User talk:Franamax

To keep discussions coherent, I will usually answer in the talk page where the first message was placed.

If I left you a message in another talk page, please answer there: I will have it on my watch list.

Welcome!

Hello, Franamax, welcome Wikipedia! Hope little Franamax like. Here helpful pages:

• Hrair pillars Wikipedia
• Make article
• Help!
• Help, help!
• Make article bigger
• Er... what this for..? How write picky ?

Hope little user enjoy and edit smart like Bishzilla! Please sign talk pages using, er ... many tildes (~~~~) ('zilla can only count to three, regret!), clever automagic feature. If helpless, check out questions wikipedia, ask on 'zilla talk, or put {{helpme}} on own talk, get help soon. Again, welcome! 

Now that's a welcome page, had to steal it myself. Thanks Bishzilla! Franamax 02:00, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism dispute

Thanks for helping moderate the dispute at User talk:Bobby fletcher. I apologize if I was a bit snappy with you in my earlier response; that user rubs me the wrong way and I should probably make myself take a wikibreak whenever he starts editing. Anyway, hopefully your advice will ring truer with him than mine has! —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 07:23, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

He he, snippy to me is when you put the f-word all over my user page. You were justified in your comment, I was still getting up to speed and hadn't seen yet where you had made the rewording. Do take your own advice and try to calm down when someone's bugging you, and especially try to get other people involved - saving the wiki all by yourself rarely works out :) Hopefully I can help out, but we shall see. Franamax (talk) 07:30, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarism and WikiProject Ships

Since you are involved with setting the guidelines on plagiarism at Wikipedia, I was wondering if I could ask you about something that's had me scratching my head lately. A week or so ago I had a discussion with some people from WikiProject Ships when I noticed an article that was, in its entirety, copied from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships; I made a comment at the talk page saying that I thought it was plagiarized, and several people from WP:SHIPS came and told me that copying from DANFS is not plagiarism and, in fact, is common in articles at that WikiProject (apparently DANFS is one of their top resources).

There is some brief discussion of that issue in the following two sections of my talk page: User talk:Politizer#Speedy at USS Samar (PG-41)‎, User talk:Politizer#PD text.

I'm not bringing this up to tattle-tale or anything, I'm just curious about what implications that has for the WP:Plagiarism guideline (or vice-versa), as WP:Plagiarism says that PD materials still shouldn't be copied (a stance I agree with), but WP:SHIPS (and I assume other similar WikiProjects) accept it.

Thanks, —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 08:04, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I think I understand...at USS Samar (PG-41) they have copied the DANFS text but included "{{DANFS}}" in the references section, which I guess is technically ok with the first sentence of WP:Plagiarism#Acceptable sources (although it still makes me uneasy, as the reference template given implies that the article is only composed partially of DANFS information, rather than directly copied from there in its entirety). It's not an area of Wikipedia where I'm active (I only stumbled across that page when I was cleaning up double redirects after I moved a different page), so it's nothing I'll lose sleep over, at least. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 08:18, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

(addendum) I guess the question is whether those attribution templates should give editors a free pass to copy at will. There seems to be some ambiguity at WP:Plagiarism right now...under the entry for CCA it says that copied text must be attributed even if it is not copyrighted, and the wording "Even though a source is labeled as "free", you cannot copy it and pass it off as your own work" before the section about PD also suggests the same thing, but the quote given later ("Wikipedia will naturally refer to and include some material that comes from outside sources. This material may be in the public domain, may be included under a fair use argument, or it may be under a license compatible with the license used on Wikipedia") and the existeence of Category:Attribution templates suggests otherwise. Maybe I'll start a conversation at the category or somewhere like that—personally I think everything should be attributed whether or not it is PD, and I think the attribution templates have a lot of potential for abuse (from what, admittedly little, I've seen so far) but I don't see that changing anytime soon... —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 08:25, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

(Arghh - edit conflict on my own talk page! :)

Wooo! I'm glad you found that yourself, now I don't have to keep trying to marshal the whole story :) (Including getting dragged into Featured Article discussions concerning DANFS) Basically, yes, there are some sources acceptable for copying as long as they have the attribution template. 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica is another one, if it has {{EB1911}}. There's lots (and lots) of discussion at WT:Plagiarism on the subject of exactly how to attribute copying from public domain works - if you're so inclined, read the whole thing and make your own comments. There's some pretty passionate views there, your own will be welcomed. Franamax (talk) 08:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

And yes, direct copying from PD sources with only general attribution via attribution template is contentious. The problem is that whether or not we frown on it now, it has been done in the past - particularly EB1911, which was used as a direct source for a very large number of articles around 2004 or so. Thus, we have to accomodate history as well as present-day. The Plagiarism talk page has commentary on these issues, from editors --far-- more experienced than myself with the history and is well worth a read. Franamax (talk) 08:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Excellent...I'll definitely take some time to check out the discussion. My hope is that the guidelines about attributions can be changed and then people can go back and clean up after the old 2004-ish stuff...after all, WP used to have thousands of images of CD album covers, and sometime in the past year or two those all got cleaned up after some policy decision (I think?). Anyway, I would definitely be interested in contributing to the discussion and construction of the plagiarism guidelines...technically I don't really have time to get involved in that, but who am I kidding, I'll never be able to stop myself from getting involved in stuff that I don't have time for. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 08:45, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Tsay Keh Dene/Sekani

That was a wrong dab anyway - Sekani includes other groups than just the Tsay Keh Dene, despite the homonymy, just as Dene includes other groups than those currently only-listed on that page (and it includes the Sekani, in fact). Sekani is a large group, Tsay Keh Dene is a local group of them. It gets more copmlicated wth article titles as many bands use their ethnographic name as t he name of the band govenrment, as in this case; so the usual separation of ethno and government articles requires some creative titling (and content redundancy...). I'm surprised there's no Sekani article, I'll throw it by the in-house expert on Athapaskan peoples User:Billposer, who's director of the Yinka Dene Language Institute.....Skookum1 (talk) 13:47, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, there is a Sekani article; guess I mis-read your edit comment....Skookum1 (talk) 13:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey

This was the most work I have ever done on any one article and boy... are my fingers tired. I am not asking for a vote at AfD, as I think I saved the article... but would like your input as to me work and suggestions for possible improvements. Thanks, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:50, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that is a whole pile of work - well done! Do you subscribe to any trade mags? I'm prejudiced toward sources they had to kill a tree to make ;)

Do not subscribe to any zines. Hoping to find online archives. Tried to make it a strong as I could barring that. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Specifics for the article:

• The "Background" (was Backgound, but me fix that :) is a little too promo-y. "takes you" -> "takes the viewer" (or reword); "all star cast" -> "all-star cast" (and all-star sounds a little subjective to me); "Never before have on going missions been..." -> on-going (and bull-crap, I saw an Imax movie of the shuttle 20 years ago, maybe you mean a fiction movie); "family friendly film experience that entertains while educating" - subjective promo (but maybe "intends to...").

Glad you found the typo. Me missed. Forest for trees and all that. Easy to fix the subjective case to bring in more neutrality, and/or assign emphasis to certain sources. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

• "Production" section: would be nice to have an explanation of why they can't seem to get the sucker released; "according to several websites" - doesn't establish authority or name the sources.

They have had continued problems with cast and crew. Voice actors having to switch out. Minor cast changes. Changed directors at least twice until the writer.producer said, "Hell, I'll do it myself". Will do some research on early problems and see what I can source. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

• "Plot" section: "desires everything that exists to be destroyed" - do I want to destroy everything that exists, or do I have an urge to collect all those things that "exist to be destroyed"?; "The Void" and "The Core" are variously capitalized, bad style - and you need to make a style decision on whether all-caps is visually pleasing. Oh, and "Cassini Space Craft" - why is it in scare-quotes?

I can definitely correct the verbage. And the caps/mo caps. I like the no-caps. "CSC" was in quotes from an earlier effort. Forgot to remove and will do so. Thank you. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

• "References" section: #1 the guy has two Ph.D.'s?

Yup. Surprised me as well. One in Physics and another in Checmistry. Double Docs are extremely rare in the film industry. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Those are impressions on first reading and not to take away from the massive amount of work you've done already. But you did ask me to comment :) Franamax (talk) 01:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Your outside view is much appreciated. Happy Halloween! Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Holy shmoly! That's a big improvement to that article. Good job:). Gopher65_talk 04:55, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

No probs

I wasn't judging. There might be good reasons for gmail. Just being on the record about my opinions.

I can tell when others abuse e-mail, though. I think because of that, it's better to avoid even the appearance collusion. I think it helps to foster good faith. --soulscanner (talk) 07:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Bots

Franamax. Could you help walk me through writing a bot? I would like to create a variant archivebot that has an angry mode. When a page gets too long, the bot starts archiving things sooner to help shrink the page. Once the page size is more reasonable, the bot becomes happy again. I am competent in all Algol-like languages, and dangerous in any dialect of Lisp (yeah, like there is any practical use for that). Where do I start? Jehochman ^Talk 02:12, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily the best one to talk to, since the way I code is completely unlike the wiki way. The best way is probably to find an existing archive bot and look at its source code. I think Misza'a is open-source. If you find something good and can't find anyone willing to coach you, let me know and I can look at the source code with you. I'm somewhere over 15 languages of all stripes (can you say COBOL?) and lately I've been dabbling in PHP. I have my own wiki I can break for testing too. I like(d) Lisp, I used it for word-processor extensions and CAD applications (AutoCAD AutoLisp) - but I always had problems getting the car of my cdr! :) Franamax (talk) 02:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

And I do believe that here is Misza's archivebot code. Franamax (talk) 02:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

And here's a page for pywikipedia on Meta. Franamax (talk) 02:48, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I just had a thought though. Coding in a state of angriness is not that tough, and keeping a persistent eye on whether the current state of angriness is getting the job done is pretty easy too. However, when two monster-drama threads occupy the board at once, those threads rapidly increase in size and at the same time draw the attention of the active admins (or at least the dramadmins). This will increase the angry-level of the bot, which will then take it out on all the other threads that admins are ignoring 'cause it's so much fun to fight with each other. End result: deserving threads get pushed off. And there's another situation, where (usually two) editors get into a massive rapid-fire discussion with nary an admin comment in sight, just two editors bringing their content dispute to the admin boards. Here too, the angry bot will take its revenge on the innocent threads. Better use of "resolved" tags and more frequent archive scans might be another way to go. Franamax (talk) 03:14, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Harry Kloor

My first article ever. A little BLP on an amazing fellow... Still needs wikifying and cleanup, but I think I have sourced the hell out of it and kept it pretty neutral. I welcome your input. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 04:42, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

not to be confused with?

Inre this diff... since the user and article are one and the same, is this tag proper? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 19:19, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow, you sure attract the one-day editors with extensive wiki-knowledge. Article-space is article-space, we don't confuse our readers with links into the swamp. Whether or not the subject of an article is also an editor (and there are many) is irrelevant - I removed the tag.

And congrats on the Kloor article - one of the first things I thought about reviewing the Cassini article was "why is this guy a red-link, he's way more interesting than the film?". Franamax (talk) 19:41, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. And I do agree... Kloor is an amazing alpha personality. My next efforts at fixing a redlink will be his co-director... also an interesting fellow, but not in Kloor's category. I believe he was brought in becasuse he has the field-knowledge to get this film finished. I'll see what can be done. Question: How does one determine an article's status? I know Cassini is no longer a stub... and that Kloor's is something more than a stub. Can you direct me to the explanations of such? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:04, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Yahh - there's a gap between stub and GA/FA I'm not totally clear on. You can look at WP:ASSESS which points to WP:1.0/A which I read as saying assessments are done by WikiProjects. In your case, I think WP:FILMA is appropriate. I think you can change some of the lower-scale assessments yourself, 'cause I think I've seen someone doing it: try asking User:Casliber, who has made one or two article edits :) Tell him Franamax sent you - but don't blame me if you get blocked on sight! ;) Franamax (talk) 02:18, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Yikes! Blocked? Ouch. Well... since the article is still evolving, and I have been able to expand it with sourcing, I'll just keep plugging away at it and go for GA. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I do hope you noticed the smiley I included. Cas is eminently approachable and a good resource on assessments. Franamax (talk) 02:33, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Naturally. I knew you wouldn't send me to beard the lion. ;) Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Betacommand/ANI/"long winded"

In the Betacommand thread on ANI, I said it was a "long winded ANI post", that was directed to the length of that and all posts on ANI about Beta. They go on forever and ever and ever and ever. It wasn't directed at you, if you thought it was, I apologize. It was just directed at the length of the conversation. Sorry if there was any confusion. Take Care...NeutralHomer • Talk • November 9, 2008 @ 01:26

Not at all. I'm quite dismayed that the thread is now seeming to stretch out endlessly, when it was such a simple matter - so we're both talking about the same thing.

