User talk:Radiant!

Hello, welcome ! Bishonen | talk 12:04, 3 September 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Yes, welcome back. Haukur 12:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, what changed around here to warrant this? --Kbdank71 03:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that would be a certain Dutch wikactivity rather near to where I live. >Radiant< 20:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? —Nightstallion (?) 17:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back, I hope! I have missed you. Nandesuka 05:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And welcome from me too, if you are indeed back in action! Grutness...wha? 10:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back, and hope to see you editing again! :) - Cheers, Mailer Diablo 15:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back! I hope that whatever time you spend editing Wikipedia is enjoyable. --Interiot 17:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Feeling better now? Scobell302 20:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back from me as well. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 20:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! And yep, I'm indeed back in action. What did I miss? :) (seriously, do tell; I'll probably read up on a Signpost or two but I'd rather hear it here) >Radiant< 20:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Don't look too hard, you might want to leave for another 6 months. ;-) Nice to have you back. Dragons flight 22:16, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Toolserver's been down for the past 3 months. Prod moved to an on-wiki process. (there's a non-toolserver way to revive the prod tracker, but I don't know if there's been any movement towards that yet) If you're curious about wikidrama, User:NoSeptember/Desysop points to some of the stories. --Interiot 23:16, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Many folks seem to hang out on IRC, see Wikipedia:IRC channels (I don't). Use of Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser has reached epidemic proportions (various folks are suggesting 5000 edits is a reasonable minimum for RFA, since it's so easy using AWB to make hundreds and hundreds of meaningless edits). There's been a changing of the guard with bot folks - lots of processes got at least momentarily constipated due to reliance on dearly departed botters. It's bigger, currently 6,838,375 articles and counting. Template parser functions have arrived (see m:ParserFunctions) and have let any number of folks go truly nuts with templates that are completely inscrutable. Angela resigned from the board (!). Boothy443 got really pissed off and seems to be gone. user:Bobby Boulders was an annoying pest of a vandal for a while (may be the latest incarnation of WoW). Some sort of stable version feature is apparently actually in the works and will be enabled in the German vesion. No one can gain consensus to change virtually anything. You know, pretty much same old. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:49, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Welcome back... I am trying to remember exactly what you were active in before you left... I know that a log page was created to keep track of changes on {{cent}}. There has been changes and updates on WP:CSD, especially under the image/media sections... You left at about the same time that Jimbo established WP:OFFICE, so I do not know if you know about that or not. If I think of more, I let you know. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:16, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- wb! /me does happy dance. One thing not mentioned so far in the difflist ^[1] is that the state of javascript automation has advanced quite a bit. Having the toolserver replication DB so lagged means a lot of js based history/count/browse things have been developed, but that's just one facet... check out WP:US, especially if you are going to pick up the admin mantle again... Another thing to note is that IRC is not just for talking, there are channels that are primarily bot traffic speaking of new users and potential edits in need of investigation, with handy links already embedded. WP:1.0 is making great strides, many projects are carrying out article classification (with the help of fairly standard talk page templates to track what's what and display current thinking) and User:Mathbot runs every night to build a vast grand list of all the articles so far classified and how good they are thought to be... For example here is The Beatles summary page... Hope that helps and wow, glad to see you back. ++Lar: t/c 20:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back. :) --Golbez 21:14, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, bit late on the scene- another welcome back from me :) Petros471 17:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yay! I am glad you have returned. Hope things don't piss you off too much too soon. JesseW, the juggling janitor 18:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

^ an interesting exercise to be sure... note also that citation/reference/footnote technology has advanced... see WP:REF and WP:CITE

Glad to see you back also. --CBD 21:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well that's news! Welcome back. --Ligulem 23:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC) (I changed my username in the mean time ;-)[reply]

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!! >Radiant< 21:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back! Glad to see you return. —Nightstallion (?) 17:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What they all said

Blimey! Hope things are good with you. Yes, I look forward to arguing. Steve block Talk 21:20, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to look at WP:DENY as well. It's like an hellzone. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 21:34, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. -Splash - tk 22:17, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try not to clutter your talk page with another section header, but I'm truly pleased to notice your return. At the time, I thought your departure was a big loss for Wikipedia, and I was dismayed when it appeared to be permanent. Umm, I guess the blocking mechanism has changed a bit and you might want to get used to that, and we've grown a lot more strict on bad (license, source, fair use rationale, etc) images. I'm happy to help if you have any questions getting used to it all again. :-) Dmcdevit·t 07:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

didn't think I would see your name on my watchlist again... welcome back... --T-rex 22:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Muaha! You are a veritable force of clean, sweeping my watchlist with unerring boldness and purpose! Huzzah I say! Huzzah!

(welcome back! I've seen your contributions throughout the talkpages, and like you already ;) The only thing I have to add to the ultra-condensed-Signpost-synopsis above is, there are new people with unrecognizable names everywhere! --Quiddity 23:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good news to spot you here. Pavel Vozenilek 00:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Holy %&$^#^, it's >Radiant!< - can we get an amen? -- nae'blis 18:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Me too. Welcome back, Radiant. Deco 10:51, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yay!!!!!!!! :)

This news makes my day! :) Xoloz 18:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded! Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yippee! Hey, glad you're back! :-) --HappyCamper 18:36, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa!!!

You're back! I had no idea! Welcome back, fellow Wikipedian. It's always good to see a longtimer arise from the pits of departure. —this is messedrocker (talk) 02:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hot damn I didn't realize you were back til now. So here is a welcome just for you! KOS | talk 06:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Collage

Hi Radiant!
Your home page inspired me to try out a copy-cat version. Check it out. Rfrisbie^talk 01:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this is an homage, but see http://www.jwz.org/webcollage/. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, I haven't seen that before. I really was just trying a variation of what I saw Radiant! doing, crossed with the "absolute" top-right corner images you see on a lot of pages. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 03:27, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And, in case you don't know, Jamie was one of the original developers at Netscape, who (collectively) essentially founded the internet as we now know it. He called in rich shortly after AOL bought Netscape. If you are able to find his commentary about what happened during those days you will be enriched. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, my wikieducation is enriched! :-) Rfrisbie^talk 04:09, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Belated

A very belated welcome back, because no one tells me anything anymore. Seriously, it's great to see you back! --Mackensen (talk) 01:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're back!

Yay! Herostratus 07:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back!

I can't believe I failed to notice! Well, after what has seemed like a very rough few days this has cheered me right up! the wub "?!" 19:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC) (wow, so excited I forgot to sign the first time)[reply]

Wow, just noticed. Cool :).Voice-of-All 15:40, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

so glad to have you back

Radiant, I am especially pleased to see you back. I don't think you really want to get into the drama of things that have been unfolding here, but you did ask "what did i miss?" YOu might consider having a look at the recent Netoholic arbitrations. He's mostly not around anymore.

But, that aside, I just can't convey how joyous it is to have you back. ... aa:talk 20:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

YEEEHAAAAAAAAAAWW

Hello hello hello! I just saw you show up on my watchlist. What a sight for sore eyes. You're one of the people I've missed most. Welcome back, welcome back! :-)

\o/ \o/ \o/

Kim Bruning 20:06, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to remember why I liked you, which is that you keep everyone on their toes, which includes me ;-). I noticed you've semiprotected certain pages. It's certainly tempting to do so, but you should only really do this if there is vandalism. If only because I'm lazy and forget to log in from time to time, but also because we've got some other sane anons on board too. :-) Kim Bruning 20:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back

Oh happy day! -- ALoan (Talk) 20:28, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blimey - you are keeping yourself busy in Wikipedia space. Do you have a list of needed Wikipedia:foo pages that you are going to write? -- ALoan (Talk) 22:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Hey! I saw your name scroll by on WP:CSD's talk... it's always nice to see you back. :) On the brief summary of everything that has happened, we also have more than 1,000 featured articles now (currently at 1,103)... Tito xd^(?!?) 02:12, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back!

