time, however, it would be interesting to see what conclusions you reached. Thanks again for removing the block. FNMF15:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Disagreed with you"
FM wasn't the only one who found that FNMF was editing in a manner that was covered by the arbcomm ruling...several people commented on his behaviour, including Arthur Rubin and me. Accusing FM of blocking him "because he disagreed with him" not only fails to assume good faith, it's also not in keeping with the facts of the matter. Guettarda18:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that you or Arthur Rubin can lay claim to anything like neutrality in this matter either. FNMF did nothing which constituted a blockable offense. Nothing even close. --CBD19:21, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so you have chosen to extend your assumption of bad faith to me and Arthur. That's still a failure to assume good faith. And Guy? Why do you assume bad faith on his part? You still haven't explained how this fits with your claims of unilateralism. Guettarda02:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not 'assuming bad faith'. I'm observing plainly extant partisanship. You, Arthur Rubin, and FeloniousMonk were very obviously on one side of a content dispute and FNMF was very obviously on the other. You now bring up Guy and accuse me of assuming bad faith on his part as well... though I haven't said anything about him at all. As I recall, he said that the implicit claims of sock-puppetry should be checked prior to removal of a block... apparently unaware that a sock check had already been performed and shown no relation. --CBD09:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The arbcomm ruling applied to a pattern of editing, not to a specific editor, so the sock check is irrelevant. You said you reviewed the matter, so obviously you are aware of this. You have chosen to assume bad faith and say that, because there is a content dispute, we are acting in bad faith. It's ridiculous to say "I'm not 'assuming bad faith'. I'm observing plainly extant partisanship". To put your own negative interpretation on actions, to jump to conclusions based on the state of mind of the people involved, is to assume bad faith.
"You now bring up Guy ... though I haven't said anything about him at all". Guy reviewed the block and found it appropriate. So yes, you have lumped Guy into the group of people you consider "blinded by partisanship".
"FNMF did nothing which constituted a blockable offense. Nothing even close" - he violated an arbcomm ruling despite being warned, ad engaged in personal attacks. How is that "not even close"? Guettarda15:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just in case you missed it, see the reply by Jimbo Wales to the comment by Asmodeus. Mr Wales makes clear he believes the block of FNMF was unwarranted. FNMF23:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Timeline of events leading to block of FNMF by FeloniousMonk
For further reference, and in case it ever becomes necessary, here is the sequence of events leading to my purported “personal attack” on the IP user.
As you know, after the intervention of Mr Wales, a reaction occurred, leading to the discussion of the question of whether to include certain references. This discussion seemed (to me at least) to have been, or to very nearly have been, resolved.
The following sequence then occurred:
21 March, 15:20. User Tim Smith deletes quote from footnote, arguing in the edit summary that the quote is unnecessary, and noting that it has been corrupted.
21 March, 16:45. User 151.151.21.101 restores corrupted quote for the first time.
22 March, 06:01. User Tim Smith makes note on talk page about the use of a corrupted quote, and argues it does not serve its purported purpose and should be removed.
22 March, 06:51. I respond by saying that the quote in its corrupt form is obviously unacceptable, but I do not argue for its removal rather than correction. I explain at length why I believe the quote has been misunderstood. I argue that if no legitimate secondary sources can be found for the contention that Langan is a proponent of intelligent design, then for the entry to assert this would constitute a violation of the policy against original research.
22 March, 07:38. User Tim Smith removes the corrupted quote.
22 March, 07:50. I open a new section, called “Langan, intelligent design, and Wikipedia policy,” in order to make even clearer my argument that, without secondary sources, the entry should not assert that Langan is a proponent of intelligent design.
22 March, 08:04. User WAS 4.250 asks if I agree with the statement from the entry that Langan and his wife are members of an intelligent design society.
22 March, 08:19. I affirm that I agree with the statement, and that I do not have great problems with the section as written. I indicate that my motive is to show why a campaign to prove Mr Langan is an advocate of ID is unnecessary and can be ended.
22 March, 12:39. User NightSky indicates agreement with my presentation, and makes two proposals: 1), that the section title be altered; 2) that the word “fellow” be deleted from the phrase “a collection of essays by fellow intelligent design proponents.”
22 March, 15:02. User Arthur Rubin makes several points, arguing in a qualified way that Langan has explicitly supported ID, but also noting the lack of secondary sources for the contention he is an advocate of ID, and making a suggestion to rephrase the above to “a collection of essays pubished by intelligent design proponents.”
22 March, 15:34. User Tim Smith argues against the characterisation of the ISCID as an intelligent design society. He suggests another way of characterising the association.
22 March, 16:09. User NightSky argues that the entry should state that neither Langan nor his wife have declared themselves proponents of ID.
22 March, 16:14. User NightSky agrees to Arthur Rubin’s suggested rephrasing.
22 March, 16:58. I indicate support for: 1) the deletion of the word “fellow” from the above-mentioned phrase about the book-collection; 2) Arthur Rubin’s suggested rephrasing; 3) Tim Smith’s suggested rephrasing about the ISCID; 4) NightSky’s suggestion about a statement that Langan has not declared himself an ID proponent. I also argue that Langan’s wife’s fellowship in the organisation is not notable or important, and probably should not be mentioned in the entry.
22 March, 17:47. User NightSky indicates agreement with my position.
22 March, 17:49. User 151.151.21.101 restores the corrupted quote for the second time.
22 March, 17:55. User 151.151.21.101 states that ISCID is in fact an ID society.
22 March, 17:55. User NightSky removes the corrupted quote, asking in edit summary that it not be restored without further talk page discussion.
22 March, 17:58. User 151.151.21.101 claims that the suggestions supported by myself and NightSky in fact “promote a partisan POV” and improperly rely on a primary source.
22 March, 18:01. User NightSky starts a new section, “Quotes,” and asks editors to make sure quotes are accurate, and to discuss controversial edits on the talk page.
22 March, 18:44. User Jim62sch asks what is wrong with the quote, and states that if he is not happy with the answer, he will restore the quote.
22 March, 19:10. User Tim Smith directs Jim62sch to the arguments given against the quote.
22 March, 19:29. User Jim62sch restores corrupted quote for the third time.
22 March, 20:44. User 151.151.21.101 declares that “there’s no shortage of Langan meat puppets at this article.”
22 March, 20:57. User Arthur Rubin removes the corrupt phrases from the quote.
22 March, 20:58. User Tim Smith reiterates to Jim62sch the problems with the quote, and complains that Jim62sch has simply restored with quote without discussion.
22 March, 21:08. User Arthur Rubin argues for the inclusion of the quote, so long as it is corrected, because it “supports the claim (not presently made in the article) that CML (falsely) believes ID to be a ‘scientific theory’.”
22 March, 21:59 I again try to explain my arguments that Langan is not claiming that ID is a true theory, simply that it presents itself as science and claims to be scientifically verifiable. I admonish Jim62sch for his refusal to examine or discuss counter-arguments while editing the entry. And I reject his accusation that I am connected with Langan.
22 March, 22:10. I re-paste my arguments in another section about why the quote has been misinterpreted, in case it was missed due to its placement high up on the page.
22 March, 22:16 User Arthur Rubin agrees that the entry should not state Langan is a proponent of ID without either a secondary source or clear declaration by Langan, but neither should it state the contrary. He agrees with 151.151.21.101 that ISCID is an ID organisation. He argues that Langan’s wife is “marginally relevant.” And he finally argues for the deletion of all references to megafoundation.org and ctmu.org throughout the entry.
22 March, 22:19. I open a new section about user 151.151.21.101, giving five different reasons why I believe this user’s editing is poor, indicating my belief that this user’s behaviour means they can presently be ignored, and hoping that their behaviour improves in the future.
22 March, 22:22. User Arthur Rubin responds by stating that I am approaching a violation of the ArbCom ruling about Asmodeus and DrL, and to “consider myself warned.”
22 March, 22:22. User Arthur Rubin argues that ID theory, as scientific is nevertheless “not self-consistent.”
22 March, 22:35. I respond to Arthur Rubin’s statement that I should consider myself warned, stating that I have done nothing other than argue my case, arguments which have been supported by several editors, but which have been totally ignored by those who keep restoring the quote.
22 March, 22:39. I respond to Arthur Rubin’s argument that ID is not self-consistent, indicating why I do not believe his point is important to interpreting the quote in question.
22 March, 22:47. I try to elaborate the above point in another way.
22 March, 22:54. User Arthur Rubin states that I have added material favourable to Langan and removed material unfavourable to Langan, “against clear consensus.”
22 March, 23:31. User 151.151.21.104 argues that the only source of disruption are “Langan’s cronies,” and argues that my creation of a section devoted to a “personal attack” is evidence of this disruption.