And I don't take "long-winded" as an insult when directed at myself anyway. It's a plain statement of reality :) Franamax (talk) 01:31, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh trust me, the thread will go on alot longer. Some of the other threads had 4, 5, sometimes 6 sub-sections to them. They do go on forever. You get lost sometimes in them.

Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page and it seems we are :) Take Care....NeutralHomer • Talk • November 9, 2008 @ 01:35

• My experience is that any thread on Betacommand will go on ad infinitum unless quashed; although his work on fair-use images is valuable, it seems to me to be somewhat single-minded and resistant to argument; as such it is intolerable that such an approach may drive away well-meaning contributors here; I know this because I fell foul of fair-use policy in my first few months here, and it took me some time to get my head around it. Unfortunately, it was done by an admin who just deleted my images without any help or explanation, and that didn't seem to be helpful. I know Beta comes across a lot of multiple policy violations, and may be understandably frustrated, but that is no excuse for not WP:AGF. The fact that it's repeated behaviour makes it worse, and that is why threads tend to be long winded. To my mind, he either lightens up, or will get blocked indef, but that is up to him. --Rodhullandemu 02:16, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I know it's not appropriate to speculate on other editor's stae-of-mind, but I'd venture to say that Beta has just been too close to the subject for too long. Familiarity with the subject can breed contempt (to paraphrase a well-known quote), and I've fallen prey to that tendency myself in real life - when you know the whole thing by heart, it can be difficult to deal with newcomers who question your knowledge of the issues. I'm struck by Beta's latest comment on his talk page: "the thing is good usage of non-free content needs very very little defense as it speaks for its self". That is an absolutely true statement, and whilst Beta's behaviour cannot be excused, that statement reveals his purpose and is something we can build around. Franamax (talk) 07:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Just a Star, no Barn

		The Minor Barnstar
		For taking the time to type out that explanation of F-U vs. NFCC, I award you this barnstar. - NeutralHomer • Talk • November 9, 2008 @ 07:02

Thanks! Your wording of "type out" vs. "make clear to me" is not a good sign, but I'll grab the star anyway :) I gave it my best shot, that's what counts... Franamax (talk) 07:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

....and I understand it better, though the whole thing still makes my head hurt. Take Care...NeutralHomer • Talk • November 9, 2008 @ 07:32

Spelin' problEms

Yeah, I admit to too much haste/impatience but in truth my eyes are going these last few years, and there's typos I don't see and have gotten too comfortable with letting little things slip by like "hte" and "demonstratino", but key-doubling and insta-dyslexicas also are at fault. I'll try and use "preview" more before that satisfying "thunk" when I hit enter after making my piont (well actually tab, tab tab, thunk. You'd never know I used to proofread for a living huh?Skookum1 (talk) 14:17, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

You're better than spell-check

Now I certainly would have caught those typos... but I'm glad they gave you something to fill up all your free time. ;) However, the article title is incorrect and stallion should be capitalized. I had simply copied what I found and was going to fix it later. I did something to address the notability of the actors doing the project and why. Is this diff too peacocky? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 23:14, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, a few tail-feathers are showing there. "main players" is jargon-y, "The Western" is a film-buff phrase, it all reads a little bit breathless. You've certainly got the information in there though. Pretty soon, they'll change AfD to be a redirect to User:MQS/Pleasefixthisarticle :) Also, when the source confirms multiple concurrent sentences, it's OK to present the footnote mark at just the end of all the sentences it confirms - ref [11] as I'm reading the article right now. Franamax (talk) 23:39, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I can remove the word "main", for it is a small cast. I tried to show the genre expertise of the cast and the cross-polination of their working either together, for Ford, or in the genre, and that the film was finally done as a tribute to Ford himself. Always difficult to show these guys all patting themselves on the back and have it feel as boring as it should. As for the footnote thingee, might you do for me so I will have an worthy example? I'd be ever so grateful. :) Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:08, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Done. (Or broke the whole article, ya never know) I just moved the whole named ref to the last instance. FYI, to be truly XML-compliant, I do believe that you should enclose the name parameter in quotes (<ref name="poopoo">), and when invoking the named ref, include the all-important space (<ref name="poopoo" />). Wiki-magic handles that stuff without problem, so that's a truly arcane technicality, but whatever :) And what happened to your mastery of {{cite}} templates anyway? Franamax (talk) 00:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Still got it... check Casinni or Kloor. But when I'm in a hurry, I do it fast and nasty. I can always scoot back and cleanup. And I have seen stuff in quotes "poopoo", but their lack seems to work just as well. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:38, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Patch cable

Hi, I noticed the article right when you first posted it. And I too was impressed with the quality. Most times if a company does an info sheet, it is filled with BLATANT self promotion. I was expecting text like "The most important element in a good cable is top quality metal alloys, without impurities. ProCo brand cables, for example, are made with the finest AA grade copper filaments...etc". Nope. Just lots of good research and info. That said, I think that it might be hard to justify an external link for an instrument cable article on the electric bass article, given that 100s of instruments use patch cords. And the electric bass article has set a high bar for external links. For months there has only been one link (whereas in other articles, there is a huge list). I moved the White Paper to the Patch cord article. And, so that readers of the elec bass article can find it, I put a WikiLink in the elec bass article to Patch cord. When they click the link, they can find the article. Thanks. :)....OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 01:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Beta question

Hi Carl, with respect to this ANI thread (which I kinda regret initiating), I was never clear on Beta's restrictions imposed by the "ad-hoc" committee of yourself, Ryan and Lara - were you guys taking on an ongoing monitor/mentoring role, or just crafting the sanctions? And/or do y'all have comments on that recent little kerfuffle? I ask only as looking for a way to counter the "he's out of control/ban him now" sentiment which unfortunately arose in the thread. Beta's not such a bad guy imo, but interlocutors were and still are helpful, it would seem. Franamax (talk) 06:34, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. I didn't anticipate any ongoing monitoring or mentoring role. At the time my main goal was to find some compromise that would calm down all sides. My hope, then and now, is that everyone would find a way to work together.— Carl (CBM · talk) 02:52, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I realized after sleeping on that post that the monitor/mentor concept is kind of silly. Beta knows exactly what he's doing. What he needs is just support, friendly advice - and the odd kick in the head. "Calming down all sides" may not have been successful, as witness the cited thread - but we will always be a work in progress anyway... Franamax (talk) 03:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Clangors

There was a long list of songs. Songs that were already listed in Rent musical and Rent film. Since I was trying to show notability for the play being filmed live and then distributed to the world, I thought a listing of the songs would be seen as a duplication of what the other articles offered. I can easily put them back if you think it best serves. Opinion? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 08:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Never mind... I gotta put 'em back. EVen though most of the somgs are the same, they were sung by different people... and the closing night songs included former cast members from when the show first opened, comimg back to join the final crew in their grand farewell. Nice catch. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 08:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

How could he have possibly still be complaining about THIS... 2 days AFTER I removed it in specific response to his pointing out I made an error? He has left no discussions on the article talk page, and has never left questions or comments om my talk page. Indeed, I had no idea of the removal of that bad link earlier today until you yourself pointed it out to me. Does he think that AfD is the only place to have discourse? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 09:28, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Franamax. You have new messages at User talk:MichaelQSchmidt#Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway.
You may remove this notice at any time by removing the {{newmessages}} template.

Friendly notice

I do believe you should archive your page, considering that it is currently 160,833 bytes.— Dædαlus ^Contribs /_Improve 11:43, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Bot

Those only break if they're empty, which shouldn't ever be the case. I'll make it discriminate in the future though.

As for edit summaries, they're usually hidden except on page histories, where they'll only show up once. And I have to explain what the bot is doing. Anyway, I let it run again, slower this time. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :)} 14:09, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

SineBot shouldn't be using unsubstituted templates. Also, every template that can be substituted should be substituted (except the ones for demonstration pages). That's about 50000 pages right there. And yes, the server load is very high if unsubstituted templates are changed. Also, every time someone loads a page with said templates, and they don't have them in their cache, they're requesting that page to be loaded. With thousands of people viewing pages every day, I think you can grasp how large the server load is. That's what the bot is for. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :)} 16:58, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm canvassing you. That being said, you've been canvassed. Consensus please? :D Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :)} 00:00, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for Help

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction regarding making diffs in my complaint against User:Mitsube and for explaining the joke (to which I fell victim!). That is helpful. I am now trying to post the diff (I've already copied the text itself where User:Mitsube clearly is attempting an 'outing of identity', saying, "here we have Tony Page ... again" - but I am having difficulty getting through to the Admin Noticeboard now to add that particular 'diff'! Suddha (talk) 06:50, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request#New_requests

Could you please give this page some tender loving care, or prod some other people from the project to do so? The requests are piling up again and no one seems to be answering them. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:47, 17 November 2008 (UTC) (PS are you British? If you are you may be able to fill my request at the bottom ;))

• PS are the top two tools from your userpage available yet? - Mgm|^(talk) 23:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't look too bad to me. I check all the requests when they arrive and fill them when I can, I suspect a few others are doing that too. If we don't have an answer (request too vague, obscure publication, etc.) we leave the request there in hopes someone else will have a shot. Some of the requests are pretty old now, I'll drop a line there about removing some of them. I try not to prod the volunteers though - but I do try to publicize the resource and encourage other people to get involved.

I'm in Vancouver, but I have access to a ton of resources - and I came up dry on Perham and Blue Peter. Emailing the show directly might be your best bet.

I'll email you what I have on the tools you ask about. Franamax (talk) 01:53, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Ucontribs suggestion

Hey, Franamax; how about if you put together a page using your edit tool on each of the ArbCom candidates (Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Candidate statements)? And then, for comparison to the editor who would (secretly) make the best arb ever seen on Wiki, add Tim Vickers to User:Franamax/Ucontribs-0.3a? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:00, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I've been working on that already. Since I'm an equal-opportunity alphabetizer, it's at User:Franamax/Ucontribs-0.3b :) Have a look there and let me know if you have any comments. I'll try to work on the rest later tonight. Franamax (talk) 22:34, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Glad to hear you're on it :-) But please throw in Tim Vickers: there's an editor who shows balance between excellence in mainspace as well as dispute resolution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:38, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Beautiful: thank you so much ! I left something for you on my talk. (When are you going for adminship?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:22, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Our Feature Presentation....

Found an article at AfD that looked like it could be saved from deletion. I took THIS and turned it into THIS. I was still in process of expanding the article when the synopsis section got tagged as a copyvio. Per instruction of thecopyvio tag at Our Feature Presentation, and wishing to address the concern, I created the temp page excactly where it directed me to do so and corrected the synopsis, basing the rewrite upon the official website and other sources, but not copying them. However, User:Skomorokh moved it to a sandbox. Will his moving it affect an Admin's ability to remove the copyvio tag, as it is now in a different spot than first directed? How do I get the copyvio tage removed, since the issue has been addresed? Will an Admin replace the old synopsis with the new one? I hate the thought that even seeing that might color an editor's coomments at the AfD. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 19:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I would say just substitute in your new text on the live article, remove the copyvio tag (assuming you're not putting in a different copyvio ;), note so on the article talk page and at talk of the editor who tagged the copyvio, and probably at the entry on the copyvio noticeboard. If that's wrong, someone will tell you and you can always revert back to the way it is now. The copyvio template is all-purpose boilerplate. BTW, where did you source the new version? Franamax (talk) 21:10, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I've followed up with Skomorokh to get some clarification. Templates shouldn't be telling editors to do something that another editor is going to tell them was the wrong thing to do. Franamax (talk) 21:28, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I did not think I could remove the tag myself, as the tag says Do not edit this page until an administrator has resolved this issue... and I do not know how.if the issue is resolved. So, until I know the issue has been resolved, I ain't gonna touch the article (mores the pity as I see dlete on the horizon)... only the temp. In other news, I received an email reply from one of the film's producers who agrees to send me some reliable source links to more recent news. I may have to recreate the article at a leter date. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 22:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

If you have rewritten the text from different sources so that the new version is not a copyvio, then the issue is resolved, at least as far as the article goes. That's why I asked what your source is for the new version, to confirm that it's your own original writing. If you follow the steps I outlined, the article is fixed, the notice is still on the copyvio board and will be checked by an admin in due course. IAR and screw what the template says - the article comes first.