Your dreams were your ticket out... :P

Seriously, happy editing. It's good to see you - I spotted you on the talk page of WP:DENY. 1ne 22:13, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Product, process, policy

Good work, Radiant: I like it. That's one of the better short overviews of how our project works I've seen. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 17:11, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Coming back with a bang, are we? Well written! :-) Kim Bruning 18:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What a Great Month!

You're really back! Welcome Radiant! one! Have a token of my esteem!

Be well, stay well! Stay happy! Best news I've had all month! Best regards, // FrankB 21:34, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't notice you were back until now...

... but it's good to see you back again! JYolkowski // talk 01:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also glad to see you return. Conscious 05:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At the risk of adding to both the spam on this page, and then size of your head, I'm also glad to see you're back, which I only noticed a short while ago. I was trying to think of a contribution to your quilt, and all that springs to mind is Ken and Kenneth from The Fast Show, (Ken: "Good morning, sir. How are we today, sir?" Man: "Fine. You?" Ken: "Radiant, sir, radiant."), which is probably lacking something outside of its cultural context... Alai 02:13, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

Welcome back, I just discovered this since you returned while I was on vacation. Nice quilt. --Michael Snow 21:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Awed by your work

Hi,

Recent events have caused me to go on one of monthly rummages through all our policy discussions, and everywhere I look, I see you are the leader in wisdom, focus, and clarity. Not the first time I've given you one, but...

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		Awarded to User:Radiant! for his remarkable brilliance in guiding Wikipedia's policies; no one has done more to make our beloved encyclopedia a fair and efficient place to work. Xoloz 02:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for sharing your genius for leadership with us again, and know that you have the undying gratitude of thousands of editors in Wiki-land. :) Best wishes, Xoloz 02:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do they have a barnstar of "Person I disagree with about half the time but find an exceptionally rational invididual"? I'd give you that one. --tjstrf 02:29, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts on Adminship

Hello Sage One,

Reading your comments on the Giano RfAr evidence page, I believe we actually have a tiny disagreement. RfA regulars (like you, I'm a somewhat conservative one) don't generally have a problem with ArbCom, I think. The problem, as I hear it expressed (and as I express it), is the lack of a forum for de-adminship. While a more pro-active ArbCom could make de-adminship a more realistic option, that isn't the solution most often suggested. ArbCom is very busy, and its processes are labor-intensive; this is understood by everybody. Rather than adding to the burden of their workload, most de-adminship advocates envision some sort of alternative forum/process specifically for troublesome admins. The variations on this theme are many, as you know.

Eventually, though, I do think a consensus will emerge behind one option for DRfA. I'm not sure whether a "solution from above" is desired or practical, under the circumstances. I guess a dictate from ArbCom, similar to the one imposed in the Highways case, that a definitive solution must be reached in a centralized discussion would be helpful; beyond that, I can't see the poor arbitrators doing much more to assist.

Obviously, your comments indicate you have different expectations of what ArbCom can and will do. What sort of options do you think they might reasonably pursue? In eternal admiration, Xoloz 16:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of snow

Hi Radiant!.

Over at Wikipedia talk:Snowball clause#On GTBacchus "Snowball test" and Wikipedia talk:Snowball clause#Let's get this straight we've been having some discussion over what the actual intent of the snowball clause is. Since you're the person who wrote it in the first place, I thought you may be able to shed some light on that question. In particular, there are some who suggest that it's purpose is to bypass processes in which unanimity is essentially guaranteed. Others suggest taht it's purpose is to cut discussions short when there are objections, but the conclusion is still foregone, and it would be better to deprive those voices of a forum for pointless complaining over something they aren't going to change. I hope I'm doing justice to both sides; as a precaution, you may want to not trust my wording, but read what people have actually said. I wonder if you could let us know what you think about this issue. Thanks in advance. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sputter. Gasp. Chagrin. ;) -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:23, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your input. :) That's very helpful, I suspect. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar

		The Human Cloning Barnstar
		If human cloning ever becomes possible, I nominate Radiant to be the very first. His contributions are invaluable, and we need more like him. --Interiot 23:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Particularly for your lucid description of the history of SNOW [1], but of course for your many other contributions as well. --Interiot 23:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Toolwerks

I haven't been part of the CVU discussions, but does it work to just make sure that {{test1}}, {{test2}}, etc. are mentioned in the edit summary, and then just looking at edit history would work? (though pagemoving could disrupt that, I guess)

If that doesn't work, then I guess you're definitely looking for a log on another page then? I haven't done a lot of javascript, Lupin has more experience with that. --Interiot 03:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think one reason that policy remains ambiguous about whether warnings can be removed is that sometimes inexperienced vandalism patrollers will give an established user a vandalism warning to further a content dispute, rather than using the warnings for simple vandalism only. Making a log more difficult to edit (correct) may exacerbate this. (I guess moving the log away from fairly visible talk pages might lessen the need to clean the log up, though some people will want all logs about them to be accurate).

Anyway, a trivial off-wiki log can be easily done of course, if the other issues can be clarified/resolved.

Otherwise, might it be sufficient to use an on-wiki non-userspace page for logging vandalism warnings, so there is less support for vandals being able to remove logs from the page (since they don't "own" it), but also so that warnings that everyone agrees were done by mistake can be removed without too much fuss? --Interiot 19:50, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus

Cryptic once offered me some sage words of advice during the days shortly before I became an admin. He defined consensus as "what everybody can live with."

I post this here because of our recent tangential interactions on various talk pages, and it seemed relevant (and possibly even useful) to those discussions.

Cryptic was the admin I most sought to emulate after my apotheosis, and a part of me feels his words should be given wider dissemination. I also suspect you might find some resonance with the sentiment. Thus, their appearance above, here on your talk page.

All the best,
Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak}
20:44, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, Cryptic left because he was disgustipated with the fact that User:Mistress Selina Kyle was granted quasi-untouchable status by a few well-meaning but misguided admins who would pretty much instantly unblock her any time she was blocked (which was often), regardless of the circumstance. He felt this was symptomatic of a larger problem with the Wikipedia admin community, and washed his hands of the whole thing.

In any case, it's true that, yes, I believe consensus doesn't scale. However, I'm also not necessarily an advocate of increased formalism and process. As someone who spent 10 years designing and enforcing online rulesets for a living, I am all too aware of the inherent trade-offs between flexibility on the one hand, and the potential for wheel wars on the other.

One of the truisms of desiging a ruleset is that the more you nail it down and qualify it, the more exploitable loopholes you create. The least exploitable ruleset, assuming 100% perfect judgement on the part of the person or persons implementing it, is the totally discretionary ruleset: There are no stated rules, and the folks in charge of implementing or enforcing policy are simply use their best judgement. As should be obvious, this sort of ruleset has several very profound failure modes.

On the other hand, Wikipedia has traditionally erred on the side of flexibility and relying upon the human judgement of its admins and editors. And while it sometimes seems that this process generates an undue amount of angst and acrimony, I'm hard pressed to come up with a cure that isn't worse than the disease.

