User talk:John

A Note on threading: Interpersonal communication does not work when messages are left on individual users' talk pages rather than threaded, especially when a third party wishes to read or reply. Being a "bear of very little brain", I get easily confused when trying to follow conversations that bounce back and forth, so I've decided to try the convention that many others seem to use, aggregation of messages on either your talk page or my talk page. If the conversation is about an article I will try to aggregate on the article's talk page. If the conversation is on your talk page or an article talk page, I will watch it. If the conversation is on my talk page or an article talk page and I think that you may not be watching it, I will link to it in a note on your talk page, or in the edit summary of an empty edit. But if you start a thread here, please watch it. I may mess up, don't worry, I'll find it eventually. Ping me if you really need to. please note this is a personal preference rather than a matter of site policy

(From User:John/Pooh policy)

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Sinking of the RMS Titanic Hi John, thanks very much for fixing issues on Sinking of the RMS Titanic. The article is currently going through GA review, which looks like it will be completed quite soon. When it is, the intention is to nominate it for FA with the aim of getting it onto the Main Page for the anniversary of the sinking on 14/15 April. Would you be up for helping with the FA review process when the article has been nominated? Your help was invaluable on my last FA, Battle of Vukovar, and I'd love to have the opportunity to work with you again. Prioryman (talk) 21:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Thanks for asking. I will happily do what I can to help with this. --John (talk) 06:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC) That's great, thanks very much. It's passed GA now so I've nominated it for FA - see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sinking of the RMS Titanic/archive1. Prioryman (talk) 00:42, 2 February 2012 (UTC) UTRS Account Request I confirm that I have requested an account on the UTRS tool. John (talk) Hi John, thank you for your interest in the tool. I've approved your account, please feel free to login and test the system. As part of this beta test, we'd like everyone to test every aspect of the tool. This includes acting as blocked users - we'd like each of you to file at least two appeals and respond to them as though you are blocked. Please try to act like a blocked user new to Wikipedia, unfamiliar with common terms and probably a bit frustrated at the situation. When reviewing appeals, please act as though you are reviewing real blocks. You should be able to comment on any appeal, regardless of who has reserved it; reservations only ensure that reviewers don't send conflicting emails. If you encounter any bugs (things not appearing to work right, and especially error messages), please file a bug report on JIRA. You will need to register an account there. New features can be suggested there as well, but please add the "after-beta" label to these so we can easily prioritize between bugs that must be fixed and features that can be added later. Thank you again for volunteering to beta-test. The Helpful One 00:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Thank you. --John (talk) 00:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Romeinsekeizer Thanks for your revert to Stonehenge of the edit by Romeinsekeizer (talk · contribs). There is some clear COI here - the user is Lex Ritman in real life (admitted on his talk page) and is writing about himself and these non-notable works in this and other articles. I have left a COI warning but you might want to keep an eye on his activities and offer guidance as appropriate. --Bob Re-born (talk) 12:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Thanks for the note. I will keep an eye on this. --John (talk) 12:15, 4 February 2012 (UTC) If you haven't read ... this, then you clearly should do! I haz W-t-P PJ's ;P Pesky (talk …stalk!) 18:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC) I read The Tao of Pooh a few years ago and it is excellent. I believe all good children's books should contain this sort of higher wisdom, both for the children and for their parents who have to read to them--John (talk) 18:13, 4 February 2012 (UTC). There is far more to Pooh than we were ever aware of, as kids. I've given the basic set of Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner, When we Were Very Young, and Now We are Six to various grandchildren this past Christmas. Nobody should have to grow up without them :o) Have you read the fun Now We Are Sixty? Good for several giggles. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 18:29, 4 February 2012 (UTC) No, I haven't seen that one, I will look next time I go to the library. Thank you. Besides Pooh, other great children's books I have never fallen out of love with and look forward to rediscovering with my own kids include Treasure Island, Alice in Wonderland, Huckleberry Finn, and several works by Ivan Southall and Nicholas Fisk. --John (talk) 18:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Swallows and Amazons? The Water Babies? I'm going to drown in nostalgia, if I don't stop, lol! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 18:36, 4 February 2012 (UTC) Not read either of them I'm afraid, though I have heard of them of course. There's always Enid Blyton and Richmal Crompton as well, though I fear those may not have aged so well as the first lot I mentioned. --John (talk) 18:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC) ... and my own immediate offspring (the eldest of whom has just turned 30! Eeek!) were taught to read on Beatrix Potter, of course :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 19:10, 4 February 2012 (UTC) I never liked BP when I was young, but my kids like it. I'm reading (almost finished) Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy, which uses Potter's terminology to describe defectors from the old Soviet Union during the Cold War. --John (talk) 20:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC) That sounds like ... an interesting mixture! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 10:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC) Jeremy Clarkson Hi John, you made changed to the Jeremy Clarkson article wit the comment "please only restore with valid refs ie not youtube or the series itself". I'm a very new Wikipedia user (started yesterday and these were my first changes; adding a few references and a few new cars to the ownership list). I saw that you are a Wikipedia administrator, so could you help me in telling me how can I reference the series, since there are a lot of information on the Top Gear TV series about the guys, for example what cars they drive in real life. I tried googling on how to make such references (references to TV series), but didn't find anything useful. One example is the Ford GT, which was featured in the episode (season 7, episode 3) for about 20 minutes (each episode is 60mins long). Jeremy talked a lot about the car, how he had owned the same car twice, so at least I see it as irrefutable. You might understand that deleting all changes that a new user has made (it took me hours to find those missing references) is very discouraging. :-( Help me out if you can. Thanks for understanding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GreyEmminence (talk • contribs) 14:24, 5 February 2012 (UTC) Of course. I had not noticed you were a new user. I suggest in the first instance reading WP:5P and especially WP:V as this is the policy these additions were in violation of. --John (talk) 14:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC) Ok, so if I understand the WP:V correctly, I used the source (Jeremy Clarkson) as the source itself when citing the Top Gear episode and therefore it wasn't in accordance with the rules? One reference (Ford Fiesta 2012) uses http://www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/jeremy-clarkson-ford-fiesta-2012-01-06 as a reference where the source (Jeremy) told what car he had selected. How is this different and is there any way I can reference the series itself? GreyEmminence (talk) 14:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC) The difference is similar to that between what I (a non-notable Wikipedia editor) might say to my friends in the pub, and what a hypothetical newspaper or magazine might say in reporting my words. Can you see the difference? You're right in that topgear.com is not a particularly good source though. Maybe we should take that one down as well. I also have serious doubts about how useful ("encyclopedic") this entire section is. Would Britannica have such a section? I have my doubts... --John (talk) 15:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC) Adriatic Sea Hi! You did a great job copyediting the Battle of Vukovar, and I thought to ask you to take a look at the Adriatic Sea article which was recently expanded. I'd like to nominate the article as a FAC at some point, although it may be better to head for GAN first to fix any outstanding issues beforehand. My concerns regarding the article are primarily its structure and the fact that it must be riddled with grammatical errors (I'm not a native speaker of English). Could you please have a look at the article and provide some feedback? Thanks!--Tomobe03 (talk) 14:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC) Thank you for asking. I will be happy to have a look. --John (talk) 15:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC) The Signpost: 06 February 2012 News and notes: The Foundation visits Tunisia, analyzes donors In the news: Leading scholar hails Wikipedia, historians urged to contribute while PR pros remain shunned Discussion report: Discussion swarms around Templates for deletion and returning editors of colourful pasts WikiProject report: The Eye of the Storm: WikiProject Tropical Cyclones Featured content: Talking architecture with MrPanyGoff Arbitration report: Four open cases, final decision in Muhammad images, Betacommand 3 near closure Technology report: October's coding challenge: results now in; progress on 1.19 steady; and why for a while interwiki links were no more Read this Signpost in full Single-page Unsubscribe EdwardsBot (talk) 23:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC) America Abroad Media John, Virginia here from America Abroad Media. Sorry if I am not following proper protocol, but our organization information is a bit out of date. Would it be improper to ask you to review and update? Thanks much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vaclairmont (talk • contribs) 21:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC) I'd be delighted to help Virginia. What is it you would like to add? --John (talk) 21:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC) MSU Interview Dear John, My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students. So a few things about the interviews: Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes. Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.) All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so. All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time. The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly. Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead. If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you. Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you. Sincerely, Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 07:29, 12 February 2012 (UTC) Tags Hello there. Sorry to bother you. I'm not faulting this edit of yours but didn't you forget to remove something else once you were finished? Don't worry, though, it was fixed with this edit. ClaretAsh 10:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC) Oops, thank you for clearing up after me. --John (talk) 10:49, 12 February 2012 (UTC) A barnstar for you! The Special Barnstar I saw the Apologia section on your userpage. I must say that in a community riddled with pessimism, criticism, conflict and other silliness, it is fabulous to find a user so passionate about the Project. I wish more users were as willing to show their pride and faith in Wikipedia. ClaretAsh 10:58, 12 February 2012 (UTC) Wow, thank you, that was very generous of you. --John (talk) 11:02, 12 February 2012 (UTC) John Martyn Hi. Its an amazing gap between the purity of his voice and the bad press he got from the mid 80s on. One thing that always strikes me; its his saving grace in my openion, is that he was the only real friend Nick Drake had and he did a of of good there, fair play. I mention this only because you said before that you admire him, and that shows a lot of taste. I saw you page moved Punk's not dead, Exploited were such a great band early on, but it didnt last, they never recaptured that initial burst of brilliance. They are still going though, actually most of the early Oi bands are still at at, plugging away. Yikes. 02:06, 13 February 2012 (UTC) Martyn was a genius and like many geniuses was a tortured soul. Yeah, I had that album and I think the point of the title was the double meaning. I wasn't much of a fan of the band; too rough for me. The Damned and the Clash were more my style from that era. --John (talk) 19:04, 13 February 2012 (UTC) The Signpost: 13 February 2012 Special report: Fundraising proposals spark a furore among the chapters News and notes: Foundation launches Legal and Community Advocacy department In the news: Scholars and spindoctors contend with the emergent wikiorder In focus: Skirmishes in the 'great sectarian war of the Internet' WikiProject report: WikiProject Stub Sorting Featured content: The best of the week Arbitration report: Betacommand 3 closed, proposed decision in Civility enforcement, AUSC candidates announced Technology report: January sees prototype new geodata API; but February looks to be a testing time for top developers Read this Signpost in full Single-page Unsubscribe EdwardsBot (talk) 03:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC) Im new to wiki... how can i find out if i can use an image or not? I cant find the original photographer. I have asked. I have read some of the policies but I am not quite understood if its free public or fair use. Kind of confusing. thanks for any help. Chekitoutbro (talk) 05:52, 15 February 2012 (UTC) I'm sorry but this may be difficult. Your only recourse may be to take the photo yourself. Occasionally browsing the commons or looking for free photos on Flickr can be productive. What was the photo of? --John (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC) thanks John for your speedy response. So any photos off of Flickr are okay? Chekitoutbro (talk) 00:54, 16 February 2012 (UTC) No, only the free ones are suitable for Wikipedia. --John (talk) 01:01, 16 February 2012 (UTC) Courtesy note In discussing the Arbcom Civility case at MF talk, I shared some thoughts on your involvement - in what I hope is a positive way, as I admire the way you have handled the fallout. You may have seen it anyway, but I wanted to let you know as a courtesy. Geometry guy 22:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC) Thank you for the note and for the time and care you have put into this whole shenanigan. --John (talk) 23:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC) Disambiguation link notification Hi. When you recently edited Chinese aircraft carrier ex-Varyag, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Nikolayev (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject. It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:55, 