This is an archive of past discussions with User:Just Step Sideways. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Hi. As of 20 June: More stats have been added on candidates and !voter participation. Details have been added about qualifications required on other Wikis for candidates and RfA !voters. Some items such as clerking, !voters, and candidates are nearing proposal stage. A quick page`link template has been added to each page of the project. Please visit those links to get up to speed with recent developments, and chime in with your comments. Thanks for your participation.
I'm not entirely sure what it is you are trying to say, but the article you linked to verifies what I said on your talk page. Alaska became a full U.S. State in 1959 and still is one. I happen to live there and I can assure we are very much a regular U.S. State and not a self-governing territory or anything like that. The idea that it was "decolonized" is, to put it mildly, a unique interpretation of Alaska's ascension to statehood. Note that our own article on decolonized U.S. territories does not contain a single word on Alaska. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:18, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Please look though the ideas and leave a comment on the talk page on the proposal(s) you would most like to see go forward. Your feedback will help decide which proposals to put to the community. And, as always, feel free to add new suggestions. Thanks!
A detailed table and notes have now been created and posted. It compares how RfA is carried out on major Wikipedias (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish). If you feel that other important language Wikipedias should be added, please let us know. This may however depend on our/your language skills!
Hi Beeblebrox. Would you take a look at some current RfCs and perhaps summarize and assess the consensus in them? I have requested that RfCs be closed at this link and this link. Rd232 public (talk·contribs) has asked that some RfCs be closed here. If you could close one or a few of them, I'd be grateful. Thanks, Cunard (talk) 18:05, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
I was aware of the first one as they just came off a long hiatus and began editing again, and someone reported them at UAA for a confusing username. If we ever get involved in the same conversation it probably will be a bit confusing, but in actuality they have had their name longer than I have, they just hadn't used it much in the last four years, which about howe long I've been an active user. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:24, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
Proposal to require autoconfirmed status in order to create articles - Trial
Following a period of stagnation of around 30 days, the discussion has been moved to Wkipedia space, restarted and and listed on Cent, RfC, and the VP, and will take place here. To remain focused and to avoid confusion, this new discussion concerns only the duration of the trial. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:07, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
Could you please confirm that this oversight-en-wp‐at‐wikipedia.org is the correct email address for urgent oversight requests. I may have missed something, but two emails I sent spaced at 8 hours and no reply, and another 8 hours further on and still no response. Thanks. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:04, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Sorry to bother you with this personally. I have now mailed you directly because there is no response from the OS email address. I cannot take admin action in this matter until I know the outcome from OS. Thanks. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:16, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Not a problem, and it's always best to double check anyway as occasionally there is nobody minding the store. FYI The best bet is to use the OTRS "quick form" as anyone monitoring the oversight queue will see it right away. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:12, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi. You deleted the AmphetaDesk article a while ago. I do not agree with the rationale -- even a quick Google or Google Books search brings up a rafter of usable sources.
That was quite some time ago, if you think you can create an appropriate article on it now by all means go ahead. Given that it has been deleted six times, I would make sure you have reliable sources attached from the get-go. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:26, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dickson McCunn you said the result was to merge somewhere. One of the voters suggested the article about the trilogy, but such an article does not exist. The perfect title for such an article is Dickson McCunn. So, rather than merging, I'd like to expand the article to be about the trilogy rather than the character. Whaddaya think. D O N D E groovilyTalk to me03:42, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi Beeblebrox! Talay riley is a recent addition. Obvious reaction is to move it to Talay Riley. No can do - You cannot move a page to this location, because the new title has been protected from creation - looks like the title has been salted after it was last deleted.
This page has been deleted. The deletion and move log for the page are provided below for reference.
19:29, 24 July 2010 Beeblebrox (talk | contribs) deleted "Talay Riley" (A7: No explanation of the subject's significance (real person, animal, organization, or web content))
18:04, 25 February 2010 NawlinWiki (talk | contribs) deleted "Talay Riley" (A7: Article about a real person, which does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject)
02:41, 31 December 2009 Bearcat (talk | contribs) deleted "Talay Riley" (A7: No indication that the article may meet guidelines for inclusion)
Well, I would of course have preferred the creator go through proper channels and not end-run the create protection like that, but I'll go ahead and move it. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:19, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
This sounds like you are basically asking me to tell them to shut up. I'm afraid I won't be doing that for you. To be perfectly frank, a lot of what you have said has been difficult to understand, and what can be understood has been a bit rude. For example, "Of course, the category is for deletion, it was new, thus it was preparing for references. CASE CLOSED. Furthermore excuses will be deleted, this is only voting a nomination." I don't know what 75% of that statement is supposed to mean, and what's left appears to be you telling everyone they can't talk about it anymore. You act like you made some great point there and everyone should see what it is and stop bothering you, but in fact you haven't said anything that makes sense. I'm guessing that English is your not your native language and that is part of why you are having some problems in this discussion. I can't really help you there as I only speak English. What I can do is again advise to review the links I left on your talk page regarding how to participate in discussions on Wikipedia. You can't just tell everyone to stop and expect your order to be obeyed. Consensus building doesn't work like that. By the way, there is a Simple English Wikipedia which is specifically designed for persons who are still learning the English language. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:46, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
Will you reply to my talk page and tell me the 2 or 3 must reads for information a new user should know right away? Arkmanda (talk) 04:09, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Dont you think you locked the page with the IP's version. Just have a look at their talk page history. He was trying to push his POV. He is currently blokced for abusing multiple accounts. --Commander(Ping Me)04:00, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
See here. WP:RFPP is not WP:SPI, I protected the page to stop edit warring. SPI blocked the sock. Now that we've established that the IP user was indeed evading a block, the protection can be lifted early. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:31, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
User:TheTakeover Sockpuppet blocking
The user behind TheTakeover (user2005) appealed to another administrator that he is familiar with and had this block overturned, both on his main account and on the two sockpuppets. This is what the administrator said as evidence for overturning the block "There may be MEAT, there may be tag-team behaviour, but abuse of multiple accounts it is not. –xenotalk 04:52, 7 August 2011 (UTC)"
It is my understanding that whether it was a meat or sock puppet isn't relevant and this admin seems to agree with the fact that it was at minimum a meetpuppet but alludes to some 'technical evidence' as a reason for the unblocking. You can read more about this at the ANI here or at the sockpuppet investigation. DegenFarang (talk) 12:25, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
Ignore the "Nigger please" comment. That was from my really stubborn internet argument times.
If I can remember enough, that user replaced a image with a wrong one and deleted my picture. He then got my email and proceeded to send me that message.
That is all. I don't really care about this anymore truthfully. It's just unfortunate that I didn't post proof at that time. Untraceable2U (talk) 13:27, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Hey Beeblebrox. Sorry for the late reply: I missed your "New message" banner and only saw J Milburn's. Great to see an opinion submission, and I shall enjoy reading it later today. However, it does look a little long: is there room for you to cut it down yourslef, or should I prepare a shorter draft for you to approve/reject? Or is having it at full-length a dealbreaker for you? Regards, - Jarry1250[Weasel?Discuss.]12:00, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Totally not a deal breaker, I had the same thought myself. If you want to read it over and cut some that would be great, and I will also consider what could stand to go. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
I've attempted to make one possible cut, and, in doing so, removed the least number of words to satisfy my feeling that it should be shorter. I'd love to hear your thoughts. From an editorial perspective, it might even be nice to cut a few more from the chronological section, and add a few more to the aftermath section, to beef up the "take away" message. - Jarry1250[Weasel?Discuss.]19:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
I've done what I hope is an acceptable (and final) copyedit. Please review this. (I didn't remove any content, merely reworded a few sentences, despite what the diff might seem to say.) Also, there was one sentence I simply couldn't understand - perhaps you could change this: Contributors began to split into two camps: users who wanted the tool turned off and those of us who felt that this was relevant. (Should "relevant" be "irrelevant"?)
