User talk:Dragon695/Archive 001

Welcome to Dragon695's Archived talk page

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Welcome!

Hello Dragon695/Archive 001, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask me on my talk page or see Wikipedia:Where to ask a question. Again, welcome! --Sean|Bla ck 06:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for saying hello! I hope to begin contributing in earnest once I get settled in. --Dragon695 06:37, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

SC User box

Thanks for your help. I was surprised that there were none that I could find, so I made it. This my first template I have ever made.--Adam ^(talk) 02:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

pls check the talk page on this template.--Adam

^(talk) 02:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a great idea! --Dragon695 02:32, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem :). Initially, I had wanted to change it is so that it would be the same height as the USA template, but you know, once I got started I decided to throw in the other changes as well. --Dragon695 02:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not encyclopedic, Violation of copyright?

How does including the lyrics to a song violate a copyright and in what way is not encyclopedic??

I believe usage of the lyrics is not covered by copyright and even if it were it would be covered under a fair use theory of law.

Definition of Encyclopedia (merriam-webster.com): a work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or treats comprehensively a particular branch of knowledge usually in articles arranged alphabetically often by subject.

(Headsinger 19:14, 28 January 2006 (UTC))[reply]

The lyrics were reverted at least twice before (check history). Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files (nor is it a repository of lyrical source material). As to lyrics not being covered by copyright, I believe the author of that song would beg to differ. Also, it is one thing to selectively quote song lyrics, it's quite another to reproduce the song lyrics in their entirety. Reproduction of written works of any type, in their entirety, is rather dubious where fair use is concerned. --Dragon695 22:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re Uncle Fucka: Dragon695 is correct. - brenneman ^(t)^(c) 23:38, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I second the above. Most people believe that "fair use" laws cover a far more cases than they actually do. In personal life or private websites, that is unlikely to turn out to be problematic. On a large encyclopedia that also happens to be one of the top-50 most frequently viewed websites in the world, it is a problem. It is, however, nice to have information about a song, e.g. what it's about, how fans reacted to it, or if it won any awards or sparked controversy. R adiant _>|< 11:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

EFF userbox

Please keep the width of the image at 40px, it f's up the layout for many people; userboxes are meant to have the smaller box to the left at 45px maximum. Thanks! —Nightst a llion (?) 08:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My bad, I'll be more careful in the future! --Dragon695 17:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Improper userbox deletion

I'm sorry - but is there some misunderstanding? Could you please refer to which actions I have conducted which are questionable? And also, I am unsure of what action you wish me to take - I am not an administrator, so I can not delete nor undelete things, so may I therefore ask you clarify your statement. Thanks! Ian13|talk 17:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, I thought you were an admin ;-). I'll tak it to nightstallion. --Dragon695 17:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, its just because it sounded like you were questioning some of my actions. Good luck! Ian13|talk 17:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no problem, sorry if that was the impression, my beef is with Tony Sidaway. --Dragon695 17:59, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removing comments and/or positions on an RFC

~~Is extremely, extremely discouraged. We are talking really really discouraged here. Please don't do it again (and yes I do suppose this counts as an official warning and all *sigh*)~~ Kim Bruning 03:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me??? I didn't remove anything. Please clarify! --Dragon695 03:45, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Crap, you are correct, my sincere apologies. It was an anon, and I was briefly mislead by the way in which the anon had written it. (Please feel free to refactor this section off of your talk page, once you have read the apology) Sorry again. Kim Bruning 03:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem at all, I was worried I accidently deleted somthing by mistake. Thanks for clearing it up. --Dragon695 03:50, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And here I finger the real culprit WP:AN/I#Interesting_edits_by_anon_to_congressional_RFC, sorry for the misunderstanding. Kim Bruning 03:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't sweat it! I know you probably have your work cut out for you with that RFC ;-). BTW, unless you want it, I'd kinda prefer to not delete talk entries in the interest of openness and full disclosure [please don't interpret this as malice]. I'll go ahead and put a strikethrough to indicate that it was just a misunderstanding :-). --Dragon695 04:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

thanks!

Hey! Thanks for the Murrow pic barnstar thingy! Actually, I felt I didn't deserve it -- I haven't really done much work on the pedophila articles, I just put together a project structure -- so I gave it over to Lotusduck who deserves it more. But thanks! Herostratus 09:47, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfC

I take it you were referring to the RfC I'm preparing against Tony Sidaway, as that's the only thing of the sort I'm undertaking at the moment. The charges are outlined, and I'll gladly add the anti-Randroid box deletion to the list of grievances. What's still needed is more diffs proving that people attempted to reason with him on all the listed violations; I haven't gotten around to that yet. If you want to help, the RfC is being compiled here. Rogue 9 12:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I shouldn't have but I did.

I thought you might get a laugh out of the story I put on the Payson, Az's vandal's user page. User:24.121.122.92--mitrebox 04:43, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently it didn't work, cause all I see is a redlink :-/. --Dragon695 09:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion

I see that you added this to the TfD criteria for deletion:

The template is not a userbox.

Userboxes are deleted reasonably regularly; there are all sorts of reasons why any template might be deleted, and many of them apply to userbox templates just as much as those outside user space. Someone has reverted your change. --Tony Sidaway 16:23, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry I got angry, violated WP:COOL, and added that out of frustration. However, by a certain individual's definition, all non-encyclopedic templates are therefore "qualified candidates". That just isn't true, userboxes are not typical templates. I was under the impression that an official policy was being crafted regarding them subsequent to the entire Kelly Martin affair. I don't think it is fair or fruitful to just ignore the ongoing effort to reach consensus around a policy and revert to rules-lawyering just to prove a point. And I certainly think that the whole hubbub about {{User pedophile}} was way over the top and is absolutely not a reason to resume purging userboxes. All it says is that we have some activist admins who are unable to control themselves. To be quite frank, I don't feel one way or the other about pedophiles. From a scientific viewpoint, I think that, like most of us, they're people with mental health problems (I suffer from severe bi-polar disorder and ADD myself). Honestly, I have much more important things to worry about. Yet there seems to be certain people who just have to be crusaders. There seems to be too much illogical, irrational actions around here. I understand if they feel a certain way, but overreacting to a dumb userbox is just insane and people who do it really need to seek professional help. Look, every time I see TDC's userpage, I get irked (see for yourself). But I don't go blubbering to the first admin, whining that my feelings are hurt because he seeks to imply that liberals, like myself, and Osama bin Laden think alike. Who cares if we have some similar thinking patterns? Even a broken clock is right twice a day. In the end, all this drama accomplished was to spill over into and ruin a much need project to make one of the most poorly written series of articles of all of Wikipedia (those concerning inter-generational relationships and various sundry items) more accurate and encyclopedic.

Look, I probably am just another dumb user to you. That's fine. I've not done anything meritorious. However, I've been lurking around here/using Wikipedia ever since Jimbo's last major media blitz tour (culminating in C-SPAN's Q&A). I decided to sign up so that I could work on the problems listed in my TODO List(AKA My Gay Agenda [<-- that's a joke, btw]). When I first started looking at userpages last year, I thought one of the nicer aspects were the userboxes. To me they told me more about the individual as a person and made them less of a "stick figure" in my mind then any written words. More to the point, they assisted me in determining the accuracy/POV of their contribution. I make judicious use of history as a way of making sure that the article I'm reading is complete and accurate. I think the idea that people's bias is checked at the door is rubbish. That isn't possible, and anyone honest will admit that. That is why I plan to actively seek out people with opposing view points to help determine if any potentially controversial submission I make is NPOV or POV. I want to know if my bias is creeping into my work and welcome constructive critiques from those most likely to make them. Better to get things upfront rather then to get bogged down in edit war later. Anywho, that's just my POV, feel free to disagree. --Dragon695 08:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Help Yourself

User:Mike McGregor (Can)/code page

you know which one you want... BTW, if you know how to link to a category to group like-minded users together, please modify...Mike McGregor (Can) 03:15, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Unfortunately, to do what you want, it would require the creation of a user Category object, which is almost just as contentious as userboxes :-/. --Dragon695 08:49, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Violations of WP:POINT?

You stated on WP:TFD that speedy deletion of a userbox was "clearly violation of WP:POINT." I'm afraid I don't see at all how deleting those templates was disrupting Wikipedia only to prove a point. In fact, it seems to me that they deleted those templates because they thought the templates should be deleted. Your recent comments (for instance, [1], [2], [3], [4], and [5] go further, stating "It is clear that there is an attempt by certain admins to disrupt userpages on Wikipedia and aggrivate editors in order to prove a point, which is a clear violation of WP:POINT." You appear to be suggesting that the responsible administrators are deleting the userboxes not because they feel they are offensive or don't belong on Wikipedia, but are doing so solely to annoy the people who use them. This is a serious claim, and it is not obvious at all to me how you are able to ascertain their motives or ascribe such reasoning to them. You're welcome to vote, discuss, and protest, but please don't make inflammatory claims like this. Just because people don't get angry when you say things like this about them doesn't mean you should keep doing it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:48, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prove me wrong. Ever since the defrocking of Kell Martin, there has been a concerted effort to seek retribution against the userbox community. The obvious target is the thing which caused her downfall in the firstplace. Why, in the bulk of the cases, have only a few admins felt it necessary to speedy? Why have their speedy log comments seemed so joyful. Looking back on their comments during the various Kelly Martin RfA's and ArbCom nom, they seemed to be diehard supporters of Kelly Martin and weren't very pleased when she got her due. It seems like they are getting some sort of pleasure from bucking the system to somehow vindicate her. Seems to me they have an axe to grind. They hide behind a bogus CSD policy which was inserted without any discussion and inspite of the fact that there are at least 3 policy proposals on userboxes. When you try to protest, they say Jimbo put it there so it must be a good thing^TM. Well fuck that. Policy is not set by fiat. --Dragon695 08:14, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just came across this comment. This sort of language is not appropriate at Wikipedia. Please rethink your approach to discussion and conflict. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:54, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. --Dragon695 08:14, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't be a dick. Incidentally, as you can see from this diff, Jimbo is already aware of CSD T1. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 09:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Of course I know that he knows, after all he came up with it. I'm requesting a stop to this insanity. I say good day to you, sir! --Dragon695 23:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I hadn't thought of it that way, although the "conspiracy" mindset is not one I easily grasp. I think that in general, the burden of proof should fall on the more extraordinary claim. In any case, I certainly can't prove their motivations any more than you can; that's one reason why I think it's better to avoid making statements about a person's motivation rather than their actions. Regardless of their motivation, an awful lot of editors agree with their position (and many do not as well, I realize, but enough to show there is opposition beyond vengeance). And even if it were to be about vengeance, it still wouldn't be disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, it would be disrupting Wikipedia for revenge. Your repeated use of that as a reason does a disservice to your argument and discredits your position. Also, I'm not certain how you decided that policy cannot be set by fiat—what gave you that idea? — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:09, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever, this is getting old, fast. The point I'm making as well as others is that there is no justification for using speedy deletion. If someone can explain to me why, that's fine. But it seems absurd to say that deleting the userbox swiftly is necessary, because most rational people would say it does not rise to the level of immediacy to justify that (violation of copyright, violation of law, etc). So, thinking in a rational way, what other conclusions can I draw for the desire to speedy delete. Either it's abject laziness or there is some other personal motive at play. As for our support, it is what it is. I'll admit that the whole pedo thing has been damaging to our cause because the perception is that userboxes were the cause when in reality it was irrational actions from Jimbo on down based on some bizzare outbreak of moral panic. I'm sure the antiuserbox boo-hoo brigade is quite smug after scoring such a victory for their side. You know this could all be solved if they would just revert to the status quo as of December 2005. This entire incident is a textbook case of WP:BEANS. People were implimenting solutions in search of problems. Where is the divisiveness? It seems to be the new policies and CSD T1 causing the divisiveness and not the boxes themselves (as can be seen by the userbox supporters' vast spectrum of ideolgy). And this notion that it bad to build communities of editors based on likes and dislikes is insane. People do it all the time. Acting like wikizombies isn't how human beings work. Saying what we like and dislike on our userpage is good for disclosure. Lastly, I think it is a miniscule price to pay to allow some wikifun in exchange for wikiwork. --Dragon695 00:58, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RFA/Quarl

Hi Nicholas, thanks for your support in my RFA, which succeeded. If I can ever improve or help in any way, please let me know! :) —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-02-16 12:15Z

No problem! :-) --Dragon695 23:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

May i ask you a question

If its too personal just "x" me out, it hopefully wont offend you, because i dont mean for it to. How did you become gay? Just a FYI i have many gay friends and i have no problem with gays, their people too.--Gators222 01:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't become gay, that's just the way I was born. I'll respond more when I'm not so busy, if I feel like it. --Dragon695 06:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, just, wow. Some people still aren't in on the loop :-X

02:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

ubx policy

Hi Dragon, saw you request I look at the userbox policy proposals.. I gave it a try, but to be honest, in order to form a decision I'd have to invest a good chunk of time (just to read the policy and talk pages), and I don't have that just now. But I wanted to say Good Job on being involved and voicing your opinions. Cheers. --F a ng Aili 23:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA thanks

Thank you for voting on my RfA, it passed with a final tally of 68/0/0 so I'm now an administrator. If there's anything I can do to help, you feel I've done something wrong, or there's just something you want to tell, don't hesitate to use my talk page. Thanks. - Bobet 10:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MfD

I hope it is not too much to access that your conduct on the project be marked with civility towards other users? Disagreement is no cause for mockery. Boo-hoo brigade indeed. You ought to be ashamed. Mackensen (talk) 16:28, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your support

rƒa · ɐƒɹ

Thank you for supporting me in my request for adminship! It ended with a tally of 39/5/4, and I am now an admin. I'm glad to have earned the trust of the community, and I will make use of it responsibly. Of course, you can let me know of any comments or concerns you have.

