User talk:FateClub

re Image

That graph is misleading because it puts together data collected using different methods and approaches, and as such it cannot reflect actual trends of public opinion. The list of polls contains more information because it lists the provenance of the data, which is as important as the data itself because it allows readers to judge whether they trust a given source or not.

I'm all for making easier to the readers to understand the material, but the way you did it is not an appropriate way to analize data. That's why I suggested to clump all polls from a single source together in one graph, for instance. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 18:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Data has to be comparable in the first place in order to justify putting it in a graph. The poll data on that list is not for the reasons I mentioned above. Your graph as it stands may be misunderstood as reflecting changes in voting preferences, which is of course not the case. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 19:24, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Point taken :) FateClub

Re: List of Mexican billionaires

I mean for you to wait a few minutes until I finished writing my arguments in the article's talk page, and then read what I had to say for reasons for my revert. Sorry I wasn't fast enough :)

By the way, fellow editors are always welcome to my talk page, and you are too. Hari Seldon 20:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Ha ha... it was all about timing. You got me confused ("which talk page is he talking about... could it be... this one?!) Sorry, I'm really fast sometimes. --FateClub 20:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Spic (slur)

Of course it's untrue; the article sets out a number of theories that have been proposed, and discusses them. It could do so more fully, and that would be a useful thing for you to do. Removing mention of a theory because it's false isn't. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 17:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Um, what part of what I said above was unclear? Why do you still think that deleting the paragraph is more useful than adding a clearer account of the theory in question? --Mel Etitis (Talk) 18:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, first, you seem to be depending upon a distinction between an assumption and a theory which is the wrong way round; the Wikipedia term is correct, the source is sloppy. Secondly, I don't know how many times I can say this, but: you're arguing that the article isn't clear enough about the status of this theory — so why not make it clearer? --Mel Etitis (Talk) 18:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Explaining common errors is of course part of what an article should do. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 19:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

And therefore the article needs to be................ improved.......................... --Mel Etitis (Talk) 20:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, some people simply chop out chunks of text that need improvement rather than improving them. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 20:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh good grief, if you can't discuss the actual case, but can only make your point by silly references to "what grandma says", it's clear that your position is untenable, and you're continuing to argue simply because you can't bear to give in. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 20:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, AGF. Misconceptions and false theories do have places in articles (we even have articles devoted to them — think of all the articles on religions, on the Flat Earth Society, on phlogiston, etc.) — we just have to give sources to show that they're really held by people, and then describe them accurately and explain (giving sources) what experts say is wrong with them. We're not allowed to do that with religions, in fact, because the NPoV approach has its limits unfortunately, but we can certainly do it here. The article doesn't do it well, at the moment, which is where you can improve it by editing that paragraph to make things clearer. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 21:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, that was misleading; I meant that I was going to AGF.

The problem was that, after removing the paragraph (rather than adding {{fact}} to it) because it had no source, I explained its source — but you still wanted to delete it rather than improving it, even though your arguments were all to do with the improvements that are needed. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 21:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm beginning to wonder if the problem is with your understanding of the English; what do you take "theory" to mean? --Mel Etitis (Talk) 21:33, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if that sounded hostile; it was meant very straightforwardly &mdash things that you've said imply that you're understanding the term "theory" non-standardly, and if that's true it might be the source of at least part of this disagreement. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 21:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

A theory is simply an explanatory hypothesis; the notion that "spic" comes from "hispanic" is an atymological theory. It's a false theory, of couyrse, but a theory nonetheless. Why do you think that it isn't? And if you don't think that it isn't, why do you object to the article saying that it is? --Mel Etitis (Talk) 22:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Box office bombs ...

I suggest we just ignore McMillan from here on out. He's obviously just going to keep on spewing his malarkey as long as we keep replying to him, it isn't as if we're convincing him of squat, and I'm sure we're coming off just as argumentative as he's being. I've said as much in the article. Regards, RGTraynor 18:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Arnold Belkin

I suggest you remove categories "Russian Mexicans" and "English Mexicans". Belkin did not have Russian or English citizenships. It is my habit to write first to a contributor before removing data myself. Best!--Healkids 17:55, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Re:List of Argentine Americans

It was not removing Santaolalla that I considered vandalism. I was removing some Martin G. Prego from the list, added minutes before you removed Santaolalla. I had an older version of my Watchlist, and didn't realize of your edit when I undid the anon's edit. I guess you didn't see that part of my edit either. Nevermind, I it's fixed now. Good wiking, --Mariano(t/c) 20:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Antonio Marino

Hello, you recently nominated Antonio Marino to the Articles for Deletion process when the article was probably uncontroversial. AfD requires volunteer work on the part of others, and there is usually a backlog of requests which hinders careful analysis of each nomination. Please consider the speedy deletion or proposed deletion processes first in the future, as recommended by the overall deletion policy. Thank you. Potatoswatter 04:17, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

RE: Sexo, amor y otras perversiones

While still not a sysop, and probably won't be one in any forseeable future, I just moved the page back, over the redirect. Thanks for telling me I erred! --Signed and Sealed, JJJJust (T C) 04:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Arnold Belkin #2

Thanks for your note. I am not a sociologist but I have spoken to one who assures me that your argument can not be used universally but only to certain gropus (like large minorities) such as Mexican-Americans (as you state) or African-Americans which have, as a group, powerful cultural idiosincracies in the countries they live. I respectfuly suggest that you look into the accepted norms for group divisions. In any case, I will not engage in further debate, my norm is to provide well researched advise and hope, for Wikipedia's sake, that it will be accepted and if not, so be it! Best regards.--Healkids 18:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Foxilandia

I know. I believe that the content I am adding is neutral, if poorly worded. I don't see what is wrong with saying that the term is commonly used in material from the left. I am not so irresponsbile as to continously add opinions simply to see if it sticks. I genuinely believe the information I am adding is not an opinion and it is not POV.

In any case, if the consensus is that the content is POV, I wont re-add it. But there is at least another user who believes it is neutral...

And no, AMLO is not a candidate. He was a candidate. The election is now over.

Hari Seldon 02:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Spanish language

Hi! I removed the countries you have listed, because the majority of the wiki-editors in that article does not agree with it. Some agree with you, some dont. That's the problem with wikipedia, it's hard to get an alliance and trust. But i agree with your opinion. I don't have a problem with Aruba, Curaçao etc. being listed in the Spanish section, it's just wiki-editors in the Spanish language article are sceptics. But if you have sources to support your issue, please feel free to add it back on. Saludos!. -- Ramírez 12:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Luis Miguel Gallego Basteri

I wasn't sure whether you caught my earlier parallel cmt "The singer Luis Miguel". Hope you don't feel i was making trouble by being so direct.
--Jerzy•t 00:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Vicente Fox

I ask for your mediation in Vicente Fox, please. Hari Seldon 00:28, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Municipalities of Mexico

First, I would like to apologize for the misunderstanding in Talk:Municipalities of Mexico. I left a message there, and some proposals regarding the nomenclature being used to refer to Mexican municipalities and boroughs. I would very much like to hear your opinions on the issue. --the Dúnadan 17:45, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Please sign and date all entries with: ~~~~

Archive #1 (3 April 2005 – 21 September 2005) | Archive #2 (27 September 2005 – 3 October 2006)

Thanks for adopting my suggestions

Re In the news, thanks for agreeing that the significant news should lead, in this particular case, five students being killed. Also, thanks for deleting the figure 10 but I notice you nevertheless still insisted in the edit summary 10 "*is* the total number of victims". In the interests of accuracy, let me point out that our article says five died and five were critical. Right, but that does not mean 10 were shot. In fact, the article says three were admitted to Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, four to Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and one to Christiana Hospital in Delaware. Add the three who died at the school, and that doesn't equal 10. I am puzzled why you would think it illogical to mention students and hostages when students were in a hostage situation, but never mind, it reads ok now. Moriori 07:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Template:Proposed

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

Main Page Vietnam

Can you help me ? to insert link interwiki Vietnam: vi:Trang chính into main page of English . Thank you a lot ! NTT Vietnam

In the news chronological order

Hi David. I saw that you put the chess item up on ITN. Thanks for that. Unfortunately, the next few edits suceeded in messing up the chronological order. In the editing window it is currently labelled as "12 October", when in fact it should be "13 October". Would you be able to fix this? The relevant edits are you added it, P. F. Lai incorrectly changes date and chronological order and removes picture. There was then a sequence where Golbez added stuff that was already there, and then reverted. You then removed it, and The Tom added it back... Did you remove the chess item because it was near the bottom (I note it wasn't right at the bottom), or because you wanted to avoid more than one sports entry? What do you think about restoring the chess item to where it originally was (above the Moon entry), and letting it fall off the page naturally as more items come in? I wouldn't normally quibble about things like this, but P. F. Lai changing the date it was added (even though I'm sure it was a genuine mistake) seemed to have had (or will soon have) the effect of accelerating it falling off the template, which seems a bit unfair. Carcharoth 12:50, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Please ignore the above. P. F. Lai has acknowledged and corrected the mistake. Carcharoth 13:11, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Response

My script is in the process of correcting this by replacing "tl" with "tlu" so the links work properly. PoccilScript 01:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Template:Test

The "it" is wholly unnecessary. It basically reminds people that we're referring to the subject of the sentence (the test), which was already established three words earlier. We can lose that comma as well. -- Steel 20:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I ran this past a few (British) people who know more about these kind of things than I do and they said that both versions (with and without the it) are acceptable. If it's incorrect in American English without the it then it's probably best to leave it in, considering British English doesn't seem to mind which is used. -- Steel 23:31, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Re: Vandalism

I've given them one last warning, since that appears to be standard practice. At this rate, though, they'll be the first person I've ever had to block in my nearly three years of being a sysop at various wikis. It really puzzles me that they'd make many productive edits at Wikipedia yet treat Meta the way they do. Anyways, thanks for keeping an eye on things, and I'll be checking back on them periodically. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 07:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Language template

I am disappointed that once again Raul has cut the Language template at Template:Wikipedialang which you had lengthened to the satisfaction of a number of other language Wiki users. I cannot understand his constant vendetta. The template has already been massively reduced. Why do key up and coming non-Western languages have to be excluded? Tfine80 19:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello

Hi, you recently reverted my improvements on WP:IAR. These are not major changes; they are simply explanations and clarifications. Please talk to me if you have any issues with the minor useful additions I am making, and I will accommodate it into the article. Also, please allow me more time before reverting; it is very distributive in my contributions. Reply back on this talk page and I will respond promptly. Thank you.

Hi, it's me again. If you were to create an account, you could have a Sandbox where you could work on some drafts of the article and present this on the Wikipedia_talk:Ignore_all_rules. By working in your own sandbox, nobody would disturb you during your edits and you can make interesting and perhaps innovative changes which could possibly be disruptive if carried out on the actual article. Heligoland 14:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe you are being far too cautious. If you allow me the time to work, you will find that I have done nothing disruptive. Please revert the article back. Please also read Talk.

The decision is now out of my hands. It's up to David, what with him being an admin and all. My only concern is that users visiting WP:IAR might arrive to find an article which is in the middle of your facelift process. As I've said, I'm most satisfied that your not vandalising and what I'm about to say clearly isn't your intention, but without discussing your changes on the talk page, you run the risk of posting material which is not accurate and which could mislead anybody reading it. As something like WP:IAR is an important rule and guideline for Wikipedia, any changes need to be agreed upon and any future versions of the page need to be proof read before going live. Best Wishes Heligoland 15:09, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

"your facelift process."

• Please read the "Always leave something undone" at http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_to_consider in responds to your comment. Please also read the talk guidelines, the part where they speak about being courteous to Wiki users.

"Without discussing your changes on the talk page, you run the risk of posting material which is not accurate and which could mislead anybody reading it."

• This is a risk of the entire Wikipedia project, but I'm sure you, being an admin and all, could understand that.

"any changes need to be agreed upon"

• Of course, though the additions I am making are not changing the policy, and are therefore not violating anything.

"and any future versions of the page need to be proof read before going live"

• This is a false statement. Users have improve and made changes without having every single edit discussed. Check the history to see for yourself, please.

Again, you are being far too cautious, and I hope I hear from you quickly. Thank you again.

Your changes to the page (which is not an "article") are far from minor. Several of your ideas (adding the word "discourage," placing the entire policy in a "nutshell" box, significantly expanding the page's length) have been rejected by the community. You also have failed to follow our style guide. (In particular, some of your headings were incorrectly formatted.)

As I advised (and the page itself advises), please propose these revisions on the talk page before proceeding.

As Heligoland noted, it generally isn't a good idea to experiment on active pages (by saving changes and seeing what requires "fixing"). Please use the "Show preview" button (and attempt to arrive at a working version) before pressing the "Save page" button. Heligoland also was correct in stating that a sandbox would be useful in this situation. You could experiment to your heart's content and present the results to the community when you're ready. If you'd like, I'd be happy to create a sandbox for you.

Heligoland was incorrect in implying that administrators (including me) possess the authority to overrule the editorial decisions made by other editors. My reversion of the page (performed without the special "rollback" function afforded to sysops) carried no more weight than Heligoland's. It was not an administrative act, but it did reflect my knowledge of the community and its procedures.

Your latest message on my talk page (posted as I was typing the above) seems to be based upon the mistaken impression that Heligoland's most recent reply was written by me. You also incorrectly claimed that you "are not changing the policy." In fact, you added a word ("discourage") that alters the policy's meaning in a manner rejected by the community.

I disagree with your implication that you've been treated discourteously. Heligoland has politely attempted to assist you (as I'm doing now).

On an semi-related note, please sign your posts on talk pages. Please also be more patient before declaring that a "mistake" has been made and falsely implying that a dispute has been mutually resolved. It took a while for me to type this reply. Thank you. —David Levy 15:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Your changes to the page (which is not an "article") are far from minor. Several of your ideas (adding the word "discourage," placing the entire policy in a "nutshell" box, significantly expanding the page's length) have been rejected by the community. You also have failed to follow our style guide. (In particular, some of your headings were incorrectly formatted.)

As I advised (and the page itself advises), please propose these revisions on the talk page before proceeding.

As Heligoland noted, it generally isn't a good idea to experiment on active pages (by saving changes and seeing what requires "fixing"). Please use the "Show preview" button (and attempt to arrive at a working version) before pressing the "Save page" button. Heligoland also was correct in stating that a sandbox would be useful in this situation. You could experiment to your heart's content and present the results to the community when you're ready. If you'd like, I'd be happy to create a sandbox for you.