I remember that you posted on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Joe Chill that you think that I may be ready for RFA someday. It is over a year later and I guess that I am bit notorious. I reported an editor to ANI for telling a disruptive editor to f off. The admins that replied told me to chill out, said that it was an alright thing to do since the other editor was being disruptive, and posting "sigh". To top it all of, the member that I reported told me to f off after I brought the incident to ANI. There has been a a lot of other incidents throughout the year. I would like to be an admin, but that will never happen. Joe Chill (talk) 17:15, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Never say never Joe. My first RFA failed too. Besides, adminship isn't all it's cracked up to be. A lot of it really is just cleaning up messes and is very mundane, even boring. And every time you take any admin action, no matter how clear cut the situation seems to to you there is the possibility that someone will raise an objection to it or even accuse you of bad faith. Anyway, don't let it sour you on editing here. Not everyone needs to be an admin, we need "regular" users out there to help us find all the places where our tools are needed, and you may yet be ready for it someday. When you find yourself being criticized, try to understand the other users position, even if you disagree with it. Learning from those experiences is something the community wants to see an admin. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:56, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. Maybe I could be ready for RFA again, but that will not be my main focus. At the moment, I'm trying to get a film article to Good Article status. I have been working on it for three days and brought it from a stub to C class. If I do have another RFA, I am hoping to have some Good Article contributions and/or above to back me up. Joe Chill (talk) 19:03, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
You've got mail
Hello, Just Step Sideways. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
You deleted PARSIFAL Project EU, the log says "many valid reasons to delete it". Please be specific. The page view statistics showed more than 6000 viewers in the last month, none of them came to the discussion and voted delete. Two voted delete, one of them had obviously not even read the article, one was "failing to see independent references" - I supplied four, and there are more to come. The recommendations of the project keep influencing future research. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:21, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
If you are referring to this edit [1], all you supplied there are links to some other Wikipedia articles. How and why you believe those qualify as reliable sources for establishing the notability of this project is a bit obscure, perhaps you should re-read that page and make sure you understand what is and is not considered a reliable source.
It is not a vote anyway, Wikipedia uses consensus based decision making, not voting. My job was to weigh the strength of those arguments and determine what, if any, consensus could be gleaned from them. When doing so I am required to weigh more heavily any argument that has a basis in Wikipedia policy and to discount those arguments that have no such basis. Arguing that it's very important is generally discounted as an argument to keep an article. Additionally, there was clearly some sort of canvassing and/or sockpuppetry going on, those comments that appeared to be coming from such editors are given less weight as well. So, once the invalid arguments and comments from suspect users are filtered out, what emerges is a consensus that the article is not appropriate for Wikipedia. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:39, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
One "delete" argument was "It is not unusual for obscure academic papers to refer to other obscure academic papers. In order to be notable IMHO something more is required such as mention is the popular media or winning an notable (in the Wikipedia sense) academic prize." - I don't see any connection of this remark to the article, Parsifal was not academic, not in popular media, not winning a prize. - Please weigh such a "delete". The other "delete" s.a., - I am failing to see that a consensus was reached. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Beetlebrox, it might be satisfactory, at least it would be to me, if you restored the history behind the redirect. I've left some more detailed comments at Crusio's talk p. to avoid forking the discussion. DGG ( talk ) 19:42, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Forgive me for interrupting this very interesting discussion but normally when the result of a deletion discussion is to delete, the article is actually deleted. — Blue-Haired Lawyert16:34, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
(Edit conflict. I wanted to talk to Beeblebrox. I'd rather not be pushed off elsewhere.)
Not really. The article's history's still there. It's a revert away form being re-created. And what justification can there be for a redirect anyway? It's a thoroughly un-notable topic. You closed the deletion discussion by saying it was a delete. I'd say the next logical step should be taken. If the opponents of deletion want to go for deletion review let them! — Blue-Haired Lawyert17:01, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
I restored the history so that refs and so forth present there could be used, but made sure to note both here and in the log [2] that it is not a reversal of the AFD. Therefore restoring the article would be an end-run around the AFD close and could be reverted on sight. The decision was to delete the stand-alone article on this topic, not to bar any mention of it anywhere on Wikipedia. I imagine if anyone had actually suggested redirecting during the debate that position might have won some support, but nobody seems to have considered that option till afterward. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:26, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm always open to suggestion, but I don't see how Wikipedia would be improved by that or how it is harmed by leaving it as it is. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
I believe we may have dropped a message on the Ryulong thread at the same time. Just want to make sure, before you write the thread off, that you see my comment at the bottom. Thanks! SchuminWeb (Talk) 03:39, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Looks pretty good, though it is a bit long. It certainly is more ready for WP space than a lot of other essays out there! Beeblebrox (talk) 21:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Is this POV pushing?
I hope you're watching George SJ XXI (talk·contribs) contribs. From a 410 page book, an "Irish History for Dummies", no less (suits him), he's managed to find one little sentence (well, 2 words) which reads: "The Prime Minster, the Duke of Wellington (an Irishman), decided that compromise was the best bet."
If that isn't being difficult and pushing a POV from a very weak reference (due to the author being Irish (COI?) and not having a bibliography in the book to support his assertion), over books by high-rated biographers, like Richard Holmes and Elizabeth Longford, I don't know what is.
Now do you see what we're up against? I bet it too him all week to find that reference. Is it feasible to claim that it's a weak reference, and can't be used to contradict other references, though? I have already.. but a second opinion can't hurt.
I think it's fair to invoke "Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest" from WP:COI, though, as it clearly is his one-track motive.
