User talk:Geo Swan

User Talk:Geo Swan/archive/2004
User Talk:Geo Swan/archive/2005
User Talk:Geo Swan/archive/2006-January-to-June

Guantanemo

The Current Events Barnstar I'm awarding you this Current Events barnstar owing to the excellent work you have done in creating and maintaining the articles on the now named prisoners in Cuba! Irishpunktom\talk 23:49, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Geo Swan. I just wanted to second this kudos for your work on the Gitmo detainees, and make a suggestion if I could. It might be effective to consolidate the available information on individual detainees into pages with multiple entries. Something like, "Guantanamo detainees who are Egyptian nationals", for example, that will have the info on all those detainees. Just a suggestion. The main thing is getting the information out there, putting names with the numbers! Great work! -Fsotrain09 00:58, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Duplicates

I'd like to point out to you that there are quite a few duplicates in the Category:Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States. I've found five examples:

• Abdul Al Salam Al Hilal and Abdul Al-Salam Al Hilal
• Ali Husayn Abdullah Al Tays and Ali Husayn Abdutlah Al Tays
• Muhammad Abd Allah Mansur Al Futuri and Muhammad Abdallah Mansur Al Rimi
• Abdalaziz Kareem Salim Al Noofayaee and Abdelaziz Kareem Salim al-Noofayee
• Usama Hassan Ahmend Abu Kabir and Usama Hassan Ahmed Abu Kabir

There are probably more... Anyway, these should be merged; I've already tagged them with {{merge}}. Transliteration from Arabic can be tricky, but redirects to a single article are better than duplicates. GregorB 21:18, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

And you will have to forgive me... Your work on this category is tremendous. As I said, transliteration is tricky, not only for us, mere mortals, but obviously also for the US Army "experts". (Detainee ID is there for a reason.) Anyway: some cases are rather clear-cut, e.g. Abdutlah is wrong while Abdullah is correct; same with Ahmend/Ahmed.

All that aside, I now see that there is another issue... "We're looking for a person named XY. Your name is YX. Well, close enough, we're putting you in the slammer. When journalists ask, we'll say you're XY." Now, when one writes an article on a detainee in such a case, who is it about, XY or YX? I see your point there. GregorB 08:54, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Captured lists of al qaeda suspect's names

Could we merge this somewhere? This is not an article, I can't even coherently explain what it's about... - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 05:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Arabic Names

Maybe so but I didn't start this convention by a long shot., and every naming convention in the universe doesn't have to be catered to be wikipedia. Williamb 12:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

There are over one hundred Guantanamo detainees whose surnames start with "Al ". Their names have all been put in categories with the "Al " part of the surname. Could you please explain why you felt it made sense to change the categorization sort order for the two you changed? Were you planning to change the categorization sort order for all Arabic names? You realize that is probably dozens of hours of work. If it is not broken, why fix it? Have a nice day. -- Geo Swan 20:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Because most everything done before in the 2006 deaths was done the other way. It is the way it is done there. Von and de and all other articles are done the same way. Williamb 01:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea what you mean by "...most everything done before in the 2006 deaths was done the other way."

Please look at Arabic name. Arabic names follow a much more differnt naming convention from the Engligh naming convention than French or German, or even Chinese. It seems to me that, if you are suggesting we shoehorn their names into the English naming convention you are guaranteeing endless and avoidable confusion. Is this really what you are suggesting? If this is not what you really meant, then please explain more fully.

You are incorrect when you state that articles are ignored in all names from other languages. Beethoven is categorized as "Beethoven, Ludwig van". But Vincent van Gogh is categorized as "Van Gogh, Vincent". Are you suggesting we change his categorizations as well? I bet you would spark a huge fight if you tried that. -- Geo Swan 02:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Rumors that Guantanamo detainees returned to the battlefield

I'm not sure if you have this already. It's on Released Detainees Rejoining The Fight. Unfortunately, it doesn't give all the names.
-- Randy2063 00:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I have seen that one. I am skeptical of the assertion that one of the three youngsters detained in camp iguana was really recaptured.

