User talk:ThaddeusB

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• 2008
• 2009: Jan-Jul Aug-
• Thematic: My RfA

oldprodfull bot

I would really like this bot to be created (or the task assigned to an existing bot). Wouldn't it be easiest to just have a bot note on the talk page of every prodded article that a prod was applied? (A simple matter of looking every so often to see where the prod and prod-nn are transcluded to, I think.) It might annoy the admins who have to delete the articles if no talk page existed prior to the bot creating the talk page, so perhaps the bot could just do this for articles that already have a talk page? This would capture most of the interesting cases, since articles that don't have talk pages tend to be young and, in my experience, more likely to deserve deletion. Abductive (talk) 07:25, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The way it would work is capture the list of current articles with PROD tags on them periodically. Articles that disappear from the list and stay off for 24 hours (to prevent tagging articles where the tag was removed in vandalism) would be given an {{Oldprodfull}} tag unless they were deleted. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:02, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The sockpuppeteer is back, and I would really like to see this bot tagging implemented. Abductive (talk) 22:58, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up & the reminder. I definitely want to see this bot made as well, so I'll bump it up on my list of priorities. Hopefully I can get to it in about a week. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:51, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Since you are busy, and I really would like to see progress with Dr B's TRANSWIKI idea, I am going to ask if any currently existing bots can be adapted to do this (unless you really don't want me to). If they don't/can't/won't I'll ask you again. Abductive (talk) 03:18, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

The code is fairly simple & given my heavy involvement in PROD, I would really like to do it. I promise I'll get to it real soon - hopefully this weekend. :) Should be a 1 or 2 day project. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:27, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay. Abductive (talk) 03:39, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Transwiki

Hi! In light of the recent events I think it might be a good time to make a new project proposal at councils and organise a project which concentrates on trasferring content from other wikipedias but in a may which is much more efficient and can done with no community concerns. If I make a proposal in a day or two can you comment as I feel we both share the same view that it is important to transfer content from other wikipedias but done adequately as part of a project coordination. The ideal is a bot which can run through categories on a different wikipedia and extract any main information from an article and create it on english wikipedia with a reference. I know the community expresses an extreme indifference to automation in regards to content but if programmed correctly bots can do things much more consistently and efficiently than us. The idea is not that the bot writes the articles, the idea is that it draws up missing lists of articles from other wikipedia in the project space, members of a group check them for notability and then the bot is assigned to blue link them in the best possible way without community concerns and which adheres to our policies. The ultimate ideal of cause would be bot which can translate whole articles into English but as we know present, google translate is far from perfect. If it is somehow perfected in the future see google toolbar the new translation thing they have going then I think it would be possible to instantly translate articles but would need to be proof read. But at present I think something which can extracts some basic facts and reference them is most needed. The concern by the community is likely to be about the mass creation of missing articles started without full content and may cause concerns about the amount of work it will take to develop and maintain them. Personally I think arguments against the creation of new content "because they might be vandalised" is an invalid one. There are enough people who use wikipedia honestly to make it work. It might be difficult to programme a bot I don't know but the first phase would be to use a bot to draw up lists of missing articles by wikipedia in the project space. I am thinking maybe a taskforce of the missing encyclopedic articles project. Something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Transwiki/de/Politicians etc etc. We'd need a bot to be able to run off categories on other wikipedias and list them on here in the workspace. So it could generate lists from a diversity of topics and wikipedias such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Transwiki/nl/Writers etc. DO you follow? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 08:40, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Certainly, that sounds great. Funny thing is that I've been looking for absolutely ages for a decent bot operator who is interested in content and willing to run. Your skills would be greatly needed to cleanup existing articles too. We have a whole set of municipalities of Colombia and Brazil which have just been dumped. As much as it seems I like creating new short stubs a lot of my time is spent cleaning up and refencing articles on districts and municipalities across the world. It took me a weke and half to add 500 references to the Vietnam districts and add infoboxes because nobody would help run a bot!! I believe for new articles there is a minimum requirement. As long as they have a bit of info and are immediately expandable it would be greatly appreciated I'm sure. Righteo then I'll make a proposal Monday and I've spent time trying to salvage several gundred of these stubs. The thing is a vast proportion of them contian the same references to the Bavarian Landtag and German National Library meaning of course the generation of such articles could be done effecitvely with a bot. Very glad to meet you and I hope we keep in good contact. Sorry if I come across badly at ANI and AFD discussions but I'm sure you understand the frustrations.

I certainly do understand the frustration. It is no fun at all to spend hours/days working on something just to have it deleted again. That whole thread was a mess with a lot of people (on both sides) acting poorly. I certainly won't hold anything said there against you (or anyone else). --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:42, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

In regards to a project on this I would propose somethign along the lines of Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Transwiki. The first task would be to create sections of the new project related to content on the different wikipedia. Then the bot would raid the categories on other wikipedia for various topics and list the articles missing from these categories. The ones that we already have maybe can be moved manually or the bot could by pass them. So eventually we'd have a directory of missing articles organised by each wikipedia and neatly by topic/sub topic so we know exactly what is missing. Inevitably the task is a tremendous one to do so which only a bot could achieve but I am certain that a bot is able to be programmed to copy categories from the other wikipedias and insert them into lists in the project space. Once we have that done or are happy with the missinglists for one topic maybe then the bot can be programmed to start the missing articles, a lot of related categories use similar sources etc so that should make it easier at least. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 20:34, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable and is probably the best way to proceed. i will support such efforts fully. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Thankyou. Yes the thing was that we've had a great deal of experiemce of evne the stubbiest of articles being expanded like this so it kind of propels me to generate more because I believe they will be expanded. I could almost guarantee that if that editor had come across a red link he would not have started that article. It would satill be sitting as a red link. So while I don't endorse the creation of poorly referenced sub stubs (which is why I want a bot and project) I do think that it is worth creating stubs. Thats what motivates me is the many articles I've created I've seen expanded into real good articles. Even stubs like Xinjiang Medical University has ended up being good! Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 20:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld, the idea of a place to store machine-translated articles en masse from other Wikipedias away from namespace is a great one, if it can carry across wiki formatting and references. Good plan! It would need willing editors to copy-edit and improve sourcing if necessary, so give me a reminder if and when you've got the project going. We need to pilfer as much as we can from the other Wikipedias. Fences&Windows 00:04, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Well I do see the different wikipedias as one project and I can't believe there is not even anything in place which attempts to put articles in various languages into english and vice versa! It is the core goal on here "to provide an encyclopedia of the highest quality to anybody on the planet for free in their own language". We need a transwiki project and to create a bank of missing articles to bridge the gaps!! 12 million articles have been created by the rest of the world so their inut and content should not be ignored!! I think I'll make a proposal at councils tomorrow. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 12:12, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject TRANSWIKI

Hi. In light of recent events and community concerns about the way in which content is transferred I have proposed a new wikiproject which would attempt to address any of the concerns and done in an environment where a major group of editors work together to transfer articles from other wikipedias in the most effective way possible without BLP or referencing problems. Please offer your thoughts at the proposal and whether or not you support or oppose the idea of a wikiproject dedicated to organizing a more efficient process of getting articles in different languages translated into English. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 12:55, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Thaddeus are you still interested? Because the project is kind of dependent on a bot!! Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 11:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I just didn't have a chance to read through everything yesterday. I am planning on doing so today. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:46, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Randii Wessen Sources

After reviewing the 9 academic criterion, I was pleasantly surprised to find that he has accomplished multiple criterion for publication. Could you advise on which best establish notability, and which sources are most appropriate?

1. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.

Dr. Wessen was the first person to compose a fly-by film of Neptune from Voyager 2 post-encounter sequence photo frames. The first fly-by visuals of Neptune are the direct product of Wessen's work. He co-wrote a text book on Voyagers encounter with Neptune.

• http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?ATH=Randii+R.+Wessen
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Neptune-Satellites-Ellis-D-Miner/dp/1852332166
  
• http://books.google.com/books?id=lZzD1D6PS3UC&pg=PA201&lpg=PA201&dq=Randii+Wessen+Voyager&source=bl&ots=Mv6va-ue9-&sig=tUaCgmIGLiOCAQOPirfdg2lxnkM&hl=en&ei=JJZuSt_CGZS2MLC7iOEI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6
  
  

2. The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level.
He received NASA's Exceptional Service Medal

• http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/sao/guest/wessen/
  
  

3. The person is or has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g. a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor (e.g. the IEEE)

Randii Wessen is a member of the Royal Astronomical Society, and the British Interplanetary Society.

• http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~aiaa/AIAA%20Lecturers.pdf (Page 74/75)
  
  

He even has an asteroid named after him. That must count for something...

• http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=31664+Randiiwessen —Preceding unsigned comment added by Obafgkmrns (talk • contribs) 06:18, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

More congrats

Congrats on adminship. Right then. What we can do once the project is rolling is to contact all the people who have listed themsevles as speaking a certain language and them notification of the project. It could be bot generated although it would need BAG approval I believe. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 09:34, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. There are several message bot already approved, so it is simply a matter of asking one of those to send out a message for us. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:22, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I've made a start on Wikipedia:WikiProject TRANSWIKI, I'll have some assistance with page design and layout shortly I rather like the logo. You'll see there is a language pages red linked. The idea is that each language functions as some sort of taskforce and editors are recruited for each who speak the language or are interested in articles from that particular wikipedia. It will take time to build followers but the first step is to draw up missing article directories for each wikipedia. The list pages will be listed under each language wikipedia neatly in topics/sub topics and sub pages. There will be a massive amount of missing articles to list and organise up but this is the idea. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 17:55, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

My main concern about this project as with many projects is that one moment there will be tens of people posting in rapid succession and seem interested and suddenly it just seems deserted!!! It seems everybody is away at once!! I honestly hope there will be enough people interested in this project to maintain it and not make it die out like several other projects on here. Do you disagree with the idea of the way in which missing lists could be drawn up? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 21:45, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with the way it is structured. Everything looks good. Recruiting and maintaining active members will be a challenge, but that is nothing unique as all WikiProjects have that problem. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:18, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I've started Wikipedia:WikiProject TRANSWIKI/German. You get the idea? In the missing article directory there will be the sub pages by main topic and then sub ordered and propbably sub ordered again by topic in a chain down way e.g Wikipedia:WikiProject TRANSWIKI/German/Geography/Lakes of Germany and Wikipedia:WikiProject TRANSWIKI/German/Geography/Mountains of Swizterland etc. Or it could be listed as
Wikipedia:WikiProject TRANSWIKI/German/Geography/Switzerland/Mountains etc. So the Wikipedia:WikiProject TRANSWIKI/German/Geography page would list all of the sub topics and then the lists would be generated on a further sub page as shown above. I will now emulate this layout for the other main wikipedias to get us started, I think we should concentrate on the main wikis at present. I doubt welsh wikipedia for instance is first priority of translating decent content. Now we need to discuss how we go about using a bot to copy categories from another wikipedia and use them to generate organized lists by topic in our project space. I would imagine that the bot would be able to detect en: wikipedia links in the foreign article and skip it? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 12:30, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I've created Wikipedia:WikiProject TRANSWIKI/ Polish/Politics/Polish politicians and Wikipedia:WikiProject TRANSWIKI/Spanish/Culture/Museums as examples. Ideally the bot would generate lists like the museums with the es wikipedia version also linked. The bot will be essential to copy the categories on the other wikipedias and ermpty them linked into the lists. Are you sure you're still up to it? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 16:56, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

All that you have written above sounds good to me. I took a look at the example pages and everything seems fine. I'll start work on the bot as soon as I can - in the mean time I suggest you listen to the advice that someone else wrote on the talk page: "We need to walk before we run." I know you want this project to happen instantly, but that isn't realistic. I only have limited time, and have other obligations on and off wiki. Other members are the same. We don't need all this content "imported today", we need it "imported right", which will take time. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:01, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I didn't mean to pester you, just if you are busy I'd appreciate you saying so, so I know to get on with things! Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 19:05, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Historic districts category

Thanks for the reminder; you may not have forgotten, but I nearly had. And no complaint about a delay — congratulations on the successful RFA :-) Nyttend (talk) 00:49, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem with articles such as your example is that they really shouldn't be linked there. Please go simply by the infobox; we can figure out what to do with articles like this at some other time. Thanks for the attention! Nyttend (talk) 02:57, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

There's no good reason that an infobox should show a state other than where it's located, so going by locmapin is a great idea. Some infoboxes have a nationwide map, not a state map, but adding the nationwide category would work fine there. I expect that "nrhp_type2" etc. would be a good idea, since if it's an HD as well as something else, it's still an HD. Nyttend (talk) 03:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I like the replace-USA-with-state category change idea; it should save us even more work. Thanks again! Nyttend (talk) 21:25, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you run into some sort of problem with this bot, or are you simply working on other matters at the moment? Not trying to bug you; just curious. Nyttend (talk) 03:08, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Its the later. I could just have the bot zip through the rest, but I wanted to do a couple more semi-automated ones before unleasing it full scale, just to be sure.

Most of my time currently is going towards making user WebCiteBOT archives all GeoCities links (including on foreign wikis) before GoeCities shuts down on the 26th. Thus, you can expect to see NRHP edits no later than the 27th.

P.S. You aren't bugging me at all. :) --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:24, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that is a bit more pressing; I don't expect the historic districts to cease to exist anytime soon :-) Nyttend (talk) 01:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Babel fish

I've emailed you. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 18:47, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow, you need to calm down a bit. I am busy and can't instantly reply to everything that comes up. I have a real job that I am trying to get done and can only spend a few minutes on Wikipedia at a time.