Heligoland was incorrect in implying that administrators (including me) possess the authority to overrule the editorial decisions made by other editors. My reversion of the page (performed without the special "rollback" function afforded to sysops) carried no more weight than Heligoland's. It was not an administrative act, but it did reflect my knowledge of the community and its procedures.

Your latest message on my talk page (posted as I was typing the above) seems to be based upon the mistaken impression that Heligoland's most recent reply was written by me. You also incorrectly claimed that you "are not changing the policy." In fact, you added a word ("discourage") that alters the policy's meaning in a manner rejected by the community.

I disagree with your implication that you've been treated discourteously. Heligoland has politely attempted to assist you (as I'm doing now).

On an semi-related note, please sign your posts on talk pages. Please also be more patient before declaring that a "mistake" has been made and falsely implying that a dispute has been mutually resolved. It took a while for me to type this reply. Thank you. —David Levy 15:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi again. It would be nice if I know what to call you. I'm Nick, by the way. Just a couple of notes to add to this before I disappear for a little bite to eat. I'm not an administrator but I don't feel comfortable reverting an edit made by an administrator. David has been approved by the Wikipedia community, we believe David to have the knowledge and attitude to maintain Wikipedia and for him to make such decisions is, in my opinion, more legitimate than any edits made by myself, someone who has been approved by nobody. I know that I could, if I so choose, revert any of the edits made by any of the administrators today to the article, but I would not feel comfortable with this and I will now retire from this discussion totally. I would say, in a parting note, that although you aren't changing policy, the wording on pages can be ambigious and I, as a Scottish editor may interpret something differently to an English, American, Canadian or Australian editor, due to variances in the English language. That's why it's important, in my opinion, that edits to important rules and guidelines are agreed in advance by the community here, where opinion can be solicited from the wider community and where any ambiguity can be spotted in advance and worked out.

I don't feel I am being too cautious, WP:IAR is an important rule and I feel that any edits to the page need to be double checked before the page goes live. Anyway, must dash. Best Wishes Heligoland 16:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinions. I also thank you for acknowledging that I am not changing policy, but there will always be those that disagree. "The wording on pages [is] ambigious" and that is more reason for me to improve it, and if others disgree with certain words I retrieve directly from Jimbo and official policies themselves, they can always talk with me. I am very open, and am glad to see that others have contribute without the difficulty that I am having to deal with.

I am still waiting for David to make a reply (which is talking forever), and I could be working on WP:IAR as we speak. Well, Have fun eating!128.226.160.124 17:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Problems you have:

"(adding the word "discourage," "You also incorrectly claimed that you "are not changing the policy." In fact, you added a word ("discourage")..."

• Please read: Wikipedia:Simplified_Ruleset
• It states, "Ignore all rules - if the rules discourage you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia's quality, ignore them."
• Therefore, it is not a "claim," it is a reality.

"...that alters the policy's meaning in a manner rejected by the community."

• You see, now this is a claim-- a false claim.

"...have been rejected by the community."

• User:xaosflux was helping; he/she did not reject it nor have any other besides yourself.

"(In particular, some of your headings were incorrectly formatted.)"

• We all make mistakes.
• Please read Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith

& DO Not Bite.

• Also, please give me the specifics you are talking about.

"You also have failed to follow our style guide."

• Failed is a harsh word. Please read WP:Civility & WP: Etiquette.

"As I advised (and the page itself advises), please propose these revisions on the talk page before proceeding."

• The page does not advise that.

"Please use the "Show preview" button (and attempt to arrive at a working version) before pressing the "Save page" button."

• That sounds like a solid idea. Will do.

"You could experiment to your heart's content"

• I am not "experimenting;" this is how I work and if you have an issue with that, then it is your own fault, and I am sad that you cannot understand and respect how other people, who are not you, contribute to Wikipedia. As I had stated, I will use the "Show preview" button next time, but that doesn't mean you had to revert it again.

"Heligoland was incorrect in implying that administrators (including me) possess the authority to overrule the editorial decisions made by other editors."

• Of course not, admins are equal to any other users on Wikipedia, no worse, no better.

"Please also be more patient before declaring that a "mistake" has been made and falsely implying that a dispute has been mutually resolved"

• Have not stated a "mistake." It was "appears to have been a mistake," as he can properly see from the history page.

That should be a detailed reply to yours. Hopefully, it will bring a bit of reason and clarification to you. 128.226.160.124 16:26, 31 October 2006 (UTC) Look! I signed. But will not sign everything as it is not needed, nor does it violate any policies.

Quick reply before reading what you stated. Please feel free to write and edit anything on the WP:IAR! Thank you very much!

Replied on my user talk. See.

Please also go to the Wikipedia_talk:Ignore_all_rules where I have started a topic for people who ave problems with the improvements.

Adding "Contents" to Main Page

Hi, David. Does anything else need to happen before Wikipedia:Contents can be added to the Main Page? Rfrisbie^talk 03:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Featured articles on main page

Can you tell me how I can view the article on the main page. I want to write a featured article. Well, Can administrators only write the featured articles on the main page. Sushant gupta 14:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

umm

I was saying "hello" to someone I know. I understand this is still permitted; do correct me if I am in error. — Dan | talk 03:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Because I know the person. I can instruct him as necessary and direct him to the relevant tutorial pages if need be. The labelling of my comment with the "unsigned" template was sanctimonious and unnecessary. Though I daren't go as far as to ask that you assume good faith, I would appreciate some degree of decency in questioning or reversing my actions. Good grief. — Dan | talk

In response to No. 1, I thought I had done that above, in particular in the part which read "I can instruct him as necessary and direct him to the relevant tutorial pages if need be." If not, here goes again: I can instruct him as necessary and direct him to the relevant tutorial pages if need be.

With regard to No. 2, perhaps you might have asked me what I was doing. I've been around a while; I should hope it's not generally feared that I might turn vandal at any moment, unless my every action not be scrutinized carefully. I apologize, humbly etc., for having 'left you scratching your head', though I maintain that a simple note, giving me the opportunity to clarify, would have been more in order.

I am curious, in any case, how your piercing gaze attenuated itself to this particular talk page. This user has done nothing of significance. There's no reason to think I would pick a new user out of the blue to confuse and harass. I am, as you seem to have been before, thoroughly mystified at your outraged response to my entirely insignificant action. — Dan | talk 05:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't really concerned about how anyone would know why I'd done it, as I did not expect in the least that anyone would care. I removed the welcome message because it treats the user as a fourth-grader, what with patronizing diction and a photograph of a cupcake. I did not wish my friend, an intelligent adult, to be put off by this impression of Wikipedia. The edit summary is apparently an automatic thing; in fact I left the edit summary box blank.

Also, I don't know if you meant to suggest it, but by no means do I deserve the assumption of good faith more than anybody else simply because of who I am. I should hope you treat everyone else with more dignity than you did me. — Dan | talk 05:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I have little regard for the "general rule" and doing what's "proper" when the reasons for doing such are not relevant to the situation; nor do I care about this issue enough to continue arguing about it. I beg pardon for having wasted your time. — Dan | talk 06:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

This page is 293 kilobytes long.

I'm not sure what problem you're trying to solve here. If I create a redirect, what is the point in calling deliberate attention to the fact that I was too lazy to type an edit summary explaining it? As for vandalism, if one vandal sees another vandal's edit summary and already knows that it's automatic, then the he'll probably type something uninformative to prevent it from taking effect. Furthermore there are vandalism reversion bots that depend on the edit summaries as previously written, for hints when looking for stuff to revert. Additionally the extra byte clutter results in fewer spaces being available for the informative text. The default wasn't broken, so I really have no idea why you would change it. —freak(talk) 08:33, Nov. 17, 2006 (UTC)

All vandalism is "deliberate", unless it's accidental. However, some vandalisms are more serious than others. For example, replacing a page with "FUCKKKKKK" is more serious than adding '''Bold text''' at the bottom. Eventually there will be more complex autosummaries, but they will be useless if anybody watching recent changes (which includes a non-trivial portion of vandals) is constantly reminded to circumvent them. —freak(talk) 08:49, Nov. 17, 2006 (UTC)

Because they're not looking at their own edits. I thought I'd explained that. —freak(talk) 09:05, Nov. 17, 2006 (UTC)

Actually it was done 4 days ago [1]. I can see your concern about lack of administrator awareness, however. Assuming it were feasible to immediately inform all administrators of every software change, would you consider it a bad thing for there awareness to remain a step ahead of vandals' awareness (even if only for a short while, after which everyone will have figured it out). I would strongly consider asking the developers to add an "admin-sitenotice" or somesuch, if it helps keep the WP:BEANS from being spilled everytime a clever, ground-breaking new feature is added. —freak(talk) 09:41, Nov. 17, 2006 (UTC)

The quality of your arguments has nothing to do with my biological need for sleep. That aside, if our goal is awareness, please examine my changes to the following pages and tell me if you see them as a suitable alternative to polluting the individual edit comments:

• MediaWiki:Histlegend
• MediaWiki:Summary

P.S. You have not archived your talk page in 14 months. —freak(talk) 00:30, Nov. 18, 2006 (UTC)

Alas, I've been reverted [2]. Assuming we can use a less verbose message on that page (and use the past-tense edit summaries), would that be an acceptable compromise, or would I be giving an inch to lose a mile? —freak(talk) 00:57, Nov. 18, 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I'm being too analytical, but I think if I was a new user, "page was blanked" is an observation I would make when restoring its content (reverting the blanking) rather than when actually blanking it. I think "blanked the page" would be better. —freak(talk) 01:16, Nov. 18, 2006 (UTC)

As for the pseudo-section link, if the MediaWiki:Histlegend refers specifically to the symbol used, a link shouldn't be necessary. Also, please be aware that numerical character entity references will not be properly unicodified in edit summaries, so it would be necessary to use a literal arrow, or whatever symbol is being used. —freak(talk) 01:26, Nov. 18, 2006 (UTC)

I assume then, that you intend to use the WP:AES shortcut for just that purpose. Better do some brainstorming and make sure there's not anything else it might stand for, and probably better protect the redirect as well. —freak(talk) 01:39, Nov. 18, 2006 (UTC)

[3] look okay? Hopefully we are done dealing with this issue now. —freak(talk) 01:56, Nov. 18, 2006 (UTC)

Thank You

Thanks for taking care of the troll vandalizing our user pages. They really are a pain in a Wikipedian's side. (Iuio 06:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC))

Did you hear? The troll has finally ben blocked. Let's hope he does not vandalize again. (Iuio 06:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC))

Consensus on Main Page links

I forgot all about this thread. I concur with the proposal to remove the searching link and add the contents link.

Talk:Main Page/Archive 82#Proposal: add one or more of these links to the main page

I guess all that's left is for the change to be made. Will you do that please?  The Transhumanist 03:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Done.  :-) —David Levy 04:32, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!  The Transhumanist 04:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Considering bugzilla request for "Complete list" feature

Hi. Thanks again for your involvement in putting "Complete list" at the bottom of the interwikis on the English Main Page. I'm considering putting in a bugzilla request for a feature to allow something like that to be easily done on any page. See meta:Meta:Babel "# 19 Suggestion re handling long interwiki (interlanguage) lists". What do you think? --Coppertwig 13:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Recent Changes...

...made to KYW-TV, WABC-TV, WCBS-TV, WNBC-TV, WNYW, and WWOR-TV need to be explained further. Until then, I've reverting these articles back to their previous versions. Rollosmokes 18:49, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. First, there's A Man in Black with his "anti-image gallery" crusade...now this. Everyone who writes for a living KNOWS that single-digit numbers are written as WORDS, not as numbers. And, if Wikipedia is supposed to be an "online encyclopedia", then perhaps we should practice the same stylistic protocol as printed encyclopedias. Newspapers write single-digits numerically to save precious space. Encylopedias are written differently. So, to say that "channel nine" and "Nine Broadcast Plaza" is NOT CORRECT is a load of crap, regardless of what the Manual of Style says. Rollosmokes 06:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

This is what happens when you have a kid in charge. Are you a professional writer? Probably not. Still, this nitpicking is sickening. Wikipedia is coming very close to that "No-Fun Zone" for me, as those of us who wish to make professional contributions are being stymied by those who whish to enforce their silly doctrines. Rollosmokes 16:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

How are my comments "uncivil"? I didn't use profanity or any other kind of threatening language. Nor do I practice WP:OWN, as you falsely claim. I am all about accuracy and professionalism. And, that goes for my opinion on how single-digit numbers should be written.

As we did with the whole "UPN vs. United Paramount Network" thing several months back, I guess we'll agree to disagree.

And, one more thing: read the Chicago Manual of Style. Then see if Wikipedia (and you) are right after all. Rollosmokes 06:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, perhaps Wikipedia should follow the Chicago Manual or some other OFFICIAL style guide, rather than attempt to make up its own unilaterally. I am a semi-professional writer, my wife is a professional writer, we have friends who write for a living...and all agree with me on the single-digit number thing. And, speaking of which, it wasn't a problem initially when I introduced this. Only now is it a problem, and for you.

I offer this quote, from the Penguin Handbook, second edition:

In formal writing spell out any number than can be expressed in one or two words, as well as any number, regardless of length, at the beginning of a sentence. Also, hyphenate two-word numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine.

In scentific reports and some business writing that requires the frequent use of numbers, using numerals more often is appropriate. Most styles do not write out words in year, a date, an address, a page number, the time of day, decimals, sums of money, phone numbers, rates of speed, or the scene and act of a play. Use numerals instead.

MLA, Chicago Style, and APA ALL utilize this format, which I adhere to completely. There is some wiggle room, but generally we stick to it.

Next...I am at least ten years older than you are. That, my friend, makes you a kid as far as I'm concerned. And, in this case, I can't take you seriously because you have much to experience. You probably just got out of high school, whereas I already have been down the college road on which you're currently travelling, and I learned from that experience. I am a completely different writer now than I was when I was your age. Some advice -- get some experience in the real world first before wholly susbscribing to a certain philosophy, technical or otherwise.