I think the "for Dummies" books could be used as a general reference for the broader issues, but for controversial biographical details, probably not. Gotta go right now, but will have a closer look when I have time later. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:17, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Hiya. You deleted the old article (as Tasteless) back in March (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tasteless), but it has now reappeared under his real name. I can't see the deleted version so am not sure if it is substantially similar to this version and if it can be G4ed. I would have thought that someone wanting to recreate it should go to DRV. Polequant (talk) 14:11, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
In response to your invitation at User talk:Muqtasidmansoor, the user has made some edits to a copy of an article, and asked again to be unblocked. My feeling is that the edits are rather minimal, but that the editor seems to be showing a genuine willingness to improve, so my inclination would be to try unblocking. At worst this would be giving some rope before reblocking, and at best we would get a constructive editor. However, since you made the offer perhaps you would like to reassess the case. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:11, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
The user has now removed both the unblock request and the edited copy of the article, so apparently the request is withdrawn. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:25, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
Well that's odd. In any event, if I respond to an unblock request with {{2nd chance}} and the user makes even a token effort to do as it says that's enough for me. I use it as a sort of a test to see if they are serious. And of course the user who wrote WP:ROPE is a genius. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:54, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
Thank you
Beeblebrox, Thank you for your recent help with unblock review. I had actually received some helpful feedback a while ago, and subsequently I've been more careful regardingg reviews of usernames such as those you found from about 2 years ago. I agree with your unblocks, and if you find any others please don't hesitate to notify me, and I'll perform the unblocks myself, or of course you can feel free to do so, no objections from me. :) No worries, — Cirt (talk) 17:55, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
I had a look, it looks like you blocked over a thousand usersfor username violations in a relatively short period of time last September. At a glance most of them were obviously violations to such an extent that merely seeing the name was enough to convince, but there are so many that there may be a few more questionable ones in there somewhere. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:00, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
Oh dear, I must have protected the wrong version. This isn't about which of you is correct in this dispute, it is about stopping edit warring. My only other option was to block the both of you. Beeblebrox
No consensus exists and the issue is whether the view presented is verifiable, not correct. It will not just go away by blocking. It will encourage more sock puppets. JohnLloydScharf (talk) 23:12, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
(talk) 05:47, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
For reference, a similar situation built up already at a substantially overlapping "child" article (now deleted) for Haplogroup J1c3. It also got blocked after edit warring by the same editor. It starts to look like a very weird attempt to game the system. This editor so far keeps seeing that when he edit wars whole articles get blocked, so all editors, and not just him. After having worked for a while with him and others to find a consensus it is starting to appear as if his demands are just so far from any possible consensus that I guess instability is being seen as an aim.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:28, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
It is over the same issues of posting cherry picked data, particularly by those who are not signed in and have an established prejudicial bias. I have asked several who have edited other Haplogroup articles to review and comment. At this point, much of the problem would begin to be resolved if there was a Silver Lock to prevent editing by those who are not signed in. JohnLloydScharf (talk) 23:07, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes this is what you keep proposing. But of the several IP editors who seem interested in this subject; some seem to be good faith editors who just disagree with you, and none seem to be editing in a manner as consistently tendentious and disruptive as you. You are consistently pushing untenable positions and starting edit wars in a way it is very hard to sympathize with. Your oft repeated argument that one of the IPs is from Qatar, is obviously not an argument.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:01, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
You recently warned the above user on edit warring:- User_talk:George_SJ_XXI#here_we_go_again. regrettably I have just had to revert his continued POV editing, by removing the same materiel he was warned about and blocked for previously. His persistent disruptive editing is beyond a joke. Would it be possible to issue a further temporary block to emphasis that his editing is not acceptable. Richard Harvey (talk) 08:22, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Ferrylodge/Anythingyouwant has been making harassment of me a hobby for several years now. I am as civil as I can be; but I will not pretend at times I do not call a spade a spade and let him know I (still) don't appreciate his baiting. If that's "sniping" so be it. I'd also appreciate you not tarring the victim with the same brush as the perpetrator. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice13:52, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Hey Beeblebrox. Apologies for the delays on this one. I think I had suggested adding another couple of sentences to aftermath? Otherwise I'll officially add it to the queue, and it'll get the usual battering by copyeditors, etc.
I have just reverted multiple edits on the Prince Harry of Wales by new editor Arnoldxmidnight who has systematically done several small edits to remove referenced detail that has been reverted by several editors. I suspect this has been done in the belief that it wouldn't be noticed, however it is obvious in the article edit history. I also suspect that Arnoldxmidnight and two other new editors Pjw89 and Franticjay are one and the same person, due to their sole editing being to these three articles:- Prince Harry of Wales, Florence Brudenell-Bruce and Chelsy Davy (see their contribution histories for evidence). They also seem to collaborate on having the Chelsy Davy article deleted from Wikipedia, see:- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chelsy Davy (3rd nomination). I placed a comment on the nomination that I suspected the three to be the same person and that has been immediately deleted by Franticjay, who has also reverted the Prince Harry article by individual edits and set to creating a more widespread contribution history. Richard Harvey (talk) 16:09, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
May I inquire for your email address where I can communicate to you privately? I need to inquire about one of your admin logs.
I apologize if I'm sending this message through here as I am quite new to the Wikipedia Community and I dont know yet the different functions in this portal. Maybe you know how to reply to this privately?
No problem, here's how you can email me: There's a menu at the upper left side of this page. In the section marked "Toolbox" there is a link you can click on that says "E-mail this user." Any user that has an email address tied to their Wikipedia account will have this link. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:16, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Hello, Just Step Sideways. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
No offense taken. However, my fear is that if I withdraw any future RfAs I file will be that much harder because opposers will use it as an excuse. The fact the past year has been very stressful for me (and its reflection in my editing) hasn't been helpful, granted... —Jeremy v^_^v Components:VSM02:37, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Beeblebrox, a valiant effort that shouldn't give you cause for despair at all. Much more useful than un-actioned criticism, and, perhaps ahead of its time: I can't see that Wikipedia can survive as an encyclopaedic endeavour without some form of peer review PRIOR to publishing an article to the world. It may be that I am uninformed or repeating what you already know, but I think such a process is more likely to succeed if FA guidelines become more focused on end-user experiences (rather than Wikipedia formalities) and then start to trickle down by degrees until some sort of consistent criteria are applied to even stub articles.
I hope you don't give up on the ideal of improving Wikipedia processes, and though I'm no admin, nor aspiring to be one, I would see any contribution I could make to process re-design as more valuable than bickering about content. Count me in anytime you need bodies to help out in any future endeavour to improve quality. Regards, Peter S Strempel | Talk07:31, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Haha, I bet when you saw this heading you thought "Oh hell, who's come to whinge at me now?" I actually wanted to say it was a sensible close. Good thinking. ReykYO!07:01, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi. It's been a little while since the last message on RfA reform, and there's been a fair amount of slow but steady progress. However, there is currently a flurry of activity due to some conversations on Jimbo's talk page.
I think we're very close to putting an idea or two forward before the community and there are at least two newer ones in the pipeline. So if you have a moment:
Well, nobody was required to notify you in particular and as I said in my close the arguments to keep the article were weak and not based on WP policy, but I have userfied it as requested. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:47, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm listing it at DRV before talking to you as I don't think it would be appropriate to restore an article for which no one voted keep without a new consensus.Smallman12q (talk) 13:35, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
DRV is for overturning bad closures of AFD discussions, and not to toot my own horn, but to date none of my AFD closes has ever been overturned there and I seriously doubt this one will be the first as the close was obvious and non-controversial. I suggest you withdraw this nomination as it is out of line with the purpose of DRV, as clearly indicated by the above message. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
I found the attempt at humour on this page at my expense unacceptable and inappropriate. Wikipedia isn't a place for us to bully each other for our mistakes. I was two minded about whether or not the page should have been deleted, so I nominated it. I wasn't asking for you to delete, because I did not know and wanted others to express there opinion. If you have an issue with my nomination statement please politely inform me on my userpage, do not attempt to make humorous comments in an attempt to embarrass and shame me, while I am just trying my best. RDN1F (talk) 18:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry you are so offended by the minnow. It is not intended to bully you, but rather to light-heartedly clue you in to the flawed nature of your nomination. If you weren't asking for deletion, you shouldn't nominate an article for deletion. I recommend you review WP:GTD before nominating any more articles at AFD. You are expected to supply a policy-based reason for any deletion nomination. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:33, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't see any pressing reason to do that. It's just a minnow, I didn't even use the full-on WP:TROUT. What is more important here is that you understand what was wrong with your nomination. If you have no idea if a page should be deleted or not, you should discuss it on the talk page. If you can't supply a reason but only a question as your nomination statement, you are going to get the same reaction (with or without accompanying fish-related-graphics) the next time you present such a shoddy nomination. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:43, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