With a million articles in front of me, I'd better get mopping.

rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you!

Thank you!
Hi Dragon695/Archive 001, thank you for your support in my Rfa! It passed with a final tally of 86/0/0. If you need help or just want to talk let me know! Again, thank you! – Dakota ~ ° 23:01, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RfA

Thank you for your support during my RfA! It has decided to postpone making me an administrator based upon recent consensus (or lack thereof). Thanks for the kind remarks and I hope to continue to see you arount the project. Cheers, Zsinj^Talk 08:33, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RfA

Thank you for your support in my request for adminship. I'm delighted that the RfA succeeded with a final consensus of 52/17/7, and receiving comments including having 'excellent potential to become a great moderator', and I am now an administrator. It did however only just pass, and I shall do my very best to rectify any of my errors, including the general belief that I should do more article work. If you have any concerns, or if you ever feel that I may be able to help you, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page. Again, thank you!

Ian13/talk 19:37, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your support of my RfA

Thank you for your support of my successful request for adminship. I am honoured that the nomination was supported unanimously and that the community expressed confidence that I would use the tools wisely. If you have any concerns please let me know on my talk page. Regards A Y Arktos 01:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RFA Thanks

Thank you!
Thank you for your support in my recent RFA. It passed 53/1/2 and I am now an administrator. I appreciate that some of you made exceptions to your usual requirements re length of service and so on because we've interracted positively in the past, or because of my credentials, so I will endeavour to use my new mop cautiously. I'm always open to feedback and gently constructive criticism. If you're not an admin and need some assistance do of course please let me know. Thanks again --kingboyk 00:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. If you are interested in The Beatles, User:Lar has asked me to tag on a little note advertising the creation of a new Beatles WikiProject that we are currently setting up. Please sign up and help.

Wikipedia Cat Lovers' Committee

Hello, fellow anime lover! Dragon695, I can see from your userboxes that you love cats.

Would you be interested in joining the Wikipedia Cat Lovers' Committee?

If you want to join, you can add yourself to the members list, and contact me, Sergeant Snopake, on my talk page, or the committee founder, GeorgeMoney, on his.

The Wikipedia Cat Lover's Committee has also been nominated for deletion.

Whether you join or not, please could you comment on the deletion page to help keep the committee going.

Please vote keep.

Thank You very much! :)

Sergeant Snopake, 12:42, 21th of April 2006 (UTC)

Re: Your comments on Taxman's RfB

The use of fair use images in userspace is in violation of a policy established by the m:Wikimedia Foundation (see WP:FUC #9). If helping Wikipedia adhere to a policy established by the foundation itself is a "jihad", then I am glad for the label. As for the amount of controversy my actions have supposedly generated, I have performed such removals 567 times now, with only a very small handful of users (I believe less than 10) responding negatively to it. If you have issue with me performing this "Jihad", you've never raised it on my talk page before. I'd be happy to explain about this in more detail if you like. If that is not satisfactory to you, then I invite you to initiate an RfC. If you have further comments about me, they should be sent to my talk page or an RfC. Taxman's RfB is an inappropriate forum for airing such complaints. --Durin 19:33, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What Durin is doing is far from inappropriate or unnecessary. Your comments on the RfB were unwarranted. Johnleemk | Talk 20:00, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well you are entitled to your opinion, but like some have said in the approval area, the "reason" to oppose is pure bullshit. Also, if you want to get into what is appropriate, the way to abide by WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF is to politely ask editors to remove such images, not take it upon yourself to do so. Need we revisit the pie fight caused by the userbox wars to prove that people take their userpages very personally? --Dragon695 21:35, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Userpages belong to the community, not to individual editors. What Durin is doing is enforcing policy, unlike in the userbox issue where there was no specific policy involved. Johnleemk | Talk 10:58, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're covering ground which we already know. It isn't a matter of what's technically right, it's a matter of the best way in which to foster civility. --Dragon695 04:03, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with your approach, and it is my right to question your reasons for opposing such a good candidate based on such weak grounds. While only by luck you may have not encounter such resistance (I only learned of your "operation" yesterday since I was on wikibreak for the last 2 months), I assure you that there is a significant portion of the community who do not like people messing with their userpages. I need not remind you of the various userbox insurrections which have happened this year. I don't care what the rules on userpages say because if you were to take a straw poll today, there would be no consensus on them. Ask Kelly Martin what the reward was for unilateral actions on userboxes with fair-use images. You need to understand that, like it or not, people have invested effort and time into making their userpages look good and it might irritate them for you to just take it upon yourself to change them (even if they don't say so). Asking them first, no matter how inconvienient or what the rules say, is the WP:CIVIL way to do things. --Dragon695 21:35, 28 April 2006 (UTC):[reply]

I fully intend to continue my work in this area. I have the backing of two different members of ArbCom whom I have consulted on this matter, and have ample edit summaries which explain the actions I take in policy and in a lengthy page with further explanations. If you feel this is improper and wish to change it, then by all means start an RfC against me. I will welcome it, as I will be happy to explain to anyone who thinks they have the right to have fair use images on their userpage why this is important and must be done. The most efficient way to do this is to remove them on sight with ample explanation rather than leaving talk page messages and continually checking and re-checking the hundreds of userpages and templates that I've done this to to see if it has been done. --Durin 21:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cut out the ruleslawyering and stop avoiding the basic problem. We need happy editors if we want to keep Wikipedia in tip-top condition. This means going out of your way to polite, especially on things as sensitive as userpages. Gee, I'm terribly sorry if you find it inconvenient to be WP:CIVIL, but that's the price you pay for civility. As for time well spent, I can think of thousands of things that need to be done on wikipedia more important then being a dick. Frankly I don't care if you do have the backing of two members of ArbCom, because I don't intend to file something as useless as an RfC. However, don't expect me to sit idle while you try to mount an attempt to torpedo someone's RfB. --Dragon695 21:57, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What basic problem do you feel I am avoiding? The basic problem is that the use of fair use images in userspace is not permitted by policy as established by the Wikimedia Foundation. If I were to ask every person prior to doing so, I would be increasing the workload to adhere to this policy quite dramatically. The detailed edit summary has been quite sufficient for the very vast majority of userpages and templates on which this has been done. There is no attempt here at being uncivil. In fact, quite the contrary. That's in part why I leave such a detailed edit summary. If you feel the explanation page that I provide a link to in the edit summary is insufficient, then by all means feel free to make suggestions.
I personally can think of few things more important to Wikipedia than protecting it against lawyers from all sorts of companies that would be all too happy to file copyright lawsuits against Wikipedia. Whether Wikipedia won the suit or not is irrelevant as the cost of the defense itself would be severely damaging to Wikipedia, which operates on a shoestring budget. Copyright law is real and we must adhere to it or face the death of this project.
As for me supposedly torpedoing an RfB; as I explained on Taxman's RfB, my fair use image removal efforts have nothing to do with his userpage being protected. I am an administrator, so I can edit any page that is protected. Unless there were extenuating circumstances, I would still remove fair use images from protected pages. Thus, whether his userpage was protected or not is irrelevant to my fair use efforts. Further, since his userpage has no fair use images on it, the point is irrelevant. --Durin 22:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ignore my incivility, I was very cranky at that point. Sorry. --Dragon695 04:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Red carnation.jpg

I am unclear as to whether you read my response to your comments on my talk page. Thus, I'm placing this message here to ensure you have read it.

Regardless of whether there are any ©, ®, or TM marks anywhere on the Socialist International website or not, without there being an intentional release of their copyrights to materials generated by them, we here at Wikipedia do not have leave to violate their copyright even if we think they wouldn't mind. Lack of stating copyright does not mean an organization does not claim copyright. Unless you can find an intentional release of copyrights on their website that stipulates this image has been released from their copyrights, then the {{symbol}} tag most definitely applies, and as a result the image may not be used in template and userspace. Until such time as you positively verify the copyright status of the image, the {{symbol}} tag is entirely appropriate. If/when you find such a release, I will gladly support the change so long as their release is cited and verifiable.

I have consulted with others on this topic at Administrators' noticeboard. Two other administrators agreed with my position on this matter. --Durin 13:41, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I didn't respond sooner. Actually I had a good discussion with another admin that night on IRC and he convinced me of the error of my ways. --Dragon695 02:03, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Ref: your comments on my talk page) As I noted on Bo's talk page, it is not just a matter of law. The Wikimedia Foundation has established a policy proscribing the use of fair use images in userspace, even if it is legally justifiable to use such images. In abstract, this makes a great deal of sense. Rather than have all manner of legal justifications (which may or may not be supported in law) surrounding individual cases, it is better to have a blanket policy that proscribes such use especially since the number of cases where the legal justifications would be valid is a small subset of all potential cases. The common sense I am abiding by is Wikimedia Foundation policy. I understand you disagree with the policy. There are policies here that I also find have shortcomings. Regardless, it does not give either of us leave to violate those policies as we are working towards a common good.
I would also like to make it clear to you that your understanding of what a userpage is as being a personal webpage is flawed. Userpages most definitely are not personal webpages. Quoting from Wikipedia:User page, "It's a mistake to think of it as a homepage: Wikipedia is not a free host, blog, or webspace provider". Further quoting from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, "If you are looking to make a personal webpage or blog, please make use of one of the many free providers on the Internet". --Durin 03:37, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A comment

Good morning. I came to your userpage after running across an uncivil remark of yours over at TfD. I noticed that you've taken to listing sysops you don't like under "WikiPoop" and calling them "vandals," a term generally reserved for vandalism, not policy disagreements.

Good Evening. Not that it isn't any of your concern, because I do not think it is, but I will stand by my claims. Tony, Kelly, and Mark have been chastised for wheel warring and intentionally deleting userboxes en-mass even after they were told by Jimbo to stop (there's an ArbCom case from back in Feburary and one in January). Kelly was also booted from Arbcom for a couple of reasons, amoungst which includes improper actions involving userbox deletion. They have gone out of their way, in my opinion, to be dicks (especially in their uncivil deletion log remarks) by fomenting animosity between editors and administrators. Much like GWB and the Patriot Act in response to 9/11, they used a crisis on wikipedia, which only marginally to do with userboxes, to have CSD T1 inserted without any discussion or consensus. They refuse to use TfD because they know they don't have the votes to win, so instead they game the system by using CSD, which from what I understand, was only meant for obvious cases which weren't controversial (after all, why have TfD at all if not to debate controversial deletions?). There was much anger after the first couple of times CSD was used, which should of clued them in to the fact that these cases belonged on TfD where debate could occur. Much of the hostility could have been avoided if they had only gone to the effort of respecting pro-userbox editors request that they use TfD, which wasn't unreasonable. Instead, by using CSD, they force us to list what we believe are legit userboxes in DRV, which is far less traversed than TfD (they've even moved userboxes to a subpage, further ensuring it is hidden away from the casual editor who might be interested). As everyone knows, it is much harder to get out of DRV then it is to block deletion on TfD and they are exploiting it to the hilt. Furthermore, they are CSDing boxes which have already survived TfD and DRV on numerous occaisions, for what reason I ask? Smells like votestacking to me. Efforts to reach a compromise have been met with extreme resistance (Tony has blatently said he will not compromise on even userfied userboxes) and ultimatums like "it is their way or the highway" (in so many words). I generally try to WP:AGF, but the facts don't square with the assumption. The right thing to do would have been to take Jimbo's advice and just move on, but they chose to be stubborn instead. Their bad faith has contributed to good editors, like radiant, who have been here for quite some time, leaving in disgust. I have nothing but utter contempt for them and anyone who carries their torch. However, there are some enlightned admins, which give me cause for optimism. Nevertheless, I will continue to express my snarky displeasure mildly through my Wikipoop list, thank you very much. As for what the word vandal means in the context I used it in, well that is your POV.