22 March, 23:34. I respond to Arthur Rubin’s comments at 22:16, agreeing with him that it is not important to state that Langan is not a proponent of ID, and suggesting a weaker phrasing. I also state that I do not understand what he thinks is wrong about Tim Smith’s suggestion about how to describe the ISCID. I also argue further against the mention of Langan’s wife in relation to ISCID.
22 March, 23:55. I respond to Arthur Rubin’s comments by noting that I have neither added nor removed material, and am happy to have my contributions scrutinised.
22 March, 23:55. I respond to 151.151.21.104 by denying that I engaged in a personal attack, by reminding him of the five reasons I gave that this user was disruptive, and indicating that I hope his edits will be constructive in the future.
23 March, 03:52. FeloniousMonk blocks me for 48 hours for “walking in the footsteps of Asmodeus and DrL,” and for “personal attacks and disruption.” He claimed to be happy to explain this further, but never did.
Note that in the above sequence I did not make any edits whatsoever to the entry on Langan.
I apologise for not providing links to all the diffs, but unfortunately I do not have the time to do the cut-and-paste at the moment. I believe that this exhaustive timeline makes the situation at this entry, and the events leading to my block, very clear. The difference between the amount and quality of argument offered by one “side,” and the lack of argument from the other “side,” is stark. This is, to me, evidence of a systematic problem with the editing of this entry. I thank you again for the unblock and for taking the time to review the situation. FNMF00:51, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Lessons from the Langan entry
For an account of what I believe are important policy issues arising from the problems with the Christopher Michael Langan entry, see here. It does not concern the matters covered in the timeline above, as much as it does more important questions arising from an issue which was finally (hopefully) dealt with a few days ago. Thought you might be interested. FNMF03:14, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Revived discussion concerning fair use in portals
I am contacting everyone who participated in the discussion that became inactive in December. Due to the length of the previous discussion, I have proposed a new amendment and you like you to weigh in so that we may actually have a consensus on this matter as it doesn't seem there exists one either way. -ΖαππερΝαππερBabelAlexandria
Latest developments at the Langan entry
Hi, I wanted to fill you in on the latest developments at the entry for Christopher Michael Langan. An ongoing and productive discussion had been taking place in the section of the talk page entitled "Langan, intelligent design, and Wikipedia policy," involving myself, NightSky, Tim Smith, and even FeloniousMonk. I urge you to peruse this discussion, which was about how to phrase the paragraph introducing Langan's involvement with ID. The discussion lasted several days and was making progress. If you read through the exchanges you will see that I was arguing for a compromise position, on the grounds that it was more neutral and more likely to be accepted by all parties.
Eventually, after several days, I made the change here.
I explained the change on the talk page, making clear that it was not necessarily definitive, but given that consensus was being approached, and no objections were being raised to the thrust of the discussion, it might be time to go ahead and make the change.
One hour later, user 151.151.21.99 altered my change, stating that he was removing "ambiguous" language. He did not leave a comment on the talk page. He is the editor that I was blocked for suggesting he was disruptive.
A few hours later, when it was obvious he was not intending on explaining his change further, I reverted his change.
Since it is possible this will lead to further problems, I thought I would give you advance notice, in case you wished to intervene at any stage. FNMF03:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This was followed by this reversion by none other than FeloniousMonk, which he justified with this explanation. It is, in my opinion, interesting that FeloniousMonk stepped in after my reversion of 151.151.21.99, just as he stepped in to block me after my comment about 151.151.21.101. Not only does user FeloniousMonk jump in to support this anonymous user, but in both cases seems annoyed at the "attacks" on user 151.151.21.etc., as though he felt personally slighted. A question would appear to be begged here, a question with some significance, given that FeloniousMonk is an administrator, and one prepared to wield his powers on a whim. FNMF04:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm keeping an eye on the page. If a compromise breaks down try again. You accusing them of sock-puppetry... them accusing you of sock-puppetry... arguments over who was 'more incivil' or 'incivil first'. It is all self-defeating. Reduce the amount of time you spend trying to get the other side 'in trouble' to zero and just stick to attempting to work out compromises. If they refuse and keep at the incivility they will eventually get themselves 'in trouble' and you can proceed with clean hands. --CBD11:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the advice. I do feel I have been keeping fairly cool. Even though I raised the sock-puppet issue here with you, I haven't done so on the talk page (unlike the numerous times I was accused of being one). Nor have I ever even mentioned on the talk page the fact that I was improperly blocked. And I was very surprised by Guettarda's remark that every sentence I write is an insult: I just don't see the evidence. In fact, I had praised him in an earlier comment, saying I thought an action of his showed good faith. And I even agreed with FeloniousMonk in another comment. I felt as though I had been working to achieve a compromise from all sides, in the interests of the entry. The reactions from Guettarda et al make me feel that whenever they start to feel defensive about not knowing how to argue the case, they decide to accuse me of being disruptive, etc etc etc. Not that any of this undermines the truth of your remarks. I'm just expressing all the frustrations that I have declined to express elsewhere. But as I said on the talk page, this particular issue isn't one I feel strongly about the microscopic details of, so I don't mind letting it just play out. But somehow I still think I'll get the blame. Thanks again. FNMF11:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Color change
Hi Conrad,
Do you know how can I change the background colour for my talk-pages. I'd like to change the color of the entire wiki-page as it is currently on wikipedia. I write my own special pages for my wiki and would like to display diff colour on them as well - do you know how can I set this value?
Well, you can set any single page to show a particular color by putting <div style="background-color:green;"> at the top. To make a global change you would want to update the MediaWiki:Common.css or MediaWiki:Monobook.css page. See Memory Alpha Monobook.css for an example of a Wiki which has set all of the different screen elements to use a different default background color. --CBD17:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I tried the <div style="background-color:green;">, but it works only for some part of the page (I wanted to have the entire page formatted). I've also tried the trick with MediaWiki:Common.css, but didn't succeed, thus my question: On what versions of MW does it work?
Users can generally only change the appearance of the 'content' section of the page - not the sidebar, header, footer, et cetera. The only ways I know of to do the latter are by adjusting things in the MediaWiki: namespace. For instance, changing MediaWiki:Sidebar alters the contents of the sidebar. Thus, you could presumably make color changes there. However, changing CSS settings on the MediaWiki:Common.css page should work for all versions. Adding '.portlet {background: blue}' to User:Aretai/monobook.css should change the background color of the sidebar for you - a similar change to the MediaWiki: CSS page(s) should have the same impact on all users. Et cetera. Some different options for help on these issues can be found at the MediaWiki admin hub. --CBD11:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have made a proposal for a review process for administrators. I realise this is not an original idea, however I thought you may be interested in the proposal and the discussion following on from it. There is a fair bit to read, and you may well disagree with me, but if interested you can find it here. FNMF01:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I read it earlier. I've supported (and written) various past efforts along the same lines. I think some sort of 're-certification' of admins would be highly beneficial and that there are easy solutions to all the objections commonly raised (i.e. 'will be used for harassment', 'good admins make enemies', 'would take tons of time to review', et cetera)... but it isn't going to happen without a directive from above. The ArbCom has become more willing to de-sysop and that, while not always consistent/reliable, has served to discourage the worst abuses. A community review would still be better IMO, but I think admin behaviour has overall improved in the past year and there are other ways to encourage that to continue. --CBD11:27, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Need your help
Hey Buddy how have you been? We need your help here. [30] This guy just will not learn. We have warned him on several occassions about vandalism and he continues to come on here and tear articles to pieces. I think we need to block him as it is evident that his only contribution is to vandalize! [31] Can you please help? Junebug5212:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks CB! I cannot understand what joy people get out of damaging these articles and vandalizing other peoples hard work? Thanks again for your attention. Junebug5217:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Project Microformats and templates
Hi,
You might be interested in Project Microformats, not least because the application of microformats will necessitate changes to a number of templates (such as "birth date", et al), which I gather is something close to your heart. We're currently working on Geo and starting on hCard. I'm happy to answer any questions but please consider using the project talk page, so others can learn and participate. All the best, Andy Mabbett23:46, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Intelligent design article
I saw your commnents and agree with them. The article seems biased to me. But no one seems to be able to change the article. I am new here and don't understand. Seems like a few editors or administrators contorl this article. I have watched it for about 3 months. Most who go against the status quo get banned or are accused of disruption, vandalism, or trolling or sockpuppetry. How can this be solved? Wiki is usually an excellent source. This article is one of the few that are so biased. And all the auxillary articles like Creationism, Support of evolution etc all to me seem to be a soapbox for anti-Creationists. thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.101.205.82 (talk • contribs).
