User talk:Brockert

I LIKE THREADED DISCUSSIONS; for comments on my talk page I reply on my talk page.

IF I'VE LEFT A COMMENT on your talk page then I have added your page to my watchlist, so you can reply there and I'll see it.

I replied to your comment on Talk:Fundraising

Just so you know, I replied to your comment on Talk:Translation_requests/WMF/Fundraising/En:. BTW, I assume your' the same Ben Brockert from the underground-list? I was also on that list for a while. Glad to see you're a wikipedia-ite. JesseW 01:23, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the note. Yes, the one and the same; I'm still on underground but it's a dead list. --Ben Brockert 20:56, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedians by number of edits

Hi,

Do you have a cite for the statistic of 75% of daily edits being done by unregistered users? --Ben Brockert 23:18, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

The statistic was meant to be 75% of edits being done by people not on the top 100 list. It's derived from http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/csv/StatisticsUsers.csv and a simple perl script which counted the top 100 edits. anthony 警告 01:24, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Heh, I just realized the list went up to 1000. I'm going to have to rerun that script :). anthony 警告 01:25, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just reran it, the number is now less than 35%, but the error from the fact that I sorted the list by total edits and not recent edits is probably more significant now. anthony 警告 01:28, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh yeah, and as I read it this is the proper way to have sorted the list. anthony 警告

Massachusetts

Thanks for pointing out the spelling error in Image:Map of USA showing state names.png. The original file is linked from the image page, and is Image:Map of USA with state names.svg. I'll go ahead and make the correction. -- Wapcaplet 00:37, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh ah. Didn't even see the link to the original file, sorry. I don't have anything that could modify it anyway. Thanks for fixing it. --Ben Brockert 01:31, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

AINA

Aloha. I am the process of disambiguating AINA, and trying to fix what links here. The link on your User:Brockert/ETLA/AB page should be changed to AINA (ngo). Thanks in advance. --Viriditas 06:09, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I had forgotten about that page, sorry for the trouble. As soon as I can get the server to send the page, I'll edit it. If I can't get it to send the page, I'll ask that it be deleted. --Ben Brockert 07:12, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

It's not a problem. As creator of the disambig page, good wikiquette requires me to attempt to fix the what links here page. --Viriditas 08:05, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Of course, I've spent time disambiguating and fixing redirects and so on, I very much appreciate what you're doing. I can't get the page to load for me right now, so I put it up for speedy deletion. You're welcome to edit it, if you can. --Ben Brockert 08:11, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

Thue whacked it. Thanks, Thue. --Ben Brockert 00:55, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Iowa State

The image of the Campanile is copyrighted but is used as an e-card, so I am claiming that it can be used according to fair use. I recently put a copyright tag on the image that acknowledges ISU. However, deciphering the copyright tagging used by Wikipedia is confusing, and feel free to change the tag if you want. Also, I would say that the campus is rural (as rural as any major university gets) because: a) there is no way that Ames is a major city like Chicago, NYC, or St. Louis (or even Des Moines); basically there are no urban elements to Ames and b) it would be suburban if Ames were a suburb of a major city like Des Moines, but there is about 20 miles of farmland is between Ankeny and Ames, and Ames itself is surrounded by farmland, with ~1/3 of the population of Ames being due to students.

Reflecks 08:05, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How does being used as an e-card make it fair use? Ames is considered a metropolis by the federal government; the university is in the middle of town. I don't think there's any way it could be considered rural. Is there some university classification that you're using that I'm missing out on? --Ben Brockert 08:11, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

First, I am claiming fair use because it is limited in scope and informational in purpose. Second, your reasoning for ISU being urban is not convincing at all. You simply are spitting out census facts. I gave my rationale for listing it as a rural campus, I grew in Cleveland and now am a grad student at ISU. I think Ames is rural! Lastly, this is WIKIPEDIA for crying out loud. If you want to change it -- GO AHEAD!! DELETE THE IMAGES IF YOU WANT TO! I have better things to do than to argue over these details at 2:30 in the morning. You need to lighten up a little bit! You have the power - change it if you want! THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF WIKIPEDIA!! Are you an ISU grad? If you are I am not so impressed!!