Lastly, I don't have to answer your trivial Encyclopedia Brittanica/Chanel No. 5/1-Naphthylamine comments because they're moot as far as this issue goes. Rollosmokes 08:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Automatic edit summaries

Hi there; I have come to your page because the edit summary of the automatic edit page lists you as first contributor. If this is not so, please tell me and I'll go away. There are now several questions posted on the talk-page of this article, several, although not all, from me. Is it possible to get some answers to them?--Anthony.bradbury 00:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Hi there; OK, thanks, I'll chase Andrew up.--Anthony.bradbury 01:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

My Reverts to WNBC

I did not realize I was removing valid edits when I reverted others, and that is my fault. Sorry about that to you and everyone else in the Wikipedia community. aido2002 04:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I know, I just felt like I should say something.aido2002 04:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

No problem! aido2002 04:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Asher

Most of our back-and-forth with Asher is archived to User talk:Asher Heimermann/ArchiveA; we've been cutting him a huge amount of slack for several days now. I like the kid, he's like an eager puppy who honestly wants to help out. Thanks for posting that note to his page; I hope he takes it to heart. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 04:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Funny thing is that I asked for him to be blocked on AIV twice, and was told to leave him alone - he was just a kid. So a few minutes after his last warning he's back to welcoming new users - so much for being co-operative. Earlier today, I joined Wikipedia:WikiProject Fire Service to do something contructive instead of just fighting vandals. So he must be stalking me, since shortly after he joined also, if he isn't banned, I'm quitting the WikiProject, since I don't want to be near him - it will be just too frustrating. --ArmadilloFromHell 05:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I did pull him from AIV once, but only for procedural reasons -- at that point in time, he hadn't received the standard warning templates that would justify a block. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 05:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

There was another AIV I posted at some point, and it was processed and rejected on the basis that he was just a kid. I think in months of editing, this is only the second time I've AIVed someone twice. --ArmadilloFromHell 05:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I didn't know about the other one. And, seriously, I agonized about removing that entry from AIV. But with no test3 or test4 warnings on his page, no admin would have blocked him at that point in time. If a block was rejected another time because "he's just a kid", that's a bogus reason. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 05:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

no reply needed (please)

Be aware that I reverted back to the format we had previously agreed upon, even though "rv" directly above your edit looks as if I was directly contradicting you. Of course if the arrows do look too similar at that font-size, any other symbol would be fine by me, just nothing obnoxiously long. —freak(talk) 05:36, Nov. 30, 2006 (UTC)

Template Magic

[removed example]

Of course these are simple examples for what I want to do, but the basic idea is there. There are templates that are called from about 130 pages some of which are lists of information about the other 125 pages. The data passed to the four templates is basically the same (well 3 of the templates use subsets of the data used in the 4th template). It would be nice to have one place to edit all this data. I would appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction for documentation (if you know of something that could help solve this problem. Thx in adv --Trödel 22:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

FYI, User talk:Ligulem was able to provide me with a potential solution --Trödel 17:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Good work

Blocking vandals is good. But, do you ever unblock them? The mission 16:23, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

WNBC Article

It wasn't a personal attack, I was saying I think that the idea that this is all that is going on there is stupid. We have discussed it, none of us changed our minds, so I guess this goes on until someone stops caring. aido2002 16:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

WNBC Images

Re-uploading them was not "entirely inappropriate." AManinBlack deleted them, and said in the deletion log that he did so because they were orphaned. Because they should not have been, and were orphaned by him, re-uploading and restoring them to the page was the right course of action to take. aido2002 00:38, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do acknowledge that I am not familiar with the fair use policy, so feel free to add the info. The copyrights are held by NBC Universal. aido2002 03:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Deleting the image was by no means the correct course of action to take, the only real issue was the lack of attribution, which you could have added. aido2002 04:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

We talked about this. the rationale is that they help the article, they illustrate what we say, and are vital. aido2002

They are vital for the same reason pictures are vital in a history textbook. Go after the original uploader about the fair use rationale thing, I am the wrong person to talk to for it. amaninblack should not have deleted the images, he orphaned them, and several people were against it. He did not have a legitimate reason to, I hope you can agree with me on this. aido2002 23:34, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Project Spell Check

Ok, I wikk make sure I don's edit such pages. Srry bout that, but when you are doing something boring and repetitive, it is pretty hard to notice such changes but, I wikk keep an eye out

Thanx

symode09 03:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikiversity/logo

Yes, but that is not the greatest issue; the problem is that the gray on the cupola has contrast issues with the blue of the world. As the Earth's blue gets darker, the gray gets lighter, and there is a point at which the too colors blur into each other, which I personally don't like. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Please help

Hi, I am trying to give Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism a makeover. I would apprecaite your help as I hope this format will be the standard for wikiproject pages. The main problem I have right now is the little "Contents" template that apears and is distrupting the clean cut look, it doesnt apear on the main page. I would also apprecaite some general tips. Thanks. FrummerThanThou 22:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup pages

Somone removed the language about talk pages on December 10. I don't see how that constitutes longstanding consensus. If you are referring to a discussion in which consensus was reached that I somehow missed, I would be much obliged if you could point me to it. dryguy 23:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your input. I'm aware there have been various discussions about where tags should go. What seems to me to be missing is the consensus to require templates to go on talk pages. There have been a number of discussions in which no consensus has been reached regarding the placement of meta-tags on article pages (these discussions are also findable). This was the reason for my edit of March 20, 2006. As to the claim that I did so "unilaterally"; this edit has gone without change or comment until it was removed for consistency with Wikipedia:Cleanup resources. You are the first to object to my edit on the basis of its actual content. dryguy 00:47, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Here is one of the discussions I was thinking of in which no consensus was reached. Again, I was not acting "unilaterally", but I was definitely removing a restriction to which I object, and for which there is no consensus. dryguy 00:55, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Apologies for my dyslexic editing. You are correct that I made the change in November. You also mentioned the March edit which was still in my mind at the time I was writing above. In any event, there was no discussion for the March edit either, unless I missed it. Without discussion, there is no consensus. dryguy 01:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup tags are a subset of all meta tags. So far, you haven't cited any specific discussion that would convince me of your claim that there is consensus regarding the location of any cleanup tags, much less all of them. Anyway, if you are arguing that the discussion for all tags is not related to the discussion for a specific subset, then why do you also argue that if discussion for some cleanup tags indicates they belong on the article pages, then it follows that all cleanup tags belong on the article pages? dryguy 01:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm merely going by your edit, which specifically says "Unless otherwise noted, they should be placed at the top of the article" and your comments above. You even put all in bold. If that isn't what you meant, then would you accept the following changes to Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup:

Current: "The following tags should be added to the articles needing cleanup. Unless otherwise noted, they should be placed at the top of the article. Some tags have alternate versions that apply to situations of greater specificity."

Proposed: "The following tags should be added to the articles needing cleanup, as noted in the instructions for each specific tag. Some tags have alternate versions that apply to situations of greater specificity." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dryguy (talk • contribs) 02:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

Lack of discussion could just as easily mean that few editors care about this issue. In that case it is up to those who do to discuss it and come to consensus, regardless of the timeframe. dryguy 02:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The current wording is instruction creep. It prescribes a universal solution of putting a tag at the top of an article page as the default, when this is often not the best solution. Also, based on various discussions regarding meta tags, one of which I cited (there are others, but I don't have time for further discussion tonight, so I can't look them up now), there is significant opposition to certain uses of metatags on article pages. Briefly: they add clutter to articles which is minimized if they are put in talk space, they are often added and rarely removed (as evidenced by their growth rate, indicating they aren't often causing articles to comply with the tags' various requests), and they usually contribute to poor layout of articles in which they are used. Have a great evening (or morning, or whatever)! dryguy 03:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Unsigned template bug?

Re: your edit to {{Unsigned}}, the template as currently implemented results in the #if parser function being placed on the page when the template is subst'd (e.g.: —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NonExistentUser (talk • contribs) 00:11 22 March 4455.). Ideally, shouldn't the parser be subst'd in the template code as well? The page is protected, so either way, I wouldn't be able to change it, but I thought you might. Thanks. --Fru1tbat 14:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

A NEW WIKILANGUAGE SISTER PROJECT

I propose a new major wikiproject Wikilanguage or Wiki Linguistics which specializes in the teaching of all languages. I have looked over the internet and have found some sites which do have several of the major languages giving knowledge of learning them but this wuould be huge and would provide all the information for learning languages such as most of the 250 languages that already have wikipedias. Learning a language is a major infomration source but wikipedia does not have this. Anybody interested in starting this ? I beleive this wikipedia sister project would be developed into an extremwely valuable resoruce not only for achieving knowledge of major languages but also other world languages which are not always readily available to learn. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 11:38, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

UPN vandal

Thanks for taking care of him. Can you also take a look at this? And who is the original vandal? --AAA! ^{(AAAA • AAAAAAAA)} 06:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I might watch some of the targeted pages. Can you give me a list? --AAA! ^{(AAAA • AAAAAAAA)} 03:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Caught another. --AAA! ^{(AAAA • AAAAAAAA)} 13:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the move. --Ineffable3000 23:48, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

ITN

Hi David, you mentioned on Talk:MP that there's ongoing discussions regarding ITN. Where's that taking place now? I must have missed this. (Reply here on your user talk, I'm watching) Cheers, Monotonehell 18:05, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello! Please see Template talk:In the news#James Brown death. —David Levy 18:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Bah! How'd I miss that? Thanks David. --- Monotonehell 18:50, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

UPN vandal, huff 'em

Can't we just block all these IPs (For at least 1 year)? Also, I've discovered some of the socks are proxies. --AAA! ^{(AAAA • AAAAAAAA)} 03:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, these are the proxies. Type in their IP address at this site, and look at the box "Is proxy":

• contributions
• contributions
• contributions
• contributions
• contributions --AAA! ^{(AAAA • AAAAAAAA)} 05:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

"All categories"

Hi, David, I run one of the bots that dates various ceanup tags, and I have been thinking that it would be better to change the templates to get rid of the "all articles" cats, and replace the current function of the bland category with an "undated" category. The only risk is that it will encourage editors to add the date parameter, which means more errors. For me the important thing is that the undated categories (whatever they are called) are subcategories of Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories sorted by month. The other pending improvement may be to allow the wikify, cleanup and uncat templates to accept a date= paramete as well as a default. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 15:47 27 December 2006 (GMT).

ITN debarkle.. again

Hey David, do you think we'll come to any kind of constructive outcome with regards to ITN Guidelines this time? I instigated it, but don't hold much hope, lol. --Monotonehell 16:42, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Ayles Ice Shelf

I agree with Centrx that the article doesn't include enough current context to qualify for ITN inclusion, but I've listed it at Template talk:Did you know. —David Levy 04:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was just thinking about doing the same thing tomorrow. Oh, well... You beat me by about 12 hours. :-) Good night. -- PFHLai 04:26, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

4.68.248.134

His/her block has expired, and is still doing that UPN vandalism. I've given him/her an only warning. Next time he/she makes another false move, please block him/her. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 05:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Image:Info talk.png and Image:Info non-talk.png

The summary for these images says that it has been "tweaked" to display the background properly on browsers such as IE. How has this been done? I created a new image, which I would like to use to replace the most common current one that doesn't really match the rest of our icons, but I don't want to make it a step backward as far as background colors goes. -- Renesis (talk) 23:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your response! I will try to get that done. I have a couple more questions -- When Wikipedia generates smaller sizes of the full image, does it lose this parameter? (In other words, do I have to make the image the size I will be using or not?) Second, when you say release it into the public domain, you are saying as opposed to CC? I don't know much about image licenses -- can you tell me why we'd rather have PD over CC? Thanks again. -- Renesis (talk) 19:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

WP's Main Page

Being less WP active in the last couple of months, I find myself entering through the Main Page (rather than my browser's bookmarks) more frequently and, whenever I do so, I continue to be impressed with the overall presentation of our "front page". Thanks for your perseverance, intellect and gentle (sometimes) persuasion during those times of change. A very merry New Year to you and to those that are close. --hydnjo talk 21:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:All uncategorised pages

I understand that I am not voting and that I am not limited by the original nomination. When I looked at the category, there were 3 articles in it. I realized that you mentioned that they were likely to be moved during the course of the nomination (that's actually why I went and looked). I also realize that a merge of an empty category generally works the same as a delete. I'm not sure what wasn't clear about in my previous comment. I am comfortable with my Merge opinion in this case. ~ BigrTex 21:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Mummified head pictured?

I've never seen an FA image captioned like that on the main page. Is this some brand-new procedure I missed? I don't see anything similar on any of the past or future main-page FA boxes. -Silence 16:12, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

ProtectionBot RFA

My apologies for the misunderstanding. It's not about dragon's flight, it's about anybody, regardless of who they are. It's in my nature not to trust too much power to one source. I replied as such on the rfa, and once again i'm sorry for any confusion in my meaning.Just H 20:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

You distrust everyone (including the most trusted members of the community) indiscriminately, and yet you complain when you believe that people are failing to assume good faith on your part. Does that make sense to you? —David Levy 20:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't distrust people, I distrust the system as it is now, which includes everybody. The fact that those people acted in such a way towards my comment is proof to me.

Even the best of us can become corrupt and hostile in an environment that fosters it, which I think is rampant for alot of Wikipedia right now. Until that's fixed, I don't trust anything with more power of the encyclopedia. Just H 20:42, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Then we'll just have to agree to disagree since you don't want to trust my distrust of ochlocracy. A individual on their own and an individual within a group are two completely separate things, especially when conformity seems to be a forced norm. Just H 20:53, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

If you would like to discuss this further excluding the bot, please feel free. I would like nothing more than to make the collective completely trustworthy, or at least as close as humanly possible. Right now, there's just way too much margin for error in my opinion. Just H 21:01, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Edit Conflict

My apologies on the clipping there. Back and forth discussions can get messy at times. Just H 21:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad. Hopefully i'll be able to put my statements more clearly in the future, thanks again for the conversation today. Just H 22:02, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

List of programs broadcast by UPN

Please semi-protect. More UPN vandal crap. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 09:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

G4techTV Canada

It IS G4techTV CANADA. Don't change it back. 72.64.130.197 03:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC) Check out g4techtv.ca. Look at their press releases!

Hmm, I'm pretty sure it showed your name next to the history entry of who changed it back to G4techTV (Canada). Sorry about that. 72.64.130.197 03:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

ITN - How about...

the pic you mentioned

• A United States Air Force AC-130 gunship (similar to the one pictured) attacks suspected Al-Qaeda operatives at Ras Kamboni in southern Somalia near the Kenyan border.