This is a frequent problem with emotionally charged topics where a majority of Wikipedia contributors hold a particular viewpoint. It is very easy for people to mistake their own viewpoint for a 'neutral' one - and when enough people with the same view get involved they tend to support a collectively held bias. Unfortunately, the only way to deal with this is with the utmost civility and patience. Try making small changes one at a time and be prepared to explain why it is more neutral. If people object leave that issue/page be for the time being and try making improvements somewhere else. It is a tedious and painful process, but slow improvements are possible. If you lose your cool you'll get blocked - majority rules and all that. It may not be equitable, but it is reality. --CBD17:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for adding a voice of reason. There should be a Wikiproject on bias. If one happens, sign me up! Gnixon18:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Tobias has come up in conversation on WP:AN. I know you've worked closely with him before and may wish to participate in the conversation, just an FYI in case you're interested. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have a question...
Hi there. I was wondering if it would be possible for me to remove a copyvio notice that was prematurely placed on Sid Haig's page. As you will see if you would be good enough to have a look, the bio is licensed for use here and that license is cited on the discussion page. User Quatloo placed a copyvio notice on the page without so much as checking for a citation on the discussion page, and even when told explicitly where to find said citation, could not seem to understand it. They then went completely silent, but left their copyvio notice up.
Since this is a case of someone simply jumping the gun, and not one of a copyright violation (I am the holder, I licensed it for use to Wiki, it's visible via the link on the discussion page), may I remove the copyvio, or must I wait for an Admin to do it? I ask because the one week period is almost up, and I would hate to see an article I worked so hard to get NPOV and up to a B class rating (thanks to help from admin Glen S) get deleted due to one person's inability to research a claim before making one.
Please let me know if I can take care of this or if I must wait for an Admin.
Thank you.
Spirot04:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That wording works for me. I'll have to have our webmaster do it since I stink at php fusion, but it should be done within 24 hours. Same link. Thanks for the help! =)
Spirot03:32, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wish to pursue a case in arbitration regarding the actions and comments of several editors. If I try to post it I will be blocked in order to prevent it from being discussed. Would you be willing to assist me - specifically in undoing punitive blocks? Administrators are trying to reinterpret WP:BLP to keep people from expressing their opinion. See [32], and [33] for examples. I was recently blocked by El C after I requested that SlimVirgin be blocked for these posts in which she accuses me of engaging in libel[34] and personally attacks me.[35]KazakhPol04:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your response seems double-standardish. SlimVirgin and Jayjg are allowed to repeatedly complain on the talk page about how I have not showed al-Durrah adequate respect but I am not allowed to call him a fake? They are opposing views and I should be able to express my view in response to SlimVirgin's. At this point I am holding back only to let Kzrul's RFA finish and El C's current arbitration case be decided. KazakhPol14:27, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You can of course take whatever action you think best. I gave you my thoughts and suggestions, but you don't seem to have understood them. Nobody is 'allowed' to be disruptive. The fact that some people do it is not a reason to do so yourself... and so long as you are doing so yourself you are in a weak position to demand that others stop. --CBD21:48, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'd seen it. As you may know, Michael and I have a strained history going back nearly ten years. I don't think he could adapt well to the collaborative environment of Wikipedia, which he spends alot of space denouncing as inferior to 'expert written' texts in that column, and the fact that I'm here makes it unlikely he'd try. --CBD12:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No doubt he comes up with reasonable-sounding complaints about Wikipedia in his columns, but if you look at the progress of the disputes you'll see his real problem is that his word wasn't taken as absolutely authoritative. There's no reason why it should be of course, any more than anyone else's, but he was never willing to compromise and seemed to think he could comport himself here as he does on Usenet and his own forums. It's not just Conrad here; anyone who gives him a well-reasoned argument that contradicts one of his opinions becomes the target of his wrath. Conrad's just been doing it longer and more competently than anyone else. It's unfortunate, because he's quite knowledgeable (although not remarkably so as far as I have ever seen) but he's too deeply in love with his own conclusions to ever compromise over them. TCC(talk)(contribs)22:18, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
He does overdo it slightly as well: "As matters stand now, it will take Tolkien fandom years to recover from the damage inflicted by Wikipedia." - Hmm. Anyway, my view is that there has been promising progress in some areas, but the sheer bulk of material is a problem. We desperately need to prioritise stuff. Any ideas? Carcharoth14:52, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the amount of work to be done is daunting. Only idea I have would be to identify one thing at a time and direct all members / visitors to the Wikiproject to work on that until it is done... then identify another. --CBD20:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing as subpages of Tobias Conradi have been deleted because of soapboxing issues before, I've decided to speedy delete this page. If anyone wants to help him restore non-controversial material feel free to do so. - Mgm|(talk) 12:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[36]
--- no policy for this action is cited. The deletion was proposed 2007-04-17 06:39 by User:ShivaIdol.
The deletion log does not show when this deletion was carried out. [37]
I, Dweller, make you the first (and probably only) recipient of The Compassionate Wisdom Award for an outstandingly wise and compassionate contribution to WP:CSN, explaining a complex situation simply and without resorting to a million diffs. --Dweller12:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How to write bots?
Hi,
Do you know how to write bots designed for wiki use or could you point me to any tutorial/manual? I'd be v.grateful.
I think both the 'canon' and 'cycle' pages should be redone. The first into a referenced discussion of different ideas of 'canon' and the second merged into Tolkien's legendarium. Finding the time to do that, and everything else, is the issue. --CBD20:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it has been improved enough for the moment. We need to keep an eye on stuff like that though. As you say, time is the issue. On another issue, the maps finally got deleted. Would you be able to pop over to the WP talk page and give your views? I foudn several articles where the old links hadn't been removed. Is there an easy way to check all the articles that had maps in them? Carcharoth17:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In general, I'd been trying to eliminate ugly whitespace forced by large graphic bodies like infoboxes and battleboxes (e.g. see the change history in Battle of Jutland(edittalklinkshistory), showing several differing trials using the wikitable method, abandoned in the template... before settling on a compromise format.)
The only approach I suspect would work would be to define named parameters like '|before= ...' and '|after= ...' which would have their own div /div context, all nested inside an outer div /div block about the template's TOC div /dic making a sandwich. Would that work? Other means? Suggestions? Thanks // FrankB21:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
II
Playing (in a serious way--now that dinner's in the oven!) Get:
which are all three improvements to the good as far as packing down unnecessary whitespace is concerned, and Timeline of chemistry(edittalklinkshistory), where the robust nature of a top position of the current template version is (again) proved out (as in one of the above examples).
Diff2 implies like adding a width limiting parameter is a 'Best Option' as well. Or would you suppose this sort of improvement is better left as the overt divs? Not everyone is comfortable with templates, though this be awfully simple. Since would have to use named parameters for any text which might enclose other templates using an equals sign, should be obvious enough as a template. Advice? Any problems with MOS on this? // FrankB23:34, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't sure what you were trying to do at first because alot of the before and after changes looked identical (or virtually so) at 1280x1024 screen resolution. However, after switching down to 800x600 resolution I could see some differences. Unfortunately, there is no way to determine what screen resolution the user has and getting things 'just right' for one resolution is often going to mean they'll be off for other resolutions. For instance, the 'width limiting' you were referring to will work very differently with 30% of a 1280 pixel wide screen than it does with 30% of an 800 pixel wide screen. The IE vs Firefox thing is apparently a bug in how IE renders 'stackable' HTML elements. It looks like 'TOCnestright' differs from 'TOCright' primarily in that it stacks the TOC to the left of other right aligned elements while 'TOCright' stacks it against the right margin below other right aligned elements. I think that's a valid display option for some pages, but I'm not sure there is any way to further tighten up the whitespace that will work for all resolutions / browsers / pages. Getting that precise would pretty much have to be done on a page by page (and screen resolution by screen resolution) basis. --CBD12:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Something in the infobox on this page is operating extremely differently on Firefox versus MSIE (Seven at the moment, but looked the same over the weekend back in the home office on IE6)... here. On IE, the whole area to the left of the infobox is insisting on being whitespace with divs, or the {{TOCnestright}} trials. OTOH, I got it to work as anticipated in Timeline of chemistry. Can you take a peek under the hood and see if you can spot anything which would cause the whitespace gap when the two interact? // FrankB17:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It actually wasn't the infobox. The map image below that was causing the problem - though I'm not sure how. I moved the map down and it seems to be displaying better now. --CBD12:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Glad your back around
(Thanks and Grrrrrr [time to take a wikibreak and do some yard work instead apparently!)
... though I'm out and about away much now myself! I was just dropping the below assuming you were still busy off-wiki:
Could you take a bit of time to look into this (leads to several related discussions) 'Quality Control' issue, and give me any insights, etc. that may be helpful? No hurry. Thanks // FrankB16:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
but!
