User talk:Beetstra

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	Warning to Vandals: This user is armed with VandalProof.
	Warning to Spammers: This user is armed with Spamda
	This user knows where IRC hides the cookies, and knows how to feed them to AntiSpamBot.

Welcome to my talk page.

Please leave me a note by starting a new subject here
and please don't forget to sign your post

You may want to have a look at the subjects
in the header of this talkpage before starting a new subject.
The question you may have may already have been answered there

Dirk Beetstra


Wikipedia ads	file info – show another – #291

I am the main operator of User:COIBot. If you feel that your name is wrongly on the COI reports list because of an unfortunate overlap between your username and a certain link or text, please ask for whitelisting by starting a new subject on my talkpage. For a better answer please include some specific 'diffs' of your edits (you can copy the link from the report page). If you want a quicker response, make your case at WT:WPSPAM or WP:COIN.
COIBot - Talk to COIBot - listings - Link reports - User reports - Page reports

Responding

I will respond to talk messages where they started, trying to keep discussions in one place (you may want to watch this page for some time after adding a question). Otherwise I will clearly state where the discussion will be moved/copied to. Though, with the large number of pages I am watching, it may be wise to contact me here as well if you need a swift response. If I forget to answer, poke me.

I preserve the right not to answer to non-civil remarks, or subjects which are covered in this talk-header.

ON EXTERNAL LINK REMOVAL

There are several discussions about my link removal here, and in my archives. If you want to contact me about my view of this policy, please read and understand WP:NOT, WP:EL, WP:SPAM and WP:A, and read the discussions on my talkpage or in my archives first.

My view in a nutshell:
External links are not meant to tunnel people away from the wikipedia.

Hence, I will remove external links on pages where I think they do not add to the page (per WP:NOT#REPOSITORY and WP:EL), or when they are added in a way that wikipedia defines as spam (understand that wikipedia defines spam as: '... wide-scale external link spamming ...', even if the link is appropriate; also read this). This may mean that I remove links, while similar links are already there or which are there already for a long time. Still, the question is not whether your link should be there, the question may be whether those other links should be there (again, see the wording of the policies and guidelines).

Please consider the alternatives before re-adding the link:

If the link contains information, use the information to add content to the article, and use the link as a reference (content is not 'see here for more information').
Add an appropriate linkfarm like {{dmoz}} (you can consider to remove other links covered in the dmoz).
Incorporate the information into one of the sister projects.
Add the link to other mediawiki projects aimed at advertiseing (see e.g. this)

If the linkspam of a certain link perseveres, I will not hesitate to report it to the wikiproject spam for blacklisting (even if the link would be appropriate for wikipedia). It may be wise to consider the alternatives before things get to that point.

The answer in a nutshell
Please consider if the link you want to add complies with the policies and guidelines.

If you have other questions, or still have questions on my view of the external link policy, disagree with me, or think I made a mistake in removing a link you added, please poke me by starting a new subject on my talk-page. If you absolutely want an answer, you can try to poke the people at WT:EL or WT:WPSPAM on your specific case. Also, regarding link, I can be contacted on IRC, channel [1].

Reliable sources

I convert inline URL's into references and convert referencing styles to a consistent format. My preferred style is the style provided by cite.php (<ref> and <references/>). When other mechanisms are mainly (but not consistently) used (e.g. {{ref}}/{{note}}/{{cite}}-templates) I will assess whether referencing would benefit from the cite.php-style. Feel free to revert these edits when I am wrong.

Converting inline URLs in references may result in data being retrieved from unreliable sources. In these cases, the link may have been removed, and replaced by a {{cn}}. If you feel that the page should be used as a reference (complying with wp:rs!!), please discuss that on the talkpage of the page, or poke me by starting a new subject on my talk-page

Note: I am working with some other developers on mediawiki to expand the possibilities of cite.php, our attempts can be followed here and here. If you like these features and want them enabled, please vote for these bugs.

Stub/Importance/Notability/Expand/Expert

I am in general against deletion, except when the page really gives misinformation, is clear spam or copyvio. Otherwise, these pages may need to be expanded or rewritten. For very short articles there are the different {{stub}} marks, which clearly state that the article is to be expanded. For articles that do not state why they are notable, I will add either {{importance}} or {{notability}}. In my view there is a distinct difference between these two templates, while articles carrying one of these templates may not be notable, the first template does say the article is probably notable enough, but the contents does not state that (yet). The latter provides a clear concern that the article is not notable, and should probably be {{prod}}ed or {{AfD}}ed. Removing importance-tags does not take away the backlog, it only hides from attention, deleting pages does not make the database smaller. If you contest the notability/importance of an article, please consider adding an {{expert-subject}} tag, or raise the subject on an appropriate wikiproject. Remember, there are many, many pages on the wikipedia, many need attention, so maybe we have to live with a backlog.

Having said this, I generally delete the {{expand}}-template on sight. The template is in most cases superfluous, expansion is intrinsic to the wikipedia (for stubs, expansion is already mentioned in that template).