You're wrong here, Beeblebrox. For starters, advisory AfD's are entirely proper. One doesn't need to have a firm opinion to nominate an article, and I've done this a few times myself, noting "Neutral, as nom." I recently opened one with "Hmmmm, not sure what to do about this one...". It's a discussion, and it's valid to solicit the input of the community for a questionable article, and and one doesn't necessarily have to come in with a prosecutorial lets-dump-this-POS attitude. RDN1F's nom was unusually succinct, is all. Adding something like "Does this meet WP:PROF?" would have been useful, I suppose. But hardly necessary. It wasn't even a bad nom -- the article was not only arguable deletable, it was deleted! And thanks are due to RDN1F for helping us to remove an inappropriate article. If it was me, I the trout wouldn't bother me, but it apparently bothers RDN1F, so I've taken the liberty of removing it. Herostratus (talk) 03:12, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
You refactored my close over my clearly stated objections? I thought I was supposed to be the bad guy/asshole in this scenario, Thanks for stepping in and being my pinch-asshole. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:27, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Beeblebrox, please consider removing the minnow from your AFD close. It serves no purpose, and is offending the intended recipient; causing unintended offense, even if it seems silly to you that he's offended, is not "lighthearted". I note someone removed the trout from your page; why is that OK, but Herostratus' removal of yours caused strong disagreement? If I were RDN1F, I'd not have complained, but if I were you, I'd remove the source of irritation. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Look a little closer there, my friend. The trout that was removed from my page was placed there by the person who was so offended by the minnow in order to taunt me at it's having been removed. Go yell at him, he's the one that wants to make a mountain out of a minnow. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:54, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm well aware of the time sequence, and already went back and tried to advise him (much more useful than yelling) a little more. The only benefit to the trout at the AFD by now is to make you feel more powerful than he is. All you're doing is training him to be a bully to new users himself in a couple of years. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:58, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I sure don't feel like a bully. People use the trout graphic all the time, it's a goddamn joke. I apologized for causing offense. I explained myself in a non-sarcastic manner. I let it go when Herostratus removed it over my objections, and then RDNF comes to my talk page to trout me and taunt me, to deliberately cause offense, and I'm the on that's supposed to feel guilty? I'm the bully? Fuck all that. I'm closing this thread as I have no desire to discuss this stupidity any further. If Mr. "I'm-so-offended-but-not-so-offended-that-I-won't-turn-right-around-and-do-something-the-same-only-a-a-bit-worse" doesn't like it he can report me wherever seems appropriate, but don't expect me to participate in that discussion either because this has become farcical and I will have no part in it. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:06, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Well, I don't think it would qualify for speedy deletion as you have attempted to address the issue that led to the AFD, but whether it would survive another AFD is anybody's guess as the actual content has not changed much. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:51, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for that! But about content - it had 1k prose, now 2.8k prose size, with a features section. The AfD was all about the sources, not the content. Size has never been a reason for deletion. Please explain. --Lexein (talk) 09:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
My only point was that with all the extra sources the article could probably be expanded more, but if you are ready to move it back into article space I don't see any reason not too. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Ah. Point well taken. I've taken the books as far as they can go, but maybe I'm being a bit expansion-blind. Cirt is a monster for plundering sources for tidbits... --Lexein (talk) 19:00, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
It appears the ".com" version was created as an end-run around the create-protection that was placed at the original title, so they could re-create the repeatedly deleted article without having to ask for unprotection. Of course I'm tempted to simply speedy delete it yet again, but they have managed to tone down the spam a bit, and have added some claims of notability, so I'm going to move it instead, but it could still be subject to deletion via AFD. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:32, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Adding you to my recall list
Hi. It's recently been pointed out [4] to me that there is a slight flaw in my recall criteria. The criteria is fairly simple - if three or more of the people on the list ask me to hand back the tools I will. Sadly a number of memebers of the list are now so inactive as to make my criteria almost un-enforceable - not a good thing. I'd like to add yourself to the list as I trust you to be impartial. Please let me know if you're happy with that or not - or feel free to edit User:Pedro/Recall and either add or remove yourself from the hidden list. Best. Pedro : Chat 09:12, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Badger is a voting precinct(s), in the general area of Badger Road, considered part of North Pole but not within North Pole city limits. Same with the others which were recently added. Since there are multiple existing CDPs whose names originated with voting precincts (for example, Knik-Fairview), it's entirely possible that there were new ones added for the 2010 Census. I haven't had much time to search their site, and it appears as though the 2010 Census info is making its way into articles only very slowly at this point. If the Census site hasn't been thoroughly explored, it's probably safe to say that people haven't made their way to the Alaska Division of Elections site for cross-checking those names. Cheers.RadioKAOS (talk) 23:19, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
I had actually started to wonder right after removing it if it might be somehow related to Badger road, but since we had no article on Badger, Alaska I didn't think it was appropriate to list it as one of our largest cities. Thanks for explaining, although I'm still not sure it should be in there. Only the census recognized it as a separate entity, and that is only for their purposes. That's probably a discussion for the article talk page though. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:27, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
I thought it might be someone with a business named Badger. But google "badger alaska" and you'll find it's a neighborhood in Fairbanks. It doesn't belong on the list of largest cities! Here's a weather report, and here's a B&B. I'm not suggesting any particular action on your part. For my part, it's interesting trivia. Cheers! Yopienso (talk) 23:51, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
I should point out that the section headings in the article state "Cities and census-designated places." Like I said, I haven't had time yet to figure out which CDPs are new as of the 2010 Census. The B&B link lists an address of "Badger, Alaska." The zip code 99711 is actually of the contract post office at McPeak's Store, located at the Fairbanks end of Badger Road (but just outside of Fairbanks city limits). P.O. box holders at that station usually list their address as Fairbanks. However, residential addresses in that immediate area are usually listed as North Pole addresses. The B&B itself is about a mile or two north of the middle of Badger Road. The road/area's namesake, Harry Markley Badger (aka "The Strawberry King"), was actually notable enough in and of himself to warrant an article. I'd suspect it would be up to someone such as me to actually write it, however.RadioKAOS (talk) 17:07, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi, could you have a look at this IP - User talk:195.171.221.67 its an educational address. They are slow edit warring on this article, I have warned them more than once, I gave a 3rr template yesterday, I think its been going on for weeks. I started an [Talk:Harriet_Harman RFC on the talkpage] in an attempt to get a solution but the IP continues to revert to his favored position even while the issue RFC is under discussion on the talkpage RFC. - Shall I report him to the 3RRNB or do you think a word from an administrator will have any effect at getting him to wait for the outcome of the RFC - I could also get it protected, but its only this one user? Off2riorob (talk) 18:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I endorse your keep close at WP:Articles for deletion/Ali Manikfan, and I was the nominating editor. In my opinion, the article, whose subject did not meet the requirements for inclusion as far as I could tell after a reasonable investigation, now meets that criteria. TJRC (talk) 00:55, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
(You are receiving this message because you are either a task force member, or you have contributed to recent discussions on any of these pages.)
The number of nominations continues to nosedive seriously, according to these monthly figures. We know why this is, and if the trend continues our reserve of active admins will soon be underwater. Wikipedia now needs suitable editors to come forward. This can only be achieved either through changes to the current system, a radical alternative, or by fiat from elsewhere.
A lot of work is constantly being done behind the scenes by the coordinators and task force members, such as monitoring the talk pages, discussing new ideas, organising the project pages, researching statistics and keeping them up to date. You'll also see for example that we have recently made tables to compare how other Wikipedias choose their sysops, and some tools have been developed to more closely examine !voters' habits.
The purpose of WP:RFA2011 is to focus attention on specific issues of our admin selection process and to develop RfC proposals for solutions to improve them. For this, we have organised the project into dedicated sections each with their own discussion pages. It is important to understand that all Wikipedia policy changes take a long time to implement whether or not the discussions appear to be active - getting the proposals right before offering them for discussion by the broader community is crucial to the success of any RfC. Consider keeping the pages and their talk pages on your watchlist; do check out older threads before starting a new one on topics that have been discussed already, and if you start a new thread, please revisit it regularly to follow up on new comments.
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Improving the environment that surrounds RfA in order to encourage mature, experienced editors of the right calibre to come forward, pass the interview, and dedicate some of their time to admin tasks.
Discouraging, in the nicest way possible of course, those whose RfA will be obvious NOTNOW or SNOW, and to guide them towards the advice pages.