Your answer above seems to indicate there is no real hope for the overall complex of problems (except perhaps limiting the page width rendering, as I believe I've seen in some websites), and I've spent an awful lot of time coming up with some thing which only works some of the time under some conditions... as is apparently true for {{TOCright}} and {{TOCleft}} as well given the last change made in this (edit summary's) complaint (Battle of Jutland(edittalklinkshistory)). It does make one wonder how successful and reliable webpages are built by say Amazon.com or other complicated sites. Any further advice, as always, will be appreciated. Thanks // FrankB16:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Was just checking for an answer on this. I'm about to send an couple of emails your way as soon as I find an edit I made that I want you to make to a protected template. Cheers! // FrankB04:08, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Frank. Wikipedia runs into trouble on page layouts because we use a mixture of markup and HTML, some elements (like TOC and the navigation bar on the left) are inserted automatically by the system, and anyone can add or remove text and thereby shift the positioning of elements. Amazon and most other websites don't have these problems... they design the screens from the ground up with one consistent methodology. If you look at the Main Page or the Wikipedia:Featured content page in various screen widths you'll see that it IS possible for Wikipedia pages with multiple 'stacking elements' to be formatted to work for all scenarios if they are protected and kept within carefully designed sizes/segments... but even there you get whitespace in some circumstances. I was involved in the current Main page setup and do most of the work on the Featured content page so I can tell you it was a huge hassle getting them formatted to look ok... trying to set up a TOC template which is going to work on every page/screen width/browser/Wikipedia skin seems like an unattainable goal to me. There are just too many variables... and you get it just right and then someone comes along and adds a paragraph or a new picture and throws everything into disarray. --CBD11:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yo! and Thanks. More play with this, including an all-nighter on Ronald Reagan (FAC page) has me cautiously optimistic that a reasonable working solution is attainable circa 80% of cases. I wrote Template:FixHTML(edittalklinkshistory) and that solves the odd jarring disjoint wrapping quirks most all the time. What it won't stop is the height changes in the vertical packing as one zooms in and out with a browser. (I've been testing on five: Firefox, IE6, IE7, Netscape 8, and a MAC's). It's just a swtich shell with different Wikitable elements coughed up by the key command word begin/middle/end, but I felt it was superior to embedding |, {|, and |} sans explainations. It also solves the edit link stacking problem as noted in the Wikipedia how-to page it cites.
A key issue becomes the length of the intro with respect to the length of the Table of contents, and whether or not the section or two below are long enough to absorb wrapping around the TOC as one zooms in or out. If the TOCnestright is applied up high in the intro, and one zooms to a painfully small font, and a long TOC is still shorter than or even with the boxes/images and other stuff stacked on the right while still being in the intro, it'll work every time so far as I've tested. If it's a bit longer in some zoom levels, not much of an issue either--one may get a little whitespace under the right floated stack, but the tallness proportional scaling stays in synch pretty well, and it's usually minor and affects only one extreme of the zooms range depending upon vertical location of the TOC top in the paragraphs of the introduction. Zooming back the other way, solves the problem--so a spotty occurrence at worst.
If the TOC is short comparative to the intro and the right floated stuff, especially toward tiny fonts, works all the time.
If the first section wraps into the TOC on medium small "effective font sizes" (selected per zoom setting, "effective" meaning relative to printers Pts s.a 10pt or 12pt at the given zoom) a couple of different remedial measures can be taken. The worst occurrences are if the editors on a page set a pic to the left at the top of that first section... on the more extreme zoom outs (small and tiny font Pts.), that may force the whole section below the TOC bottom, or cause a zig-zag unpleasant text wrapping look between the TOC bottom corner and pic top. (See the 'youth' pic on the left in Ronald Reagan(edittalklinkshistory) for example.) Unexpected use of template {{2}} - see Template:2 for details.Generally that little white gap is acceptable as most of us would use a bigger effective font for reading in most cases, so adding a {{-}} above the section heading fixes such issues. The zig-zag is dependent on text length of the introduction section, so one can usually find some important matters down in the body to summarize that were omitted, curing that issue most of the time. (IMHO, most non-GA/GAC/FAC and FA articles have too little in the introduction anyway, so this usually improves them more than just cosmetically and tends to better satisfy the MOS!)
If the TOC wraps beyond the first section title in mid-size fonts, and has a long section title or contains a lot of long links (e.g. "Clarence Fitzsimmons Muckraker, Duke of Transylvania and Elector of Brandenberg" <g>) the only recourse is to generally suffer the TOC whitespace in the standard position. Double that with a left pic, and another long element floating right such as a dynasty box ({{House of Hanover}}, or such).
However, if that first section title (or even two) is short (e.g. Overview, Early life, etc.), and has short links, it can wrap and float up, since the body length shrinks going to a smaller effective font both as the width of things also compress concurrent with the shrinking font heights, so as one zooms out toward that painfully small font limit you both get more on a line, and are in the worst case again when evaluating it. Expanding the zoom back to a more comfortable reading "effective font size", tends to eliminate the overlapping again, curing any issues. (Again, caveat on left pics.)
The one caveat I have "in reserve" is that I haven't tested it on a screen density over 1280X1024 -- my monitor has a weak cap that I don't like to 'test' at that refresh rate, but inasmuch as there seemed to be bigger issues with browser rendering order, I'm optimistic. I've laid in enough testing trials (usually a few a day), that it will be interesting to see how the community reacts. So far, but for a few cases, the TOC's been staying where I put 'em without adverse comment or quick reverts. (Figures that 'Law' would have been one of the few exceptions! <G>).
That's today's snapshot. Thought maybe you'd enjoy a status and some goodish news for a change instead of another problem! Play some yourself next time you see some whitespace... I think you'll find it effective. Cheers! // FrankB04:23, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hey CB. I have a guy who continually has been vandalizing the Gary S. Paxton page. 68.119.115.102 has been continually warned about this and he just continues to vadalize the page. [38] I think we need to block this user. They have also been encouraged to create an account, but have not to date. I feel this is really someone with an axe to grind with GAry Paxton. Junebug5223:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for not replying. Been a bit busy with work and other things. Looks like the page has been ok for the past week. If it starts up again we can semi-protect the page and/or block the IP address. --CBD11:24, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I temporarily protected the page so that only users who have an established account can edit it. That said, the anon seems to be adding biased / unsourced info rather than 'vandalism'. Such info should be removed under the WP:BLP policy and the user directed to find reliable sources to verify the info if they want it included. --CBD11:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are no hard and fast rules. I generally like to include a bit of text explaining what the list is about, an example image, and several rows from a compact table/overview of the list. I put in tags along those lines and added this page to the random display cycle. You can see what it will look like by previewing {{list preview|United States Navy enlisted rates}} --CBD11:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Finding deletions
is there a way to get a list of all pages I created that were later deleted? May include pages that now exist, but my originals are not in the history. Is there a limit in time, maybe the info can only be retrieved for the last to years or so? Tobias Conradi(Talk)09:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There used to be a way to do this, but it was being used to insert personal info, vandalism, et cetera into edit summaries which would then be shown on the list of deleted edits. The option was therefor removed and I'm not aware of another way of getting a list of such edits. --CBD11:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Blocks are used to prevent ongoing vandalism - since the user hasn't edited in a few days there is no immediate problem. If they return and resume vandalizing please place a message at WP:AIV. --CBD11:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Featured content portal and excess FAs
Hi Conrad. I seem to remember you had a hand in setting up Wikipedia:Featured content, or at least the random selection bit of it. Would you be able to comment over at the talk page for the "Today's Featured Article" request page, in particular the second point I make here? I'm effectively suggesting that the excess amount of FAs not put into the TFA queue yet be featured in some way at WP:FC, in order to give more exposure of our featured content, and to remove the pressure on the TFA process. Would this be feasible do you think? From what I can see, Template:FCpages controls the content of WP:FC, but I have been looking at the code for that template and I don't understand it at all! :-( Would I be right in saying that articles promoted to FA, but that haven't appeared on the Main Page, don't appear on WP:FC? I suspect I was wrong to say this, but the date appearing with each FA suggests otherwise to me. Maybe they appear in the "new featured content" bit, which comes from Template:Announcements/New featured pages, but that is manually updated, so I guess not. Help! :-) Carcharoth00:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, it's a fairly good fit. I commented on the 'great main page requests debate'. Short answer is that the non Main page articles aren't displayed on WP:FC currently (other than being listed in the 'new featured content' section for a few days), but they could be if people are willing to set them all up in a consistent format and/or location. --CBD11:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Thanks. I'll probably raise this issue at Wikipedia talk:Featured articles, as that is probably the better venue. I think two things may work best: having a daily article featured at the top of Wikipedia:Featured articles and integrating the featured articles into the list used for Wikipedia:Featured content as soon as they are promoted. Would there be a way to automatically have a list of recently-promoted articles appear in the "new featured content" bit further down the page? That appears to be updated manually, as far as I can tell. Also, see Wikipedia talk:Featured content, where I point out some broken links. Carcharoth09:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I can't think of any way to automatically generate the 'new featured content' list. Any sort of bot would inevitably confuse page name changes for 'new' articles, get thrown off by reorganizations of the featured article list, et cetera. The weekly signpost Features and admins column covers all new featured articles while the Template:Announcements/New featured pages list attempts to show them as they are promoted. I'll try to dig up a few 'featured article blurbs' for articles which haven't appeared on the Main page, put them together somewhere, and add them to the random display list as a proof of concept. From there it will be a matter of people setting up the blurbs in the right place and updating the pick list. If we get a bunch we could change it over so that the random list only shows articles which haven't appeared on the Main page yet. That'd allow each to come up more frequently. --CBD11:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi CB. You may recall a little while ago we had a user named Quatloo on Sid's page that couldn't click the right link to see the license for the bio and thus decided it did not exist. That got settled, and we thank you. However, the same user is now back and playing more games. Please see the edit history and discussion page for the article. User Burntsauce has joined in, too. All the information these two say they're after is readily available and highly visible. Why are they allowed to continue to do this? Is there any way to stop them? Block warnings? Something?? This is crazy.