I've also noticed that you haven't really contributed to the article space in the last couple months, while your userpage has seen dramatic growth.

Gee, what does this have to do with the price of eggs? For your information, I've done minor edits here and there in article space where I thought I could be helpful. I've also reverted vandalism in article space on a couple of entries. I've helped to add proper sourcing to a few. Wow, last time I checked, small contributions were appreciated just as much as large ones. Not that it should matter, but I'm working on a few requests which will improve a couple of articles once I finish. I have written the SCOTUS and am awaiting a high-quality photo of Justice Anthony Kennedy, which one of his clerks, with his consent, has been gracious enough to send me with written release under Free Art License. I have also been corresponding with Congressman Walter B. Jones, Jr. in an effort to obtain more information about his deceased father, Congressman Walter B. Jones, Sr. He's a rather busy person, so I expect it might take awhile to get what I need, which includes a good photograph. I've made some contributions to the commons, as well. There are some other items on my TODO list which probably would have been done sooner if people would just leave the userboxes alone. All in all, I'm quite satisfied with my contributions and dismiss your unfounded rubbish allegations with extreme prejudice. Eventhough I'm a socialist, in America I do have to work for a living, you know. As for dramatic growth of my userpage, that is utter nonsense. I know there are tons of editors on wikipedia who edit theirs on a daily basis, which I have not. Your comparison to my "contribution size" is, again, just a straw man.

Finally, you apparently don't accept the realities under which this project labors, such as copyright law.

Wow, that's funny, because my one day of misunderstanding (2 days ago) regarding the socialism logo (check my edit log) was all cleared up on IRC later that night. I've done no actions in relation since, other then write to socialist internation requesting written permission. Durin's response on my page is to a message I left him 2 days ago. Wow, I guess I'm just not part of the reality based community.

We're here to build an encyclopedia. To do this, we have to be friendly to each other, or we'll just be arguing endlessly. There's already plenty of places to do that; Wikipedia's purpose is constructive not destructive. Calling people vandals because you disagree with them does not contribute to the proper functioning of Wikipedia, quite the opposite. Similarly, Wikipedia's continued legal existence depends upon the proper respect of American (specifically Floridian) copyright law. That your ample political beliefs conflict with established law and policy is unfortunate but ultimately irrelevant.

Well, you have the way things ought to be and then you have the way things actually are. Quoting policy is nice, but it does not necessarily square with reality. Grouping and partisanship are part of human nature, and banning userboxes will do nothing to eliminate it. It is better to just accept the fact and keep it in mind when evaluating neutrality. Arguments are inevitable, so rather then whine about them, do your best to help mitigate them. In fact, having arguments in the open is really better then allowing bad feeling to stew. The arguments on the Linux kernel mailing list often get very heated and incivil, but an amazing amount of work gets done and nobody holds a grudge. Let people blow off a little steam from time to time. As for my belief on copyright, you have allowed a ill-researched snapshot of my activities cloud your judgement as to what my future actions will be. I am not just the sum of my comments on wikipedia. I will continue to advocate for the abolishment of this fair-use nonsense policy. It's a solution in search of a problem which doesn't exist. That does not mean I will not try to avoid violating policy. However, the idea that Communists or Socialists would bring a lawsuit is a clear case of WP:SNOW.

Furthermore, Wikipedia is not a webhost, nor is it MySpace. We're under no obligation to serve as your personal space on the Internet; that's a privilege accorded those who contribute to the encyclopedia. Please consider this a friendly warning that your use of Wikipedia is becoming grossly inconsistent with our policies and our mission. You can remedy this by being friendly to your fellow users and actually editing an article now and then. Best wishes, Mackensen (talk) 15:50, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been on wikipedia for a lot longer then you think and I am well aware of what what Wikipedia is not. However, since you insist on straw men, how much did you contributed during the wikimedia foundation funderaising drive? I donated $50, so I have no guilt or shame on this end. Also, you are 1 out of 800+ administrators, so stop speaking in the first-person plural as if you solely run wikipedia. I assure you that there is more then one admin who feels the same way about those mentioned on my poop list. As for my contributions both present and future, I feel they are sufficient and will continue to be. No warning is necessary. Good day to you. --Dragon695 03:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry that you felt the need to drag relative donations into this; money is hardly the measure of someone's worth. That being said, I'm quite comfortable with the amounts I've kicked in over the last three years. Mackensen (talk) 12:26, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. --Cyde Weys 15:50, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto Johnleemk | Talk 15:51, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, this is a talk page, not ArbCom. There is no need to hear "me too" from the "amen corner". --Dragon695 03:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Divisive userboxes

There aren't any such thing. This whole thing is in the mind of a select few Administrators. If you believe in Libertarianism, would it be too much trouble to ask you to support the undeletion of "anti-" userboxes? Thanks! --Dragon695 00:52, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course there are divisive userboxes. If some editors are pissed off by a userbox, it is (pretty much by definition) divisive. The strong opinions at DRV/U show the divisiveness of this issue.

That said, I may or may not give a shit about the divisiveness of a template. Let's say I have a "This user thinks Osama bin Laden is evil" template. I'm certain you could find somebody on Wikipedia who would complain that their viewpoint is being maligned. Frankly, I'm glad, since any fan of terrorist shouldn't be skulking around my userpage anyway.

Libertarians don't deny that some beliefs are offensive. Instead, we affirm the right to be offensive itself. We think that, within reasonable limits, it's good for people to be offended once in a while. If I was in charge of Wikipedia, I'd allow many of the anti-boxes, and tell people to suck it up - don't visit userpages if you can't handle what you find there.

But of course, I'm not in charge of Wikipedia. And I think that a radical position that supports, for example, an anti-transhumanist box, is bound to fail in the long run. User:Karmafist is a living example of what happens when you try to start a revolution in Wikipedia. So instead of voting completely in accord with my personal beliefs, I've acceded somewhat to the wishes of the community, and I now vote against the anti-boxes (as a general rule). I'd rather have them as templates, but having to subst: them into userspace is no big deal.

So, in general, I think moderation is good in the userbox debates. We need to show that our side is reasonable - whether or not the deletionists are. And you'd be surprised how valid the other side's arguments are when you've looked at them objectively. Of course, you are free to vote as you like, but I'd suggest that voting against the anti-boxes would be in your long-term interest. TheJabberwʘck 02:24, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I restored the heading to Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates. Please comment on the talk page if you disagree with the header, but I think it's pretty much policy since it was copied from WP:DRV itself. TheJabberwʘck 02:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your userpage

Well, since you weren't doing anything on your own, I did it for you. You're welcome to fix up any HTML that I may have broken with my simple removal, but any re-addition of the content you were warned about will lead to reversion and protection. --Cyde Weys 08:55, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted your changes since there is nothing wrong with them. Many users have userpages which have lists of people they do not like. Coolcat comes to mind. I have legitimate complaints that these people are abusing their power and causing much grief. Please respect my opinion as I respect yours. --Dragon695 18:37, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not point fingers here, that others disobey rules does not mean they're not rules anymore... Listing people as 'Wikipoop' is clearly a personal attack, and as such not allowed, opinion or not. --Joann e B 19:48, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, you're 27. You should know by now that the moral equivocation of "other people are doing something bad, so it's okay if I do it too" is invalid. If other people are putting personal attacks on their user page then they need to be dealt with too. That doesn't create an excuse to stoop to their level, though. --Cyde Weys 19:55, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First off, yes it is rather sophmoric of me to cite others as justification, but I am really not in the mood to waste anymore time debating this. First, there is nothing which says that they are wikipoop, that's just the heading of a section (like the people under wikilove are not being called wikilove) that expresses how I feel. Feelings are not personal attacks. I have clearly asserted that I do not respect these people for the reasons given. That is my opinion and not ment as a personal attack. I would gladly remove the persons if I saw a good faith attempt on their part to be reasonable. However, as they continue to speedy userboxes created BEFORE the moratorium was put in place (in which both sides were asked to stop creation and deletion), I have no choice but assume that they have some personal vendetta. Well not assume, since on numerous occasions they have publicly stated that they don't care what our side thinks, they'll just continue on as they please. We all know what happened in January and Feburary, so I don't feel it necessary to rehash the entire userbox wars here. Personal attacks are claims with no merit. My claims, at the very least, are a legitimate grievances. Therefore they are not personal attacks. I have listed what I think are their areas which need improvement. Lastly, the previous message asked me to be more productive in article space, so I am trying to do that. I look forward to working with you in the future on making wikipedia a great encyclopedia, but on this we'll just have to agree to disagree. --Dragon695 20:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A landslide victory for The JPS (aka RFA thanks)

Hey, Dragon695/Archive 001, thank you so much for your vote and comments in my RfA, which passed with an overwhelming consensus of 95/2/2. I was very surprised and flattered that the community has entrusted me with these lovely new toys. I ripped open the box and started playing with them as soon as I got them, and I've already had the pleasure of deleting random nonsense/attacks/copyvios tonight.
If I ever do anything wrong, or can help in some way, please feel free to drop me a line on my talk page, and I will do my best to correct my mistake, or whatever...
Now, to that bottle of wine waiting for me...

The JPS ^{talk to me} 22:47, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User Page

Per my comment on User:Aaron Brenneman's talk page I have contacted Cyde about unprotecting your talk page. As I said there I see what he was getting at, some of the stuff on there really pushes at the boundaries of good taste and civility and WP:NPA, at least in my opinion. I think an undertaking to not do that sort of stuff again going forward and not get into revert wars with admins if they remove stuff that they, in their judgement, think crosses the line would be really helpful. Would you be willing to make such an undertaking? ++Lar: t/c 20:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cyde has unprotected it. But it's on my watchlist and his. Please give considerable thought to how others might perceive what you say before you add things so we can avoid a repeat of this unfortunate incident. I really do think an undertaking such as I suggested would be a good thing to do. Please feel free to reply here or via email or whatever, my door is open if I can be of assistance. Happy editing. ++Lar: t/c 14:48, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I saw your reply at my talk page. It's important to remain civil even with those you strongly disagree with... easy to suggest, hard to do, I know. I think saying "editors I have serious concerns about" would be a better way of getting the point across, than putting their names under "wikipoop"... that just sets folk off. My email is always open to you or anyone, it goes with being an adminstrator who tries to care. And feel free to continue the conversation here, I tend to like to keep conversations in one place. ++Lar: t/c 21:21, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use image removal notification

I've previously removed fair use images from your userspace, and you have raised a concern about it. I've started Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Durin and fair use image removals. You may wish to review and comment. --Durin 13:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Re:comment you left on my talk page) Given that you were quite upset with me before about this subject, this means a great deal to me. I really appreciate your kind words. Thanks! --Durin 12:04, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- No problem! To be quite honest I must say that this policy poll has me really excited (and thus lowered my general crankiness)! I think we're finally going to break through the Sideway stalemate, resolving this userbox debate once and for all. --Dragon695 14:59, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments in Lar's RfA!

We are here to build an encyclopedia!

Hi Dragon, and thank you for your supportive comments in my request for adminship! With a final tally of (109/5/1), I have been entrusted with adminship. It's been several weeks since the conclusion of the process, so hopefully you've had a chance to see me in action. Please let me know what you think! I particularly appreciate your support, as you know. Thanks again, and I will do everything I can to justify the trust you've placed in me! ++Lar: t/c 03:25, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adverts: Like The Beatles?... Like LEGO?... In a WikiProject that classifies?... Are you an accountable admin?... Got DYK?...