?--Monotonehell 05:45, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking about something along those lines, but it seems like a bit of a stretch (in terms of relevance and linguistic elegance). I don't feel comfortable performing such an edit without clear consensus, but feel free to discuss this on the talk page. —David Levy 05:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually I'm tempted to leave Pelosi's portrait on all year just to annoy the whiners ;) --Monotonehell 05:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

In all fairness, I'm a Democrat, and even I'm sick of that image. :) —David Levy 05:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

LOL gawd, what's with all the team politics in the States? That kind of thing just leads to hubris. Don't categorise yourself, think for yourself. ;) --Monotonehell 06:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

About the redirect

Redirect redirection in the official name and resign from the redirection as a visitor is confused.--Naohiro19(Talk Page/Contributions) 18:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#What is the status on this namechange?

You may remember me as a former adversary over "Wikisource - The free(?) library". But in more recent matters I seemed to have sparked some criticism of your actions in the above thread and thought it only proper that you should be made aware of it. Since I cannot see that anyone has brought it up with on your talk page, here is a heads-up.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 18:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

My RfA

I see that you recently commented on my RfA of about a year ago. My apologies for the confusion. You said that you "can't condone the inclusion of toilet humor." Were you by any chance referring to "No running, shouting or piddling in the shallow end"? Aecis ^{No running, shouting or piddling in the shallow end} 23:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

You can rest assured then, because I've changed it again :) I swap between quotes and lyrics I like every now and then. I've had I'm too busy acting like I'm not naive, Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984 and No running, shouting or piddling in the shallow end. I've now found another victim :) Aecis^Bravado 22:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

UPN Vandal Update

He now has members:

• contributions
• contributions
• . --AAA! ^(AAAA) 22:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

More socks

• contributions
• contributions
• contributions

I have also updated his entry at RFI, but I think this vandal qualifies for Long Term Abuse.

And please look at this. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 07:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but could you also delete User:Delariondavis3? Before I redirected it to his talk page the only content was an imitation of my own page. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 11:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, what the hell...

The coveted Anti-Vandalism Barnstar I give you this barnstar for helping me take care of the UPN vandal. Thanks! ^_^ --AAA! (AAAA) 12:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

They just keep coming in...

• contributions
• contributions
• The Simpsons Movie (official soundtrack)
• The Simpsons Movie (Music From The Motion Picture)

Seriously, this is getting too hard for me. Do you think I should become an admin? --AAA! ^(AAAA) 23:07, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

A few more:

• Talk:The Simpsons Movie (Music From The Motion Picture)
• Talk:The Simpsons Movie (official soundtrack) --AAA! ^(AAAA) 23:33, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, this is new...

• contributions

Also, I'm going away on holiday for 3 days, so you'll have to take care of the vandal by yourself. Sorry about that. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 23:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:ITN reversion

I don't think your reversion is correct. Reports most certainly should be in present tense (and it is), but I don't believe the same is true for conducts. Read the sentence in question and you'll see what I'm talking about. Or, compare it with the equally confusing sentence...

A scientist reports that the universe begins a long time ago

-- tariqabjotu 22:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Long Term Abuse

I think the UPN vandal now qualifies for Long Term Abuse. Should we submit an entry? --AAA! ^(AAAA) 03:08, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'm going to try and get a hotmail account. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 03:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I now have an e-mail account. Send me one! --AAA! ^(AAAA) 04:27, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Matt Frost

a ginger twat —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.83.71.134 (talk) 10:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

Ownership

I am contacting you because you are the recent editor of wikipedia's ownership policy. Could you please clarify is it possible for a user to take ownership of a particular page? thank you (Bradleigh 23:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC))

Main page (copied from this thread)

I read your comments on Lar's talk page. FYI, no administrators are "in charge" of the main page. Its precise design was determined via months of nightmarish debate and ratified by an 18-day poll/discussion with over 900 participants. —David Levy 01:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. That is the information the AFMP project needs. The many AFMP 2006 and AFMP 2007 suggestions to alter the main page fixed text came from a lack of understanding of what it would take to implement such a suggestion. If we just list a rule that main page fixed text will not be changed as part of the AFMP project, editors will still suggest such changes. If we also add to the project a description of what it takes to change fixed page maintext with a link to the discussion you mention, I think it will reduce the number of such suggestions in future projects (AFMP 2008, AFMP 2009, etc.). Since you seem to know more about this issue than others on the project, it would be great if you would add the description to the project. Thanks. -- Jreferee 02:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Nutshell2

I created this template as a prototype for discussion. Please discuss on Template_talk:Nutshell#Template:Nutshell2Dhaluza 04:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, after waiting a day or so, nobody else seems to care enough to comment. Though the long dialog is probably too intimidating to invite any input. Do you really think it's an actual problem having it on the template space, or just a potential one? I have applied it on a page that was a good candidate for it's usage. The bullets remove the need to connect the two items with 'but' which is a word that reads kind of like a speed bump. Dhaluza 02:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

FYI, I replied on my talk page since you moved the discussion there (suggesting merging the templates). Dhaluza 00:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for administrator attention: Consensus issue

Hi David. I've run into a confrontation not unlike those you and I have had in the past. Rather than edit war, I've kept my involvement in the debate on the page's talk page, but the other side will not listen to reason, and have forced their changes without reaching consensus first on the talk page. They've removed items from the list, and as you would put it, their actions "lack consensus". The items have been on the list since it was created in November of 2005. In the face of opposition to their removal, I assume that removing them would require the building of consensus to do so. Please take a look at talk:List of basic philosophy topics. I'd be very interested in your evaluation of the situation. There is a related discussion taking place at template talk:philosophy navigation, but that situation differs in two fundamental ways: one, that page is much smaller and the collection of links displayed upon it must be severely limited, and two, at least one of the links being discussed were added there relatively recently.

The links which were removed the List of basic philosophy topics without consensus were Ayn Rand and Objectivism (Ayn Rand). I look forward to your reply. (And I'm supposed to be on a wikibreak!)  :-) --The Transhumanist 08:54, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: Ownership

I have read the article in question and i have one final questions and i am asking you to answer it for me. Can a user take ownership of a article? Yes or No?? if yes, how? Thank you (Bradleigh 05:59, 26 January 2007 (UTC))

You know the drill...

• contributions. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 06:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Did you also get my email about him? --AAA! ^(AAAA) 06:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Cascadeprotected

I see you've been experimenting with the above mentioned page (yes, I do watch the entire MediaWiki: namespace so i know of interface changes more quickly).

If I may make one suggestion: instead of using {{#ifexist:{{PAGENAME}}, why not {{#ifexist:{{FULLPAGENAME}} as that would cause less bugs.

Thanks, GeorgeMoney (talk) 07:12, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Template:Protected article title

Needs some work, and I can't figure out how to fix it--see what happened when I added a subpage to the list. Chick Bowen 19:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Right--should have figured that out. We do use deletedpage in other namespaces from time to time, though, so this will be good. Incidentally, since there's no actual protected deleted page policy--it's just something we do--there's no reason not to proceed with this. Chick Bowen 21:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, of course. But I just meant that the process could be up and running at any point without interfering with {{deletedpage}}. Chick Bowen 21:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

April Fool's

Me again. I stumbled across this page; you're doing it again... --90.240.34.177 00:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Another sock, new name

contributions - He has created pages that also need protected-deleting. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 08:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Example

Actually I did, about a month ago, and several people complained to me that they missed my old signature, i.e. this one. So I put it back for now. I'll probably come up with something new eventually. >Radiant< 09:46, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I suppose there is ample precedent for using colorful signatures (e.g. User:Starblind, User:Jtdirl), and some of us consider the colorfulness part of our wikidentity. The visually impaired do have special browser plugins available that e.g. increase color contrast. You are welcome to propose a guideline forbidding colorful signatures, or a feature request to abolish custom sigs, but such efforts have not met consensus in the past. I would quite possibly support such an effort, but until and unless there is actually consensus for this I fail to see why I should set an example for a notion that lacks consensus support. >Radiant< 12:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, it's very simple. I don't really like overly complex, flashy, lengthy or unreadable signatures. I do like my signature, which I do not consider particularly illegible, but ymmv. I'd be quite willing to abandon my sig if that would lead to a general abandoning of oc/f/l/u sigs. But, knowing this wiki, it won't, so I'm not going to remove my own sig if that doesn't actually change anything. As you say, that undoubtedly means I'm very inconsiderate, inhelpful, and not nice. >Radiant< 13:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Protected titles

If this actually comes into wide use as a deleted page system, it may not be a bad idea to add something to Mediawiki:Common.js, that would block out the list of pages protected at the bottom of these lists to anons (or perhaps non autoconfirmeds), so not to give ideas. It is possible to do it now, but it depends on how such a system is organized. One big page? Also, what does this system do in terms of server load? Prodego ^talk 02:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

When organized by topic like this, it gives ideas for misspellings (perhaps to someone who didn't think of that). It also clutters the page, which the cascade message says to come for more information. But pretty much I just want to mess with the js files ;-). Prodego ^talk 03:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Deleted page

I have and Idea we could transfer that list of salted pages to the new format of trancludeing using the old timestamps that were in place before the attempted switch and solve all of the issues. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 15:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Template:Protected title

You might want to {{urlencode}} the parameter that gets fed into the activity log link in the template, so that it handles page names with spaces properly. Right now it looks funny and doesn't work on pages listed in Wikipedia:Protected titles/Multiple re-creation.

In summary I guess the following:

<span class="plainlinks">[{{fullurl:Special:Log|page={{#if:{{{ns|}}}|{{{ns}}}:|}}{{#if:{{{3|}}}|{{{3}}}|{{{2}}}}}}} activity log]</span>

should be changed to

<span class="plainlinks">[{{fullurl:Special:Log|page={{#if:{{{ns|}}}|{{{ns}}}:|}}{{#if:{{{3|}}}|{{urlencode:{{{3}}}}}|{{urlencode:{{{2}}}}}}}}} activity log]</span>

Flyingtoaster1337 18:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I've written some documentation for the template at Template talk:Protected title. Please correct any errors as necessary. Flyingtoaster1337 08:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I found another glitch in the template - the activity log link breaks if the namespace name has spaces. We need to urlencode that as well. :/ So the fixed activity log link part would be:

<span class="plainlinks">[{{fullurl:Special:Log|page={{urlencode:{{#if:{{{ns|}}}|{{{ns}}}:|}}{{{1}}}}}}} activity log]</span>

Flyingtoaster1337 16:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Smilies

See Template:Smiley and the 3 others linked there . If they were restricted to user-talkspace somehow I might be able to live with them (though not the animated ones), but they're already being used in many article-talkpages. Unprofessional, unnecessary, and visually-distracting. TfD\CSD would be appreciated. --Quiddity 18:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

and Wikipedia:Emoticons? No templates, but it is encouragement.. --Quiddity 18:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Genius

That is all. Guy (Help!) 22:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Disputed ITN item

Actually, Blnguyen was apparently referring to the {{totallydisputed}} template on the article. -- tariqabjotu 02:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I didn't mean Haizum's complaint about the blurb, else I would have simply rephrased it. It was because the article is tagged {{TotallyDisputed}}. Usually DYK or ITN items with "red alert" tags like "cleanup" "no sources" "pov" and "factually innacurate" etc, are not allowed on the main page. That was my reasoning, the actual article. Regards, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

For saving Special:Random

		The Editor's Barnstar
		I award David Levy this Editor's Barnstar for coming up with an excellent kludge to protect non-existent pages and prevent deleted pages from polluting Special:Random. A million thanks. (I really, really wonder how you thought of such a terrific brilliant idea. :-) Flyingtoaster1337 05:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but what was the big idea?

No, seriously. Just because you are an admin that doesn't mean you are above other users. Without discussing with anyone, or asking for permission, or even wondering if it was a smart idea, you went to WikiProject Portugal and removed our main shortcut (WP:PT) and changed it to something that doesn't symbolize it. I'll have to ask that you provide me an actual reason for doing this.

All of the people under WikiProject Portugal refer to it as WP:PT, and that for a long while, so it doesn't make sense to change that. It's also the shorcut syntax used on other WikiProjects (e.g. WP:JA). If you need a shortcut for Protected titles I suggest that you use Wp:Pt or WP:PTs. I'm asking you to revert the changes.--Saoshyant ^{talk / contribs} (please join WP:PT or WP:SPOKEN) 13:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

1. You already assigned WP:Pt to Template:Protection templates when you took WP:PT from that page (which had used it for a longer duration than WikiProject Portugal has existed). Did you think that you were "above other users" when you did that "without discussing with anyone, or asking for permission, or even wondering if it was a smart idea"?

2. There were precisely 15 transclusions of the WP:PT shortcut. One was the documentation for Template:Protection templates at Wikipedia:Shortcuts that you never bothered to update. The other 14 (including the one at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portugal itself) were all posted by you.

3. The reason for this change is that major, general-interest project pages are more in need of such shortcuts than specialized WikiProjects (which probably shouldn't even be using the same shortcut format) are. See, for example, WikiProject Fact and Reference Check, whose WP:FC shortcut was taken for use by Wikipedia:Featured Content. In that instance, I did first raise the issue on the talk page (and no one objected). I wasn't about to do that in this case (given the fact that the redirect didn't belong to you in the first place). —David Levy 15:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Right.

1. Yes, but I did discuss the matter with some other users, albeit I regreted later not having brought the issue to Village Pump, which would have been the proper thing to do. Furthermore, we believed that Protection templates should use WP:Pt instead due to the "t" lower case.

2. I know of no way to check for transclusions, but I did go around looking for broken things and checking if anyone would complain or revert the change.

3. Is that so? If it's Wp policy, there's little I can do. It still doesn't change that you didn't ask anyone about this. As an admin, you should be the one setting an example.

As a matter of fact, I wouldn't start a fuss about this where you reverting WP:PT for Protection templates. WikiProject Portugal didn't exist when WP:PT was created. Protection templates used it because it was probably the first thing that came to the mind of the people behind it. However, I ask again that you be kind enough to consider reverting WP:PT for WP:Portugal. PT has always been an alias for Portugal, pretty much everywhere. Furthermore, members of WP:Portugal refer to the project by the sigla WP:PT.--Saoshyant ^{talk / contribs} (please join WP:PT or WP:SPOKEN) 16:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

P.S: And I'm sorry I've acted rudely when I first brought this issue up, but this has really pissed me off.

1. Where did you "discuss the matter with some other users"? It certainly wasn't at Template talk:Protection templates.

The shortcut style convention is to use all-uppercase lettering. (WP:Pt is unusual.)