Spirot01:36, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, this is odd...user CyberGhostface got blocked for reverting the deletions made by Quatloo. How does that work? I'm not being sarcastic, I am honestly asking, as the one time I deleted something I was firmly chastised. Yet now this user Quatloo seems to be getting away with whatever it is they're doing, and the one who tries to help gets blocked? Why is the approval from Glen S back in November all of a sudden not good enough?
Spirot05:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello again. Thank you for your efforts with the page [40]. I do see what you mean by the "gun-toting heavy statement" being too personal. I have NO problem whatsoever copyediting it to be more NPOV, and adding as many resources as the page can handle. I just need to know how to cite those sources, but I can always get help on that. So, once things settle down and the page is unprotected, I will get to work on those issues. I think that, for the moment, it would be prudent to keep it under protection.
Appreciate all your help.
Spirot04:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Old featured article blurbs
I've been rummaging through the "Today's Featured Article" archives, updating the images there where they have been deleted. I also noticed that some of the blurbs are very out-of-date, such as the ones at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 18, 2004. I've been replacing deleted images on the basis that this will improve the appearance when they are reused at WP:FC or when people are browsing the archives. I am not too concerned that this doesn't preserve what the "box" looked like when it appeared on the Main Page (that is what the history is for), but this has made me think that the use of "include" tags to tranclude a few lead paragraphs from featured articles might not be a good idea, as then the history of any changes is back in the original article. In this case, I'm also thinking that people who see Obama come up at WP:FC will see an out-of-date blurb, but I suppose the date at the top should tip them off. Still, something to think about. If an "include" tags system had been in operation, then the blurb would have updated automatically over the years, to the point where it would look strange under the TFA date heading. What do you think is the best way to cope with this? Have "archive" featured blurbs, and "current" featured blurbs as separate systems? My feeling is to leave the archive text alone and write a separate blurb if such articles are featured elsewhere in a different format. Carcharoth11:19, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Infobox-TOC issues -- Part III
no hurry on these
...I'm going to get some yardwork done this weekend or die trying!
(That's a laugh -- I'm working through my unsaved 'back buffers', and I wrote that a week ago (?two?)! LOL. I tend not to gravitate to this laptop if I'm home--no email I care to check! So I've revised the below dropping two requests in favor of planting the thought:
Back when, Kirill Lokshin addressed a related question on the infobox-TOC corners misaligning wildly issue (the key, as it turns out was pointing me to Wikipedia:How_to_fix_bunched-up_edit_links) to some of the above good news, and turned me onto the following page. Do you think you might be interested in taking a stab at dumbing down the 'contextual assumptions' by the authors and perhaps interject some of the appropriate HTML definitions implicit in the discussion? The mentions of clear are in particular need. You know, HTML Stacking Elments for Dummies <g> I'd tackle more, but don't have your experience to know that I was right or just making a WAG! Just a thought! // FrankB05:47, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again. As can be seen above, I said I would be more than willing to copyedit this article to fit what was mentioned as being POV and such, and to cite sources. But today I see that the mass deletions continue [41], the harassment continues[42], and it appears I am now the subject of a "witch-hunt" [43].
Yes, I am his Publicist. And??? Many people in this industry have their PR people write their bios. So what? I have shown that I am willing to edit it to conform to Wiki standards (as I did previously with Admin Glen S - who knows exactly who I am and has not had issues with it at all), so why does it matter who I am or what I do for a living??? If I was demanding that the copy stay exactly as is, or throwing around legalities and such nonsense, then maybe I can see why they might get all in a tizzy about it, but as it has not caused a problem thus far (save for Quatloo and pals), I fail to see how it is in any way an issue. I ask that the page be re-protected, since obviously these users are just waiting for it to be unprotected so they can start this up all over again.
Thank you.
Spirot23:31, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am so sick and tired of these editors who seem to lie in wait to pounce, so I have posted the end all beat all of verification. A photograph, that I took about an hour ago, of Mr. Haig holding up a sign verifying the article content. If this isn't good enough, I'd like to know what's better. I really have had it, and I think I have been MORE than patient with these people. This has to end NOW.
Spirot00:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I edited it again for NPOV. Please let me know if further editing is needed. My point throughout all of this has always been that deletion is not necessary, simple editing is, and that has now been done. As for sources, see my last post above. The harassment continues and one more has joined in the "fun", so I am logging off now. I've done the work I said I would to get this thing done and over with, so I take my leave. I hope this mess can come to a suitable conclusion...and one that does not entail my crucifixion. Thanks.
Spirot01:28, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, apparently they are having tons of fun at my expense [44], and continue to enjoy ransacking the article. I give up. The article was fine by everyone except this little tribe, whom I am fed up with trying to please. I gave them what they asked for, and it was never good enough. Now they have me in their jokes section??? How nice. It's over. The mob wins, apparently.
Thanks anyway.
Spirot03:05, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Orphaned non-free image (Image:Monogram.jpg)
Thanks for uploading Image:Monogram.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BetacommandBot03:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you've got a moment for some light duty thinking, this major expansion (I got caught up in checking terms--what a derailment of my planned edit!) needs a proofing (some of my 'history' may be off a bit and need tweaked--I don't know!) and has some redlinks you perhaps know the proper substitute links to clear up. Address buss has to be covered somewhere, doesn't it? Can't believe such a fundamental term was so badly neglected so long! Thanks and Cheers! // FrankB19:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Meetup
Dear CBDunkerson,
You have either attended or expressed interested in the previous NYC Meetup. I would like to invite you to the First Annual New York Wikipedian Central Park Picnic. R.S.V.P. @ Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC -- Ynot?15:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
ME templates
Hi Conrad. Several ME templates are at TfD at the moment. I actually voted delete in the ME-canon templates debate, but feel I should have told you about it first. That one has finished, unfortunately, but there is still a debate going on about consolidation over various "in-universe" and "fact" templates that are used to tag articles. Would you have a view on those. I made reference to the "designer and maintainer" of the templates, but now realise that it is really the other ones I use as examples that you were involved in, not the ones actually being debated. Anyway, I thought you might want to know about the debates. Carcharoth10:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm actually not a big fan of the 'fact', 'in universe', and suchlike style 'cleanup' templates. I don't use them, but for those who do presumably it is easier to have the topic specific versions - which seems to be the way the TfD is headed. The 'Mecanon' templates served a useful purpose at one point, but they and the pages they linked to got rewritten and redefined so many times it was pointless. The original idea was to say, 'here are all the different versions of this story/fact' in a consistent way across articles, with links to explanations of why there are different versions and disputes about what should be considered 'official'. I think NOT having templates makes that necessary task much more difficult, but there were other ideas about how we should handle the 'canon' issue in general. --CBD11:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for commenting over at the TfD. I like the fact tag, as it is fairly unobtrusive and specific. I hate the general "top of article" banner tags - off-putting and not helpful. As for conon stuff. Did you see the ME cannon AfD? Middle-earth canon and Tolkien's legendarium are probably OK for now, but still need improvement. Not quite sure what to do with Middle-earth Cycle. Carcharoth11:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Template:Fix-inline
Would you mind explaining what you've done with that, at Template talk:Fix-inline, or documenting the template at its /doc page? The purpose, appearance and usage of that template were plainly obvious yesterday, but aren't now. :-/ — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)›18:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, yesterday the template had the same (zero) documentation it has now, and was used (incorrectly) on exactly one page. Further, Template:Fix which was used to call fix-inline and pass parameters to it had been deleted. Thus, I don't think there was any significant disruption from the change. However, I do intend to document how it and the related templates work. --CBD12:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. Did not mean to imply you'd disrupted anything, only that the template's code is esoteric now, it is not even visible on its own page (looking at a template is one of the chief ways of figuring out what it is for), and its usage was formerly simple (just add the template to a page), and does not appear to be simple any longer. I.e., I'm not sure anyone understands it any more but you. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)›22:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. I was surprised anyone noticed. The /doc sub-page has been updated with usage notes and an explanation of the template's purpose now. --CBD11:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
thanks for standing up against totalitarian tendencies. Your unblanking was reverted. The second persons says it should go to DRV. What messy thing is this? With one click admin can violate rules, and everybody sees this, but still claim one has to go through DRV, which is much longer than only one click. That is also one of the problems with the out of policy deletions, deleted very fast, but restored only through long processes. Can you talk about this with an ArbCom person? These "policeman admins" run around in midwest villages, beat people, disrupt and then say: oh if you wanna complain, please fill out form ABCD, travel to Washington, DC, then wait there five weeks and maybe, but only maybe, people will review you case. You are probably better in talking with ArbCom than me. Or start a page "admin reform"? less controverse than "admin right abuse watch"? Tobias Conradi(Talk)12:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Isatabu Freedom Movement
hi there, i notice u deleted the redirect from Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army to Isatabu Freedom Movement. why so? i want to do another redirect from Guadalcanal Liberation Front (linked oin the Harold Keke page) to the IFM page. i know theres not much info on the pages yet but i am slowly sorting it out... basically the groups split and reformed, except for the GLF which remained active after the Townsville peace agreement. wot do u think should be done to the pages if not redirect?