1. At the top of the article it says he was held in Guantanamo for 2 years. At the bottom of the article it says he was held for three years. They were actually held in Camp Iguana for significantly less than two years, having spent time in Bagram first.
2. It says he was abused by the Taliban prior to his capture. Well, the youngest youngster said he had been sold to a group of brigands by his uncle, who used him as a sex slave. Brigands aren't Taliban.
3. He said he was 11 years old. At the time of his release the DoD said he was 13 or 14. The article, nine months after his release, says he is 18 years old. How does a kid grow several years older in just nine months?

I suspect they merely captured another teenager with a similar name. -- Geo Swan 01:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Here's something (links to here) on Rasul Kudayev. I don't know what happened to him since.

He was earlier reported "abducted" here.

-- Randy2063 01:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Qari Esmhatulla

Can you take a look at this four sentence stub? Claims he was a Guantanmo detainee, but doesn't have the standard categorization. Is this a duplication, or just one that is in particularly bad shape?

Abdul Salaam

Hi, thanks for the message about the above disambiguation page. I thought I might have been doing this the wrong way and will know in future. Sorry about the edit history (although I don't think there was a talk page). One question though: why does the AS (detainee) automatically have the priority as "the" AS? Is it Wk. policy that the first entry retains "ownership"? IMHO it would be fairer and better if the AS (Gaun. detainee) link on the disamb. page went to that article and not to AS. The football player has been around a lot longer and the Guar. AS is (hopefully) an ephemeral figure. Regards, bigpad 14:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Update: I have reverted the two relevant articles as per your message but don't appreciate the comment "screwing around with the edit history". I take your point but please refrain from using inappropriate language. Have a nice day bigpad 08:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Portland Seven talk

I don't know why it isn't the one you get from the page. Either there is some capitalization error, or it has something to do with User:IronDuke's endless reverts. I have been forbidden by CommanderKeane from going anywhere near IronDuke. I guess this is how Wikipedia works -- one admin's word is law, with no appeal. Good luck to you. -- BlindVenetian 10:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

why are you removing wikilinks and wikidates?

Why are you removing wikilinks and wikidates? If this is part of some new policy initiative why doesn't your edit summary point to the policy? -- Geo Swan 20:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Could you point me to an example? I've been removing links that are repeated on the page.--Alphachimp ^talk 20:16, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Here. I believe it would always be a mistake to unlike wikidates, because the wikipedia counts on dates being in the wikidate format in order to allow readers to choose their preferred format for date presentation.

Further explanation to follow. -- Geo Swan 20:26, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, OK the date. Yeah that was the only article in which I changed the format of the date. What's the correct format (I couldn't find anything by searching.). --Alphachimp ^talk 21:04, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow!

I just had a look at the work you've done on the Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and all I have to say is .... Wow! I am so very impressed with what you have done and how you've kept your cool. This is the sort of thing that gives me hope for Wikipedia. Again, good luck to you and maybe someday I'll be able to help. -- BlindVenetian 20:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I do my best to maintain an NPOV. I don't expect to succeed 100% of the time.

When someone puts a tag suggesting I lapsed I ask them to be specific.

Frankly, I think that most of the time, when something I have written has triggered a concern over bias, it really has conformed to the NPOV policy, but it has touched on a commonly held misconception so it triggers a concern among those who believe in that commonly held misconception -- like (1) it has been established that all Guantanamo detainees are terrorists; (2) the Bush administration's detainee policy has a solid legal basis.

Those who do explain their concerns sometimes have a valid point. And I am happy to take those into account.

I would prefer if those who raised a concern did reply to my queries. Often they don't. I am doing my best to try to find a way to write from an NPOViewpoint, in a way that won't trigger concerns that spring from misconceptions. -- Geo Swan 15:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

You wrote:

You put a cleanup tag on Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri back in February.