In regards to Babel Fish, Wikipedia shouldn't be saying "we prefer this one and only this one service." If there are alternative available, we should list them all. Also it would be rather pointless to have a translation tools section with only 1 tool. We need to find more tools and add them to the list, not just rely on Google translate for everything. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:56, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, Babel fish is good but not as good as google translate but if you feel it should be linked I have no problems. I would just have really appreciated it if you had quickly said you were busy and said you'll discuss it when you have time. When there is no response in 6 hours and I can see you are on here then I begin to have doubts. I understand now. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 19:02, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, next time I will say I am busy. Sorry for the misunderstanding. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:05, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to appear so anxious, its just I've had failures with bot projects in the past when I put a lot of time into trying to create a project so I don't want to do so again! As Blofeld once said "This organization does not tolerate failure". As long as we gradually make process in our own time allowing for RL and other committments I'm happy with that, when you are ready we should discuss how a the bot would go about copying from categories and auto geenrating them into lists on the project talk page. That's the next step but whenever you are not tied down!! Perhaps we can discuss it next week some time. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 19:18, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

That would be fine. I have another bot project I need to finish up, but I should be able to start on this one early next week and the first step should only take two-three days to program (and then a few more days to await approval). --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:24, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I like it! One thing though, wouldn't it be best to call it TRANSWIKIBOT as it will also be creating missing lists? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 14:39, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I already was making a bot called ContentCreationBOT for another project, so I figured I'd reuse the name rather than create another. The reason being that it will be actually creating content in step 2. (Step 1 being just creating the lists.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:48, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Hokay, sounds cool! Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 14:51, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Generating lists

Hi there. I've set up the sub pages for the projects now. They are all ready for filling.... Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 13:37, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll start working on the bot coding for this today or tomorrow. I'll make a post at the Wikipedia when I'm ready for input. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, I did start adding to a few like Wikipedia:WikiProject Intertranswiki/Slovenian/Sports but that was because I moved them from the previous project space. I'd imagine what we'll need is a bot which by passes all articles which have en: links in them and lists all articles without en: links in the workspace. I'd imagien it would be able to read off main categories and core categories so we at least know what main topic the articles fall into. What we will need though is a way to be able to organize it and know exactly what each category refers too. That may require manual work later... Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 14:42, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Any developments? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 19:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I have some material ready to help us proceed. I plan on posting it on the Wikiproject page sometime today. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I always see your name on the recent changes, you are a busy dude and seem to be also be all over the encyclopedia like me! Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 20:43, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

About WebCiteBOT

Hi Thaddeus, I recently came across your WebCiteBOT project which I think is pretty exciting and a good solution to the long-term link rot problem. I'm working on something related on Commons, which is using ImageStamper to keep a permanent record of the license of images (particularly Flickr images) at the time they were uploaded. I just wanted to inquire about the status of the WebCiteBOT project and if there's anything I can do to help. Dcoetzee 22:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

That ImageStamper site is pretty neat, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

WebCiteBOT is pretty thoroughly tested now, so mostly it is just a question of ramping up the volume it does per day. Webcitation.org is a fairly small operation and is not accustomed to the volume of links I've been sending them (which isn't even enough to cover the new links being generated yet) so I am trying to take it easy on them. I've already caused them to have to upgrade their server once. Eventually, I want to port the bot to other Wikipedias, but given the current situation that isn't likely to happen soon. If/when I expand the project and need help, I'll drop you a line. Thanks for the offer, ThaddeusB (talk) 04:38, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge instructions

Hi. Would you mind copying your summarized instructions from User talk:I dream of horses#Cookie dough bites to Help:Merging or a holding section on its talk page? I could copy it myself, but I prefer to avoid an attribution trail pointing to a random user's page. Thanks. Flatscan (talk) 03:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I will take a look at the merge instructions and write something similar to what I said at [[[User talk:I dream of horses]]. I have barely been online the past few days, but I will try to get to it today. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The message was just to make sure you were aware of my request, so please don't feel a need to prioritize this task. I can work from the full existing directions. Whoever gets there first can take the first crack. Flatscan (talk) 03:35, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Bot help for ARS

Hi, I definitely need some bot assistance for ARS. Where should I draft up what I'm looking for to see if you're up for it? -- Banjeboi 01:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Where ever you want is fine - a page in your user space, one in mine, or even one in the ARS project space. I must caution you however, that it will likely be a couple weeks before I can act on the proposal, as I have several other BOT obligations to address first. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Trasnwiki bot

Hi. Have you made any progress with the coding or how it will be done? Himalayan 16:26, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Not much, but don't worry its still on my agenda and I should be able to get to it very soon. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:04, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for pointing out that my signature was incorrectly directed. :) I appreciate your help.

TheSpencer (talk) 10:08, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

votum

hi,

If you have been to CH Chapel then you will see the song on their first page. It is like Carmen Etonese —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.172.216.240 (talk) 11:37, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have no idea what this is in reference to/what action you are requesting from me. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:28, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

PAC bot

I use the online Sepkoski database. The only useful information it offers is the order, the generic name, and the time range of the subject. See here for an example that won't take all day to load. Abyssal (talk) 15:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Thing with the Paleodb is that it doesn't, in my experience, tend to have any more info than the Sepkoski database on the species included in the latter. I don't know of any other, unless this one counts. Thanks for taking an interest in this project. Abyssal (talk) 00:51, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

How are we going to proceed with this project? Abyssal (talk) 18:34, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Great template! For the see also section, are you sure you can't use the bot for some of that? The paleo db lists sister genera, they would be useful there. The morphology tab has diagnosis and measurement data that may be useful for the article. Also, you might want to rephrase "(Genus) were first identified by (scientist name) in (year)" to "(Genus) was first described by (scientist name) in (year)." IT would also be cool if the year linked to the corresponding article in this series. Maybe the collections tab would have something useful. Other than that, I'm really pleased. Thanks for your hard work! Abyssal (talk) 02:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

The only thing I think needs added manually to the See also section would be a link to the List of *higher order taxon* article for each major group. Abyssal (talk) 03:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey, just checking in and see how things are coming. Also, I was curious if a bot could, say, scan and extract information from a PDF the same way it would an online database. Later. Abyssal (talk) 21:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I uh, had no clue what was going on. Here are the Sepkoski abbreviations. Most of the start and end times are in the respective articles on the time periods. The Paleodb has info on the start and stop times of subepochs. I can't generate the higher order text until we pick out a taxon to use the bot on. There's no real way for me to anticipate any scientist whose name may be encountered by the bot. There are just too many of them, and I'm not an invertebrate specialist to know any of the big names, who probably only named a small minority anyway. For the see also list, all we need to list is the sister genera listed in the pbdb and the List of taxon article, which can be done as soon as we pick a taxon to work with. If I can assist in anyway please keep me posted. :D

By the way, maybe you should clarify exactly how this bot is going to work, just so I'm up to speed and not making moronic suggestions. Abyssal (talk) 03:46, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I have a PDF that is a list of every Trilobite genus named before 2003, plus their family, time period, authors, years, and a bibliography. I thought it would be useful when we work on the Trilobites. Abyssal (talk) 00:58, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

How goes things? Abyssal (talk) 15:47, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I haven't had much chance to work on it yet, but I should be able to get to it within the next few days. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Have you noticed the number of articles on the front page? Considering that our bot could end up creating more than 20,000 articles (~5,000 trilobites + ~5,000 brachiopods + ~10,000 molluscs not to mention echinoderms, bryozoans and cnidarians), we have a very serious opportunity to be the Wikipedians that create article number three million, if we time this right. I estimate that the day that number of articles would be reached without our intervention to be at the very beginning of august. I think we should go for this. Maybe the second we see the article counter get within twenty thousand or so of the goal we let the bot do its thing and mass generate those articles. What an opportunity! Abyssal (talk) 18:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Hate to be that obnoxious guy that constantly harasses you, but, uh, how are things going? Anything I can do to help? Abyssal (talk) 15:30, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Glad to know I've not been a bother, and glad to hear about your progress. What did you think of my proposal for us to shoot for being the guys who make article 3 million? I think we have a shot, and it would certainly give us bragging rights. :P Abyssal (talk) 20:50, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Update, stat! :P Abyssal (talk) 14:20, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

You said before that you could use the prod, so here I am prodding. I'm curious about how you're progressing, you said before that you were on the verge of collecting the data. I've started working on the stub templates we're going to need to create. Do you still want me to collect the start and end dates of the time periods? Anything else I can help with? Abyssal (talk) 14:25, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you avoiding me? I've left several messages on your talk page but have yet to hear from you in over a week even though you've been very active. Abyssal (talk) 14:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll take that as a yes, I suppose. o_0 Abyssal (talk) 15:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Update

Nice to see that you weren't just ignoring me. :D I know it's going to be a difficult fight, but I think we can win them over if we start small. Maybe they would allow us a trial-run to demo it? Say, create articles for Ciliophora, which would create about 30 articles. If something goes horribly horribly wrong, then we could catch the problem early, and correct the bot accordingly with little in the way of clean up.

Now two questions,

1. Do you want that PDF?
2. What do you need me to do to prepare us for the actual article creation?

Abyssal (talk) 22:44, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Lol. Ok. Abyssal (talk) 00:47, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey, Thad, just some random thoughts on our project:

I think we should start trying to distance ourselves from the anybot fiasco in advance of our request for bot approval to make things easier for us. What advantages does PACbot have over the anybot thing? I think we'd have more human involvement in the articles, since there are aspects we have to pick and choose by hand, like in the see also links, and we'd have to pick a stub category for the major groups by hand, and that sort of thing. Also, our bot won't have problems with security the way Anybot did with that webpage it was publicly accessible from. Maybe we could compile a list of the specific issues that happened with Anybot and write a corresponding list of corrections and precautions that will be present in PACbot? I believe that would go a long way in alleviating concerns from the BAG.

Also, could our bot be used to fill in data in a table with data gathered from our sources? Like say, go through the List of placoderms and automatically add in the authority, year, age and such? If you could get it to do that and it works, it may dispel any doubts the BAG might have about your ability to program a successful content generating robot before they're even brought up.

PS: Sorry for moving this, but you said you missed previous messages because the topic wasn't near the bottom of your page. Abyssal (talk) 21:15, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that's great news. BTW, any comments on my thoughts above here? *points up* Abyssal (talk) 13:46, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Great, I'll get started on everything tomorrow. Abyssal (talk) 00:36, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I've sent both the pdf and a copy of what I've completed so far of the txt file. Your feedback on the latter is requested. Abyssal (talk) 19:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction, I'll get a complete version to you tomorrow afternoon. I'd finish it tonight but my monitor's going bad and it's getting difficult to do anything on the computer because the screen is mysteriously blurring up. Abyssal (talk) 22:13, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I've sent you the finished copy. Let me know what else I can do. Abyssal (talk) 01:40, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Not to nag, but if you need me to do anything very soon, please tell me, as I won't have internet access tomorrow. Abyssal (talk) 23:11, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll get started on the "lists of" tonight for the taxa I already have. Hopefully I'll get it sent out to you tonight, but if not, Monday is the soonest I can get it to you. Abyssal (talk) 23:58, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Check your email. :) Abyssal (talk) 02:34, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Are we still using that page template? 'Cause if we are, we need the start and end times for the time periods, and I can get to work on that. If you get this before 10:30 AM, please reply immediately 'cause I have to leave for work. Thanks. :) Abyssal (talk) 13:09, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Hey, personal life is interfering with my ability to get all that geologic time info to you. Hopefully things will clear up. Sorry I haven't gotten all that to you yet. I'll hopefully create all the Lists that were marked with the *** in the txt file I sent you very soon. Also, can we look into being able to use the bot to fill in tables more seriously? I'm facing significant pressure from other paleo-contributors about my unfinished lists. Sorry for the delay. Abyssal (talk) 02:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll get to work on that. Abyssal (talk) 04:13, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Here's a big chunk of those lists that need filled:

• List of prehistoric starfish
• List of prehistoric barnacles
• List of crinoid genera
• List of prehistoric echinoids
• List of edrioasteroids
• List of graptolites
• List of prehistoric sea cucumbers
• List of hyoliths
• List of prehistoric malacostracans
• List of prehistoric brittle stars
• List of prehistoric ostracods
• List of prehistoric chitons
• List of prehistoric stylophorans

There are some more, but I have to hunt them up. Abyssal (talk) 20:17, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Great! Could you remind me what else you need from me for the page creation project? Abyssal (talk) 21:47, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Something like this --> {{sort|5|[[Middle Jurassic]]}}

With the number being the order of the epoch in the phanerozoic eon. EG: Early Cambrian= 1 Middle Cambrian = 2 etc. Abyssal (talk) 22:23, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

It's good except the status column is for taxonomic status (Valid, Jr. synonym, Nomen dubium), not extant/extinct. If our database doesn't have that info, just use "Valid{{verify source}}" or something. Or maybe just "Valid," since the vast majority of them will be anyway, and it can be tweaked as errors are found. Also, the year should be in the "[[XXXX in paleontology|XXXX]]" format. Other than that it looks really good! Thanks for your hard work. Are you an admin yet? Abyssal (talk) 16:10, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I am finalizing the code right now & will likely file the BRFA tonight or early tomorrow. I'll let you know when I put it up... My RfA still has about 1.5 days left, so about midday Wednesday is when it is scheduled to close. Seems nearly certain to pass at this point though. :) --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:22, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

• gorgonocephalid= either gorgonocephalida (if you mean the order) or gorgonocephalidae if you mean the family.
• Mikrocidarió= no clue :/
• Hemieurylae= no clue :/
• Megantocrinus = it's at least mentioned in the PBDB.
• Priscanermarinus = is fine, has a mention at the PBDB
• Diceratograptus = seems fine, a google search turns up many references
• asterometrid = asterometridae
• squillid = squillidae, the mantis shrimps

Abyssal (talk) 21:09, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really sure we can confidently link to the names, what if there are multiple Wanners? I can't find who they are anyway, although I'm confident Agassiz is Louis Agassiz. I should hopefully have the stage times completed tonight. Abyssal (talk) 23:52, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Geological periods are done. Abyssal (talk) 15:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Second arbitrary break

How are things going? Abyssal (talk) 14:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Alright, thank you for your dedication. Abyssal (talk) 13:20, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Ever find that hour of time? It's looking like we're gonna miss creating article 3,000,000. :( Abyssal (talk) 01:22, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

How's it comin'? Abyssal (talk) 20:44, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

No pressure. Thanks for all your hard work! Abyssal (talk) 19:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

How goes the battle? Abyssal (talk) 14:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I've finished filling out your geologic stages page. :) Abyssal (talk) 21:13, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Just making sure you got the previous message. Abyssal (talk) 01:01, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Cool! Abyssal (talk) 16:32, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

:D Abyssal (talk) 15:20, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I notice you didn't mention stub creation in the BRFA, is this something we're planning on doing later, or have you decided against it? Also, is there any way I could be an operator? Abyssal (talk) 15:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

No need to worry with the request, I didn't actually do any actually work on the bot itself. As for the operator business, I just had assumed it would be run multiple times (eg. creating stubs in sessions, like 100 today, 500 tomorrow, arbitrary number the next day, etc.). Obviously having two operators would cut down on the total amount of time it would take to run through the database, if that assumption had been correct. Abyssal (talk) 04:26, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:ANI#Request to undo speedydelete of StorefrontBacktalk

Just a note, in this section, you provided a link to deletion review using WP:DR, when I think you meant WP:DRV. Just something I noticed. Best, TNXMan 17:22, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Feel free to correct any such mistaken of mine you see in the future without notice. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:34, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Borri

You recently deProded Borri with the explanation "appears to have coverage in multiple sources". I believe you'll find that none of those sources add up to "significant coverage" as required by WP:CORP. They all amount to business listings, press releases, etc. But happy hunting. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 18:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Forbeswood Heights

An article that you have been involved in editing, Forbeswood Heights , has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Forbeswood Heights. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Cnilep (talk) 22:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Shovel-shaped incisors

What are your thoughts on this one you de-PRODed? Any way to rescue it, or should I go to AfD? Dicklyon (talk) 04:23, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't have de-proded it if I idn't think it was salvagable. There are over 600 books listed on Google Books that cover the subject, many of them in great detail. Although I am not an expert, it appears to be a notable concept both to dentistry and anthropology. The best way to get an good article would be to find an expert to write one, but failing that you or I could throw together a decent stub using material we gleaned off the internet. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Your Opinion

ThaddeusB, I have been reflecting on the deletion of the page Carmelo Rafala by Nuclearwarfare. While I believe that I supplied enough detail to establish notability, NW and discussion persons disagreed. However, considering techniques used in print encyclopedias and in other publishing outlets, I followed professional protocol. Words and comments used to describe the author's work does, indeed, reflect back upon his talent and him as a writer. This is current thinking and application in the fields. Moreover, the review outlets are established professional outlets for the genre and are recognized as such.