Image:Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.JPEG

I've modified Image:Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.JPEG to have a {{Fair use in}} tag, which I feel is appropriate given the copyright statement you cited. That statement is somewhat contradictory, with the most restrictive statement being personal use only. Thus, it's not clear of copyright claims for use in Wikipedia. As a result, the fair use tag is probably the best tag to apply. I've re-added the image to Aung San Suu Kyi. --Durin 16:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification :). --Dragon695 02:44, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up on comments you made a long time ago

"If what you say is true 70, why do people like you (moral supremists) who insist on trying minors as adults? Isn't that a bit of a double standard? You say on the one hand that they aren't mini-adults, incapable of sexual feelings (which is nonsense biologically), yet on the other hand as soon as one of them commits a crime overzelous prosecutors will try an 8-year old as an adult just to get the maximum vindiciveness. I don't condone Clayboy's POV, but I also don't condone hypocrites. --Dragon695 06:39, 1 February 2006 (UTC) "

I don't believe in trying children as adults. Children do have sexual urges, but they aren't the same as adult sexual urges. Clayboy belives they are no different. Stop playing devil's advocate, and but in on conversations you have nothing to do with. In case you are wondering the IP is different because I have relocated.--195.238.53.244 11:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AFD

As an inclusionist, please review Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of relationships with age disparity and please take a side. Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 16:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please help

Hi! I got your username from the Association Inclusionist Wikipedians. I'm trying to work against a band of linkocrites (see en:User:cochese8). You look as if you're a valuable editor and I could really use some help [preserving] a great link. I would ask you to review the discussion and vote keep if you agree with the link's value. By the way, you're welcome to ask for my vote to keep any information on this website. Thanks for your help! Cochese8 17:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject South Park

I have thought of creating a WikiProject for South Park since it is now near its' 10th anniversary and has more articles than ever. I feel we could all do the following things through this project:

Cleanup any short/poorly written/unformatted articles
Merge/lengthen the many character articles
Improve the South Park main page

I have seen your South Park fan template and wondered if you were interested in joining. If so reply to my talk page and I'll get back to you as quick as I can. Thanks, Mr. Garrison

RFA thanks

Thanks for your support in my RFA, that didn't quite make it and ended at 120/47/13. There was a ton of great advice there, that I'm going to go on. Maybe someday. If not, there are articles to write! Thanks for your support. Lawrence § t/e 17:46, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The answer?

Re: this, where did you find the answer? Carcharoth (talk) 13:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thought a few paragraphs above that the entire situation was aired in the village pump. I could be wrong, but I think I'm a little frustrated. Is my comment there a good idea? I was worried that I might get made fun of for potentially rehashing something already done. Forgive me, I just don't know what to do. I'm very concerned that the quality of our articles is being adversely affected by these folks who insist on purity in no-fair-use and BLP. Have you seen our biographies lately? Many of them have been reduced to stubs which is quite a shame. When you read a bio, not having a picture is quite lamentable. I just don't get why we can't have non-free where no free content has been aquired? But this awful placeholder they started adding only adds insult to injury. My fundamental question is, when is the greater community ever going to get a chance to weigh in? I've talked to Giano and a number of other editors who feel this crusade has gone too far, but it seems like there is no outlet, short of policy edit warring, to resolve this. Since I am mainly a consumer and not that much of a contributor, I guess my opinion doesn't count. --Dragon695 (talk) 14:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your opinion does count. I'd advise you don't try and tangle both the BLP and images issues. There are similarities in how things can be handled, but the specific discussions should really be kept separate. I'd also say you should say what you want where you want, but listen if people ask you to comment in a different place. Carcharoth (talk) 14:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're right on BLP, I'll hush up about that now. After my rather bitter experience with the userbox war, when I first started back in 2006, I decided not to really do a lot of editing and drifted into consumer mode. When I did do a little wikignoming, I mostly did so as anon. I've mostly gotten over that bad experience and I really feel ready to do more serious editing now. I just keep getting my attention diverted, as can happen quite often here. As for my answer, I don't have one that will satisfy the ever-moving goalposts of "free." I hate to be cynical, but I get the feeling that the massive bot moving of content to commons is a back-door attempt at trying to force all content to be host on commons. That, of course, means an end to all fair-use. I just think that people would get along better and things would run more smoothly if people would understand that policy is here to serve the community and not the other way around. What I am most concerned about is how uptight people have gotten. If people would just lighten up a little, maybe things would be better. I dunno. That being said, it's nice to see how good the place has gotten despite my grave misgivings about image policy and the other item. We really do have some well written technical and scientific articles that it is a shame that the media always focuses on the corner-cases. --Dragon695 (talk) 17:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please consider taking the AGF Challenge

I would like to invite you to consider taking part in the AGF Challenge which has been proposed for use in the RfA process [6] by User: Kim Bruning. You can answer in multiple choice format, or using essay answers, or anonymously. You can of course skip any parts of the Challenge you find objectionable or inadvisable.--Filll (talk) 15:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Essay

Thanks, that's an excellent idea. I'll give it a shot. François Metro (talk) 22:17, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent! This is just what the doctor ordered. --Dragon695 (talk) 22:55, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

removal on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Encyclopedia Dramatica (2nd nomination)

Please do not remove appropriate templates, as you did here. The template was added in response to this valid reason. --Hu12 (talk) 04:48, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:49, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RFA Thanks

Thanks for your support at my recent Request for adminship. It was nice to hear a positive word about my handling of Round 1 of the BADSITES issue. I hope you find I live up to your expectations. Best, Risker (talk) 13:47, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, it was my pleasure to do so. As I stated, I appreciate people who can employ critical thinking in their decision-making. Far too much me-tooism happens around here, and with the issues that we are going to be facing, we need people who can be thoughtful, not careless. So congratulations and good luck! --Dragon695 (talk) 16:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Bot policy - no consensus

Simply because There is presently no method for joining the Bot Approvals Group which has consensus should that mean that there is NO method for those who would like to join to attempt to do so? I question your revert[7]. The previous edit was an attempt to acknowedge the fact that there is no consensus, but at the same time provide a method for those interested in joining to place a request so do so. Dbiel ^(Talk) 00:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize, re-analyzing the situation I believe I acted in error. Thank you for the clarification. --Dragon695 (talk) 00:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Would you be so kind as to self revert to avoid the appearance of an edit war? Wikipedia:Bot policy Thank you Dbiel ^(Talk) 00:57, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. --Dragon695 (talk) 01:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Dbiel ^(Talk) 01:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

Thank you for the barnstar. Much appreciated. Cla68 (talk) 02:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Great minds think alike?

Indeed. ;) Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, again [8]. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Respect?

Re [9]; perhaps you need to revise your userbox William M. Connolley (talk) 08:49, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I should update that? Haven't really changed my userpage in 2 years. Things change, people change. I'm a nobody, someone who mostly uses Wikipedia as it was intended, a reference. My problem is not with you so much as it is with this kneejerk reaction to support bad behavior by those who are seen as fighting the bad guys. I've seen this approach taken time and again, but all it does is embolden them to keep on seeking the reaction. There is a reason why MONGO was a bad administrator and Alison is a good administrator. Both work in highly contentious areas (9/11, Northern Ireland), but there is a different degree of professionalism at play, even with the most egregious POV-pusher. Alison does not let them have their way, as she is quite firm. MONGO doesn't let them have their way, either, but in the end resorts to using personal attacks and hyperbole instead of arguing the merits. --Dragon695 (talk) 12:59, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What has MONGO got to do with this? I mean, you're attacked SV, why is she listed in your wikipedians I respect box? William M. Connolley (talk) 13:07, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did you miss the part about me not updating in 2 years? I basically ignored my userpage, because I got so sick of the nonsense back in 2006 over userboxes that I just gave up, ok? So, yes, prior to 2007 I did respect SV. However, like Phil Sandifer, my respect waned in light of her behavior at RFAs in 2007 and then utlimately with the rabid defense of the Mantemorland in spite of the clear MO and Evidence. As I took a fresh look at criticisms I had previously brushed off as people mad at SV, the situation became ever more clear. Anyway, I will remove it when I get around to it. --Dragon695 (talk) 13:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dragon, I came here for another reason, and only just now saw the discussion about whether or not you respect me. Regardless of that, I came to ask you not to attack fellow editors, as you did on a recent RfA. It is particularly unfair on that editor, because he's a kind and decent person who is very committed to the project. I hope you can accept that even if you disagree with him about certain issues or people. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 18:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Porn Actors Censorship

I will be keeping my eye on your future edits. Of course you are exactly right but it is tough to fight the battle alone against a handfull of dimwits whose only "contribution" to the project is to censor other people's well-sourced and accurate information. I am going to end up putting something on those article's talk pages noting that the real names are readily available but are being censored from the article. I am not so sure that the "hearts are in the right places". I've been in a Kafkaesque battle with a real "bright bulb" for the last 6 months over his demanding that a 3 month prison sentence served by a convicted sex offender be censored because of "weight"! See-[[10]] John celona (talk) 23:40, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have some ideas. When dealing with this type, it is always best to fight fire with fire. My initial thinking is that a COPPA filing is an indisputable reliable source, so I'm going to see about going down this avenue to appease them. It may be a few months, but I have definitely added this pot to the burner of important things that must be addressed. I'm also irritated that WikiProject:PORN has been infiltrated by like-minded folks. A few years back, this was not the case, but sadly it seems to have changed. I have no clue as to why they think porn actors should be treated any different than other actors which would be acceptable from a WP:NPOV standpoint. Their argument for privacy is irrational, especially given the subjects' activities. Anyhow, for now I would refrain from saying nitwits since this is likely to get you in trouble and, although it feels satisfying to say so, it doesn't really help matters. Again, I completely understand where you are coming from. The BLP extremists are really making me want to unleash a torrent of colorful adjectives and this is just one of many issues I have with them, but it is best to be WP:COOL to prevent them from gaining ammunition for gaming the system. --Dragon695 (talk) 00:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV

Please do not remove my comments as "drive-by nonsense," unless you are doing so on behalf of the Committee. If I placed my comments in the wrong place then please direct me to the correct place to put them. Bwrs (talk) 21:38, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the evidence page, so it does not require clerks to fix drivebys. If you have a principle/FoF relevant to this case, please present it in your own section in the proposals area. If you wish to analyze the evidence as an outsider, use the analysis area. This case has little to do with privacy, but you are encouraged to present evidence/proposals/analysis if you wish to expand this line of reasoning. What is not ok is to just dump your commentary at the bottom of the page. The page is long enough without everyone and their grandmother dropping in to provide their two cents. That area is for further clarification/discussion of proposals above, of which your commentary had very little to do with. Otherwise, you should use the talk page. --Dragon695 (talk) 22:42, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you refer to me as a driveby~~, and what is an FoF~~? Bwrs (talk) 00:05, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your commentary was in respect to a finding of fact, that you believe Cla68 violated a serious principle. The page is long enough without having to be disorganized. What you need to do is make a section for yourself in the proposal section. Then make a proposed principle which would restate a summary of the policy that you think Cla68 violated and that you feel is so important. Then make a proposed finding of fact that would state that Cla68 violated that policy. Refer to other editors' proposals to see how it is done. Now, as to the part about not granting him administrator status, you should move your comment and add an oppose vote underneath the proposed remedy by Jehcoman. The point here is that it is helpful to keep discussion organized as opposed to having a ton of commentary sections at the bottom of the page. A workshop page really should not be a free-for-all talkpage, it needs to be structured. --Dragon695 (talk) 02:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize for not assuming good faith on your part, and will try to take your feedback into consideration. Please be advised, though, I do not think that Cla68 violated anybody's privacy, but rather, am requesting a finding of fact as to whether he did. Thanks. Bwrs (talk) 02:58, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well I dunno what to say, you could just propose the finding of fact and see what the community thinks. This is, after all, what Filll's evidence section is all about on the evidence page. Anyway, sorry for the confusion. --Dragon695 (talk) 03:13, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After further thought, I still believe the general comment portion at the end is the best place to put my comments. Or are you saying the talk page is a more appropriate place? Bwrs (talk) 03:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can put it back in the general section, I won't oppose it now that you made your intentions clear. Perhaps it is best thing at this time, since you don't feel comfortable making your own proposals. --Dragon695 (talk) 04:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[Undent] Actually I do have a proposal of my own, but I want the arbcom to make a serious effort to decide who, if anybody, really was going to out anybody, if at all; my proposal is based on the assumption that nobody was, and would not be valid if the arbcom found differently. Thanks. Bwrs (talk) 05:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well that is your decision and I'll respect that, since your intentions are clear. --Dragon695 (talk) 09:50, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Meatpuppet

Yea, it should be recreated, I have no idea why I deleted it. Thanks. MBisanz ^talk 03:15, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. ^_^

Blp noticeboard entry

I had this to say to David and the others.