But you didn't put a note on the talk page sayign what, exactly, you thought needed work. Would you mind taking a few minutes to do so now?

The way I see it, when people express their concern by putting a tag on an article, as you did, but then don't put a note on the talk page, explaining their concern, they leave the rest of us guessing when their concern is satisfied.

Tags like cleanup, when expanded, tell readers to look to the talk for a discussion about why the tag was applied. -- Geo Swan 22:55, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

The reason I put the tag on it was is because at the time the article was still looking like this. I've removed it, because the article looks good to me now. As far as I'm concerned the {{bias}} tag could be removed as well, but I wasn't the one who put it there.

--Carabinieri^T_T^a_a^l_l^k_k 09:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Carolyn Wood - Military Career

Hey Geo. Can you please help me in rectifying a matter of accuracy? I need sourcing information on CPT Wood's assignment as A Company commander during OIF I.

If I am not mistaken, the CO for A Company was somebody else at the time. When CPT Wood was in Iraq, she did not hold any company commands.

Thanks,

user:jerry.mills

IIRC, according to the Fay Report, Wood was reassigned stateside in December 2003. IIRC, she was already CO of Alpha Company when elements of it were assigned to Abu Ghraib during the summer of 2003. According to the CBC documentary "a few bad apples?" Wood was a Lieutenant when she commanded elements of Alpha Company in Bagram, Afghanistan. "OIF I"? That would be "Operation Iraqi Freedom?"

I don't know when she was promoted to Captain. It is possible that when she commanded elements of Alpha Company, in Bagram, the rest of the Company answered to a more senior Company Commander, somewhere else. It is possible that another officer was the CO in April 2003, and that she was promoted to CO sometime between April and July. But she definitely was the Company Commander for at least the four or five months prior to her re-assignment stateside. General Ricardo Sanchez referred to her, when he tried to distance himself from the Intelligence Rules of Engagement that went out over his signature on September 14 2003. He said, "it had been drafted at the Company Commander level". Well, the "Company Commander" he referred to was Wood, as the rules were based, in large part, on a draft Wood had submitted. She had her operational experience in Afghanistan -- I gather more senior officers did not have actual operational experience supervising interrogations.

I am not sure, but I think that, at the time she submitted the draft interrogation rules, the elements of the 519th was smaller, and that she may have been the most senior MI officer at Abu Ghraib.

Colonel Thomas Pappas, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Joordan, and at least one Major were assigned there by November, the time the infamous photos were taken.

IIRC, according to the Fay Report, the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, eventually had about 250 troops at Abu Graib. The 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, of which her Alpha Company was a part, is in turn part of the 205th MI Brigade.

I hope that helps. -- Geo Swan 20:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Geo,

This is very weird. I guess the general (Sanchez) was wrong. Not the first time, not the last time a general will make "generalized" statements. But I trully appreciate the time you spent on finding this information for me. The only reason I was asking is because I personally involved with that unit, and she was never the CO.

But thanks anyway,

user:jerry.mills

Apology

I am sorry not to offer an explanation. I am new to everything here, but I will include my explanation soon. -PhattyFatt 14:31, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

GRF

Hey, thanks for checking in. I've copied your comments to the article talk page, and am responding to them there. Cheers. IronDuke 14:46, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Abib Sarajuddin

You have reverted Abib Sarajuddin twice.

Am I incorrect to think it is a mistake to "correct" spelling and grammar errors in quoted material? If so, why didn't you leave a note to that effect? -- Geo Swan 02:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi George,

Thanks for the note. You are absolutely correct that direct quotes should not be corrected for spelling and grammar. However, I was unaware the phrase was a direct quote. Usually, long quoted passages have the big quote tags around them, so you can see they're a direct quote. There's nothing of the sort on that article. There's no way I would have known: the article doesn't seem to indicate anything of the sort. Another way to denote areas that are not typos is with (sic). I see that you have done that, now, and that will make it easier in the future to avoid this problem.

