User talk:B

Because of privacy concerns, I no longer maintain separate archive pages. One of the worst policy decisions Wikipedia has made is to allow user and user talk edits to be indexed by search engines. This creates a space that is largely unmonitored for libel and nonsense, but is nonetheless the top g-hit for any relevant search term. For previous comments on my talk page, see 2007 Dec 30, 2008 Jan 21, 2008 Feb 26, or the old archives.

On January 16, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Charles Moir, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Request

If you've got the time, do you think you could throw together a Virginia Tech bowl games navbox that we could throw at the bottom of the Tech bowl game articles? You're a lot better at box syntax than I, and I think it'd be a good thing to have to connect all 21 (and counting) Virginia Tech bowl game articles we'll have when I move beyond the keystone article. That, and it'd look really nice on the Featured Topic page one of these days. :) If you're too busy, I can try to tackle it; just let me know. Thanks! JKBrooks85 (talk) 00:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. See {{Virginia Tech bowl games}}. --B (talk) 02:32, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks pretty snazzy. Nice work, and thanks! JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot... do you have any pictures that could be used for some of the older bowl game articles? I'll be asking on TSL eventually, I'm sure, but you're the guy on the spot, and if you have any, it'd be really helpful. I think I've got a few of the Insight Bowl, but I'll have to dig for them. JKBrooks85 (talk) 05:37, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

No - didn't have a camera at any bowl other than the CFA bowl in 06. --B (talk) 15:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Bummer. I'll have to email Autiger to see if he's got any pictures of the '05 Sugar Bowl, then. JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:12, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I've nominated Virginia Tech bowl games as a potential featured list. Does it look all right to you? JKBrooks85 (talk) 06:00, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

It needs something more. What about a mini infobox for each game that gives the game name, opponent, date, and scoring summary? I'm going to make {{NCAAFootballSingleGameHeaderMini}} from {{NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader}} and try it out. --B (talk) 13:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I've added it for the first few ... you can decide whether or not you like having it in there ... but I just think that a featured list is going to need something visual (as opposed to prose) to get approved. --B (talk) 13:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Question

Hi B. I have a question about the way things work around here that I wanted to ask. How long does an article have to be tagged as sounding like a personal essay before it can be deleted (as in the case of the article on John Hick)? I tried to clean up the intro but it is so poorly written that I'm not sure if it can be salvaged. What is typically done in such cases? I am not necessarily interested in rewriting the article myself, but something has to be done about it. Thanks for your help. Kristamaranatha (talk) 02:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Those "maintenance tags" are not a part of the deletion process. Category:Articles lacking sources, for example, goes back three years. Those tags are basically just messages that say "someone else should take care of this problem". I'm going to go ahead and nominate it for deletion. There will be a link to a discussion page at the top once I'm done. See WP:AFD for more information on nominating something for deletion. --B (talk) 02:32, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Whitelist/blacklist issue

Hi - could you comment on this request please. You added the site to the blacklist but there seems to be nothing in the way of logging or other request that I can see. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:05, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

This is obviously a spammy non-notable blog with a very high ad/content ratio. There is a massive effort to spam a particular group of fansites - see User_talk:B/page2#Fansite_spam_investigation for a list of ones I have seen. All of these appear to be owned by the same person/company/whatever. The Tyrod site does not appear related to the rest of these, but I still don't think we should have it here. It doesn't meet our external link policy and actual content is lacking. One of the "articles" is just a link to buy fatheads with an affiliate ID (ie, advertising disguised as an article). One of them is selling "Fire Jim Weaver" t-shirts. (No serious source of Tech information would promote such a thing. Jim Weaver is unquestionably one of the best ADs in the country, TSL trolling notwithstanding.) Three of them are links to youtube videos. This is just a spam site and absolutely should not be permitted here. --B (talk) 15:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot - I've closed it --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:31, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

As for staying away from Daedalus, I have no reason to go anywhere near him. I had never heard of him until he started reverting me on those users' talk pages. So long as he leaves me alone there's no reason we should ever come across each other again. -- Zsero (talk) 05:09, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. Glad to help. In the future, if a similar issue comes up, please feel free to contact me to ask for help and/or a third opinion. --B (talk) 05:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

East Carolina Pirates football seasons

Hey, you wrote

I don't think you need a separate color for NSC championship vs SC championship since each row tells what conference they were in. (In other words, pick one color for a conference championship.)

How do you feel about having one box that that says Conference Champions. i.e.

Conference Champions

Bowl game berth

And the reader can look on the line to see which conference ECU was in. Thanks, PGPirate 01:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you a cell borders wiz? I copied this table, hence, I do not know how to manipulate the table as you prescribed. Also, please look at the ref in 2005. How does it look explaining division rankings. If you have any direct questions/comments, please respond on my talkpage. Thanks, PGPirate 01:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I've fixed the WWII area. Feel free to tweak the text or add a ref to it. The colors and legend you suggest look fine. As for the 2005 change, I don't know what the right answer is, but if I didn't notice it, a reader might not either. I don't know what the right answer is ... maybe change the conference label to "CUSA Eastern" (or whatever the division is called), then it would be obvious what it is talking about. --B (talk) 01:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you suggesting changing the ref to CUSA East (not Eastern:) ) or put it somewhere else? Also, should the colspan stay at 7, where you put it? Or 6, which is between bowl game and AP Poll? I would say colspan 6, but I would like your opinion. Thanks, PGPirate 01:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I think 7 probably looks the best, otherwise, there's a chunk of a box hanging out in the middle of nowhere. As for CUSA East, I'm suggesting changing the "conference" column to read "CUSA East" or "CUSA (East division)" for 2005, 2006, and 2007. --B (talk) 01:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

How does the CUSA East look now? I wasn't quite sure where you thought it should go. If it is not where you thought it should go, please tell me and I will try to fix it. I do believe the CUSA East designation is needed somewhere. Thanks, PGPirate 14:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

What has changed that I'm looking at? It doesn't look any different. I would change the "Conference USA" label in the 2nd column to "CUSA East" or "Conference USA East" - that makes it more obvious what it is talking about. --B (talk) 23:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Even though the "division designation" did not happen until the 2005 season? From 1996 - 2004 there was no East, West division. I don't think that would be a good title. Because ECU wasn't in the East division from 1997-2004. PGPirate 23:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we're on the same page ... here's what I'm suggesting (good, bad, or indifferent, I don't know - just a suggestion): --B (talk) 00:03, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

2003	Conference USA	10	1	10	—	—	—
2004	Conference USA	10	2	9	—	—	—
2005	Conference USA East	4	5	6	—	—	—
2006	Conference USA East	2	7	6	Lost Papajohns.com Bowl vs. South Florida 24–7	—	—
2007	Conference USA East	2	8	5	Won Hawai'i Bowl vs. Boise State 41–38	—	—
2008	Conference USA East	—	—	—	—	—	—

Ohhh, well that makes sense:). I was thinking column title, not horizontal title. Yeh, I like that. I will change it now, and thanks for the advice. PGPirate 00:28, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Question re removing incorrect warnings

Here you wrote that "an incorrect warning can be removed by anyone". Is that the general rule? If a user has been warned incorrectly, for something that the warner mistakenly thought was vandalism but actually wasn't, is it OK to remove the warning? Hu12 insists that it isn't. I don't know how he came across this page unless he's been checking my contributions (to which I have no objection but it does seem to mean he's looking for something to take me down).

This IP has been used almost exclusively for vandalism, but it made one edit that, though of marginal utility, wasn't actually vandalism, and wasn't warnable. I assume that the warning editor, primed by the IP's record, didn't consider the case closely enough, and assumed this edit was just like all the others; it was a mistake, so I corrected it by removing the mistaken warning. Every other warning on the page was well-deserved, so I left them, and indeed added one of my own. My question is whether Hu12 is correct that I may not remove a warning that should never have been left, or whether your statement is correct, that incorrect warnings can be removed by anyone?

-- Zsero (talk) 20:59, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Are we talking about this edit? That looks like vandalism to me. I have no idea who Mr. Pena is, but the IP modified someone else's comments and added something that looks like irrelevant nonsense. To answer your question, I doubt there's a written rule anywhere about removing obviously incorrect warnings, but it falls into the category of "things that are obviously a good idea". If someone is a good faith user, we don't want to drive them away by falsely accusing them of vandalism. But in this case, I would not suggest removing the warning - you should only remove the warning (or replace it with a personal message) if the edit was obviously not vandalism. --B (talk) 23:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. I got confused between that edit by a vandal IP, which was indeed properly warned as vandalism, and another edit to the same page by a different vandal IP (since blocked), which was marginally not vandalism. Sometimes these vandal IPs all blend into each other... In this case, of course Hu12 was quite right to replace the warning which I'd mistakenly removed. <emily-litella>Never mind.</emily-litella> -- Zsero (talk) 23:56, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Warning

As per Wikipedia:MFD#Prerequisites I am hereby warning you that it is inappropriate to list proposals on MFD. It is also inappropriate to attempt to alter MFD policy by forum shopping at DRV. Your own behaviour is not excused by inappropriate behavior of others, real or perceived.

You could have easily avoided this situation by discussing with me first, as is in fact recommended on WP:DRV. While misinterpretation of MFD policy is possible, and there are some interesting circumstances surrounding this situation, you did not chose to first discuss with me, but instead decided to immediately take a formal route. That's why I'm forced to be formal back. Nota bene, I had already said that I was open to any reasonable alternate plan!

Note that the only activity on the page after closure is by me (adding a rejected template), the only activity on the talk page after closure is by abd, who has already been checkusered and found to be a user in good standing, not a sock puppet.

• Proper venue to alter MFD policy, or discuss interpretation is at the MFD page. You can also discuss differences in interpretation with me on my talk page.
• Proper venue to discuss the delegable proxy proposal is Wikipedia talk:Delegable proxy

--Kim Bruning (talk) 12:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)