The other purpose of that copyvio template of course is to flag up an editor who has inserted copyright material into our free encyclopedia, that editor seemingly being yourself. This gets posted to the copyvio noticeboard so that an admin can warn you that copying the property of others is not acceptable and can get you blocked if you keep doing it. The "do not edit" piece is to keep the article in the state of suspected violation so that an admin can confirm it. In this case, I'm not an admin but I certainly can confirm that it appears to be a word-for-word copyvio (of either IMDb or hollywood.com, one of whom must be copyvio'ing the other, but that's not our concern). I can also give you a warning that such copying will not be tolerated. This brings all of your edits into disrepute. If you have done this in the past, you better go back and fix it, pronto. If you do it in future, expect a block. Franamax (talk) 23:17, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Fatherly scolding heard and understood. The article was underwork and was tagged before I could insert a rewritten plot. My bad for not having it myself tagged as "in use" or "under construction", as that might have indicated to an editor that the situation would soon be resolved. As for the tagged text itself, seen on IMDB and other websites, the copyright does not belong to them and they cannot make any claim of such against Wiki were it not be changed. The text copyright belongs solely to the production company. If the original text were to be kept (and it is not), I could easily get explicit permission from the film's producer for its use on Wiki. Were I to do so, how would I then show this permission? Now, and although WP:FILMPLOT states, "Plot summaries do not normally require citations; the film itself is the source, as the accuracy of the plot description can be verified by watching the film", the tagging has placed an onus on my work in that section and on that article. Even though rewritten so as to not be a copyvio, it might now be seen or claimed as OR, and that will not do. I'd just as soon the section be stricken and replaced at a later date. Further, as I am waiting for production to get back to me with additional sources, I do not expect the article to survive the AfD if they are not timely, and have requested that if it is deleted, that such be done without prejudice so the article might be recreated at a later date. Lastly, no such examples exist in my other edits, as without exception, online synopsis and plot summaries are always overly verbose and rife with POV and have to be trimmed and rewritten every time. This one was simply tagged before this was done. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 01:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Per this diff, I have been granted permission to merge the reworded text back into the main article, with the copyvio being addressed. I just spent the last 45 mintes trying to sort through WP:MERGE and came up more confused than ever. Because we are speaking about such a small amount of text, wouldn't it simply be easier to do a cut and past and refer to the permission granted by the Admin to then remove the tag? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:32, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Cut-paste it back in, edit summary is "merging per talk page", note at the talk page the diff where you've done the merge, point to the page it came from (permalink to your uspace page where it's coming from) and mention the authors (yourself and Skomorokh). That satisfies the Title Page provisions of GFDL, as it is all traceable. If you want to get into the details of GFDL and how WP does it, that's a whole different story :) Just make clear where the text came from, everything is fine.

Been done. Edit notes include reason and link back to diff giving permission... which itself links back to source on my temp page. Tracability of process is establiched.

NB, if you use the practice of copy-pasting in text from other sites and then rewriting it appropriately, it's probably best to save it inside of an HTML comment, like "<!-- copied from external site: blah blah -->". You can remove those comments for Preview purposes, put them back in when you save. Copyvios should never ever exist here, shoot on sight.

Agreed in all respects.

And if you can induce others to release their content to the public domain, all the better, please DO SO! The best way is to ask the producers to show an explicit release of the text on their own site, such as by displaying a GFDL or CC-by-SA notice, or a statement allowing their text (not necessarily images) to be freely re-used. Failing that, the copyowner can identify themself at OTRS and give explicit permission for reuse of their work, then the ticket number carries the day. Proper attribution would still be required, since we discourage plagiarism. The owner should also be aware that their work could then be reused and modified. Franamax (talk) 03:05, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

No doubt they will gladly put an statement on their website allowing use of their text to be used elsewhere, as it serves them in the future. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:28, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

anonymous vandalism

Thanks for the tip, I wouldn't even have noticed otherwise. Bearcat (talk) 08:12, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Duh, I misunderstood what you were referring to. Thanks anyway, still appreciated. Bearcat (talk) 08:27, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Heh, it's always hard to figure out when it's not there anymore :) Franamax (talk) 08:38, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Urbex image

I've put up both images in the Talk:Urban exploration page so that everyone can discuss and come to a conclusion on which image would be better or a third/fourth image may be better. Brothejr (talk) 05:54, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Edit counting - thanks

I thought about trying to measure bytes added. I think you would need to measure it almost against the entire previous history of the article. Otherwise reverting blanking vandalism will over-estimate the content added. I'm sure you thought of that, but I think it's relatively tricky to get at content generation without including too much noise. Cool Hand Luke 18:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Most vandalism is a direct revert, with a possible intervening bot edit or interwiki link. I think this would apply to most Huggle types and watchlist-watchers. Sometimes looking at one IP edit leads back through edits by a different IP where you find section-blanking, and sometimes you find vandalism and have to search back 20 versions for the "last good" - but I almost think you should get credit for that anyway. Looking at 3-4 points in the edit chain should catch the large majority (and looking forward is necessary too, to see whether "you" got reverted (or reverted yourself)). The more complex cases will indeed tend to overstate the plus-bytes. Looking at the actual content changes would quickly become intractable, but comparing article-as-string's might get a long way. As you've noted, all bulk metrics have to be examined with care. Franamax (talk) 01:24, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Ucontribs-0.3b

Wow, so this is just the coolest tool. Do your tools work like requesting a credit report (ie it's not too much hassle to ask for one every four months, but more than that and you have to pay a $9.99 fee)? Because... I'd really be curious to see my detailed stats. Especially curious about what "family" of Wikipages I have the most edits too. I wish it were FAC, but I'm worried it's RFA! What has become of my priorities?! Anyway, if it's a hassle to run the tool, don't worry about it. No big deal. And either way, thanks much for running the tool on the Arb candidates. Fascinating stuff. --JayHenry (t) 23:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Umm, what was that again about $10 a shot? That sounds like a very wise and reasonable suggestion. :)

I'll run a listing for you, should show up at uc3b in 10-15 minutes. I'm happy to give a copy of the software to anyone reasonably responsible (who would need to be running Windows or OS/X with the emulator). I'd like to see it being used as a regular part of RFA, since it lends itself well to "my area of interest is...". Franamax (talk) 01:30, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Updating: The db12 server apparently read my assurance of 10-15 mins and decided that was not to be. Could be a few hours 'til things settle down, which means tomorrow. I'll refund $1 of your listing fee in view of the inconvenience. :) Franamax (talk) 06:09, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Done, listed here. Your worst fears are confirmed - but you actually seem to have a pretty healthy balance of editing areas.

Looking at your mainspace edits, I've now had a brainwave: examining the WikiProjects of articles in the most-edited list and building a Top-5 Projects summary. That would help to separate your Hippoppotami from your Hemingways. Franamax (talk) 20:49, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, actually, when it comes to projects, my biggest editing area is by far the DYK family. But because of a historical quirk the pages where all the work of DYK takes place are T:TDYK and T:DYK/N--both in the template space (my 2nd and 4th most edited pages on the whole project). Thanks for running the tool! As for the $9, well... I'll get back to you on that... --JayHenry (t) 05:13, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

We review all spaces, at least in theory. I've just added Template: on your sub-page. Let me know if it looks reasonable or if I'm missing anything. Just focussing on main and WP spaces can miss a lot of important contributions, for instance a single image upload potentially omits several hours of work to upgrade the image. Similarly, a single well-planned template change can improve several hundreds of articles. All I can do is help with counting... Franamax (talk) 05:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

NB We'll comp the template space listing, and start a tab in future :) Franamax (talk) 05:31, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Whew, so that makes 553 edits to DYK pages (template + wikipedia space), well ahead of the 348 to RFA pages. My priorities aren't completely blown apart. (Of course, if I ever start thinking that I'm not a slouch I'll just take a look at this humbling list, to knock myself off any pedestal.) How hard is it to write these sort of tools? I just get such a kick out of any sort of data or charts. (By the way, my nomination for craziest chart in case you've never seen it: Image:Adminshipmap_checked_20070804161930.png.) --JayHenry (t) 05:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow. That image is the very definition of "Dude, too much data!". I couldn't even understand it until I found it's context at GMaxwell's page - and there's an even more dense image above it, the nom graph. Are these images like some Dali paintings, where if you stand 30 feet away, a different pattern emerges?

You think you're humbled? I've run this stuff against editors who have edit counts to a single page that dwarf my edits to the entire namespace! And then there's Charles Matthews, for whom I am going to redesign the entire memory/search model - I was expecting the 40,000-edit people, but I wasn't ready for the 150,000-edit types.

As far as writing tools: you would likely be best to look at the pywikipedia framework (search it in Google), which is premade for bots and scripts. I wasn't smart enough to look for those things when I was new, so I started from scratch, beginning with "how do I connect to the internet?". From there, decoding UTF-8; translating HTML, UTF and filename encoding; optimizing network reads, CPU usage and file storage; handling server delays - a whole fantastic voyage. You might be better to check out the well-beaten path that everyone else followed, though I'm eager to find ways to hand over (most of) my code to willing hands. Franamax (talk) 06:31, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Roux

I would have to say that I didn't bring up policies until the cussing started to fly. Mocking, taunting, and cussing are signs that a user's conduct is unbecoming. I don't think that I am out of line to point this out when it happens, especially when said user is demanding apologies while cussing. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like you were the first to use words like "hypocrisy", "rude", "unfair", "uncivil" - the last being an especial red-flag around here. If you'd stated the case that being a candidate makes you no less of a wikipedian, and takes away no enfranchisement, without the vitriol, I'd back you to the hilt.

The thing is, all you had to do was make your views known with one or maybe two posts. Another tactic is to phrase things in terms of yourself, rather than others. So where you say "It is disrespectful to claim that you have the right to oppose", say "If I opposed on that basis, I would feel that I was being disrespectful". There are ways to couch your message beyond just saying "you're wrong, no matter what you say, you're still wrong". Franamax (talk) 01:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

That would seem rather silly to go to another's page and do it, especially when we would both know exactly that we were talking about them. The absurdity may be good for a short chuckle, but he would immediately ignore any double standards produced and the potential ridiculous that would result from such double standards. Also, "rude", "hypocrisy", "unfair", and "uncivil", deal with words and with actions. His attacks deal with persons and with physical traits (such as asking if I did crack or was drunk). One is civil, the other is not. Discuss the actions and words, not the person. That is, after all, the basis of NPA. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:11, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

You're missing my point a bit. The point of casting the issue in terms of yourself is not to disguise any comments, it's to engage your own personal capacity for introspection. When you say "if I did that...", to be honest you have to put yourself in the place of another person who was motivated to do that and work through your own process. It's not enough to just tack "if I did that" at the front, then go on to comment on the other person. You need to undertake the full exercise of putting yourself into the other person's shoes. You might find that your comments are different that way.

And Roux's later responses simply evidence his feelings that you were harassing him. I'll not comment on harassment of itself, but you did choose to pursue a subject on another editor's talk page. The first time that editor says "fuck" anything is a pretty good sign it's time to withdraw. At that point, you're pretty obviously not going to "win the point" - so just walk away. Or even say "sorry if I've offended you", then walk away - cost to you: zero. Franamax (talk) 02:29, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

But Franamax, you forget that talking about yourself and how you would do things can possibly lead to the other thinking that you are being condescending. :) I know quite a bit about the ins and outs of communication and civility. I lead a wiki group on the matter, or at least parts of it, with people wanting it to go full force. It seems that quite a few people around tonight don't seem to know that. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 03:13, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Well if you participate in a wiki group on communication, hopefully one of the first things you discuss is how, rather than simply applying objective standards of civility, it is important to literally put yourself in the other person's shoes and try to understand the genesis of their actions. Very rarely is it "because they are just wrong", much more often you will find that it is a result of a chain of misperceptions and misunderstandings. Once you have done that, you can begin to integrate and understand their actions as they conflict with community norms.

In the case at hand, it seems plain to me that you missed some early signals that your direct approach wasn't working and needed some modification. You failed to do that and chose instead to start applying labels to the subsequent outbursts. I fail to see how your approach was productive in this instance. What did you accomplish? Franamax (talk) 03:24, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Franamax, I never said he was just wrong. :) And I know all about the psychological and social dynamics of communication. I even have a guide on how to appropriately act on my talk page here. Regardless, you may be interested in the wikiversity project. And trust me, I didn't miss any signs, and any approach or response I stated wouldn't have worked. If you want to discuss it more, find my email. Its available for anyone to use. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:32, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, I think "It seems we have a difference of opinion. Sorry to have bothered you." would have worked quite effectively. Regardless, I'll study your links and may take you up on the email thing. Hopefully the drama component at least is now settled. Franamax (talk) 03:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia, drama is never settled. You'd be surprised that a lot of things that should work really fall flat. LOL. During various dispute resolutions, I've bribed and begged people and still, nothing changes. Its probably part of the anonymity that causes us not to perform in standard psychological ways. Its an odd thing. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:07, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

ACE graphs

I noticed a comment from you on AN complaining about the graphs - hopefully this helps you, or at least shows you why I set it up the way I did. That graph is a complete mess. You've got places 6-9 at the top where you can't see who's beating who, it's impossible to tell which color belongs to which candidate, and everyone below that gap at 55% has no chance of winning. By cropping it and zooming, viewers can more easily tell what's going on in the areas where the graph is cramped and the different colors can be easily differentiated. ST47 (talk) 20:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I wasn't complaining at all, just making a side note about data presntation in general. Your graph is excellent for its purpose, and also excellent for Elonka's purpose, to show Jayvdb's slide. The only danger would be that someone could look at it and say "ZOMG he's gone down by more than HALF!!" if they didn't read the axes properly.