I was hoping you might take a look at the page (now deleted) and let me know your thoughts.

To be honest, I was asked to provide the information and I did. If the page requires deletion, then wiki needs to, firstly, recognize professional review markets when they are presented, and secondly, update its policies on how to use comments to reflect current practice in the field. Thank you kindly for your time. (Woomfy (talk) 19:35, 3 September 2009 (UTC))

Thad, I responded and tried to help this editor, with three templates on his talk page. Ikip (talk) 00:04, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

A couple of comments. First, Nuclearwarfare acted appropriately. If I was dictator of Wikipedia, I might have been inclined to keep the article, but if I had been closing the AfD I would have closed it the same way. I reviewed the sources in the article, and I don't think any of them intrinsically meets our definition of a reliable source. It is possible, the sources meet WP:RS, but you have provided no evidence they actually are reliable - you merely stated that they are. You are welcome to seek community input as to the sources notability at the reliable sources noticeboard. If you can convince people there that the websites from which the reviews come are in general reliable, then you would have a good case for restoring the article. Failing that, you will have to wait for a mainstream source to review the book (such a newspaper or widely known magazine/journal), rather than just genre specific websites.

I can userify the article for you if you want, but honestly their is little hope of it surviving in mainspace unless you can prove those reviews are reliable or new sources can be found. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

When you have some time

Can you move Bachelor of Arts (novel) to The Bachelor of Arts which is the correct title and is currently a redirect (albeit edited redirect, so I can't do the move)? cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 03:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

 Done --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, finally the links in the nav template are getting blue and correct. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 18:46, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion!

Hi Thaddeus, I saw this edit fly by on Recent Changes and took your suggestion to heart. Guess what, it's a FASCINATING topic and I managed to pull something out of it--look at Yibir now (and I put it up at DYK). Thanks again, Drmies (talk) 16:40, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

No, thank you for doing so much work to improve the article. I took a bit of flack for dePRODing this article (see above), but I am certainly glad I did now. Thanks again for making a decent article out of this stub/perpetual POV target. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:52, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

NDepend

Could you restore the article on NDepend please? (It was deleted as an expired PROD). A quick search of Google News [1] indicates that it has had some coverage in third party sources. 194.60.38.10 (talk) 13:22, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I have restored the article per your request. However, it is still subject to deletion via the "articles for deletion" process. If someone chooses to nominate it for deletion via that process, the community will decide if it should stay or go. AfD deletions can't be easily undone, so it is best you improve the article to limit the chance it will be sent to AfD to begin with. The article needs to be expanded, and most importantly it needs third party references in reliable sources. This could include newspapers, magazines, books, or major websites, but can't include press releases or material derived from press releases. These references don't have to be found online, but it is helpful if they are.

If you find some references and need help adding them to the article, let me know. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:49, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, ThaddeusB. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Bot requests.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

im sorry, i just think its too important to be forgotten Tim1357 (talk) 01:34, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, you win. I'll put it on my to-do list. :) --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:43, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Im sorry! I did not want to come off as annoying, as I know I CAN be. Congrats on getting WebCite bot up and running! Tim1357 (talk) 01:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Not annoying at all. It is a good idea, I just never prioritized it. Your passion for the idea convinced me it is worth doing. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:16, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Spammer

User talk:MillionDollarDare. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 03:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

never mind sir. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 03:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

European Super League

You have been claiming that you will add content to European Super League for nearly two months, but barely anything has been added in that time. Maybe you should start writing before I decide to take the article to AfD. – PeeJay 09:59, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I already plan to work on it in the next 2-3 days or so. --ThaddeusB (talk) 11:54, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Peter Moody

Hi, you have recently deleted the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Moody. Apparently due to not being notable. Not sure if it reaches your shores but Pete Moody is a Voice Coach on UK tv inc. TRISHA GODARD SHOW and SHOWCASE TV - He also works for the X-factor team. As a member of his fan club I was a little upset to see him removed and would really like to know how to get the article back - does it need adding to? Can I Do something? I notice one of the comments on the deletion page said you are not notible unless you are in congress? Guess that counts out all people from the UK? - Bit confused by this? thank you for your time - Steph V —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.34.80.209 (talk) 00:51, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Well you are in luck. The article was deleted via our proposal deletion process. In short, this process allows an article to be deleted if no one objects within 7 days time, but also allows the article to be undeleted upon request at any time. (I didn't actually request it be deleted , I just push the button after the 7 days had passed.) I will restore the article immediately.

Now, the bad news. Once it has been undeleted, anyone can nominate the article for more permanent deletion via our articles for deletion process. If that happens, the community will decide whether it should stay or go based upon our notability guidelines. The best way to prevent this from happening is to add references to third party reliable sources. This may include newspapers, magazines, books, or major websites among other things. These sources should talk about Mr. Moody, not just mention him in passing and can not be press releases or material derived from press releases. The coverage doesn't have to be available online, but it helps if it is.

I don't have time to help you find sources, but if you need help properly adding them to the article after you find them, let me know. I will be glad to help with that part of the process, if needed. Feel free to ask me for help, or use the help desk if you need further assistance. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Let the facts speak for themselves

I was linking to this today when I realized to my horror that this simple, eloquent recommendation was removed....By consensus! Now, I know that only jaded, old WP editors hang out in the WP:discussion pages, but I always loved this simple "You don't need to say Hitler is bad" guideline. It tended to focus the mission of WP and always seemed very... Jimbo. Do you think there is a way we can reintroduce it? --Knulclunk (talk) 01:46, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't part of the discussion and have no opinion on it, but from what I saw there was pretty much unanimous agreement to delete then current wording. Opinion was split on what (if anything) to replace it with. Your best bet to get it back it some form is to make a strong case on the policy's talk page and hope others "see the light." --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Clayton Counts / The Beachles

Hi Thaddeus - I notice that you removed Clayton Counts' article. The article had been nominated for deletion, and the decision was 'keep.' Mr. Counts is currently in a drone band called Bull of Heaven, who have pieces of music that last for days. They have one piece that is an entire week long. In addition, there were other links in Mr. Counts' article that were independent of the Beachles controversy, including a Chicago Reader article describing an altercation with a bouncer prior to the Beachles' release. I'm not criticizing your decision to delete the article, but I am curious if this was your decision ultimately, and if so what prompted it. I would think that the AfD decision would count for something, and that his accomplishments merit his inclusion here, most especially because his page had been ranked as Start Class for Contemporary Composers. If Clayton Counts' article is non-notable, I would think that several other mash-up creators should have their articles reviewed for independent notability as well. TrevorPearce (talk) 05:48, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't delete the page - I merely redirected it. An AfD closing as keep doesn't prevent the later editorial move of redirecting, nor does it even prevent later deletion.

You are free to undo the redirect if you really want, but it was about 90% duplicate info with no claim of notability independent of the event. If the page were to have another AfD today, I imagine the result would be different as I think the first one was rather too close to the event for people to objectively evaluate Mr. Counts' notability. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:53, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I hear you. The main reason I thought it should be kept is that he is responsible for making the remix, and is mentioned by name in all the references. Now that he's creating pieces of music that go on for weeks, I'm sure he'll end up needing a proper bio one day, unless no one aside from me sees that as a notable achievement. As of right now, there's probably not anything to add to the existing article. TrevorPearce (talk) 15:25, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Superstar (Toy-Box Song)

My page "Superstar (Toy-Box Song)" was deleted and I don't understand why, I know that it did not meet some standards but there was not much info that I could dig up! So I am here to inform you that the page will be recreated in the exact same way it was (unless I get more info on it), and if it is deleted again I will be notified and the page will again be recreated. Multimusiclover1 (talk) 03:41, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

You are in luck, as the page was deleted via the proposed deletion process. Another editor nominated it for deletion and no one objected for 7 days time, which meant it could be deleted. I merely pushed the button to delete it after the requite 7 days. This process allows the article to restored at any time no questions asked, so I have restored in to Superstar (Toy-Box song). However, this doesn't mean it can't be deleted again. Any editor can send it to article for deletion (AfD) at anytime. If that happens, it will be up to the community to decide if it stays or goes and deletion via that process can't be easily undone. The best way to avoid that happening is to add third party references to reliable sources that talk abut the song in depth or show that it charted on a notable chart. Keep in mind that most songs aren't notable - see WP:NSONGS. If improvements aren't forthcoming within a couple, I will send it to AfD myself.

You should know, however, that the tone of your message here is completely inappropriate. First of all, you don't own the article. Second, what you have threatened to do (restore deleted material over & over again) is disruptive editing and is grounds for a block. Please take a minute to read over some of the links on your talk page to get a better understanding of what is and what is not acceptable around here.

Have a nice day, ThaddeusB (talk) 04:07, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: SoftJin

Hi,

Thanks for the update and thanks for making the SoftJin page available temporarily at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:ThaddeusB/SoftJin&action=edit. I will try my best to edit it and put references there to make it notable.

I shall do this in a couple of weeks time. I hope that is all right.

thanks, Bhardwaj —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhardwaj.dss (talk • contribs) 08:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: AfD Phatchance

Hi, I found your page off of user:Duffbeerforme he had prod tagged one of your articles a while ago. He's put one of the first articles I've poured any work in to up for afd discussion and I'd love your interjection/opinion on the matter, I feel it's an article worth keeping or expanding and would love an administrator's view point, especially as you seem interested in giving smaller bands and labels a chance for articles, I spent more than an hour digging up sources for the page and really found some well verified third parties but they seem to be being ignored in the discussion. I'm quite new to Wikipedia so I could use your opinion, even if that's to delete, I feel like there's an imagined animosity between myself and him because I edited some articles he'd apparently contributed to (we're in a small genre) and he felt I was targeting him (which I promise you I was not)

Cheers Stevezimmy (talk) 02:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I commented. Unfortunately the articles chances seem pretty slim despite you efforts, as there isn't much to establish notability. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:30, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough :) I guess I am in the wrong, still quite new to the whole thing, I'll take it back to the drawing board, I appreciate your time Stevezimmy (talk) 02:32, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Template:Incubate

I like it. -Stevertigo (wlog | talk | edits) 05:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Future templates

First of all thanks for taking on this closing. This is probably not necessary but I just wanted to make sure you were also taking the collapsed discussions and perhaps the talk page into consideration... as if the RFC section isn't big enough. That's all. Thanks again. Equazcion (talk) 21:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

After about 2 hours of reading/thinking & 30-45 minutes of actually writing out my close, it is done. Hopefully that solves the issue. (For anyone wondering what this is, see Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Deprecating_"Future"_templates#RFC) --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I know that couldn't have been easy. Thanks. Equazcion (talk) 03:01, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks from here, too! I really hope this satisfies everyone. And for once, I entirely support the usage of WP:IAR. :) One minor thing, tho: You write "The reviewing admin is instructed to ignore all !votes that don't directly argue about how it is more or less useful/important than average" about the individual TfDs (emphasis mine). Considering that you only mention "more useful/important" in the previous sentence, was that intentional? Your closing comments indicate that there have to be especially strong arguments to keep an individual template, but that one sentence implies that there have to be especially strong arguments to delete it, too (which would make "This template isn't more useful than others" an invalid !vote). I'd rather have this clarified before any large discussion about this starts on a TfD. :) Thanks again for taking the time and effort to close this large discussion. --Conti|✉ 11:37, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Wow, Conti. If I ever need a contract reviewed, I'm coming to you. :) Equazcion (talk) 12:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Changed from "is more or less..." to "is or is not more..." to avoid ambiguity. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:41, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

A well done closure, I must say. At the time I closed the first discussion, it seemed quite obvious what the consensus was so I didn't elaborate it to much detail (and you got my point correctly, yes ;-) ). When the debate got renewed, I didn't want to get involved much because of obvious reasons but I followed the development. And I believe that the IAR is well invoked here since it is the most reasonable guideline to proceed with those possibly useful templates. So, good job! --Tone 19:54, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for the kind words. They are much appreciated. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:45, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

SignpostBot

Hello ThaddeusB. I was wondering I could get the process of delivering Wikipedia Signpost articles automated. You see, there are bots that do it, but there is a considerable backlog and those bots can't always get it done. I inquired here and it was suggested that more bots be recruited. I was wondering if you knew how to make that bot? I or somebody else could operate it, and once a week, it would become active and deliver Signpost articles. Thanks, Airplaneman ^talk 23:25, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Advice on bot request

Hello, I noticed your name while looking for direction on the WP:BTR page and wondered if you could give me some advice. A user, Lando09 (talk · contribs), is currently editing rugby league pages, replacing the existing {{infobox rugby league biography}} with his own, newly-created, {{infobox rugby league super league biography}}. He has altered several hundred articles (probably more) in the space of a day or so and while a few of the members of WP:RL have attempted to revert the edits it looks as though it could be a time-consuming job. Is this sort of thing too small for a bot request? Any advice would be appreciated. (The new template has been listed for deletion Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 September 20.)  florrie  04:57, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

First, make sure he has stopped doing this so he doesn't create anymore work to be undone.

