User talk:Mdann52

to-do

Ongoing jobs: Keep WP:SPER backlog down Monitor Special:PendingChanges Case Created Last volunteer edit Last modified Title Status User Time User Time User Time RRR Closed SaibaK (t) 4 days, 6 hours Robert McClenon (t) 7 hours Robert McClenon (t) 7 hours If you would like a regularly-updated copy of this status box on your user page or talk page, put {{DRN case status}} on your page. Click on that link for more options. Last updated by FireflyBot (talk) at 00:46, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Around

Hello, Mdann52. You have new messages at Crab rangoons's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Pellegrino's PhD

You removed the section discussing Charles R. Pellegrino's PhD. The claims were sourced to several news items and there was an extensive discussion on the talk page and elsewhere. Why did you remove it? Glrx (talk) 22:41, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

• .see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 116#Is a library catalog page proof of a PhD?

My edit was an "OTRS action. As I stated in my edit summary, instructions to appeal can be found here. Due to the nature of this, I am unable to give out too much on-wiki, but can give out slightly more information via email. --Mdann52talk to me! 06:01, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

@Glrx: sorry, I forgot to ping you... --Mdann52talk to me! 16:16, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Mdann52. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:59, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

@Nomoskedasticity: nothing yet... --Mdann52talk to me! 08:09, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

It's a request for an explanation re that removal. Nothing private about it -- just trying to follow your instructions to approach via email. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:14, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

@Nomoskedasticity: I have had a few issues with the EmailUser function recently. Try my direct email (mdannmailyahoo.co.uk). --Mdann52talk to me! 08:17, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, sent. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:25, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism unit

Saw your message/course, will get back to you around Sunday/Monday. Thanks so much. :)--TerryAlex (talk) 05:05, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Completed, please review it for me. Thank you --TerryAlex (talk) 16:44, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi User:Mdann52, I've been finding and reverting vandalism that I can find on Wikipedia. However, I have a question, when you said to find "at least two appropriate reports to AIV", do I have to find examples that I have to report to the admin myself? I'm still new to this, so I'm a bit hesitant on giving any editors level 3+ warning or giving them a report to the admin. Let me know :) thanks--TerryAlex (talk) 05:20, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

User:Mdann52 I am still unsure about the "at least two appropriate reports to AIV"; however, I have reverted some vandalism and completed the questions for Task 2. Please review it for me. Thanks so much.--TerryAlex (talk) 04:45, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

@TerryAlex: Sorry, only just spotted this... If the user has received a level 2 warning, feel free to give a level 3 (and so on). If they have received a level 4 or 4im warning, feel free to report to AIV. Looking through your reverts, you seem to have very good judgement, so feel free to issue whichever warning you feel is most appropriate (admins at AIV will review the user anyway, so no good faith users will be blocked in the unlikely event you report them by accident. --Mdann52talk to me! 13:41, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

@Mdann52: Though I did not report to the AIV directly, but there were 2 occasions where I reported to an admin "Materialscientist". You can check it out on his/her talk page. First one for persistent vandalism at Magic Bullet Records by various editors. The second one for persistent vandalism by IP address 150.207.145.65. Does this count?. Thanks so much--TerryAlex (talk) 14:38, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

@TerryAlex: that will be fine :). I will be going offline shortly, so will mark these properly tomorrow. --Mdann52talk to me! 14:40, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-24

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 5. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 10, and to all Wikipedias on June 12 (calendar).
• You can now use guided tours on the Arabic (ar), Bengali (bn) and Norwegian (no) Wikipedias. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to translate it and ask in Bugzilla. [1] [2]

VisualEditor news

• You should no longer be able to add empty references with VisualEditor. [3] [4]
• The "use an existing reference" button in the reference tool is now shown as disabled, rather than hidden, when the reference has content. [5] [6] [7]
• You will now see category contents again after saving an edit to a category page with VisualEditor. [8] [9]

Future software changes

• MediaViewer will be enabled by default on all wikis on June 12. Feedback is welcome. [10]
• You will be able to use information from Wikidata directly in Wikiquote pages starting on June 10. [11]
• On wikis with the Translate extension enabled, translation administrators will soon be able to use the page migration tool to import existing translations to the new system. [12] [13]
• You will soon see metadata on file description pages for Ogg files (example video, example audio). Some metadata with non-English characters may need to be purged or transcoded to UTF-8 before they show correctly. [14] [15]
• Templates containing <ref> or <references> tags will no longer need dummy parameters to prevent caching. [16] [17] [18]
• You will no longer be able to use Special:Thanks directly. The page will soon show an error message when you visit it. [19] [20]
• Hovercards will no longer flicker. [21]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:39, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:WMCES logo new.jpg