I don't know if you use AutoWikiBrowser, George, but I use it regularly to catch bad grammar. The other day, I used it to catch hundreds of instances of "to it's". Then I used it to correct hundreds of examples of "for it's". If the passages aren't marked with (sic), I'll have to assume it's bad grammar. There just isn't time for me to read through every article and determine if a passage is a direct quote, especially in this case, when it's particularly unclear. I appreciate you added (sic), because that will hopefully reduce the "corrections" on the article.

Now, a few more things I want to add. If you don't want to see some of the other formating that you objected to in that article, I'm afraid you will have to take it up with the people who made AutoWikiBrowser. The people who are using AWB use it to catch mistakes, and much of the stuff it does is semi-automatic. AWB uses some sort of standard, and anyone who uses it will make the same general corrections. If you don't want wikilinks removed from inside refs, I'm afraid you will have to talk that out with the AWB people, because it does that automatically: what I mean is: we're not making the decision to remove it, and probably wouldn't even notice it. AWB is updated regularly, so if you want to voice your objections, I'm sure they can make a patch for it.

Finally, I want you to know that I did not knowingly revert your edit. As I said, I use AWB to do a google search for all instances of "to it's", "for it's", or other similar things on WP. Since almost all of these are wrong, I fix them. I've occasionally seen (sic) used, and in those cases, I've left the passage the way it was. But if there's no (sic), I cannot know it's supposed to be like that, especially when I can go through hundreds of articles a day.

Feel free to contact me if you'd like. My talk page is always open.--Firsfron of Ronchester 03:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Note

Sorry I haven't seen you around as much, I've been busy over at the Wikisource project (copies of documents, rather than biographical articles, equally fun) Anyways, I recently put up [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Guantanamo_prisoners_suicide_notes the Suicide Note from Jumah al-Dossari (Who's attempted suicide a dozen times), and wondered if you knew, or were able to find out, whether any of the other prisoners who attempted suicide (at any point, not just the 3 successful ones) might have left a note? Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 22:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. No, I am not aware of where to find any other suicide notes, or even where to find them. But I will be sure to check out Al Dossari's.

Maybe I can ask your advice about other documents that should be put on the wikisource, and get your advice about how to put them up? Cheers! -- Geo Swan 22:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• a) I would assume any documents you have, yes, chances are it belongs on Wikisource (Maybe even work your way to a sexy Guantanamo template/Portal like the ever-sexy Moussaoui documents I spent the last week putting up :) (Wikisource is big on Portals, it's the main method of navigation in theory)
• b) If they're PDFs, which they likely are, I can parse any typed/scanned ones with my ABBYY trial version and paste them up as-is for you (You get all the text, few typos, formatting, etcetera) - but unfortunately if it's handwritten PDF then you pretty much have to do it by hand. (Which is my problem right now, a 171-row table listing the contents seized from Moussaoui during the search warrant...but get this, the items include stuff like a "Gold Coolio-O Daddy-O T-Shirt" and Scooby Doo boxershorts :) How can I not want to get that document online? ;) )
• c) If you need any further help, just ask :) Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 22:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

{{Afghan-bio-stub}}

In reply to your question, I am a member of the Stubsensor project which removes improper stub tags. I did not add another template because it is difficult to think of these things when you are going throught a list of 20 links and most of them already have categories. I hope I have answered your questions. --Lunar Jesters _(talk) 02:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand: why wouldn't you put the full tag on the article anyway? Just because the article is short doesn't mean that the person is not a person. I will be more careful in the future; thank you for drawing this issue to my attention. --Lunar Jesters _(talk) 02:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Further note