Second, it is probably easier to undo all the changes using AWB that write a bot for such a specialized task. If you need help undoing them after the TfD closes, let me know, and I'll lend a hand. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:31, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

1) Wish us luck. 2) Will do. Cheers,  florrie  22:59, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

FYI, the corresponding TFD closed as delete, and the links have been converted back. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The Nightgowns

Hi - just curious on the reasoning for not speedy deleting this one. The only refs that are marginally evidence showing notability are the two "Weekly volcano" articles - which is a local interest arts paper. I don't see anything outside of that local interest demonstrating notability. Also, note that it was created by Ty88 (talk · contribs), who was blocked as a sock of Team unicorn (talk · contribs), who was blocked for disruption of re-re-creating promotional articles - neither user engaged in any discussion about their edits. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:09, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

In short "marginally evidence of notability" is sufficient to decline speedy deletion. That doesn't mean the subject is notable enough for inclusion, just that it is ineligible for speedy deletion. The next step would be to PROD it or send to AfD if you think the band is non-notable. --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:13, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I understand the reasoning now. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:15, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Assignment 1

Let me know how I did. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 04:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

You did pretty well; not perfect, but if you were already perfect you wouldn't need by help. :) I commented more thoroughly on the actual page. If anything is unclear, or you have questions you can reply to my comments on that page. I'll get back to you with your next assignment shortly. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually went there before coming here to check my grade. Was it an A- or only a B+ ? I'll be heading out soon to do some posing at CSULB for the next few hours... I'll check in when I get back home. PS: I almost simply passed on that twisty Georgian one, as Google translate wouldm't touch it... but when I tried just one twisty word, GT said "we don't tramslate Georgian"... so I knew the language was at least real. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:27, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bob the Wikipedian

Been a rough day, but I believe I'm finally caught up on answering the sudden explosion of questions. Thanks for your patience! Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

BAG and BOTS

I posted this asking User:Hesperian to get involved about the BAG drive-by approval process that may see your poorly thought-out bot, with unmonitored data, without community consensus, be approved for a trial run. --69.225.3.119 (talk) 01:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Once again, what EXACTLY is "poorly thought-out"? Once again, how is RS data that many eyes have checked "unmonitored data"? Once again, you stating your opinion doesn't make it a fact that there is "no consensus" for this task.

Also, it is nice to know that when you don't get you way, you resort to canvassing & then come here to rub it in my face? --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:46, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Everything that I already mentioned. That you chose to ignore and say was invalid rather than addressing. Where's the consensus? You were asked to post it already. If I hadn't alerted interested parties, instead of accusing me of canvasing, would you be accusing me of stealth? Yes, "hissy fit," "passive aggressive," all my issues are non-issues because you say so. Canvasing now. How many insults and personal attacks do you get? Any limit? My issues are on the bot RFBA. You opted to say my issues are invalid. They're not. Others agree they're not invalid issues. --69.225.3.119 (talk) 02:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't make any of those comments, except for the canvassing part - which is true. Please get your facts straight. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Nymphonics

Really? Wikipedia has articles on some of the most menial, insignificant topics and people out there but because there does not exist other articles about the band you deemed it not "worthy" enough to be on a FREE website that has the fact checking skills of Fox News and Glen Beck. This was supposed to be a stupid present for friends of mine from college after we just graduated together and you had to delete it for incidental reasons. I hope you had fun swinging your powerful Wikipedia editing stick around. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uchuty11 (talk • contribs)

Sorry your "friend's band" doesn't meet our standards, but the fact that we have standards is a good thing, not a bad thing. If we allowed anyone to write whatever they wanted about anything then we'd be a lot closer to resembling your comment than if we didn't. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

And sure... if you want a FREE website on which to create a present with which surprise your friends.... build them one on Facebook or Myspace. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 22:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

BEAMES

Hi - you deleted my page BEAMES about Bath Engineering Society, but don't seem to have looked at my argument that Durham Univeristy Engineering Society still happily exists. Also, is there any way I can get my content back?Welshgolfer (talk) 09:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I did read what you wrote, but the problem is it wasn't a valid argument. The fact that some other engineering society has a page says nothing about the notability of BEAMES. Your argument is the equivalent of saying McDonald's is notable therefore every hamburger joint is notable. See the fallacy here?

In any case, if you'd like a copy of the content you can email me using Special:EmailUser/ThaddeusB and I'll be happy to supply it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:49, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Iboga Records

Hi Thaddeus. You removed a prod from Iboga Records as "the label has released some notable albums". That does not satisfy wp:corp. Whenever you remove my prods I leave a lot of time before returning to those articles but after further investigation I still can't see this article satisfying wp:corp. A few "notable" releases does not seem enough. I am thinking AFD is the go. Please feel fre to comment. Duffbeerforme (talk) 14:39, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for coming here. I won't object if you send it to AfD as I mainly deprodded because I felt it should be discussed before being deleted. However, I have an alternative suggestion - how about I send to to WP:INCUBATE and see if anyone can come up with some more solid sourcing. It seems reasonably plausible to me that there is more out there than what GNews knows about. Incubation moves it from mainspace to a noindexed page so that will at least remove it from search engines. What do you say? --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:00, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, incubation looks like a good idea for this article. Duffbeerforme (talk) 10:30, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Bot question

Hey Thaddeus, long time. Bot related question, is there a bot that can create infoboxes for current articles based on a data set? I've been creating pages in Category:Indian women cricketers and adding infoboxes is a tedious process, so was wondering about this. The template in use is {{Infobox cricketer biography}}. About 25-35 pages in this cat weren't created by me, and most of them are missing infoboxes, so rather than add them in manually, I was wondering if there's some way to get a bot to do it. I'm also creating a lot of pages for Indian books, so it'll come in handy for that too. Let me know. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 19:00, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

It is technically possible, but the bot would somehow have to figure out the data to put in each field. Without looking at the specifics, I can say that is probably going to be rather difficult. since we are only talking about ~30 pages here, it is probably more effort to make a bot than just do it manually. However, if there is a reasonable chance of you using it for a much larger number of article (i.e. newly created ones) than let me know. Perhaps there is some database it can pull data from rather than using the article text? That would help a lot.

The novels idea has some possibility since this potentially applies to a very large number of articles. It also has the benefit of me being able to pull data from something like openlibrary.org. I'll definitely think about it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:08, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I've been focused on this cat, but I'd say that over 30% of cricketer bios don't have infoboxes, and there are a lot of pages still left to be created (that pass WP:Athlete) in this area. If you look at Sudha Shah, the references can go to two databases - Cricinfo and CricketArchive (e.g. [2] and [3]) and the entire infobox can be sourced from them, preferably the CricketArchive one as that is more complete for First class stats. Does this hold some promise? If yes, then I can request a couple of people from WP:Cricket to define specs etc. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 18:48, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is probably viable. (Assuming it doesn't violate the TOS of the websites in question, which I haven't checked.) Go ahead and generate a spec list. I must warn you, however, that there is a possibility the idea will generate opposition once it gets to BRFA as there are those who feel bots shouldn't be used to "generate content" which this could possibly be seen as. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:15, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Let me read the ToS on both sites carefully. However, if content creation is an issue, can we just use the bot to add infoboxes to existing articles. That way, a human will still be required to create the article and then add to the bot's queue before it does anything. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 20:21, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

"Future Templates"

I just read the discussion at the page you mentioned and according to that if a person thinks that one of templates should be kept they should send them to WP:TFD. I also noticed that one of the templates seems to have been kept per discussion. Feinoha ^{Talk, My master} 22:49, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The first part of your statement is correct - any "future" template not sent to TfD within the next 10 days or so will be deleted. As to Template:Future product, I do not believe that template has actually been through such a TfD. The removal of the notice seems to have been a single editor acting on his own accord & has since been reverted. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:12, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

InterMapper

You haven't expanded InterMapper since contesting my prod. While I realize you may be busy, could you at least link me to where notability is established? 黒い白い (KuroiShiroi) 22:04, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

You are right; I have been very busy and not done much of anything in depth on Wikipedia recently. As to notability, this search should yield plenty of viable sources. Remember, only 2 sources that talk about the subject in depth are required to establish notability. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I will link to that search on its talk page in hopes that someone can come along and help the article out. 黒い白い (KuroiShiroi) 03:26, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Bob the Wikpedian's RfA support

...was a bit late :) –Juliancolton | ^Talk 04:05, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It must have closed as I was typing my support, as it hadn't closed yet when I hit edit. (It also closed 9 hours early, so I couldn't have anticipated that.) In any case, not a big deal, as the vote was irrelevant to the outcome. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It appears that the requests are done on GMT, in which case the closing was only 10 minutes late. But thanks for your support, anyway-- and yes, it does make a difference...it means I know you are backing me!  :) Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:08, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Oldprodfull

Hi. You previously viewed my talk page and advised that I should add 'oldprodfull' to talk pages. You can see I have recently been de-prodding a small number of the mass of football articles being prod'ed. The majority of these are going straight to AfD. Is it still worth adding oldprodfull. Regards. Eldumpo (talk) 16:16, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd say no. An AfD is going to override a prod - that is, an article that survives AfD can't be legitimately proded. As such there is no point in having both an oldafd and an oldprod tag on the same talk page. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:53, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

A reply to "Expert opinion needed"

Hi Thaddeus, I read your post on the Project Gastropods talk page and I just wanted to say something about these Sepkoski lists... User JoJan and I struggled for a long time in 2008 to clean up and fix up a simple list of "Prehistoric gastropod genera" generated from one of these lists. One problem that we perceive as living mollusk researchers is that a considerable number of the genera are still extant, some of them very much so. We think that calling them "prehistoric" gives a misleading impression. We finally came up with "List of marine gastropod genera in the fossil record" as a title, which I see has now been changed back to "List of prehistoric marine gastropod genera" by User:Abyssal. Invertzoo (talk) 21:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank for the reply. I wonder is there really a reason to call an article "List of prehistoric starfish," for example, instead of just "List of starfish?" --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Technically these are lists of organisms found in the fossil records. This is bulky nomenclature for a general encyclopedia. I have glanced through all of the lists, and, as I said before, they all contain numerous extant species, not just extant species, but common and well-known extant species, making the current name, using "prehistoric," confusing. I opt for the bulky title over the inaccurate one. The simple title "list of starfish," for some lists, will confuse the fact that some common or very well-known extant species are not well-represented in the fossil record. This may give confusion to the reader: if this is a list of this members of this taxon, why isn't something well-known included?

The lists need to indicate that species found in the fossil record may include extant species. I don't know how to word it well, but it needs to be worded for the general reader. Also, the taxonomy sections are too long. I suggested a streamlined version somewhere.

Wikipedia has some very nice mollusc articles, by the way. --69.225.5.4 (talk) 07:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Also, ThaddeusB, can you put up a single centralized discussion page for this, rather than having it all over various editor talk pages. My IPs change a lot, so my talk pages are not useful. --69.225.5.4 (talk) 17:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I will copy everything to User_talk:ContentCreationBOT after posting this. I suggest further discussion go there. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:20, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Gast

Too many to list all of them. There almost as many gastropods as insects. Abyssal (talk) 01:17, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

If you have a moment...

Please check my reasoning at Talk:Rat-Trap. The original title has the greater searchable notability. After doing my homework, I attempted a move, but it seems that since the original name is now a redirect, this will take an admin. I believe a move back is the correct decision. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 05:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Should be all cleared up now. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:09, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for handling the complicated move. Let me know when lesson two is ready. Best, MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 19:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

List of what kind of gastropods? [4]

Too be honest, these Seplowski lists are not very useful. We seriously considered deleting our list article altogether about a year ago, but instead we did a huge amount of work to turn it into something vaguely respectable-looking, but still I don't think it is a very useful list at all. It absolutely cannot be called a "list of gastropod genera", and it certainly cannot be called a "list of gastropods". It is not even remotely complete in either of those ways and is unlikely to ever become so. This is why:

The list contains only those marine gastropod genera that have been found in the fossil record. It includes no land or freshwater gastropod genera whatsoever, of which there are a very large number. It includes no sea slug genera whatsoever, of which there are many hundreds. It includes no species of any kind whatsoever. Many gastropod genera have been found in the fossil record, but countless thousands of minute or fragile shelled genera have never been found as fossils and probably never will be. Most genera that have no shells left no trace whatsoever in the fossil record. Even in terms of larger, more solidly shelled species, only a tiny fraction of all the genera that ever lived have been found in the fossil record, which is of course extremely patchy and incomplete by its very nature.

The list we have does however include a number of bogus genera which were first described as gastropods, but which are no longer considered to be gastropods, and which in many cases are not even considered to be mollusks!!

The list is arranged alphabetically, not by family. All in all it is not very useful at all to anyone who is interested in living gastropods. I am not even sure how useful it is to paleontologists who study gastropods.

I imagine many of these same objections apply to the other group lists from this same source. Sorry, but there you go... best, Invertzoo (talk) 18:14, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Useful commentary. The intention was, at some point, to only list valid species from the paleontology database, but use Sepkowski for age ranges. However, the lists appear to include all species from Sepkowski, even though Sepkowski has since been updated.

Sepkowski does contain only marine taxa. I thought the taxa were being pulled from paleoDB, though, not Sepkowski, so I did not catch that the species on the lists were only marine; also I only checked the chitons and some of the crustaceans to any extent, both are outside my area, and my focus is marine, so, I'd miss that the lists were only marine. This is why these lists require your input, Invertzoo!

The bogus gastropods, and mollusks, would these then be still listed as valid species in the paleontology database? --69.225.5.4 (talk) 18:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I personally had no idea of any of this. Remember, I didn't generate the lists and the bot is only filing them in. To answer the specific question, it would be listed as invalid if it 1) has been renamed\found be an error\etc. - I.E. if the taxa itself is considered invalid or 2) it was demoted to a sub-genus. However, if the genus was moved to another class bu not renamed, it would be listed as valid. I do not know if this is what was intended by Abyssal or not - either he didn't consider it or he didn't feel it was a problem, as I was never informed of this possibility.

If stub creation ever takes place, the stubs wouldn't suffer in this way, as all classification data would be coming from paleodb and not be reliant on an existing Wikipedia table. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:17, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

A coupla things....

First, many of the things on this page as sandboxes are actually because they were moved from sandbox to mainspace. Sure looks worse than it is. Any way to remove the un-needed redirects? Might make the page look less cluttered. Second, this: User:MichaelQSchmidt/sandbox Reed Cowan is ready for your incubator. A few more tweaks and it should be fine back in mainspace, Thanks, MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 08:17, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You didn't hyperlink "this page", but based on your post on DGG's page/the AfD linked to there, I am assuming you mean the redirect found here. I'll be happy to delete them once you confirm that is what you mean. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:16, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry. Good eyes. That is indeed the page listing the redirects. But not all are redirects. Thank you. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:47, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Michael, You simply type {{db-author}} on the pages you only contributed too. Otherwise see Wikipedia:Speedy#Redirects Ikip (talk) 19:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup complete. :) Only two redirect remain & they point to other places in your userspace. Ikip is correct that you could have tagged them for speedy, but it wouldn't have actually saved any admin work & would have cost you some time, so this request was perfectly fine.

P.S. Feel free to move anything you want into the incubator - I trust your judgment. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:20, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Ikip may have misunderstood my request. I understand how to tag for G7 to request deletion of a page I may have created... or blanking it to signify I wish its deletion. This was a different problem. After develop new articles in a sandbox, I moved them to mainspace, rather than do a cut and paste. This has left numerous redirects from the sandboxes that were seen here. Since the redirects from my sandbox to mainspace were not neccessary, it was those that I wished removed. ThaddeusB done real good. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 05:25, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Hungarian infoboxes

Hi. I was wondering if you could code a bot to successfully transfer infoboxes on Hungarian wikipedia into english but to avoid initial errors like Délegyháza? Bascially I believe all you'd have to do is find out what each paramter means and then get it to display infobox settlement in english like User:Himalayan Explorer/Hungary rather than Magyar. Could you help? Himalayan 19:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I can help. You are correct that it should be a 1:1 correlation in most cases. I'll take a look into the specifics within a day or two.