All the best,

Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak}

13:04, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussing Changes

Hi Radiant!, if you mean the nut-size (I have been involved in lots of edits to several articles over the last while as you can see in my contribs), then I generally agree with all you say. His first edit was total elimination of the nut icon, which made the template on all policy pages appear broken (for me the nut icon was essential in quickly finding the nutshell box in the past), and I assumed he would understand my point. Eventually he reinserted it with a slightly smaller icon (which I can live with) and removed the improper caption (which I totally agree with). I think our edit summaries tell the story pretty well. Thanks for your advice, as I know it's well intentioned. Crum375 12:06, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize

I believe that in a comment on a user page I directly impugned your integrity. I apologize. I sincerely feel badly for insulting you. I did not think at the time it would be insulting but I can see how it was. I would consider it morally wrong, even if my views had been right, but perhaps, in fact, my views were wrong as well. I apologize again. I have made a change to my comment on a users page.

--Blue Tie 19:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Infinite Appeals

That would work. I've also considered a rule along the lines of "No repeat nominations unless new information has come to light," just as you theoretically can't take an article to DRV just because you dislike the outcome. Phil Sandifer 22:09, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

Your nomination offer is very kind. The main areas where I'd help are at Wikipedia:Requests for investigation and Wikipedia:Abuse reports, both of which are backlogged. My experience with WP:RFC should be good preparation for those pages. Regards, Durova 15:17, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note

I guess I have been here far to long not to have been in an edit war. I certainly hope it will be as just as long before I find myself in another one. But if it does ever happen again I think I have learned to wait 24 hours before doing anything rash, like clearing my watchlist :P --Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 18:10, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to see you back

I just noticed utcursch | talk 07:09, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ReRfA stats

It appears that Crazy Russian is heading for re-establishment of administrator's status, and his willingness to step down and the weight he gave to the opinions of detractors appears to be the very reason he's getting so many support votes. If he succeeds, I suppose that will be another case to add to the analysis (if anyone even reads the evidence). Geogre 18:40, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:VAIN move

You rather screwed that move up, to say the least. The talk page is still at Wikipedia talk:Vanity guidelines, and the page you moved onto the top of was actually an existing proposal. Additionally, GTBacchus's proposal for moving was that it be placed at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guidelines. Where did the discussion conclude that the page should be moved anyway? --tjstrf 18:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Proposed

Fine with me. Do you think we should add a link to DDV or such? >Radiant< 13:18, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To reduce the likelihood of having the text removed again, I suggest waiting until the controversy at WP:DDV dies down. —David Levy 13:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Attribution

Radiant, if you have time, your views would be appreciated at Wikipedia:Attribution, a proposal that aims to combine and replace WP:NOR and WP:V, and which would hopefully make WP:RS largely redundant, except as a page of advice about where to look for sources. Any input from you would be very welcome. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 13:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Shared IP flagging proposal

I understand that voting is evil. This is why I created a Discussion section in addition to a Voting section. The developers are busy, and probably would only implement this proposal if there is consensus for it. Voting is a way (though not the only way) of determining consensus. If you are going to remove the Voting section, please suggest a better way of determining consensus. In addition, what do you think of my proposal? Would you have voted to support it? Thanks for reading. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Builder Award

		The Builder Award
		For creating Wikipedia:Centralized discussion. John Reid 14:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RfA

Thank you for your support and for your kind words!

Atlant 14:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's been a week now that I've been an administrator and I'd like to take this moment to once again thank everyone who supported my RfA, and to let you all know that I don't think I've screwed anything up yet so I hope I'm living up to everyone's expectations for me. But if I ever fall short of those expectations, I'd certainly welcome folks telling me about it!

Atlant 14:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Mop?

I've considered the idea from time to time, but at present I wouldn't be interested in the additional responsibility. If I ever get back to being fully active in Wikipedia instead of semi-active as I am now, I'd be interested. Caerwine Caer’s whines 16:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is a no from me too. But thank you very much for your kind words: they are appreciated. I think that sometimes you must build on your strengths and manage your weaknesses, and although I am getting better in my old age, diplomacy is definitely one of my weaknesses! Besides, I often feel that when Wikipedia gains an Admin, it loses an editor. I enjoy adding to articles, and various Wikignoming activities, but I have no burning desire, in fact no appetite whatsoever, to do all those tedious Adminny-type things, which I presume you are obliged to do if you accept the responsibility. I have not looked into it really, but I fail to understand why so many people want to be an Admin anyway: very few people are cut out for it.

But kudos to you guys and gals who do do the job: although I have had run-ins with a fair few Admins here at en:Wiki, I have only ever come across 1 "bad-egg", which is a negligible percentage in the big picture. In my experience, there is a significant percentage of "bad-eggs" in at least 2 of the other "big 10" language editions of Wikipedia, so the en Admins deserve a great deal of credit and praise. --Mais oui! 23:19, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank bloody goodness for that! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.63.225 (talk • contribs) 15:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CfD for Category:Dictionary Corner

I notice that you have voted to delete this category. While I admit that I am biased as I created it, I do not know if you are aware of the actual show and would disagree with the deletion. We allow lists of people who appear in soap operas (look at the Category for Coronation Street actors) and some of them last only twelve months, yet on Countdown people reappear over a fifteen year period. I would ask you to reconsider. (Quentin X 11:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC))[reply]

While a list is a good idea, a problem with that is that the show is on 5 times a week, 45 weeks a year for the past 24 years. A page of that size may be too cumbersome and if you split it into seasons there would be over 60 different articles with sporadic information on the earlier seasons. (Quentin X 12:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Dichotomy is right...

Your question a good one. I've opposed I think 3 or 4 RfAs ever, but I certainly got a massive surprise when checking that applicant's contribs. Well, good luck to him... Glen 13:05, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Notability (academics)

I think you made a mistake in changing this to "historical." The idea of policy and guidelines on Wikipedia is that those policies and guidelines evolve as standard practice, and then should be reflected by policy. If you look through Articles for deletion, you'll see that WP:PROF is referred to a lot, and there are very rarely any comments that indicate people don't agree with its principles. I would have changed this to a guideline myself, but I've been hoping someone else would do it. What you did seems to imply that we should have a vote on the issue, but that is specifically discouraged in Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. Mango juice^talk 14:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's been a long time since WP:PROF pointed at WP:BIO. I'm going to do a bit of searching for case studies. Also, the wording is pretty well settled: if you look at the talk page debate, a few well-meaning newbies came around and proposed whole new ideas, but actual concerns about what IS there have died out a long time ago. The fact that debate has died down can be taken as that the community feels the guideline is good, rather than that they've lost interest. And, no offense, but I don't think you spent very long looking into it, there were edits before and after from you within a minute on each side. And whle we're at it, why do you think there was consensus on the Finnish naming conventions? I haven't participated, but it seems there's an ongoing argument about the substance of the guideline, and there are significant contributors unhappy with the status quo there. Mango juice^talk 14:52, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Mangojuice here. Despite the occasional dissenting voice and some novel (but unworkable and extremely U.S.-centric) point system suggested at the end, the proposition stabilized after a reasonable consensus had been reached. This should clearly be considered a guideline at this point. Tupsharru 16:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for undoing. I still want to show you the cases I've been gathering, because, well, I gathered them. :) I will add them to the Village Pump. Mango juice^talk 17:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Concerns about changing of Vanity guidelines