While creating Invasion of Afghanistan prisoner escapes today, it occured to me that you might be ideal to help flesh it out a bit. Only thing I'm struggling with are escapes like this, where to draw the line between military and criminal, I guess. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 00:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Since Quadell has left Wiki, you'd be the person whose opinion I'd trust the most, and would appreciate you offering your opinion on the latest "revert war" on Talk:Saeed al-Ghamdi since I'd rather approach the issue rationally, than just enter a revert war with the guy. As background, it's had the FBI photo since it was first created in 2003, and a few days ago the user decided that the photo was "too youthful" and he should change it to a "more sinister" version with a turban, it seems. Anyways, whichever side you take, I'd apprecate your comments on the page. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 00:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Great work on Fuzzy Maths

Your amazing and well sourced info is perfect, thanks for your hard and good work.Hypnosadist 14:01, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Nice work with ref conversion

... on Ward Churchill 9/11 essay controversy. I've been meaning to get around to that, and it looks just tons better with fleshed out descriptions in the footnotes rather than bare links. - CrazyRussian talk/email 23:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Another Guantanamo Bay test AFD

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ibrahim Daif Allah Neman Al Sehli, which is intended as a test AFD for articles in the category Category:Guantanamo Bay detainee stubs. I suggested merge to List of Guantanamo Bay detainees as the test cases aren't there, but I suspect that you will have a different opinion. - CrazyRussian talk/email 23:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

No conflict!

GS: there's no conflict! If you remember, we initially met over at WP:WSS/P over the creation of the stub category, where we spoke about naming it at great length. I don't even know what "duplicates" you speak of. There are few duplicates there, see e.g. [1], but that's not a big deal. Anyway, WP:BIO is quite well respected here, even though it's not policy. I have to put the kids to sleep, but we can talk about this in greater length soon. - CrazyRussian talk/email 23:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate

The reverse would be if I solicited three editors I knew to be rock-solid pro-bush republicans who have previously expressed predilection towards suspending civil liberties and expand the Patriot Act and the NSA eavesdroppnig program, and who would no doubt not be interested in publicizing the details of these people's plights. My note would have been, your opinion of this AfD would be appreciated, friend. Would you consider that inappropriate? I would. I think there's no difference. I'll take a look at that AfD for ya. - CrazyRussian talk/email 03:47, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

OK. Shaker Aamer is a huge article, several non-stock paragraphs, referenced etc. I wouldn't dream of AfD'ing this. I only wanted to delete (or listify) all the carbon copy articles: Name, origin, detainee number, and two paragraphs of the same description of the tribunal that we find in every stub article, with the same references to the transcripts. Huge difference IMO. - CrazyRussian talk/email 03:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you're taking that AfD a little bit too seriously. Nobody's going to engage you if you're that aggressive and that verbose. And please tell me - where precisely did I say I fail to "recognize that it contained a claim of a terrible injustice"? Cuz I don't remember that at all. - CrazyRussian talk/email 00:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Re : I'm confused...

50% or above is a simple majority, consensus has a supermajority of usually 70% or more. Henceforth the AfD has been closed as no consensus. This is actually something technical, because no consensus defaults to a keep for AfDs. - Best regards, Mailer Diablo 09:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply.

If I understand you correctly:

1. Every discussion about a nomination to delete an article should record the result as "no consensus" unless there were more than 70% of the votes cast were for one of the choices. Is that correct?
2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adil Said Al Haj Obeid Al Busayss had four votes for deletion, two votes to keep, and one vote to merge. That is 57%. User:Ryan Delaney was the administrator who closed that discussion. He detemined that there were enough votes to delete. If I understand you Delaney's decision to delete based on 57% of votes being for delete was a mistake, is that correct? Even if there had been no merge votes, a ratio of two delete votes for every keep vote would not have been sufficient for the article to be deleted.
3. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hisham Sliti was recorded as "no consensus" even though there were three keep votes and only one delete vote. So, User:JIP's should have recorded the result as keep, is that correct? -- Geo Swan 03:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

AfD is not a vote. It's an attempt to reach consensus. The closing Admin is expected to weigh up the arguments as well as the numbers. Mistakes happen, that's why there is AfD review. Regards, Ben Aveling 03:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

You amaze me.