Your version works much better for showing the leaders (in fact I'd just discussed with someone the difficulty of graphing when the data lines are clustered, not long before this all came up :). I like the one you link above for a different reason - it shows a three-mode clustering of the votes, which I hadn't noticed before. Very interesting that...

Anyway, I wasn't trying to complain or question your presentation, and I'm sorry if it came over that way! Franamax (talk) 20:28, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

problems with the new Comanche Stallion Afd...

Why does this not show up as a 2nd AfD within three weeks for the same article... one that was kept as "Keep" and not simply no consensus? Editors might think it a first AfD and not follow the history. Plus, I am agrieved that a definite keep from 3 weeks earlirer can be ignored. Is this proper procedure? Doesn't such an early return to AfD, without allowing concerns at an earlier AfD kinda fall under WP:NOTAGAIN? If the artilce had mot been improved in 6 months, I might understand... but 3 weeks? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 22:15, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It certainly should show as a 2nd Nom. Feel free to fix it yourself, or I'll have a look after my sandwich. You can comment at the current AfD to the effect that it's a repeat nom, maybe someone else will fix it too.

I kinda figured when I removed the prod that they would go to AfD in response, people tend to do that for some reason. I agree that it's pretty dang soon to be nomming a 2nd time. Some editors don't really research topics well before they slap on tags. Franamax (talk) 22:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

fyi

I posted at User talk:Franamax/Ucontribs-0.3b. Cheers! --Dweller (talk) 11:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes I saw. I've been at "site B" for a few days and will be back at "site A" where my software is in about 8 hrs. Will do it then. Franamax (talk) 17:29, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Done! Franamax (talk) 23:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

ArbCom

I understand where you're coming from: I owe you an explanation.

I have been quite seriously ill for the past two weeks. I developed cough/flu symptoms about 28 November. My temperature was running at 38/38.5 9 (101) for most of the first week and my blood sugar was roughly double its normal level (I'm diabetic). By last weekend, my temperature was up to 39.5 (103) and I had developed a secondary lung infection. My doctor put me on antibiotics (which I'm still on) but they are only now starting to kick in. I'm unlikely to be back at work for another week.

In the meantime, I carried on with questions (with varying degrees of coherence) and, stupidly, commented forcefully on opposes. This is absolutely out of character and you won't find anything comparable among my 20,000-ish prior edits. This was not, as Durova suggests, a standard reaction to stress but an exceptional symptom of illness. In addition to losing around five kilos in two weeks, I also lost my normal resilience and good humour.

To be honest, the flurry of pile-on votes following Durova's oppose hurt me considerably at a moment when I was feeling sorry for myself and I over-reacted. There is nothing in my edit history to suggest that I'm ineffectual or a yes man and my many achievements at Milhist confirm my integrity. I have not, incidentally, had a single oppose from anyone who knows me well and who has seen me in action. My integrity defines me as a person and many supports emphasise this.

--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 08:13, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, you type way faster than me, so I'll drop my in-progress post to your talk page to explain my change for now :) I'll also annotate my change presently and consider further. I have to say though, while I'm sympathetic to illness and all of RL, I don't really get the "germs-wut-made-me-dunnit" approach. That's used all too often here. There is always the option of not clicking "ON". Pending for now. Franamax (talk) 08:23, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I see you've annotated already, so that's covered. I'm unable to locate your apology to Durova, so I'll have to let my comments stand for now. Franamax (talk) 08:51, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

If you don't believe me, I can send you a scan of my prescription (ten items) :)))

I don't ever play the illness card, largely because if I'm ill (which ain't very often), I don't edit. With the election deadlines though that didn't seem to be an option.

Apology to Durova? Next on my list :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:02, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Done --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:18, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

(o/d) Roger, I never doubt people's health issues, whether acute or chronic. My qualms revolve around the on-wiki claims for special consideration, which sometimes extend to the venue you will soon be frequenting. Illness can be a reason, but never an excuse - and I truly hope I will persist in that view when my charmed state of health eventually unwinds. I don't need to see your prescriptions, but I'd like to scrutinize them to check on whether you have been prescribed any course of antibiotics which a) are inappropriate if you have a viral infection; b) you are not likely to complete; c) given a) and b), will give rise to antibiotic resistance and help the end of Western civilization as we know it; d) might get flushed down the toilet, cf. end of civilization, through various means.

In any case, you've apologised and Durova has accepted your apology. That's good enough for me. I don't know you well enough to cast a support, but your forthrightness is enough for me to strike my oppose. Along with good-nature and humility, ability to admit to and apologise for a mistake is an admirable quality. Best of luck! Franamax (talk) 02:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

RFC

Hi! I noticed your comment about an RFC on Jimbo's talk page. I was thinking just the same thing. It's time once and for all to remove Jimbo's unwarranted powers, and let the community decide how things are run. It's not 2003 anymore, and I think it's important to see who really thinks Jimbo is needed. (I hope this is the gist of the purpose of your RFC, if not, please forgive me!) Cheers, Majorly ^talk 13:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, my list runs from top to bottom, voting methods, bot counters, eligibility, clerking, vote comments - it's pretty damn long. I appreciate your sentiment about removing Jimbo as a factor, but that's really the last item on the list. Literally. We need to get our shit together first, then Jimbo will just walk away, wearing a smile. Realistically, we will need another year to prove we can be properly organized and have solid conesensus on exactly what an ArbCom election means. Debate during the election won't cut it. We probably are grown-up, but we need to prove it. That may not meet your hopes, but it's my plan. Franamax (talk) 14:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

With the latest set of developments (re. Giano/Moreschi) I'm inclined to bring this forward to RFC now, and suggest abolition of arbcom completely. I've had enough of their bullshit power games. Majorly ^talk 23:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Dumb move by Moreschi, but at this point I'm inclined to agree that maybe we need to suspend the current ArbCom before they do any more damage. Franamax (talk) 23:50, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Guido den Broeder

Required notice to all parties involved with the Guido den Broeder ban/block/discussion: I have appealed the ban on his behalf at WP:RFAR. Cosmic Latte (talk) 19:15, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

viewing deleted contributions

Allowing a user to view their own deleted contributions seems rather sane, however if they are shown their own revision, the other text in that revision (that they didnt write) is also exposed. A lesser evil is to at least let the user know which pages they did touch, which is bugzilla:5415; that bug discussion suggests there was an enwiki discussion, which may be useful to find. The URL field links to [1], but that is a 404 error. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:57, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

So why not make a tiny change then to (I think) DiffEngine.php or maybe it's calling proc? If the previous version is also deleted, then just show the right-hand side of the diff, or diff it back to the last unarchived version? All I care about is seeing what I wrote, I can piece together the why's of my writing, or ask an admin.

Chasing right now a Javascript solution to multi-spanned sortable table headings, which I think I've almost got nailed. Thanks for the note, I'll put your links next on my don't-be-a-barking-dog list and see if I can work out a fix on the technical side. Franamax (talk) 04:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Correction: the diff would need to show only the green bits from my own revision. I'll have to look at DiffEngine.php more closely to understand better. One wouldn't want a few typo corrections to reveal a previously deleted version. Although, now I think about it, why would that be a problem anyway? Oversights are effectively gone from the DB anyway, we're now at the perennial "trusted user" discussion on deleted edits and articles. Franamax (talk) 04:21, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

My use of "lesser evil" was a bit tongue in cheek. Before I was an admin, I wailed occasionally that I should be able to see all deleted revisions, 'cause I was sane and wasnt going to do anything silly. Most editors are, and hence it is a perennial discussion.

Showing only the existence of the change will usually jog the memory, and showing the user their own edit summary should help too (bugzilla:5415 has a stale patch). Showing the actual change may also be helpful, but how much context is going to be safe - the community wont approve a feature if they cant be certain it is safe even in the worst possible set of hands.

Oversight is not used uniformly, yet. Often the problems are not reported to oversight-l, and sometimes they are not actioned. Imagine you edited a userpage of someone who later wanted it removed due to a detail that accidentally exposed their identity too much. As they self-disclosed this detail, we usually dont oversight the edits even on request, so we delete it and say "trust the admins to be sane". That usually doesnt comfort the user, and "trust the admins and anyone who edited your userpage" isnt going to help. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

There would for sure need to be a skip-over-other-deletes function. To me, the minimal implementation would be that if the DiffEngine returned a single piece of diff-text, i.e. something unequivocally added by yourself, such as a talk-page comment, that change could be stripped of its surrounding context and delivered raw.

The simple existence of a change record, accompanied by its edit summary, wouldn't necessarily help me, due to my unfortunate tendency to use "cmt" "+cmt" "++cmt" "+c" and so forth. :( Luckily I have a localwiki whose engines I can break any time I want (assuming I don't ban myself first :), so I can try these possibilities.

In principle, I first support the ability for any registered user to view their own deleted edits. I'd also support the variously-floated proposals to add an access-tier for the "deletedhistory" and "deletedarticle" rights, but with strict criteria (i.e. the ones that would include me but not les autres :) Those rights could likely be implemented by a simple config change.

I need to look at the code though, there's no use proposing things that no-one is interested in actually doing in software, much less wetware. Franamax (talk) 06:40, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good; I look forward to hearing the dog barking loudly. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:27, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Your AN/I comment re: Bedford

It makes me sick too. Unfortunately, that's precisely the effect he's going for. He enjoys nothing more than proving his "manliness" by trivializing females as thoroughly as possible. The best thing to do is ignore his existence and wait--eventually, he'll do something so egregious that it gets him banned. He's a little smarter than the average pisser-in-the-snow, but eventually the need to shock will overwhelm the ability to do it WITHOUT crossing the line entirely. I know the type. Hang in there...hopefully you don't edit in any of his favorite areas.GJC 08:29, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh would that I did edit in the same areas. Then I could crush him intellectually and show how much more snow I can cover. :)

I was chatting with a wikipedialady not long ago, discussing meetups, and she raised the point "what is the gender ratio at such affairs?" I partly then but now completely understand why a woman would eschew such encounters. (In defense of meetups, I pointed out that those kind of people will generally avoid personal encounters where their failings would become evident to all and sundry).

Quite angry right now, you're right, that's the desired effect. Good advice, thanks for the note, I go sleep now. :) Franamax (talk) 09:27, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Report needed

Could you run one of your Ucontribs reports on SunDragon34 (talk · contribs) please, a possible RFA candidate. Jehochman ^Talk 19:46, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Done! They're working in good areas, maybe a little light on volume. NB You can have a copy of the tool anytime you want! It incorporates the link-scanning I wrote for you a long time ago. Franamax (talk) 10:51, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, please! Jehochman ^Talk 11:15, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: Canadian Sovereignty

I'll work on rewording the article then. Just for future reference - do you know where it states that in the WP:GFDL agreement? Thanks. Bsimmons666 (talk) ^Friend? 15:00, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Discussion moved to Bsimmons666 talk for coherence. [2] Franamax (talk) 01:47, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I've responded at my talk page. Bsimmons666 (talk) ^Friend? 02:38, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, just noticed that informative little message at the top of this page. Bsimmons666 (talk) ^Friend? 02:39, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Knew you'd be checking in....

And yes, I have refs to format... and thanks for pointing out my date typo. Wanted to finally get rid of the redlink at Quantum Quest. Found out that just this month St. Pierre has been nomintaed for music director for a project. Many of many careers. Will reserach it and ad it. In simple terms, what is DYK and how does this article apply or vice-versa~ Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:43, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd be thinking that Ecoleetage has got the better goods on DYK than I do. I'll check around after dinner though. You need an interesting "hook" from the article, and I think it needs to be a certain length. Pick someone from the active list at WP:DYK who is active right now (check their edit history) and bug the heck out of them. :) Franamax (talk) 03:15, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

unitarian greetings

• a fine Xmas message for all of us to be mindful of.... hehehe. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:03, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Cas, it's nice to see someone sending out a secular holiday message of peace and love for all mankind. :) Truly we all stand united on this planet. I'm disappointed you didn't add a few appropriate cartoons though. ;)

To avoid cluttering your own page, I'll say here congratulations on your recent elevation to god-like status. I've found a useful guide to writing ArbCase findings for you. ;) Franamax (talk) 01:43, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Happy holidays

Thanks for making 2008 an interesting and enlightening year for me; our paths have crossed and I've found your comments amusing, helpful or thought-provoking—I'll let you guess which ones were which!
Wishing you and yours a joyous holiday season, and happiness, health and hopefulness in 2009. I trust you'll enjoy this little token, a favourite performance of Baby, it's Cold Outside, for your holiday amusement.
Best,

Thanks Risker (the author of the reciprocally unsigned post above). [3]. I do often try to smear my meanings about, amusing is often (but not always) intended to be thought-provoking - so indeed, I'm left guessing on the exact meaning of my own comments sometimes, laughing and thinking-hard - for me that's often the same thing, absurdity reveals truth. As far as helpful, caveat emptor! LOL

Oh yes, thank you so much for permanently imprinting a visual image of a really good song combined with wigs onto my brain. :) I can just imagine what will be playing through my head as I make my way through snow-bound Vancouver tomorrow, heading for Mom's turkey and pudding. I'll make a note to infect the tow-truck driver too, should the eventuality eventualize. Eat, drink and be merry! ++regards! Franamax (talk) 08:37, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Wishing you the very best for the season. Guettarda (talk) 07:39, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Thx Guettarda, that image is so not where I am right now. LOL. Good thing to think about though, it makes things a little bit better. Merry happy holimas to you also! Franamax (talk) 08:37, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

It's so not where I am right now either - I'm in Michigan, deeply buried by snow...it isn't the thought of warm weather that made me pick that picture, but rather the thoughts of home. Guettarda (talk) 15:31, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

To Franamax:

Thanks for the kind welcome to Wikipedia. Sorry, but I do find the site rather difficult to negotiate in terms of posting and making changes - I haven't quite got the hang of the technicalities. Not my forté! I've listed my rationale for changes in the "Anne Boleyn" discussion page, but I have no idea if that is the correct thing to do.