Reflecks 08:38, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's a different ball of wax from "but is used as an e-card". I meant no offense. I did in fact change the page before you left this comment. --Ben Brockert 08:44, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

Dates on ship pages

Hi! Before you go slogging through all the ship pages changing the dates, please note that [[DAY MONTH]] [[YEAR]] is a standard date format: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates and I've gotten the impression that on naval ship pages it's close to being the standard: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ships#Individual_Ship_Template

If you don't like it personally, (as I understand it) you can set your Preferences to display wikified dates as [[MONTH DAY]]. —wwoods 08:05, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I noticed that it's a common way of doing it, and I don't change the ones in correct markup (as in the MOS). The ones I've changed are ones that have incorrect markup, and lead to a redirect page, such as "October 13th", etc. I have no personal feelings on the matter; I traditionally use month day year but I recognize and appreciate the logic of day month year. --Ben Brockert 08:10, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Looking at my changes to USS Kraken (SS-370) (which I assume is the one you're talking about), I did change a number of links like 4 October to October 4 because they go to redirects. In the future, I'll pipe the link to the correct page so that it will render the same. If you look at my history, I wasn't (and don't plan to) concentrate on ship pages.--Ben Brockert 08:16, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Adminship

Where do I vote for you for Adminship (I'm lovablebabigirl on Livejournal).--[[User:Marie Rowley|Marie | Talk]] 23:42, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I just nominated myself: Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Brockert. Thanks for asking. --Ben Brockert 05:03, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

The Humungous Image Tagging Project

Hi. You've helped with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Syntax, so I thought it worth alerting you to the latest and greatest of Wikipedia fixing project, User:Yann/Untagged Images, which is seeking to put copyright tags on all of the untagged images. There are probably, oh, thirty thousand or so to do (he said, reaching into the air for a large figure). But hey: they're images ... you'll get to see lots of random pretty pictures. That must be better than looking for at at and the the, non? You know you'll love it. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

Will do. Thanks for the notice. --Ben Brockert 05:03, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Iowa

Sorry bout the change. You might change all of the states because BSveen is doing it on all the states. They've been going by my watchlist for a couple hours now.... Cburnett 05:56, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I hope the people watching the other pages he has worked on will critically review his edits. I'm not going to follow him around changing all his pages. After he reverted the page, I made a compromise between the two; hopefully that will be good enough. --Ben Brockert 07:59, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Just to let you know, I was the one who originally edited the Iowa demographics section and added the original religion info (the version you reverted to) several weeks ago. I have found better data now (including adding together all Protestant denominations to make the figures more straightforward), so I went back and replaced all my original edits. If you don't believe me, go back through the History of the Iowa article... And no, I am not a "racist" (I don't know where that came from at all based on the Iowa edits! lol) --BSveen 08:18, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Please look at the edits before reverting them this time, things other than just the religion have been changed. Please provide cites for the old numbers and new numbers, as well. I've stared a thread on Talk:Iowa to discuss these items. --Ben Brockert 17:44, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Congratulations, Ben!

Congratulations! It's my pleasure to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 04:57, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Huzzah! :) Cburnett 05:20, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, Cecropia and Cburnett, and all the people who voted for me. --Ben Brockert 00:36, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Earth's atmosphere pie chart

Hello, I was just looking at your pie chart showing the gasses in earth's atmosphere (and a most excellent and thorough exposition it is!). However, I note that it is extremely difficult/impossible for me to tell the difference between neon and hydrogn by looking at the colors, as I have the oh so common affliction of red-green colorblindness... Would you mind if I edited and re-uploaded it? or you could.....whomever..--Deglr6328 06:43, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't mind at all if you do it. If not, I can fix it on Monday. Thanks for mentioning it, I will pay more attention to colors in any other images I upload. --Ben Brockert 06:49, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