Looking over both the talk page and the history of the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest nee Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines, I became quite alarmed at the changes and the lack of consensus that was reached before such a drastic change was made. I could see some minor discussion, that didn't appear to reach any consensus at ALL, on changing the name to "Conflict of interest" and absolutely no discussion what-so-ever on the deprecation of the term "vanity". Vanity, in my opinion, is not at all derogatory, when it is understood that it is used in the same vein as a "vanity press" or "vanity publisher" -- meaning, quite literally, using Wikipedia to publish information about yourself. At any rate, Vanity has been a guideline for a VERY long time (going back almost 3 years) and has become, although admittedly ad-hoc, one of the most important acceptability criteria Wikipedia has. I'm urging you to back up a little bit, roll back your changes, and gain a LOT more community consensus. Right now, this appears on the surface to be quite unilateral, which disturbs me very greatly. Thank you for your time. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 16:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I also looked over WikiEN-l where there was some very minor discussion on this -- nothing that indicates either an office action or even consensus. It was just a few people knocking around the idea that this might not be a bad idea. The irony of ironies here is that one of the hottest threads on WikiEN-l right now is "Corporate Vanity". I'd like to discuss this more as this has some pretty wide-reaching effects, including efforts over at Wikipedia:Articles for Creation, and should be discussed more with the community at-large. At the very least, you should put a note on the talk page describing why such a drastic change was made. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 17:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I do not understand your justification. The possibility of people getting upset is justification for averting community consensus? Who says your solution to the problem is the one the Wikipedia community agrees with? Discussions off-wiki now trump consensus-building with the community on-wiki? Making major changes to community-established and weather-worn guidelines without even bothering to make a single note of why on the talk page is now acceptable behavior? Your point that it could cause problems is completly understood and well-taken. However, the approach taken on it went beyond being bold. I'm sorry Radiant, but this turn of events is deeply troubling to me and the anti-community attitude is alarming. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 18:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I understand the confusion now. If I may, I think we can summarize our disagreement thusly: You feel that changing the name of the page and deprecating the word 'vanity' was a harmless and relatively minor act to present a friendlier face to Wikipedia. I disagree and think that the this move changes its fundamental connotation and obfuscates the intent of the guideline and amounts to a very major change that should have gone through more on-wiki discussion before enacting. I want to be clear that I completely respect your intents and your point of view -- both are quite obviously well-intentioned. I just think there might be a perception problem on the magnitude of this change. Let me try to explain a little more from a slightly different perspective. One of the things I spend a considerable amount of time on is assisting new users on creating articles over at Wikipedia:Articles for creation. For newcomers, the guidelines are a complex maze of vagueness, exceptions, and addendums. Throw IAR into the mix and it can become overwhelming. A big part of what I've done over there is lay out an easy-to-follow roadmap on these guidelines. Vanity, of course, is a big part of that roadmap. This new concept, "conflict of interest", is very nebulous and in the real world has far deeper and wider connotations than simple "vanity" does and includes infinitely more shades of grey. Vanity was simple - don't do it. However, conflict of interest is far more complex. If I'm an employee of XYZ Corp, does that mean I can't submit information on the XYZ Corp article? In the real world, that could be considered a conflict of interest by the definition established by the worlds of business, ethics, and law. On Wikipedia, its perfectly acceptable as long as its sourced, NPOV, etc. The job of making the guidelines simple for newcomers just got a LOT harder with this change as now we have to redefine a long-established term in a Wikipedia context. As I said before, the impact of this is much wider than you thought and this is why such changes need community input. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 19:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You definately make some valid points. I think fundementally we agree here. If only there was an adjective version of "conflict of interest". "Conflict of interest page" doesn't roll off the tongue. :) :) All kidding aside, you brought up a point that I hadn't considered, which is that vanity and advertising are tightly linked and both fall under the CoI banner quite well. I think I can run with that. Thank you for taking the time to discuss this with me. I look forward to working with you in the future. (You really should put a note on the talk page of the CoI page explaining the change though) -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 00:21, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Mop?

Hi Radiant!

Thanks a lot for your kind words, I really appreciate them. Please forgive me for not replying sooner, but you managed to catch me on the wrong foot, and I had to do a little thinking - well, somebody has to be the Devil's Advocate, so it might as well be me :) I have never followed RfA debates much, but it seems to me like many editors would oppose a candidate like myself with a FA count of nought, having done mostly wikignomish edits (most importantly stub sorting, but also the fixing of categories / dabs / templates / succession boxes / misspellings / typos and sorting articles, most notably about politicans and Africa.) In my book, such work simply has to be done as well, and it accounts for, I don't know, 20,000? of my edits, but some editors don't consider this to be "proper" work.

So in some respects, I am doing a lot janitorial work already, but I have never really thought about standing for admin - and I've never been a big fan of self-noms. I have also noticed that many users believe that future admins should have a track record from AfD, but I have mostly been active at SFD, and stub sorters aren't loved throughout all of Wikipedia. I have seen editors refer to WP:WSS in ways I don't believe is used for other projects, despite of the countless hours many stub sorters work. I must also admit that I prefer systems where a candidate is elected for a (short) fixed term. I have had the pleasure of occupying many different functions within my political party, so I am very used to doing donkey work and working with others, but all these positions implied standing for reelection annually, where all officeholders were held accountable for their conduct during the preceding term. I'm glad the "admin for recall" option is being attempted, and sure, it is a step in the right direction, but in the ideal world, I believe that all adminships should expire automatically after a fixed term (e.g. one or two years, with the possibility of re-election) and be open to recall as well. I must also admit to be somewhat confused seing that some editors argue that "Adminship is no big deal" whilst others seem to demand that candidates show saint-like properties. For my part, I am not even a Catholic :)

Regarding the "lack of controversy" criteria (or how to put it) I try hard to be neutral, but I do not claim to be perfect, and I have screwed up occationally. When it comes to issues I feel strongly about - most notably Belarus and human rights in that country - I pretty quickly decided to simply avoid both reading and editing these pages altogether. I have, however, noticed that historians often aren't the most popular editors around since we often write on issues that are subjects of debate. I have personally been involved in debates regarding the proper naming of Byzantine Emperors, the internal structure of Denmark-Norway and the position of Denmark during World War II (if you're interested, I can give you the relevant links so you can see for yourself). I've also realized that, frustrating as it might be, it *is* sometimes necessary to dig up references for things I'd never imagined it should be necessary to find references for. I don't think I crossed the line in any of these debates, but some people seem to oppose anybody editing something the least controversial - that is the impression I get anyway. I should also make it clear that an article I made a major contribution to has been flagged with NPOV for more than a year. My rewrite was made way too sloppy / quickly, but I later tried to clean up my worst mistakes. I shall be the first to admit that my material had a mostly Danish bias, so this article probably swung too far from one POV to the other, but unfortunately, nobody has ever made real improvements to the article since then. I was pretty busy at the time so I never got around to searching for more material. I later got involved with WP:WSS and only remembered this topic much later. I am currently busy writing on my thesis and I have to focus on taking my Master's degree. In fact, I'll probably have to cut down on my editing time. One of my good friends recently started up WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology, and invited me to join it. I'm currently focussing what edit time I have on WP:HV and it looks like I've ended up being one of the people running this project, a job I very much enjoy.

I hope I'll be able to remove the "busy" tag around May next year, so if you or others feel that nomination might be an idea at this juncture, feel free to contact me then, and I'll think about it. But I've always believed that one should never get involved in any type of work where one doesn't have the time to do a proper job, and at the moment, my schedule is quite full. But thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate them, and I wish you all the best. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 23:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

PS: It is a pity Caerwine won't run, I have a good impression of him from WP:WSS. Perhaps Pegship would make a good candidate? Regards. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 23:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the mop nomination.