Yes, I have posted exclusively on Anne Boleyn, but due to frustration with consistent historical inaccuracies and too many outdated opinions, conclusions unsubstantiated by contemporary documentation, will cease to do so. Accuracy is something of a losing battle, it seems; as well, there is a propensity to cast Anne Boleyn in a both anachronistic and negative light - without any regard to the context of her upbringing as a product of Renaissance thinking. There are so many misconceptions regarding Anne Boleyn, which are unfortunately reflected in the article. She was very much a child of the Renaissance in a still medieval England - an aspect I tried to stress, only to have my contributions removed. As well, I included sections on English civil law and the actual reasons for her fall, which have been removed several times now. Again, the article reverts to the now hopelessly outdated theories of Henry VIII's disaffection, the inability to bear a living son, Jane Seymour, etc. Her fall was actually far more complex, and more due to political forces.

It seems some on Wikipedia (I have absolutely no idea who) adhere to a viewpoint more in keeping with Philippa Gregory's execrable "The Other Boleyn Girl", which drives the historian in me insane! So I will no longer contribute, regardless of how many errors and stereotypes I find - I'll simply warn others off the site. Enough people on the internet know and trust my knowledge of the subject - and frankly, I do not have the time to correct the errors over and over again.

My information Anne Boleyn is based upon forty years of intense research, as well as two Master's degrees in subjects related to her:

MA in Anne Boleyn's years on the continent (the courts of Margaret of Austria and François I), and how they influenced Anne Boleyn's notions of queenship and monarchy in the tradition of Renaissance Humanism.

MA in Anne Boleyn iconography: the image and symbolism of Anne Boleyn in portraiture. Actually, I am thinking of taking my PhD in art history now - again, on Anne Boleyn's portraiture (based on a recent discovery).

I've read probably everything available on Anne Boleyn - from contemporary to modern - and, as a historian, am solely interested in objectivity, balance and facts. Unfortunately, there's too much reliance here on Alison Weir, who has no training in history whatsoever, and is incredibly inaccurate. She draws unsubstantiated conclusions and makes a horrendous number of simple factual errors (although I've heard her fiction is quite good - but the accuracy threshold is much lower).

I also indicated which sources in the reference list are best, and which should be avoided, but that also has been removed several times. Some sources, such as Bruce and Chapman, are extremely outdated (written before Paget's watershed article). But Dr. Eric Ives is undoubtedly outstanding - absolutely essential to understanding Anne Boleyn, and is the best secondary source to date.

Sorry for not asking permission/discussing my contributions.

sincerely,

Irene —Preceding unsigned comment added by IRheinwald (talk • contribs) 00:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I certainly hope you don't decide to stop contributing, we can use lots of help here! It can certainly be frustrating learning this site, there are a lot of different policies and procedures, and occasionally you will also run into some stubborn users (but most people are kind and helpful).

Yes, discussing your changes on the talk page is the right thing to do. One thing you always have to keep in mind though, is that even though you are expert on the subject matter, unfortunately that is not enough by itself. We rely on being able to point the reader to other, reliable sources which say the same things as what we put into the article. For instance, indicating which sources are best and which should be avoided - that's really just your opinion (which I'm sure is correct) so it can't really show up in the article. What if someone else with the same experience and knowledge as you comes along and decided it should be shown their way?

It sounds like you have access to lots of good sources though. If you make referenced additions, it should be rare that they will be removed. As long as you avoid synthesis, undue weight, etc. I don't know much about Anne Boleyn, but if you're having trouble with specific issues, I can take a look any time you want. Can't promise it will turn out the way you want, but I can take an outside look. Really though, discussion on the talk page is key. I see that Qp10qp is involved there, I think they're a pretty solid editor. Anyway, keep on trying, it can take a long time to get things changed on Wikipedia, so patience is a virtue! Good luck & regards. Franamax (talk) 06:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Dear Franamax,

Wishing you a happy new year, and very best wishes for 2009. Whether we were friends or not in the past year, I hope 2009 will be better for us both.

Kind regards,

Majorly talk 21:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Uno (motorcycle)

Tossed you a whole bunch of sources for expansion. What a terrific gizmo. Definitely suitable for a DY: Did you Know...

"...the world's first mono-motorcycle, the Uno was invented by Canadian teenager Ben Gulak?"

Shall I submit it for you? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 05:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm all at sea on the subject, whatever input you have is appreciated. I just thought it was pretty cool - need an image though! Franamax (talk) 06:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Hope you like my expansion and sourcings. Watched clips of this kid on several interviews and on that Dragon's Den show. Its ready for DYK. Get a pic from the Uno Website. Fair Use? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 07:58, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Good God man! Who told you that you could add so much text and sourcing to my article? ;) No, I don't see a fair-use rationale for a non-free image, since one of us could fly to wherever and get a free one of our own. Instead I'll try begging the owner for a release. Now, how does that DYK-thingy work? Do the same thing wut ya done be4, 'cept this time I wuz rote the first 3 sentenzz! Thanks MQS. Franamax (talk) 08:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

DYK

The ball is in play. I expect it to be very well receieved. Not only is it an interesting fact... but it is a VERY interesting fact. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 18:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reverts

That was some pretty aggressive vanadalism. Thanks! freshacconci talktalk 18:00, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Always happy to help out. Apparently you're wrong though, it wasn't vandalism, it was freedom of speech. [4] I need to get a new dictionary. :) Franamax (talk) 02:51, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Not really

As far as I know the policy is very stingy toward fair use images and I don't think it is a good idea to use copyrighted pictures for the motorcycle, unless it is not available in the market or something like that so it is virtually impossible to obtain any free image. --BorgQueen (talk) 10:22, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Well if you wish to, go ahead. It is your job to persuade those image police, not mine. :-) --BorgQueen (talk) 10:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Blocking policy

We are working on a consensus revision on Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy#Suggestions_and_compromise_versions and need more eyes. We'd be happy to have your input on this whenever you're able to contribute to the discussion. Cheers, --05:16, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Uno (motorcycle)

On January 9, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Uno (motorcycle), which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Dravecky (talk) 05:50, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

) Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 06:29, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 23:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

advice please...

We've got a puppet: see Contributions G-man80 and Contributions Slycooper100. Both creating/editing/reverting the exact same articles in the exact same way. User talk:Slycooper100 is a puppet, meat or sock, of User talk:G-man80. I have never filed a puppet case nor asked for a checkuser. What to do? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I looked into it and I completely agree with you, my impression is a COI socker, but whatever. Since I've never done it before, I filed a SSP report here for experience. And you know what? After that first try my advice would be: don't. :( I'm not exactly wiki-stupid, but that was a very confusing experience, filling in the report took me at least an hour. There's an awful lot of confusing instructions, I ended up (after looking at various template source code and many Previews!) ctrl-X'ing some of them away. In the event my report is dismissed as malformed, here's the diffs: report report filed.

Possibly this is knowledge reserved for the illuminati, I prefer to think that it's just been massively overloaded with arcane advice by well-intentioned editors, or maybe I'm just not as smart as I think I am (noo - that can't be true! :). Anyway, I'll need some more tries at SSP before I can actually help you - but thanks for giving me a reason to help myself! Franamax (talk) 08:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Woah. Sorry for all the bother... but appreciate your efforts. I do not envy the self-taight lesson. But now that you're writing some nice articles and getting DYK's you'll likely run across puppets more frequently. You want a good chuckle... Check the front page of his blog and scrol down under his review of Gran Torino. He writes "Recently, a wikipedia page about 'Fog Warning' has been posted. What's interesting is that the 'Reception' part, they pointed out that My review was the most notable of all the early reviews. That's pretty cool"... of course not mentioning that He himself authored the Fog Warning article and that he himself inserted his review as most notable. He kinda seems desperate to get a bit or recognition. I can sympathyze... and heck, I even liked the article enough to improve it and defend it at AfD... but if he had only asked someone for advice, he would have gotten it. I even made a point to include a properly phrased mention his blogger review in the context of Fog Warning getting a wide reception, and in an attempt to molify... but he went and changed it back to his original, grossly self-serving text, and it was reverted and his blog review removed entirely. Then of course, came his sock adding the exact same information in the exact same phrasing. Representative of his potential, his blog reviews are actually good, and well thought... and if he played by the rules, he'd end up being one hell of a fine editor. Hopes he does not stay mad too long. Now to look at his other edits and see if they are wiki-worthy. Best, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 09:11, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

And something that seems missing... and I would not wish the report to be dismissed as malformed... but should you post the notification templates on the pages of the two accounts, as was done in this exapmle: User:Cup17, User talk:Cup17? Or is done by a bot? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 09:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Ohyeahdangit - I think that was one of the bits I deleted trying to get the SSP page to look right. Just on my last scan before bed too - I might have to email myself for tomorrow morning, and my deepest apologies to the SSP accounts for dropping the immediate notification, I do owe you the courtesy and will remedy soonest! Franamax (talk) 09:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll look into it. If they're not there in the morning its because either I could not figure it out, or I could and found out you had to be the one to do it. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 09:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Got the talk pages tagged... User talk:G-man80 and User talk:Slycooper100. Wasn't too hard to do. The SSP instructions indicate it as one of the steps you were to follow, but does not say it cannot be done for you by another. So, I did it. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 10:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

belated thanks

pleasure working with you on the fluorine deficiency page btw. thanks for your contributions and desire to keep things straightforward. -Shootbamboo (talk) 20:03, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Ref Desk answer methods discussion

Fran, while I enjoy discussing whether logic and OR can provide quality answers, I don't think it's appropriate to have such a discussion in the middle of a Ref Desk Q. I answered you there, since you started the discussion there (or continued it there, after an anon I/P started it), but I feel that my talk page is probably a better place to bring this type of thing up in the future. We could also use the Ref Desk Talk Page, but civil discussions there tend to devolve into fights, due to some very unpleasant people who hang out there. Since we can both engage in civil discussion, without resorting to name-calling, it's probably better to keep the discussion between us. StuRat (talk) 15:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it wasn't a good place, I only did it there because it had already started. You're right too that I shouldn't be contributing OR - but I still remember the fight to keep every last damn animal alive (in order to be slaughtered at the "right" time :) so I answered spontaneously with what help I could. It's pretty serious when your animals are eating each other.

As far as your initial response, I just questioned the chain of reasoning that seemed to end up with one pig looking at another one and thinking "hmm, protein..." as a primary cause. It is reasonable that a protein-wasted pig would be a more hungry pig, but it's just as possible that protein deficiency will result in one pig being particularly weak and getting picked on more - which usually doesn't end well.

Probably the best outcome would have been if you'd supplied the authoritative source at the outset and I'd said nothing at all (except "d-uhh, castrate yer boars!" maybe). Sorry to put RefDesk infighting on the public page, it helps no-one. Agree too that RefTalk is not the place, unless I have a fresh load of popcorn to hand... Franamax (talk) 19:35, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

As I said, I have nothing against OR, and I feel that your contribution was useful. I also feel my answer was useful. If you had wanted to add the part about the reason why protein deficient pigs might engage in cannibalism being more due to weakness in some pigs than hunger in others, then that seems like a reasonable thing to post at the Ref Desk, as it relates directly to the Q.