2. The "What links here" link displays a list of all transclusions.

3. There is no formal "policy" regarding this matter, but the standard practice is that key project pages take precedence over WikiProjects. In my opinion, we shouldn't even be mixing the two; WikiProjects should adopt a dedicated prefix (such as "WPJ:"). This would make things much easier and less confusing for everyone.

4. People don't go around searching for pages to fit arbitrary abbreviations. King of Hearts wanted to create a shortcut for Template:Protection templates, so he used the most logical abbreviation. Yes, WikiProject Portugal did not yet exist (just as Wikipedia:Protected titles didn't exist until now).

5. You claim that "members of WP:Portugal refer to the project by the sigla WP:PT." I performed a Google search and found 10 pages from this site on which the "WP:PT" abbreviation is used without transclusion to reference WikiProject Portugal (though some of these are alongside the transclusions that I already updated and counted above). All of these were written by you.

6. As I said, I would have discussed this if the shortcut had belonged to you in the first place. I also would have done so if your WikiProject has adopted it more than a few months ago or if it had been in wide use. None of this was the case.

7. Apology accepted.  :-) —David Levy 17:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Two last requests for today...

I promise I won't disturb you for the next five hours or more - I got to sleep soon. :)

But before that I've two requests related to Wikipedia:Protected titles/Spam pages with nonsense titles. The first is to replace the code on that page with the version on the talk page (which I wrote after finally figuring out how {{protected title}} really works). Some of the pages were not protected with the old, incorrect code. The second is to delete Talk:Action potential/index.php, because it got re-created tonight and someone protected it the old way.

Thanks in advance. Flyingtoaster1337 17:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Um...

You may want to review your block log. And Philwelch's, for that matter. -- Steel 22:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

There's currently a discussion about this on ANI. -- Steel 22:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocking

See also [4]. Every user account in his block log for the last few months also seems to be a user he was in a dispute with and each has a corresponding ANI discussion admonishing him. It just seems each time to be a matter of no one thinking it worth it to spend the time to collect all the evidence, and to some extent people probably thought John Reid and Matthew Fenton "should" be blocked, despite the reason he used for it and his being altercated in a dispute with them making the blocks bogus. —Centrx→talk • 03:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Final cleanup of Template:Protected title

I think the template is quite satisfactory now but I have thought of some tidying up and enhancement that could be made.

Firstly, the template now checks whether "talk=no" using three different spellings; we could simplify it using {{lc:}} to lowercase the value so this part:

{{#switch:{{{talk}}}|no|No|NO=

would become:

{{#switch:{{lc:{{{talk}}}}}|no=

We can also do the same to the ns param, so this part:

{{#switch:{{{ns}}}|Talk|talk|Category talk|category talk|Help talk|help talk|Image talk|image talk|MediaWiki talk|mediaWiki talk|Portal talk|portal talk|Template talk|template talk|User talk|user talk|Wikipedia talk|wikipedia talk=

would become:

{{#switch:{{lc:{{{ns}}}}}|talk|category talk|help talk|image talk|mediawiki talk|portal talk|template talk|user talk|wikipedia talk=

Lastly, I thought of cases like the GNAA and Encyclopedia Dramatica articles whereby the talk pages are also protected due to repeated trolling and unproductive discussion. Hiding the talk link might not work in this case since people can always link to the talk page from elsewhere, so I propose a protect-talk parameter which will transclude the talk page as well if "protect-talk=yes". If you wish to add it to the end of the template it might look like: (works only if talk is not set, and adds "(also protected)" after the transclusion)

{{#if:{{{talk|}}}||{{#if:{{{protect-talk|}}}|{{#switch:{{lc:{{{ns}}}}}|talk|category talk|help talk|image talk|mediawiki talk|portal talk|template talk|user talk|wikipedia talk=|{{:{{#if:{{{ns|}}}|{{{ns}}} talk:|Talk:}}{{{1}}}}}}} <small>(also protected)</small>|}}}}

Flyingtoaster1337 05:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:Smiley

Why did you close the debate as "recreated content"? The last time it was deleted was 2005... and recreated content is for speedy deletes... this does not qualify. Please reopen the debate. --Majorly _{(o rly?)} 16:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Smiley

Just so you know, this template has been in use for quite some time as an effective communication tool. Just because a previous incarnation of it was deleted doesn't mean nothing has changed since then. The attitude you and the others demonstrated by deleting this template has a direct effect on diminishing the quality of the encyclopedia, as far as I'm concerned, if only because I will be spending far less energy serving this project by upgrading who knows how many portals to featured status (e.g., Cats, Chemistry, Dogs, Education, Philosophy of science, Psychology & Science). Thanks for screwing up one of the few enjoyments I got out of this place. Rfrisbie^talk 16:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I will at least agree with the first part of Rfrisbie's comments. I don't think that "Speedy Delete - recreated content" should apply after over a year since the last TfD. consensus can change after all. If anyone else is interested, I think that this is a prime cantidate for WP:DRV, for these reasons alone. (Noting also that the TfD discussion looked an awful lot like a "No consensus" result discussion.) - jc37 10:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Polling etc.

That page should be labeled (at best) an essay anyway, because it does not have consensus to be a guideline. My edit (which has been made in various forms before, and always reverted) was intended as a compromise, so that I could at least live with the page. (Which does not change the fact that, due to other peoples' objections, it does not have consensus to be a guideline.) Since my suggestion quickly rejected out of hand, I decided to restore the tag that the page should really have in the first place. Frankly I find this whole thing laughable, because it shows that many decisions on Wikipedia are not really made by consensus at all, but rather rather by bullying. 6SJ7 18:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You are entitled to your opinion about what is appropriate or inappropriate. 6SJ7 18:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Not UPN related, but still worth telling you

I have adopted a member, named Zoidy-Poo, who is a friend of mine outside Wikipedia. But I can't do this alone. Could you co-adopt him to help me? Thanks. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 11:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:RfAr

You have been listed as one of the involved parties in a case against Philwelch. Please follow the link above. Best regards, — Nearly Headless Nick 14:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Hidden vandalism

On the Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of 4.68.248.134 page, it shows my name on it, and the category is on my userpage. Can you find out what's causing it and remove it? --AAA! ^(AAAA) 08:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

So it wasn't vandalism! Thanks for that. I always forget those colons in categories, but I easily remember them with images. Weird... --AAA! ^(AAAA) 10:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Phil

No need to continue conversation. We are not getting anywhere. Point is, he thinks blocks should be handed out as warnings in a punitive way. If this had been the first incident, it would not have been a big deal. But I have noticed wrongful conduct and illicit blocking since Aksi great's block back in May 2006. Best thing would be to drop it and let ArbCom do their deed. — Nearly Headless Nick 13:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch

Hello,

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

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Thatcher131 12:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Sock again

contributions --AAA! ^(AAAA) 02:39, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Another [2]

contributions - I can tell because he uploaded fake UPN images. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 07:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

What becomes of our handiwork?

Hmm... it seems that discussion on the protection of titles has died down on Village pump. Some sysops are now using it, some sticking to {{deletedpage}}. Should we TfD {{deletedpage}} to bump everything over to a common system? :o) Flyingtoaster1337 14:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

{{deletedpage}} is a simpler, quicker way for the protecting admin. It would be better to have a bot that converts the pages. —Centrx→talk • 21:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Another [3]

contributions --AAA! ^(AAAA) 21:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

And I think UPN will need semi-protection again. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 21:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

81.154.35.244

He has vandalized a page again. Look up Baked Beans. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.112.49.141 (talk) 02:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

Tregoweth1 vs. Tregoweth25

Is it wrong that I want to unblock Tregoweth25 just so I can block him myself? :) —tregoweth (talk) 02:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Joshman330

You blocked this guy for 24 hours. I'm curious as to why he wasn't blocked indef as a vandal-only account. — Werdna talk 05:18, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikilobbying

Why did you delete the page Wikilobbying? It will not let me recreate it. I know that I can create an unbiased version of that page which will be written in Wikipedia-style. Please let me create it. There is no point of deleting factual articles. The more articles on Wikipedia, the better. Randomfrenchie 22:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

That's weird; I'd just left a message here, and then found myself back within minutes about another issue. I came across the redirect Wikilobbying. While it clearly shouldn't be an article, I couldn't see why it should exist even as a redirect, so I nominated it at RfD. Then I went back and looked at the history to see whom I should contact, and found you, and this section. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Quick Q

Hey, been looking at a certain arbcom case and am trying to make sure it doesn't blow up into yet another ED fiasco - that'll only end up as trouble for me. May I ask what comment of Thatcher's prompted this? Thanks, Milto LOL pia 22:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• Do arbitration clerks normally comment on the case and point fingers to "trolling" based on evidence? I am gracefully unfamiliar with the system. Milto LOL pia 10:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Another UPN sock

contributions. Also, 4.68.248.134's block has now expired. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 05:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Archives

My experience has been that any editing of an archive of this sort is severely frowned upon (to say the least). The first and only time that I did it (as here, simply for formatting purposes) I was reverted and then blocked. I was immediately unblocked by another admin, who saw that the block was an overreaction, but I was still warned that closed RfAs, etc., shouldn't be touched.

One reason is that they're records of exactly what happened, not what someone thinks should have happened. In this case, for example, if at any stage someone checked the archive, they might find that the count had been misleading because the misformatting had upset the numbering; they can't see that if someone's carefully tidied up the mess after the fact. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Good grief, your Sherlock Holmes act is impressive. I'd forgotten who was involved, and had obviously misremembered the incident slightly; I'd thought that I was in the wrong, and that the block was an overreaction. OK, then I withdraw my objections and apologise for getting things wrong (my guilt for which is balanced by the discovery that my past isn't as shady as I'd thought). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Consensus can change. Editing RFA after closure used to be a bigger deal. These days, I think one of the main reasons to want to edit formatting of a request for adminship even after closure is to help out TangoTangos bot? --Kim Bruning 20:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Philwelch

Do you want me to leave Wikipedia? Philwelch 23:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Another sock [4]

contributions --AAA! ^(AAAA) 00:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Deletedpage

Template:Deletedpage has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Reduction of 10%, eh?

(replying to message on my talk page) - Interesting that you got a reduction of 10% with pngout, even after the PNG crusade bot sent it through optipng and advpng. I'll have to look into this stunning discovery - an additional reduction of 10% sounds really good. Thanks! —Remember the dot (t) 18:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

{{protected title}} snafu

The {{protected title}} template chokes on User talk:Ans/Forum/w/index.php/w/index.php?title=User talk:Ans/Forum/w/index.php/w/index.php and User talk:Ans/Forum/w/w/index.php/w/index.php?title=User talk:Ans/Forum/w/w/index.php/w/index.php - two of the more nonsensical titles that were created in a spambot blitzkrieg yesterday. Passing these names ends up transcluding User talk:Image (and a broken activity log link). I guess it's the "index.php?title=User" part common to both names that's snarling up the parsefunctions. I thought of fixing it myself but the code's now a bit complicated for me to look at. :-( Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh 10:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Fixed it - I forgot about the "prefix unnamed parameters with 1=" trick, which solved it. D'oh! Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh 05:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Polaners

Hola :) I came to your page due to your blanking of the practical joke in my talk. I guess you were correct about that one, I had no idea it was considered undesirable by the userpage guideline. (I would have liked if you had left a note about it though). Anyways, just to tell you the external link to the Polaners webpage in the userpage about you doesn't work anymore. Rosa 14:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

3RR

I feel a little ridiculous warning you about 3RR vio, David, but are you aware that you've gone right up against the limit on Certified.gangsta's userpage? Please don't revert again. Bishonen | talk 03:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

I second this request, as I recall that my first ever block was performed by none other than David Levy after I had reverted vandalism by User:Bonaparte (now permabanned). I still await apologies for that incident, by the way. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 16:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Abusing your adminship?

You defended an accusation of abusing your admin powers by stating that you unblocked a user when they agreed to set their user page to match your perspective on an edit war on it. While your other statements were valid, that particular course of action was totally inappropriate, especially considering you were warring over an undecided policy. In the future please try not to use your sysop abilities in disputes you personally are engaged in. i kan reed 07:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

You misunderstood. With that statement, I was not addressing the block's appropriateness. I was addressing the user's claim that my intention was to stop him from participating in a discussion. Again, I perceived (and continue to perceive) this incident as the reversion of disruptive guideline violations, not as a "content dispute." I would never block an editor with whom I believed I was involved in a content dispute. —David Levy 07:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps rethink?

I have to say I'm surprised that you just came out of Werdna's RFA complaining (and justifiably so) that Philwelch was reverting a disagreement with rollback and treating you, a good-faith contributor, as a common vandal, and now you're calling your activity vandalism reversion? Not that I necessarily have a stance on the policy change, but I would've thought your own experiences with assumption of bad faith would keep you from calling edits made by diligent contributors by such terms. Milto LOL pia 07:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The two situations are dramatically different.

During Werdna's RfA, I was one of several users engaged in a good-faith discussion that clearly resulted in no consensus (let alone a guideline change).

In this instance, a discussion resulted in clear consensus (and a guideline change). In my assessment, the deliberate violation of this guideline (after repeatedly being warned not to) and the removal of a warning to follow a guideline were disruptive and constituted vandalism (or something tantamount to vandalism). If I'm wrong about this, it was an honest mistake on my part. (For the record, I've never accused Phil of acting in bad faith during the Werdna incident.) —David Levy 08:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Hoax message boxes

I fail to see what the discussion is about. See WP:USER#What_can_I_not_have_on_my_user_page.3F. This specifically mentions:

Games, roleplaying sessions, and other things pertaining to "entertainment" rather than "writing an encyclopedia,"

This is even more the case if some users find something annoying. I've already removed a false message box and would have moved to blocking if the user had not been co-operative (which he was).

Tyrenius 08:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, fortunately I was able to inform that user of the lack of consensus about the guideline (and I notice you quoted the guideline as if it was policy, when he asked specifically if there was a policy against the message bar). Jeffpw 09:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The word policy is also used as general reference to wiki procedures and process, as well as a distinct one to differentiate from guideline. Guidelines are usual good practice and should be followed unless there is a good reason not to. Here is the user's explanation:

I don´t want to remove it... It´s Fun! I know it can get annoying sometimes, so if you don´t like it, then never visit my userpage nor any of my subpages

I suggest this is not the most helpful way towards collegiality. I suggest that those who are making so much fuss over keeping their practical jokes would be better off forgetting about them and getting on instead with editing an encyclopedia; and being more considerate to users who do find such things annoying, and at whose expense they are having their fun. Please also see WP:LAWYER while you're about it.