Thanks for the RfA nomination. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 23:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CHILD and ArbCom

Hey, since I was one of the first (the first?) editors to assert that WP:CHILD was not gaining and could not gain consensus back on 9 September 2006, please let me know if there is anything I can contribute to the request for arbitration. I'm hesitant to jump into the RfArb and comment myself because that will only help in moving the entire debate over to the RfArb, causing more harm than good. BigNate37_(T) 00:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

re: WP:CHILD arb

Radiant, a diff is not an accusation. If you don't want people to read diffs of you blanking pages, I think that the most effective way of achieving this would be to not blank pages. Nothing personal here, I assure you; just matters of principle. Herostratus 01:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PORNBIO used

I humbly disagree this guideline is merely of historic interest - it is regularly used for its intended purpose in WP:AFD (as per your work in marking WP:N a guideline, reflecting practice). Any week will show it being referred to several times. I would actually have marked it a guideline, following your lead there, except for being more nervous to take the lead on a clearly controversial issue like that. You're at least an admin, I'm not. Also, I didn't choose the mouse tag for nothing! I am actually hoping for advice on how to set up a formal debate on marking it as guideline or rejected or historical. Unlike AFD, where there is a formal procedure, I couldn't find a procedure here. Can you help, please? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia talk:Notability (pornographic actors)#Ready to become a notability criteria guideline. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Burroughs names questions

Strikes me that the 'corporation article' (link given) here ought be swapped with the redirect page ('Burroughs Corporation'—from and see the disambig page Burroughs (disambiguation)), and the disambig page be given the simplier link name. Would you opine and-or fix? I could brute force it, but don't have the time to check the naming conventions—I'm way over my time to wiki budget! Since you have such a handle and interests on policy and guidelines, you seem the best resource on this.

Also, sorry about not getting back to you as promised on the Cat Scan tool, but my computer died thanks to a power outage in a thunderstorm and I've been MIA this past month as real life smacked my schedule hard about the same time. I'll likely stay missing this coming month too! Sigh. Take care and Cheers! // FrankB 17:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA thanks

Thank you very much for your support in my RfA, which passed on October 17, 2006 with a tally of 53/6/0. I am equally elated and humbled by my new capacity as administrator of Wikipedia, and I send my heartfelt thanks for your unflinching support. If you need me for anything, just ask me! With gratitude, ²¹⁰physicq (c) 03:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards

This page is churning and yes, you may bring it to some sort of order. I think all the graphs are way too big and should be scaled to something reasonable for an 800px-wide monitor. I think it's important to maintain an index into the lists of personal standards. I suspect we may disagree but I don't see it does any harm and it is at least, on some level, a true reflection of community standards.

I think you're entirely competent to fix this; no need for me to mess in. John Reid 15:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RfA thanks

Hi, Radiant!! Thank you for supporting me in my RfA, which succeeded with a final tally of 75/0/1! I hope I can live up to the standards of adminship, and I will try my best to make Wikipedia a better place. Feel free to send me a message if you need any assistance. :)

--Core des at 15:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your message

Hi again Radiant!

Thanks for your message the other day. First of all, I'd like to thank you for the confidence you seem to show me. Quite honestly, when I wrote my post, I was counting on a negative reply. I did, however, find your information rather surprising, so I might have got hold of the wrong end of the stick regarding the nomination debates. Anyway, I would still need to do a massive readup on policies and guidelines, and secondly, I have never really thought about what new tasks it would make sense for me to do. My conclusion still stands at the moment - mostly due to my workload IRL - but you've given me some fruit for thought. :) Regards. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 19:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I Have Voted

On the AN/I thread on the "Discuss" essay, I may not have been clear. At the risk of repeating myself or being predictable, I paste in, below, my 2nd stab at explaining why I think we may all agree that we discuss rather than vote but may never be able to ratify that as an official guideline or policy.

My point is that you need to define "vote" and then understand the connotations of "vote" for all users. The arguments aren't about votes. They're about what votes mean connotatively. I am against any AfD, for example, where people say "delete" or "keep" and then sign. That's a vote. I think everyone has to provide a rationale. Having done that, it's not merely a vote in a strict sense, but a vote coupled with a discussion. On the other hand, some people want no restraint on the actions of those who they consider "higher up." Thus, they might cite "not a vote" as a justification for deleting an article against an overwhelming consensus to keep on an AfD. (I'm sticking to AfD as the least controversial. It all gets worse from there.) Therefore, I might say that "AfD is not a vote" and mean one thing, and another person might say "AfD is not a vote" and mean something almost 180 degrees from me. Similarly, if I see someone trying to codify "we do not vote," I might be so resentful or fearful of those 180 degrees from me that I oppose it, even though, in essence, we are almost all in agreement. Geogre 14:59, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your nomination and support

My administratorship candidacy succeeded with a final tally of 81/0/1. It wouldn't have happened today without your encouragement. Results are at Wikipedia:Recently_created_admins#Durova. Warmly, Durova 20:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New thread

This is exactly the problem with you. You think that if you've tagged something, you've dealt with it. Try making a positive contribution instead. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

dochterbedrijf

Hiya, need a hand with the word dochterbedrijf. What's it mean, I can't get any sense out of online translation sites. Here's the term in context, 10Feet, dochterbedrijf van Herb Industries. Does it mean subsidiary, a child company of the parent? Hope you can help, ta, Steve block Talk 14:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Top man, cheers! Steve block Talk 14:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Policymaking

The problem, as I see it, is that wikipedia has competing factions attempting to influence policy, and Wikipedia is large enough now that none of the factions has a clear majority except in edge cases of minimal procedural significance (either because they're so trivial that nobody cares, or because they're so entrenched that there's effectively no chance that they will be changed).

The methods I can see for clearing up this logjam are:

Gaming the system. That is, asking the "wrong" question so that the inevitable failure to achieve consensus can be creatively interpreted to indicate a consensus in the other direction.
Edicts from above. We're already seeing this with the OTRS stuff and the WP:OFFICE declarations. G11 is a prime example.
Ditching the "Discuss, don't vote" philosophy in favor of a vote (or something that approaches "voting" asymptotically).

None of the above methods are particularly appealing, but I don't see any procedural method for clearing the logjam that leaves Wikipedia's core philosophies intact. Asking people to reach reasoned consensus on a method to clear up a procedural logjam when the disagreement between them is what created the logjam in the first place is something of a non-starter.

Something will, eventually, have to give. And my suspicion is that it will be some subset of Wikipedia's core philosophies. I'm fairly certain that we're going to see more edicts handed down from above in the future regarding policy. It does the least amount of damage, is the easiest to justify, and they've already started doing it (thus making it easier to do it in the future -- the thin end of the wedge, as it were, though I don't believe it was intended that way).

All the best,
Ξxtreme Unction
15:12, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As the number of people involved in making a decision grows, the chance that there will be someone who will doggedly fight for any given position (regardless of its merit) approaches 100%. One possible way to counter this is to split the project into a republic, and if a particular policy or process ends up working well in practice for one group/state, others may choose to adopt it (we already have this to some extent, with different languages and citizendium adopting slightly different policies/processes). Another option is to form committees to do the critical thinking (no false dichotomies, not necessarily adhering to tradition), and they would generate suggested options that others would have less opportunity to logjam... though it would still be good to get some kind of consensus from everyone (maybe there'd be a straight-up vote, because the false-dichotomy problem would already have been addressed a bit).