Haven't you ever been hungry for a specific food or type of food, like meat ? I certainly have, and pregnant women are renowned for their unusual cravings. I believe all animals have developed this ability, to some extent, to crave foods which contain nutrients which they currently lack. There would be an enormous evolutionary pressure to develop such an ability, after all, so it would be surprising if pigs lacked it. Pigs do resort to cannibalism from time to time, so they clearly are able to think of each other as a source of food. StuRat (talk) 19:49, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and I know what you're saying. I just think it ranks farther down the list of possible causes. Pigs kill each other for a lot of reasons, I personally suspect that the greater pressure is to get rid of weaklings completely so as not to attract predators. If a sow gets upset while farrowing, she gobbles up all her piglets. If one of them is born wrong and starts squealing, you have to get it away quick 'cause she'll eat it and she might not stop at just the one. If one gets flattened on the wrong side when she goes down to nurse, there's just one fewer piglet when you count the next morning. I don't think that's protein deficiency. Overcrowding, not being castrated, and the fact that they've obviously combined at least two different litters rank up there in my mind.

Having said that, the OP comment that they were feeding corn was a bit of a red flag, because it is indeed relatively low in protein. If that's all they've been fed (with just a mineral supplement), you could well be right that they are in fact starving with food all around them. In fact, now I see the OP has said that they're eating less of the cornmeal, which is at least an orange flag. Franamax (talk) 20:22, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

RfC on Wikipedia:Plagiarism

Since it seems to have been your baby, would you object to my launching one? It seems that conversation about it amongst current participants may not be productive. I'd be quite thrilled to work with you on wording it. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:12, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

(I'm thinking something along the lines of Header: "RfC: Plagiarism guideline proposal"; Body: RfC to discuss in general the value to Wikipedia of a plagiarism guideline and specifically the particulars of the proposed guideline under development." What do you think? Neutral? Concise? Likely to prompt development? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

We-e-ll, since two of the major contributors to the discussion and the text are arbitrators now, and several of the other contributors are very long-term editors, I'd not be making any claim to parenthood. Maybe I've been a foster parent during those rebellious teen years. :)

I also think that the quality of the original contributors could be a useful guide to whether or not the guideline is needed. Apart from one very vocal objector, I don't recall many other people saying "we don't need this", rather the contrary. I agree that it's difficult to work collaboratively when one editor is casting aspersions toward the very idea and at the same time actively editing the proposed text.

I'll admit that I've been a little depressed at some of the recent changes that to me seemed to have lost some of the sense of the consensus version. I'm a big boy though and I've had horses kick me before when I was trying to bring them water (Kittiwake was a big Arabian who didn't listen when she was eating, and she could set you on your butt pretty quick :( ). I'll revisit the proposal presently and possibly change some things back.

I still think the best way forward is 1) do a best-efforts version; 2) invite back the constructive original contributors; 3) advertise the "initial" version at VPP for further development; 4) move to a proposed guideline announcement at WP:CENT, etc. (and all hell can break lose then, as opposed to right now)

That said, if you want to do an RFC on the "should it exist" question, yes I will help to frame it. I don't think that one vocal objector is sufficient to necessitate such, but if you feel that question needs to be answered now, let's do it. We have nothing to lose but our obsessions ;) Franamax (talk) 22:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry that the changes have disappointed you. (Certainly not my hope.) :/ I'll wait until you've rallied enough to revisit and how things develop. If you don't think RfC is the best starting point, maybe inviting back the originals will get things progressing. My hope is just to get it spit-shined and officially working. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Resp

Hey, no worries. I trust you enough to edit my user page. It's not like I own it or anything. Great example of WP:IAR in action! — BQZip01 — ^talk 22:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Ping

Hello Franamax. You have mail about AnonEdits. EdJohnston (talk) 15:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Spam

Regarding [5]

Hi! You could object to that edit, but the main problem with this diff is that you used "Spam" in the wrong text.

On here WP:SPAM specifically refers to attempts to promote a business - it's about the intent. I was trying to list obviously notable companies that have operations in small cities, neighborhoods, and/or notable buildings/skyscrapers. WhisperToMe (talk) 15:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

For the first reversion, I used "advertising". Seeing the same pattern in a series of edits, adding a business name and address down to the suite number, then looks like widespread advertising, which becomes "spam" and is quicker to type. However, I looked over your contributions at the time and it was apparent that you're not a spammer, and I found the same sort of listings for other companies at SeaTac, Washington. I can't go back and change the edit summaries though.

Now, on the editorial side of things, adding suite numbers and street addresses just clutters up the article, conveys no encyclopedic information and will become impossible to maintain. Listing every office of a business is unencyclopedic also - is it significant to the reader that an airline has an office in Guam? How many people are at the office? Is it a mail-forwarder used for taxation purposes? Is the operation the small town's major employer? Does it make nuclear weapons or the roundest ball-bearings in the world?

In retrospect, I would use "WP:NOTDIR" or "unencyclopedic" as the edit summary, but I would still remove most of the entries. Especially just at the moment, keeping track of where corporations have their offices is a moving target. :( Franamax (talk) 16:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Regarding mailforwarding, it depends on what the airline states. China Airlines makes it clear that its Guam operation is a manned operation, and since the office is a "branch office" is it more significant than the "mini office"s elsewhere. I have encountered cases where an airline lists an address, but in fact it's a travel agent that represents multiple airlines. Usually you can determine this by seeing if other airlines "share" a suite in a building.

As for how many people are staffed usually airlines don't say. Some operations do have centralized headquarters (i.e. Japan Airlines at El Segundo and All Nippon Airways in Torrance, which was raided by the FBI in 2007) - Apparently China Airlines does not have centralized offices in the US, but some offices are bigger/more important than others.

Regarding "Is the operation the small town's major employer?" not every place has statistics for which employers are the largest - in some cases it may be the only notable company I can think of with any sort of operations whatsoever in a town or community.

I have worked to get neighborhood and city articles passed through GA. While they had company information with information about office addresses and streets, what completed the economy sections was that they also had information about the community's workforce (thanks to the U.S. census). As long as supporting info is there an article can pass GA with simple listings of some major companies. As another example when doing the GA nomination for Bellaire, Texas a user told me that I should delete a list of parks unless I could find a way to make it more detailed. I satisfied this by listing the features of the parks, so the list is not a simple listing. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Missing link

I'm trying to find the "woke up in the morning to find..." that I thought you wrote. I'd like to add it to the "original" WP:EUI set. Was that you? hydnjo talk 03:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

You mean the picture I keep tucked away? I nabbed that from the_undertow. Thanks for a reason to look at it again. :) It's at the top of your own eui subpage. Franamax (talk) 05:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Arrrghh! I'm losing it - forgot all about your addition there. Thanks again :) hydnjo talk 00:27, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Uno (motorcycle)

May be a way to satify all parties. Despite what it "actually" is, Popular Science had it one its cover and called it an "electric unicycle"... and most other sources called it unicytcle of mono-motorcycle. When on the cover of a magazine called Motorcycle Mojo, one can see how a confusion can spread. When creator himself describes it simpky as a "vehicle", despite what it is in fact, honoring the intent of the designer would improve a reader's understanding. How about a slight rewrite of the opening... Something along the lines of.... I'm gonna be bold and make this change:

"The Uno is an electric-powered vehicle that bears an superficial resemblance to a motorized unicycle. Called a motorcycle in news reports it is actually a dicycle, a vehicle created by placing two closely-spaced unaxial drive wheels side-by-side at the centre-point of the vehicle. Stability of the Uno vehicle is controlled in a manner similar to the Segway PT personal vehicle."

It might serve to please all..? The a move from Uno (motorcycle) to Uno (vehicle) would be appropriate. Who could have figured your article would spark such interest? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 22:45, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Made the move to Uno (vehicle). Very nice tweak on my modification. Let's think down the road to a new move to Uno-cycle... since as a unique item, its name may well become synonymous with its function and type. Like Xerox becoming a verb. We may see licensing down the road where Hundai makes a version of a Uno-cycle... or Yamaha... Or Kia... and they'd all call it by some flashy salable name. But a uno-cycle it began and a uno-cycle it will remain. Just like there are thousands of versions of the device called "autonobile" and this other one called "motorcycle". It may end up better to call the wiki article by what the thing's vehicle genre is, rather than what the singular thing's name is. Hey, let's go down to the Ford dealer and look over this year's models of Uno-cycles. I hear the big model is a two-seater. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 08:31, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Heh. If they ever check their inboxes before they have no more room, they might get around to building the bike. :) I've been looking around trying to find what his patent # is, no luck so far, though I did find a Toyota patent that looked remarkably similar. Certainly when the vehicle actually shows up in stores, it will be snapped up en masse - who wouldn't want to cruise down main street on one of those babies? Unocycle will become more well-known than Segway - which I have only seen ridden by Gob and Homer. :) Franamax (talk) 22:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Update?

Would updating this: User:Franamax/Ucontribs-0.3b/MBK004 be too much of a hardship? I'm interested in the change from then to now as well as all the statistics normally provided. -MBK₀₀₄ 04:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Edinburgh

Hello Franamax, I included an EL to a website that I have found useful in the past (edinburgh247.com). But you removed it. This is a well used website in Edinburgh - it is a useful source of information for residents and visitors to Edinburgh. I think it can be be includedWikilocky (talk) 14:29, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

An opinion, please

I'd like your opinion of User:MichaelQSchmidt/sandbox/Margo Sappington. the original was speedied for being an unsourced copyvio of some online bios. I felt like a challenge, and after a bit of a check decided there might be enough to rewrite an article, using the sources. I never saw the original, but it exists in several wiki-mirrors. I think mine is much sweeter, cleaner, to the point, and properly asserted and sourced. If it hits mainspace unprepared, it will be jumped on as a "recreation of deleted material", even though my version is a far cry from what must have existed before. So, before I toss this back into the fire, I'd like your opinion. Thanks, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:11, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't like your footnote formatting, but then you knew I'd say that, right? :)

I'd say several sentences in the Career section still too closely resemble the external work, in that several of the phrasings are identical or only changed in a minor way "have been danced by", "she created a role in the premiere" are at least two examples. If you change entire sentence structure, like going from active to passive voice and rearranging the clauses, you will probably end up also changing many of the words.

It's not bad, but I'd say keep at it. Of course, you can't change dates, but you could organize it better chronologically and/or by dance, then choreography. Put the cnhronological items in a row, then the "works have also been performed by..." later. The lifetime award should appear in the lede (asserts notability) and also near the end of the Career section, or create an Awards & Nominations section. Franamax (talk) 22:03, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I recently found that cite tool thingie. Will put it to work. DO some revisions per your advice, and get back to you. Thank you, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay Dad... take another look. You'll find the cites meet your impeccable tastes. I also rearranged sentence structure and placement, and added an awards section. I gave long though to breaking things up by performer, creator, choreaographer, etc, but decided that chronicologically makes the best sense and gives a reader greater understanding to just how many hats she wears at the same time. I think this may even be a GA. What sayest thou? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 05:15, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

First of all, asserts notability, well-sourced with N, V and RS, meets NOTE criteria - all good. Does not recreate previous content i.e. not a slavish recreation of a previously deleted version. Thus no AfD or CSD criteria are met, so I'd say time to release it to the wild where myself and everyone else in the world can "improve" it. Green light.

Next, specific quibbles (which can be fixed by anyone):

• Assertions in the lede don't have to be backed by specific refs if they are backed up in the main body. That keeps the lede clean and tight for the new reader, so they understand the subject in the first bit above the TOC. They can always look further for the sourced details and it's up to us grunts to keep it all in synch for our real readership - the people who have no clue what they should "expect" from an article. This article isn't long enough yet, but in general the lede should all be supported from within the article body. I notice that you moved up the lifetime award, but didn't also place it down in Career with a cite there.
• Performer and Choreography sub-sections - OK, you and I understand the date ranges, as in that's how long the show ran - but what theatre/tour? and how is the average reader supposed to interpret? (Forenote maybe, or perhaps I could introduce you to tables and be able to point out even more technical things you're doing wrong? :)
• And nice work with the cites - EXCEPT - they all now have "(in English)" in there - see the danger of using tools, rather than memorizing or writing up cheatsheets to stick to the side of the monitor? In en:wiki, including that phrase is unnecessary and cluttery.

But those are quibbles that anyone reasonably skilled can fix up. From my own POV, I'd say push that sucker out and let it swim on its own! Franamax (talk) 05:58, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay Pop, Margo Sappington is back in the his-house. Removed "English" decriptor from all cites. Moved assertion sourcing from the lede to the body. I did do a bit of a tweak in the Performer and Choreography sub-sections... but I'm thinking... either some other editor will add theatre... or I will... or maybe the reader can just follow the sources and learn something for themselves. It is a quibble... and one I can live with for now. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 07:14, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The future course of the article is impossible to predict. That's what's so wonderful about a wiki. Once exposed to the community, a piece of text can evolve quite rapidly.