I think I screwed things up a bit...tried to replace image but it dosen't seem to have worked so I uploaded the new one here: [1]--Deglr6328 10:44, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It looks like it s working now. Well done. --Ben Brockert 14:32, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Chan Han Xiang

Very sorry, Ben. Maybe I was replying the questions and this in turn, accidentally reverted your comments. I hope you forgive me for this and seriously reconsider your vote. Please tell me where I have reverted and I will revert them for you. Chan Han Xiang 04:57, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)User:Chan Han Xiang

I already fixed it. You should spend more time on pages like Wikipedia:How to edit a page, and pay more attention to how your edits look. --Ben Brockert 05:05, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for your support on my RFA request. It seems that had I waited one day with self-nominating, it would have succeeded. User:Anárion/sig 09:06, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I wish I could have helped more. You'll just have to wait until he gets banned again. --Ben Brockert < 23:39, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

Heh. I just noticed that you posted the exact same thing to other people's talk. I wondered why you were telling me what I told you. —Ben Brockert (42) 03:33, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Darn, I'm caught ;) I typically refrain from posting the same thing to multiple pages, but in this case I didn't really wish to type a personal note to all: I actually started doing so, but the Wikipedia was too slow for it to be productive (I lost two edits at least). I do appreciate your support! User:Anárion/sig 11:30, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Contestation

You want to run a bot that deletes articles

That's simply not true! The primary reason I run my script is, foremost, to perform simple maintenance on Wikipedia, not for deleting articles. This is why I explained that I use my script in good faith. Review my edit history if you already haven't. I provided deletion functionality only because another administrator needed it for handling the deletion process on votes for deletion. I would not have been able to do it without that request. Peter O. (Talk, automation script) 03:23, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Interesting that you pick one of the least important reasons to take exception to. I'll amend my comment. —Ben Brockert (42) 03:33, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Another question, what made you believe I am unable to learn from mistakes? Peter O. (Talk, automation script) 03:49, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

I said unwilling, not unable. There's an important difference. The reasoning behind it is demonstrated on your talk page and that RfA, as I said. —Ben Brockert (42) 03:56, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

3RR block

Congratulations on adminship. I would've supported, but I missed the Rfa... I see that you just blocked Pravda for personal attacks and breaking the 3RR. User:Libertas has been acting similarly. Would you be able to look into his 3RR rule violation on History of post-Soviet Russia? (I'd block him myself had I not been among the users reverting him.) Thanks. 172 04:37, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I only blocked him because I accidentally unblocked him. —Ben Brockert (42) 04:42, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for the response. Happy New Year! 172 07:16, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for editing help

Thanks for helping me out with formatting on RfA. I did not know you could do that! -Rholton 07:08, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, the different levels of indentation can be fun. You can put a bulleted list in a bulleted list in two tabs in an ordered list, and so on.

one
two
three
comment on three
comment on comment on three
list of

things related

to comment

on comment

on three
four

—Ben Brockert (42) 07:13, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Mr %AD

The %AD is an encoding for a non-printable character. It turns out that you have to put the actual character into the block field, not the encoding. So I tracked down a web page that had a list of all the characters in ISO 8859-1 and copied and pasted the non-printable AD character, which fortunately worked. Nuhn-huh figured it out too, but only blocked the guy for 24 hours. The system wouldn't let me unblock to properly reblock him. -- Cyrius|✎ 07:33, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Gah! I thought of this also but thought someone said it won't work... guess I was wrong. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:20, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Special:Userlogin even says that your name "must start with an initial capital letter". That's one feature they need to re-insert into the software. —Ben Brockert (42) 20:03, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

G'day mate :-)

Yeah, I don't think we've talked! With 10,000 users that's bound to happen... nice to meet you though. I've made a decision and taken a punt on supporting Poccil. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:19, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for following through on that. —Ben Brockert (42) 20:03, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the vote

...on WP:RfA

-Rholton 05:46, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It was my pleasure. I wish all admin candidates were that easy to decide on. —Ben Brockert (42) 21:52, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Helping

I appreciated that. (message left here and not on my talk page because it's pseudo-private) -- Cyrius|✎ 17:29, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My sig

Thanks for the pointer. In fact I'd considered that, but since it's a template, changing it would break it in all the places I've already signed - it would look like [[User:Rdsmith4|— Dan | Talk]]. I may create a new template, User:Rdsmith4/sig2 or something. [[User:Rdsmith4|User:Rdsmith4/sig]] 00:29, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Peace! Truce! Stop the presses!