Paki.tv06:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
According to this site (Spearhead magazine) Tolkien subscribed to Candour, a right-wing magazine, and highlighted, notwrote the quotes below in copies now owned by the article writer. Information from it, incorrectly attributing them to Tolkien himself, had been added to the Orc (Middle-earth) article, but it's been removed with VandalProof.
The dissolution of the British Empire was viewed by Tolkien as a tragedy, which would have permanent negative consequences for its indigenous populations:
‘Africa is not peopled by Black Europeans, but it is a continent full of tribes mentally and morally at the dawn of history.
‘Self-government does not mean democracy - Liberia and Abyssinia are two warning lights. African hegemony would lead to the suicide of the White community in East and Central Africa and to the ruin of African hopes of sustained progress.’ (3/10 August 1956, page 44)
He was concerned not about racial issues there, but about political issues and monetary policy. In terms of the politics, that view was largely borne out anyway if one is to be perfectly honest. "At the dawn of history" in context is talking about the continent's political institutions, not their status as human beings.
I agree that the text is clearly dealing with political and social issues rather than racial, and attributing anything to Tolkien based on lines is clearly a stretch. Even assuming he made the underlinings in question we have no idea what he was thinking in doing so... these could have been passages he meant to challenge the veracity of as easily as ones which he agreed with. --CBD13:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! Long time no see. Can you follow the "trail" here, and especially the trial stab link I doc'd at the bottom and advise me as to whether something occurs to you for this guys problem (sic) (errr, desires"). Note I'd had a closing solution of sorts I ran up his flag pole that might work, so peek at his talk for that in the section I linked. Sigh! // 00:26, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Frank. Not around alot right now, but I took a quick look. If I understand the desired intent correctly then I think it just needs a 'border: none;' statement in the style settings. I made that change and the example at User:KuatofKDY/Sandbox is now doing what I think the user was looking for. --CBD13:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I'll see what I can learn. I'm MIA a lot now myself. Have a great 4th! (Not to mention the rest of the summer!) // FrankB01:45, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Billy Gilman
Hey CB, I am wondering if you can give me a little help in regards to the Billy Gilman article. It seems that we have an over abundance of users that want to vandalize this page. We find ourself continuing to go in and fixing what the vandals are doing. Can you take a look and see if we should ask for a partial protect on this article? Junebug5218:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like it has been quiet for a couple of days. I'll keep an eye on it for a while and put up semi-protection / blocks if need be. --CBD11:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks man. Can you please help me get my talk page fixed? Another user or vandal hijacked my talk page and redirected it and I undid the edit, but now it takes me to a redirect? Can you fix it or tell me how to do it? Thanks bud. Junebug5222:41, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Conrad. I saw your recent ME edits, and wondered if you had an opinion on the deletion of the Middle-earth in popular culture article? My thoughts on that are on the WikiProject page and here where I'm waiting to see what the closing admin says before going to DRV. Carcharoth16:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I looked at it. I can restore the page in your user-space if you want to work on it. In general I agree that we should have an article on Tolkien's impact on popular culture... but that listing lots of references to Tolkien as the page mostly did previously isn't the right approach. Citing trends and outside commentary on his impact, like the book you referred to, would be a stronger article. --CBD01:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've suggested that to the admin who deleted it. Best to wait and see what they say, but yes, I'm thinking a userspace rewrite is probably the best option. Carcharoth02:17, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
User:Duff requested that I post a message on his/her behalf. He/she is using TOR, and thus unable to post here directly, but is able to edit User talk:Duff. Anyway here is the comment:
“
I concur thoroughly with CBD on all points. I have this very problem; have had it for a few days,since I downloaded and installed Tor, completely oblivious to the underlying and ongoing wiki-controversy. I wish to complain. I wish to cut to the chase and formally lodge the complaint, on behalf of myself and other John Doe users with the same problem who wish to participate in the complaint. I am a wikipedia contributor. I use Tor. I am not a vandal. I am not an admin. I am not a sockpuppet. I am not a criminal nor am I a policy breaker. I am not even anonymous. I have no intention of pretending to want to be an administrator or enduring some lengthy process of begging to re-establish something I never should have lost. Why disrupt my work? Why hinder users in any way from attempting to see to their own online and personal security and attempting to secure their own constitutional freedoms, by deliberately and consistently obscuring their own true IP address? Anyone with a subpoena can find the information out anyway, and for that, anyone needs probable cause. And for that, well...you get it. Where's the fire? Anyone here who has done a "checkuser" (whatever that is, I don't even know) on me or is toying with the idea of doing one now, had best read carefully the rules for use of that tool and keep well within them, and keep the results of that activity private, or be prepared to face wiki-consequences, wiki-scorn, and wiki-wrath. --Duff 23:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Please semi-protect the pages for Godsmack and Lamb of God (band) because un-registered users keep coming and reverting my edits to the infobox, This is anoying me because I am putting a (<!-{- -}->) message in the infobox and they are not listening on Godsmack and on Lamb of God (band) un-rregistered users are adding genres unsourced and un-needed because of an on going genre edit war. Thank you for the help. Skeeker19:44, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Middle-earth Cycle
Hello, Mr. Dunkerson. I'm only leaving this message to inform you that in my proposal to merge or redirect Middle-earth Cycle to the main Middle-earth article, I quoted a statement of yours regarding the fact that "Middle-earth Cycle" is a term that has never been used by Tolkien or any notable reviewers. In my proposal I've further argued that the article is unreferenced and reads like a personal reflection or essay regarding Tolkien's work and should not be allowed to remain in its present state. If you could weigh in on the discussion, it would be appreciated. --Ace ETP01:42, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I've been merging things to identify and remove duplicates, but there should be no harm in having a separate section for recent additions and then eventually merging those into the full list. --CBD13:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I added some material to the article. Overall I think it probably makes more sense as a separate entry. It could be included in Tolkien fandom with a redirect to that section from the main term, but the fandom article is fairly long already. --CBD13:23, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the 'List of Middle-earth topics' shouldn't be in article space, and indeed created the list on the Portal with an eye towards eventually removing the other from article space. On the 'by category' list... I'd hope that would eventually be made obsolete due to use of the actual Wikipedia category system. At some point we should have some sort of 'List of Middle-earth lists' page, and the 'by category' page might serve as a starting point for that. --CBD17:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is there anyway to undo this nonsense, because logic is not subject to vote, it still holds that Subdiv of former countries != Former country subdiv. Tobias Conradi(Talk)15:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Tobias. I get what you are saying about 'former subdivisions' rather than 'former countries', but based on a quick review of the pages in the merged category I didn't see any pages which seemed to be referring to 'former countries'... just former subdivisions of existing countries. If we do have articles on subdivisions in countries which no longer exist you might want to just make a new 'Category:Subdivisions of former countries' or somesuch. --CBD17:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was tidying up some templates (see Category:WikiProject Middle-earth templates) and found Template:Valar which doesn't really seem to be in use (I checked what links here and removed or struck out a few links from project talk pages). It is now only listed at the "list of all pages" areas, so I was thinking you might want to delete it altogether as you were the only contributor (apart from me sticking a category on it). It also seems to be fairly redundant to {{Ainur}}, though that doesn't show who 'married' who (which is in any case covered in the articles). What do you think? Carcharoth02:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I also found the following two: Template:Middle-earth Labelled Map (interesting, but maybe best to discuss on its talk page); and Template:PoemOfTheRing (not the best way to use templates, in my opinion). Should that latter one be got rid of, do you think? And would that require a TfD nomination?
I also did one of those searches that can throw up new templates. See here. Possibly this needs to be quietly put out of its misery, or maybe I might turn it into something usable... Anyway, I also found the following, which seem to be old portal templates. You know more about how the portal works. Are they needed?
As I recall, I copied the 'Valar' text to that template to remove it from some pages where it had been hard-coded. As it is no longer used I just deleted it as a G7. I'd agree that 'PoemOfTheRing' doesn't really need to be a template and could be put directly into the articles. The map one is nice though. Your changes to the Elves template make it more viable. The portal stuff came about due to alot of different designs on how that should be set up. They are obsolete now and may have never actually been used. There isn't a 'speedy deletion' criteria for 'templates that have been unused for years' but I went ahead and deleted them anyway because I can't imagine anyone objecting... or noticing. --CBD12:18, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that. I've now subst'd the poem one, so that could go if you think no-one will object. The articles it was used in were, unsurprisingly, One Ring and Rings of Power. The original creator of the template hasn't edited for over a year. You could deal with the talk page at the same time. As for the map, the image can only be used under fair-use I think, so it might not be worth investing too much effort in that, but I agree, it is nice. Do you have any idea why some of the links don't work? I've asked at Template talk:Middle-earth Labelled Map. Carcharoth12:39, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I almost forgot! WOuld you be able to look at User:Carcharoth/Sandbox2 and User:Carcharoth/Sandbox? I've been trying to force a "display mode" for the template so that it can be displayed without inflicting its categories on inappropriate pages. As you can see from my fumblings in the page history of User:Carcharoth/Sandbox2, I don't really understand the code. Can you help, or even better, explain to me how that works or point me in the right direction? Thanks. Carcharoth12:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
PoemOfTheRing - Since it was in use until today probably best to let it sit for a while or list at TfD in case someone feels it should be a template.
Map - I fixed the problem. The centering was being done inside the link and causing problems - I just moved it out around the link.
Sandbox2 - I'm not entirely sure what you want it to do, but the primary problem was that you were using {{#ifeq:{{{class|}}}|NA|display|...... which translates to something like, 'if class equals NA then print "display" otherwise...'. Presumably you wanted to do something if class equalled NA >or< display, so I changed it to a 'switch' statement.
Rick block page - No, that issue had to do with links to discussion on category pages missing a : and thus actually adding the category to the page rather than the link to it. Our banner templates link to the wikiproject discussion pages rather than discussion on category pages and thus don't have the issue. --CBD14:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for all that. What I was trying to do with the "display mode" was to get it to look like it does for "class=NA", but to (a) remove the categories (I think I managed that myself, but you should probably check) and (b) lose the link to a picture or template (the redlink currently appearing when I do {{User:Carcharoth/Sandbox2|class=display}} at User:Carcharoth/Sandbox). Does that make sense? Carcharoth14:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
ie. Replace the "NA. This page is not an article and does not require a rating on the quality scale." with "Display. This template is in display mode." (PS. Me putting the class=NA example on the sandbox has, of course, brought the categories back). Carcharoth14:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, hang on, I'm being silly! In display mode (ie. on pages giving examples of what the template looks like) we want all the stuff showing, not removed as it is in NA mode. Duh! What you have done is fine. I'll sort the redlink myself. Carcharoth14:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've now changed Template:ME-project and created Template:Display-Class. The what links here for the latter shows where I've used this. See here. The display at my sandbox looks OK, but the template looks awful inside the tables at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Templates and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Templates. It looks like there are empty boxes floating around. The other thing is that the "display" text is a bit inconsistent. Ideally it should read exactly as it would if it was unassessed, with an extra bit somewhere saying "This template is in display mode - see here for details on how to use this template." (incorporating Template:Display-Class if possible, to track use of this parameter). Is that too complicated? Carcharoth15:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The second one is a bit more complicated, and involves trying to get an assessment template to take auto-signatures, or any sort of signature parameter. I've been investigating and failing to find any clear instructions on this. Do you think you could look at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Auto-signatures in templates for assessments?
Just to correct one of the malicious lies so prevalent on the Web:
Re Tolkien and the magazine Candour: this is the assertion of a fascist called Stephen Goodson, based in South Africa, and associated with Holocaust-denier Ernst Gundl. The assertions made by Goodson are deemed by the Tolkien Estate to be "incredible" (to use their most anodyne term). No copies of anything remotely similar were ever sold out of the Estate. --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.157.226.20 (talk • contribs).
WPBiography template stuff again
There seem to be no objections at Template talk:WPBiography#Proposed change, so do you think you will be OK with carrying out the changes? Or do you want to leave it for a bit longer? There is also another edit to be done at Template talk:WPBiography#Dox standardization (you will need to scroll right to the bottom), cleaning up a bit that got missed. I had also considered adding a category allowing people to track the "living" parameter, since at the moment the instructions say to put "living=no", but that doesn't actually do anything. There is a need to distinguish between living people, dead people, and those where we don't know, but that is covered by the main article categories of Category:Living people and its ilk, so duplicating that on the talk page seems a bit silly. Anyway, that's off topic for the current changes, so I'll stop there. Carcharoth11:59, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Third change now! "Fair use" to "non free" where-ever it occurs. I'll see about setting up the code in the template sandbox and linking to it. You'll have to check though that no-one has changed it since I last edited the sandbox, and preview the "changes" to check it is all OK. Carcharoth15:11, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No problems. If you look at the talk page of the template, the behaviour of DEFAULTSORT meant that there were problems. See Template talk:WPBiography#DEFAULTSORT and listas problems. The solution I've come up with, tedious though it is, has been to add the following to every category tag in the template code: "|{{{listas}}}". If I understand things right (and I did test this at Talk:Aaron Lawrence - see the page history), this will pipe-sort the categories by listas if listas is there, and if listas is not there, it will simply add "|" to the category tags (which won't change anything). I left the original listas/PAGENAME conditional alone. The change can be seen here (I hope I didn't miss any categories out - any way to check?). I think the observed behaviour will now be as follows:
If there are no other DEFAULTSORTs on the talk page (eg. naked DEFAULTSORTs or ones added by other templates), then WPBiography will DEFAULTSORT to PAGENAME in the absence of listas, and DEFAULTSORT to listas if listas is present. The categories pipe-sorted to listas will be sorted by listas if that is present, or will take DEFAULTSORT=PAGENAME otherwise. Non-pipesorted categories on the page outside of the WPBiography template will sort by the DEFAULTSORT value provided by WPBiography.
If there are other DEFAULTSORTs on the talk page above WPBiography, then WPBiography's DEFAULTSORT will be used instead of those ones, and the behaviour is as above.
If there are other DEFAULTSORTs on the talk page below WPBiography, then the lowest one will be used. The categories provided by WPBiography will be pipe-sorted to listas if that is present, and will take the unknown DEFAULTSORT value otherwise (this last bit is wrong, I want them to take PAGENAME if listas is not present).