16 February 2012 (UTC) Speedy deletion nomination of Gavin Webster If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article. You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles. A tag has been placed on Gavin Webster requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a person or group of people, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is important or significant: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable. If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. Jeancey (talk) 23:04, 16 February 2012 (UTC) Removing Speedy at Gavin Webster Hi John, you recently removed a deletion tag from Gavin Webster. Because Wikipedia policy does not allow the creator of the page to remove speedy deletion tags, an automated program has replaced the tag. Although the deletion proposal may be incorrect, removing the tag is not the correct way for you to contest the deletion, even if you are more experienced than the nominator. Instead, please use the talk page to explain why the page should not be deleted. Remember to be patient, there is no harm in waiting for another experienced user to review the deletion and judge what the right course of action is. As you are involved, and therefore potentially biased, you should refrain from doing this yourself. Thank you, - SDPatrolBot (talk) 23:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC) Talkback Hello, John. You have new messages at Jeancey's talk page. Message added 23:10, 16 February 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. Jeancey (talk) 23:10, 16 February 2012 (UTC) Sorry it turned out this way I've commented at the arbitration case talk page about your proposed admonishment.[1] It seems likely that I'll be admonished as well, so maybe we can have an admonishment party? Malleus Fatuorum 03:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC) Heh, nice one. Not sure what I will do with an admonishment. Looks like the arbs have missed the point as per usual. --John (talk) 03:51, 18 February 2012 (UTC) I know what I'll do with mine. Can you guess what that might be? Malleus Fatuorum 03:58, 18 February 2012 (UTC) I can imagine. I suppose it's like points on your license. A bit of a fart in a thunderstorm in the big scale of the challenges facing Wikipedia. --John (talk) 04:01, 18 February 2012 (UTC) It is, but more potentially serious for you than for me, as you're an administrator. Malleus Fatuorum 04:04, 18 February 2012 (UTC) Yeah, well. I don't use the "tools" that often anyway and I don't really derive any pleasure from the "status" it may confer for some, especially after this shambles. --John (talk) 04:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC) If I ruled the world I'd have desysoped Thumperward immediately, but he seems to be escaping any sanctions. For now. Malleus Fatuorum 04:04, 18 February 2012 (UTC) Ramones Hi John, is it possible you could take a look at the conversation on the Ramones page please? There's another editor there who it seems to me thinks that he owns the page among other criticisms I could offer. I'm trying to work with the person and I'm more than happy to compromise but that seems to be a waste of time. Any input you can bring is much appreciated. Alterntiavely, if stuff on the Ramones page doesn't interest you, if you know of someone else who would be interested it would be great if you could involve them? Socheid (talk) 12:22, 18 February 2012 (UTC) I'll have a look. --John (talk) 12:54, 18 February 2012 (UTC) I see I was too slow on this one, for which I apologise. It was silly of you to get blocked for making multiple reverts but I have nevertheless asked the blocking admin if leniency can be applied here. I will give you more advice when I can and again I am sorry for being too busy to deal with this earlier. Never edit-war; it is one of the few really clear and easy ways to get blocked I'm afraid. --John (talk) 22:21, 18 February 2012 (UTC) Hi John, Thanks for your reply. I see that you intervened re the block placed upon and I thank you for that also and the good intent behind this. Could you give me some more clarification re this edit war stuff please? Throughout that particular dispute I on numerous occasions did what seemed to be fair and reasonable re consensus and collaborative working such as:- request input from others via the punk project talk page twice and once from the rock music project talk page request input from other people in wikipedia such as the ping to you earlier today, requests to gwen gale, other people who I have pinged individually Also I don't understand how when the other person repeatedly stonewalls my edits with blanket reverts and very abrupt comments that indicate no attempt at working together (have you read some of the comments, this person thinks he is god), this is deemed acceptable. When I undo edits when there was support from another person for what I said, it is deemed edit warring even though there was no other support for the person making my comments the majority view. Then when today other people have made comments against the edits I made, I accepted that as consensus and pushed the matter no further. Why is it I get blocked and the other person doesn't? This seems very