As per the comments I left on Wikipedia talk:Proposal to expand WP:CSD/General_talk, I don't know for sure what you think I've done, but whatever it was, it wasn't meant to offend anyone. If I disliked anyone enough to want to annoy them, I'd give them a few snide remarks on their talk page. I am no doubt guilty of a lot of things, but never of playing innocent while stabbing people in the back. And if I were to disagree with you, it would be over arguments, not petty feuds. I hope this clears everything up, but if it doesn't, don't hesitate to rub my nose in it. :-) JRM 02:41, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)

RfA

I do think that if I'm going to be held responsible for everyone's edits, I should get a pay increase

You're getting paid for this? :) —Ben Brockert (42) 04:21, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking more along the lines of a zero to something pay increase. But I'll settle for double the satisfaction (with an option of becoming supreme ruler of the universe in five years). --fvw * 04:27, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)

my attitude problem

Never mind I find them, how do they find me? I want an unlisted talk page. --fvw * 01:55, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)

Here's an idea: link to an alternative talk page in your sig (i.e. User_talk:Fvw/real). People following the talk link in your sig, who you may actually want to hear from, will go there, and all the rest of the usual tripe from people clicking on your name after you reverted their vandalism will end up on the normal talk. It wouldn't be perfect, but it might be an improvement. —Ben Brockert (42) 02:00, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

Hehe, I was only kidding, these oddities don't happen often enough to be a nuisance. You still get points for creativity though. --fvw * 02:04, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)

Goings-on

Hi; I see you were archiving Wikipedia:Goings-on earlier, but may I ask why you moved it to Wikipedia:Got? You seem to have created a lengthy chain of double redirects leading to it as well. I would have moved it back myself, but thought it best to ask you directly since you may have been in the middle of something. -- Hadal 05:07, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I was trying to fix something, but it didn't look like the move worked, so I gave up. I've moved it back, I'm not sure what the problem was. Some sort of latency. sorry about the problems it caused. —Ben Brockert (42) 05:54, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Got still exists, I don't think it's an abbreviation so can it be deleted or do you want to keep it? --fvw * 23:06, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)

I got it, thanks. —Ben Brockert (42) 01:24, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Improper block

You recently improperly blocked User:NetBot. This bot does nothing but honor Bot requests, or assisting me with WP:TFD maintenance. You may disagree with the particulars, but this is not doing anything that I haven't already announced. I'll also note that none of the changes it's made (to my knowledge) have ever been reverted.

Please take a read of Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Bots. It says that "sysops may block on sight any bot that appears to be out of control". This is certainly not the case since it runs with my direct intervention and supervision. Honestly, the edits you dispute could have been done without involving TFD, if I so desired. You may not block it because you disagree with my edits.

I say my edits, because this also affected my "real" account. You blocked it and failed to remove the block after the required 24 hour maximum. You also failed to inform me personally on my talk page that a block was in place. As such, the first time I ran it today, my IP address got blocked, meaning ALL of my editing was blocked. Fortunately I was able to get that all reversed quickly.

Do not misuse your sysop privileges again. You should also not use them where you are personally involved in a dispute. -- Netoholic @ 08:14, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)

Bot running pywikipediabot, specifically category.py to assist with tasks resulting from Category discussions at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. May occasionally help with disambig, redirect bypassing, and interwiki.

You were doing none of the above; I was well within the rules of Wikipedia:Bots to block it. I stand behind my decision to block it.