No David you do not have a consensus. My own guideline would be to merely look and see if Answers.com gives there real name. You may have had a consensus a day ago but now you don't. I reserve the right to proceed without the consent of some extremely small group on some Wiki noticeboard. Please take note that Answers.com does not give out Brandy Alexandres real name. All of these cases must be taken on a case by case basis. You do not have consensus here. Sorry David but your interpretation of Blp and wiki is redolent of that of someone who has an agenda. These cases must be decided on a case by case basis or not at all.

David and or Jkp have a long history of misinterpreting and or misunderstanding Wikipedia...... Albion moonlight (talk) 21:19, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments on Wikipedia talk:Restricted materials

I was hoping you'd have the time to respond to the query I left for you on Wikipedia talk:Restricted materials. I do not intend to nag, I'm just unsure if you're watching the discussion there. Thanks! --Gmaxwell (talk) 23:30, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

June 2008

This is the only warning you will receive for your disruptive edits.
If you vandalize Wikipedia again, as you did to Wikipedia:Non-free content, you will be blocked from editing. β^_command 02:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was a valid reversion per WP:BRD. Beta is no longer an administrator, thus he should not be putting out administrative templates. --Dragon695 (talk) 02:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the template was probably not necessary - however, WP:BRD means you should have discussed once your change was reverted, rather than reverting the reverter. Just my two cents. Kelly ^hi! 02:19, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, maybe I misunderstood the process. Many apologies, then I will limit myself to 1RR in the future. I did leave a message on the talk page stating my intent. --Dragon695 (talk) 02:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, thanks - I saw your comment at WT:NFC and replied there. Kelly ^hi! 02:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Inkscape is not working properly here, so I am currently trying to fix it. I had planned on doing a number of circuit diagrams for some stubs today, but this is what I have been working on the entire time. Thus I suppose that I may be displacing some of my frustrations. I will attempt to further enhance my calm. --Dragon695 (talk) 02:41, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck - I once spent an entire day trying to make Inkscape work for me to try to fix some stuff in this category (the backlog is horrendous - although there are only a new electronic circuit diagrams in there, someone else must be working those). Inkscape kicked my ass, however. Kelly ^hi! 02:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, tell me about it... As for the diagrams, well I'm making ones for articles that have yet to have one made. I have an EDA program that will output png, but I'm trying to use inkscape to save having more added to that list. ^_^ --Dragon695 (talk) 03:01, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

smile

Dloh cierekim has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Cheers, and happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

I'm glad. Dloh cierekim 02:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BLP changes

Very nice summary you wrote at Lar's talk page. DGG (talk) 03:38, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, someone had to say it... ^_^ --Dragon695 (talk) 15:21, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

COPPA filings

Good luck locating and requesting those COPPA filings to find the information you want. Vinh1313 (talk) 22:11, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Bjweeks

I noticed you commented in the form of a support. Soon after, a large discussion took place in the oppose section about an incident in which you were involved. You may wish to comment. See Oppose #10. Cheers, Enigma ^message 07:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to join this discussion

The "deletes" from the AfD on Reaction to Tim Russert's death are attempting a backdoor delete through a redirect/merge now. There's a discussion at the talkpage regarding this, but they're now attempting to redirect it without having built consensus for doing so. S. Dean Jameson 17:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RFAR thoughts

With regards to this comment of yours, there's one way to ensure that these things don't happen - change the underlying policy. Not radically, just a couple lines that specify what can and can't be done. The community governs policy - it's just a matter of building a case. Guettarda (talk) 00:23, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you are right, but I've become quite cynical. All one can do is continue to work at it. --Dragon695 (talk) 00:38, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't easy to change policy, but this is something that unites a lot of people who aren't too fond of one another. I miss Karmafist, he was a good guy. Guettarda (talk) 00:50, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I miss him, too. I feel hopeful that this recent turn of events, even if I agreed in part with some portions of them, will be the necessary push to begin governance reform. --Dragon695 (talk) 10:59, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hola

I am not sure what your issues are with me but I took offence that you think I in any way endorsed the issues re NewYorkBrad's leaving wikipedia as I can assure you he was one of my favorite editors/admins from when he started and I abhorred his outing as much as anyone else, hence my taking offence. I also see Guettarda, of whom I am a long term admirer re his editing wikipedia, posted above me. if you want to respond with any issues you have with me to me please do so directly to me. Thanks, SqueakBox 04:38, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take you at your word. As to my issues, I will try to be more direct in the future. --Dragon695 (talk) 10:54, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AN

While you're apologising, explaining your failure of civility would be useful. Black Kite 16:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Civility

I suspect that your discussions on AN and elsewhere about fair use would go better if you were to assume good faith and be more civil. I have no doubt that Black Kite's goal is the same as yours - improving the encyclopedia. You disagree on how to do that, but neither of you are trolls, and throwing that word around does not improve the situation at all. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have redacted that comment and I will try to be more WP:COOL from now on. I shall disengage for a bit and let things settle down. --Dragon695 (talk) 17:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Get lost, GNU freedom troll! You are exactly the kind of people who make Wikipedia suck, by insisting on ruining our fine articles with your idiotic ideology. Go back to commons where you belong. --Dragon695 (talk) 19:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC) [11] 86.44.16.82 (talk) 21:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anon, your WP:POINTy removal of images from a FA in addition to trolling Elonka's talk page with personal threats is exactly why I wrote that. I have apologized to Elonka for loosing my cool, but you should refrain, too! --Dragon695 (talk) 21:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you out of your mind? 86.44.16.82 (talk) 22:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The comment you reverted.

If you post it again, feel free to include the reply I wrote:

Not disagreeing with your position here, but for the record the WMF has set an absolute ceiling on how permissive the policy can be, which can be fairly summized as something like "The usage must be legal, and freely licensed works are to be strictly preferred and non-freely licensed works must only be used where they are needed to fulfill the overall mission". Then the foundation allows the projects fairly wide berth to figure out the details of that. Certainly ENwp's policy (and implementation thereof) could be much more permissive than it is now and still be within the WMF's mandate, which I think was your point.

I just don't want anyone reading your statement the misunderstand it as a claim that the Foundation has entirely left this matter up to the projects.

When talking about the WMF's policy keep in mind that EnWP is one wiki out of over seven hundred. As far as I'm aware: When the WMF's policy on content licensing was created it wasn't an effort to curtail or change EnWP's behavior (as some people have occasionally claimed here), other than perhaps to remind some people that amassing freely licensed part of the mission is officially considered also very important and that the policies need to be enforced.

The material concerns at the time of the resolution included things like some more obscure Wikipedias establishing policies such as allowing Wikipedians to upload their own photos as CC-By-NC-ND and some projects having no oversight or review of copyright related issues at all. Things like this are not permitted by the WMF, even if a project were to develop a majority that wanted it.

I get the feeling that some English Wikipedians took a look at the policy and related announcements and after they were unable to find significant relevance for their own project they adopted a strained interpretation which made the rules relevant. The fact that a rule can't apply to a particular situation without using a strained interpretation is no justification for using one.

--Gmaxwell (talk) 21:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused, but that's probably because my frustration is getting the better of me. I think I understand what you are saying. I reverted because I decided it wasn't worth debating at the moment. I want free images and I have in fact created a few free images to illustrate a somewhat vintage Volvo. I will continue to do so. What annoys me is what to do when you exhaust a reasonable amount of effort trying to obtain a free image but failed? I can't accept the idea that we must settle for nothing at all. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. I do know that a picture is worth more than a thousand words and we shouldn't be so flippant about such matters. We were really lucky when David was still with us, but what the hell are we going to do now that a bunch of myopic people thought that driving him from the project was a good idea? It is all very frustrating. --Dragon695 (talk) 21:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings! I was pointed here to try to answer some of your questions. (And thanks for taking the Volvo images!) Yeah, it's pretty frustrating when you try to find a freely-licensed image and there isn't one, yet. The WMF policy is to only allow non-free content where it wouldn't be reasonable to get a freely-licensed image (a cartoon character, for example, or a famous painting). There are some situations where it's possible but just hard: a rare classic car, a singer who doesn't do many tours. Unfortunately, it isn't really possible to come up with black-and-white rules for what's reasonable or unreasonable, which sometimes leads to inconsistencies and confusion in the way individual projects handle it. But Wikimedia's left implementation to individual projects because they can make judgments as things come up rather than having to have an official meeting and pass a resolution for every hard case; what's more important that having a good set of black-and-white rules to follow is making the effort to adhere to the spirit and intent of the policy.

Many people argue for allowing non-free media in the cases where finding a freely-licensed image isn't unreasonable but simply hard, saying like you do that a non-free picture is better than no picture at all. The position makes sense—why hold out instead of having nothing there at all? The problem is that if we use the non-free picture, we reduce a big incentive for other people to replace it with a freely-licensed image. But no image at all (or the placeholder asking for help, like on some articles) can encourage people to add theirs.

There are a lot of no-cost reference materials online already, and if that were our only goal there wouldn't be as strong a reason for Wikipedia to exist. But part of the goal is to create a reference that can be freely taken apart, remixed, shared, and reused, and the pictures are part of that; we want to encourage people to find and create free media to allow that, and not simply to use existing non-free media that someone else may not be able to use without having to negotiate the rights, if at all.

That does mean that in the short term, there will be some articles without media for a while. But Wikipedia is a work in progress. There are thousands and thousands more images than there were last year, even last month, as people slowly find, create, and upload them—that probably wouldn't be there if there had already been something in their place. (There were long stretches of time where Wikipedia was missing articles on a multitude of important subjects... well, still is, but fewer of them now. What if we could simply have copied them from Britannica?) And it really sucks about David; he's a good guy. But even though he was one of the most active individually, his images were still a small part of the total; not enough to be the difference between continuing to grow or not. Even with lots of individual frustrations in dealing with copyrights and difficult-to-find images, we have a lot more freely-reusable images than if we'd simply allowed everything we could possibly legally get away with for our own use.

Hope this answered some of your frustrations at least somewhat. I can also point you to some of the other ways people have tracked down hard-to-get images; for example, a few people have had good results with asking people directly if they will release their images under a license we can use and have semi-boilerplate letters for it. Cheers, Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 23:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working on copy editing some Power Mac articles at the moment, but I'd like to have an opportunity to reply to this in more detail. Meanwhile, I'd like to hear what you think about this essay. It pretty much is meshes with many of my feelings on the matter. --Dragon695 (talk) 23:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Drama, and the decreasing of it

I have noticed a tendancy of comments of yours to increase, rather than decrease the drama. For instance, your recent comment on WP:ANI about others hypothetical reactions to something served no purpose other than to either A. chit-chat or B. anger other people. I am assuming good faith and asking you to please avoid using wikipedia to "chat." Thanks. PouponOnToast (talk) 17:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bait not taken. Cheers! --Dragon695 (talk) 17:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm curious to know what you would like to say

[12] But it seems you never quite said it. There seem to be a lot of odd happenings and edit conflicts and so on with that page tonight. You may wish to revisit whether simply a header is enough to get your point across. ;-) Risker (talk) 03:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind. Risker (talk) 03:54, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I always do that on heavily edited pages. I'm probably not adding much, but I literally was on Giano's talk page about to write about something unrelated when this all went down. Anyway, I said my peace, but I do reject the idea that somehow we must now not have any ArbCom because of the June Announcements issue. --Dragon695 (talk) 03:56, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I quite agree with you; a decent, community-stumping case well conducted would do much to reassure the community's faith in the committee. This isn't the case, and I think Blnguyen has summarised exactly why. Anything that gets from first action to Arbcom in 4 hours and 5 minutes is not ready for RFAR; other options have clearly not even been considered, let alone tried. And now, with everyone expecting the case to be accepted within hours, there is no motivation whatsoever to try to work with the editors and admins involved. With imminent appearance before the committee, the admins cannot admit to any error in judgment. Once again, we have set people up to fail. It saddens me that the most likely outcome is the loss of a couple of longtime members of the community. Risker (talk) 04:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any dispute resolution process for this, though? I dunno what the best thing to do here is, but I don't think it is fair for Tango to have been de-sysopped while WMC gets another slap on the wrist. I'm big on the idea that all editors should have policy applied equally to them, be they sinners or saints. --Dragon695 (talk) 04:30, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