Tyrenius 09:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Duly noted. Please note my concern that you deliberately misled the user into thinking he was in violation of policy. In the great scheme of things, that seems a larger transgression than a silly joke message bar. Jeffpw 09:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you find something more productive to do with your time on wiki. This certainly isn't. Tyrenius 09:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

That reply was a non sequiter if ever there was one. Jeffpw 09:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikiversity logo

Hey, been a few months. How goes it? Good here. It just occured to me that a variant (or variants) of the 3-color version of logo for Wikiversity with a gold shade for the columns (more toned down than the 'O' version) might be very interesting. And, I think the project needs a variant where the crossbars are not so bright a shade of bluegreen, though I'm not sure what shade to use. Do you have any time to work up variant(s)? If not, I can float it in the Wikiversity colloquim. Feel free to answer on the meta logo page, WV or here. I'll check in a bit. Take 'er easy, --Reswik 15:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I have a question for you

Hi Daid levy, I want to know something. Is the straw poll on the "new messages" banner still active? I think it was at the Village Pump. I would really like to give my opinion on it. Thanks.--CJ King 01:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

sock sock

contributions --AAA! ^(AAAA) 05:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

And I also came across this one. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 07:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

User Page

Sorry, could you tell me what was wrong with this? Electriceel _[Talk] 10:13, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Cool Cucumber

I, Chrislk02, award you this cool cucumber for maintaining your cool in difficult debate situations. This ability exemplifies a model wikipedian

-- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 21:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

{{Wikipedialang}}

Hi, I was wondering if you could check out a suggestion of mine? At Template talk:Wikipedialang#Cut-off point change, thanks :) Jack · talk · 22:04, Thursday, 15 February 2007

• Thanks for making your changes, although I still think my layout is better. You don't think it's easier to read this way? I like the repetition of the numbers, seems (almost) like a geometric progression, and while this new cut-off point only currently excludes 3 Wikipedias, that'll be set to change, and we need to keep bumping it up or the list will continue to grow and bloat. I think it just seems unfair that Nynorsk and Norsk are in the same category, when the latter is 5 times the size of the former. Could we perhaps gain more of a consensus? Thanks, Jack · talk · 05:15, Friday, 16 February 2007

• There don't seem to be any objections :) would you do the honours? Jack · talk · 12:13, Friday, 16 February 2007

• Ok, its been a few days now and no-one has come up with any major objection (IMO). Now can you introduce my changes? They always could be reverted, and the implementation seems the best way to notify any strongly opinionated editors who missed the discussion - Jack · talk · 15:33, Sunday, 18 February 2007

• The last part of your comment actually made me laugh out loud. News headline: "Wikipedia does its part in the war against terrorism!" Yes, I very much don't want to get into another argument about who the real terrorists are... I think your idea is wonderful, I fully support - Jack · talk · 17:31, Sunday, 18 February 2007

• Heh, you're good at this. I just noticed the size of the Arabic, and was about to inform you, but you beat me to it! *Only* by three days... :P thanks for all your help! Jack · talk · 11:42, Sunday, 25 February 2007

Sudden change!

Woah! Are we happy about this?! — Jack · talk · 00:38, Wednesday, 11 April 2007

Hoax boxes, Jimbo and Arbcom

Is this something we should take to Arbcom? Tyrenius 23:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I was referring to that, and asking if it should be formally presented to Arbcom for consideration? It seems perhaps not. Tyrenius 23:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarification. It's not something I've been involved in before. Tyrenius 00:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

My user page

Please do not touch my user page. Any edit to my user page is not a useful edit. Kingjeff 01:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

A little comment like my previous one certainly isn't a major edit. Kingjeff 02:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

So you think it's a major edit and I still think it's a minor edit. There is no need to argue over something so little. Kingjeff 03:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

How many messages like this are we up to now David? I know that User:Dragons flight had at least two... I think I see two here. (→Netscott) 03:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Continued removals

David, would you kindly counsel user Dragons flight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) to at least leave messages for the "abandoned" users and allow them some time to possibly remove the "message" box. What he's doing currently doesn't strike me as falling within the scope of the "cease fire" that admin Chrislk02 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) helped us arrive at. Thanks. (→Netscott) 04:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Peace

		Peace dove
		I present one of these (my first) to you as well. I appreciate the fact that we were patient enough and civil enough despite our somewhat significant differences of opinion about this to be able come to some resolution. I look forward to working on the project in the spirit of cooperation with you as well. Sincerely. (→Netscott) 04:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

A proposal towards a "new message" joke box guideline

Hello David, I'd like to try and help formulate a guideline about discouraging (rather than outright banning) the usage of the "new message" practical joke code. I've been doing some more research on this and gaining a better perspective about the banner thing. One of the first things that needs to be absolutely mandated in no uncertain terms is that if a user is going to use a joke banner despite the guideline's discouragement then it cannot link to anything off Wikimedia servers. Along with that mandate the joke banners can't link to "shock pages" etc. I agree that there are some very valid concerns about the potential for the boxes being abused and in view of that I also agree that regardless of consensus for the existence of them on user pages there are common sense ground rules that should be in effect. What do you think? (→Netscott) 03:53, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes I understand that you hold that view but in the meantime (until we get word from Jimbo or the ArbCom) I believe that something should be in place. I am concerned now about banners linking to offwiki sites. (→Netscott) 04:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

David, I've initiated the discussion. Please join in! (→Netscott) 18:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

You have 1 new message

Was that an automated response? I appreciate the concern with having the joke there, so I won't put it back up for now, but the passive-aggressiveness of that reply I found inhuman. Thanks. Electriceel _[Talk] 00:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The content wasn't passive-aggressive, it was detailed and thorough, but I wasn't addressed in anyway, nor were there any human conversational conventions employed. It felt like there should be a "this is an automated response, please don't reply" at the end.

But after all that, I was probably just knee jerking. I tend to answer things too hastily, and it's really nothing to argue about. Thanks Electriceel _[Talk] 02:18, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

That's ok. I'm not offended, and if I was, come on! This is the internet! Keep doing your good, and I'll try not to break any more rules. Electriceel _[Talk] 10:53, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Solution

I have found a solution on deciding who the main puppeteer is. See here. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 01:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

another [?]

contributions. Also created a user subpage that you should delete. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 06:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

UPN Vandal

Hi, I believe that I have found 3 new socks of The UPN Vandal: User:70.237.122.108 (added SM soundtrack to 2007 in music page), User:Milhouse 343 and user:172.147.28.105. I'm not sure how to get strongly suspected socks banned quickly, I tried AIV and AN, but nothing was quickly done in either instance. -- Scorpion 15:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

My addition to WP:PT

Whoops, didn't see it there. Sorry about that. --Coredesat 04:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Collaboration templates on article rather than talk pages

(At last someone else who uses their own name....)

G'day David, I noted the shifting of the current collab template. I currently organize both the dinosaur and fungi collaborations and to date the collab has always been on the article page. Is there are rule on this somewhere? Was about to revert back but thought i'd check first. cheers Cas Liber 09:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep, cool, OK Cas Liber 23:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

UPN is back

After a couple days off, The UPN Vandal is back under an old IP that you've had conflits with before: user:207.74.4.40. There's also an account: User:DelarionDavis28 and two other IPs: user:4.68.248.134 and user:172.133.177.114 -- Scorpion 20:01, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Superseded pages

Hi David. You seem to be pretty involved with the system of templates that outdated Wikipedia space pages are tagged with, so I'd like you opinion on my idea for a new one: template:superseded. {{superseded}} would be used on replaced-but-not-rejected pages like Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research after their replacement by Wikipedia:Attribution; Wikipedia:Attribution, meanwhile, could have a similar template along the lines of "this page has superseded X, Y, and Z." Good idea? Bad idea? Redundant to something else? Cheers, Picaroon 21:49, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

As you can see, they are currently using handmade, non-transcluded ones. Picaroon 21:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:Protected title now in use on commons

but Nilfanion and I may not know quite what all the parserfunctions do, especially the ones that relate to dealing with images that are on commons or not. Can you take a look and see if we did it right? Commons:Template:Protected title which is used at Commons:Commons:Protected against recreation... thanks! ++Lar: t/c 20:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

(copied from commons talk) Hello! I excised the Commons image code (which isn't needed at this wiki) and saved the remainder here for you to copy. Other than that, everything seems to check out.  :-) —David Levy 21:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Other than a stray missing space around the . around the activity log, I changed nothing. Is your user version OK to delete now? Your help is MUCH appreciated! ++Lar: t/c 21:57, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Done, and thanks again for your help! ++Lar: t/c 22:29, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppets

Hello, I've just been tagging a whole string of sockpuppets that have been engaging in an edit war on your userpage. Just to inform you. Retiono Virginian 22:13, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Shortcuts

Hi David, I'd normally agree with you, but in this case, people have been using WP:ATT for four months, and I see they're still using it, whereas very few are using the others, so it would seem odd not to include the one that's currently most popular. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Commons Adminship

commons:Special:Contributions/David_Levy is very solid. You should be an admin there, in my view, if you have an interest. Do you? I'd be honored to nominate you if you were so inclined... just let me know. ++Lar: t/c 02:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm So Sorry

Hey, I Was Wondering If I Could Say If You Do Believe Me, But I Just Wanna Say I'm Sorry, But You Can Believe Me, And Let Me Know Okay. -Jay-G7 03:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch

The above entitled arbitration case has closed, and the final decision has been published at the link shown. The Arbitration Committee has found that Philwelch misused his administrative tools. Because he gave up his status as an administrator in the face of controversy concerning his administrator actions and after an arbitration case was filed against him, he may not be automatically re-granted adminship. However, he is free to seek readminship, should he choose to do so, at any time by a request for adminship at WP:RfA. For the Arbitration Committee, Thatcher131 12:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Replaceable fair use

There are about 50 such images uploaded per day, and a backlog of thousands. Red links, rather than bringing the whole project to its knees, just get deleted by other editors once noticed. ed g2s • talk 12:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, the process is very time consuming. If these redlinks are such a great problem (I personally see the copyright violations as a more pressing concern), then one could easily have a bot crawl the deletion logs, however this is beyond my technical expertise. ed g2s • talk 17:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

/ad/

If you add

img[src*="/ad/"] { border: solid red 10px !important; }

to your CSS file (and use a recent Firefox or IE browser) it will add a bright red border around any image in the /ad/ directory. I find this very helpful in recognizing the 0.4% of images that have this problem. (PS. It was not originally my idea, but I don't recall who told me about it.) Dragons flight 10:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

A little task for you

Another UPN sock, contributions, has created a few pages which I've marked for Speedy deletion. These were created on the 6th of March. Hoping if you could delete them. Thanks. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 05:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, can you transfer the salted page "Greene County Cable Television" to "Wikipedia:Protected titles" (aswell as its talk page)? --AAA! ^(AAAA) 05:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Flag

Something got messed up when I did the upload; I haven't done main page maintenance for ages. Its nice to see we have a commons admin working on the en main page now. Thanks for fixing it up. --Peta 05:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Did you read...

No, I didn't, because I was unaware of that. Perhaps the template's talk page should explain it? >Radiant< 14:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• No offense taken. I appear to have missed that discussion, when I had been off-wiki for a few days. Cheers! >Radiant< 15:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • By the way - do you think we'd need a "guideline shortcut" tag as well? I can't off-hand recall any guidelines with section redirects, but there's probably one or two. And there's WP:AADD which gets cited a lot... >Radiant< 15:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hey, David. I sent you a couple of emails about a week ago, but I haven't heard a reply from them. I was wondering if you got them or not. Thanks. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 23:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Some more chores for you

Another blocked sockpuppet, contributions, has created a few pages that I've speedied, but no-one's deleted them yet. I'd ask Tregoweth to do it, but I usually just nag him to block the accounts, and I thought I'd give him a break. :P --AAA! ^(AAAA) 06:48, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Email

Hey, David. I've sent you an email with some information on you-know-who. You might want to read it. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 07:39, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

ATT

I've missed him making an Official Statement on it so far. At any rate I think that naming all three pages policy is just about the worst possible way to resolve this. We'll get divergence and confusion, "no, it's not verifiable, but it is attributable", things like that. >Radiant< 09:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Okay. You know, I'm going to unwatchlist this entire mess and check back in a month or so to see if it has become less obfuscated in the meantime. Which somehow I doubt. >Radiant< 10:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

OOPS

Thanks, for the fix. Jeepday 13:45, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Disputedtag

[moving discussion over from WP:ATT talk, where it's getting increasingly off-topic. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 05:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)]

1. Yes, it says that the designation as a guideline/policy is disputed. That means that someone has designated the page a policy/guideline and someone else believes that it isn't one. It does not mean that someone believes that the designation should be changed. If your overly broad interpretation were correct, nearly every policy/guideline page would bear this tag at all times.
2. The template was TfD'd by a user who shared your misunderstanding. I suggest that you read the discussion.
3. Yes, if someone slaps a policy/guideline tag on a page that obviously isn't a policy/guideline, it will simply be removed. This tag is for use in a reasonable disagreement as to a page's status (e.g. some editors believe that consensus was reached, but others don't).
4. No, I'm not claiming that I possess any special authority. I'm pointing out that you're telling me what I meant when I wrote something.
5. Where on the talk page is your view supported? If your comments from January were intended to mean something along the lines of your current claims, that wasn't clear.

—David Levy 03:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I really get the feeling we are talking past eachother on some small but important point, for us to be disagreeing this strongly.