IMO the {afd} procedure, as currently implemented, is, in practice, the weakest element of the wikipedia. My first experience with the {afd} procedure, came on September 23 2005, when four articles I had recently started were nominated for deletion the same day. Several of the nominators, and voters, were administrators, who made no attempt to reach for consensus. The wikipedian, an administrator then, and now, nominated the first of those articles with an explanation that was just two letters long -- "nn" -- highly cryptic, opaque to other wikipedians who weren't regular patrollers of {afd}. This administrator was uninterested in, unwilling, or unable to explain what "nn" meant. They were uninterested in, unwilling or unable to respond to any civil attempts to engage in a dialogue. They were no more willing to explain "nn", or engage in dialogue on September 29 2006. I took a look at their contribution record. They were a regular patroller of the {afd} fora.

And this kind of disinterest in the views of other users was not an anomaly. It was typical. There was another wikipedian, who I later learned was another administrator, who did start to participate in the discussions. But they made no effort to reach for consensus, arguing that any article about any Guantanamo detainees should be deleted because the topic itself was "inherently anti-American". I wish I was making this up. voted in all of those first four nominations, later nominated Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Guantanamo Bay detainees, on the basis of "nn" and "anti-Americanism".

The first N times one of the articles connected to the terrorism and counter-terrorism was nominated for deletion, I took a look at the other articles being deleted at the same time. I joined some of those discussions. Now some regular patrollers, such as Juz this guy, were more than civil, willing to be polite and helpful, and keep trying to explain issues. But, I am afraid, IMO, they were the exception, not the rule. A large number of contributors would make assertions, but ignore questions about those assertions. And, it seemed clear to me that an alarming number of those voting not only weren't showing any interest in reaching consensus, they seemed to spend thirty seconds reading the original nomination, and possibly the comments of a few of their friends, and then skip right to voting, and don't come back.

I expressed my frustration to Juz this guy about the wikipedians who didn't seem interested in making a fair effort to read the discussion, and the wikipedians who justified their votes with statements that were clearly counter to WP:DEL. He told me that every wikipedian in good standing got to vote. But they weren't obliged to read the dialog, and their votes counted without regard to whether the justification they offered were compliant with policy.

It is my impression that most of these regular patrollers, who vote solely on their preconceptions, think that they are making a positive contribution to the wikipedia.

During this time, when I looked at other {afd} discussions, I found a bunch of articles on stars up for deletion -- astronomical body stars that is. As I recall the person who was trying to defend the articles seemed to be in the same position I had found myself -- being a naive outsider, unfamiliar with the rules, and, more importantly, unfamiliar with the personalities of the perenial insuders who rule those fora.

Those voting to delete were showing the same kind of "know-nothtingism" they showed when they voted to delete articles tha are connected to the Guantanamo detainees. "I have never heard of this [person|star] -- therefore they must be "non-notable" -- by definition.

Some of those voting to delete articles about individual stars complained that allowing those articles implieted that the wiki would then be flooded with all possible articles on that topic.

So, I amazed to learn that the policy is for wikipedians to work towards a community consensus. Consensus sounds like an excellent goal to me. But one that is so widely ignored that after defending dozens of articles from deletion I could be unaware that this was policy.

Do I know how {afd} can be fixed? No. I have considered changes. I considered whether placing a low monthly cap on how many nomination for deletion discussions a wikipedia would be allowed to vote. This would break much of the influence of the unofficial cabals.

The unofficial cabal I find the most frustrating is the one who identify themselves as mergists. That the recognize that a nomination for deletion represents an opportunity to carry out the mergism policy is sufficient. They don't listen to or respond to those wikipedians who want to consider each nomination on a case by case basis on that article's own merits.

Where is the forum where wikipedians discuss mergism and the competing wikipedia design philosophies? After two years of contributing to the wikipedia I have no idea. And, in practice at least, there doesn't seem to be any useful fora for discussing the strengths and weaknesses of mergism and the competing overall wikipedia design philosophies. Individual nomination for deletion discussions are not a useful place to debate mergism or its competing design philosophies.