NPA

This is a personal attack. Please withdraw it and cease. Odd nature (talk) 17:30, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not seeing the attack. Kelly ^hi! 17:33, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, I was addressing the appearance of creating unnecessary smoke to obfuscate other long standing issues. --Dragon695 (talk) 17:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest that anyone who wants the "IDCab" meme to go away should stop engaging in the tag-teaming behavior that led to the meme getting started in the first place. Now what do you want to bet that certain other unnamed editors (completely coincidentally, of course) will also show up on this talk page to support Odd nature? Kelly ^hi! 17:40, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dragon, FYI. Kelly ^hi! 17:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Screw it, I've had it with these clowns, so I gave that page an earful of just what I think about them. Probably not a good idea, but oh well. --Dragon695 (talk) 18:07, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it may have been satisfying for a few minutes, but you probably undermined your own point by allowing yourself to be baited like that. I do see some delicious irony in the fact that another member of the alleged "cabal" showed up to argue in that thread. It's also interesting that the ID group now considers the term "tendentious" to be a personal attack, since many of them use the term "tendentious" to describe their own opponents - for example, see User talk:Ludwigs2. I guess they will stop using that term now, or linking to WP:TE, since doing so is "harrassment" and an "attack". :) Kelly ^hi! 18:26, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One only hopes, but now I intend to go work some more on trying to add citations to our Power Mac articles and will leave it to them to hash out their complaints. --Dragon695 (talk) 18:30, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't label or personally attack people or their edits. Accusing anyone of being part of a tendentious cabal is a personal attack which violates WP:EQ, pure and simple. If you don't see it then you don't know WP:EQ, WP:CIVIL and WP:NOT. Odd nature (talk) 17:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a personal attack to point out that someone was observed doing thing X, if the person was in fact doing thing X. It may not be polite, it may not be prudent, but it's not an attack. The attack comes when one uses a fact to make unsupported inferences or extensions. ++Lar: t/c 19:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dragon695: "Odd Nature has shown up to solicit a round from the ID boo-hoo brigade" is an unacceptable characterisation, as is "these clowns" and I would ask you not to use such wording again. State the facts, calmly and dispassionately, and remain collegial, regardless of whether you feel provoked or not. Avoid baiting. Avoid taking bait. Remain calm. Remain polite. Even if those you are discussing things with do not. That's my view. I hope you find it helpful. ++Lar: t/c 19:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry. You are correct, I was not acting in a collegial manner and should try harder to keep COM:MELLOW. I let my passions get the better of me and lashed out. Fundamentally, having seen how Moulton got treated and then to see all the outrage over OrangeMarlin's treatment just rubbed me the wrong way. I think it is very unfair and I'll leave it at that. Like I said above, I am happily working on sourcing some of the Power Mac articles and that is providing sufficient distraction. --Dragon695 (talk) 20:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The drama must stop. The inability to aapreciate the reality of the situation must stop. The ID cabal labelling, andall other labelling, must stop.

Dragon, you're comment clearly violated NPA. Lar and Kelly, if I made a similar statement regarding the WR Cabal I fear that you'd be after my scalp.

If one feels that one can justify the unjustifiable, defend the indefensible and excuse the inexcusable simply because one hatesthe target of a significant misrepresentation and miscarriage of WP's guidelines and policies, one might ask oneself if their interests lie in improving Wikipedia or in increasing drama, tendentiousness and potential disruption. Jim62sch^dissera! 22:41, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bait not taken. --Dragon695 (talk) 22:49, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, a failure to AGF. There was no bait, there was a statement regarding the current realities on WP, and I wasn't looking for any comments. Jim62sch^dissera! 23:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Daniel (talk) 02:10, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

John celona

I see you've removed your comments here, but I wanted to clarify that my links were only evidence that the two accounts are identical, not evidence of wrongdoing beyond sockpuppetry. I gather that you realized that, and that's why you removed your comments, but I wanted to make sure anyway. Cheers, Sarcasticidealist (talk) 03:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is correct, I'm sorry I really screwed up and WP:ABFed on that one. The sockpuppetry is bad and I think you have a pretty strong case, even if it will be disappointing to loose an ally in names dispute. Oh well... --Dragon695 (talk) 04:00, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Independence Day!

As you are a nice Wikipedian, I just wanted to wish you a happy Independence Day! And if you are not an American, then have a happy day and a wonderful weekend anyway! :) Your friend and colleague, --Happy Independence Day! Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 21:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DRV comments

I don't think additions like this example are a good idea. They're not exactly in the spirit of assume good faith. CIreland (talk) 16:32, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I urge you to remove these notices...your edit summary "Note editors with a Wikipedia Review sub-forum dedicated to criticism of their Wikipedia actions" is also misleading...much of the "criticism" is more like outting, attacks and libel. I don't think it is a good idea to be informing others that our editors have been earmarked.--MONGO 16:43, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, they are sub-forums for criticism. I don't give a damn about outing and that is certainly not why I would revert. Still, I have reverted because it seemed like not such a great idea at the moment for other reasons. --Dragon695 (talk) 16:47, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to see..thank you. Could it also be a possible COI if editors who are participating in that website are commenting at the DRV that they feel the website is worthy of an article? I'm just saying.--MONGO 16:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly, but then again, there are some editors without dedicated sub-forums who have been the subject of a criticism thread or two. Regardless, they still voted to overturn. For unrelated reasons I removed the notes, but I do believe that persons with a significant level of criticism or perceived outing cannot make an informed decision on this. --Dragon695 (talk) 16:56, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Surprisingly, I am open to critcism...but what I don't condone is using offsite venues to foment anarchy here. As far as whether myself and others who have been earmarked (admittedly, most of the "criticism" regarding me is mild) can make an informed decision is something I will examine. However, the facts are that that website is not notable except to us overall.--MONGO 17:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I guess we can agree to disagree on the WP:N part. That said, as an inclusionist, I do sometimes feel like taking Kurt's position. I just find WP:WEB to be much too arbitrary. --Dragon695 (talk) 18:05, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Review- grow up

Regarding [13], please try to act a bit more maturely in the future. If we want to start playing this sort of game we can also add lists of everyone in the DRV who regularly posts to WR. Frankly, I have generally (I grant my views on this have evolved) been in favor of allowing links to WR and other so called "attack sites"s. I have consistently argued that we should have articles on groups whether or not we like them. To claim that the presence of a forum of disgruntled nincompoops discussing me would be a reason I wouldn't want an article on them is laughable and at best unproductive. JoshuaZ (talk) 18:02, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I thought that it was unhelpful so I self-reverted. I don't really understand the need of some to comment on self-reverted edits. I made a mistake and corrected it, enough said. --Dragon695 (talk) 18:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your reverts were made after User:CIreland posted his comment above. But again, I appreciate that you did revert. Best wishes.--MONGO 20:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry I didn't see that you had reverted the edit when I posted my comment. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your removed comment. :)

Please don't box me in with BC. I sometimes disagree with his actions, and often disagree with his technique. I consider hyper-ruleslawerish, absolutist, and aggressive actions of some people doing cleanup to be harmful and highly unfortunate. ... But they seem to be the few that can survive the meat-grinder for long. More considered even handed people seem to burn out on the cleanup work. I think that you and I would be far more able to reach reasonable compromises than you give me credit for. Please cut me some slack. On AN/I my comments were limited to pointing out that BC wasn't the only person with suboptimal behavior, which doesn't excuse BC's behavior, but it's something else worth considering. --Gmaxwell (talk) 02:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted because I recognized my failure to WP:AGF. I apologize for not being more thoughtful. --Dragon695 (talk) 02:15, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your comment at WT:NFC

Just wanted to say thanks - I have a lot of respect for you, too. Hey, today's a great day for me - I finally was able to find a good free photo of Cynthia Watros. (I'm a Lost fan.) Time to do some more digging and fill out the rest of the cast list. :) Take care - Kelly ^hi! 17:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, no problem and congrats on finding that free image. Speaking of free images of living persons, would you be able to assist with Image:John_Denham_Portrait_Photo_2_(reduced_dpi).jpg? I discovered this while perusing IfD and noticed that the uploader's username appears to imply that it is the office of the politician who is the subject of that photo. If that is the case, given that most political promotional photograph copyrights are held by the politician, I think we should try to verify the user is indeed the office of the politician. If that is the case, then we have a very valuable free image of a notable politician in the UK House of Commons. I'm not sure how to proceed, but I started by leaving a comment on the IfD, on the nominator's talkpage, and actually adding the image to John Denham. You seem to have a more cordial working relationship with the image folks, so I was hoping you might be able to help. Thanks in advance! --Dragon695 (talk) 18:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Dragon - sorry for the delayed reply. Should be pretty simple to deal with - just send an e-mail to his office to confirm that someone there uploaded the photo. His e-mail addresses (there are two) can be found here. Then, if they reply, just forward the e-mail, with a link to the photo page, to permissions-en

wikimedia.org. Kelly ^hi! 13:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On interperations of policy

A little unsolicited advice: When someone comes at you with an invocation of policy which is entirely unreasonable, of clearly negative effect, and which appears to be outside of the general intent and guiding principle of the policy, then your best bet is to argue that their interpretation is incorrect, since thats most likely the case, rather than to try and change the policy.

Policy usually doesn't get adopted without being vetted for basic reasonableness. Sometimes the wording of a policy invites confusion and should be changed, but such arguments are best made by pointing to prior resolved cases of confusion and asking everyone how we could best avoid them.

If someone comes at you with a policy argument perWP:NFCC which, if applied, would have us delete virtually all non-free images, it's clearly not a reasonable interpretation. We have a fairly long policy which explains its principles precisely because we intend to permit a great many things though far from all. It would make no sense to have a little hidden clause which moots almost the entire document. No Wikipedia policy works that way when correctly read. --Gmaxwell (talk) 14:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Fasach_Nua

You know as well as anyone that labelling people as "clowns" is not particularly acceptable. Watch the insults in future, please, okay? Neıl 龱 08:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fine. Another failure to WP:AGF on my part, I guess. --Dragon695 (talk) 08:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's something only you will know. You can get your point across just as emphatically without the insults. Neıl 龱 09:25, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please look over the current options for Rezko language and pick one to help us get to consensus

This is a form notice, not a personal message. I'm sending it out to the most recent contributors to the Rezko discussion at Talk:Barack Obama. Sorry if this is inconvenient, but we may be close to consensus if we can get your help.

Hi, I've noticed you've been a part of the Rezko discussion but haven't said which of the options now on the table you'd prefer. It would really help us to get to consensus if we could get your input on that. There's been plenty of discussion, but if you have questions, I'm sure other editors would answer them. The four options now on the table are the three in Talk:Barack Obama#Straw poll and Talk:Barack Obama#Scjessey-preferred version (which doesn't contain the word "criticism"). So far, the two most popular versions seem to be Clubjuggle's Version 3 and Scjessey's. Please help us try to wrap this up. Noroton (talk) 17:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar

		The Commons Ambassador Barnstar
		For your discovery of high-quality free images from the Ford Motor Company - awesome work! Kelly ^hi! 17:57, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. are you aware of Flickr upload Bot? It makes uploading Flickr images about 100 times easier. Kelly ^hi! 17:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! My first barnstar! w00t!!! ^_^ About the bot, I'm not using it so that the images will be in my log just in case someone deletes or something... Is it a problem? --Dragon695 (talk) 18:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, no problem at all. When I use the bot (I've uploaded hundreds of images that way), I typically just watchlist the images I upload with it so I know if there is a problem. It's a judgment call...the benefit is that the license is automatically confirmed and the description page automatically formatted. The downside is that the image doesn't appear in your gallery. Kelly ^hi! 18:14, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I figured. I definitely like the interface, so why isn't it integrated into commons so that the upload gets credited to the uploader? Also, why don't they allow Special:Import so that transwiki will preserve history? --Dragon695 (talk) 18:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've wondered that myself once in a while, but have never really dug into it. For myself, I don't normally worry about having my name associated with someone else's photo that I upload - after all, I didn't take the picture, so why should I try to horn in and take some kind of credit for uploading it? But that's just me, other people feel differently. Kelly ^hi! 18:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not trying to take credit. I guess what I'm saying is I like the permanence of Special:Log, since I've had problems with my watchlist in the past, that's all. --Dragon695 (talk) 19:12, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anyways, I'm just happy to have found it! ^_^ --Dragon695 (talk) 19:14, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ford Flickr

(Copied from GeeJo's talkpage) I was doing my daily browsing of interesting media licensed exclusively as "cc-by" and "cc-by-sa" on Flickr, when I stumbled upon what I thought was a goldmine. Hundreds of great publicity shots from Ford Motor Company. Well, as it turns out, only the more recent posts to Flickr are cc-by, all the rest are cc-by-nc. Then I noticed that you made arrangements with Ford for the use of one of the cc-by-nc's in our article on the Ford Flex. What's the deal? Does OTRS have on file the permission for us to use their cc-by-nc content as cc-by? Or are there alternative arrangements? If you want to see what I've uploaded from their rent cc-by releases, I've created a new category on Commons: commons:Category:Taken by Ford Motor Company. Let me know your thoughts on this, Lar and I were discussing this earlier (when we thought everything was cc-by) and were pretty excited. It would be nice to have a rich database of content to illustrate our Ford product articles with. --Dragon695 (talk) 00:42, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I made no deal - they simply relicensed some of the images that I'd uploaded under cc-by to cc-by-nc (the very next day). CC licenses are non-revokable, so provided that someone verified that the images were freely available at some point, we can continue using them, with a notice that the image is now under a different license at the source. I agree that it's a shame that they changed the license on the earlier photographs, but unless they change them back at some point down the line, we can't use any that weren't uploaded before the cutoff date. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 07:17, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rats! Well, going forward:

We know that they license their new media as cc-by.
We know that after x days of being available, they re-license the media as cc-by-nc.
We could extrapolate that Ford is somewhat flexible and that asking for an OTRS waiver that allows us to use any of the media under cc-by might be fruitful.
We should indicate on all such media that was uploaded and verified before the switchover date about the practice as indicated by #1 and #2. Don't want a repeat of Luke Ford (oh the irony).
We should make sure all such media is under a common category, such as commons:Category:Taken by Ford Motor Company, so that it can be monitored and also to prevent duplication.
We should try to get some sort of amnesty from the non-encyclopedic/deletionist patrol? Gmaxwell might be a good person to talk to about this.