unfair. I don't for a second expect to have my point accepted all the time and I have consistently been happy to go with majority view. That isn't the case for the other person but the other person seems to be regarded as the good guy in this and I have condemned as the villain. Thanks again for sparing some time and effort on this earlier. Regards, Socheid (talk) 00:02, 19 February 2012 (UTC) It was a pleasure to be able to help you. One thing to keep in mind is that these things aren't done quickly; a more patient approach will bear dividends. Another is that folk who have written a good quality article like that one tend to be defensive about their work. I quite agree you were treated badly there, hence my intervention. I said at article talk that there is much for all involved to learn from what happened and this includes you. A majority isn't always equivalent to a consensus either. Thanks for all the good work you do; hope that this was not too bruising for you and that you can learn from it and move on. --John (talk) 02:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC) Resignation request Hi, I know we've been talking elsewhere at the ArbCom case talkpage, but I'd like to make it official here. John, I understand that you have done a lot of good work on Wikipedia, both under your current name and when you were known as Guinnog. You have over 100,000 edits, and have been an administrator since 2006. However, I feel that recent events have shown that you are not using your administrator access with the necessary good judgment. On December 21, 2011, Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs) engaged in uncivil behavior,[2][3] prompting numerous complaints and an eventual redaction of his comment.[4] Soon after, administrator Thumperward (talk · contribs) blocked Malleus Fatuorum indefinitely, initially with a minimal block rationale,[5] and then a more extensive one at ANI two hours later.[6] One hour after Thumperward blocked, you unblocked,[7] without any attempt to contact the blocking admin, even though he had said at ANI that he was writing up a rationale.[8] The ANI thread had only been open for 20 minutes, but you claimed a "strong consensus" to unblock, which again, was a mis-reading of the situation. Further, you were self-admittedly involved in situations related to Malleus,[9] which was yet another reason that you should not have used tools. Your actions were a violation of Blocking policy, were extremely disruptive, and contributed to what became a major arbitration case. The arbitrators are currently voting on a proposed decision, and are leaning towards a formal admonishment of your actions, but even so, you do not seem to understand the seriousness of what you did, and are not acknowledging that an admonishment is appropriate.[10] In my opinion, an admonishment is the minimum that should happen, and in actuality, your administrator access should be removed. Whether or not the arbitrators choose to do this, remains to be seen. In the meantime, I am formally requesting that you resign as an administrator. Sincerely, --Elonka 19:13, 19 February 2012 (UTC) "Official" and "formally" in what sense, Elonka? Geometry guy 19:28, 19 February 2012 (UTC) How nice of you to take all this trouble on a poison pen letter for me, Elonka, I truly didn't know you cared. You may not know that I used to belong to the Administrators open to recall scheme, and if I was still a member I would advise you to use that mechanism. When I left it in 2009 however, it was in large part due to witnessing your shameless dishonesty and duplicity in promising in your RfA to resign if enough people asked you to, and then immediately defaulting on this seemingly solemn undertaking as soon as someone tried to use it against you. As well as impressing me with the uselessness of a voluntary recall process, it also left me with the distinct impression of you as an untrustworthy person. Since your involvement in the Malleus-civility case I have not only renewed this impression of you as being slippery and careless of ethical behaviour, but have developed it further, as I have now seen the vindictive and nasty side of you as well. You are, to me, the epitome of everything an admin should not be. You do little to no content improvement work but instead spend your time and energy sniffing around criticising others' conduct, seemingly mindless of the impression of hypocrisy and lack of self awareness that this gives to those witnessing your behaviour. I was thinking about handing in my bit if criticised to the same degree as the other admins involved in the case, and if somebody whose opinion I respected had made this request I would certainly have given it serious consideration. Reading those words from you has helped me to decide that if I am to be desysoped it will have to be by Arbcom, so in a way I suppose I owe you thanks for helping me decide. If I am doing something that annoys you and your like, I must perhaps be doing something right. Nevertheless, I would respectfully ask you to please, never, ever post here again for any reason. Any further baiting, badgering or vindictive machinations you feel the need to undertake can be conducted elsewhere. Thanks, --John (talk) 19:45, 19 February 2012 (UTC)