Having a republic multiplies the complexity of trying to keep track of policy, but seems more wiki than committees. Maybe we need to recruit more multi-language people to help compare interwiki policy, and generate more documents like Wikipedia:Adminship in other languages. --Interiot 16:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is the hot button issue today; one way or another it drives all other serious issues -- all of them, from user conduct through policy proposals and adminship to content disputes. One way or another, all of these troubles are traceable in large part to growing pains. This community has finally grown to the point where consensus-style decision making simply doesn't work anymore.

Consensus is a dearly held principle around here; I've certainly killed enough bytes defending it. For me, though, consensus stands in opposition to autocracy. Others fear more the tyranny of the majority.

I agree that the two obvious alternatives are representative democracy and bureaucracy; I find them both repugnant, the latter much more so. I have a fairly complex alternative to all of these in mind but I fear it may simply be far too novel to get any attention at all. Certainly, one of the worst alternatives to consensus is pure mass democracy, with every issue being decided on a slim margin of straight up community-wide votes. But as the consensus ship sinks, this is going to look like the nearest lifeboat.

At bottom, my worst fear is that the community is simply too wedded to consensus to let it go. Radiant -- no offense -- is putting up a last-ditch defense of consensus and discussion; I think he's not the only diehard. It looks as if the dam is going to break first at RfA, where straight voting is going to take over in time -- for good or ill. It may already be too late to turn the herd in another direction.

I think this crisis is real and bigger than anything else around here -- bigger anyway than pedo-UBX. Dealing with it will take a core group of committed editors who aren't afraid to try something new. Is it time to open a page? Or is the issue so explosive that it should be discussed offwiki before trying to put out a proposal? John Reid 18:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, keep it on-wiki. I'm interested in hearing ideas, although I guess I'm another wedded to the discuss and reach consensus idea. But there certainly is an issue with a lot more people arriving at Wikipedia with intractable positions. To my mind we need the board to get more involved in some of the issues. If they can see a position of compromise or a position which is most likely to get supported or a position they actually want, they're going to have to start fighting for it. There is now a need for a casting vote on some issues. And I don't see a republic or a parliament working, to be honest. Steve block Talk 19:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My prediction, for whatever it may be worth, is that the future of Wikipedia holds at least two things which are essentially anathema to the current philosophies of Wikipedia:

Some sort of policymaking committee.
Increased restrictions on the "anybody" portion of "The encyclopedia that anybody can edit."

I consider the first to be an inevitable consequence of the fact that there are many people who come to Wikipedia, spend a very brief amount of time editing actual articles, and then immerse themselves deeply into the policy aspects of Wikipedia, never to surface again. They are more interested in pursuing some vision of online social justice than they are of actually creating an encyclopedia.

I consider the second to be an inevitable consequence of the fact that the OTRS folks and the OFFICE folks will find themselves snowed under by complaints as word gets out that, hey, you can bitch at the guys who run Wikipedia about your article, and they'll jump through hoops for you.

It may not happen this year, or the next, or even the next. But I predict that it will happen, unless a substantially new and innovative policy creation and enforcement mechanism is crafted between now and then.

All the best,

Ξxtreme Unction

04:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I've certainly begun to ponder whether we should just make all pages semi-protected, if only to make welcome messages and warnings and the like more easily targeted. But that's a big step and I think it's already boiling on the back burner, personally. The policy council, um. Yes, I think it may well happen, but I think I'd need persuading on it. To my mind once you start creating committees, you start seeing them detach and you start bringing in a divide. Maybe on divisive, binary issues we just need to have a big centralised discussion and get a crat in to call consensus after a time limit. Anyone not willing to move on a position is discounted as not working towards consensus. Who knows. It used to be we'd all agree on what we wanted, and work from there. Now we all disagree on what we don't work, and never seem to meet in the middle. Steve block Talk 09:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[Deindent] Well, don't mistake my predictions as endorsement. The policy-making committee idea has several profound failure modes, depending on how it is constructed and populated, and (tortured syntax ahoy, Cap'n!) by whom it is populated with. If it's a strictly back-channel thing, as was being sorta semi-worked on by Kelly Martin and others, that would be bad. If it was populated by a process similar to ArbCom...well, it would still probably be bad, but not quite as bad.

I am generally less opposed to increased restrictions on who can edit, mainly because I spent 10 years enforcing online policy for a large ISP. And online policy enforcement has certain parallels with online security. The first rule of online security is "No system is 100% secure as long as it has an active network connection to another computer." Breaking the security of a computer system is a function of three things: Time, Money, and Motivation. Given the right amount of these three things, any system can be compromised. Thus, the purpose of network security is not to eliminate the chance of intrusion, but rather to make the cost of those three things sufficiently expensive that casual abuse is discouraged.

Likewise, the abuse we see on a daily basis here in Wikipedia is a function of Time, Money, and Motivation. And right now we have very minimal brakes on that behavior, such that casual abuse is rampant. I think the first (certainly the most obvious) restriction which will be added will be requiring registration to edit Wikipedia, followed in short order by requring a valid email address during registration. This will not eliminate the casual abuse, but will sharply decrease it to a more manageable level.

The only 100% perfect solution I can see is, of course, to place me in charge of all policy-making and policy-enforcement decisions. But since neither Jimbo nor the Foundation have the vision to make such a radical change, I'm afraid we'll all be stuck with a less-optimal procedures. ;-)

All the best,
Ξxtreme Unction
14:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No no, I should be the Great Dictator! Isn't it obvious? I'm one of those editors who disappeared into the policy swamp shortly after arrival; it's really all I'm good for, aside from the occasional pretty picture.

I have some really radical ideas for reform; as usual, I take a little from every side and whip it together. I really don't see the point of airing them, though, before the entire community. No doubt they're completely unacceptable as I would write them initially; they need to be worked on before showing to a wider audience. You need to keep in mind that a large bulk of editors are hostile to anything they see (shoot first); more are hostile to anything new (good enough for grandad); still more hostile to anything they haven't peed on (that's the smith's dog i smell), and others hostile to anything that alters long-standing policy (defenders of the faith).

Any proposal that goes deep enough to address the failure of consensus will, if aired in a raw state, be shredded and the creator burnt at the stake. No, we need a quieter place to work this up. John Reid 02:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Arbitration Clerk, FloNight 20:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aargh - WP:CHILD has been edited so many times that it's a moving target! I'm pretty sure that when I moved to support it some days ago, it mainly said that personal information should/would be removed by admins, but then it was edited again and again so often that I gave up participating. I'll go read it again, and maybe edit my evidence. Any specific suggestions, or specific objections that I could take into account? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 13:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did read it again. That is what it focuses on. Yes, it does say that editors can be blocked, but only for repeated posting of the deleted info. The ability to delete info would be meaningless otherwise. Yes, it does try to base itself on COPPA, which I don't know enough about, and may or may not be wise, but I don't care about that. As several wrote on its discussion page, we should do the right thing, and if the law should happen to support us, so much the better. I do believe that the main import is to delete personal info. I can shorten my evidence about the WP:N edit war if you like. You like? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 14:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Better? I shortened the WP:N revert war info considerably, as you requested. I know I didn't add in the COPPA and blocking stuff as you also mentioned, but there's really no "evidence" as such that I can give about that that isn't already present on the front page of WP:CHILD, and I'd be hard put to argue for it, given that I don't know COPPA from ADAM, and do believe that blocking could, in theory, be necessary, just as for repeated, blatant, and continual violation of any policy/guideline/whatever. If you like, we can copy this stuff from our talk pages to the RFAr/Evidence talk page, that might be the most approptiate.