If you are interested, I would like to try seeing how far we could get with #3. I don't know if you've ever tried such a thing in the past, but two heads are better than one. I believe that such grants have happened in other cases, such that on commons the media was licensed as one thing while on the host site it continues to be licensed as another. Confusing, yes, but that's already the case, isn't it? It's just a matter of getting the wording correct and, of course, drawing on the fact that a google search for any of their product is highly likely to return our site in the first 10. Let me know what you think, I look forward to collaborating with you on this effort. --Dragon695 (talk) 10:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The situation with Flickr licenses changing is a pretty common one, and the whole reason the Flickr review scheme was set up at Commons. So long as the image has its free license verified (if you use Flickr upload bot, the license is verified at the time of upload), there should be no problems if the license gets subsequently changed. This is the reason I try to move Flickr-sourced images from English Wikipedia to the Commons - En Wikipedia has no similar license verification and the images get deleted if the license is changed.

For requesting OTRS permission, see this or this. Kelly ^hi! 13:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've added the rest of the images I uploaded from Ford's flickr page to the category, and I'll go through in a minute and add {{Flickr-change-of-license}} templates to those that need them. I agree that the best way to go about this would be to contact someone in sales/marketing in Ford by e-mail. It's unlikely that any immunity would be granted by the Commons community, as it'd set a dangerous precedent. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 16:31, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds great! --Dragon695 (talk) 10:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note on a comment

I notice this post on ANI. This kind of style in a dispute just enhances disputes and detracts from resolving them. A better style is to try and help resolve them, which in turn would allow editors to go back to editing content.

Please avoid comments like this in future. Thanks.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did I overreact? Sure and I apologize for doing so. However, I'm tired of these editors running to AN/I because they believe Viridae's is proxy administrating for Wikipedia Review. And, yes, that is the primary motivator for much of this irrationality as could be clearly seen from his earlier statements in the thread. If anything, Viridae's involvement in Wikipedia Review allowed him to recognize the socks. But, oh no, they believe that everyone over there is in on some conspiracy to destroy them. Is there crazy stuff over there? Sure, I don't believe half of it including stuff said about you. However, there are thoughtful and engaging conversations on other hot topics, as well. In fact, your former colleague NYB has been quite active in recent days engaging in many of these conversations. Maybe you think he is a glutton for punishment, I don't know, but this McCarthyite hatred of Wikipedia Review really needs to stop. --Dragon695 (talk) 10:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Warning

Today started - somewhat appropriately - by posting some thoughts on user interaction in general, here. I hope this is a view you can broadly agree with, on the whole issue about "hatreds", and saves me repeating :)

What I actually came to your page for was that two days after warning over the above, I came across this. It's the same problem again, a style that enhances disputes and detracts from resolving them. ("I just love how he paints [...] Shame on him! [...] People like [him] must go!") Please in a gentle sense, read my posts at the link above, and take this as an amicable and hopefully historic warning. There's so many better ways to make a point well.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 17:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I shall. Maybe I was frustrated because it seems like, once again, Slim and FM are going to get away with abusing valued contributors like Cla68 and Sandy? What else am I supposed to think when jpgordon pops in to not only dismiss honest concerns about Tony's behavior, but to also say that JV is a bad clerk? Every time I read a thoughtful post by NYB over at the other place, it makes me sad that he is no longer here to reign in the partisans like jpgordon. ABF? Maybe so, but like I told Lar, if someone keeps bickering that it is snowing outside when it is the middle of July in South Carolina, I'm really going to have a hard time taking them seriously. Those who would support such an obvious disruptive editor, even more so. That jpgordon pops in to reinforce Tony's ludicrous behavior speaks volumes about his character (or lack thereof). His telling JV that he needed to resign was outrageous. --Dragon695 (talk) 18:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find that the best cure for frustration and anger about political infighting around here is to go find a unloved, stubby article somewhere and spend some time seriously improving it. A break from any page with "Wikipedia:" in front of it can do wonders for one's attitude and perspective on matters. I'd recommend it wholeheartedly and sincerely. By the way, thank you for doing this - it was the right thing to do. MastCell ^Talk 19:59, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RfA thank you

		Thank you!
		Dragon695, it is with deep awareness of the responsibility conferred by your trust that I am honored to report that in part to your support, my request for adminship passed (87/14/6). I deeply value the trust you and the Wikipedia community have in me, and I will embark on a new segment of my Wikipedia career by putting my new tools to work to benefit the entire community. My best to you, Happyme22 (talk) 04:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Personal attacks

Please refrain from making personal attacks like you did here. Thanks! Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto: "Support I agree with everyking, it's time to put the past in the past. Is Ed a little crazy? Sure. I think Ed is sincerely needed to keep some of the rowdy science editors from tearing this project apart. His firm, but polite approach is just what the doctor ordered. I totally disagree with Ed's politics and views on science, but I recognized long ago that having differing voices is always better. Especially when an embaressing bunch of fanatics are constantly disrupting the project, when all else fails, send Ed in to give 'em the smackdown. --Dragon695 (talk) 16:18, 18 July 2008 (UTC) " -- Yes, you removed the last part, but it's still in the history. Please think before you type and leave the vitriol behind. Jim62sch^dissera! 21:05, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shoo! Complaining about something that I refactored a moment later is silly. --Dragon695 (talk) 11:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That I agree with here. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:18, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Refactor" is a meaningless word, you mean either edited or redacted. Nonetheless, the fact that you even made the comment is troublesome. Jim62sch^dissera! 16:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You've made your point, Jim, and Dragon has asked you not to post here. Please stop. Kelly ^hi! 16:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, no he didn't (unless "Shoo!" was meant that way). And Kelly, given that you seem much like Bertan de Born (Eccovi!) I'm afraid I can't really confer upon your opinion as much weight as I doon those of opthers. Sorry, but I seek to make logical points, you seem seek to stir strife and drama, and I simply cannot abide that. Jim62sch^dissera! 16:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Huh - in regards to "strife and drama", I guess I would ask which of us has been the subject of an arbitration case. In the meantime, I'll wait for Dragon to opine whether or not he wants you to post here. Regards - Kelly ^hi! 16:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for proving my point, Kelly. Jim62sch^dissera! 16:53, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome, Jim. Kelly ^hi! 16:56, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really mind if he posts reasonable complaints, but quibbling over comments I changed moments later is rather silly. --Dragon695 (talk) 00:16, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Civility Warning

This is unacceptable behavior on Wikipedia and I see that it isn't your first transgression and this not your first civility/NPA warning. One more like this and I will take action to ensure that it stops. Given your history of blatant hostility toward these editors at Wikipedia and offsite, I'm telling you that you need to refrain from speaking to them or about them, and if you do, do so in civil terms. I won't issue another warning. FeloniousMonk (talk) 12:45, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After reviewing all the warnings to you above, the links supporting them, and your actions across the project, I see that you chronically are incivil and bent on harassing others and generally dismissive or warnings so I'm giving you a 24 hour time out to rethink your method of participating at Wikipedia. FeloniousMonk (talk) 12:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked

You have been blocked from editing for 24 hours for chronically violating Wikipedia's WP:CIVIL and WP:HAR policies. and If you believe this block is unjustified you may contest this block by replying here on your talk page by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}}. You may also email the blocking administrator or any administrator from this list instead, or mail unblock-en-l@mail.wikimedia.org. FeloniousMonk (talk) 12:56, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is uncalled for, but perhaps havent understood the background. The diffs prior to your own were refactored and that was mentioned above. This diff alone is a ridiculous reason for a block. Is there more to this? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:11, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Taken to ANI#Dragon695 blocked --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Utterly silly. Maybe now arbcom will actually do something? --B (talk) 13:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One can always tell the cut of another's jib by the tack he takes. Jim62sch^dissera! 16:19, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have been unblocked. Please be polite and do not seek to stir up drama over this matter. Jehochman ^Talk 13:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I entirely endorse Jehochman's statement. I will understand if you get annoyed over this, but I'd recommend simply adding this action to the evidence on the ArbCom case if you want to pursue anything over the block. Kelly ^hi! 13:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Check my block log, Jehochman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), and now look at User:Archtransit. You may be upset, but staying calm will reflect well on you. Jehochman ^Talk 14:01, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I echo Jehochman's request to not stir up drama. I personally suggest that you leave the case pages alone for a decent block of time, irrespective of whether you are vindicated or not. Someone uninvolved could even reblock, (it has been known to happen, for good or ill:) so dont push your luck. Take your time and take stock, let others drive the discussion and let it peter out if that is what comes of it. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 14:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the advice. I will not give them the pleasure of going out of control nor will I bother with ArbCom. Also, I'm content to do other things, anyways I'm through with that case for now. Warning, don't bother taking up my cause at the current RFArb. There are a number of editors who feel that my frugal contributions to the main article space and my lack of huggle/twinkle padded edit counts condemn me to be not someone who is here to build an encyclopedia. There are reasons for this, but I've already explained in the past and will not repeat unless asked. My purpose: I believe in Wikipedia and want to see it remain an excellent starting point for finding information I want to know. I am a reader and a user of content. That is why I feel so passionately about the subjects I comment on. --Dragon695 (talk) 18:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I support the unblock, FM was clearly involved. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement

I was angry at what I consider to be a massive campaign against Ed Poor's RFA. I rarely, if ever, agree with Ed on anything, but I felt the opposes were over the top. My comment about riff-raff is not uncivil. Riff-raff is a child's word, if I wanted to be insulting or uncivil I would have used much harsher words than that, I assure you. Further, I felt that many of the attacks on Ed by the opposition were far worse than my own, even the before-refactored comment. I was responding to my belief that Ed Poor needs should be permitted to bring his dissent to the Intelligent Design and Global Warming articles, despite the fact I totally disagree with his viewpoint. Keeping controversial articles from becoming walled gardens of woo is a goal that Wikipedia should seek to achieve. We cannot allow even the most righteous people to WP:OWN whole swaths of subject matter. Not to be pointed, but some in the greater scientific community were patently wrong on eugenics, the popular bastardization of Darwin's natural selection, at the turn of the 20th century. I've been reading an excellent book, War Against the Weak by Edwin Black, which catalogs just how it was that a group of determined American and British scientists popularized this hideous science and even directly inspired the tactics of Hitler. It is a chilling account of what happens when determined scientists insist that their viewpoint is the only viewpoint that matters and how uncritical groupthink led to horrendous travesties being perpetrated against our poor and sick at that time. My point is that groupthink is bad. Refusing to debate opposing views is bad. Ed brings the necessary questioning which ultimately results in better articles because lazy and poorly sourced material is kept out, while some space is given for the opposing viewpoint. I feel that my fellow colleagues treatment of Ed, based mostly on his behavior on another project - which by the way is admittedly slanted (the "conserv" in CP should have been the hint) - was awful. My comments were not directed at anyone in particular and were only meant as an attempt to console Ed on his good faith attempt to serve the community again. Please do not wheel war over this block. I will just go do some move to commons until it is resolved satisfactorily. Cheers! --Dragon695 (talk) 18:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good statement, Dragon - classy. You've been unblocked by overwhelming community consensus, though, so feel free to carry on as normal. Kelly ^hi! 18:27, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alas, the autoblock was not lifted. I'm using a university wireless network, it is not an open proxy. Also, I would appreciate it if someone could copy my statement to AN/I. This is all I will say on the matter. --Dragon695 (talk) 18:44, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dragon, I posted your statement and requested a fix on your autoblock. Kelly ^hi! 18:53, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I shall now go find images to move to commons. While I find Redvers essay to be correct on many points, the show must go on. --Dragon695 (talk) 19:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, Redvers has points that I don't know how to fix, though I think he personalizes things too much. But he contributes great photos, so best not to piss him off. I can handle being called an "officious jerk" if we all get good pictures anyway. :) Hope this is all sorted out soon - Kelly ^hi! 19:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alison says your autoblock should be removed. Kelly ^hi! 19:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again! Now off to commons to move some more trains! Tally-ho! --Dragon695 (talk) 19:14, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unblock request

Your request to be unblocked has been granted for the following reason(s):

Autoblock # 991765 removed.