The fastest way is through improvement to the current system. Workspace is however also available within the project pages to suggest and discuss ideas that are not strictly within the remit of this project. Users are invited to make use of these pages where they will offer maximum exposure to the broader community, rather than individual projects in user space.
We already know what's wrong with RfA - let's not clutter the project with perennial chat. RFA2011 is now ready to propose some of the elements of reform, and all the task force needs to do now is to pre-draft those proposals in the project's workspace, agree on the wording, and then offer them for central discussion where the entire Wikipedia community will be more than welcome to express their opinions in order to build consensus.
New tool Check your RfA !voting history! Since the editors' RfA !vote counter at X!-Tools has been down for a long while, we now have a new RfA Vote Counter to replace it. A significant improvement on the former tool, it provides a a complete breakdown of an editor's RfA votes, together with an analysis of the participant's voting pattern.
Are you ready to help? Although the main engine of RFA2011 is its task force, constructive comments from any editors are always welcome on the project's various talk pages. The main reasons why WT:RfA was never successful in getting anything done are that threads on different aspects of RfA are all mixed together, and are then archived where nobody remembers them and where they are hard to find - the same is true of ad hoc threads on the founder's talk page.
Hi, Beeblebrox. Thanks for that. If I can play armchair psychologist for a moment, in my experience, that kind of pugnacity and hypersensitivity in response to the lightest criticism, mixed with derisive aloofness and an affected air of superiority, is typically defensive and attempts to mask a fear of inadequacy. As it quickly gives way to whiny self-pity when they feel cornered -- there's been a little of that already: the self-regarding sense of being put-upon and under-appreciated -- I tend to back off once I think the core message has been received. I think it has been in this case. The problem is that, whatever its roots, this kind of behaviour really disrupts the collaborative atmosphere needed to make the project work and can drive away inexperienced editors unable to recognize narcissism for what it is. -- Rrburke (talk) 16:07, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Apart from User:Mann_jess, now a User:Huon has begun removing at least 9kb of information from the William Lane Craig page too, on the basis that they are based on primary sources. As I have already mentioned on the Talk page, much of the sources they have removed are not primary sources as alleged; I even raised the matter at WP:BLPN but it is now archived and unresolved. Maiorem (talk) 16:27, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
My talk page
Leave my talk page alone and take your threats elsewhere. I have donated hundreds of hours to Wikipedia and have never got one thanks. All I get is whiny. So if you want to boot me off after three years and hundreds of edits without a single block, fine. Find some other chumps to work for nothing. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 21:20, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
If you're done parading around on your high horse I would point out that you are one of thousands of people who donate their time and effort here, including myself. Most of us manage to get by just fine without being rude and nasty to everyone that dares to comment on their talk page. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:32, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Yea, that's about the level of sarcastic, unhelpful discourse I have rapidly come to expect from you. Don't worry about me posting to your talk page again, and kindly return the favor. I don't need to monitor your various nasty remarks and put downs, they will catch up to you sooner or later regardless. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:29, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
You have fully protected a page about a political figure who is currently in the news. The content being disputed was by a single IP address which tried to remove sourced content twice and was reverted. I'm confused by this sort of drastic use of protection. It might make sense if you had meant to semiprotect. But given the small number of edits in question even that would seem to be overkill in this context. Please unprotect. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:13, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
If you take a shallow look at only the most recent few edits, it doesn't look so bad, but I went a little deeper into the page history and found a long string of reversions along with some outright vandalism over the last month. The fact that this is a biography of a living person who is involved in a controversy actually strengthens the case for protecting the article. However, if there are major developments during the period the page is protected, please feel free to use {{editprotected}} to request the needed changes. This would also be a good time to discuss these issues and seek a consensus on how to cover it in the article. Right now the only talk that has ever been posted there is someone else wondering why the page is protected. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:24, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
All vandalism has been by a handful of IP addresses coming from mainly the same range. I see no vandalism that isn't from drive by IP addresses. Moreover, with the exception of one whitewashing IP address that took out completely sourced content, no editor (both registered and anon) have had no objections to the content. There seems to be no good reason to not reduce this to semiprotection at minimum. JoshuaZ (talk) 12:44, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm afraid I do not agree with your assessment, for the reasons I already stated. In any event, the protection level will be automatically reduced to none at all later on today. If disruption resumes a new request can be filed at WP:RFPP. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:31, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Elk discussion
While of course admin behavior is only punishable when exercising admin permissions, i'm surprised that an admin would ignore bullet one at WP:CIV#Avoiding incivility by summarizing "groan", and i'm sad to say i hesitate to be direct in responding to your more substantial comments. Where shall we go from here? --Jerzy•t09:42, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
This is the second time you have hinted that you don't want to discuss something about that FAQ directly, as though there is some terrible thing, some horrible fight or something that you are aware of but don't want to get into. I don't have a clue what secret motivation (or whatever it is you are hinting at) I am being back-handedly accused of having. Frankly, if you feel like an edit summary expressing mild exasperation falls into the realm of incivility and are afraid to directly respond to my criticisms of your ideas, then I don't know where to go from here either. All I can say is that usually when two people are in disagreement the best way forward is to find more users to comment on the situation so that a consensus may be reached. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:07, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
When i say "Where shall we go from here?", i don't mean "I don't know where to go from here", but rather "I think it would be worthwhile to hear something more from you." True, i'd hoped that you would choose to at least acknowledge that reasonable editors could construe any expression (e.g. "groan") of negative emotion (e.g. "mild exasperation") as falling under the ambit of
Incivility – or the appearance of incivility – typically arises from heated content disputes.
* Be careful with edit summaries. Edit summaries are relatively short comments, and thus potentially subject to misinterpretation or oversimplification. They cannot be changed after pressing "Save", and are often written in haste, particularly in stressful situations. Remember to explain your edit, especially when things are getting heated; to avoid personal comments about any editors you have disputes with; and to use the talk page to further explain your view of the situation. [All emphasis is as in the policy page itself; however, for the convenience of colleagues who want to read the adjacent text that i consider irrelevant to this discussion, i have downsized it rather than removing it from the bullet point.]
(I also intentionally included here the passage on "personal comments" toward colleagues, and invite you to have half an eye open in all your serious undertakings, esp'ly as any defensiveness you may experience about this discussion leaches away, for evidence that virtually all your colleagues, anywhere, consider themselves targets of any negative emotions that you express about how their respective work products affect you.) But you aren't here to meet my expectations: AFAI am concerned, where we were going next is that at least we're disagreeing about the size of that particular ungulate (rather than whether it's in the room or not). You say that the first edit in this user-talk section i "have hinted that [i] don't want to discuss something about that FAQ directly." It's possible that our psychological styles differ enuf that any effort at clarification by me makes no sense to you except as some kind of portent-fraught "hint", and I also admit the possibility that your reference to a first time is more than a claim to have read my mind. (Bring that to my attention if i don't succeed in making you comfortable about that.) Still, you were clearly misreading it re the second time: I'm sorry it was unclear to you that the third clause of the first of those two sentences was about (as was the rest of the msg) your tone as it affects our communications, and relevant to the FAQ, if at all, only thru that. In fact, you clearly erred in putting the word "FAQ" into my mouth, as is clear from my proceeding from addressing you on this page to my next edit, which proposed a replacement FAQ text, which (after a number of unsaved drafts) i saved 45 minutes later (some four hours before you said that). (I find it usually much more effective to go directly toward the goal, and discuss a new text, than to focus on finding fault with old ones, tho of course YMMV; probably at least Mongo and i will eventually get around to that.) As i hope i just succeeded in implying, "i hesitate to be direct in responding to your more substantial comments" must be read in the context of the rest of its sentence, and my hesitation (a precautionary delay) was against giving the impression that the ungulate's size was far from the elephantine end of the scale; i hold that closing our eyes to violations of that Pillar of Wikipedia is a great way for the project to subside into crap. Yes, you and i have had some communication problems; perhaps we'll have more, but there's time to straighten them out. As your WP-handle reminds some of us, DON'T PANIC! Thanks for you attention, --Jerzy•t05:22, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Almohad caliphate and Moroccan quarter
Hello Beeblebrox,
I read what you wrote at the WP:RPP and agree with it. Please consider that the IP is suspected of being a sock of a blocked user (FAIZGUEVARRA (talk·contribs)) per evidence presented here Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bokpasa and here: [5].