This user is one of the 400 most active English Wikipedians of all time.

Other company pages

{{Help me}} Hi there. I saw other company pages that link to their FB & Twitter, are those links considered spam?

(DJDawgLove (talk) 11:56, 6 May 2012 (UTC))[reply]

That they are on other company pages does not mean that they are supposed to be there. No, they are not necessarily spam, but they do fail, generally, our external links guideline, per WP:OFFICIAL, and parts of our policy WP:NOT. And I think I have been pointing you there often enough, did I not? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:01, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK thanks. I'm still getting into this and I appreciate your guidance. (DJDawgLove (talk) 13:02, 6 May 2012 (UTC))[reply]

You're welcome. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:50, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A question about Methane Hydrates

Someone at the Teahouse is asking about Methane Hydrates in reference to energy. Given your background I thought you might have some knowledge in this area and might be willing to help point the user in the right direction. I was going to drop your name but thought I should just tell you about the discussion and let you comment if you had the time. Kumioko (talk) 02:51, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, forgot about this - got caught up in other matters (well, you're there as well). Not really my area of expertise, but I'll have a look. Where is it exactly? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Drugbox validation, next try

Following your suggestion, I tried editing Nisoxetine and then updating the revid, but nothing happened. I didn't change any of the watched fields because they were all correct, so maybe that's why? The article is up for DYK so I'd like to see only green check marks :-) Help would be appreciated. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:17, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, sorry, I have taken down CheMoBot for the time being until some other issues are resolved. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that explains :-) --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 12:59, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Common Chemistry

Hi Dirk. I have a quick question about Common Chemistry. (If I recall you were involved in discussions with CAS about this.) Is there a list anywhere of which chemicals are included in the Common Chemistry database? My understanding is that it includes the 1000 (or something) chemicals that appear most often in Chemical Abstracts. The thought occurred to me that it might be nice to know how many of those chemicals do not have articles at Wikipedia, especially if there are any missing Wikipedia articles for particularly "high ranking" common chemicals. -- Ed (Edgar181) 18:33, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is is that those lists are not public (I have one because of our deliberations about verifying chemicals on Wikipedia). CAS disallows making repositories of CAS numbers of more than so many thousand, automatic querying of their databases, etc. etc. I do think that your presumption is right, the chemicals on commonchemistry.org are the chemicals that they found most important.

Another part of the problem is, is that we do not have a one-on-one link between that list and Wikipedia. Wikipedia politics would not allow one to mass update such parameters unless one would manually check every single one of them. We have now a set of pages with a CAS, some of which wrong (typo mistakes, interpretation mistakes, etc.). I could overwrite all pages in less than a week (I have the capability to do so) with a CAS that .. according to my lists is correct, and indeed have many, many more correct CAS numbers on Wikipedia - but I would, because I did not visually check every single one of them, incorporate many which are wrong (and the CAS-number is one of the worst parameters in this case - the different ways of drawing a sugar molecule have sometimes different CAS-numbers, I would likely here and there use the wrong CAS number, or there are more than one correct CAS number for one specific molecule, one of which I have, with which I would overwrite another, possibly correct, one). What we are stuck with is broken, what we would get is still broken (much improved, but broken in a different way), I would repair many pages, but would make mistakes in some pages which are now correct, and would create some mistakes which now would not have a CAS (and hence are not really wrong nor correct). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:18, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your edit to "Request to amend Rich Farmbrough"

I have removed your edit from the aforementioned request for amendment as not being particularly germane to what was being requested. I want to explicitly emphasise that this does not mean that you cannot disagree with the ArbCom decision itself or make your point of view known on-wiki, but jamming it into the formal amendment process is not the best place to do it. I would suggest that Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard or WP:AN might be a better venue if you want to discuss this. On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 06:53, 27 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

I hope that you understand that it was a response to Jclemens in the same thread. Maybe also that should be refactored - it is ALSO not .. particularly germane to what was being requested - maybe that should be relocated to .. User talk:Rich Farmbrough? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:55, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are free of course to request of Jclemens on his talk page or at another venue that he refactor his comment, if you think it necessary. However, amendments are not discussion "threads", and are not intended to be a place to argue about the case. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 10:29, 27 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Well, as I said (and clearly indicated), I think I was responding to the comment by Jclemens (though I can see how one could interpret it differently. For the rest, well, it is just typical, and will go on the record. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:49, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Whitelisting Seazoria for creation of new Wiki pages.

Hello Dirk, Jen here, I spoke to you last month about delisting Seazoria from the blacklist and whitelisting them for new page creations. You informed me then that the owner/author (Mike Hallett)would need to submit them. As Mike Hallett is my partner and is here with me now we would like to get the Seazoria name delisted from the blacklist and relisted on the white.. Your help in this process would be deeply appreciated.. Can you please provide some direct as to where to start first.. As always your time in this matter is appreciated.. Thank You

JenEda (talk) 23:43, 29 May 2012 (UTC)JenEda jeneda.cl@gmail.com seazoria@gmail.com[reply]