However, I do apologise for not notifying you on your talk page. That was out of order; it will not happen again. —Ben Brockert (42) 01:24, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Well, you really should instead read Wikipedia:Bots#Bots running without a flag. I updated it to make clear what it does currently. In any case, the real reason you blocked it was that you felt insulted that your template was affected. This is why there are rules about using your sysop abilities in cases where you are personally involved. You screwed up, learn from it and stop being so bitter and confrontational. I said before if you'd calmly objected or notified me on my talk page, I'd have taken care of things. -- Netoholic @ 02:52, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

Netoholic, I'm not stupid. You can't change the page after you start using a bot to do something, you should change it before. Where did you say that before? —Ben Brockert (42) 03:32, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Check the page history, man. I said above "I updated it to make clear what it does currently." -- Netoholic @ 03:34, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

You don't think your little crusade is a tad vindictive, do you? What is your point? -- Netoholic @ 03:54, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

No, I don't. My point is that you used a bot in a manner inconsistent with its labeling, and you shouldn't do that. Ideally, next time you want to expand the use of your bot, you will get permission first. —Ben Brockert (42) 03:57, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Dude, I can't stop you from continuing this, for whatever your agenda. "Permission" on that page is only required for gaining a bot "flag", so that the edits are hidden from Recentchanges. Otherwise, the only condition I have to abide is that it is useful, not damaging articles, nor being a server hog. -- Netoholic @ 04:09, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

Slowing down

Heya, shame to see you're going to cut back on your wikipedia time, your gain is Wikipedia's loss. Still, have fun in Real Life, I've heard it can be very entertaining. Attached you find one chocolate chip cookie to reward your good work. --fvw * 23:14, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)

Thanks, fvw, I appreciate it. —Ben Brockert (42) 01:24, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Hello

Are you praising or being critical of me for being new? Am I not allowed to edit yet? Salazar 06:53, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

(crossposted to User talk:Salazar)

Regarding your question on my talk page, yes you are entirely allowed to edit. It's just that very few editors as new as you have a full understanding of Wikipedia policies, and fewer know about all of the policy decisions and voting that goes on in the background. Generally, when someone's first edits are votes, it implies that they are a sockpuppet of another editor. Your edits seem to be be genuine, though, and I apologise if I've discouraged you from editing further. —Ben Brockert (42) 16:32, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Appreciate RfA stats

I thought I'd drop by and just let you know your stats in the comments of the RfA page are helpful and appreciated : ) --MPerel 06:47, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad someone finds utility in it. I'm often preempted by the nominator or nominee, so I don't always have reason to do it. —Ben Brockert (42) 02:34, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

inline off-site images blocking on a wiki project

Hi Brockert,

Is it possible to block off-site images for an entire Wiktionary at once? If so, how can we do that? I'll propose it on the Wiktionaries I'm involved in. Polyglot 15:15, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea. I will look around and get back to you. I was just amazed that off-site images were allowed in the first place. —Ben Brockert (42) 02:34, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

In fact, off-site images are used extremely often on the Wikipedia projects, as far as I can see. They are used less on the Wiktionaries. I never saw a way to turn them off, so I don't think it would be possible without developer intervention. That would go even further than adding them to the spam blacklist, so I don't see it happen. Polyglot 07:42, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Anything is possible. They're not allowed on Wikipedia (at least not en:) for good reason; perhaps it is time to re-open the debate. —Ben Brockert (42) 03:34, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

rfa

im just wondering if you changed the requirement from 75-80 to 80, because pedant is on 75% support and you opposed his nomination? or am i just reading far too much into it? Xtra 02:26, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, not at all. I expect Pedant to pass, it didn't enter into my mind. Though, now that you mention it, I expect that it did into the minds of some of the other people who were editing it. There's a good chance that my Pedant vote will be switched to neutral. —Ben Brockert (42) 02:34, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

ok. sorry for the accusatorial tone. Xtra 02:52, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No worries. It was an understandable assumption. —Ben Brockert (42) 02:54, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

Is there hope?

Ben, I'm not sure what I've done to deserve such strong "attention" from you lately. I have offered to really do wahtever you want and correct any true mistakes I've made, if you would just talk to me like a person. We're not getting anywhere, and nothing constructive is coming out of this. What can I or we do in order to bring things back to a normal, and mutually serene working environment? -- Netoholic @ 05:05, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

I'm going to bed. For now, stop lying and being insulting. I'll make a formal list this weekend. —Ben Brockert (42) 05:33, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Instead, I found joy in RC patrol and deleting CSD candidates. Much more relaxing than digging through your history. For the record, I do think that you are one of the most disruptive users of the Wikipedia that has not yet been kicked out as a troll. —Ben Brockert (42) 04:39, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

At some point, I hope you'll come to realize this just isn't true. There have been previous occasions where I've "clashed" with other editors, admins too, but I'm proud to have often been able to resolve those problems. I don't think you're helping matters at all by not trying to resolve things with me, but I don't know what else is going on in your life, and this might just be "bad timing". Just know that at any time, I'm available to talk this all through. -- Netoholic @ 07:34, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)

But it is true; in fact it is impossible for a statement starting "I think" to not be true unless you think you know what I think better than I know what I think. I do not know of any user on this wikipedia who is more disruptive than you and still here, and that's quite an accomplishment. Still, despite your occasional sly insult, little lies, and now condescension, I'm honestly not responding to your actions the way I'm responding because I dislike you. I responding to them the way I'm responding to them because you are going about things completely the wrong way, and you don't seem to ever assume good faith or make good faith edits. If you want me to not revert your edits, then talk about things before making edits that you know are going to be controversial. Follow the rules from time to time, or even better, all the time. But, if you are actually looking for a little heart-to-heart, and not just trying to look like the good guy, I'll let you know that you've completely ruined my evening. Actually, make that morning, at this point. —Ben Brockert (42) 08:00, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

User:Arminius

I've noticed your mini revert war (restore war?) with User:Arminius over his deleted Talk page. I think you are right, but I don't want to get directly involved following the recent Arbitration case on Arminius. Apart from the section of Wikipedia:Candidates for speedy deletion you quoted, there is more explicit policy at Wikipedia:User_page#How_do_I_delete_my_user_and_user_talk_pages?. I would also suggest asking another admin to do the next restore, or possibly take it to the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. -- Solipsist 16:19, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I cited user page on the Votes for undeletion discussion. It is now at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#User talk:Arminius. —Ben Brockert (42) 07:15, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

Ah thanks - I hadn't spotted the the Votes for undeletion discussion - perhaps its more of a problem than I thought. Taking it to the Admin noticeboard looks like the right way to go. Arminius may not be aware of the VfU discussion either, so it could be worth mentioning to him. -- Solipsist 08:26, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I linked directly to it when I left him the message, he disregarded it. I quoted the message I left him on AN, you can see it there, or in the history (until he redeletes the page). I hope it all resolves without much (more) controversy. —Ben Brockert (42) 08:40, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

MTR link on commons

Hi - I created a link to Category:MTR on Commons but you deleted that link with a summary that there's no MTR on Commons, but I've created a category specifically to store MTR-related pictures (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:MTR) - am I missing something here? Thanks --JuntungWu 09:57, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you look at the old revision ([2]) and follow the link ([3]) it goes to a blank page. Generally, links are only put in for commons, wikiquote, or wiktionary when there is already content at the link. Perhaps you could put the commons template back in, then put a redirect on commons from commons:MTR to commons:Category:MTR. —Ben Brockert (42) 10:12, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Okay. WIll do. --JuntungWu 17:14, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Huh, the redirect doesn't seem to realy work. It shows the category text, but not the category contents. Must be a software bug, hopefully they will fix it. —Ben Brockert (42) 04:39, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

VfD assistance request

There is an article that I believe should be deleted - Push pull factors for immigrants. It is very poorly written, has no apparent research underlying it. The sole editor did nothing on Wikipedia but add nonsense and spam (every other bit of which has already been reverted). Several people posted complaints on his talk page. Anyway, I tried to VfD it previously, but it was my first such proposal and I may have missed a step. Is this the right procedure? 1) add VfD flag. 2) add comment on VfD page, including the problems mentioned above. 3) (which I did not do) contact other complaining editors to ask them to vote on the VfD. Is there anything else? Thanks for your help and thanks for your contributions to Wiki. Cheers, -Willmcw 10:34, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You can find the full VFD instructions at the bottom of WP:VFD (warning: large page) or you can go directly to them at Template:VfDFooter. Your VfD page isn't formatted correctly and wasn't listed on VfD, which is the most important step. On this one, I'll revert my removal of the notice, and list the article, but be sure to follow those directions next time. —Ben Brockert (42) 04:39, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks much for your help. Cheers, -Willmcw 06:59, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Bitchslap

First off, I never said I was leaving dumbass. Second, I beat you with exploding whale! ;) Arm 14:01, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There should be a comma in there, dumbass. ← (see, like that)

I have no choice but to drop an ex-missile whale on you from great height. If you can please find your way to Magrathea, that would be super.

I wish you could have just followed along in the beginning, it would have simplified everything. He's run off now, so I doubt the issue will be raised again. And there's no chance I'm going to click 150-some of those dang checkboxes without good reason. —Ben Brockert (42) 08:05, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Signpost articles

Any help you can give in writing articles would be wonderful. Regarding your specific ideas:

Requests for adminship definitely warrants coverage. Academic Challenger worked on that last week, but I don't know if he plans to continue doing that regularly or not. If he does, maybe you two can collaborate on it.
As you say, Votes for undeletion would probably be a short article. My gut reaction is to say that quite a bit of it isn't any more newsworthy than the average VfD listing. I don't mean it's unimportant, but there's a lot of community news that I'd like to be able to cover before reaching that level. However, if something of significance does come up on VfU, then yes, I would love to have you write about it. So I guess I'm thinking articles about VfU would be pretty sporadic, rather than any kind of regular column.
I may write about bots myself this week, since the issue seems to be pretty active right now. I contemplated writing about NetBot last week, but didn't have enough time and was a little unsure whether additional publicity might be detrimental to the situation.

So anyway, please let me know what you've written up by this weekend. If you run across other topics than the ones you mentioned and think an article is needed, feel free to write about those as well. --Michael Snow 18:00, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikistats

Hi Brockert, the csv files are generated by my wikistats script. This is normally run after new database dumps have been created, which has not happened for three weeks. The databases are reorganized with a different compression algorithm, heavy job, which has been running for weeks now. After this has finished, I still need to adapt the scripts to the new scheme, which I can only start to work on when a dump is available for testing. Cheers, Erik Zachte 11:06, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Category:English science fiction writers

It's a bit rich of you to blank Category:English science fiction writers on the grounds that it "has no members" when the only reason that it has no members is that you moved them... --Paul A 03:50, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Moved him. It's a redundant category. —Ben Brockert (42) 02:58, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

m:Nofollow pasted into Nofollow vote page

I removed this. The vote page already links to m:Nofollow as well as the other two Village pump pages, and people can read the discussion there.

For any survey, the survey wording should just state the question as neutrally as possible. This was not the case initially, unfortunately... the survey preamble had very strong POV advocacy in favor of removing "nofollow", which may have swayed at least one vote. That's why I added a "disputed" section to it. But in any case, the survey preamble needs less POV and not more POV (even balanced)... it just needs to state the issue, and let POV advocacy happen elsewhere.

-- Curps 02:52, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That's a load of crap, to be blunt. —Ben Brockert (42) 04:24, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

VFD nomination process clarification

I would like your opinion about my suggested VFD nomination process clarification. Please see: Template_talk:VfDFooter#VFD_nomination_process_clarification. Thank you for your time. -- AllyUnion (talk) 06:01, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Adminship - ABCD

As you may remember, you commented on my request for adminship in January. I have recently reapplied, and you may wish to vote here. Thanks, AB CD 19:16, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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