P.S. I haven't forgot about the transwiki project - I just put it on hold because I've been on wiki a lot less recently. However, I should be able to finally get to it pretty soon. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:08, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Incubation process

G'day, thanks for the message. On the "eval=status" thing, personally I'm not yet convinced that it's necessary. I mean, I can make articles in namespace normally without getting approval, just as I can split and merge articles etc. I guess it would make sense for someone from the incubation team to check *after* I've moved it back into mainspace, but it feels to me to be an unnecessary bureaucratic step to require that *before*.

Regarding copy-pasting rather than moving the article, thanks for the tip. For some reason I didn't think I'd be able to move the page over an existing deleted page. I guess I was wrong. And you're right about keeping the attribution being important. Thanks for fixing up the history - I'm not an admin so couldn't do it. Stevage 12:41, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/The Auto-categorizing Robot

This task is now approved, and the bot has been flagged, so feel free to start when ever you want. Also, I must say, I'm most impressed by the bot, so:

		The Wikipedia Bot Builder Award
		For the impressive coding of The Auto-categorizing Robot, and the time you put into Wikipedia bots, I Kingpin13 (talk), present ThaddeusB with The Bot Builder Award. Keep it up :) - Kingpin13 (talk) 17:06, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Best, - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:06, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the recognition - it is very much appreciated. I didn't previously know this award existed, but I must say it is pretty sweet.

To me, programming a bot to do something that requires making an intelligent decision (i.e. adding a specific state category) is far more interesting that just having it blindly do the same thing to every page (i.e. add the national catgeory). Of course the later can be useful at times, but I like to do the former and fight the perception that bots are incapable of making decisions.

Thanks again, ThaddeusB (talk) 01:28, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:ANI thread about User:CobraBot

I see that you have closed this as requiring no administrator action. I disagree. This bot is still running despite no consensus having been reached as to whether its edits are appropriate, and despite this assurance by the operator, so administrator action, i.e. blocking until consensus is reached, is very much needed. Allowing the bot to carry on goes against the principle of WP:BRD, i.e. that it should be possible for an edit to be reverted until discussion leads to a consensus. There's no way that I can keep up with all the bot's bold edits to revert them, which it very difficult to have a calm discussion. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:02, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello

Just wanted to say your the only one with any intelligence on here recently someone has erased the article Mikoyan LMFS i was just wondering if you can make a page linking it to a page on the Fifth Generation fighter Jet Being built by Russia the LMFS you can find tons of information on it just right on google Mikoyan LMFS globalsecruity thanks so much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LMFS (talk • contribs) 02:01, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

The page was deleted as a copyright violation. It seems someone came and dumped a block of copyrighted text over the top of your humble little stub and the deleting admin didn't think to check for that possibility. I have restored the pre-copyright violation version of the text, cleaned it up a bit, and added it to my watchlist to prevent that from happening again. As far as expanding the article goes, I'll see what I can do but it will probably be a while before I get to it. (Unless one of my talk page lurkers gets to it first. :)) --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:47, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks ThaddeusB for the reminder. Cheers from Down Under Buckshot06(prof) 02:56, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Help with Tagging Appreciated

I've only tagged a photo once, and that was years ago for my entry on Chung Keng Quee, my great grand father. That one was from a very old source and someone helped me with the tag.

I now have a problem with the picture for Ong Hock Thye, former Chief Justice of Malaya (1968-1973), my uncle. I got the pic from my cousin, the daughter of the late Chief Justice who knows exactly where it's going -- I had asked her for a pic for my Wiki entry on her dad. The pic would have been taken in 1968 upon his elevation to Chief Justice.

I've tried looking at the picture tag page but have come away more confused than ever.

Help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jefferyseow (talk • contribs)

I tagged the image File:Image-OngHockThyeChiefJusticeofMalaya.jpg and added some copyright information on his talk page. I don't think there is anything we can do for him until he responds to the issues I mentioned. ww2censor (talk) 17:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Jefferyseow also posted on my talk page but indicates that he does not want to go to and fro, so I am posting my main reply here and will do so until he resolves the copyright problem. Here is the problem, according to Malaysian law, per Commons:Commons:Licensing#Malaysia, copyright subsists for 50 years after the death of the author, or for 50 years after first publication. If we assume the image dates from 1968 then it will come out of copyright in 2018 but if it was never published before (now) then 2059 will be the date. Your only possibility is to claim fair-use so long as you can comply with all ten non free content criteria as a historic image which might be possible seeing as he is dead. ww2censor (talk) 16:11, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Cutting a long story short

Can anyone tell me what is the correct tag for something that was outside the United States and before 1975. I think that there is something in copyright that says if it was outside the USA and before 1975 it is in the public domain ie no need for copyright permission. Yes or no? As for proof that the pis is before that date, please see my uncles date of birth and date of death in my Wiki essay.

Does any of this make any sense?

As to Malaysia's Copyright act of 1987 --- the act was made in 1987. Part 1 (Preliminary) Section 2 (Extent of application) Subsection [1] Subject to this section and section 59A and regulations made under section 59A, this Act shall apply in relation to works made before the commencement of this Act as it applies in relation to works made after the commencement of this Act: Provided that this section shall not be construed as reviving any copyrights which had expired before the commencement of this Act.

And finally, and this one I really do not understand, is that anything we commission does not belong to us? I mean, say I go to a Professional Photo studio for the purpose of having a proper pic done for use example in my Passport, or a press release that I am handing out... and later on the photographer can sue me? Doesn't copyright refer to creative work? And isn't something I commission and pay for, different from that?

The Copyright act of 1987 grants creators/owners private property rights to control the use of their works in Malaysia including via broadcast and public performance. It follows that the buying of a cassette/CD does not give the buyer an automatic right to broadcast or play the same in public unless consent or licence is first obtained from the copyright owner. But if, for example, I go to a recording studio with my band and we record something and get a CD out of that. Am I the copyright owner? Or the studio whose facilities I made use of?

Malaysia's Copyright Act of 1987 Part IV - Ownership and Assignment of Copyright. Section 26. First ownership of copyright. Subsection [1] Copyright conferred by section 10 shall vest initially in the author. Subsection [2] Notwithstanding subsection [6] of section 27, where a work (a) is commissioned by a person who is not the suthor's employer under a contract or service of apprenticeshi; or (b) not having been so commissioned, is made in the course of the author's employment, the copyright shall be deemed to be transferred to the person who commissioned the work or the author's employer, subject to any agreement between the parties excluding or limiting such transfer.

Look at the pic. Is that a creative work or art? No. It's something you or I would go to a photo studio, pay the guy money i.e. commission him to take a photo for us with full knowledge that we are going to go out and use it in any way we wish.

Because we bought it.

No? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jefferyseow (talk • contribs)

I don't work with pictures very often but I am pretty sure there is no such tag. Each country sets their own copyright laws and we respect the laws of each country separately. In most countries, the law is something like 50, 75, or 100 years after publication. Malaysia appears to be 50 years which means the photo is still under copyright.

As to the second part, int the United States and most other countries, it is the photographer that owns the right to the photo. If I go to a photo studio and get a picture of myself the photo studio owns the copyright unless explicitly stated otherwise. I see no reason to believe Malaysia is any different.

The "author" of a book, song, or photo is the same in everty case - the person who created it. In the case of a photo it isn't the subject of the photo who created it, but rather the photographer. --ThaddeusB (talk) 12:22, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

But I just highlighted the relevant portion of the Copyright act which shows that "Notwithstanding subsection [6] of section 27, where a work (a) is commissioned by a person who is not the suthor's employer under a contract or service of apprenticeshi; or (b) not having been so commissioned, is made in the course of the author's employment, the copyright shall be deemed to be transferred to the person who commissioned the work or the author's employer, subject to any agreement between the parties excluding or limiting such transfer." That's Malaysian law. The copyright rests with my dead uncle who commissioned the work. Sigh. No one seems to be hearing me. I give up. --Jefferyseow|Jefferyseow (talk)

Well, as a (likely) official picture that would mean his employer (the court) owns the picture. But either way the picture is under copyright until 50 years after it was either published (2018-2023) or your uncle's death (2027). Again, you best strategy here is to claim fair use.--ThaddeusB (talk) 14:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Orangutang (band)

Hi, please don't forget that you promised in June to add sources about the band to Orangutang. - Fayenatic (talk) 17:28, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

== Talkback ==

Hello, ThaddeusB. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:Dead external links.
Message added 00:19, 5 October 2009 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks for taking the time to get this project up and running again! Tim1357 (talk) 00:19, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Hiya! You graciously agreed to re-launch the project a little while ago. How is the progress? If you have to much on your plate, then I can take a stab at it. I would probably use the python script (checklinks.py) , and try to modify it a bit. However, it would be some effort because I would have to get a tool-server account (I'm not sure my internet can handle it). Plus, I'm not sure the script produces a well-formatted list of dead external links. Tim1357 (talk) 00:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

User:S-J-S-F-M-W

I thought I detected a stench from that account--thanks for blocking it. His edits were a problem, but marginal enough to make me hesitant to block based on what I knew at the time. 75.181.10.227 (talk) 21:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

That above comment was from me ... just as I hit "save," somehow it logged me out ... grrrr, blasted MediaWiki ... Blueboy96 21:10, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. I agree that the edits themselves werem't problematic enough for an immediate block - it was the totality of the evidence (collected by others) that did it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:55, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

New dump

Just a quick note, there's a new bot dump for the journal database bot to go through. Would be nice to get an update list. See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia#Presentation tweak Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I meant to reply to this earlier... I have a couple higher priority tasks on my agenda, but I should be able to make the modifications and re-run within a week or so. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:45, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Any update? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 15:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been super busy with the GeoCities closure, but today is the last day for that so I should be able to get back to this within the next couple days. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:15, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll make sure to go get something up this week - hopefully complete with all the desired changes. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:21, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd Like your input...

Hello,

Im not sure if you knew this, but Geocities is shutting down. A lot of people are woried about all of the dead links that are going to be created. Seeing as you have significant expertise in this area, I'd like to see what you have to say. The discussion is at Wikipedia:VPPR#When GeoCities shuts down, how should we handle links to its sites? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tim1357 (talk • contribs)

Hello, and thanks for all your work on fixing dead and dying links to GeoCities and Encarta. I was wondering if it's worth putting a request for help or comments on Template:Centralized discussion? If WebCiteBot's working fine as it is, then there's no need to invite well-intended meddling, but if on the other hand, you're looking for help chasing down dead links or searching all those other possible hosts, I could add a note to the Village Pump section above, and then add some kind of appropriate call for assistance to the Cent. template. —— Shakescene (talk) 00:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I shouldn't need any help from human editors, but thanks for the offer. I'll let you know if anything changes. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:15, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

You might be interested in Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#My_new_Template. Equazcion (talk) 00:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Bot feedback needed...

...here. It's a bot to assist Wikiproject Intertranswiki, so your advice has been specifically requested Fritzpoll (talk) 12:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Your assistance in the process would also be much appreciated!! Drawing up this missing directory is going to take some time even at bot rate! Himalayan 13:58, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Salyut UFO "Sighting" PROD

Hi! some time ago you removed a proposal for deletion in an article (Salyut UFO sighting), stating that there was media coverage about it. If you check the link you put in the comment, you'll see that the UFO thing was a practical joke on metallic foil debris, and then the rest of the story was made up by ufologists.

I keep my opinion on that the article should be deleted due to it being a made up story, having no references and being an orphan article.

Regards, Guido.scalise (talk) 14:59, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I never claimed the story was true (and never thought it was). The threshold for notability is coverage in reliable sources, not truth. Hoaxes most certainly can be notable, and the RS coverage makes this one notable. As to not having references, that is a problem that can easily be solved via editing so deletion isn't required (and if we deleted every unreferenced article we'd loose half the encyclopedia, so it is hardly a unusual problem either.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:13, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

filter 213

Just want to make sure that the string isn't affected.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:17, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

User:Elstong

I would like you to look over the block you made to this user. From my perspective, this looks far more like an old established user steamrolling a new user rather than a bona fide case of disruptive posting. Trusilver 01:36, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

You are right. I jumped to conclusions based on the edits and failed to consider the lack of proper warnings explanation. User unblocked. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:16, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Please note that Dinkytown, who first reverted the edit, explained painstakingly why the edit was wrong. Trusilver, if you're going to accuse me of "steamrolling" please check the edit history of the article first, and have the civility and decency to address your concerns about my edits to me, rather than libeling me without bothering to dicsuss the concerns with me. I have replied to your statement on Elstong's talk page. Had I been aware of this, I would have clarified the misunderstanding, as Thaddeus has now unblocked, which I do not disagree with, but used an incorrect edit summary, which I do disagree with. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 02:19, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I intended to place blame only on myself, not on anyone else. The only judgment I am making is that I personally acted too hastily. I do not believe you "steamrolled" anyone, and your actions did not factor into my unblock. Sorry for creating unnecessary drama. :( --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:23, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Please note I did not ask for a block. However, your unblock summary states, incorrecly, that no one explained what was "wrong" with his edits. This is inaccurate. I wished to ensure you were aware; that is all. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 02:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was aware of it at the time of the unblock, although I am not sure what you are referring to... in the unblock message I said "Further explanation and/or warnings should have been given before I considered a block" (meaning be me); in the edit summary I just said "unblock request accepted". I can modify the unblock language if you want, but again I don't understand which part is inaccurate. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:33, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

That is not the verbiage I see in the block log; I see I acted too hastily, considering no one really explained to this user the problem with his edits - which is why I felt the need to inform you the problem had, in fact, been explained, before I even arrived. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 02:39, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for clearing up where the confusion came from. Next time, I will be more careful to use consistent (and accurate) language... I actually made the unblock after editing the talk page & I guess I messed up a bit on the language. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:43, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

No worries; I'm glad we're now on the same page. I was beginning to be very confused, and know it must have been the same for you. Your patience in sticking with this until we had mutual understanding is much appreciated. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 02:47, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

You didn't create any drama at all, don't worry about that. Trusilver 02:46, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:Incubate

In case I wasn't clear before, feel free to use the template. In fact, I'm glad you guys have gotten that project started. Good luck, and I will be sure to put the concept to the test. ;-) -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 05:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

CC Bot

MoS prefers US to USA. Rich Farmbrough, 02:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC).

WebCiteBOT

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		For your exemplary work in creating and improving the WebCiteBOT.Blargh29 (talk) 05:20, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the recognition. It is always nice to know my work is appreciated. :) --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:20, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

User:UkFaith

FYI, subject to finding a suitable mentor, and other terms set out on their talk page, the Ban Appeals Subcommittee has decided to provisionally unblock this user. If you are interesting in helping with mentoring, can you please mention this on their talk page? Many thanks,  Roger Davies ^talk 12:53, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Assignment 3

I'm still answering the questions... and note that you have tossed in a few with some interesting twists. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 19:24, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I did my job then. :) Other than inexperience, copyright issues seem to be the most frequent reason for failure (although oddly many RfAs never get a copyright question issue). This is probably due to generally ignorance of the underlying policies. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Interesting test...

Hope Assignment3 does not disappoint. I learned a lot in completing it. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 03:20, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

DeadLinkBOT

Hello! It seems like DeadLinkBOT (contribs) has stopped running? Do we need a replacement for it? I would be willing to script up a bot to take its' place. Let me know. Nice speaking with you, MatthewYeager 17:38, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Since this popped up on my watchlist, I've got a couple of link replacement tasks for DeadLinkBOT, if it is still in operation? --Tothwolf (talk) 17:46, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

It is still functional. It runs "on demand," that is when there is need to replace specific links. I haven't personally sought out any dead link replacements for a while, so it hasn't been active. I will be happy to run it again if you know of anything that needs done. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:30, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

The links I'd like DeadLinkBOT to tackle are IETF RFC links that point to faqs.org: "http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc([0-9]+).html" [5] and the old locations on ietf.org: "http://www.apps.ietf.org/rfc/rfc([0-9]+).html" "http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc([0-9]+).txt" "http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc([0-9]+).txt" [6] These should be updated to point to: "http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc$number"
MediaWiki:Rfcurl was updated back in August 2004 from "http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/" to "http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/" [7] and then in May 2006 and August of 2006 to point to "http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc(number)" [8] [9] but we still have a lot of manually created links in all sorts of namespaces that point to the old locations.
I came across these while doing prep work for {{Cite IETF}} and had considered doing them myself but DeadLinkBOT would make short work of them. Updating these should be very easy since the only thing that needs to be extracted is the RFC number and a really simple regular expression will do the job.
--Tothwolf (talk) 22:47, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

23000 Dead links

We're in imminent danger of having another 23000 dead links to geocities.com. We need your help to recruit an army to attack the problem in only one week. Please see my detailed request. Sorry for the double post to the BOT page, I'm hoping to catch you today to see if what we need is even possible. Thanks! --UncleDouggie (talk) 05:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

GA reviews

I reverted all of Gotham City's GA reviews and I need some help deleting his bogus reviews. See the ANI thread. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 22:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Someone took care of it (the deletion) while I was away at dinner. Thanks for your help. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

"reverting after being informed the subject was being discussed at ANI"

Re your block of User:Bali ultimate - is this really a valid reason? Given that page histories and versions are available indefinitely I assumed that editing the page in question would be normal practice, even if there is a current AN/I discussion.   pablo_hablo. 23:54, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Reverting while knowing an attempt to resolve the situation is being made (either direction) serves no purpose but to perpetuate the problem. I will happily unblock if he agrees to join the discussion and not revert further. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

OK thanks - I suppose it is a bit of a wrong version/right version situation.   pablo_hablo. 23:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Deadlinkbot

Thanks to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center deciding to change their website around completely we in the Wikiproject Tropical Cyclones have a lot of links which need pointing to their new homes. Anyway i was wondering if youre bot would be able to do it at all? Thanks Jason Rees (talk) 00:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I might be able to help. Could you supply some examples of links that have changed or point me to the discussion about the change? Thanks, ThaddeusB (talk) 01:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Geocities

Do you expect to get all 30,000 done before the deadline? MBisanz ^talk 17:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't yet have enough data to say with confidence that there will be enough time, but I should have a better idea by tomorrow (I'll reply here again when I know.) If it looks like it'll be close, I'll switch it to archive only mode (i.e. no Wikipedia page writes), which will speed it up significant. It can always go back later and edit the Wikipedia pages, but it can't go back and archive pages after they are gone. :)

I'm also going to try to get through as many foreign Wikipedias as possible on an archive only basis. I imagine a fairly large % of the links will be duplicate, so hopefully that won't add too much. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:03, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I had a bit of a disaster where I accidentally overwrote my updated code with an old version, so I was set back ~24 hours by having to fix it. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to make an accurate guess as to if there is enough time or not. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:33, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you hitting bandwith limitations and just need more bandwith? If so and this is something that can be run on a *nix host let me know as there may be something I can do. --Tothwolf (talk) 08:54, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the offer. However, the problem lies not in the technical end, but on the human end. I had to make a significant number of modifications to my existing code for the new functionality (on demand archiving of links to a specific site). I have been having trouble finding time to adequately test everything, but I had some time today & I think it is 100% ready to go now.

I already have a backup plan ready to go if the main bot proves too slow - an archive only version (no Wikipedia writes). I'll start up this version my mid-day Saturday if things seem to be progressing too slow on the main bot. --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:13, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Any chance of saving this link (no. 18) which appeared on the Reference Desk/Misc. only yesterday? Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous#Double-spacing with typewriters? —— Shakescene (talk) 20:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Archived at http://www.webcitation.org/5kp7c3mO1 --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks; I've adjusted the corresponding citation on the Ref Desk page. They may not know it now but it should turn out to be pppp-rrrretttty hannn-ddddy when this computer bubble finally bursts and everyone needs to learn once again how to operate a typewriter properly. Nothing will impress a future recruiter more than a high wpm. :-) —— Shakescene (talk) 05:09, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Based on the current rate of archival, it should be able to get through all of enwiki's links before the deadline. The fate of the foreign wikipedia links will depend on what time exactly Yahoo shuts it down. --ThaddeusB (talk) 05:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Final Stats

• 40683 unique URLs archived
• 6365 URLs take were 403/404/508. Not sure about the 508 (which were a very small number), but the others were very unlikely to ever be available again even if GeoCities stayed open forever. A few % of these were probably due to onwiki typos, but the vast majority were due to normal linkrot; that is, sites moving or disappearing on their own.
• 81 URLs missed due to 503 (temporary unavailable errors): These would have been available given enough time. All pages were tried at least twice.
• or 86.3% saved, 13.5% already dead, and 0.2% missed. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:45, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

So when can we expect to see the links updated in wikipedia? I see that the bot has updated Encarta links already. Tim1357 (talk) 02:11, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yah, I moved to Encarta for a while since it was more pressing... It will probably be a couple weeks at least before all the links are actually updated. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:25, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

RFA spam

Thank you for participating in WP:Requests for adminship/Kww 3
Sometimes, being turned back at the door isn't such a bad thing

—Kww(talk) 19:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Need your opinion on some photographs

Hi. Can you provide you opinion on this matter? Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 01:48, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

db-g6

You're an admin, right? I just tagged Wikipedia:Linkrot for db-g6 speedy delete. I think we have consensus. Maybe you can delete it?--Blargh29 (talk) 01:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done Deleted & moved. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for the sig...see, I'm often wrong! Frmatt (talk) 01:41, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing with making mistakes - everyone does. The problem arises when one refuses to admit their mistakes, especially if that person happens to be an admin. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:43, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Would you mind closing an AfD for me?

A well-meaning editor created an article for Kirti Chakra (film) and under that name it went to AfD. I began to research it in thinking to improve it, and discovered that the film already had a much better article under the title Kirtichakra. I wrote the nominator about this and he has not come across this type of duplication before [10]. As the AfD is a moot excersize that need not continue, is there a procedure where it might be early closed as not being neccessary? And then setting a simple redirect from the well-meaning stub name to the actual complete article? I though to do a bold non-admin close myself, but I've already commented at the AfD. Might you look in? MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 07:31, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done - The AfD close and the resulting page move have been taken care of. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Nice job renaming Kirtichakra to Keerti Chakra and redirecting both film articles to the better spelling. No doubt it was all quite confusing until you found the more phonetic title. There may be similar such in the future, but we can handle them on a case by case. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I guess there's nothing more to do than congratulate you on your efficiency. Kind regards, HJMitchell You rang? 16:36, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Emu article

Hello ThaddeusB, many thanks for the emu article. Best Regards Burmeister (talk) 15:58, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

You are most welcome. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:33, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

AllAfrica.com

In relation to your request at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request#AllAfrica.com, you should know that AllAfrica.com doesn't have original content, I believe, but rather simply reprint articles from other media companies. If you search for the article names, you can often find the original publisher of the content (if the original publisher publishes online). If you need some help, let me know and I can possibly help you to search for articles. --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 11:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

How did you go with those articles? --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 16:03, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your offer. From AllAfricia, one can get the title and date of an article, but not the original source. As far as I know, none of these are available online outside of AA. The articles I need are as follows:

• "Canonising Mediocrity, Uzoatu And ANA/Cadbury Prize" (2004-12-21): "When I read Uzor Maxim Uzoatu's piece in the Arts and Review page of THISDAY, (and later, Vanguard) something in the periphery of anger welled up inside of me. A review of the issues he had brought up in that piece bothers on his personal opinion ... "
• "Eko Ree And Ana/Cadbury Prize: Canonizing Mediocrity" (2004-12-06): "I HAVE had cause over the years to read many new Nigerian writers in manuscript.When I do get these manuscripts sent to my desk, I try as much as possible to be objective and thorough in the assessment..."
• "Honours for the Writers" (2004-11-08): "The association of Nigerian authors, ANA, honours its deserving members..."

Let me know if you are able to track any of these down. --ThaddeusB-public (talk) 18:30, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The first article is available at http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-18302668_ITM and is from http://www.thisdayonline.com/. The second article is available at http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-14735711_ITM and is from http://www.vanguardngr.com/. The last article is available at http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-14344580_ITM and is from http://thenewsng.com/. To read articles in full at that site, I simply use 10018 as my post code, and use XXXXX.XXXXXX+(add some numbers here)@gmail.com, and choose the second library. This should give you the full article. Hope this helps. --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 18:34, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly what I needed! Thank you for your help! --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:00, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Within wikipedia?

RE: Wikipedia_talk:Article_Rescue_Squadron#Exporting_articles_to_other_wikis

Two very distinct questions please:

1. So as long as I copy and paste the article history to talk, then this will satisfy this largely ignored rule?
2. Does this apply to wikipedia too? i.e. if I were to merge a section of an article, as long as I copy and paste the history to the talk page (say in a collapsible section on the talk page) then this would satisfy this rule?

Thanks. Ikip (talk) 13:50, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes & Yes. Both the GFDL and CC-BY-SA require that all "non-trivial" contributors be created in some form. Normally this is done by linking back to the Wikipedia article which has the history for attribution. However, the rule can be satisfied by listing the names as well. Thus, a copy & paste of the history will suffice (plus a sentence saying it came from Wikipedia originally to be safe).

See also m:Help:Transwiki which has instructions (basically the same as what I just said) for copying to sites where you don't have Special:Import access; and Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content which has more detailed info. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:07, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Entry

Hi,

One of my fans doing research on me for a paper he is writing on up-and-coming Speculative Fiction writers for college emailed me to say the Wikipedia.org pages about me had been deleted on the basis I was not noteworthy enough for this amateurish e-publication. Interesting.

I didn't realize having 14 YA novels published, developing and writing the Universal Monsters series, and developing a fantasy series for Working Partners, LTD. were not noteworthy

Then again, I'm a professional writer and not someone who fully understands the workings of noteworthy stuff as defined by high school graduates. I just write and do my best to entertain. Perhaps those who "research" to determine Wikipedia.org "noteworthies" need a refresher course in research skills.

Thank you for helping me understand this unique concept. I referred the researcher writing the essay on me to other sources as well as gave him a personal interview.

Good luck in your bourgeois endeavors.

All the best, Larry Mike Garmon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.233.176.65 (talk) 00:06, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello, in short notability and importance are not the same thing. For someone or something to be notable as defined by Wikipedia that person or thing must be covered by two reliable sources in depth. For an author such as yourself, this may include things such as book reviews, newspaper articles, or magazine interviews.

The reason we have this policy is that without third party sources discussing a subject, there is no way for us to verify any information. We don't want to get around spreading untruths, especially about living people. For example if we didn't have this policy, someone could write "Larry Garmon was arrested for selling illegal drugs and soliciting prostitution" in your article. It is out verifiability policy that keeps lies like that off of Wikipedia - and naturally if there is nothing we can independently verify about you, there is nothing we can write about you either.

Now, if you do know of some third party reliable sources that talk about you and/or your work, let me know and I'll see what I can to help you. --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:47, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Inline Citation Help

I'm new to Wikipedia so I thought I'd start with a simple page about my local mall to feel things out. When I look at the Village Mall page I created it suggests that I include Inline Citations...how do I do that? I read over the Help section about Inline Citations but didn't really "get it." I'd appreciate your help a lot, once I've mastered the mall's page I plan on creating others! Thanks for your help! TerriKnight (talk) 16:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! I will be glad to help. Adding inline citations can be complicated, but it doesn't have to be. The easiest way is just to do something like: This is a cool fact.<ref>[http://www.example.com News article]</ref> Taking a sentence from the Village Mall article and one of its sources (I didn't check if the source actually back the claim), you could write something like: The mall has a gross leasable area of 527,000 square feet.<ref>[http://web2.sys-con.com/node/1057878 Web2Journal.com Article]</ref>. The stuff in between the "ref" tags will appear as a footnote where ever you put {{reflist}} (normally as the first line in the references section).

If you have any further questions, let me know. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:20, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

ThaddeusB - Do you mind looking at my page and telling me if I configured that correctly? I appreciate your help and time. TerriKnight (talk) 18:58, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

You formatted correctly, but I have made a few tweaks to make the formatting a bit better. --ThaddeusB-public (talk) 19:48, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Many, many thanks! TerriKnight (talk) 20:31, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Wayback Bot

Hey there thaddeusB,

I did some research on the wayback machine, to help with that bot I've been pestering you about. Like you said, the bot would have to find an archived version that is at least close to the date it was accessed, so here is my solution.

Let us assume that the range for deviation from the access-date is 4 months.

And lets have example.com be our example dead link.

Also, the accessdate for that is July, 2008.

Because we have a range of four monthes, (2 months in either direction) our date range (in yyyymm format) would be.

200805 and 200809

So, in the wayback url, type the following

web.archive.org/web/200805-200809/example.com

this would produce the archived version closest to the center of the provided range. If no archive exists in the provided range, then it returns "no archive".

This, of course, works if there is an "accessdate" parameter given. If it is not given, you can query wikiblame, which gives the accesdate.

Use the following url, replacing pagename with the page's name, and linkname with the link's name.

http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php?
project=wikipedia&article=pagename&needle=linkname&lang=en&limit=2000&ignorefirst=0&
offjahr=2009&offmon=10&offtag=26&searchmethod=int&order=asc

the page will produce a statement "insertion found between (datestamp) and (datestamp), which can then be substituted for the accessdate. Whew, and thats all i got. I might have just spent a lot of time telling you things you already knew, but I thought that was a good way to work through the problems you listed in the bot request i originally made. tell me what you think. Tim1357 (talk) 21:15, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for "pestering" me. I, in fact, was completely unaware of the wikiblame system and only vaguely familiar with the archive.org system so the information was definitely helpful. Hopefully I'll find the tim geocities e to program the bot soon. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:24, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Definitely take your time, this is not nearly as urgent as geocities, what do we have, 16 hours left? Good luck! Tim1357 (talk) 00:30, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

No idea really - the wording is quite vague. I don't really expect it to suddenly disappear at 12:01a, although it is possible. I wouldn't be surprised to see at least one links linger on for a few days. If they are truly deleting every page like they claim, that will take quite some time to complete.

As far as progress goes, all 26k enwiki links finished shortly after midnight yesterday. The combined total of all foreign language Wikipedia has about 3k links to go out of 51k. Then I have to do another run through to try and get some of the "503 - temporarily unavailable pages" (~1% of total). Based on the rate so far, it looks like a bit less than 2 hours of archiving remains. I believe just about everything salvageable (nearly 10% were already dead) will be archived in time. :) It will be awhile before all the Wikipedia pages are updated though. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:48, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Fantastic! I almost sent an email to yahoo begging them to wait a few more hours, I thought it would be really that close. Kudos for getting the job done so quickly! Tim1357 (talk) 00:56, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Some of the existing dead links may have been page renames or prior removals (like when Yahoo purged untold numbers of inactive accounts) and may still be salvageable with archive.org. --Tothwolf (talk) 20:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, many of these sites probably decayed for the "normal" reasons of people abandoning their project or changing sites and not leaving redirects behind. The higher rate than normal is probably due at least in part to people moving when they learned GeoCities was closing. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:16, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Whither?

There's a concentration of other free sites where GeoCities hosts were being encouraged to migrate (see my discussions in the archives of WP:Village Pump (proposals) derived from the GeoCities article in Wikipedia and the GeoCities home page: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/close/close-07.html ), so at some point, some kind of search-and-locate operation may be called for. Much of this will have to be done by humans, but is there any way that a 'bot could automate part of the search? —— Shakescene (talk) 00:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but not easily. It has been my ambition for some time to write a bot that seeks out where dead poages have moved to. However, I have not yet had the time to actually do it. --ThaddeusB-public (talk) 20:58, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Did I forget to thank you? ..

ThaddeusB ,Thank you for participating in my RfA, which passed nearly unanimously with 174 in support, 2 in opposition and 1 neutral votes. Special thanks goes to RegentsPark, Samir and John Carter for their kind nomination and support. I am truly honored by the trust and confidence that the community has placed in me. I thank you for your kind inputs and I will be sincerely looking at the reasons that people opposed me so I can improve in those areas ( including my english ;) ). If you ever need anything please feel free to ask me and I would be happy to help you :). Have a great day ! -- Tinu Cherian - 06:02, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Linkrot

I have expanded the Wikipedia:Linkrot to a decent length. Would you take a look at it before I go any further? Also, we are going to have to figure out where this page exists in the Wikipedia cosmology, as compared to WP:DEADREF.--Blargh29 (talk) 19:40, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I have completed a major rewrite of Wikipedia:Linkrot, an essay that you commented on in the past. Would you be interested in reviewing it for grammar, comprehensiveness, and clarity? In the next few days, I will place notices of the rewrite at the Village Pump and maybe the signpost.--Blargh29 (talk) 05:03, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks pretty good overall. I did some copyediting and clarified a few points. As the page currently stands, it is largely duplicative of DEADREF, but with more in depth information. That is perfectly fine for now. Ultimately the page should be expanded to include what it did before (specific deadlinks in need of repair), but of course that will require up to date information, which in turn requires me to get off my butt and finish the program to generate said information. (Well really it isn't a question of being lazy, just of being pressed for time due to real world concerns.) --ThaddeusB-public (talk) 21:24, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

OCLC outside linkage to worldcat website

A discussion about whether of not the infobox books template should include outside linkage from the OCLC number is posted here. You are being notified because you posted in a discussion at infobox books about this template functionality. Please stop be and include your input into the issue at the link. Thanks. --69.226.106.109 (talk) 06:52, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/userfication

Hi, do you think you might comment at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/userfication? I tried to sketch a system that might address some of the concerns you raised on userfication, so far with no feedback on that despite it being on WP:CENT. :( Rd232 ^talk 18:10, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Input requested...

I've done considerable work on Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Reed Cowan and wish it to be evaluated for possible return to mainspace. He has numerous awards and nominations as a TV journalist that push at bringing him in per WP:ANYBIO. And even if some feel regional Emmy Awards are not notable, that the "regions" being covered represent such a large portion of the US, is indicative that their notability as awards is reasonable to presume and easier to source. Further, and since the death of his son, Cowan is a newsman who is now making the news. He is now himself the subject of news coverage as an activist and filmmaker, thus allowing him to exceeds the requirements of WP:GNG. Any thoughts or advice would be most welcome. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 22:24, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've been meaning to take a look at that one. I'll try to get to it tonight. (And hopefully evaluate your assignment as well - these darn website closures have been eating up all my Wikipedia time lately.) --ThaddeusB-public (talk) 22:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Heather Harmon

Thanks for your input on Heather Harmon. I agree with your argument. This is only the first out of 7 days for discussion on this. I would appreciate your opinion later on in the discussion. -- Stillwaterising (talk) 22:28, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

No worries - I always watch every AfD I comment on and follow up when I feel it is helpful. --ThaddeusB-public (talk) 22:02, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

CourtTV Linkrot

It's possible this problem has been brought up and is being addressed somewhere, but I wasn't sure where. And seeing as how you've developed a bot for the correcting dead links, I figured you'd be a good place to start in getting it resolved. With CourtTV's change to 'TruTV', they made sweeping changes to their domain as well. As a result, just about every unarchived link, external or reference, to CourtTV sources has been rendered useless (they now redirect to TruTV's redirect page).

For example, several references on this page, this page, and an External Link here. No doubt this affects countless other pages covering notable trials and/or criminals. I haven't figured out which of the two links on that redirect page lead to the archived documents generally being referenced, so I'm not sure if the repair process could be automated. Is this something your bot could be configured to fix?

That being asked, I notice this page was created with every CourtTV reference archived, but I can't tell if it was done as a result of this issue or if it was just someone maintaining best practice citation habit.
-K10wnsta (talk) 19:40, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I know you've got a lot of conversations with a lot of different editors going on here and you may have missed this particular query, so I'm just posting a bump in the hope that you'll catch it. :^)
--K10wnsta (talk) 19:49, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing my attention to your post. I'll take a look and see what I can do. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

How do you handle it?

I noticed you patrol the Proposed deletion page. So I went and looked around. I found Medallion of Merit prodded, so I propose it be merged to Phi Sigma Kappa as a reasonble solution to put the information where it has context. Then I came across a real quandary. I found that an anonymous IP had prodded Wonder Camp with the explanation "This charity isn't notable. Google News and Books searches show nothing if one looks with "Skin Disease" or any of the names of the people listed in the article". But in my own doing a search with the actual name "Wonder Camp", as well as a search for the founder, I found all sorts of stuff... so I added a list of potential sources to the talk page, deprodded, and moved it to the correct title. Then I decided not to simply leave it as I found it and so did some cleanup, expansion, and sourcing, turning THIS into THIS before coming to yourtalk page. Do many anonymous IP prodders make such claims about unsuccessful searches when searches are actually quite fruitful? Sigh. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:58, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure I'd be happy to give such advice. First, I normally wouldn't propose a merger at all, and certainly not on a PRODed article. Unlike deletion discussions and requested moves, mergers don't have any centralized forum and as such they usually aren't commented on at all except in rare controversial cases. As such, the article will just be deleted at the end of 7 days and you'll have wasted your time.

When I fell content is worth merging, I just do it. Now in this case, I don't think there is anything worth saving. The article basically just says it is an award given by the frat. Additionally, I can't justify redirecting that generic title to the frat's page. There are 150k Google hits for the phrase, but only 1k of those are actually about the frat's award.

Now as to the second question, when I was patrolling prods regularly (haven't had the time for the last month+), I would usually pay little or no attention to the rationale given. It is not at all uncommon to find notable subjects proded as "not notable." IPs can't start an AfD so they do tend to be over represented in PROD nominations, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are less accurate as a group.

I did every now-and-then find a fraudulent PROD - either with a faked date or a dishonest rationale - but those are the rare exceptions. Most bad prod noms are a combination of different philosophy ("is crap now=delete" vs. "can be improved=keep") or carelessness ("don't look notable to me"). In short, the same attitudes that cause bad AfD noms.

Certainly there is are a tons of articles that could be saved on PROD (and AfD, and even CSD). Many are even improvable to GA status - Household Hacker had to be saved from both PROD and AfD, but is now a GA. The question, as always, is finding the people and the hours to do it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:32, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Something to ponder....

This diff shows how a move often breaks references. I have myself created articles in a sandbox and moved then to mainspace only to discovver that many of the cites were damaged in the move... Example 1, Example 2

Now, while this does not happen every time I've moved from sandbox to mainspace, why does cite breakage happen at all? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:11, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

This is a new one to me, but I was able to dig up the answer... The errors already existed before the move, but were the error messages were suppressed until the move. It seems that when a page is loaded cite.php, among other things, is called. This particular php converts the <ref>s into html and adds a special temmplate: {{broken ref}} to the page. This template generates the error messages, but outside of certain spaces the template purposely doesn't display anything. Page in wikipedia space (and thus the incubator) don't generate error messages and until very recently user space didn't either. Both of the moves from your userspace occurred before the change.

This seems like a really annoying "feature" to me, but apparently before it was enabled people would constantly complain about getting error messages on talk pages and such. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:50, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:WebCite

I just wrote Wikipedia:Using WebCite. You want to check it out?--Blargh29 (talk) 01:53, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Another notice

I just created {{IUCNlink}}. The documentation might need a little more depth, but at least it works. Ucucha 02:59, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I was just about to get to that task. :) --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:03, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, it wasn't a lot of work anyway. ;-) Good luck with the bot. Ucucha 03:26, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

you have some gall

How dare you accuse me of sockpuppetry you stupid idiot?Kingroodney (talk) 07:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Deletion review for Janet Allison

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Janet Allison. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Power.corrupts (talk) 12:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Continuation war

Thanks for the, er, warning, but the guy is yet another obvious sockpuppet of the permabanned yet ever prolific user:Art Dominique, whose sole purpose of being here consists of doing what he is doing (same mindless edit, disregarding everyone else's opinion). You may want to review this talk archive, the various sockpuppetry cases for background information, or just ask the other regulars at the article page. He was a significant threat in the olden days, but now is mostly a household pest. --Illythr (talk) 16:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see you've made Checkuser request. I'm not familiar with the new procedure, but it might make sense to reopen the case with Art Dominique as the master. However, his latest confirmed puppet is some 10 months old, so positive results are unlikely. Guess after two or so years of almost constant practice, one does get a knack at this kind of thing. --Illythr (talk) 20:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be against policy: CheckUser should not be requested to investigate canvassing or meatpuppetry, or if the account(s) suspected have not edited for many months. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if they cause enough disruption to be blocked per WP:DUCK.

To your latest question: Art Dominique was obsessed specifically with the Continuation war - almost all his socks were single purpose accounts that pushed the same POV with single-minded focus into that one article. He also edited some topic-relevant articles like Battle of Tali-Ihantala, but the primary article is his main haunt. The latest one seems to be a significant upgrade from the usual - he actually made a valid point before reverting to the usual mantra. --Illythr (talk) 21:10, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Harmon

You made the argument: You are comparing a website to a person. According to policy, entertainers are explicitly notable based on part on their popularity ("cult following"). No such criteria exists for websites. That is the crucial difference here. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

My response is: I would like the argue that Ideepthroat.com's popularity is almost entirely due to Heather's presence on the site. While there were occasionally other women (and of course her husband Jim), Heather is the undeniably the star attraction and therefore fans of the website are by proxy fans of Heather Harmon. -Stillwaterising (talk) 16:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stillwaterising (talk • contribs)

Please help me undelete my page?

Hi ThaddeusB! I imagine you probably get some angry notes asking you to undelete pages, so I want to preface this by assuring you I am a friendly commenter and, when in doubt, please put a friendly spin on your interpretation of all the following sentences. (I am new to this collaboration thing, so sorry in advance if I mess anything up, but at least I signed with a timestamp!)

Could you please un-delete the Lozenge and Hampshire wikipedia page? It's HERE Apparently, it was deleted because it failed to demonstrate the "...achievements, impact or historical significance" of the Lozenge and Hampshire browser-based point and click adventure game (which is no-longer online).

While I respect the fact that the moving party generally bears the burden of proof, I feel that I have a slight amount of unfair bias to overcome in establishing the significance of a browser-based game that was never aggressively marketed and distributed commercially. Sometimes, the measure of something's worth is not in the money it makes, but rather in the impact it has and its innate quality, and, that being said, despite the inherent difficulty of establishing said characteristics, there were several cited references in the original page to websites, blogs, and internet records which demonstrate the popularity and the appeal of this browser-based game and indicating people's sorrow that it is currently offline.

Moreover, a new site has recently come to my attention which calls attention to the enduring popularity of this game. the site is at the url here. It is called the Lozenge and Hampshire Preservation Society.

For your convenience, after the text of this comment is the text of the Lozenge and Hampshire wikipedia entry as it existed prior to deletion (recovered from this site--this site

Thanks for your consideration!

--Sirbennet (talk) 22:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Lozenge and Hampshire

Lozenge and Hampshire is a browser-based adventure game [11] series for all ages.

The game series was created by James Evans and was hosted at the site http://www.frontiernet.net/~adani/lozenge/mystery [12] . While the site is no longer in operation, it can still be found using the Wayback Machine Internet Archive, although the games are no longer playable [13] .

Series Description

Here is a description of the series, taken from the Lozenge and Hampshire Fan Forum [14] :

Randolph Lozenge and Archibald Hampshire, the RGDs (Really Good Detectives) solve mysteries from their flat in Baker Street, owned by Mrs. Bunson. Accompanied by PC Fudge and assigned their missions by Inspector Bungham, they've encountered everything from a foreign chef to a murderous Santa! However, they always keep their cool, and, depite the eccentricity of their universe, they continue to solve any case that crosses their path. The characters and setting are inspired by the Sherlock Holmes novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.Fact|date=October 2007 Despite being offline for several years, the series is missed for its droll sense of humor and solid adventure gameplay.Fact|date=October 2007 Its current absence from the Internet is discussed in online forums [15] .

List of Lozenge and Hampshire games:

The Case of the Dead Person

The Case of the Curious Odor

The Case of the Baronial Stiff [16]

External links

The Wayback Machine Internet Archive of Lozenge and Hampshire's Homepage:

• http://web.archive.org/web/20020803051153/www.frontiernet.net/~adani/lozenge/mystery/

Forums discussing the games and game sites listing them:

• http://www.network54.com/Forum/112216/login?action=signup
• http://justadventure.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?action=print;num=1091898783
• http://www.gamesover.com/adventuret.htm

Hello,

Since the page was deleted via the proposed deletion process I was able to restore it for you without any further question. However, that is no guarantee it won't be deleted later. If someone so chooses, they can send it to WP:AfD where it will be up to the community to decide if it is notable or not. An article deleted via AfD is much harder to restore, so I suggest that you add any reliable sources you can find to the article as son as possible. That might include newspaper articles, magazine reviews, or well-known third party websites. Fan generated material and forum posts normally won't work.

Let me know if you have any questions or require further assistance, ThaddeusB (talk) 18:27, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

email

Hello, email me Michal.Manas@tiscali.cz the source, please. Thank you. --Snek01 (talk) 15:48, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Email sent. Please let me know if there are any problems with the document. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:57, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Continuation War: No opposing views presented so far for the newer proposal

Cheers Thaddeus. Please take a look at the newer version, and my related text on the Talk:Continuation War page. In the newer version a sub-header was given for the last portion of the segment, where the Soviet offensive is discussed. There hasn't been opponents, Thaddeus - not in writing anyway. May we leave it there, unless someone opposes and explains their reason for opposing on the talk page ? I believe this version is more agreeable to all, because no longer are we suggesting to alter the segment's main header. Thanks. Boris Novikov (talk) 06:18, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Copyright question

Hi, Thaddeus. Regarding that copyright discussion a couple weeks ago, an editor has tagged the Chesty Morgan article as a violation, because it was imported from Boobpedia. I was the significant author of the original BP article, as can be checked at that project, and the BP version was finished a couple weeks before I imported it here. My understanding is that this permits me to share the work with BP. Perhaps you can clarify over here? : Talk:Chesty Morgan Thanks! Dekkappai (talk) 20:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Re:Threat

As evaluated, I am seriously having my anger and depression get ahold of me. I am a big mouthy, cheating idiot to most people, so I may as well just ignore this situation entirely. Works much better than arguing crap about someone who hates my guts for a stupid article writing belief.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 01:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, if I didn't have peer pressure, the comments may have been worse. I am on a couple medications for alternative behavior issues, and basically, when something becomes a basic part of life, it kind of gets to you. I lost interest in his bickering over my GAs a couple years ago. I am expanding another stub so its better to keep my time there.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 02:25, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

ANi Q

Thaddues, I am genuinely perplexed why Hesperian and you seem don't consider Shot Info and Basket of puppies to be "actually neutral editors" with respect to the Australian Vaccination Network article. I must admit that I am unfamiliar with both the article subject and the involved editors; so can you tell me the backstory, since there is nothing in the current history (that I can see) that supports this assumption. Abecedare (talk) 05:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Basket most likely is a neutral editor, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Shot is questionable.

That isn't really the issue though. The protection is warranted to force people to calm down and work out their differences, possibly through the help of neutral editors like Basket. There were something like 20 reverts in the last 24 hours and I see no reason to believe that would stop just b/c one of the parties is now blocked. --ThaddeusB (talk) 05:45, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I have tweaked my ANI comment to add the word "more", thus implying some of the existing editors are indeed neutral. :) --ThaddeusB (talk) 05:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the article history I don't see two parties in a content dispute: I see an IP and Corruptioninmedicine blanking sourced content without explanation, and others reverting them, giving the appropriate warnings and inviting them on the article talk page. So I still don't understand why this is being regarded as dispute between two (more or less) equally culpable sides. I would agree with you that "Repeatedly reverting to a highly biased version is an implicit endorsement of said version" if the other editor was removing material while indicating (through edit-summary or talk page discussion) that it was being removed due to bias concerns; else one is simply undoing vandalism without necessarily supporting the status quo in toto (cf my revert from a few hours back at an article that I think is in horribly poor state, though it is nominally an FA).

PS: I am dicussing this with you not because I have any interest in the article or the involved editors, but bacuse I know you to be a thoughtful editor through our earlier interactions at H1N1 related pages. Abecedare (talk) 06:02, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't think any party acted completely wrongly here (well maybe the guy who first wrote the biased article), but certainly no one was acting ideally here. Yes, Corruptioninmedicine should have used an edit summary (although it isn't actually required by rule). I will point out, however the he received only 1 accurate templated warning (the second was for "malicious redirects") and no attempt at personal communication was made. Shot info might well have just been trying to revert a blanking, but when it kept happening he should have bothered to actually read what he was reverting too. Two or three sentences in he would have realized it was horribly biased.

I can't speak for Hesperian, but for me the protection is the correct action, not because everyone involved was wrong, but to prevent further reversions. There is no doubt in my mind that if it wasn't protected it would have been reverted back by now. Ignoring Shot since he is likely good faith there are 58.174.33.170, Exazonk, Greengiantjolly, & Turlinjah all trying to push the "AVN is evil" POV. All are SPAs or socks interested only in this article. (Hmm, seems it is time to open an SPI.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 06:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I re-read the deleted parts of the article, and don't see the "horrible bias". The content Hesperian pointed out at ANI is actually sourced to this secondary source later in the article. Parts of the article rely on primary sources and borderline synthesis (an understandable newbie error by User:Exazonk), but other sections like "AVN Comments on Swine Flu", "AVN Comments on Swine Flu" etc are well sourced and neutrally written.
Of course the article would have been reverted back if it had been protected; in fact, it should be from the current unsourced and biased version and then the problematic sections can be culled and improved. Can anyone argue that,

"The organisation provides a vital community information service by critically examining and questioning the validity of the position of the powerful, lucrative and self-regulated phamaceutical, medical and scientific establishment, in their production, aggressive marketing and sale of vaccines for an ever increasing range of diseases under the deceptive guise of "evidence based medicine" and a "peer review" system which is seriously compromised by entrenched ideological and financial conflicts of interest."

is less biased (or even "equally bad") version ? Abecedare (talk) 06:45, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Ignore my above rant. I just realized a more productive direction; I'll create a sourced stub based on the earlier version and then ask for unprotection if it looks ok (should have thought of this earlier instead of discussing meta-issues!) Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 06:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The temp page is here in case you wish to lend a hand. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 06:54, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for that. The protection was never about which version was superior - Heperian protected the version that existed when he encountered the page. It is unfortunate that we all got distracted on arguing that point instead of just fixing the darn thing. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:42, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Can you take a look here when you are back online ? Abecedare (talk) 15:44, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

As soon as a couple editors voice their agreement I'll make the move/history merge. I don't want the current version to stand very long, but I don't want to make the move without giving a chance for additional input either.--ThaddeusB (talk) 15:50, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Ahmad Batebi

I've been participating in the discussion about unblocking this user (User talk:Ahmadbatebi). A couple questions and a comment:

1. How can I contact him by email to let him know about the unblock request, while still remaining anonymous?
2. If he's banned, I'm wondering how we tell whether it's him requesting to be unblocked, since he wouldn't be able to use his banned username. (I'm obviously not him, and I personally know User:CordeliaNaismith, who is also not him.)
3. I hope he has not left Wikipedia out of disillusionment with the system. In my opinion, the system really seems to have let him down. --AFriedman (talk) 03:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

1. Special:EmailUser/Ahmadbatebi would be the way, but he doesn't appear to have supplied an email when he joined.
2. He isn't banned, just blocked, and has the ability to edit his own talk page.
3. The situation is unfortunate, but he may return someday. If he does, I'm sure he will be comforted to see that two users have come to his defense.

--ThaddeusB (talk) 06:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. If you really think the situation is unfortunate, why don't you also leave a comforting note for Ahmadbatebi? I think having 3 users instead of 2 standing by him would help. Being an Iranian political prisoner, as Ahmad Batebi was, is a serious matter, and so is having one's own biography become a WP article. Batebi is not the only living person whose WP biography page was abusively vandalized--as a former notable Wikipedian, I can attest that mine also was. --AFriedman (talk) 06:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I like AFriedman's idea. Perhaps another useful place to leave a comforting note might be the talk page of the Ahmad Batebi article. Unfortunately, it looks like this talk page was extensively vandalized by banned user Joaj and his various confirmed sockpuppets. One big problem on this talk page is that Joaj etc. makes insulting comments about the subject of the article (not just the wikipedians involved in updating the page). There are some nasty comments on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lily_Mazahery page as well. Is is possible for Wikipedia to fix this by deleting the libelous postings? Thanks, CordeliaNaismith (talk) 08:04, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Input please

Would like your input here please. Note: This is a draft, to be kept in my namespace until the editor is off their block and their new contributions can be reviewed. Frmatt (talk) 07:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

User:Ahmadbatebi

It may be worth contacting him by e-mail if this is enabled as having been blocked for so long he might not be logging into his Wikipedia account. Mjroots (talk) 20:58, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, scrub that, I see he doesn't have an e-mail enabled. Maybe he has an external website which could be used to contact him? Mjroots (talk) 21:00, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:NEWT thread on ANI

I unresolved it since it's clearly not resolved; if it's to be moved away from ANI to WT:NEWT it would be better to shift the thread as a whole to that page so as not to split the discussion (because this will inevitably re-appear at ANI anyway). Black Kite 22:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

You do realize that ANI is for "reporting and discussing incidents on the English Wikipedia that require the intervention of administrators." What admin action do you feel is warranted here exactly? --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

One could argue that it has not yet been decided if any admin action is required. More importantly though, if the thread is to be "resolved" whilst people are still commenting it should be moved wholesale to WT:NEWT or at least to WP:AN. Black Kite 22:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Admins don't have the power to shut down or admonish the project, so there is really nothing an admin can do about it. However, I did already move it while you were writing the above as the discussion is likely helpful, and certainly can/should continue. Such discussion is best done outside of the "drama board" if you want anything productive to come from it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:55, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Black Kite 22:59, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Happy ThaddeusB's Day!

User:ThaddeusB has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as ThaddeusB's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear ThaddeusB! Peace, Rlevse 00:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC) A record of your Day will always be kept here.

For a userbox you can add to your userbox page, see User:Rlevse/Today/Happy Me Day! and my own userpage for a sample of how to use it. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I am truly honored. Thank you for the recognition; it means a lot to me. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:44, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

How appropriate. Many thanks for the trouble to which you went to track down those articles for me, too. Just what I needed. Regards, and congratulations! Bencherlite^Talk 02:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations! That's a very nice award. --AFriedman (talk) 21:38, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. Very well deserved. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

CSDWarnBot

Hey ThaddeusB :). Since we've both offered to write a bot to take over from CSDWarnBot, we need to figure out which one of use should actually write it. It doesn't really bother me, one way or the other, but my code is pretty much done. Let me know how you feel :) - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:24, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I wish ST47 had just been straight forward with us and not claimed he'd get the original back up, as the bot could have been long running by now if he hadn't. Obviously that didn't happen. If you've spent time writing new code, by all means feel free to take over the task. I was just going to reuse his code w/minor changes.

I saw that you arranged of someone to run it "for a while." Great! If that ever falls through, let me know and I can probably help out in that front. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:13, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

The AVN article

Hi Thad, Thanks for taking the time to explain about the AVN article, that was very nice of you. I am new at editing wiki. Relying mainly on secondary sources rather than primary ones is really tough for me to get my head around but I will try. I'm a virologist (which explains my interest in this topic). Nothing we do in research can cite secondary sources, and most of the time the media garble the outcomes of research.

I've noticed that a lot of other articles mainly concerned with science and/or medicine cite primary sources, usually in reputable, peer-reviewed journals. I wonder if there is something to be said for these wiki articles perhaps being better served by including both primary and secondary sources? Regardless, I will try my best to stay inside the wiki rules.

Thanks for writing! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Greengiantjolly (talk • contribs) 20:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I hope you don't mind if I answer your question. Secondary sources means sources are one step removed from the subject while Primary sources are a sort of "inside view". Primary sources are OK , Quote: Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Secondary sources are interpretations/analyzations of primary sources. Get it? Its kind of hard to describe, but I did my best. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask them-either at my talk page or by placing {{helpme}} on your talk page (including your question as well). If you want, you may read the introduction to using wikipedia. There are a lot of policies here, but they can all be summarized by these two- always cite what you add to an article, and try to keep a neutral point of view. Good luck! Tim1357 (talk) 00:34, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Another helpful point may be to remember that AVN isn't really a scientific article. Sure the organization is related to science, but its content should mostly be about the organization, not attempt to discredit their um, unusual views. Certainly scientific journals are top quality sources (and normally are secondary) and can and should be used, but I doubt their are any scientific studies that even bother to mention AVN. When I said primary I meant AVN's own writings.

It might be helpful to read WP:FRINGE. By policy, an article such as vaccines should be almost entirely about the mainstream view and only mention fringe views if they've garnered significant interest. However, an article about a fringe topic should primarily about the fringe view with an appropriate amount of disclaimer. It is a tough line to walk. Certainly we don't want to let their views stand unquestioned, but at the same time we don't want the article to be a hit piece. People interested in the mainstream view will go to the mainstream article and people interested in AVN should be allowed to learn what AVN thinks without excessive disclaimer. Hopefully that makes sense. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:43, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks guys, that makes sense. Greengiantjolly —Preceding undated comment added 22:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC).

I added a couple of references which I think should be OK. Let me know if not. Greengiantjolly

DYK for Australian Vaccination Network

On November 18, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Australian Vaccination Network, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 12:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Thaddeus, thanks for adding my name to the AVN DYK credits. The article is shaping up well, and does a good job of presenting the facts neutrally. Abecedare (talk) 21:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome & thanks. After I'm done I might nominate it for GA status, after getting feedback from a FRINGE regular. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:58, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Alexander Fiske-Harrison

I am trying to withdraw now from Wikipedia as media interest grows in my forthcoming book on the controversial topic of bullfighting (a subject on which I try to be impartial, inciting anger on both sides). As a result, I closed my userpage and blanked my talk page. However, I notice someone has vandalised the page about me, Alexander Fiske-Harrison, with information which is untrue, and, more importantly, unsourced. In the spirit of my withdrawal, and the avoidance of COI, please could you revert this. --Fiskeharrison (talk) 21:56, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

 Done - thanks for the notice. --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. --Fiskeharrison (talk) 22:05, 18 November 2009 (UTC)