1. Right. Proponents of WP:ATT designated it a policy, and a bunch of people disagree with that. Jimbo has temporarily agreed that it should remain labelled a policy (which is not the same thing as him agreeing it accurately represents actual policy, which he beyond-clearly doesn't; see my long post on this topic at the poll talk page; I think the edit summary was something like "How about an alternative to Jossi's interpretation of Jimbo"). It must be labelled a policy for Disputedtag to even apply in the first place; if Jimbo had changed it to Rejected or Proposal or Historical during the pre-poll and poll period, changing it to Disputedtag would be an error. I think your argument is that "because it came from Jimbo" this means that Disputedtag cannot apply, but I question that sort of reasoning as a highly personal interpretation that has equally plausible but conflicting interpretations (e.g. mine, at the poll talk page). Even if Jimbo stopped by and said your interpretation of him is correct, I would argue that Disputedtag still applies because there is widespread dispute about whether ATT bearing a policy designation reflects consensus, and Jimbo's already determined that he is leaving the matter up to the community; i.e., Disputedtag doesn't contradict Jimbo in this case either (all disputed tag does is alert that there is a dispute; it doesn't change the policy designation). And even if I'm somehow misguided in that analysis, Disputedtag emphatically is applicable the very instant that the poll becomes active, since Big J has said this is how consensus will be determined - that is, the dispute is active in every possible sense at that point. As to the ad absurdum point: The consensus view, such as it is, both at the template and at its TfD is that if the template is used in such a "every policy and guideline, all the time" manner it would be being misused; as you say yourself further down it is for "use in a reasonable disagreement", and as said elsewhere, for use with substantial, numerous-party disputes, not lone crankism (I think virtually every commentator at the template's talk page agreed that was the same sort of abuse as happens with article dispute tags all the time).
2. By "TfD'd" I meant "successfully TfD'd" (otherwise what I said wouldn't mean anything, since anyone can XfD anything at any time, even for insane or bad faith reasons). I've read that failed TfD at least twice, and do not in fact agree with the TfD nominator's views, so you're not understanding my position. NB: I believe that Radiant attacked the template because he was over-controlling WP:N while it was subject to numerous disputes including whether it had consensus at all on any of it (notably, no pun intended, he was the one that designated it a guideline, too), and I and some others defended its bearing a Disputedpolicy template for about two months until the mess was corrected. While I don't think it was a bad faith TfD, I do think his take on the template was heavily skewed and didn't represent what others were thinking about it at all.
3. The legitimate use of the tag you describe is precisely the situation at WP:ATT, other than Jimbo's confused things slightly, and temporarily, but some of us believe we see through that fog pretty clearly.
4. I'm not telling you what you meant. The template is not yours, WP is not a YOYOW environment like The WELL, and you do not edit in a vacuum. Other parties already had an understanding of what that template was for, understanding of what it is for has evolved since your wording edit, and your wording suits the current general understanding; that it may also suit some other slightly different understanding that you have is unfortunate but doesn't change others' minds or change the overall nature of the template and how Wikipedians use it. After reading everything you wrote at template talk and at the TfD, several things you did say appear to support my view of the template's uses/purpose (which I think is closer to yours than you seem to think it is), and nothing you said appears to contradict it, so I find what you are saying now jarring (and as I pointed out, I think that at least what I've been interpreting you as saying differently from me today would render the template completely useless, which to me suggests again that we are simply misunderstanding each other, because I tend to actually agree with you all over WP on a large number of things.)
5. Where I wrote a big explanation of some legit uses for it in response to Radiant being silly; this was followed by nothing but agreement that the template had legit uses (I don't recall that anyone said "yes, every word of what SMcCandlish wrote is correct", but no one disagreed with a single word of it either.) I would actually rewrite it now, given the chance, because I think it was too vague and actually did go a little beyond conventional understanding of the uses of the template to include disputes with the policy's detailia. I believe what I meant at the time was that if the wording is fundamentally screwed up in a way that makes it clearly, as a whole, not actually reflect what policy really is..., but I muddled it.

Hopefully we are at least slightly clearer to a joint understanding; I'll be disappointed if this only results in further argument on every single point. (PS: I've watchlisted the page so you needn't reply at my place.)

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 05:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for going to the trouble of typing this thoughtful reply! Indeed, I believe that we've been misunderstanding each other, and I apologize for my role in this. I'm not certain that we fully agree on the tag's precise purpose, but it's clear that we don't disagree to nearly the extent that it previously seemed (and your Jimbo argument is compelling).

One concern that I neglected to express earlier is that the inclusion of the stock {{disputedtag}} template might mislead people to believe that a dispute exists regarding one or more of the basic concepts documented on the page (rather than the merger that placed them there). Would a custom tag explaining the specific situation not be more appropriate? —David Levy 07:26, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm very glad you said that! I thought I was goin' nuckin' futs or something. No apology needed; confusions like this happen all the time, and I don't feel you've done anything bad faith to keep me from getting my Righteous way with the template at ATT, or any such hooey. I hadn't thought of the concern at all that you just raised, about fallout effect on V, NOR and RS. That's a very good point. I'd completely missed it. And yes, I think a custom Disputedmerge or something would work well (and be useful later; I saw at {{Cent}} at least two other proposed policy/guideline merges that could conceivably raise similar issues). After some of the freakout over at poll talk dies down, I'd like to actually hammer out where we do differ on interpretation; I think it would be a really Good Thing to provide documentation at the top of the template talk page (or even transcluded on the template page) to forestall some of its misuses.  :-) Oh, and I corrected a dumb typo in my earlier post, in bold, which may have rendered what I was saying there meaningless. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

At Wikipedia talk:Attribution, I've suggested a possible tag. Feel free to improve the wording  :-) —David Levy 08:34, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Poll

I looked at the discussion, didn't agree with most of it, and took into account who was making it as well, and for what purpose. The poll needs to see who agrees with the move in principle first. Claiming that that question is in some way "vague" only serves to discredit the person who says it, not the question itself. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

But you (Jayjg) and Sv coming along and making radical changes without regard for previous consensus-building isn't very helpful. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 06:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

David, I say what I mean. Please don't put words in my mouth. As for you, SMcCandlish, there was no consensus to remove that question. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Defining horrible

I smoked a cigarette waiting on last, and think I'll be off to bed. I am curious—one, two, or three questions aside—why anyone who has been on Wiki a while wants to increase our workload. Perhaps you'd understand my word choices if you'd worked on WP:ATT for six months rather than six days. The intention was never to introduce duplicate policy description—it was to reduce it. I'd guess that if the people who worked on ATT in earnest could choose between keeping it as a fourth page (policy, guideline, "supplement" or whatever) or killing it, they'd simply kill it. It would be far far better to my mind, despite having worked on it, to have ATT disappear, than to have ATT and V live at the same time. The possibility that a large project meant to streamline P&Gs could be used to make them more hard to manage is mind-numbing. Note, I'm not talking about the poll now; I'm describing the intention behind Attribtution that developed over many months. I call the "compromise" of running four live pages a horrible idea, because it completely inverts everything Wikipedia:Attribution was made to accomplish. It's not a compromise option; not in the slightest. Marskell 22:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Help please

Your urgent help would be most appreciated here. -- Jreferee 21:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Good faith

Maybe you're doing this in good faith, David, but at some point it crosses a line. WP:ATT was conceived of as a way of reducing 3 pages to 1. It became policy after many months of discussion. Then Jimbo raised concerns, and said he would like to gauge Wikipedia opinion as to whether the 3 pages should have been merged or not. Now you say you want other options, completely unrelated to that (and, in fact diametrically opposed to that), otherwise Wikipedians aren't being "given a choice". Whether you realize it or not, whether in good faith or not, you've crossed over the line from honest discussion to disruption. Step back a little, please, and think about this. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Please review the fallacy of many questions. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Just to let you know...

... that I am very upset about your email to Jimbo. (a) Puts down the work of a dozen editors that have worked at that page for seven days; (b) Says that we cannot reach consensus, when we have not completed the work; (c) Polarizes the issue even more; (d) Demonstrates a lack of respect for your fellow editors that worked alongside you; (e) removes yourself from the shared responsibility over that work. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I am a strong believer of "shared responsibility", you and I and a dozen other editors worked on that page, editwarred at times and were stronheaded about our opinions. Add to it that we had some trolling as well, and that makes for a messy debate. So, we are all responsible for the mess and the lack of consensus, no one is exempted, and as such we should clean it up. I am sure we can, if we just listen more to others and be less inflexible. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

MfD close

David, I like you a lot, but I rv'd your closure. you and I are not neutral parties and shouldn't be closing that (no one really involved on that poll page should, and the nonsense about the poll being dead needs settling/attention). Another neutral party can close later. Please don't take it the wrong way. - Denny 16:58, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

We aren't going to delete the poll pages. That isn't how things work. I know that you mean well, but you're creating a needless distraction from the real matter at hand.

I'm biased against the poll, so there's nothing wrong with me applying common sense in deciding to keep it. —David Levy 17:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

David... the matter at hand is that there is overwhelming desire from the most people (including our founder) to run the poll. The same admins saying over and over again "NO POLL NO POLL NO POLL" is meaningless--please don't take this the wrong way. Admins have no more value/voice in policy than every one else on this one. If there is support to kill Jimbo's idea, lets be done with it. Letting the MfD run a day at least won't hurt anything. - Denny 17:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

And someone else closed it. I will not fight it, but unless there is overwhelming concensus to not run the poll, I will push for it with others. Every voice should have equal value here... :( - Denny 17:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello? That was an April Fool's Day joke. a proposed user

Oh, you're no fun. :-) Anyway, thanks for noticing me. Cheers! --Uncle Ed 02:11, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

IAR

Bah :P Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 10:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Unprotect Jimbo's Page?

You protected Jimbo's page! The entire #wikipedia IRC was just having fun with it. I hardly think an april fool's day has gone by that this hadn't happend! Perhaps things got carried away, but I think removing at least full protection in a few minutes after things have cooled down seems fairly reasonable. Ninja! 02:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Arr!

Reverting/Protecting Jimbo Wales' page

1. Why did you revert the "vandalism"? It's a harmless April Fools' joke!

2. Read the quote on Jimbo's page:

You may edit this page

Really, you can! Please feel free!

This is my user page. I like to keep it a certain way. But, the thing is, I trust you. I trust that you'll add something here that makes me smile, that informs me, or that helps to inform others. If I have things in a certain format, I trust that you will respect that format. Actually, scratch that. Since this page is just so simple and plain, my ultimate dream is that some person who thinks it is fun will come along and make it look perfect. See that link up there 'edit this page'? Go for it. It's a wiki world! – Jimbo

3. If you are going to revert and protect, at least get rid of Captain Jimbo Wales xD

--Theunicyclegirl (talk, review me!) 02:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

How? --Theunicyclegirl (talk, review me!) 02:28, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I still think you should unprotect it. If Jimbo says that anyones can edit his page, let it be. --Theunicyclegirl (talk, review me!) 02:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo said:

I trust that you'll add something here that makes me smile, that informs me, or that helps to inform others.

What they were doing wasn't as much vandalism as it was fun, and I think that Jimbo would appreciate that. --Theunicyclegirl (talk, review me!) 02:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

First off, the giant image of a mop was not a user. That was Deskana, an administrator. Shes hangin out in the IRC with us.

Second, if youre in the mood to revert vandalism, could you restore and unprotect my userpage? Deskana vandalized it and protected it. Ninja! 02:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me we are seeing different things. When I hear vandalism, I think of hurting ARTICLES. When I think of having a good sense of humor, I think of maybe putting an eyepatch on someone's picture, or maybe putting the same eyepatch on someone's userpage and protecting it to get them back. If you don't want to be a part of this harmless fun, by all means, don't participate, but please don't spoil it for the rest of us!

The moment someone starts vandalizing mainspace articles, please do protect. But don't get in the way of harmless fun! Ninja! 02:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you need to lighten up a bit, David :-) --Deskana (ya rly) 02:52, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

You are right to have stopped the vandalism. Like I said, it was getting out of control. Nobody wants to deal with a massive backlog the next day. But things have calmed down sufficiently that you can unprotect the page. If someone sees a pirate Jimbo with a note that says "Happy april fool's day", all that will do is portray Jimbo as a happy, cheery individual- something his userpage already does. I would hope that you, too, could show some of this happy, cheery spirit. Ninja! 03:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Community Portal

Sorry about the misinterpretation. I took mainspace as main page. I totally agree with the original posting! Again, sorry about that! (And once again, I do not condone vandalism!) _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  03:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, like I said above, I sort of feel like a jerk because I was just trying to do what I thought everyone else wanted, but I was totally off! Anyway, now that this is settled, I never want to talk to you again. :( _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  03:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Well-meaning user

I thought there was no harm in allowing the joke to go through; it's the April Fool's day, after all. - Mike Rosoft 10:24, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

A Question

I was wondering, I wasn't watching Wikipedia's main page on Christmas or Halloween, so I don't even know if this is possible.I have an idea regarding April Fool's 2008, but I was wondering if I would gmail the convo about it. Arcayne 13:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC) Er. I don'tsee a link to yupr WikiMail. Being a bit new, forgive me for asking if there is some place that i should be looking for this? Arcayne 18:56, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Protection of User:Jimbo Wales

Wouldn't semi-protection be a more feasible option? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Steptrip (talk • contribs) 20:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

Not when established users (and even sysops) are vandalising a page. —David Levy 20:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Whoa, I didn't see that in the history.  ~Steptrip 20:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi David,

Could I please request edit rights to the Scotch College Melbourne wiki site. Our Archivist would like to correct some errors.

Thank you,

Luke Turner Scotch College Melbourne Computer Centre 61 3 9810 4370 [email protected]

Something in the water...