I started a discussion at Moroccan Quarter explaining how to move a page. (copy/paste moves are not allowed as far as I understand).
On Almohad Caliphate, please also consider this rude edit summary, as a reply to an invitation for discussion: "dont play games this is an encyclopidia not a forum or private site".
Tachfin (talk) 13:26, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
The SPI was not mentioned in the RFPP request, or I may have taken that into consideration as well when evaluating the request. Trying to communicate by edit summary while reverting one another is usually not a good way to get anything done, so I'm glad you have elected to try and discuss it more openly on the talk page. The IP has been a bit pig-headed, and if they continue to ignore attempts to discuss semi-protection may be deemed more appropriate, but for now it looks more like a content dispute, and when considering protection requests admins have to be careful not to pick one side or the other, hence the current full protection. You are correct that copy/paste moves are not allowed as they are not consistent with Wikipedia's license, hopefully some sort of consensus can be arrived at from the discussion, when it does I or any other admin can perform the page move if needed. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:17, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Ok, I totally understand your view from an admin perspective. Thanks for clarifying, hopefully this will be sorted out within wiki procedures. Tachfin (talk) 16:31, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
I've never actually reviewed one of those before, so I may not be the best person to ask. Your request is less than 24 hours old, I'm sure if you wait a bit longer someone who knows what they are doing will get to it. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:27, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
As it turned out, the RfC was cited as part of an ArbCom findings of fact which explicitly endorsed the complaints of Qwyrxian here and Bobthefish2 here.
Although Tenmei was counseled on this issue during the prior case, his manner and style of communications during disputes has not improved. Whether intentional or not, Tenmei's involvement in the current dispute has frustrated involved and uninvolved editors alike, amplifying and prolonging the dispute resolution process.(Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tenmei (see views by HXL49 and Taemyr); Evidence section "Tenmei", provided by Qwyrxian; [7])
Tenmei is advised that his unusual style of communication has not been conducive to resolving this dispute. Accordingly, Tenmei is urged to develop a different style of communication, which is more similar to that used by experienced Wikipedia editors. Until this happens, Tenmei is advised not to engage in topics which are the subject of a dispute.
In retrospect, I would have preferred you did something different in the RfC. It would have helped me if you and others had argued forcefully that the complainers needed to help me by addressing the direct questions I posted as an initial response:
Quite simply, your analysis here was too generous. You may recall writing,
I find the "evidence of trying to resolve the dispute" unimpressive. Especially [8] in which this RFCU is held over Tenmei's head as a threat. These goal of an RFCU is to come to a mutually agreeable voluntary solution to an unresolved problem. It is not a court and Tenmei is not on trial. RFCU is generally the last stop before ArbCom, if this effort fails to arrive at a solution I seriously doubt ArbCom would accept a case.
Well, at the very least I failed at second-guessing what ArbCom would do. The main reason I did the close was that the users who created the RFC stopped participating. To me that implied that they had given up and were not interested in pursuing the matter further. I may comment about this at the ArbCom case. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:14, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Huh, that wasn't noted in the edit summary of the edit that removed it or in the speedy deletion nomination so I didn't catch that. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:50, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Germany in the Junior Eurothing
It's tagged as a hoax now, and I feel it is. The one reference doesn't support it, and I've not found anything else. I'm wondering if you have some reason for keeping it that I can't see at the moment. Peridon (talk) 19:11, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
It was nominated before as patent nonsense, which it is not, so that's the only reason the previous speedy nom was declined. If you're not sure if it is a hoax I don't think speedy deletion is the right venue, as the tag says it is only for blatant, obvious hoaxes. I'd suggest AFD instead. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:28, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I've given an explanation of nonsense to the patroller. (And some other bits, too). I can't find any evidence for it, but the two contests are so intertwined that it's hard to know who's in what. AfD, I agree. Peridon (talk) 20:01, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Idea lab medical images thread
You will have to explain the consensus concept to me as it works in the Idea Lab. It sounds to me like you're saying I need to build a consensus in order to continue a thread? I don't really understand. My thinking was along the lines of Raise an issue and possible ideas, pros and cons --> Wait for replies --> Discuss --> See if anything substantial comes out of it that might be turned into a proposal (or scuttle it) --> take proposal to different forum before putting it up for consensus polling (actual voting)
What am I not getting? I don't see how a contentious issue can be explored, and options generated, if instantaneous consensus is required to start the conversation. Complex problems are seldom addressed by going at them with a binary approach, in my experience anyway, they may need more analysis than that, like maybe identifying sub-problems and addressing those, there are all kinds of possibilities. I don't think I should have to build up a quorum in order to justify discussing an idea. And if I need a minimum consensus, how many votes are required to continue the discussion and what's the prescribed timeframe? How is consensus determined if the forum does not use consensus polling? Not trying to be a smartass, I'd just like a clearer explanation of how that forum is being used.
OttawaAC (talk) 00:47, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
I think I can actually clarify a lot of that for you:
Firstly, it is incorrect that finding consensus always means polling or voting at some point. Although those methods are sometimes used the preferred method on Wikipedia is discussion. See WP:POLL and WP:CON for more details.
You do not have to have an instant consensus to begin or continue a conversation. What happened in this specific conversation, however, was that it seemed (to me anyway) that after several days of talking it over nobody agreed with your position and said position was actually getting more extreme as the conversation went on, making it less likely that anything useful would come from continuing it. That is why I decided to stop participating.
On that same point, sometimes a consensus rapidly develops that is the exact opposite of the where you were going when beginning the discussion. That seems to be more or less what happened here. If it helps, I can tell you this exact same thing has happened to me more than once. Sometimes we are just wrong about what the community at large wants, sometimes discussions are simply started at the wrong place or the wrong time to yield usable results, and sometimes you just happen to get as your first few respondents users who strongly disagree with your position. In the last event, things can turn around as the discussion progresses, but I didn't see evidence of that happening in this particular case.
You seem to have taken this [9] edit as an attempt by me to end the discussion. It was a statement of my own position, and nothing more. I did not and do not know how we could we could come to a mutually acceptable end to the discussion if you are proceeding from the premise that images may not be needed or helpful in Wikipedia articles. I didn't put those words in your mouth, I quoted you in my reply. Perhaps you meant to say in explicit medical articles and/or sexually explicit articles in particular, but that is not in fact what you said. I find that position quite extreme, and I'm quite certain it is not one shared by the vast majority of Wikipedians, hence my remarks about losing the argument before it started. Try to see that for what it is in the context of the discussion: a reply to your specific remarks and not a blanket statement forbidding or negating any discussing of explicit images.
That being said, there are some discussions that are simply not worth having because the outcome is obvious beforehand, and that would certainly be the case in any discussion of removing all or most images from Wikipedia. That was not what we started out discussing, but it seemed to be where you were headed with this edit.