Cheers~ -- Geo Swan 16:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ibrahim Daif Allah Neman Al Sehli

Hi Geo, I didn't get a chance to visit the above before it was closed. I've been through the articles and am glad to see they survived (albeit via no consensus), as I was intending to register a keep opinion for both. Keep up the good work, you are doing a remarkable job in documenting this topic. Cheers. --Cactus.man ✍ 18:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Yasser Talal Al Zahrani

I have read your comment on my talk page but don't really know as of now where to point to in order to help you. I will thus search for more information and get more people to help you with this such as User:Plange. Lincher 17:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

You can take a look at the assessment page for help in how to go from having stubs to making FA articles. You also have to make sure that the articles about the detainees are notable. Lincher 17:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Unspecified source for Image:Louis 600.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Louis 600.jpg. I notice the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status can't be confirmed - it's given as US Government but with no specific source. If you did not create the file yourself, then you need to specify where it was found, i.e., in most cases link to the website where it was taken from, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the file also doesn't have a copyright tag, then one should be added. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Fair use, use a tag such as {{fairusein|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Shimgray | talk | 11:14, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Deletion sorting/Guantanamo Bay detainment camp

I left a note on Crazy Russian's talk page about WikiProject Deletion sorting/Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. -- Geo Swan 15:50, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

You also left a note on my talk page, to which I have responded there because it made my life easier. GRBerry 01:11, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Re: AfD

OK.

1. I did not challenge verifiability. I was pretty sure they were verfiable. I wasn't 100% sure they were verified, but that was never an argument for deletion.
2. After the expansion, I should have withdrawn the AfD. The reason I didn't is because of general ADD with the kids and everything, and because it was going be kept anyway.
3. As for letting you know, I don't normally do so unless I deem the user unable to use the watchlist or otherwise too new and unable to figure this out himself.
4. As for kingboyk and I being dismissive of your work pre-AfD, I disagree. You had created a gazillion articles, some of which were boilerplate stubs. That could have been handled as a list. That was it. We were civil and cooperative. You, on the other hand, have gotten your way at AfD by soliciting votes from known sympathizers. I'd call it even.

I look forward to cooperating with you in the future. I will no longer attempt to AfD other gitmo detainee articles. Cheers. - CrazyRussian talk/email 15:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Forks

Well, gee, I seem to have missed your question. I made that comment about a year ago; had you asked on my talk page, you would have gotten a swift response, but I don't always watchlist every debate page I'm involved in. Anyway. As far as I can reconstruct my opinion back then, it seemed that the criterion for a detainee to be "high value" was (too) arbitrary, just as we don't have a List of famous actors (as opposed to, say, a Category:Academy Award nominees, which has an objective criterion for inclusion). The word 'fork' refers to a (partial) duplicate. So the page seemed to me to be a duplicate of part of another page, with no clear criterion as to which part was included. HTH! >Radiant< 21:17, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Jelazee Refugee Camp

Hey Geo Swan, I would think that the Jelazee Refugee Camp page you created is identical to the Jalozai Camp that I had established about a month earlier. I'm not sure, without further examination, but I suspect they are probably the same, and a candidate for a merge. But I can't remember the merge tag, without looking it up.Steven Russell 21:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

link to Bosnia

Hello, when you want to link to the article about Bosnia, please do not link to Bosnia, as that is a disambiguation page (which nothing should be linked to). Instead link to the one of the options found on that page such as Bosnia (region) or Bosnia and Herzegovina by writing out [[Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnia]]. Regards, Jeff3000 00:21, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Muhamad Naji Subhi Al Juhani

The section header says what you need to know. No evidence in the nomination of awareness of any of the prior discussions. GRBerry 02:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Email

You don't have email active. Please email me Special:Emailuser/Travb I have some information which will be very helpful to you in regards to a person you have been actively debating with. Travb (talk) 06:20, 30 September 2006 (UTC)