It is this last case that has made me realise that what I really should have done was make the manual pipe sort a "listas if listas is present, but PAGENAME otherwise" for each one. That would free the categories inside WPBiography from the threat of DEFAULTSORTs from lower down the page, while the DEFAULTSORT inside WPBiography would still distribute the listas or PAGENAME to categories outside WPBiography on pages where no DEFAULTSORT was present. Does that make any sense? Would you be able to check the above and see if the changes I want to make are doing what I think they are? I have a few more things to check and test. Carcharoth01:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Right, that change I made above didn't work for some reason. I think the naked "|" were messing things up. I also took the opportunity to change from "|{{{listas}}}" to "{{#if: {{{listas|}}}|{{!}}{{{listas}}}|{{!}}{{PAGENAME}} }}" - using the {{!}} to insert the "|" pipe characters instead. That seemed to do the trick. The full change can be seen here. This edit here to Talk:Aaron Lawrence was the crucial test - the DEFAULTSORT of Xenon that I entered over-rode the "PAGENAME" sorting of the LGBT template, but the performance of the WPBiography template was unchanged - it still sorted to PAGENAME when there was no listas, and sorted to the listas value when there was a listas. Only one problem. There are a total of 283 category tags in the WPBiography template, ie. I've just inserted 283 #if and {{!}} thingys. When I saved the test template at Talk:Aaron Lawrence, it took a long time to load (over 20 seconds). For a template used on over 380,000 talk pages, do you think the change I'm proposing to make would severely overload things? Earlier, you said "BTW, the {{DEFAULTSORT:{{#if: {{{listas|}}}|{{{listas}}}|{{PAGENAME}} }} }} at the top could be replaced with just {{DEFAULTSORT:{{{listas|{{PAGENAME}} }}} }}." - so could what I entered be simplified to {{{ {{!}}{{{listas}}}|{{!}}{{PAGENAME}} }}}? And would that speed up the template performance? Carcharoth02:13, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with |{{{listas}}} was likely the fact that if a parameter is unset and un-defaulted it evaluates as text. Thus, if listas were unset that would be sorting on "{{{listas}}}". Changing it to |{{{listas|}}}, to default to 'blank' would likely have done what you intended. However, if you want it to use listas if set or otherwise PAGENAME it could just be |{{{listas|{{PAGENAME}}}}}. The save time you mentioned after the change could have been due to something else going on in Wikipedia at the same time or just the overall length and complexity of this template. The changes you made should not significantly increase rendering time on the display page. The equivalent to your #if: logic above using parameter defaults and the '!' template would be, {{!}}{{{listas|{{PAGENAME}} }}}. Again, parameters evaluate first to what they are set to (including blank if so set), then to any default specified after the | character (including blank if there is nothing between the | and closing brackets), and then as straight text if unset and no default is defined. It is essentially a built in 'if-then-else' condition... which was actually used to create templates that worked exactly the same way as #if: and the like before those were added to the MediaWiki code. Thus, there is never a need to use a #if: to choose between a parameter value and a default... using {{{<parametername>|default}}} accomplishes the same thing in less space. It will also render faster, though in this case the difference in speed is tiny. --CBD11:03, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for explaining all this. I tried your suggestion, but ran into the same problem as before. I've realised that the template performs differently depending on whether it has "listas=", or "listas=NAME" or no listas on the page at all. Have a look at this and this, a difference which is produced by this edit. Those talk pages were using this version of the sandbox template, but when I switched back to the old version here (the one using "my #if: logic"), then the template performed the same way regardless of whether it was "listas=" or no listas. I think. Anyway, what is to be done? Carcharoth23:23, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The difference is that {{{listas|{{PAGENAME}}}}} evalutes 'listas=' to 'blank', while {{#if: {{{listas|}}}|{{{listas}}}|{{PAGENAME}} }} evaluates 'listas=' to {{PAGENAME}}. Being set to 'blank' via 'listas=' is treated like any other listas value by the first version. However, #if: looks for a NON blank value to evaluate to 'true'. If you think it is likely that alot of pages will have 'listas=' when they really mean to set no parameter then the #if: version would work better. Usually the preference is just to leave the parameter out rather than setting it to blank. --CBD00:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Question
Hello, because I know you can read German, could you please be so kind to come to read this page ([45]). I do not know, if copy rights are violated. Kind regards--KarlV09:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Unfortunately, I don't use my German much and haven't ever had cause to learn the German words for various copyright and technology terms. However, from what I can gather, Wiggum was arguing that since the user (sockpuppet?) in question wrote the text they can re-use it if they wish so long as they cite the copyright. You then asked where a copyright citation appeared on the page and Wiggum said they didn't see one. Do I have that right?
If so, then the issue is really GFDL compliance. As applied on the English Wikipedia the GFDL requires that any text to be re-used on Wikipedia have been explicitly released under the GFDL or possibly some other license which is considered compatible. If there is no such explicit waiver of rights then the text cannot be used regardless of who is adding it. Likewise, text in Wikipedia should not be used elsewhere without citing Wikipedia as the source in order to comply with the GFDL requirements.
Wiggum seemed to be suggesting (again, I could be translating wrong) that merely by the act of adding the information to Wikipedia the owner was putting it under a GFDL license and no explicit statement of such was required. That is not the way it has worked on the English language Wikipedia to date, but the standards on the German language site may be different. One of the primary reasons for requiring the originating website to show a GFDL copyright is to prove that the allowance for re-use is coming from the owner. If this identification could be proven in some other way then maybe it would be ok to take their re-use of the material as implicit agreement to release it under the GFDL... but even then I wouldn't suggest it. They might not realize that the text they were copying would then be open to editing by other users and could try to assert ownership over it based on a pre-existing copyright notice on their site.
In any case, I'd suggest taking the matter to the local copyright discussion page (is that what 'URV' is?) and letting the experts there sort it out. --CBD21:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for your answer. I think the GFDL compliance rules are the same for Germany as for other Wikis. I have studied the German site of Metapedia and posted now the findings at the German WP-Site for GFDL-issues (you are right, it is URV)([46]). The reason for telling you this was also, that Metapedia is a Swedisch website and is building up other languages sites. I do not know, if there are more issues regarding GFDL comliance in other languages there. But anyway, thank you very much for your time. Kind regards from Munich.--KarlV07:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I saw that you are the creator of Babel and I wanted to consult you on the new template, Babel2, up to the first 100 entires the template was perfect, until I had to start adding more entires, now I get this weird box in the background towards the end of it (User:PatPeter#Babel), just press show and you will be able to see my userboxes, I cannot presently figure out the problem. I will freely to the monotonous work that takes a while if I know what I am doing (hell I made this awesome template by myself I generally do) so thank you in advance for hearing me out and I hope to talk to you soon. -PatPeter19:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, on 28 January 2007 you deleted Millipore Corporation which had earlier been made into a redirect page in a move to Millipore Corp. That page was subsequently deleted as a copyvio. Consequently somebody then hijacked the Millipore disambig page instead. This is one of the largest companies in the world, a long-standing S&P 500 company. As part of the Wikipedia missing articles project, I intend to rewrite the article with refs as a stub, as Millipore Corporation, and to restore the disambig page.Steven Russell18:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As you obviously know already (having commented in the discussion), there's an editprotected request on {{coord}} about the addition of a {{{name}}} parameter to the template that adds microformat markup. I'm trying to establish whether consensus exists for this change at the moment, and it's unclear to me what your viewpoint currently is. Could you make a further comment in the discussion, to explain whether you would currently consider the change to be a good idea? --ais523 16:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Hey bud can you look at this for me?
I was contacted by an editor to look at a couple of articles they felt should be nominated for deletion. Nate Christianson and Will Clark I looked them over and they do look to me to be more personal advertisements rather than Bio's of living persons. I do not feel they fall within notablitity, nor do they showcase the subjects history but rather the subjects likes and dislikes as well as services they offer as escorts etc.. There is an editor I put a prod tag on both articles and I have an editor that keeps removing it instead of fixing the problems. In many posted conflicts this editor has had with others for removing things, it seems that the editor is actually the subject of the article. Could you please look at it and let me know what you think. I think the articles should be deleted. Thanks bud and I hope you are having a great holiday. Junebug5221:14, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have informed editor Junebug52 that each of the articles into which he has inserted prod tags has a subject notable under WP:PORNBIO or WP:BIO. I have removed her/his prod tags with the explanation that the subject is notable under one of the guidelines listed above. Perhaps you can inform her/him that other tags can be placed to address the concerns s/he has listed. 71.127.234.9621:20, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
CBD if you look at the history of these articles you will find that serious concerns have been made that this editor is actually the subject of the article. These articles are full of tags that have requested these articles be brought up to standards. There are no cites or sources. I did a Google search and most hits go to the subjects personal web pages. The editor that contacted me to look at them said that they have watched as tags have been placed and removed without editing being done to fix the problems. I still move for deletion. If you say they are ok, then I will drop the issue, but I feel they are articles for deletion. Junebug5221:25, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello folks. Ok, WP:PROD is a method of clearing out uncontested articles with a minimum of hassle. Once someone contests it, by removing the prod tag or saying that they think it should be kept, the issue really has to go to articles for deletion for community discussion. I'm not familiar with Wikipedia's notability standards for gay porn actors - so I couldn't say whether these individuals meet them or not, but that's a community decision in any case.
On the issue of authorship; per the conflict of interest guidelines, Wikipedia really prefers that people not add or edit pages about themselves or which they have a vested interest in (either for or against the subject). However, there is no way to police that in all cases and no absolute rule against it (even Jimbo Wales has edited the article on himself). That said, Wikipedia's policies on neutral point of view are always in effect... if someone puts up an 'advertisement' praising a person rather than an encyclopedic description of them it really doesn't matter whether it was written by the person themself, a fan, their mom, or whatever. In all cases it needs to be edited to present a neutral description of the person backed up by sources.
I removed some information about a supposed pseudonym from one of the articles under the biographies of living persons policy because there were no sources listed for it, and suggesting that the chef in question was actually a gay porn actor could certainly be something he might object to - either if it were untrue or if it were not widely known. Belief that the two people are the same, because their pictures look alike or something, isn't enough for Wikipedia. Nor is direct personal knowledge. We collect information only on things which are already public knowledge and reported in reliable media. Maybe this connection between the chef and actor has been reported in such fashion, but if so the sources for that need to be cited. --CBD00:52, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
List of major Konoha teams
Could you tell me what the image use controversy over this page is? Every time I put a picture on this page someone takes it off.
Message Page for Conrad Dunkerson (CBDunkerson)
The Transhumanist 23:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
The Transhumanist 22:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
FA
GA
The Compassionate Wisdom Award
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