Request handled by: Rjd0060 (talk) 19:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Drama

I thought we were here to work on an encyclopedia, but you just seem to be here to stir up as much drama as possible. Less than 100 edits to articles in 2.5 years, yet you have no problem chiming in and rudely making bad situations worse. Can you possibly give any justification as to why you are a contributor here? It's not to build an encyclopedia, is it? Why don't you stop wasting real contributors time and just fuck off.

I'm thinking you might have confused me with Beam. --Dragon695 (talk) 00:10, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments at BLP

More of us need to stand up to the increasingly-extreme demands of the BLP activists. It has gone way too far already. Something needs to be done. Mr. IP 《Defender of Open Editing》 01:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BenBurch

Don't revert edits as vandalism when they are not. It is not appropriate at all. This is non-WP:BLP compliant; it is completely unsourced, it doesn't belong here. Please revert yourself. Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk) 00:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reverting for no good reason is vandalism. He has every right to respond to this unsavory character on his userpage. --Dragon695 (talk) 00:15, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BOSTONTEAPARTY

Hi. I just (belatedly) noticed revert of my edit at the essay I created. I'm afraid that I reverted your revert, as the edits that had been introduced actually made the essay say the exact opposite of what it is supposed to be advocating, which is do not edit war. If you disagree with this maxim, feel free to write your own essay, but it's a little daft to make an opinion piece say the opposite of what it intends. --Dweller (talk) 11:08, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Really?

Have I really been consistently arguing? I thought I was just calmly giving my opinion. Does it come off looking like something else? Friday (talk) 01:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not on just this one. You tend to be quite tenditious when it comes to opposing based on youth. There are others, but basically I am objecting to unproven accusations of future action based on psuedoscientific nonsense. It all comes off as a personal attack. Be like Kurt, and just say oppose based on age concerns and there would be no problem. However, when you try to spell out your rationale, you envitably make unprovable allegations about the candidate's character. Lastly, Anonymous Dissident was made an administrator at 12 and he has yet to be anything but exemplary. He is thoughtful, mediated difficult ethnic disputes, and always has something valuable to say. Please correlate your speculative evidence with that. --Dragon695 (talk) 01:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The only firm conclusion I can come to right now is that I've failed spectacularly to explain myself. It's bizarre and incomprehensible to me that my opinions would cause such strong disagreement. Does User:Friday/Ageism help at all? It's something I wrote a few months back when I was getting complained at for being ageist. Friday (talk) 01:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have a look, perhaps I am not seeing things clearly. I'll stop commenting on that page now. --Dragon695 (talk) 01:37, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll also add that as a gay person, I've experienced first hand what it feels like to be discriminated based on sexual orientation. Perhaps this is why it feels so emotional to see someone disqualified for a position based on age. Yes, I do believe that is the crux of the problem. I hate unfairness and inequity. I'll refrain from further causing problems, but I do not think it is right or fair. --Dragon695 (talk) 01:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. For me it's not remotely an emotional issue, so this may be why I was taken aback by your response. In my mind, this is a purely rational and pragmatic thing. There's no emotion and no grand philosophies- just a common-sense recognition that children aren't yet adults. Friday (talk) 14:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

personal note

I responded to your apology at Jamie's RfA, but wanted to come here as well to thank you for it. It does mean a lot to me... I know that I have a lot of ground to overcome to regain yours and others people's trust. I just ask for the opportunity to do so, so your apology really does mean something. Thanks.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 01:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I was not thinking properly at the time and made some hasty comments. I'm afraid the whole age thing has led to some irrationality on my part. I shall refrain from commenting further there. I think you are doing a good deal to make things better. It was wrong of me to lash out like that at you. --Dragon695 (talk) 02:04, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again, thanks for the vote of confidence... Giggy/H20 redeemed himself at GAR, I plan on doing so at RfA. But there will undoubtably be many who crawl out of the woodwork when I least expect it to remind me of my gaff. :( ---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 03:00, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

August 2008

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, we would like to remind you not to attack other editors, as you did on WikipediaANI/I have blocked Betacommand#A firmer proposal. Please comment on the contributions and not the contributors. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 03:27, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DTTR. In responding to Ned's calling John ignorant, I was not attacking Ned but rather reminding him who John was. Also, get your links right, sheesh. --Dragon695 (talk) 03:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's probably a good essay to follow in the future. And thanks for the clarification of the situation. NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 04:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RfA

Thanks for your support. What has happened here is that a group of current and former arbitrators banded together and threw everything they could at me to torpedo the nom when they saw I was getting overwhelming support. Raul is the main culprit, of course. It's shameful that arbitrators, of all people, are behaving this way, but I'm afraid they're probably going to succeed this time, unless there's some kind of late rally in the supports. I've interacted with very few of the later opposers, so I suspect their votes are mainly based on that vehement ArbCom opposition. Everyking (talk) 21:22, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I am a bit surprised by that, too. It all seems incredibly petty on their part. Well, at least you got Kurt supporting! Despite what some have said, I think you've acted quite commendable during this whole affair. I am sorely tempted to take OM to WP:AE for calling Ed Poor one of the worst editors ever, which is a total lie (Ed has problems, but he's certainly not even close to worst). --Dragon695 (talk) 21:32, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FPaS RFC

As a participant in the recent discussion at WP:ANI, I thought you should be informed of the new RFC that another user has started regarding FPaS's behavior.

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Future Perfect at Sunrise

Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 17:14, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Great Tagline

"Unreachable by rational discourse" was put on my head by none other than Future Perfect at Sunrise. It gave me a really good chuckle, and I thought it was too good to let go of, at least for a while. Ed Fitzgerald "unreachable by rational discourse"^{(t / c)} 00:31, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RE:Your message

I respectfully disagree. Please do understand that I am not one of those editors who consistently and mercilessly fights to make Wikipedia super-free. I am just an admin who saw a gross violation of our WP:NFCC#8 policy. Even now, not one person who has opposed removal of the image has explained to me how the use of this one non-free image meets WP:NFCC#8. Someone needs to explain how this image meets "Significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic." How is this significantly increasing the readers understanding of the article in such a way that a simple sentence and link could not do? If someone even gave me a half-ass reason, I would probably reconsider my view. But when I saw this discussion, I saw a non-free logo being used on over 100 Wikipedia pages. This is the logo of a company that is being used to show that its individual stations are owned by it. This makes no sense. Our WP:NFCC policy clearly states: "There is no automatic entitlement to use non-free content in an article. Such material may be used on the English Wikipedia only where all 10 of the following criteria are met." It is on the person who adds the photo to justify its use for each article. If this justification is not met, then the photo can (and in my opinion must) be removed, per our policy. This is the same thing as someone who is blatantly vandalizing can be blocked by any admin who notices it. All of our policies state, if this happens, then this can happen. I acted on my good-faith concern that this image blatantly fails our policies, and I am not the only one who agrees with this. Also, the foundation can and does make policy, as it owns all of the projects. Please see m:Foundation issues and for Wikipedia, WP:5. Both of which are clear on their preference for free-content. I hope this helps you to understand my view. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 22:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, the foundation does not make policy, as that is in contravention to the safe harbor provision granted to internet service providers (contrary to popular belief, that is what the foundation sees itself as). This safe harbor indemnifies it from lawsuits pertaining to content on the projects. In exchange, the foundation (or any other service provider) cannot micromanage the projects it hosts. Therefore, while it can ask each project to establish an EDP, it many not dictate the EDP itself. If it does, then it puts such safe harbor protections in jeopardy, as it is seen as becoming involved in the running of the projects. Lastly, WP:5 refers to text and not media. So yes, the EDP is always up for discussion and such changes are afoot. My response was not to your actions so much as your trump card statement that the resolution says so. The only thing that is non-negotiable is WP:NPOV. --22:27, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Ehh I see it as a gray area and a sort of argument of semantics. Does the Foundation enforce said Policies, no. But are said policies virtually unbreakable because of how Wikipedia works and who is in power, I would say yes. I do see your point though, and definitely will think about it in the future. Also, one of the WP:5 links to WP:COPYRIGHT which explains some image guidelines. Also I interpret WP:5 broadly and I believe the statement "Wikipedia is free content" is a far-reaching and core issue for Wikipedia, but that is neither here nor now. Thanks for your comments. Cheers, « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 00:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

NFCC

Hi Dragonfly, Thanks for your note on my talk page. I'm a bit busy tonight, but I'll note that user:Seicer has protected his version of the image in question, in clear violation of the policy on page protection: "Administrators should not protect or unprotect a page to further their own position in a content dispute." Despite several editors swearing up and down that it does, NFCC clearly says nothing about the number of times that an image can be used in articles, and, as you say, the Foundation doesn't govern the content, so it's certainly not a Foundation issue. The worst one, I think, was the editor who insisted that use of the image in multiple articles was "against the law". Yeesh! Firsfron of Ronchester 01:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Firs, how bout this? My bad, I did not mean against the law. I take full responsibility for that. It was wrong. I apologize for stating it. I did not remove the images because I thought it was against the law, as I clearly stated in my edit summary, I did so because it was against WP:NFFC. If you want to debate that justification, then please do. Just please get over the legal thing, stop arguing over it, and concentrate on the issue at hand. Thank you. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 02:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is more a matter of consistency then anything else. Some might argue this is de-facto decoration, but I take visual identification seriously. Not everyone learns in the same way, having readily identifiable symbols related to articles is important IMHO. As an encyclopedia, consistency is something we try to strive for across articles. Here's the problem: all TV station infoboxes contain the logo of the local affiliate, but unfortunately this organization does not have custom logos for the local affiliates. Arguably, you could say the same NBC peacock that is copyrighted is used in 100's of articles on local affiliates, but the difference is that there is a separate image for each affiliate. It is, in fact, the same difference. The peacock is the peacock, regardless of having various station numbers imposed on it. Now is it really a violation of TBN's rights to identify their affiliates with their own logo? Serious copyright abuse has its place, but using the logo as visual identification seems innocuous at best and a minor overuse at worse. --Dragon695 (talk) 03:28, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you, Dragon, that consistency is desirable when possible; I also agree that there is some parallel with the NBC logo situation, which is repeatedly used in various forms for the logos of local stations. That the TBN station logos are usually (but not exclusively) the same as TBN's is immaterial: these are the actual logos that the stations broadcast into people's homes, identifying their station as a TBN affiliate or O&O.

Consistency is desirable, but cannot override policy. Several users have stated that the usage violates WP:NFCC #8; but NFCC states that the image "is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic." The word "significant" here, I believe, is a poor choice, as editors can argue all day about what makes something "significant" or "not significant". I would argue that the station logo does significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic because it immediately identifies the station as a TBN station, and instantly clarifies both the station's programming and ownership in a way that prose cannot. The TBN situation was something that clearly several of the editors involved in the image dispute were not aware of before the mass removal. If the editors were unaware of this, imagine the readers, people Wikipedia is supposed to be written for. The NFCC #8 removal criteria that the removals hinge upon is certainly debatable, as the AN/I and WP:TVS threads have shown: we have several high-profile anti-FU administrators (as demonstrated by the previous threads at WP:TVS and on Request for Comment) removing the Fair Use Rationales and protecting the image in their preferred version... Not sure where this could lead, except perhaps RfC. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:14, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]