Thank you. I did want to leave in that I do support your WP:N actions.... just wish they would also be applied here! :-). AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 14:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Criterion

Hello! From a perusal of WP:CSD there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the article in terms of criteria - those traversing it have noticed its merits accordingly and have granted it good status. There was a debate as to the importance of the article on the talk page. My own view is that a comprimise at Mid importance is fair in terms of rating. I too lack experience aside from informal study in the field of psychiatry unfortunately; hence the suggestions on the page. Ah well - cya! :P - D-Katana 19 October 2006 14:08 (UTC)

Re-greetings. WIAGA may be more applicable, the article was awarded the status a few months ago. Judging by the talk page it is apparantly a matter of having the article rated accordingly. Signed, sealed and delivered...:)D-Katana 19 October 2006 20:47 (UTC)

WP:RFA/Cynical

Thank you for contributing to my RFA. Unfortunately it failed (final tally 26/17/3). As a result of the concerns raised in my RFA, I intend to undergo coaching, get involved in the welcoming committee and try to further improve the quality of my contributions to AFD and RFA. All the best. Cynical 14:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WR at AN/I

Thanks for your comment. This is what I get for a sincere effort to strike a balance. Thanks also for not unblocking; I realize that this would not constitute an outright WW but I really do believe in staying out of the gray area on this kind of stuff; it's not like it costs me anything to sit out a day. In fact, I got some Real Work done -- and I have more to do today. John Reid 18:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Muchas gracias

Hey Radiant!, thanks a lot for supporting me in my recent RfA. It succeeded, and I am very grateful to all of you. If you ever need help with anything, please don't hesitate to ask. Also, feel free point out any mistakes I make! Thanks again, —Khoi khoi 03:54, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RfA

Hey Radiant,

I just wanted to thank you for your support in my recent request for adminship, which passed unanimously with a final tally of 38/0/0. I appreciate your trust, and will do my best to uphold it. Don't hesitate to let me know if you ever need anything. — TKD::Talk 05:25, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA thanks

Hello Radiant! Thank you for supporting me during my recently concluded RfA, which succeeded with a final tally of 77/2/0. I hope I live up to the confidence you have shown. I'm still exploring the new tools, so feel free to tell me of any mistakes on my part. In case you need help with anything, just leave me a message. Thanks again!--thunderboltz^(Deepu) 10:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RFA!

Radiant!, thank you so much for your support for my RfA. I passed with a vote tally of 61/0/1. I am honored that the consensus was to allow me the added privilege of the admin mop. I appreciate your support! --plange 21:55, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop deleting the standards page

Please, I created a separate statistics page which is exactly the appropriate name for the info that you are posting. Please do not delete entire pages without MfD or appropriate discussion. Themindset 17:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, there is currently a discussion of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/A-D, and a seperate page created for statistics Wikipedia:Requests for Adminship/Statistics. I'm not sure that it's entirely appropriate to radically over-write a page that is currently being considered for deletion by the community. Themindset 20:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the current MfD Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/A-D the page you are overwriting is listed as part of the overall MfD. I don't believe the changes you are making are appropriate at this time. Would you consider mediation, such as getting a third opinion, or perhaps asking others for their comments on this situation? As it stands, I feel I must maintain the page as is referred to in the MfD so as to make certain that people can see what they are voting on. Themindset 20:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Elonka

Thank you very much for your support in my RfA. Unfortunately consensus was not reached, and the nomination was not successful. However, I do appreciate your comments, especially because I have great respect for your opinion, as I see you as one of the harder working administrators on Wikipedia. Please rest assured that I am still in support of the Wikipedia project, and will continue to contribute without interruption. Thanks again! --Elonka 17:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kbdank71

Thanks for nominating me for adminship. Can you believe I made it through and had to answer only three questions? Nobody had editcountitis, or TimeStandarditis, or FAitis, or SpecificNamespaceEdititis, or PolicyWonkitis, or any of the crap people have to go through these days. Pass or fail, I feel really bad for anyone that goes through the process now. --Kbdank71 18:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA thanks

Please accept my thanks for your support in my successful RfA, which I was gratified to learn passed without opposition on October 25, 2006. I am looking forward to serving as an administrator and hope that I prove worthy of your trust. With my best wishes, --MCB 01:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works)

Howdy, I've overhauled Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) based on a 2nd round of feedback. (You'd marked it as an accepted guideline a few weeks ago [2], but it was still only in development stages). Possibly it's complete and ready now?

The only thing I forsee as being potentially contentious is the chronological ordering of filmographies, but I suspect (hope) a supermajority will quickly emerge, once put to wider discussion, favouring consistency and traditional listing standards.

Feedback (at it's talkpage) or improvements welcome :-) --Quiddity 19:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MfD on Admin Standards pages

Please see this deletion debate. Carcharoth 00:36, 5 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: underlined link

Hi there! You said there was a config option to prevent link underlining, but I can't find it. Could you please tell me which one it is? Or should I change my monobook.css after all? >Radiant< 23:32, 5 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's at My preferences > Misc > Underline links. I set it to "Never". What it does in fact is nothing more than sending a small bit of CSS after the skin CSS but before your user CSS, so if you know the correct bit, setting it on your monobook.css would give a identical result. --cesarb 00:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks. I was looking under "skin" and such, completely missed this one. >Radiant< 00:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The rule of thumb with the preferences: look in all the sections, not only in the one where the option would logically fit. This is not the only setting which is on a nonobvious place. --cesarb 00:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Votes for Deletion - Clock Crew

As an experienced member of the Internet Community, having owned a computer for over 9 years, and frequently hopping between hundreds of various internet communities, sites and forums over the years, I would say that the Clock Crew is indeed notable on the popular flash portal, Newgrounds.com. While, you may have never been to the website, or have ever even heard of it, knowing that you are apparently an old goon and a huge bureacratic jerk - you fail to realize that in fact - yes - in fact - that the Internet has a culture of it's own indepedent of whatever Classical music or balets that you listen to or watch. In fact, I'd testify that "All your base are belong to us" is millions times more hilarious than "[The Importance of Being Earnest]]" - And probably more culturally significant.

Newgrounds.com is a significant staple of that culture, and is one of the most popular flash websites on the Internet for original flash submissions and content - especially with younger kids and teens. Thus their slogan - "Problems of the Future, Today!".

Here is the one of the two sole Keep (and the only sensible vote mind you!) vote, written by an unknown user, I can't find his IP from the history pages of the delete page.

* Keep: Anyone been to ClockCrew.net recently? The Clock Crew is still very much alive and it has always been a phenomenon. Considering there are still Clocks posting on Newgrounds today, that the Clocks have influenced the creation of many groups and crazes, and that Wikipedia has documented far lesser known fads, I think this is a piece of history that should remain in the archives.

Wikipedia should be used a little more constructively, not destructively. It's always - always - debatable as to what is important and isn't. And I think that the Wikipedia audience and authorship is skewed more towards the academic/nerd crowd, so therefore, they're going to biased with all their professionalism bullshit, no? And I think that the essence of this very bullshit is why you guys swiftly declared by democracy the destruction of this page.

Hey, who needs book-burning?!?!?! We can vote out the books from our libraries!!!! This is a swift request to bring back the article in question, openly adressed to all who voted to delete the article. Reply to me on my talk page.--Mofomojo 03:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

sdrawkcab

uəɥətsǃɯ əɹɐ noʎ oot spɹɐʍɔɥɐq ətou noʎ ɥuɐɥt ʎɯ noʎ ətǃɹʍ llI ɥu!ɥt noʎ ɟ! Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA thanks

Thank you for participating in my RfA discussion! I appreciate you contributing your voice to the debate and its outcome. Your support and comment in particular meant a lot to me. I hope how I wield the mop makes you proud. Thanks!

— Saxifrage

Thank you for your support!

Se la face ay pale, la cause est...

23:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

If I'm a bit pale in the face now,
it's because of the amazing support
during my recent request for adminship
and because of all those new shiny buttons.

And if in the future
my use of them should not always be perfect
please don't hesitate to shout at me
any time, sunset, noon or sunrise.

Two months late

I just have this funny feeling you'll have to prepare for a DRV over that MFD regarding the "admin school". Good call, though. And, two months late, but welcome back anyway. (You might know me better under my old username, but I'll let you have a guess who I am - no cheating by looking at my userpage!) – Ch acor 09:15, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(never mind, I was reading an old version of that page. Sorry.) --Milo H Minderbinder 16:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SALT

Thanks for explaining that! I figured I must be missing something. That'll teach me to read the relevant page thoroughly next time. — Saxifrage ✎ 18:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

Someone reported me at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR. I try reasoning to this person, and well, it's a long story but I'm sure you can judge for yourself. FactsOnly 10:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please check my talk page containing a conversation with him, as well as [3]. FactsOnly 10:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notability guidelines

(@ Radiant:) Tx for your message & advice on my talk page.

Just still something I wanted to bring to your attention: at Wikipedia:Notability (books) (which is in proposal stage) Rrfayette/FactsOnly's revisions have been reverted twice now too. On this page revisions were limited to changing a section title "Criteria" to "What are the criteria for notability of books?" (one of the many changes Rrfayette/FactsOnly had operated on Wikipedia talk:Notability (web) too). Yet both Fuhghettaboutit and Pascal.Tesson thought it worth reverting.

These are minor changes and they are done with. The outcome is "Criteria." There is nothing further to discuss here. FactsOnly 13:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(@ Radiant:) So, I'm not supporting your analysis "[...] Other than that, I don't see any real difference other than some bits of layout and a few minor tweaks in wording" [4]

I requested Rrfayette/FactsOnly to wait somewhat to see what others think [5] - I appreciate your suggestion to go to the 3O page, but doing that before waiting just a few hours after the first posting on the talk page to see how many others comment, does seem a bit premature doesn't it? FYI, third party comments start to come in [6], not to the advantage of Rrfayette/FactsOnly's imposed rewrite. --Francis Schonken 12:59, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then so we will just rework it. All he said was he "think the section title should be Criteria." What is the big deal? I am having a nice "cup of WP:TEA." FactsOnly 13:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "Then so we will just rework it", well that's not possible now, is it? You managed to get the page protected by Radiant. --Francis Schonken 13:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again

I like to change the color of my signature. How do I do this? Thank you. FactsOnly 13:54, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I put this, FactsOnly, in the "signature" box under "user profile" within "My preferences."

And it gave me this: "Invalid raw signature; check HTML tags." What did I do wrong?

Yes it is checked and I get "Invalid raw signature; check HTML tags" when I try to save, using this code: FactsOnly

Village Pump Discussion on Election Coverage

Hi Radiant. I've posted this in Village Pump already, but was curious about any further thoughts you had on the subject.

Though Wikipedia:Candidates and elections does provides guidance on how to write candidate/election articles, but provides no guidance on how/when it is appropriate to post results of elections. It is my contention (and others may disagree), that the premature posting of election results can actually taint the democratic process, and should thus be NPOV. I can see how people might think an official policy would be unnecessary, but as it is not covered explicitly in the Candidates and Elections guidelines, I think a small amendment wouldn't hurt.

Best regards, Djma12 18:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hatnote guidelines inactive?

I wasn't aware of any changes that would have made Wikipedia:Hatnote inactive - is there some other page which lists guidelines about hatnotes? —AySz88 \^-^ 21:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Hi Radiant! thanks for your support and advice on my recent RFA.. I will try to get more involved in process discussions here. Ironically process is what I do for a living:). -- Lost^(talk) 17:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History merge ("The Hits Album")

That's great, thank you. Fourohfour 17:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Survey Q

Have you ever been to the southern hemisphere, click here to reply.AstroBoy 01:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC) Deadline for entries is December 15th[reply]

RfA thanks

Hi Radiant! I am very thankful to you for supporting and comments on my succesful RfA. Shyam ^(T/C) 06:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Archived article

Hello there, I was wondering if you would know how I can obtain the archived version of the Robert Benfer article that you deleted. Somebody suggested on the talk page that I could work on a version of the article in my userspace until such a time as this person is deemed notable and the deletion decision is revoked. Thank you for your time. Esn 07:27, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RfA

Hello Radiant! I wanted to thank you with flowers (well, flower) for taking the time to participate in my RfA, which was successful. I'm very grateful for your support. I assure you I'll continue to serve the project to the very best of my ability and will make an effort to become more involved in policy making. Please do let me know if I can be of assistance and especially if you spot me making an error in future. Many thanks once again. Yours, Rockpocket 07:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA thanks!

My brand-spankin' new mop!

My RfA done
I hope to wield my mop well
(Her name is Vera)

I appreciate
The support you have shown me
(I hope I don't suck)

Anyway, I just
wanted to drop you a line
(damn, haikus are hard)

EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:17, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Need Help Please

I thought there would be no more problems. Could you please read this revision I made [7], which includes those on the list [8], as well as edits for conciseness and clarity, and honestly tell me if it is so "inferior" to the previous. It is very slight improvement with differences that does not merit conflict [9] and reverting the entire article [10]. One could change the differences they have issues with, but reverting the entire article is nonsensical.

This message has gone to the two admins who took part in solving the conflicts. To gain multiple views from neutral third parties, I request that you leave this note in the "Third opinion" page, wherever that is. I also wish to know where is the "dispute resolution" page. It looks like I'm going to be using it often. Any places to prevent people -- who appear to be WikiStalker, who come out of nowhere and start attacking for the edits I make -- from reverting everything I do whould be nice as well. I would appreciate the assistance (it would take a bit of time), though you could always disregard it. —SolelyFacts 19:40, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA thanks

Thank you for the extra feathers on my wings!

Thank you so much, Radiant!, for your support in my RfA, which passed on November 11, 2006, with a final tally of 82/0/2. I am humbled by the kind support of so many fellow Wikipedians, and I vow to continue to work and improve with the help of these new tools. Should you have any request, do not hesitate to contact me. Best regards, Húsönd 21:14, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Possible new CSD

I'm floating around this proposal I've written for a new CSD regarding unsourced articles: User:Dmcdevit/CSD addition. There's quite a bit of explanatory fluff there that I think explains my thinking on the matter. Right now, I'm soliciting input from people before deciding how to go about implementing it. Any thoughts on the talk page would be greatly appreciated. :-) Dmcdevit·t 05:32, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA Standards page

Hi Radiant,

I certainly don't disagree with your marking the old pages as historical; however, I do hope that some sort of shorter, still unofficial summary of the general RfA expectations remains available (beyond the bit in the RfA page header.) The old pages did accomplish some good: they introduced potential candidates to very rough baseline community expectations, without setting any certain limits in stone.

Also, somewhat separately, I actually thought that we might delete the letter-divided subpages, and simply leave the full page as the history record, perhaps moving it to an "archive" subpage, so that folks could begin to work on a newer, more concise, active standards page. Best wishes, Xoloz 16:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

International Guidance Awareness Program Sponsored Discussion

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[1] teresting exercise to be sure... note also that citation/reference/footnote technology has advanced... see WP:REF and WP:CITE

[1]