Clear as mud, alright. You and others used different tactics to drown out useful constructive discussion. I was attempting to consider alternative viewpoints outside the status quo "us versus them" flamewar groupthink and got stonewalled by the wolfpack to kill the thread. That pattern recurs on too many forums, talk pages, etc. on Wikipedia to be denied -- a clear pattern of ostracizing, distorting, and aggressively shutting down attempts at constructive discussion that consider offering choices beyond all-or-nothing. I don't think it's reasonable to expect prospective users to check their civil rights at the door if they want to use Wikipedia, and kowtow to the almighty standards of the learned northern white male, who saw fit to create an encyclopedia with rigorous scholarship into Playboy centrefold lists and oops, almost no articles on female scientists or Africa til just recently... What enlightenment is this WP trying to bring to the world eh?
You stated: non-starter for me. I don't know how to continue discussing this issue with someone who would even consider the possibility of simply being rid of useful, informative images. Sure, it's arguable, you can argue any point you want, but you are going to lose that argument before you even state your case and I would think that would have already been quite obvious.
Before I even state my case eh? That's not even an insinuation, my bad for saying it was earlier -- you were flat out saying that it should have been obvious to me that it was nonsense for me to even decide to start the thread! Not impressed at all by your current backpeddling.
As I keep repeating, the Idea Lab mandate blurb states clearly, it is not a forum for consensus polling, yet that is what you and several others on the anti-"censorship" pile-on were trying to do, label my views as "extreme" and break the Idea Lab rules by using consensus polling or repeatedly saying that I was arguing points that were a waste of time, had already been shot down elsewhere, cite cite cite old threads from several years ago, sheesh. I know groupthink when I see it. In your first reply in the thread you explained that you yourself had once suggested an alternative, a CD, and that you avoid all medical articles because of the gory photos. That's illogical for me that you turn around then and say my consideration of the image shutter as a free choice for users to set themselves... I dunno, doesn't make sense to me. Hey, I had one supporter, Dmcq, who got put off by the squabbling. Ah well. Maybe there was a seed of a constructive discussion there, but it got derailed.
OttawaAC (talk) 02:56, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Edit to add: Sorry to lump you in with the others who used the consensus polling and so on. I thought there was potential to discuss things constructively earlier in that thread, and you had good ideas. Maybe you were influenced by the other opposing views that you read in the thread. I don't know. Just sick of flamewars that make zero attempt at dialogue.
OttawaAC (talk) 03:02, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Once again you have gotten more extreme (and in this case, rude) as the discussion continued. I have endeavored in good faith to rectify the previous miscommunication, but for reasons that are not entirely clear to me you seem to keep getting angrier and actually understand less of what I am trying to tell you with each posting. And I certainly don't appreciate all the additional unrelated nonsense you chose to throw into these last few postings. You clearly do not understand the difference between polling and discussion despite the clearly worded explanation with links I already provided above. I also don't know how you can say you were shut down before you could state your case. I withdrew from the conversation after five days. I don't see any point in explaining for the third or fourth time that that is all I was doing. As a matter of the thread is still open as we speak. If you hadn't yet stated your case six days into the conversation, then maybe you should try and state it now. Not here, however, I don't seem to able to communicate with you at all no matter how clear I endeavor to be, and if my good faith attempts to explain things to you are to be met with the increasingly derisive hostility and name-calling then I once again feel it would be best to withdraw. Maybe you can find somebody capable of helping you understand simple issues like the difference between consensus and polling or whatever, but apparently I am not that person. Beeblebrox (talk) 08:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
No worries. I don't know where you saw "name-calling". I believe you deliberately misconstrue comments I make, and the perception appears to be mutual. You may believe that the conversation is not one worth having, but the "censorship" issue over images, medical or not, clearly has a recurring appeal to users again and again over the years and I doubt it will end.
OttawaAC (talk) 22:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi Beeblebrox, I've reviewed your DYK nom at Template:Did you know nominations/Alaska Veterans Memorial and I have a couple issues with notability and referencing. Could you please see my comments at the nomination page and reply there? Thanks. Side note: It's very threatening to have to write a negative message under two red exclamation marks and a stop sign... Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:40, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry my edit notice scared you. I've had it for nearly two years and nobody has else has mentioned feeling threatened by it before, but I suppose I could tone down the graphics. Replied to the DYK concerns at the template. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:11, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi Beeblebrox, I just remembered that there is no Freedom of Panorama for statues in the United States. As such, you should preferably upload a lower resolution image of the memorial with a Fair-Use rationale. Sorry. Prefer the new edit notice, less red is good. Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:40, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure this exactly applies to the Veterans Memorial, but my research has indicated that Alaska in general does not claim copyright to works of state government. The exceptions tend to exist in cases such as software and in other limited circumstances, like with materials placed on the Internet which can be perhaps too freely disseminated. Unfortunately, I haven't received much support (or by and large, much understanding of the problem) in terms of how this can be applied to the Internet and to sites outside of Alaska which may wind up hosting such content, which operate under the automatic assumption that works of a state government fall under copyright. As the issue hasn't been discussed or tested to any real extent, it's very much a Catch-22. Since multiple state agencies make money through selling photo reprints and similar (and state government makes up a much larger percentage of economic activity here compared with other states), there just may be a bias inherent in promoting or encouraging free information.RadioKAOS (talk) 14:01, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
I sure hope it doesn't apply, because I created an entire category at Commons with all the pictures I took there, and I have no idea how to make them low resolution. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:43, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Misc.
Badger, redux: I finally had enough time to check out the Census FactFinder. I clicked on a random spot on the map, and the resultant dialog box referenced its location in the "Badger CDP." I only looked at the FNSB, but it appeared that CDPs (along with the two incorporated cities) now cover all the populated areas along highways and other major road systems within the borough. Obviously, the placement of these entities within Alaska are a matter of putting the cart before the horse, since no one has gotten around to figuring out which are new CDPs and creating articles for them. I've had an offline revision to Alaska sitting around for months on account of the fact that it would ultimately involve revisions to other articles as well, and that takes additional time to figure that out. Ironic that while we're hashing this out, Mayor Isaacson of North Pole has commented recently that having an area with such a large population outside of an incorporated city, but commonly assumed to be a part of it, just confuses people. An old, old friend of mine, who is a reporter for the FDNM and lives in "Badger," mentioned the very same thing when I ran into him at Wal-Mart the other night.
Re: the Alaska Veterans Memorial - I would recommend to you that you at least get in contact with Bruce Merrill at the Loussac Library, who I have found to be a very helpful person WRT various things over the years(*). Most major Alaskan newspapers should have subject indices in print form for those years which they have published and furnished to libraries. These could certainly provide a starting point for future research. At the very least, any relevant content could be reprinted in the talk page to either demonstrate the existence of reliable sources or to provide interested others a guide of what to look for. Unfortunately, the majority of article tagging I observe amounts to one editor telling another "That's your job, not mine." Occasionally, these editors have a hidden agenda, such as attempting to maintain the primacy of their favored sources in cases where sources are everywhere, including even reliable sources where none are normally presumed to exist. (* - the employee search dialog at muni.org doesn't return his name. I would think that if he retired, I would have heard about it. Could possibly be an error; I've found muni.org to be pretty useless since its last major revamping.)
Re: the suggestion about biographies - it may be time for me (or anyone else) to reassess certain content associated with the project. I'm dealing with two major things suddenly happening in my personal life: 1) the realization that I'm soon to become a snowbird twenty or thirty years early. I hope I can become strictly a snowbird rather than staying there year-round, because I can't possibly imagine wanting to stay in Arizona during the summer when it's 120 degrees F all the time. Since one of my short-term goals has been to finish my degree, I may benefit from doing that outside of Alaska anyway; and 2) suddenly having a girlfriend 17 years my junior. Now, rather than fuck around at random like I have been, I may have to sit down and take stock of the important work and get it out of the way first while I still have a short-term opportunity of doing so.