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:WMCES logo new.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 18:00, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Reference Errors on 11 June

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

• On the Assam page, your edit caused an unnamed parameter error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:41, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

The email you added to the Bacula talk page

Thank you for posting the email on the Bacula talk page. This email has suggestions about the recent controversy between myself and User:Gul.Maikat. Can I know who sent the email? I agree with all points in that email and would like to implement them. I will be very willing to it, but I would prefer it if you would modify the disputed Bareos paragraph, because I would like to avoid a new conflict with User:Gul.Maikat.

For the edits I am suggesting to make, I propose to change the comment about 3rd party contributions to the Bacula project to say that: "Any third party contributions will either not be accepted or will go into the Bacula community version. Only, if the contributor has given authorization by signing a Fiduciary License Agreement may the contribution also be included in the Enterprise version." I believe that all the suggestions including my modification, other than for the Bareos paragraph, are non-contraversial and thus they should not be disputed.

Summary: 1. With your agreement, I would like to make the changes suggested to the Bacula page including my clarification given above. 2. I request you to make the suggested change to the disputed Bareos paragraph.

Sorry, I don't know how to make this a new Topic rather than a section :-( KernSibbald (talk) 11:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

@KernSibbald: - simply use the "new section" link at the top of the page :). If you post the full suggestion on the article's talk page, I will impliment the as soon as I can. --Mdann52talk to me! 12:10, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I have done as you asked and posted the above message in the Bacula Talk page. KernSibbald (talk) 11:17, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Block notices

Seems most of my colleagues think these can be removed, but obviously not ban notices. Dougweller (talk) 14:14, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I was under the impression any sanction notice should not be removed by the user in question (but auto-archiving seems to be ok in long-term cases...). --Mdann52talk to me! 14:21, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

That used to be my opinion but I was told I was wrong. See Wikipedia talk:User pages#Can block notices be removed while the user is still blocked?. Dougweller (talk) 14:33, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

closure

Hello Mdann, thanks for taking the time to close the discussion. However, I have serious concerns with the implication of your close – there was a broader discussion in 2011 which was agreed to be applied consistently across all such bias categories. Now, due to your close, a single discussion on a single category has overridden that consensus. Your close specifically states "no consensus to remove all BLPs" - but if the finding was no-consensus, then the previously established consensus should hold, which was to exclude BLPs accordingly. Secondly, you have suggested your close applies more broadly. I think this is a massively improper extension of the scope – if such a decision is to apply to all other bias categories, a community-wide RFC should be held, not a single discussion about a single category – especially since a community-wide RFC already happened and landed on a different conclusion. It's certainly possible that consensus could change, but that discussion you closed was not the proper venue for such change in consensus. Would you please reconsider your close, and consider whether enforcing the old consensus until a new broader consensus is established would make more sense – esp since you found "no consensus" in that discussion? I'm pinging @Timrollpickering: and @Good Olfactory:, two admins with deep experience in categorization and who participated in the 2011 discussion, here for their input as well.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:50, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

@Obiwankenobi: If you feel a community-wide RfC should be held, feel free to start one. Looking through the discussion, there was consensus not to exclude BLP's specifically (I have clarified my comments, as I agree they are ambiguous). In terms of overriding the previous RfC, as you said, consensus does change over time, so it may be time for a new RfC. I was asked to close this specific discussion, which is what I did. However, as this was not an RfC (as I thought when I closed it), I have also removed the "other similar" section. --Mdann52talk to me! 15:56, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

The problem is, this closure, now applied to only one category, fails NPOV - since according to our current state of consensus, we can now tag anti-semites in the US, but we can't tag them in France or Spain. That is exactly why the unified approach was proposed, and accepted. That a small group of editors attempted to override that in one category is improper because it leads to inconsistency and violation of neutral treatment of subjects. Thus, I think those who want to change the longstanding consensus should start and frame the RFC, and I ask you again to reconsider your close (which also, fwiw, does not deal with biographies of dead people). It also doesn't give any hints, besides BURDEN, on who should be added to the category - how anti-semitic must a person be to merit inclusion?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:05, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