As expressed by many others elsewhere, stellar efforts MQS. I don't really do awarding of barnstars, but feel free to copy this: for your efforts over many months now, and many miles still to travel, JOB WELL DONE! Franamax (talk) 07:31, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Those words are a "Barnstar" all in themselves. Thank you for letting me place this in a spot of honor. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 08:28, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

WHAT??? Only two typos??? My eyes were so blurry after looking at the screen for so many hours, its sheer luck there were not a lot more. Thanks for looking in. Your sharp eyes are always appreciated. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 09:23, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Infoboxes

Hi, I have two infobox templates that I would like to add locater maps to, similar to the way the Community maps work but no one in WP:MINING has the technical know-how. I know that you were talking about changing the Ontario Locator map to make it easier to use, and I was wondering if you would be able to help us. The templates we have are Template:Infobox Gold Mine and Template:Infobox Mine. If you can assist or point me in the right direction it would be great.--kelapstick (talk) 16:31, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I did a quick and dirty version at User:Franamax/Test13 and you can see (and play with) the results at User:Franamax/Test12. It will need lots more work to use all the proper parameteres, but you get the idea. I can dress it up a little more if you have any initial comments than we can see if WP:MINING wants to integrate it. I don't like the way {{Infobox Mine}} works, it doesn't seem to allow optional parameters. Also, shouldn't {{Infobox Gold Mine}} invoke {{Infobox Mine}} and let Mine handle changing the title and colours? Let me know... Franamax (talk) 18:46, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

You are probably right but the template for gold mines was created before the "general" mine was (I had asked the creator of the gold mine box to make the general mine infobox). The only optional parameter we were looking for was the subdivision 2 (state/province/territory) since different countries have different jurisdictional breakdowns. The only thing that I can think to change/add is to move the map below the image rather than at the bottom, but that is generally what I was looking at. Does entering England in the location and putting the lat and long put the dot in the proper place? Because that is awesome if it does. If you have any other thoughts on improvement I am all ears.--kelapstick (talk) 19:18, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it checks to see if the location parameter is set and if so invokes the location map template and passes it the lat/long parameters. I'm not happy with the way it indents the map. I'll try to play with it a bit more later today. If I can get it looking good I'll integrate it into {{Infobox Mine}} and notify (at WP:Mining?). It could have geo-coords in there too.

Also, if the map is just below the image, that means that when there's no image, the map wll be at the top. Is that OK? Franamax (talk) 19:54, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, for the most part I think that the maps used will be Canada, US and Australia (since that is where the bulk of the mine articles are located) so if those locater maps are calibrated than everything is good. The map at the top of the box if we are lacking an image is fine. When you finish up and integrate it to {{Infobox Mine}} you can either post something at WP:MINING or let me know and I will, I just put up a quick note to hold off adding infoboxes until we got this cleared up. If you want add a place for coords if it isn't too much effort. Thanks again for all your help.--kelapstick (talk) 20:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

New discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mining#Infobox_part_II. Good thinking.--kelapstick (talk) 00:56, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Fulltext

Alas, my access to that paper doesn't allow me to send copies. I'll be happy to answer questions about its content on the talk page, or you could try asking for a copy at the WikiProject Resource Exchange or at WikiProject Medicine's talk page. Eubulides (talk) 08:17, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

a new article

Would you take a look and tell me if youthink this is ready for mainspace? User:MichaelQSchmidt/sandbox/Coons! Night of the Bandits of the Night Coons! Thank you. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 18:38, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

You put those typos in just to give me something to pick on, right? :) It's a well-written article, so no problems there. As far as defending it under the notability guidelines, yer on yer own... It looks OK to me as a "minor notability" situation, I'll be interested to see if you get a rough ride. Reading WP:NOTFILM, it seems like only Casablanca and Triumph of the Will would qualify, but that's just me. ;) I doubt there's anything more you can do other than move it to the big-leagues. Good luck! Franamax (talk) 21:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

It has already been tagged... and only an hour old. Perhaps I should sent the thing directly to AfD and let it be hashed out there... as there are far less "notable" thing that won out in AfD. Makes me wonder why I botherd. Okay. I am now going to give each and every sentence at least 5 cites... maybe more. Then the scream will be that it is oversourced.Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 23:46, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Noo, it almost made it to two hours before tagging. I was watching. :) Remember that it's not quantity of sources that will win, it's quality. You may need to look in varsity pub's for secondary sources or contact the creator(s) or contact Troma to see what press clippings they might have. I personally accept the notability of a feature film produced by secondary/uni students but that is just my judgement. It is after all not even a B-movie and I don't close WP:Film AfD's (and even if I did, I would have to judge the arguments of those more familiar). You're in tough with this one, it didn't actually have a theatrical release, and I didn't see a gross revenue figure. Take the time (I'm sure you're tongue-in-cheek on AfD'ing it yourself, especially using the argument of WP:Otherstuffexists) and look for more discussion of the film. Don't just pick every random site and cite you find though - which of those sites and cites best qualify as reliable sources? Franamax (talk) 00:05, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

2 hours? Wow. A record. Got to leave and do a film shoot. Will pick up this discussion an some 6 or 7 hours. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello

Franamax, its about Melbourne article, you gotta restore urgently the previous article that contains the Culture section and the appropriate images, the Culture section is no more and longer exists now, even if it is present all time in this article, thanks to revert to the complete version. DutchSupremacy (talk) 07:33, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well I got there too late, no-one can change it now for the next three days. (Unless there is a factual error, we can fix those while it's protected) Everyone is feeling a little worked up right now at the way the article is changing. That's fine but the way out is to discuss it on the talk page - and do it calmly, please. I'll be betting that you all can agree, you just need to start talking. Franamax (talk) 08:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Nature

I keep getting my ear bent for poor citations. I understand you can help me get access to nature. Is this true? Andrewjlockley (talk) 20:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I can get copies of Nature articles 1997 to yesterday, and a bunch of other journals. Drop me an email. (I can't give you the login itself, you will still have to search the abstracts to decide what papers you want) You can also ask at the WP:LIBRARY where there are several other helpful people.

Also, I don't know where you live but consider getting a library card. I don't actually go there very much but I login to their site a lot. It is a goldmine, I can get to it from home and access hundreds of different resources: journals, magazines, books, newspapers, dictionaries, you name it. Plus some search functions like Academic Premier and All-in-One. And for me at least, it's all free! :) Franamax (talk) 06:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

That sounds good that card. I have a UK library card. How do you get onto the Nature site using it?Andrewjlockley (talk) 09:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Each library system is different. You would need to check the website for your particular library or call them to ask. For instance, Hampshire PL has this page - when you pick one of the resources, it will ask for your card number. This doesn't get you onto the journal site itself but you can get full-text of papers. As I said though, every library system is different. I'm in Vancouver, which just happens to have a vastly wide range of resources available (yay, VPL! :) Franamax (talk) 18:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Email

Hello, you have email. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Uploading images

Hi Franamax Thanks for your time on this. I have adjusted my site webpage at the bottom of the page http://www.asisbiz.com/downloads.html and changed the license to CC-BY-SA. I hope this helps so I can now give you more images. Do i have to go through this special upload feature to add images or is there an easy way/ Matthew Acred99 (talk) 07:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC) PS I don't know all the ins and outs of the chat thing. seems hard to talk with someone. Acred99 (talk) 07:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that looks OK to me, and hopefully others will agree. Yes, you have to go through the upload feature, it tries to make sure you've crossed all the i's and dotted the t's. As you've seen, images get flagged pretty fast if some of the information is missing.

You might also consider uploading your images to Commons instead of just en:wiki. That way they can be used by all the different language wikis. Franamax (talk) 15:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Franamax Thanks for all your help. What happens now do I have to do any more or does someone now put them in the rights pages or do I have to do that? Acred99 (talk) 17:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

If you have an idea of good spots for the images, you should put them in yourself. If you're uploading them to en:wiki, you definitely should do it yourself because if they're not used in articles they may get tagged as "orphan" images.

If you put the images on Commons (which is the best place for free-use images anyway), you can add them to various categories so that other people will have an easier time finding them. Remember that there's no particular way for people to know your images exist, so it's up to you to be sure they are used. Franamax (talk) 20:02, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Franamax The edit tools I have can't insert photos to the pages concerned. I think you have had to contributed at least 10 articles or something. I was hoping by adding ten photos they may allow this feature. I often find information I'm looking for but you guys have no image and there is no easy way to add stuff. I'm so busy doing my own website it really is a bit frustrating and i seem to run around in circles. So should i now reupload these images again in the other forum? Matthew Acred99 (talk) 10:31, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, Commons is the best place for images that you wish to release for public use. I'm pretty sure they accept CC-BY-SA 1.0, but will confirm that shortly. Commons works (almost) exactly like en:wiki and your login here should already give you access (see single user login).

Next, there is indeed "auto-confirmed" status which requires you to make a small number of edits in order to do some things. You can reach that status easily enough by just reviewing some random articles and correcting typos and grammatical errors, lord knows there are enough of them. I note that you seem to have made no actual mainspace edits, so that's a bit of a concern. We prefer to have editors who are interested in all aspects of the encyclopedia, not just placing their own images.

Further, I see that your original user page was deleted in 2007 as "spam", meaning that it was probably promotional i.e. advertised yourself as a photographer or something. You should be aware that while we will always welcome your freely-released images, we'll look dimly on you attempting to promote yourself, your business, or your website. However, I don't think that's what you're trying to do here, so I'll try to help you put up appropriate images.

Last, give me some ideas - what article, what image, where should it go? I'll be happy to review and place the image if it will improve the article. You can also help yourself by reading through the articles where you think your image would work, if you see small typos or grammatical errors, fix 'em up and you will become auto-confirmed in quite short order. Meanwhile, where do you think is a good place for one of your images?

Last last, keep in mind that we're all busy with our own lives too, so it does come down to learning it all yourself eventually - but we welcome you if you want to pitch in.

Oh yes, last last last, don't re-upload your existing images to Commons, there's a way to get them transferred over, I'll figure that one out too. Franamax (talk) 11:06, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes indeed, it looks like Commons accepts the CC-BY-SA 1.0 license, so no problem there. It would be better if you would use the most up-to-date license, CC-BY-SA 3.0. I don't see any great difference but everyone will breathe easier seeing you use it, in fact if you use 3.0 everything is fine. You need to understand that you are releasing your images for free re-use and modification, but I think you've already grasped that fact. :)

If you want to give me a full list of images, I can get them transferred over to Commons and we can work together to get them into categories there. Then everyone in the world can use them. Franamax (talk) 11:34, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Franamax look thanks so much I really was about to give up. i don't mind changing the lisence over to the one you suggest. I shy away from editing because I'm dislexate. I can't bloody spell and make myself look stupid. I did put a link to the web page I thought was appropreate on each image. I also noted that you have very little on the caves in Malaysia. this is what I have written and plan to put up on my site"Along with the Hindu Batu Cave in Kuala Lumpur, San Bao Dong cave and Buddhist temple located in Ipoh is one of the most famous temples in Malaysia especially amongst the Chinese community who refer to the place as ‘Ba Loh’, which is a Cantonese expression. San Bao Dong has been made famous by its cave paintings. In some instances these paintings are at least 2 stores high ‘the monk standing next to the tiger painting’ is very big. The paintings depicted in my photos don't do the originals justice. They really are great works of art. When the original paintings where first painted is hard to say because of dust the paintings are maintained. It would be fascinating to have the paintings scanned to reveal there origins. I was told they where done by monks if that was the case they must have been great artisans in their day. The cave its self was probably established around 1887 as the neighboring Nan Tian Tong temple was established during this time. Matthew" I have taken pictures of most of the cave paintings i was a monk at the time and they allowed me to take photos but there is about ten of them. I'm heading to our beach house this weekend so may have to tackle this next week. If you can help me in any way to get started would appreciate it. Matthew" I have taken pictures of most of the cave paintings i was a monk at the time and they allowed me to take photos but there is about ten of them. Acred99 (talk) 16:56, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

San-Bao-Dong Acred99 (talk) 17:56, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Ive put one image up in the common area as you said. hope its ok you don't really have a section for this place. i guess you could stick it in the Ipoh section. Acred99 (talk) 18:13, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

list of my images uploaded so far you can change the license, to CC-BY-SA 3.0 ill change my site also to reflect your suggestion. Acred99 (talk) 18:19, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, I can do that BUT you have to do some work too, and you need to get familiar with this site. I'm always helpful but I'm no donkey! :)

You pasted in your edit history, I already know how to get that, and I already know all the edits you've made. I specifically asked you to list the images you're talking about. You can do this by making a list exactly like this (when you edit here, you'll see the precise format):

File:Thailand-Aerial-view-of-Phuket-International-Airport-Apr-2003-01.jpg

So there I've linked the image, put an initial ":" after the square brackets so that the image doesn't show up on this page and added some hypertext at the end to make a linebreak. Now all you have to do is copy that line and put in the names of each of your images when you post to me next. I don't really feel like trawling through your edits, but I'll help you if you help me. Yes, an encyclopedia is complicated, more so even than your own website.

And you haven't told me what exact image you put onto Commons, so I have no clue what do to next. The more specific you are, the better we can work! Regards. Franamax (talk) 18:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Image list

This is the Commons file:

File:Ipoh-San-Bao-Dong-cave-Buddhist-temple-paintings-Jul-2000-06.JPG

needs a new section added

File:Malaysia-Negeri-Sembilan-Port-Dickson-PD-lighthouse-Jun-2001-00.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Dickson —Preceding unsigned comment added by Acred99 (talk • contribs) 05:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• ✓ Done: [6]

These are the other files:

File:Wat-Phra-Baromathat-Nakhon-Srithammarat-Apr-2001-00.JPG

File:Wat-Phra-Baromathat-Nakhon-Srithammarat-Buddhas-Apr-2001-23.JPG

File:Wat-Phra-Baromathat-Nakhon-Srithammarat-Apr-2001-20.JPG

File:Wat-Phra-Baromathat-Nakhon-Srithammarat-Buddhas-Apr-2001-23.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakhon_Si_Thammarat

• ✓ Done: [7] Can you expand your descriptions on the image pages? I put the images into the section on the main temple but I don't think that's where they should stay. In particular, what temple was the Buddha statue in?

File:Thailand-Aerial-view-of-Phuket-International-Airport-Apr-2003-01.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phuket_Airport

• ✓ Done: [8]

File:Pagan-Buphaya-pagoda-entrance-Dec-2000-00.JPG

File:Pagan-Buphaya-pagoda-Nov-2004-00.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupaya_Pagoda

• ✓ Done: [9] Here again, can you expand on your description at the image page? The article says that the pagoda is now completely covered in gold leaf, but your image shows it with the white base. I'd like to clarify when exactly that changed.

File:Pagan-Dhamma-ya-zi-ka-Pagoda-Nov-2004-00.JPG

File:Pagan-Dhamma-ya-zi-ka-Pagoda-Nov-2004-01.JPG

File:Pagan-Dhamma-ya-zi-ka-Pagoda-Nov-2004-04.JPG

File:Pagan-Dhamma-ya-zi-ka-Pagoda-Nov-2004-05.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhammayangyi_Temple

• ✓ Done: [10] Better descriptions on your image pages would be nice.

File:Pagan-Shwezigon-Pagoda-Dec-2000-00.JPG

File:Pagan-Shwezigon-Pagoda-main-Buddhas-Dec-2000-01.JPG

File:Pagan-Shwezigon-Pagoda-at-dusk-Dec-2000-00.JPG

File:Pagan-Shwezigon-Pagoda-main-Buddhas-Dec-2000-03.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shwezigon_Pagoda

• ✓ Done: [11] Better descriptions!

File:PNG-Japanese-Nakajima-Ki-49-Hellen-Oct-2002-00.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Ki-49

• ✓ Done: [12] Better... ah, you probly get my drift now :)

hope this is what you want sorry still new at this. Oh by the way glad you bought this up:

Further, I see that your original user page was deleted in 2007 as "spam", meaning that it was probably promotional i.e. advertised yourself as a photographer or something. You should be aware that while we will always welcome your freely-released images, we'll look dimly on you attempting to promote yourself, your business, or your website. However, I don't think that's what you're trying to do here, so I'll try to help you put up appropriate images.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_the_Philippines I was just trying to add my website link they have my company mentioned but no link. If that's spam well.... To be honest I think it comes down to the editor at the time and I just gave up. But thanks to you I'm now back and will try to help time permitting. Acred99 (talk) 03:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• ✓ Done: Changed all the above to 3.0 license (using the {{CC-by-sa-3.0}} template or in future you can pick the 3.0 license on the upload form). If bots start dropping messages on your talk page, leave a note here and I'll figure it out. I may have done something wrong, you never know.
• I tried one of those oh-so-easy transfers over to Commons, it didn't work at all! Like everything to do with images, it's all difficult. Leave it with me, I'll try something else tomorrow.
• That list of companies - that's a common problem all over the wiki, list articles where all sorts of things get added that shouldn't be there. I don't blame you for trying to add a link. But no, your company (and many other ones) shouldn't even be on there, unless you have enough notability to have your own wiki article or at least a reference from a major newspaper or magazine.
• Please review all the links above where I placed your images. Are my captions correct, and have I put them in the right places? Also, as I noted a few times :) if you can put more description onto the image pages theselves, all the better. Otherwise, no-one has a clue what the picture is actually of, so why would anyone ever use it?
• On the topic of cave paintings, yes that's interesting. I spoke briefly with another editor who may be interested in creating an article. What we would need though is some really solid sources to work from, books, magazine articles, newspapers, that kind of thing. Just you saying they're awesome is not enough, Wikipedia is all about reporting on the reliable sources. Do some research, scan some stuff and email it to me, whatever - we can make an article! Regards. Franamax (talk) 10:20, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow thanks I'm starting to get the Wiki bug now. Unfortunately Most of my Pagoda photos where taken some time ago and I'd have to go back to Burma and get more info than what I have. In regard to the cave paintings Ive never seen any articles on them. I'll ask some friends of mine to see what I can get but other than photos thats all I have. I've even heard they have closed the temple because a rock slide trapped some visitors and killed a security guard. The location and captions all seem ok. Acred99 (talk) 13:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC) Hi Franamax I added these two images to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupaya_Pagoda section i hope I did it right. This is the main pagoda the previous photos are of the entrance pagoda. i put them through commons then followed your code and added them into that section. Can you please check I have done the right thing?

File:Pagan-Bupaya-pagoda-Dec-2000-00.JPG

File:Pagan-Bupaya-pagoda-Dec-2000-01.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupaya_Pagoda

File:PNG-Japanese-Nakajima-Ki-49-Hellen-Oct-2002-11.jpg

File:PNG-Japanese-Nakajima-Ki-49-Hellen-Oct-2002-07.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Ki-49#Operational_History

Acred99 (talk) 03:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

File:C-47-Dakota-USAAF-5AF-42-23659-crash-site-PNG-Oct-2002-15.jpg

I also added this one I'm not sure where to put this one. Acred99 (talk) 04:05, 16 March 2009 (UTC) Im not sure where to put these ones

File:Kuala-Lumpur-Thean-Hou-Temple-Architecture-04.JPG
‎

File:Kuala-Lumpur-Thean-Hou-Temple-Architecture-02.JPG‎

File:Kuala-Lumpur-Thean-Hou-Temple-Architecture-01.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thean_Hou_Temple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_(Chinese) What would you suggest? Matthew —Preceding unsigned comment added by Acred99 (talk • contribs) 08:31, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

File:Dhammikarama-Burmese-Temple-Standing-Buddha-Mar-2001-00.JPG
‎

File:Penang-Dhammikarama-Burmese-Temple-Burmah-Lane-Mar-2001-00.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhammikarama_Burmese_Temple,_Burmah_Lane

I'm having trouble with this one can't seem to link the photos to the new section. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buddhist_temples#Penang

Acred99 (talk) 12:47, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

File:Thni-Kong-Tnua-Jade-Emperors-Pavilion-Taoist-temple-Mar-2001-04.JPG
‎

Description = The Thni Kong Tnua, or Jade Emperor's Pavilion, is a Taoist temple at the foot of Penang Hill in Air Itam, Penang. It is located to the right of the Penang Hill Railway Station.

File:Thni-Kong-Tnua-Jade-Emperors-Pavilion-Taoist-temple-Mar-2001-00.JPG
‎

can you check this for me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thni_Kong_Tnua

Acred99 (talk) 14:23, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

...for fixing the Nuthampstead page. I see what was wrong now (o: C2r (talk) 00:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Where can I find out about the unwritten rules?

Actually I totally agree with your smackdown - I just don't like the idea of talking about 'unwritten rules' on Wikipedia. You should've just said it's wrong. From a moral standpoint, not related to some unwritten Wikipedia policy. Dlabtot (talk) 05:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Brief bewilderment, but I assume you refer to the SA affair. Sure, there aren't necessarily unwritten rules per se but there is a certain wiki-culture and there is a concept of fairness and of "don't kick a man when he's down". I live in Canada and perhaps we have more codification from the sport of hockey, which is quite brutal but also carries a code of honour. Anyway, you just don't take advantage of weakness - beat him fair and square or stay at home. I hadn't thought of it any other way, but you're right, the rules should indeed be written for all to see. Hmmphh, I already changed a guideline yesterday. I've seen that kind of commentary come up on quite a few blocked utalk's though... Franamax (talk) 06:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Take Care

Please don't use Science Apologist's talk page to have long and involved discussions with users that are not SA. This has caused problems in the past. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 12:48, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Not sure where this is coming from, since I didn't engage in anything long or involved there and had no intention of doing so anyway. Utalks are generally not for external discussion, although some particularly indulgent users allow it (Jimbo e.g.:). Visiting again two days later though - yeah, I see what you mean. Quite messy that! Franamax (talk) 10:30, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Related information.

I still think it is a good idea. I'm salting a few articles here and there. Maybe it will catch on. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 02:47, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and thanks for the subversive help. I noted a definite conservatism and a catch-22: MOS only describes what we actually do, so we can't change it until what we actually do has changed; our best articles must always comply with the MOS, so if you want to have a good article, make it look like what we already do; but please provide evidence that people are disobeying the style we mandate for all good articles. Yeah thanks, I already know how to draw circles!

It will definitely have to be grassroots. To me, it just makes sense - just look at the page and think about it. I'm thinking though that maybe the "See also"s should move down too - but one step at a time (and then where does External links go?). Thanks for the encouragement. :) Franamax (talk) 10:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

An update: I've slipped it into a number of articles, including featured articles (one that was the article of the day; four that are permanently referenced at wp:cite). So far it seems to be sticking without any meaningful resistance. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:28, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Shh! ;) It looks good to me in almost all the places you pur it (I tweaked Zborczyce to get rid of the whitespace between it and the navbox). The lack of complaints ie encouraging. FA's I believe are supposed always to conform to MOS - but the logic is pretty compelling, anyone reverting you will hopefully at least think about the fact that they are putting navboxes back into the External links section.

I'd originally thought about this for articles with complex sets of navboxes and especially when the "bottom stuff" was several scrolls away from the "writing", separated by many notes and references. Looking through the various places you've used it though, I'm thinking more that it is pretty much always appropriate. That's what navboxes and categories are, related information. At some point, maybe the See also sections should be merged down to the bottom content, say, three or four years from now when the idea is not so startlingly new :)

I also note that at List of craters on Venus, the {{compactTOC}} doesn't even show the additional sections. {{compactTOC8}} handles the extra sections, but will need to be updated someday for the new extra section. Thoughts for another day. One step at a time and so far so good! :) Franamax (talk) 06:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

F.Y.I.: Talk:The Chaser APEC pranks#Related information. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Heh, changing FAs is not insurgency so much as it is marching into the centre of a big field and waving the rebel flag. :) It's fine if you want, but don't be surprised if a fighter jet comes in and wipes out your whole army. ;) FAs apparently must conform to MOS, so they may not be the best targets to achieve a groundswell. Franamax (talk) 21:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Edits to Sligo

62.40.54.207 what I was doing was adding constructive information about my own town,if two schools can be mentioned then why not an organisation that promotes peace and harmoney. God knows after thirty years of violence in northern Ireland we need all the peace we can get.

So far the only people that have a problem with this is a German and someone from New York.Since it is clear that neither wants contributions from someone who was born and worked all thier lives in this town (57 years)then I will not bother to ever make any contributions again.So much for the spirit of Wikipedia being for everyone!

PS. all you had to do was give guidence and ask me to move it to a more appropriate place.simply removing edits is not only rude and an abuse of power , but also the fastest way to loose contributors. (sorry about the formating,first time) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.204.205.202 (talk) 20:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the guidance was given in the edit summaries by two of us - it's not appropriate content for the lead section. The two schools shouldn't be mentioned there either, I spotted that and plan to move them to the appropriate section - but it means that I will have to research to be sure the information is correct, it's extra work, and with all respect, I'm not going to jump to do it to please you. I have a list of things to do here as long as my arm. You can feel free to move them down to the "Education" section yourself, as well as create a "Sports" section.

FYI, you can read WP:BRD to get familiar with how editing works. You are always invited to add content, but if you find it reverted, you should then move to the article talk page to discuss the issue. You will quickly find that editors are very willing to discuss things reasonably.

As far as abuse of power or rudeness, I disagree. I also disagree that geographical location matters. Although we appreciate having editors who are familiar with the subject, we must all' enforce editorial standards.

Further, if you had registered an account to make your edits, you would find that I am not rude at all, I would have given you a welcome message, explained my concerns and been willing and ready to help. That's just not feasible with anonymous editors, snice many of them are sitting at a library or school computer and will have walked away before any messages get through. And you'll notice that I did drop you a message when I noticed your IP address staying constant. Regards! Franamax (talk) 21:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

And actually, your IP address seems to have changed again, so there's no way to communicate with you to let you know I've replied. That's a pity. Franamax (talk) 21:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm new to the internet , but all i find is people more concerned with enforcing rules than helping.goodbye!