You're going from the Interior to Arizona? You're going to melt. On the other hand, it may give you a chance to visit notable Alaskans who are in prison down there... I did indeed take the photo of Gruening street here in Homer, I knew there was stuff named after him all over the state and we had no images. As you can see below, another editor jumped in and found some more good sources for the Vet memorial, but I can imagine having an ally at Alaska's biggest library (I think it is anyway) could be very helpful. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:06, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't know whether to thank you or smack you. I guess thank you, that's quite a list you managed to dig up and will certainly assuage any concerns about the subject or the DYK, it's just that in my somewhat limited experience with DYK I have never had so many obstacles to overcome to get my nomination through, and I thought I'd finally gotten it through the gate. I'll start plowing through those refs and see what I can do with them. Seriously, though, thanks for finding all that. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:32, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
You can do both: love and hate me. :) The article passed DYK but I put it on hold because it could be improved with sources to which you didn't have access. I hope you don't mind the slight delay in placing the article on the main page. By the way, the images are breathtakingly sharp and beautiful. Best Cunard (talk) 20:51, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
I have several clarifications about the changes I've made to the article's references:
For the NewsBank links, I've replaced the iw.newsbank.com links, which are transient, with docs.newsbank.com ones, which are durable. In a few hours, this iw.newsbank.com link will no longer work, while this docs.newsbank.com one will.
For newspapers, I generally use the {{cite news}} template. If you use the {{cite web}} template, remember to include the newspaper name in the |work= parameter, which places it in italics. The |publisher= does not.
I've added archiveurls from WebCite using the |archiveurl= and |archivedate= parameters to prevent link rot. This ensures that if the docs.newsbank links stop being durable, you will still be able to access them.
Honestly, before this DYK I had never even used {{cite web}} before, I had always used simpler ref formats, so I don't really know what I'm doing with that, but I was asked to add access dates to the refs so I've been trying to pick up how to use cite web on the fly. I don't think I've ever used newsbank before either, so I had no idea about that. Your modifications are very much appreciated. I've done my share of content work, but never really put a lot of effort into learning my way around the various alternatives for ref formatting. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:01, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
You're welcome. I recently learned about the Harvard citation template, which I've started using. Wikipedia has so many citation templates that I wouldn't be surprised if there were more citation templates I've never heard about.
I think I'm wrong about the iw.newsbank.com link's being non-durable. I must have confused it with infoweb.newsbank.com links, which expire very quickly. However, I think the docs.newsbank links I changed are better because they are shorter and do not clutter the edit window as much. (As you can probably tell, NewsBank's subdomains are very confusing. Some are durable, some are not, and one redirects to another.) Cunard (talk) 22:21, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Any chance you want to fully protect this page before the circus gets any further out of hand than it already is? Trusilver21:57, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Already had it watchlisted as it seemed obvious this was not over, have now left an explicit warning about what the talk page is for. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:01, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Oh, I don't know. It was just getting interesting. I haven't decided whether his act of self-crucifixion is the last we will ever see from him, or if he's going to return at a later date as a Wikipedian answer to El Che after gathering together a little band of Vietnamese Wikipedian revolutionaries. Sometimes this place becomes fun in places it's really not supposed to be fun... :) Trusilver00:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Hello! I'm the person who requested the semi-protection on Pingan International Finance Center that you granted a week of full protection for about a week ago now. I hope you don't mind this, but I'm only somewhat good with Wikipedia, so I was wondering if you have any advice about what I should do from here.
After your protection expired, the reverts began again, this time by an actual registered account named Gordon the great who is basically refusing to discuss the article on the talk page despite me asking him to; at this point, since you originally protected the article, the evidence is nearly absolute that the building is under construction; in a recent edit that I did before he reverted, I added several new sources including a secondary source that was fairly recent, something that the article had been lacking. So, at this point, the content dispute in the article isn't really a legitimate one, and more of some users (or perhaps just one) trying to force their opinion that construction is halted. The one thing they are citing--that "there are pictures where it looks like construction is stopped"--isn't even true, as you can read on the talk page discussions; the pictures and forums are one of the most up-to-date sources for it being under construction.
So, I'm not really sure where to go from here. He's reverted me twice, so I'm not sure it qualifies as an edit war yet, but I don't want to let it become one either, as I told this Gordon. I had an RfC that attracted no meaningful input; the only person who responded questioned how we even knew the tower had ever started construction and gave no votes, because there were fewer secondary sources at the time. Semi-blocking won't even work now, because this is a full user. I made a section in the talk page where I asked people to discuss the construction status that had no responses for a week. So, I'm essentially out of the options that I know of, short of bringing the dispute up a bunch of levels to requesting bans or something, which really isn't appropriate at all.
Do you have any advice for me about what to do? I'm kind of lost about what options there are when RfCs don't work, and I don't want the article fully protected permanently, which probably wouldn't be done anyway. Should I just make a post in the edit warring reports channel that you noted before, because the user refuses to discuss reverts on the talk page? Or should I ask for him to be warned by a moderator for edit warring if he continues to revert edits?
I'm passionate about skyscrapers and the Ping'an IFC, so I want to make sure the article is accurate, but I want to make sure to do so in a way that is appropriate on Wikipedia. In the meantime, I will hold myself to a one-revert rule against his reverts until there is more input from him or others. Thanks! Merechriolus (talk) 00:16, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
I've got a lot of irons in the fire right now and so have not looked into this issue again yet. I may have some time do so tomorrow. Beeblebrox (talk) 08:10, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
No problem at all, take your time. Another user seems to have started helping out with the case, so for now, the reverts are being stopped fairly quickly; time will tell whether the IPs and Gordon continue to revert the article following the warnings and requests that myself and other users have given them. If they start to abstain from the reverting, the article may stabilize, but I would still be interested in what courses of action editors can take in such a situation. Again, thanks for your time. Merechriolus (talk) 00:16, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
I've had a look at this, and the first thing I would say is that you are doing a pretty good job of handling it. Limiting yourself to prevent edit warring and attempting to engage the person you reverted in discussion are absolutely the right thing to do. For the moment the issue seems to be under control, but if it flares back up I would recommend using some form of dispute resolution to come to a decision. I have added a hidden comment and an edit notice to the page and will be watching it for revert warring. Hopefully that will help. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:49, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Alright, thank you very much, especially for the hidden comment. I did not know that that was possible, and might use things like that in the future for inline notes. I will certainly look into dispute resolution if any problems start happening again; like you said, I'm trying to be careful on this article, because I have (years ago) learned my lesson the hard way about keeping cool when confronted with these sorts of situations on Wikipedia.
Following some discussions about this with other contributors, I would like to request you to review your closing decision. I do not believe there was consensus for deletion, and the deletion itself set a precedent now being used to justify deletion nominations on all such lists. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/100 Welsh Heroes, etc. Deb (talk) 11:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
The AFD was very long, and contained a lot of information that, as I noted in my close, did not turn out to be relevant. I actually created a preview of the page with all the irrelevant stuff removed and read that in order to aid me in coming to a decision on how to close it, so I feel pretty comfortable with how I closed it. On the other hand, I do not feel at all comfortable with it being used as a precedent to delete other articles, and have registered my objection [11] at the Welsh heroes AFD. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:06, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
There is no mechanism for deleting a Wikipedia account, but since they are claiming the account was hacked and used by someone else I have blocked it. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:42, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
For that very kind compliment here. I doubt I'm one of the best, but I'm a sucker who's willing to give almost anything a go. However, I really do appreciate the kind words, and wanted to say thank you. WormTT· (talk) 19:38, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions with User:Just Step Sideways. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
, didn't see anything. Hopefully that means someone else has already dealt with it. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Done. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Acknowledged. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:11, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
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Salvio Let's talk about it! 19:02, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