If a person is referred to as being anti-Semitic in a BLP, then it is generally very well sourced. In terms of BDP's common sense should prevail - if it was a one-off, then maybe they should not be included. At the end of the day, my closure in this case is a guideline; While guidelines are show general consensus, at times, they should be ignored, however this should be applied to individual cases. Looking back though the discussion, there is nothing overall that changes my closure. IMO, there are some things that should be left down to induvidual editors to decide on, but this is rapidly decreasing nowadays. --Mdann52talk to me! 16:12, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

But did you take into account that several other anti-semitic people categories have all been deleted by consensus? In other words, there is a strong consensus to not label people as anti-semitic through categories, rather instead to use the article to cover that. the same applies to racist, homophobic, sexist, misogynistic, etc.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:35, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Examples: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_March_27#Category:Anti-Semitic_people,

Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_November_19#Category:People_who_have_made_or_published_anti-Semitic_statements,Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_September_22#Category:New_Anti-Semitic_people,Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_November_15#Category:Anti-semitic_people,Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_May_22#Category:Anti-Jewish_politicians. By allowing people into the parent, you are basically going around that consensus.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:40, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

These categories have been a mess for years and individual discussions were returning different outcomes on this. They've been a general nightmare because sources are often mixed (it does not help to hold up Hitler or Phelps as remotely typical examples) and categories can't convey the nuances of the situation. Unfortunately not all categories have kept biographies out which can cause confusion as to what the no consensus status quo ante is - especially when some users are trying to bypass discussion and instead insist on adding the categories to biographis anew. The aim for a single inclusion/exclusion rule in the CFD I closed three years ago was aiming precisely to put a stop to the POV mess of local consensuses returning different outcomes - and effectively a consensus for a global approach is a consensus against local discussions being able to go their own way. And this particular discussion wasn't even on CFD but on a single category's talkpage. The result is we have one consensus that says all such categories should follow one approach and another that says a single one should go it's own way. That's not going to make things stabl. There probably needs to be fresh determination of whether the global approach consensus and/or the biography exclusion still stand - annoyingly the main objector has preferred to edit war (and get a series of blocks) for a year rather than start a new discussion to initiate that process. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:09, 14 June 2014 (UTC)#

Personally, I have my own view on how this issue should be resolved, that may or may not be included in the closure; I find it far easier to leave my own prejudices behind when undertaking such closures. Overall, I feel my close was a summary of the comments on the page; If anyone disagrees, they are free to open a new RFC on the issue, advertise it on Central Discussions, in order to establish global consensus. As this issue is, frankly, of little interest to me (I have spent, and intend to spend, little time on categorizing BLP's), I will not open one myself, unless a few people request I do as I closed this discussion. --Mdann52talk to me! 18:14, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Songa Offshore

Dear Mdann52 Thank you for your reply. I have read what you have sent me. But I don't understand what procedure shall I follow now. What shall I do in order to make sure the updates requested by the Songa Offhsore CEO are not deleted every time I update? :(

Thanks. is there anywhere I need to register again?

Regards, Chryso — Preceding unsigned comment added by CKouyialis (talk • contribs) 12:31, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-25

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Reminder

• You can subscribe to the wikitech-ambassadors mailing list to get news more quickly and to send feedback or report problems.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf9) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 12. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 17, and to all Wikipedias on June 19 (calendar).
• You can now read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for May 2014.

VisualEditor news

• You can now easily see the target of a link or other information using the context menu. [22]
• When you edit a reference, you can now empty it and click the "use an existing reference" button to switch it to re-use another reference. [23] [24]
• You can now add and edit {{DISPLAYTITLE}} and __DISAMBIG__ in the page settings menu. [25] [26] [27] [28]
• The tool to insert special characters is now wider and simpler; the order of mathematical symbols is now correct. [29] [30] [31]

Future software changes

• Media Viewer will be enabled by default on all wikis on June 19. Feedback is welcome. [32]
• You will no longer be able to use navigation popups and Hovercards at the same time. [33]
• You will no longer see image thumbnails on search results pages on Wikibooks and Wikisource wikis. [34] [35]
• It will soon be possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. [36] [37]
• Tablet users will be redirected to the mobile view of Wikimedia wikis starting on June 17. [38]
• The special page that lists most linked-to templates will soon include pages from all namespaces; it will also be renamed to Special:MostTranscludedPages. [39]
• An IRC discussion about Phabricator will take place on June 17 at 17:30 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). You can also read a blog post about the upcoming switch to Phabricator.
• You can now comment on the draft 2014-15 goals of the Wikimedia Foundation engineering department. [40]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:13, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

June 2014

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Indian National Congress

Hi, greetings. I am in process of developing this particular article. Left message about this on article's talk page. Article is in very bad condition and rest assured will add controversies in due time once I find sources that would depict real depth of question "Does the Indian National Congress really behind those controversies ?" Hope you are getting what I am trying to say.(It would be nice if you could reply on my talk page) Thank you. Cheers --25 CENTS VICTORIOUS ^☣ 16:12, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

@25 Cents FC: The controversies seem to be to do with the party as opposed to just one person, therefore I feel they belong in the article, as do other users on the articles talk page. Therefore, there is not a consensus to remove them from the article. --Mdann52talk to me! 13:55, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Reverted your close

Examining the objections, it is clear that no valid objections to the BOT have been raised. I cannot close the RFBA myself, but I retain the hope that someone in BAG will read the arguments, discard the invalid ones, and approve the bot.—Kww(talk) 13:19, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

@Kww: I fail to see what you mean by "no valid objections". Personally, I feel the objections from Rich Farmbrough and Hasteur sum up the feeling of the oppose comments in the BRFA. The RfC close also says that care should be taken over the removal of link; I can not see how the bot will meet this criteria. However, I will start to manually run through the links and replace where possible; I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment. --Mdann52talk to me! 13:30, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

When I say "there have been no valid objections", I mean precisely that. You are not a BAG member, and you do not have any authority to force a close. I reverted your close awaiting an actual BAG member. I am reverting it again awaiting an actual BAG member. If you want to reclose it, please go through the process to become a BAG member before you do so.—Kww(talk) 13:39, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

No, I am not a BAG member, but I have already addressed that in the closure message (WP:NOTBURO). As I said, there have been perfectly valid issues raised, and reverting a close (including the closure message) will likely achieve little in the long run. --Mdann52talk to me! 13:42, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Maybe not, but slender hope is better than no hope. The objections you point at run counter to the RFC close. In fact, your opinion runs counter to the RFC close, which was to remove all links. Keeping track of which have been removed and posting the links on a central list and on the article talk page is quite sufficient to allow anyone that chooses to restore links to have the necessary data. Remember, as you run through the links and "replace where possible", the RFC consensus is to remove when it is not possible to restore, not to keep them lingering around forever.—Kww(talk) 13:46, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but looking through so far, most of the archive.is links I have found are still live, so it is simple enough to run it though WebCite or the Wayback machine and get a new one generated. I have previously tried to get a similar bot running that would add archive links, but the code I found and tried to fix was patchy to say the least (!) --Mdann52talk to me! 13:48, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Autoarchiving isn't possible to do reliably with bots. That's why keeping the external lists to allow people to manually process them is necessary. Keeping the links inline isn't necessary, and that's what people seem to be arguing when they argue that deleting the links would lose data.—Kww(talk) 13:53, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Another mirror

Since you are now my go-to expert on mirrors, I think potiori may be one.

Example:

• Panther Hollow--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:47, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick:  Confirmed mirror, however this one acknowledges Wikipedia as a source (albeit in German!) While I am pursuing the other to follow suit, this one requires no further action. --Mdann52talk to me! 14:55, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Oops, my bad for not scrolling to the bottom. Will you add it to the list, or should I?--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:01, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I shall; I am currently doing a bit more digging to tell if it is a "live" mirror or not. --Mdann52talk to me! 15:02, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Suzannah Lipscomb

Hi Mdann52. There's an IP-hopping SPA who has been disrupting the article considerably today. The range 82.132... (which resolves to Telefonica O2 UK and is all probably the same person with respect to this article) has a long record of adding and re-adding information to this article which has been objected to, e.g. [41] and [42]. Their latest ploy was to use this as a ref for her having attended Epsom College which contains the married name. I suspect this was quite deliberate. I've replaced it with a different ref, but Lord knows how long it will last, as the IP is quite determined to edit war. As you're the one who handled the OTRS for this article, I'm leaving it up to you what to do next. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 16:05, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

See also this. Voceditenore (talk) 17:21, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Also pinging Callanecc who had previously applied semi-protection to the page (expired 26 May 2014). Voceditenore (talk) 16:30, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

@Voceditenore: yes, I saw they popped up again. While nothing here in interests me in an OTRS sense, I have issued the IP with an edit warring warning (even if they don't pass 3RR, they can still be blocked for it). --Mdann52talk to me! 17:33, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

What does the OTRS action allow to be permitted or not permitted on the article?  Unless details are given of what is permitted to be posted then the situation will arise again. By other users. (UTS)