Yeah, I saw your predicament on the day too. I was just so amazed by the irrationality of many seemingly good contributors. Until next year ;-)--cj | talk 11:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Cascading protection

You seem to misunderstand cascading protection. It applies also to existing transcluded pages, see e.g. [5].--Patrick 12:34, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

You seem to misunderstand the {{protected title}} template. Again, it does not transclude existent pages. —David Levy 12:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

(Was sorted out, see Template:H:mlw.--Patrick 09:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC))

Today's featured article template protection

Hello! The {{protected title}} template isn't intended to protect existent pages, and the coding bug that allowed this has now been eliminated.
I created {{TFA template}} specifically for this purpose and implemented it on your pages. I also moved them to Wikipedia:Today's featured article/A and Wikipedia:Today's featured article/B and relocated the links from WP:PT to WT:TFA. —David Levy 19:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Alright; thanks for the update. -- tariqabjotu 21:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Straw men

Hi; I'm just monitoring the fricasse from here on in, as the headache I had after leaving the house today was too much to bother with further; I'm tired of playing sisyphus when there's urchins kicking rocks at me, and the volume of historical articles that would have been generated if I hadn't been "waging truth" these last two weeks is profound, and somewhat tragic as my life will be allowing me only so many more days/weeks on Wikipedia (see {{BCproject}} and {{NorthAmNative}} which are my two most active undertakings). But I saw Uncle G's usage of "straw man arguments" or whatever his phrasing was....and your refutation of this complete misapplication of that word.....now, I'll tell you what, both he and Hong tried using it on Talk:Chinaman, claiming all mine's and zeus1234's and keefer4's positions were "straw man arguments" or "straw men [that we were] bringing forward". And we explained, or I did anyway, that while they both state that they are native English speakers, they clearly don't have a grasp on English idioms (I quite honestly think that's the case, given so many other similar examples, despite their good written literacy); or they're just miseducated, or arrogant, or pulling out any cheap accusation they can against anybody who dares dispute them. Sandbox behaviour, and this page should have been confined IMO to a sandbox, period (note my just-now removal of a completely a-factual claim/editorialization, of the very kind he claims he's not making...). Anyway, I'm gonna go over to Talk:Chinaman and find the "straw man" comments and I'll be back with "clips".....and I'm half-certain it wasn't Uncle G who used this term, but the IP address user 4.x.x...........whatever the case, the other comments of this nonsensical metaphor/archetype or whatever "straw man" is lexically might make for an interesting comparison to his bringing it up again. If it was him, that is; but as before a lot of 4.x.x's language sounds "just like". And if this is one of those "exactly like" that checkuser/sock issue comes up again; I had a look through checkuser rules and don't see where any of this fits; other than various things said by 4.x.x. that were completely out-of-line (way more than anything even I and Hong have hurled at each other). Other than that I'm going to try and focus on real-world topics, not fighting over somebody's neo-racist castle in the sand....Skookum1 05:34, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, so it was Uncle G who kept on harping about "straw men", not 4.x.x. But while searching for that I noticed Uncle G's first round of meddling on the talkpage, in which he kept on, over and over, insisting, without saying much else: " I also suggest reading page 137 of ISBN 1883378834 " so that we'd apparently become as enlightened as him; it's a minor and "pop" dictionary of English slang with a one-sentence/phrase definition, and he was adamant that it be considered an authoritative source, above all others cited, which were "straw men" and "irrelevant" and worse. Failing that, and as you know failing his merge plans there, he launched you-know-what. I've just took the hedgetrimmers there to things he's said that are not just editorializations but in some cases OUTRIGHT LIES and totally uncitable, despite his claims that everything is cited. And I also added certain items that were glaringly absent, as well as his attempt to POV/editorialize what "camp" Frank Chin was in; that Bo Yang, Fresh Kid Ice, Mark Birkett and Tommy Chong's disastrous band name "Four Niggers and a Chink" (nobody had a sense of humour about this kind of stuff in the early '60s...); all major names who have adopted "chinaman" as either a selfidentifier or as an archetype. He doesn't want the world to know about that, but the glaring absence of these materials from English language names for Chinese people totally grinds his false clalims that the page is NPOV into the dust. He'll deny it, denounce me, and tell me I need better manners, then reassert his objectivity and will keep on pointing to his own selection of cites. but not ones he doesn't like, or if he has to he'll editorialize them so they "fit" his vision of what these words are and why they belong in some common page, apparently as a documentation of linguistic racism against Chinese. Well, when the dust settles here I think, especially if this piece of contrived ick survives the AFD, that the Gweilo article should be renamed Chinese language names for non-Chinese peoples, as the article is about a LOT more than the term Gweilo, and covers other pejorative/ethnic terms in Chinese ("this is not a dictionary"). The subtext to either title, unstated but there for those who realize, are really English language racism against Chinese people and Chinese language racism against non-Chinese people. The more the merrier, I suppose; I'm thinking of a Norwegian language names for Swedes and Euzkara names for Spaniards. All in a day's work, and of course if ElnfCp is a valid article, then all the others would be equallyly valid as article topics and ripe for NPOV input.....and are just the kind of thing Wikipedia needs to focus on.... ;-) ;-| Skookum1 06:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

And just as an aside, while looking around for Birkett's webpages/resources in order to write his article, I came across these guys on YouTube - "The Chinaman and a Greek". Not sure yet if they're notable - they may be - but they are damned funny and talented lipsynchers....if that's lipsynching...Skookum1 06:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC) And Mark Birkett is even funnier, also on YouTube (several clips).Skookum1 06:22, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Protected titles

Hi there. Unless you are able to provide a good rationale for keeping it protected, I am going to unprotect this page, as there is no real justification to do so. Look, in example, de:Wikipedia:Gesperrte Lemmata, which is not protected and allows anyone to include interwiki or write clarifications. -- ReyBrujo 15:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

We could protect many pages, like Wikipedia:List of administrators, but we don't. The spirit of Wikipedia is to use protection as a last measure, that vandals may deface the page is not a good one, nor the fact that the page requires few edits per month. However, since you so strongly object, there is nothing I can do. Thanks for the note. -- ReyBrujo 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

3RR

Warning

Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly, as you are doing at MediaWiki:Watchdetails. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions in a content dispute within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. Rather than reverting, discuss disputed changes on the talk page. The revision you want is not going to be implemented by edit warring. Thank you. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Huh? I reverted once, discussed the issue on the talk page, and edited the message in an attempt to compromise. SlimVirgin, conversely, reverted three times without any compromise attempt. —David Levy 05:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

My apologies, I misread your difs. — xaosflux ^Talk 05:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the explanation.  :-) —David Levy 05:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Oola picture

A stretch at this point is good enough. It won't be like with Ian Thorpe where we had a photograph of the Athens' Olympic Swimming pool, but a dog that sorta looks like the subject.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 07:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Vonnegut's death

Even though your reading of the rules is correct, I still think his death needs to be mentioned. There was agreement at WP:ITN/C that his death may be significant enough to merit inclusion on the main page. Also, we're starting to get readers questioning Wikipedia's silence on the issue here and here. I think this is a case of WP:IAR, we've got someone who although they didn't die in an unusual or tragic manner, was clearly extremely important... RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 17:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Image:Cho Seung-hui 3.jpg

I found this on the website of the Virginia State Police: "MEDIA making inquires regarding the Virginia Tech incident should call the Virginia Tech Media Line at (540) 231-5396 or visit their Web site at http://www.vt.edu/." Maybe we could ask the VTML and see if they could release us photographs of the shooting, in partiuclar, the shooter. If we can get it directly from the source, then I will stop my persuit about the image. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 00:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Award

		The RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		For re-protecting the Main Page when it somehow got unprotected and was under attack. Fanra 10:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC) Seconded heartily. Great work! And thank you for the award :) – Riana ऋ 11:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Desysopping inactive admin accounts (re: Main Page brouhaha on 19 Apr 07)

Hi David,

You mentioned briefly on Talk:Main Page that desysopping inactive admins as a regular practice had been debated and turned down. Could you please direct me to that debate? Cheers, Sentinel75 10:47, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Star

Thank you very much. I also thank you for saving me from a rather embarrassing rant about the crats desyssopping admins :) — Deckiller 11:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I also want to thank you for the star, David. Groogokk 21:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Robby

I'm not really surprised to hear that. So can we give him a negative barnstar or something? >Radiant< 11:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the barnstar! Karrmann 00:04, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Cascading protection bug

[6] Yeah, I noticed that too, and got awful concerned about the unprotected templates before I logged out and tried to edit them as an IP. Should we file a report about this?--Pharos 00:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Re:Award

Thank you, sir. It is an honor for me that you award me a barnstar. --Meno25 04:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Polling guidelines

The idea was to get a blank page to rewrite/refactor polling guidelines from an NPOV+consensus perspective. After about a month we could then look at the generated material and see how and if we could combine it with existing material to get a more accurate representation of current consensus on best practices in this area.

Unfortunately things got a bit heated, and then someone added merge tags, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back, I'm afraid.

So now there's no editing, and not even civil discussion. Page merges are right out. ^^;;

It's a kind of situational irony or catch 22... Placing the merge tag is what caused it to be impossible to gain consensus on merging in the short term. ^^;;;

--Kim Bruning 22:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC) Yeah, I know, I'm as flabbergasted as you are, probably :-P But on a wiki this big, even quite crazy coincidences are likely to happen from time to time.

• Of note: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Straw polls#Wikipedia:Straw polls ← more of the "Nomic" train of thought apparently. (→Netscott) 03:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

<scratches head> No idea what other options are open. I'm keeping a copy on my hard drive though, so once the dust has settled maybe we can make a tidy guideline anyway. Just this particular attempt isn't flying. :-/ --Kim Bruning 03:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

That's not going to work Kim Bruning. Such thinking is just making busy work because if the MfD saw this page deleted then anyone wanting to recreate this type of page would be obliged to go through deletion review first. Such complications are not helpful. (→Netscott) 03:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Only if the page is salted. --Kim Bruning 06:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Heya, it looks like we're mostly talking past each other on the MFD. Even so, so far I think I can tell that you are probably acting in good faith :) . With a little effort we might also be able to understand each other's position. Note that I don't think people in the overall discussion have had a lack of good faith per-se, but I do think some people might see this as a sort of partisan issue. Hmm, either that, or people are making too many kneejerk responses, and not checking to see if the other party might actually be acting in good faith themselves --Kim Bruning 06:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, looks like we have indeed been talking past each other. --Kim Bruning 06:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Note also my comments on the MFD Talk page. --Kim Bruning 07:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

MFD Withdrawn

You convinced me sufficiently with this comment:

"I don't think that anyone has proposed that Wikipedia:Straw polls be merged in its current form. The idea is to slowly analyze its text (along with previous versions), determine which portions are backed by consensus, merge them into Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion (along with any additional polling information deemed useful) and leave the rest behind. —David Levy 06:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)"

I'm just wondering, if this is the case: Could you not have waited with that proposal until after the Straw polls page settled down? --Kim Bruning 07:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

In fact, you could skip the slow analysis and following. Basically the page has not been maintained for a long time, and I maintain that the best plan is to actually just work on updating that page to current best knowledge and practices. (this was from before you joined the discussion afaict). This would also probably end up "automatically" incorporating text from PNSD. --Kim Bruning 07:40, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Note that merge tags are typically used to indicate that pages should be merged in the very near future (and presumably in their current form). I take it we agree that we should take our time with this? --Kim Bruning 07:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmph. Well. Do you think we can get Radiant on board on that basis? --Kim Bruning 07:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

However long it takes. A rushed merger would be the worst possible move. —David Levy 08:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah see, and that's what I thought people were discussing the whole time (The big merge tags and so definately suggested that that was imminent). Hence the big time foot-dragging.;-) Also originally I thought it was a good idea to work on a separate page, so that if things went south, all we needed to do was delete the page (pre-planned reaction #2). I hadn't quite noticed that this was the particular page that had an older history. Let's Not Risk Deleting That (tm) ;-)

It might be wisest to start a fresh page and then bring details over from all other pages. We can then mark the old pages as deprecated. Would that cover your objectives? --Kim Bruning 14:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm fine with what you're saying, except I don't believe in the concept of "proposed guidelines". I've never written a "proposed" page before, and I think the number of "proposed guideline"s that got anywhere can be counted on the fingers on one hand :-P. Can we simply be descriptive? Taggers will play their games no matter what we do anyway. --Kim Bruning 16:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

You have ever succeeded at this? Generally I find that pages I make that don't get called proposed or whatever do a lot better, over time. O:-) --Kim Bruning 20:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm well aware of the standard procedure as written, and I'm also aware that it doesn't actually work. ;-) But there you have it. One day we should fix those pages too. But let's do one thing at a time. --Kim Bruning 01:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Another Botaylor456 Sockpuppet?

User Jordan Maxferres seems to be doing the same thing that Bo and his other sockpuppets have done. --Proofreader J-Man 05:02, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, this is another sock puppet account (which I've blocked). Thanks for bringing it to my attention! —David Levy 12:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt action, and here's another one-- User WLS-TV. This guy is obsessed and apparently unstoppable. --Proofreader J-Man 15:32, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes you have my consent about the Kenny Rogers thing.--Bucs10 22:05, 29 April 2007 (UTC)Bucs10

Wow!

Hi David,

Main Page: (Reverted edits by David Kernow (talk) to last version by Mets501)

That was fast!  Thanks, with apologies for forgetting to preview. Yours, David (talk) 02:28, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

...Okay, think I've now corrected the offending error. Best wishes, David (talk) 02:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Your userpage has been vandalized

Just wanted to warn you. MrMacMan ^Talk 17:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Glad to help out. :) MrMacMan ^Talk 17:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Ethnic Slurs

Thank you for your comments. I will accept that I am still on a learning curve, and will not in any way argue with you. It is, of course, fair to say that the very fact that the article has been through four deletion debates, which is an unusually high number, indicates that views on the topic are mixed. But I take your point.--Anthony.bradbury 14:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, of course I know that wiki is not censored and that we do not remove content because it might offend people; I have over the last year or so reverted a number of edits made by other people on this irrelevant basis. It was a judgerment call; if it was wrong, I accept this.--Anthony.bradbury 14:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Because the conversation seems to be happening on my talk-page, I have answered there.--Anthony.bradbury 16:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. As you will know, I am still a fairly new admin, and am more than happy to take advice, be it as a result of a misjudgement or not.--Anthony.bradbury 18:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

David, WikiProject Lutheranism is looking to design a project/topic-related barnstar. Unfortunately, such an endevour is beyond the skills of our editors, so we are looking for a little help. I saw that you were involved in designing another barnstar, and thought that you might be able to help us out. Is this something that you would be willing / able to help out with? Thanks for your consideration. -- Pastor David ^† _(Review) 18:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick reply. I would like to, if we can, present a couple of possibilities to the Project for them to decide between. For the first, if it could be some image of Luther's seal placed in the middle of a standard barnstar (images at Image:Lutherrose.jpg, Image:Luthseal.gif, and in the commons at Lutherrose_(small).png -- I think the commons image might be easiest to work with, but you would know better). I think the other good option might be Image:Indulgence.png (also from commons) somehow combined with a standard barnstar. I am certainly open to other options as well, especially since you already have experience in this area and probably have some better ideas. Let me know what you think. Pastor David ^† _(Review) 21:56, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow, those both look great. I have asked the WikiProject which they would rather adopt, and expect to hear something in a couple of days. I cannot thank you enough for your help. Pastor David ^† _(Review) 18:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia

Great Job Wikipedia! You have helped me alot! I only have one question. How do I make my own Wikipedia page? Miki101 14:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Bio's

How can I make wiki pages for people like, say if some superstar is not on wikipedia, can I create one?

Thanks for the help,

Miki101 15:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Sidebar

Not sure if you're watching User talk:Ruud Koot, but I'd be interested in getting your feedback about User:Mike Dillon/Sidebar. Mike Dillon 01:09, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:Guideline

In my IE6, the background is transparent. Here is proof; open an image editing program, zoom in on the image, and you will see the background is transparent. - Super48 21:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC)