User talk:Fritzpoll/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Bot FAQ

I can see that you are having to deal with the same questions over and over; you might want to consider creating a User:FritzpollBot/FAQ page to address this. -- The Anome (talk) 13:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion! I will probably do this, but not right now. The whole discussion is rather exhausting and I'm off for another tea break! Fritzpoll (talk) 16:04, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on FritzpollBot

I've written a blog post about it too. If you can write up some sort of focused FAQ page about the programme that we can link to, I want to get a mention of it into the Wikimedia blog as well (since the world will notice the article count inflating) - David Gerard (talk) 16:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Whilst encouraging that you feel community consensus will allow it, I am slightly more reserved! :) I shall, nonetheless, get an FAQ written up and notify you tonight when it is done. I just need to work out what questions to answer... Fritzpoll (talk) 16:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Mmm I'm staying away from the village pump from now on and adding a village pump where it is actually needed in parts of Bangladesh! I;ve stated the case and 55 people have strongly supported it. Obviously we can't win them all, but we don't have to as it will be going ahead anyway. We will work out how to cover the world in the best way possible. I do hope we can get some more data though for everywhere to shut up the people who keep talking about one liners. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 16:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I think if you get the country wikiprojects involved, that'll make sure the articles are humanly maintainable or at least watchlisted - that would alleviate many people's concerns. Also, people might go "hey, here's more data on these places you could put in" - David Gerard (talk) 20:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that's why I have stated often that I want them involved. Fritzpoll (talk) 20:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Infobox Settlement

I am curious about your choice of {{Infobox Settlement}} vs {{Geobox}}. I'm not closely involved with the issue, but I thought there was a "movement" towards consistently using geobox. Thanks — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:31, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

No idea!  :) Just working with what I could find. If there is a technical reason to do so, this change can be made in about...10mins...to affect all articles the bot creates Fritzpoll (talk) 16:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

No, if there are any doubts ask User:MJCdetroit. There snothing wrong with them except that some of the empty paramters need rmeoving. As for remaining one liners for ever. Kushgag has been expanded already and once real information becomes avilable why isn't this a useful edition 16:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC) ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000?

Yeah, I would hold off turning the bot on full throttle until the page style is hammered out in more detail, including the infobox style. It has always been one of mybiggest pet peeves on Wikipedia that different nations have used their own infoboxes in the past (e.g. {{Infobox Belgium Municipality}}, {{Infobox UK place}}, etc.), and I think now is the ideal time to create a de facto standard for Wikipedia. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

A lot of that is back-end plumbing, i.e. if the horrible twisty ParserFunctions code (the plumbing in the templates) changes, people won't care - or even notice - as long as the external interface stays the same. (Look at all the templates consolidated into Template:Infobox Officeholder, for example.) Which will increase the machine-readability of Wikipedia as a whole - David Gerard (talk) 20:22, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Fallingrain

I feel this edit can be programmed into the bot. It reads the nearest towns and cities from Fallingrain. Plus the altitude I spoke about at BRFA. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 16:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

There are still the outstanding doubts about the reliability of fallingrain, and until consensus to overturn these doubts is established, I don't feel I can use the data Fritzpoll (talk) 16:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Nearest towns always seems to be reliable, the problem is sometimes altitude is unreliable. I'm not saying that they are all unreliable, but for altitude on numerous occasions it has proved wrong. Such a shame as I also want to include as much info as possible ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 16:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Your bot

Hello. I have several questions about your bot before voting. Sorry for not asking on the village pump page but I found it quite messy. Hope it is not a problem.

1. There are many naming conventions for places, mostly aimed at disambiguating articles. How will it work when you'll be about to create bunch of stubs of certain country? Would you contact respective regional WikiProjects?
2. How about diacritics in titles for places from e.g. Slavic countries like the Czech Republic or Macedonia? Will your database contain them or they will must be added manually?
3. Last one is about fallingrain database. I observed many times it is a huge mess and e.g. for European countries (my own experience) completely useless as a reliable source. I bet it will be the same for other continents. I hope you will not use it.

Thank you very much for responding and happy editing. - Darwinek (talk) 17:02, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, no problem at all. I have just started an FAQ at User:FritzpollBot/FAQ which may answer some questions, but I will answer yours separately nonetheless. The bot first creates lists of places with associated information at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles/Places, and editors are contacted to edit the lists, sort out the disambiguation pages, etc. Wikiprojects will be encouraged to be involved, and we have already begun communicating them about the work we are undertaking, since they have "local knowledge" as it were. The native spellings of names will be included with the article. Khar_Kat-e_Bala was created during a test run, and you will notice that the original native spelling is noted in the infobox.

Fallingrain will not be used for any part of this project unless its reliability improves demonstrably. Best wishes Fritzpoll (talk) 17:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for quick answers. Indeed, WikiProjects are the best place to gain information and knowledge from local communities. Just one issue, diacritics should be used in article titles, at least for European countries. When you'll be planning to do the Czech Republic and Poland somewhen in the future, please contact our WikiProjects and/or my person. I will be able to provide you lists of settlements from respective country government offices, which will much improve stubs quality I think. You can write my name down somewhere for future reference. :) Much appreciated. Thanks. - Darwinek (talk) 17:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Assuming it doesn't come out when I extract the data, I shall do Fritzpoll (talk) 19:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Amurn

An article that you have been involved in editing, Amurn, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Amurn. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice?

Gentlemen, I recognize and appreciate your hard work on the geographical bot. Because it is clear the community does not have consensus on its current implementation, I have created a "devil's advocate" AFD procedural nomination for Amurn on behalf of several who have expressed nonnotability concerns. I believe it is appropriate for the community to discuss whether the two million towns are notable if no editor has taken a certain minimum effort to create them (the bot neatly opens the effort criterion for discussion because it makes article creation possible with a greatly decreased average effort). I think the project will have much better consensus after a bit more preparation before implementation, preferably consultation with population tables and most articles being created at the district level rather than the town level. I do not expect to take further part in the discussion. JJB 17:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This is nasty stuff isn't it. What was the point in doing that. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 17:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I see the sentiment, but AfD isn't like a court of law. I'm not sure it sets precedent. Articles are deleted/kept on a case-by-case basis. Right sentiment, wrong forum Fritzpoll (talk) 17:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I've done my best to explain that the process will involve working wikipojects and editors in native languages for many countries to try to ensure it is done as best and efficiently as possible, but STILL people are turning up and saying that they disapprove of "unreferenced stubs with unreliable information. Yawn yawn. ANother thing is perhaps somebody could clearly state that two million articles are likely to be added over 1 year and a hald and gradually in blocks rather than a sudden flood ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 18:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Fritzpoll, thanks for your input (I think). Know you're busy, but I'd appreciate your further comments at Centralized notability discussion. Esteemed Mr. Blofeld, please avoid words like "nasty" in relation to specific living persons. It's pretty simple: I did it so that an actual nasty would not be the first to do it. You've done a lot of work, and now that you've suddenly hit the big time, with a little more work, you can get all the "withholds" in your column, and it would both get the job done in more orderly fashion and have a demonstrated consensus instead of wikichaos. Perhaps my AFD was mistaken; I'd like to know if Fritzpoll considers that the bot's proceeding in very strict alphabetical order may also have been mistaken. Since I am not the content area expert and you guys are, surely you can (1) find a way to integrate population data seamlessly into your proposal, and (2) tell everyone that you've succeeded in figuring out how to do so and thus immediately defuse the situation. Like I said, purpose to start with over-100,000 populations, and then go down by factors of 2 and 2.5. Then community consensus will tell you when to stop. Notability is not asserted by one atlas, as even Blofeld's edits to Amurn show. Thank you for your efforts and personal involvement with my concerns. JJB 20:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Not sure why you're doubting your thanks, but ok... :) The AfD was nothing particular, just procedurally flawed, and it wouldn't have achieved what you were trying to achieve - in a sense, I was trying to help you in this regard. I'm a little worn out at the moment - I didn't know the discussion had even started until after 12pm UTC so I've had to play catch-up explaining that this is not an automated monster out to eat Wikipedia. Not sure what you mean about alphabetical order, exactly...the countries or the lists? If the lists, that's just how I was asked to do it to make the dabbing easier. We'll need census data to incorporate population data. I can look for this, but I'm not sure it would have an effect if I did. The whole thing is out of control, and I'm not sure we'll be able to drag it back to the rational discussion I would have wanted. The straw poll was a particularly...inopportune idea. I'll get back to you on the other stuff. Be aware that I do appreciate your points, am not being stubborn - just trying to get everything in one place and not sprawl all over the place Fritzpoll (talk) 20:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, here's a site of use http://www.census.gov/main/www/stat_int.html - let me look at these over the next few days. I looked at Armenia, and the data look promising, if I can extract from the PDF file in some way Fritzpoll (talk) 20:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Radio Wikipedia on Fritzpollbot

I just thought I should let you know ahead of time Radio Wikipedia will be running a short (65s) segment covering the current ongoing VPP debate. You can preview the segment here: Image:RADWP-Fritzpollbot.ogg. xenocidic (talk) 19:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear, what have I done?  :-S Thanks for letting me know - that was actually easier to follow than the page itself! Fritzpoll (talk) 19:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the page has become rather unwieldy! I've taken it off my watchlist, best of luck, I leave it to you ;p xenocidic (talk) 19:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure, you can have it if you like? I'll even offer you the chance to operate the bot!  ;-) Fritzpoll (talk) 19:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow. I bet your're hiding in a corner wishing all the attention would cease and things to go back to normal huh? Me too this was completely unexpected today. But please don;t give up; an incredible 80 people strongly support us, I'm sure things will work out, I may stay away from the wiki for a while as the comments by some people are kind of demoralising. I hope we are still appreciated. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 19:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I also don't like the way things over there are dissolving into mini-scraps, the way it's treated as though I am setting about the downfall of human editing by a couple of editors, or the way it is being dismissed out of hand as a terrible, or "bad bad" idea in the text and edit summaries. (Sigh) Ultimately, I wanted to find consensus, but I'd have done it by presenting facts and then opening a discussion - as this was already 12hours underway before I knew it was taking place, there are still some commentators who, through no fault of their own necessarily, aren't fully aware of exactly what the bot will do. I really wish Mr. Z-Man, though acting with the best of intents, had talked to me beforestarting this discussion. That's my piece. Off for tea. Fritzpoll (talk) 19:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Wise, Very wise indeed. Somebody has even claimed that I couldn't give a damn about developing wikipedia for everybody which is almost like saying Blofeld has hair down to his feet. I'm shocked at how some people have responded as if we are about to bring down the demise to wikipedia rather than actually planting seeds for major growth (which is attainable in the long run). Still over 80 people support but the willlingness of people to jump in as if its a poll is ridiculous. I'm tried to dress peoples concerns and provide a reason but I end up looking like a terrible person by them by not being happy jus tto sit back and watch them discuss somwthing and attack something they clearly know little about. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

If we could somehow obtain more information for each place automaticaly it would solve a lot of concerns I think ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts on how this might play out for Cambodia

Hi Fritzpoll, I've been investigating how this project might work itself out for Cambodia. From a first glance, it does not seem like this will be an easy task (bot or no). Cambodia actually has an amazing amount of statistical data online, which is good. For 99% of the country's villages, it has population, # of men, # of women, and # of households. Considering that most of the villages seem to be in the 200-800 range or so, this is quite detailed for a developing country. Using data from http://www.stats.nis.gov.kh/CENSUSES/villagegaz/p01.pdf and the list of coordinates, I managed to flesh out the article on Kouk Romiet commune. The datadump page had coordinates for villages with populations of 1,452, 1,660, and 1,127, but no coordingates for villages with populations of 778, 203, 339, 143, 459, 112, 196, 219, 329, 190, 1,039, 3,902, 240, 458, and 348. It also had coordinates for one of two villages without census data. Some of the names in the datadump sheet were variants of the names on .kh government sites, which is to be expected considering that Khmer can be transliterated so many different ways. Also, I am kind of confused by the naming of the naming of the villages in the datadump page, or whether the NGIS is including things beside villages (administrative divisions? other features?). Most of the names in the datadump page are preceded by "Phumi", which I am pretty sure means "village" (we have phum discussed as meaning village, and the "phumi" entries often match up to non-"phumi" villages listed on government sites). which means village per khmerlanguage.com. Mangostar (talk) 02:34, 2 June 2008 (UTC) Anyways if we want to include more data besides just these coordinates it will be a slow slog to figure out how all the listed names correspond with the Khmer govt's transliterations, which are what we are using in WP currently (at least as a general rule). Mangostar (talk) 21:58, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Let me have a look at the data. With a little ingenuity (!) we might be able to use the census data as a source, confirmed by the NGIS data. I need to look at how to process PDF files, since this seems to be the format of choice for this kind of data Fritzpoll (talk) 22:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I have a macro in Excel I made to (relatively) quickly convert this to .xls files. I've done it for one province and could continue with others. Mangostar (talk) 22:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Fascinating. Converting a PDF file dataset into an xls? If I send you an e-mail address, would you be willing to forward the code for the macro to me? Fritzpoll (talk) 22:28, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

A quick-n-dirty way of doing this is to use Adobe's Acrobat Reader's own functionality for exporting text from a pdf, combined with copy-n-paste. I've done this several times to build up my speadsheet of information on Ethiopian settlements. -- llywrch (talk) 22:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, the simplest ways are the best - thanks! This will help with a tweaked proposal I'm formulating Fritzpoll (talk) 23:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I support you!

I would just like to say that I support the running of your bot, but only partially. I do not like the idea of the bot adding articles for villages with a population of, let's say, less than 100. If you were somehow about to get the bot to create stubs for all above 100 people, then I would be able to give you some unwavering support, but I still support you anyways. Cheers, Razorflame 22:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Lol - this was a nice title to see in my watchlist! Thank you - although a majority of users gave unwavering support, I'm seeing if I can build a wider consensus using some population data. Thank you very much for your note Fritzpoll (talk) 22:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

For most regions, it is impossible to tell how many people live in a particular town, but consider overpopulation is present in many of the places the bot will start. Also, using Burkina Faso where there is population data, I'd venture to say that 99% of the towns have greater than 100. By the way, Fritzpoll, could you not run the FritzpollBot on Burkina Faso? It skipped a few and added some points that weren't exactly settlements. I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 01:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

AN/I thread re: Fritzpollbot

Just thought I should let you know an AN/I thread was just started about FritzpollBot: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposal: create millions of improperly sourced article with MICROSOFT spam by bot. xenocidic ( talk ¿ listen ) 23:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: create millions of improperly sourced article with MICROSOFT spam by bot

While I love the idea of using a bot to create articles on real places with proper sourcing, the test cases created so far by User talk:Fritzpoll have improper sourcing and include a spam link to Microsoft. This is unacceptable. I tried noting it on an example and was reverted, so I am saying so here and at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. What would Microsoft pay for 4 million articles that say

*[http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/mapcenter/map.aspx Search for ______ in the MSN Encarta atlas]

WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Well if wikipedia had a decent atlas there wouldn't need to be a link ♦Sir Blofeld ♦ ^Talk? 10:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I would rather you'd waited for my response before running off to AN/I. That would have been the sensible thing to do Fritzpoll (talk) 10:44, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see the Encarta links gone as well, please. Although they invite the user to do a search, the link itself does nothing other than take you to the Encarta site, and adds no value at all to the article; worse, it creates an expectation of a useful and specific link, where there is only a generic link to one particular commercial site. At least with Google Maps or Yahoo Maps it would have been possible to create a link which went directly to the result of a map search. However, I don't believe that we should be promoting any specific commercial site with links from potentially millions of pages. In the long run, this should be capable of being resolved in a way similar to the solutions used for ISBN and geotag links, where the link is to an indirection page which provides links to all of the relevant external resources of that kind. Until then, can we please not have these links at all? -- The Anome (talk) 10:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Look at the pages referenced - I really, really, can't keep repeating myself everywhere - I can't spend 30 minutes answering the same question in several different places. As I said at the AN/I page, they are already scheduled for removal. I even explained why they were there to begin with, but that they didn't function technically. I have also said ("Motion to recess...") on the centralised page that I am working on a better proposal, and that essentially discussion of the existing proposal, and its example pages is pointless. For goodness' sake - give me some time to respond to the major issues, rather than forcing me to repeat myself. 48 hour wikibreak for me Fritzpoll (talk) 10:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh: I didn't see that. Thanks for addressing the issue, and please accept my apologies for not seeing that you had answered this question elsewhere. -- The Anome (talk) 11:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

That's alright - not your fault. I'm just a bit frustrated, as repetition seems to have been my watchword these past 48 hours, and it means I haven't got the energy to actually work out how to fix it so that there can be a consensus, and not just a majority Fritzpoll (talk) 11:02, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

On a more constructive note, the geohack page currently gives an error if passed a page name but no coordinate parameters; if it could be changed to give links to text searches in those map engines that support them, this would probably be ideal for your purposes. -- The Anome (talk) 11:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Documentation

Something else that I would want to know is the order in which the articles are created. Are you going by country in alphabetical order or something like that? I can't find that... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 01:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah the bot will go alphabetically from Asia (so Afghanistan first, then Az... etc) and then within each country, it will go by alphabetical city/town or village from A.. to ...Z. Cheers!Calaka (talk)

Further refinements requested

Since we're data mining the US GNS data, we should use their variant names, where existant, and also use the NameID - unique for each name (incl. variants) for each feature, and you can use {{GEOnet2}} passing the NameID as the first parameter and a link to the precise page for the feature's proper name, rather than a generalized link to the service itself. More precise and probably no more complex for your bot to be programmed that way. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 02:39, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

That's great - I was struggling to find a way of referencing it without pointing to a download. Cheers Fritzpoll (talk) 10:45, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello

Hi. Phew this has hit the big time hasn;t it. I look forward to seeing your new proposal. It may be a good idea to start Wikipedia:WikiProject GeoBot or something a get a big project together for large scale planning involving each of the respective wikiprojects, and also working at expanding some of those created by the bot. It will inevitably go ahead won't it? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 09:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Nothing is inevitable. Try to find sources of data that we can add to the articles as they are created. I am looking at Cambodia over lunch. Might wikibreak for a few days - I actually can't handle the responses:I'm only one man! Fritzpoll (talk) 10:43, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Try looking at User talk:Blofeld of SPECTRE/ArchiveMay2008. 328 kb in one month on my talk page! ♦Sir Blofeld ♦ ^Talk? 11:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

While consensus is good, setting up the village pump in that way was one of the worst things that could be done and it has put us under a lot of unnecessary pressure that we don't need. I'm sure we can work something out, whats frustrating is answering the same question over and over again. Perhaps a swim in the Bristol Channel for several days would sort it out ♦Sir Blofeld ♦ ^Talk? 11:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Interesting choice - I'm a Bristol man myself! Fritzpoll (talk) 12:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thats an excellent proposal but you;ve made me look like the bad guy. "harrassing people when they disagree - discussion is fine, belittlement of opinions is not" is clearly an attack at me. I spent hours yesterday trying to explain that it wouldn't be operated in the way people showed. I didn't intentionally "belittle" peoples opinions other than those that showed absolutely no resemblance to the actual proposal. Many of the concerns were valid, particularly those on the fence to which I refrained from "harassing" Ernst Stavro Blofeld ^{$1 million?} 12:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Lol - I wan't actually thinking of you - may I rephrase? Sorry - I was thinking of three or four others Fritzpoll (talk) 12:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

LOL I see. But one or two of the opposers labelled me as a badger yesterday so I wondered if you were referring to the bald badger. Believe me I would have rather not to see that straw poll. Perhaps you could add something to assert at the start of the proposal that maybe 2 million articles won't be created and that this number of permanent non notable sub stubs won't be created, which seemd to be the biggest problem before. If we assert thate ther emay be a lesser number, that are notable, and are more than one liners this would do a great deal I think Ernst Stavro Blofeld ^{$1 million?} 12:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I have recieved an email from the one of the operators of maplandia anyway who is more than happy (as you can imagine) for wikipedia to be connected with maplandia.

Hi James,

thanks a lot for your email and nice words about our website. Sorry for late answer, I am busy with my studies. I would be very happy for every link from wikipedia. Thank you for that. We have tried to include as much countries and regions as we could, so I am happy when this is useful for someone else. Please let me know if I can somehow help you.

Best regards, Martin Frohlich

Fritz, Frohlich?? German efficiency? Is Fritz your real name? Ernst Stavro Blofeld ^{$1 million?} 12:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Haha - I am of German descent, and that is a pet name my German family use for me. I'm not sure that the bot will now automatically add maplandia. But we will see what we will see. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Have some cool sunglasses

Because you deserve them, for keeping your cool in a situation where a bunch of not too nice things have been said about your bot. Keep it up! --Conti|✉ 13:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

:) Thank you very much Fritzpoll (talk) 13:09, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages?

Hi, I have a question. Would the bot end up making disambiguation pages? That is, if there are a bunch of identical place names in an area, with slightly different article titles to disambiguate them, will the bot make a disambiguation page for them, or will this be left to human editors to (eventually) do? Or will human editors be doing it as part of the process? (As I understand it, the bot will be heavily assisted by editors) --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 09:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually we are trying to avoid disambiguation pages. That is why we need humans to have a look at the list and ensure all blue links and any multiple named red links are appropriately modified so every article on the list ends up being created. If its a blue link, the bot will skip it and then a possible article wont be created while if its a red link with multiple names (but different cities) then the name neeeds to be modfieid by region/district/state so all the articles of the same name are created. Before the bot runs, this process of checking to make sure it is all perfect is undertaken on a country by country basis, before the bot is run. Yes the bot needs to be heavily assisted by editors and all the support that can be mustered from the wikiprojects will be heavily encouraged. Cheers!Calaka (talk) 09:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, where there are 2 redlink towns both named "Foo", humans should be creating "Foo" as a dab and changing the two entries that the bot will process to Foo, A and Foo, B - which will be the choices at Foo dab page. Otherwise Foo in Afghanistan will be created and all Foos in countries later in the alphabet would be relegated; this would be an undue preference for locations in "A" countries vs. others....As you can see, there's lots to do. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 16:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

This is absolutely correct, and the new WikiProject would organise volunteers in this manner Fritzpoll (talk) 16:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Bot question

For what it's worth, I think the major problems you recently faced were at least in part due to the work being done by a small group of editors without consultation from any of the active groups already involved in the nations. For what it's worth, this might be a reasonable course of action.

Notify every national/territorial WikiProject, task force, or work group that there is an intention to create these articles. These groups can I think all be found on the geography pages of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory.

Request the members of those projects help create the lists of localities for their individual states. Place some form of detailed instructions of how to generate such lists on the Missing encyclopedic articles/Places page so that the individuals creating these lists will have a clear idea how to do so.

Give them a little notice in advance when their articles are going to be run, and then notify them when its completed.

I think allowing those individuals who are already involved in the topics to have a bit more active input in the discussion should be all that's required for it to function smoothly. Anyway, just an idea. John Carter (talk) 13:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

If you think that's a good idea, then you'll love the alternative proposal I just posted onto the discussion page. I fully agree, and it was always an intention that we never adequately expressed. Hopefully this has now been done! Fritzpoll (talk) 13:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Well this is exactly how it should have been addressed initially. it would have saved a lot of trouble yesterday. There will still be people who will oppose because thats what they do but anybody who reads that should not react as they did before. Good move. Shortly before you showed me the initial proposal, I was going to propose that you establish anew wikirpoject to deal with this and take away specific messages targetted at you and towards the group to share the burden.

I just don't want to "jump the gun" and start a WikiProject until there is a consensus about what we are doing Fritzpoll (talk) 14:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Well of course, the proposal is made at the WP:COuncil you don't just go ahead a create a whole wikiproject. ANy project has to have council approval first but in light of rthe discussion yesterday this wouls seem essential ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 14:02, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Canada

This is the primary address of the census data table for municipalities. It can be rearranged to list them in any sort order, including alphabetical. Just above the table to the right, there's also an option to view a geographic index with a separate alphabetical list for each letter.

This is the page to use to search for an individual city or town's "profile" page, which presents its census data in more detail than the data table.

I've begun preparing a reference list, Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/Municipalities, of all Canadian municipalities that don't yet have articles, although it's not yet complete as I only started compiling it yesterday. It can be moved to any other title or reformatted if necessary.

I'll have some more resources for you later, but those are the big three that will be in use across the board. Bearcat (talk) 14:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've proposed an alternative at the village pump discussion. I'm a bit confused by two of the opposers so far - they are arguing that decisions on article creation should be done by intelligent humans. I'm pretty certain that's what the bot proposal says too... Fritzpoll (talk) 15:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Fritz leaving a note like "if a significant number of people say "yes without reservations" we can move ahead faster, if a significant number say "no, it's just a bad idea," we can speedy-cancel it. Thats asking for trouble (many people don't want to move ahead). The opposers will relish it as they don't want change anyway. If a bot was adding these articles I could stop spending all my time on starting geo stubs and start spending more quality time in writing new articles like the 1972 Nicaragua earthquake like I did this afternoon and devleoping existing ones and geo stubs. People just aren't giving it a chance. The articles evne those on villages WILL be created eventually and to not approve something like this is madness as in years time we will mor elikely have more inconsistent articles and unreferenced work because the "community" wouldn't accept it is more efficient. It is a gross waste of time if they can't see that a bot gives editors a chance to concentrate on quality evne more so. Nobody has any problems with unleashing a bot thats does administriative tasks with spamming people tallk pages with countless image messages etc, so why should a controlled and regulated bot which is completely organized by humans that will add missing content be such an issue to developing what actually matter, the encyclopedia.

♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 16:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I didn't. That was someone else. I don't like it either. Good move on moving the page, btw Fritzpoll (talk) 16:34, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought you might require one of these to assist you

Well I had hoped for a decent adult conversation (hey i don't mean dirrty talk lol) and discussion for planning the best solution, not a battle again. What is the point in repating the vote thing which creates aggression again? The village pump is not a good place for constructive planning. It is like a public market place plagued with shoppers and pick pockets and just shows what kind of a "community" wikipedia is. People will always disapprove of change and disruust others. Many people are complete opposites, its amazing how different peoples views can be. I would like to see how many of those on the fence could see any light with the new proposals -I greatly appreicate your efforts today to answer them. I appreciate consensus with important issues such as this but in my experience time is wasted unneccesarily in support and oppose issues when it should be discussed on the best course of action to improve something. I really think the straw poll should be removed and converstation moved to a place where it can be discussed rationally without the barriers that people keep putting up with straw polls which deflects people attention away from proper discussion. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 17:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Lol! I agree, but this seems to be how it is done here. On the bright side, the new proposal does seem to be winning people over - and the extra category of people with reservations is promoting discussion further down. Give it some time, and I think we will be pleasantly surprised. This process has already made the bot better, let's see how much more it can be improved Fritzpoll (talk) 17:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

What might be a good idea is to start with a country which has a lot of data to be added. If we could start generating articles more resourceful and articles with clear valuable content people aremore likely to see it isn't so bad after all. IN a way it has to be proved that a]the articles can be constructed in an organized way and generatign encyclopedic content and b] we have to prove that the articles will be expanded ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 17:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Maplandia database

I am also interested in using the Maplandia data to help the activities of User:The Anomebot2 in annotating existing articles without geodata. My pattern-matching code tries hard to resolve ambiguity wherever possible, but it cannot correctly resolve cases where more than place of the same name exists in the same country. Maplandia's hierarchical information would be invaluable for this: if Maplandia can yield a rough disambiguation to approximate coordinates, I can then cross-reference the data with the GNS data for confirmation. Is it available as a dump? -- The Anome (talk) 18:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Lists

If we are to make 1000 a cut off point, the best thing we can do I think is to create lists of the other places (or all places) places by district/province in the mainspace and have information in tables and the wiki min atlases globes in the tables and create redirects. At least this way the wikipedia would recognize every place but would be contained in a table until more info could be found to start them. At least the tables then would convey some info on them until there is enough to create full article. I know its a little like winning bronze but at least wikipedia would recognize 2 million places and have some sort of reference on their locations or basic statistics. Kind of like List of United Kingdom locations: Aa-Ak for every country and chuck in opulation data or whatever to the tables where possible. Just a thought ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 19:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Just incase you didn't know about it...

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cities would likely be a good centralized place to recruit volunteers to deal with the FritzpollBot articles. This is a brilliant idea, and there's no doubt in my mind that it will be approved. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 00:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the tip Fritzpoll (talk) 11:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

You've had a long week.

Thought you might enjoy this whiskey (if not, you at least deserve it). Keep up the good work. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Make it a double, on me! P.S. the radio segment ran today. xenocidic ( talk ¿ listen ) 01:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll drink it later - it's still a little early over here! But thanks - I feel like I need it Fritzpoll (talk) 11:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

preparing the data

Please take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cape Verde/FritzpollBot and let us know if that format is ok or not and what else can we do to help prepare the data for parsing by the bot. Thanks, Waldir ^talk 02:11, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Just...wow. That looks really good - I am a little real-life busy for the next two days or so, so if you don't mind, I'll look at it more throughly then. But this was exactly the kind of collaboration I was after Fritzpoll (talk) 11:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Your userpage

Hey Fritzpoll, after checking out the proposal for your bot, I came across your userpage and I couldn't help but notice that you added {{User FixMyPage}} on it. I could try to help you out on your page if you would like me to, but I would need to know specifically what you would like done (grouping userboxes, organizing awards, using html, etc.). Feel free to "drop me a line" (borrowed that quote from some user whom I've forgoten about).--Sunny910910 ^{(talk|Contributions|Guest)} 03:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Genius - I will, as soon as I have a think about what I want. A part of the problem is that I haven't the imagination to make it look pretty Fritzpoll (talk) 11:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, take your time. Message me when you've decided.--Sunny910910 ^{(talk|Contributions|Guest)} 01:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject support

I have sent a message to the wikiprojects in relation to Azerbaijan, Bangladesh (including WP:Bengal), Cambodia, Cyprus (also WP:Greece), East Timor & Hong Kong. I sent it to these wikiprojects and not the others as the other countries have their dabbing completed/checked. I will send a message to them to have a look/assist/support us in any way possible if you want? (I just figured the dabbing part of the project needs to be organized for those countries first). Cheers!Calaka (talk) 05:14, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Good work, but bear in mind that the new proposals may mean we need to restart these countries. Fritzpoll (talk) 11:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by restart the countries? As in you will have to do the dabbing again? Or will you need to recreate a list for every country all over again based on new criteria? If its the later then when the lists are updated/fixed/modified I will be happy to update the info on the talk pages of the respective wikiprojects. Oh and I hope you do not get overwhelmed by the length of the new village pump discussion :D. Cheers! Calaka (talk) 11:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

World gazetteer lists -these list the population of the main cities and towns by country, For sure we'll have many of them and they are detailed enough, but for many countries even some of the main places will be missing. But apparently an official census hasn't been done since 1979 in Afghnsistan ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Azerbaijan etc ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:30, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

World cities and towns ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll look at these later - may be useful if we can assess the reliability. i.e. where did world-gazetteer get the data from, does it match up with the "raw" census data for a given country, etc. Then this can go into our generic all-purpose source list. Afghanistan is definitely a problem. A census was conducted recently, but only very coarse data is available at present Fritzpoll (talk) 11:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Well its partly for political reasons. With those MSN Encarta links I'm not going to go through 1000 articles and remove them. A bot (not meaning yours) could easily do that if people are going to fuss about it. Also you sia dabout cleaning up what we've got. There are about 25,000 French commune stubs without infoboxes (which can be copied directly from french wikipedia and inserted in the articles. It is just a cut and paste job and I;ve got a back log of about 25,000 articles to go through manually ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The idea that the bot can amend existing articles has already been floated on the discussion page. It will be easy to get the bot to fix the old articles, with the Encarta links, add infoboxes etc. but I won't run the bot until I am utterly, utterly certain that the community has settled on what the bot should and should not do Fritzpoll (talk) 11:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Mmm I understand, but you may have to wait a long long time before everybody approves. There is never likely to be any real agreement on what should be done on wikiepdia however much people discuss something. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 12:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we're far off consensus that the bot should operate, although I can't judge that independently. All there will be is the question of what limits to place on what it creates. Agreement is never achieved, but consensus is. You've waited this long, you can wait a few more days - I am very confident that this will result in an acceptable solution Fritzpoll (talk) 12:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

You have an email address? I have something to say that I;d rather not say in plain view on here ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 12:11, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, just e-mail this user, using the link in the toolbox on the right. I'm happy for you to have the address when I reply, but not publish it here in wiki-space Fritzpoll (talk) 12:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I know that but despite having my email address written in and before I could email people, now I can't as it always comes uo with a message that I should be logged in. I haven;t been able to email anybody from wikipedia for months. I think it needs reconfirming. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 12:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC) Well send shortly ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 13:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

"You got mail" ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 13:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

"So do you" :) Fritzpoll (talk) 13:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes I agree totally and think that would be the best to start with. Ironic isn't it that I share the same name as my nemesis. Regards ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 14:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and that I have such a dull, run-of-the-mill, almost unbelievable name Fritzpoll (talk) 14:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

That was my granddad's name. "Fred Anderson". Tough guy from London born in 1900, died 1993. Was a gym instructor in the Royal Navy, boxer, martial artist, swimmer and gymnast. Disciplined, I think woudll summarize him!! I rmeember him showing me how to do pressups when he was 90! ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 15:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC).

Perhaps you could add an extra proposal that the bot could be used to clean up existing articles first by adding an infobox or details of something before eahc country is started. If you could prove that the bot could make existing articles consistent and generate new content it would likely gain more support ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 16:10, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Despair

Fritz half the people opposing are not even reading what it entails. Reasons for opposing have often been given as "there is no such thing as inherent notability". Does it not state that articles will be selected for notability first by human editors? Whatever you propose people don't seem to read it properly. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 16:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I ahve given up trying to corect them - they are also largely drive-by editors, so they don't come back to read the responses. Maybe I'll make some comments when I get back. On the bright side, it weakens the oppossing argument when they haven't read it. What I mostly enjoy is that 30mins ago, someone posted a strong oppose....to the old, archived page. Fascinated to know why... :) Fritzpoll (talk) 16:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

More evidence even from the biggest speaker on the page "We can never achieve good encyclopedic content from a fully mechanical process. The bot should be used to make our work easier, not to replace it entirely". What in Frank butcher's name does he think it is??? How many frankin times have we said that we write the articles to make it easier to develop "not replace it entirely", does he think we plan a future of wikipedia where humans are banned from writing wikipedia and it is run by a bunch of mad robots. Groan groan ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The FritzpollBot discussion

The FritzpollBot discussion is a total mess. I can't make heads or tails of it. Can you please put some sort of explanation as to what FritzpollBot actually does (or is proposed to do) on the discussion page. Right now, it seems to assume that you have already read the previous volume of discussion. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 19:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, if you could add some sort of example of what you are actually proposing to the proposal, it would go a long way to helping people understand what is being discussed. Hopefully you've done some sort of pilot version of what you are proposing. If not, I would strongly suggest doing that first. All the examples I've been able to find so far of what this Bot generates are not in line with what you are currently proposing. Perhaps you could just work with 1 WikiProject to do one country and then show the rest of Wikipedia the fruits of your efforts in order to seek approval for broader implementation. Kaldari (talk) 19:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

If you want to go ahead with a "test run", we've got all the American Samoa and Anguilla ppl's listed now, and neither has particularly large numbers. I could try to find some other sources for one or both and try to help prune the nonnotable ones, so we could have a decent trial run. John Carter (talk) 00:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Full census data available for American Samoa here. Mangostar (talk) 04:33, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

More whiskey

. Nothing to say. I need a cigarette. (I quit cold over a year ago)....Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'll add, that the supports are clueful, the opposers (not all, but a majority) have no idea what they're talking about. Some of them just happened to notice something new on their watchlist I'd surmise and thought "Hey! I'll oppose that for sure!" Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Map

Mmm Just like the obnoxious 15 year old Filipino kid who turned up at the last one.... Does seems so. Well again the support clearly outdoes the opposition and even those who were on the fence beofre have mostly changed their minds which is what you wanted wasn't it. I don't think we have any maps for America Samoa, location wise and thats not really the most "un American" country to start with LOL, but I don't care as long as it starts running and generating articles with useful sources and information. It would be indeed best to start with a country with such data, so go for it. I'll see if there are any maps ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 10:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

OK I've requested a Template:Location map American Samoa using Image:American Samoa-CIA WFB Map.png so fingers crossed. Are you here today? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 10:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Well I understand how you must be fed up with it but I've just set up a new section to the page for editors interested in joining it. If we could show a team can be trusted to mnonitor and coordinate the bot this would help the cause. I'd rather not have to answer every question though, perhaps it could be shared between several of us. It might do you good to have a few days away (but please don't leave us!!). ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 15:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

In the words of a fellow Germanic gentleman, I'll be back Fritzpoll (talk) 15:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Well we now have 85 supports including with reservations. 100 people strongly supported before. Anything which equates to 100 supports on wikipedia is a major thing as it is always recorded the number of times people voted over 100 etc. When you return it is high time we set up the project to deal with it and start on the huge task at hand. It is very clear that the vast majority support this plus having the green light to use the bot we now need to discuss in the new wikirpoject space the best way to implement it. Take a few days break and when you return we'll put the plan into action. Consensus is clear we now need to set up the necessary infrastructure to organize starting each country and gaining new project membership. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 17:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Old proposal

I fail to understand the proffered justification for the archiving of the original, and the proposal of a "refined" proposal.

As can be seen from both the "archived" proposal and the discussion on it, the proposal had huge support.

The present proposal is terribly cumbersome; I gave up reading through it and don't plan to support it though I supported the initial one. Though continuing discussion is always fine, and revised proposals should be proffered if the initial one does not have wide support, I think it is ridiculous that the whole proposal was archived in this particular case. And that yet further proposals, discussion, and straw polls are needed all over again, as if starting from zero.

A strong majority of people agreed that the initial proposal would have been a fantastic addition to Wikipedia. I propose ditching the current discussion and going with it. Dovi (talk) 13:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Geo Bot

Just a mention your bot has been talked about in issue 5 of Radio Wikipedia. StewieGriffin! • Talk 20:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you... and question

Thanks, 'fritzpoll' for fixing my (almost certain to fail) RfA. I have a question, by the way. Why is it that when I click edit page I get a box asking to download the php file, but it works when i manually add &internaledit=true to the URL? Any way to fix it? (It's bloody annoying). Please reply soon!!!

No problem - but that does sound bizarre! I recommend WP:Village Pump (technical) or one of the help desks, as it isn't a problem I'm aware of. Maybe it is something to do with your browser? Fritzpoll (talk) 09:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

thanks. Juggernaut0102(talk) 09:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Let the queries begin?

Ok, how 'bout this! Why are you ruining wikipedia! Why do you want to double this place in size? 2 million articles?? You are bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad!!!!!! Need more Whiskey yet?  :-/ Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Argh!!!! (tears out hair and resumes smoking) For a second, there, you actually had me. Nice one :-P Fritzpoll (talk) 21:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Oooh, care to airmail me a cig? It's been over a year since I've partaken (partook?), but egads, I'd love a long drag right now....I can almost taste it...not sure where BoS went by the way, but I'm sure he'll be back around soon. Nobody does 157K edits and then disappears sans fanfare...Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Alas, to be truthful, I am a passive smoker. My Dad smoked my entire life, and when I came to University (and thus left home) I actually found myself having to hang out with smokers to avoid what can only be described as withdrawal symptoms. Yeah, BoS seem to have one on Wikibreak - judging by his comments, he found the whole situation increasingly stressful. Pretty sure that consensus will be opposing the bot - I guess I gt the joy of trying to explain that to an editor who has created 1000 of these articles by hand... :-S How are things going in your wiki-world? Fritzpoll (talk) 21:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

My wiki-world is fine. About 100% talk page edits, but other than that...I'm not so convinced that the consensus will be to "oppose the bot". One of the key objections was that "nobody wants these articles, they'll remain stubs, and be targets for vandalism", or some such. Somebody wants these articles, namely BoS. And Fritzpoll. And Keeper. And several others that are supporting the bot. From what I can tell, the vast majority of the "opposes" either don't understand what the bot will actually do, or don't understand the scope of what the bot will actually do, or don't understand the human aspect of what the bot will actually do. The legitimate opposes are against the idea based on "notability" as far as I can tell, and I feel personally that that has been addressed. Don't give up on it just yet! Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I won't. I guess I feel a bit pessimistic about it given some of the responses. At times, it seriously was like the sky was falling, and Blofeld and I were the ones to blame. I'll go with whatever Pedro says - he is, reasonably enough, taking the weekend to consider the arguments. Trying to find an article to cleanup is tricky... Fritzpoll (talk) 21:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Like I said there, the world isn't ending, it's merely being added to Wikipedia. Don't lose faith, it'll happen. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, the actual collaborative element can take place with or without a bot running on Wikipedia. The articles would just have to be created using a distributable script with human oversight. If distributed like that, and set up like that, it requires no bot approval...might violate the spirit though :) Fritzpoll (talk) 21:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the key here (and probably the root of the frustration by BoS and others), is that these articles, proposed to be added by the bot in reliable form with citations, maps, data, coordinates, etc) will eventually all be added by someone. They are needed articles. They are wanted articles. BoS and other editors will add them eventually, they are gaps in our "comprehensive encyclopedia" that need filled. A bot was proposed (and approved) to make the task easier to implement, that's all. Tis a shame that others don't see that, and don't see how much human intervention happens along the way to maintain quality. Sigh... Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with people disagreeing (remember my RfA?), I just have a problem with people not reading, not discussing. Actually thought some of Ryan Reich's comments about inherent notability were the most interesting ones, amid a flurry of anti-automation sentiment. I'm always a little surprised by that kind of problem when dealing with people whom I only interact with via pieces of computer code algorithmically and automatically transferring data across a series of other computer code-driven devices... Fritzpoll (talk) 21:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, a good chuckle at that (and probably an extra swig off the old whiskey glass). I agree in some sense with R.Reich about misuse of the term "inherent". I think it is sufficiently counteracted by the arguments about "systemic bias" though. If we've, as a community, and by consensus, have decided that US "towns" of 3+ are considered notable, as well as other English speaking places, how dare we as a community decide that a village in Africa/E.Europe/China/Latin America of the same population is explicitly not notable? Unless we delete the townships of 30 in America (I don't recall if that's what R.Reich was advocating), we can't possibly justify not including the African town of the same. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Of course, it is argued that that verges on an OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument. (Hmmm...maybe WikiSpeak needs to define OTHERSTUFFEXISTS...) I agree it is kinda tricky...but then the whole of notability is rather vague Fritzpoll (talk) 22:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, as usual, otherstuffexists now seems to be used to describe a concensus one doesn't like, which ultimately halts the growth of wikipedia and causes endless discussion (as is the case). How bout that for a definition! Remember, I brough the issue up with Jimbo during the bot approval, and he said there needs to be more discussion. Now there is endless discussion and noresults. Since nowit all seems rambled and incoherant, I'm stopping participating in it and working on Burkina Faso and DYK?s--everything that needs to be said has been, and people just love to beat the dead hores. And don't worry about Blofeld, its not like some of us have lives. :) I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 03:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

(In the spirit of this thread's headline) Why'd you cause all that ebola? And the Malaria wasn't very nice either. Thanks a lot.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, truly, I am an evil mastermind! To answer your question as to why: because I could! Fritzpoll (talk) 10:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

db

Yes, there was only a logo, with a slogan and everything on. It should be deleted anyway! I don't know if I have told you this but issue 5 of Radio Wikipedia, had a story on your bot. StewieGriffin! • Talk Sign 21:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes you did - it was also in issue 4 - xeno's reporting was impartial and balanced - I enjoyed it greatly. The thing is, RyRy was right - the article had no content beyond the logo, meaning it didn't satisfy G11. Arguably, you could have argued A1 or A3, but the point is then that the article was tagged {{underconstruction}} and the best thing would have been to give the author a chance to actually add content. Ultimately, the author realised it wasn't appropriate and requested deletion - but your choice of tags matters, as does giving new editors (who are not familiar with how we "regulars" do things) the chance to write their articles. Just some friendly advice Fritzpoll (talk) 21:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I've just created Template:Nodb, where users can request admins to wait. It's not hangon. It's a precaution for taggers. StewieGriffin! • Talk Sign 21:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, you know what Stewie? I actually like that template. I can see it being used constructively, (and also abused). I'm not sure how the community will react to it, but I personally like it. (sorry to butt in here). Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, if nothing else, I'm very pleased that you've taken the lesson to heart - not sure how the tmeplate is really meant to work, but SarcasticIdealist is asking this on the template's talk page, so I shall wait to see how you reply Fritzpoll (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

CityArticle building bot

I just wanted to say don't let the discussions get you down. Although I can understand the hesitation by some to add more stubs, to me stubs are better than no article at all. I think its a great idea and a great place to start. Others do to, check Jimbo's talk page for example. I left some comments on the page.--Kumioko (talk) 22:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

:-) Thanks very much for the note of support - the discussions are just quite tiring. Your comment is good, and of interest. I'm currently waiting for consensus to be assessed, and as I'll accept that, we'll soon know what is going to happen! Fritzpoll (talk) 22:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately I have found in my experience in WP that very few things of importance occur because they fail to meet consensus. In a project as big as WP with millions of editors it is usually the same couple hundred that wander from page to page giving their 2 cents in support or oppose and your best hope is to attract the attention of some "outsiders" who generally don't frequent those pages. You may want to visit the talk pages of some of the geographical or national projects and invite them to comment. If you speak or know someone who does another language you might be able to generate interest in the task that way as well. Again good luck and I don't mean to sound like sour milk.--Kumioko (talk) 23:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/FritzpollBot

Hiya. I've commented. I'm afraid I am not prepared to close this. You'll see my detailed analysis at the page, but in summary I do find consensus to move this forward. However during lengthy analysis I have also come to the conclussion that I believe I would support the concept myself. As such I am no longer able to act neutrally, and cannot in conscience, close a debate when I cannot be neutral, even though it would be easy for me to do otherwise. Apologies. Pedro :  Chat  20:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

So, any ideas of the next step, Fritz? My guess would be to contact User:WJBscribe, the head of the Mediation Committee, who so far as I can tell didn't comment on the proposal. John Carter (talk) 21:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

For interpreting consensus in the light of previous consensus and the policies that reflect this, the very best editor I know is Sam, so I've asked if he is willing to comment. Geometry guy 22:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you G-guy for the kind words. I have volunteered. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 00:52, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Endorse; it doesn't get much better than Sam. giggy _(:O) 08:48, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Sam - appreciate the help Fritzpoll (talk) 08:50, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Results are in

I guess you might want to see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/FritzpollBot. John Carter (talk) 00:25, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Spoiler alert (because I already read it), it's good news! Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

We've got the American Samoa listing already finished Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Places/American samoa. Having looked at the source used, every one they cite seems to have a separate page with its own citation, so at lot might qualify. But I'm going to try to find some sources myself first. In any event, it might not be a bad place to start. And you and Blofeld might want to write a press release for the Signpost. I'm dropping him a note that it's been approved as well. John Carter (talk) 00:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The idea that comes to mind to me would be to create it as a task force of WP:GEOGRAPHY, and invite members of the related projects, like Rivers, Lakes, Mountains, Caves, Glaciers, Volancoes, and the like to join in as well. That is, unless, somehow, in the future, you think that at some point the bot might be used in additional, non-geographic, ways, in which case making it a subproject of Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles would make most sense. In any event, input and help from the members of the various related proejcts would certainly be appreciated, and they could help establish the "List of X in Y" for all the various regions. First thing that really occurs to me is that we might want to do is try to get together some sort of statement for the Signpost, though. If we can make the idea appealing to a lot of editors there, maybe even getting some to join in, I think that would probably be the biggest potential boon to the project. John Carter (talk) 14:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

An excellent idea. I don't see us using this beyond geographical locations - up for grabs: will WP:GEOGRAPHY let us use their space? Do you want to knock a notice to the Signpost, or shall I? Tell you what: you talk to WP:GEOGRAPHY, and I'll start preparing our "publicity" materials Fritzpoll (talk) 14:55, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I've got a draft of the article started at User:John Carter/Fritzpollbot. Please feel free to make any changes there. I've also contacted the Geopraphy project and hope to hear something presently. I'm also starting a temporary project page for the group, pending determining its final status, linked to in the draft article. I'm hoping this will be enough for at least a reasonable start. John Carter (talk) 15:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Impressive - ok, let's see what we've got in terms of volunteers - I'll check the list from WP:GEOBOT I don't think we can argue sufficient scope for a full WikiProject in any case, so a task force would be good. Nice work, glad to see you're keen! Fritzpoll (talk) 15:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Announcement

I have just returned to find the consensus for FritzpollBot. Knuckles cracked, code templates at the ready - let the work begin. :) Fritzpoll (talk) 14:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, yes its great news and the result is what I anticipated (eventually). Yes I am unfortunately badly affected by the pollen in June, so much that in other years I have had a steroid injection to try to fight it!! Its not just the streaming eyes that makes comptuing difficult but the side effects of the tablets and general effects of the pollen seriously make you feel like conking out! My head kinda feels dumb! Luckily I'm only seriously affected by it for about three weeks rather than three months like some people! I would also like to see a full seperate wikiproject which I think will be needed for such a huge task ahead but it may be more advisable to create a task force first until it gains momentum. Perhaps you could make a proposal at WP:Councils to get it up and running, I'll try to chip in when I can. I've also created some new island locator maps which will be used if we are to begin with A. Samoa first. Feel free to continue uploading the directory, we don't want to deter all the helpful dabbers!! Good to here from you. Regards ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 14:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:Radio Wikipedia spot

No problem. Would've let you know but I figured you'd see it on Sam's page anyway =) (re: short (94s) segment on Radio Wikipedia covering this decision. You can preview the segment here). best of luck fritzy, you've got a lot of work ahead of you. xenocidic (talk) 14:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I heard it - that's what prompted my comment :) As to the work....yes, I'm regretting it already :-P Fritzpoll (talk) 14:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Centralized feedback

Dear Fritzpoll et al...

As you plan to start up the project, I trust you will continue to encourage broad community input and feedback. I hope that you will create a centralized location for this, and have the bot create links to it on the talk pages of all the stubs that are created. I'm sure there will be many people who want to keep an eye on your progress and add their suggestions and critiques. I for one, would like there to be a single place that I can monitor to convince myself that I made the right decision. Thanks. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 18:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, Sam - we're just quickly arranging a spot to centralise the discussion before we get going. Then we plan to publicise it widely, so noone can be unaware of its existence. Best wishes Fritzpoll (talk) 22:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The Apprentice articles

In response to your enquiry:

Hey dude, I'm doing ok! and you? you seem to have been busy. Did't realise you had such a debate, but good luck, and congrats that your bot got approved :-) Ok, I'm defo up for the push, lets start with writing a list of tasks on the project page, then we can all work from that? not sure where you will see this post, so I have copied this from my talk page and put it on yours. Many thanks, δ²_(Talk) 03:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Restrictions on dabbing

Hi Fritz. If you are referring to my praise of Carlos's work last night it wasn't so much his dabbing of the lists you created but his general activity on wikipedia in this field in which he deserved to be encouraged. As for the community consensus, you do realise that most places will have to be evaded from being created by the bot now as you will not find "adequate" details on many of the African countries or poorer countries in Asia and Latin America for some time however optimistic we may be. Working with wikiprojects or not, for many of the countries in Africa you won't find enough data to create to high class articles on so even towns will have to be ignored by the bot leaving the countries which are in serious need of development left out because of this conservative approach. This was the whole point of the bot to start with. This means that the limited quantity that the bot will create due to these heavy restrictions could easily be done manually and somewhat defeats the object of why it was initially requested. The places that 100 people initally wanted to see with articles but many people didn't will be added anyway, its a pity more data isn't availbale for many of these countries. I;ve done some web searching and for the countries I most wanted to use that bot for, limited data is available meaning we will have to still ignore towns in many countries which isn't what I wanted. I fully agree that planning and working on each country and obtaining data through consensus is the best course of action, but the reality is that many of the most lacking countries are still going to be left out. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 09:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry for the moment - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised what we can turn up and how much the bot can help. Let's experiment with American Samoa, see how it turns out, and then work from there. If you want to include all these places, the best thing we can do is to have a big push to finalise WP:NPT, which would specify easily what places are and are not notable. Fritzpoll (talk) 10:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Mmm OK. What I would suggest though that if many villages in the directory ar eleft out of inclusion I would propose we create lists of the smaller places in tables by district/province with as much data as is available if there isn't enough to create seperate articles as Giro once suggested. We could then create the redriects to the lists of all the other places, so eventually the wikipedia index recognizes all settlements whether they are speerate articles or in lists, Then as info becomes avilabale the speerate articles can be created. Sound good?

What I want is wikipedia to recognize all the places that appear on sites like national satellite agency and maplandia but use what is avilable to display the information in different forms e.g if there is enough data -create seperate articles, if not create a list of places with info on location with a globe inside the tables etc in lists. This way even if there isn;t a load of info on many countries as I am concerned about, wikipedia would still offer coordinates of these places and acknowledgement. I am kinda hoping that as we work through countries info on other places will gradually become availabale so by the time we come to work on a country info has become available.. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 12:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed - lists as a backup position should be one of our default guideliens at the new project/taskforce - let's move this discussion there Fritzpoll (talk) 12:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I wa going to follow up with the idea that if info becomes available in the future for notability purposes, the bot may become useful again, but more likely, we will at least have a source of redlinks with exisiting data for people to use to expand into bigger articles. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at the new pages now!! I'm pretty quick for a human, many people have mistaken me for a bot before, but the reality is a bot could do things ten times quicker. The moment is goes into action is the moment I;ve been waiting for. Any progress on the project proposal? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 14:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

What I'd propose is that when the new project is established we have a department or sub pages dedicated to research. To compiling sources or listing potential sources for each country. What do you think?. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 14:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

If we decide, which I strongly think we should to create tables of all places anyway by district of each country, I think that the directory should still be generated. We may need to adapt it however if we are to trnasfer them into tables and find other info. Where we can I think we should create as many seperate articles as possible if valid enough but for those which at present it is difficult to obtain data, lists of tables would seem to most comprehensive system. After all people are here to learn, and if they have to visit 100 different pages to get the same data that could be listed in a neat table then our job isn't being done correctly. Some day in the future I can see websites dedicated to districts like there are in places like france and the UK etc all over the world and the days when we found it hard to find a population figure will be laughable, as by this time paragraphs of info on the history/culture of these places will gradually become avilable. It may be a while for some countries to gain access to the web but I think we can be sure that the givernment or elite of even poverty stricken countries will be wealthy eough to publish data online even in countries like Liberia, Guinea etc ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 16:09, 11 June 2008 (UTC) Here is a world directory of national statistic websites I found. COuld prove useful ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Excellent - I think we should start documenting these resources on the centralised page to make it easier to find them Fritzpoll (talk) 11:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• Micronesia too. I'll complete drawing up a full directory of national sites in the mainspace. There is already a list but at present it only covers the bigger countries not those in the developing world. I'll transfer all the details from the world bank directory onto wikipedia so we at least have some potential sources for every country. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

It would be best of course to have a department or subpage of the new project dedicated to research and collecting links for each country which could be used ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll draw up a full list at List of national and international statistical services. Then this can be copied to the new project. Sound good? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Soapboxing by User:Caesarjbsquitti‎

Hi Fritzpoll, Jehochman asked me to pass this on to you. User:Caesarjbsquitti‎ has been making a long long number of trolling and soapboxing remarks to various articles. He was topic banned from 9/11 articles recently but has continued to soapbox in other areas. He was blocked in November 2007 for the same behaviour. Here is my message to Jehochman and my detailed message to User:Haemo. Both Jehochman and Haemo recused themselves from dealing with this due to Caesarjbsquitti‎'s remarks about 9/11. Thanks for reading this--Cailil ^talk 13:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Just posting this to acknowledge your comments. I'll have a look into this, and if I am unable to handle it, I will find you an appropriate admin who will Fritzpoll (talk) 13:43, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd also like somebody to look at this edit to the project page of WP:GS. Notice also that the edit is mark as "minor" like a number of other additions that Caesarjbsquitti‎ has recently made He seems to have made a mistake and says he thought he was posting to the talk page--Cailil ^talk 00:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Question regarding the recent proposal

Good afternoon. I would like to comment on the proposal as stated at User:Fritzpoll/Refinement. Where should I do so? Thanks, your work on this proposal is appreciated. Feel free to respond on my talk page to ensure I receive the answer. Beam 17:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The actual proposal has actually achieved consensus as per WP:GEOBOT - perhaps I can answer any questions, or address any comments you may have. Alternatively, the working group is currently working out of User:John_Carter/GEOBOT_group and you can see how things are building up into activity Fritzpoll (talk) 19:18, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Bot group comments

You said that the first thing the group should probably do is work on the articles the bot did in its trial run. Not a bad idea, but a lot of the parties invovled seem to have very limited geographic interests, and it might be best to just let them work on generating lists for the countries they're interested in first. Do you by any chance have a list of the articles the bot has worked on? John Carter (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Not to hand, but if you look at its contributions, that should give us the list. Apologies for not being more active about this - work has suddenly picked up in intensity, and I haven't the time and energy afterwards to do much in the way of typing. I'll be back up to speed soon though! Fritzpoll (talk) 21:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

No problem at all, believe me. I think I found some of them. Unfortunately, most of the Afghan content seems to be, well, underdeveloped. But we are getting a little more done there. I've nominated two mosques for DYKs today, and hope that might breathe a little more activity into the group as well. John Carter (talk) 23:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought the proposal had been made at WP:COuncils?? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 19:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Not by me - I've been too busy in real life... Fritzpoll (talk) 19:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought John had filed it? IN that case I'm going to list it at WP:COuncils now. I'd rather we set it up as the village pump acted as a council discussion before but I guess we have to do it by the book. I want to see that bot running asap ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 19:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Userpage Design

I might be interested in helping out on your userpage. Let me know what you're after and what you've already seent hat you like, and I'll see what I can do. Hope this helps, Gazimoff ^Write_Read 17:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I actually quite like the simple way yours is laid out, but I'd want a couple of my userboxes within it, and obviously a lot of text that I'd define myself. Not very imaginative, so I'll tell you what - go ahead and change my userpage. Do whatever you think would make it look nice, and I'll fiddle with the tiny details afterwards. I, in the meantime, have to go do a certain editor's RfA Review questions... :) Fritzpoll (talk) 18:52, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Just a couple of style questions. What are your favourite colours, what icon set do you prefer and is your username unified across all wikimedia services? Also, do you mind me creating some subpages to hold content? Many thanks, Gazimoff ^Write_Read 18:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Not globally unified yet, blue or dark green, create all the pages you like (within my userspace - this isn't carte blanche for creating articles on magical leprechauns :) ) Fritzpoll (talk) 19:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Okies, I'll set to it later tonight. Shame about the leprechauns though [1] :) Gazimoff ^Write_Read 19:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

haha! Thanks very much - if you need anything around here, give me a shout Fritzpoll (talk) 19:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I've sone some basic work on it. Hope it's alright. Gazimoff ^Write_Read 00:30, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

I figured the talk page of the project page would probably be the best place for discussion. I am trying to only really expand the articles that are all already completed, but the book I'm using groups several modern areas together into individual volumes, and I can't be surer it'll be around indefinitely, so I'm winding up creating a few new articles which are showing up in the Badakhshan volume anyway, while the book is available. John Carter (talk) 19:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I know - I was mostly wondering where the project is going to end up being...can't be in your userspace forever Fritzpoll (talk) 19:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Unfortunately, no responses from the Geography project yet, other than my own. We could turn it into the Missing encyclopedic articles/Geography task force though. Alternately, considering it is a possibly temporary event, maybe just completely integrating into Geography as a regular part of the project. If we don't get some response by early next week, I may well take the iniative(insert less flattering terms here) myself regarding it. But, considering the Signpost hasn't run my story yet, and actually hasn't come out this week, I think we can reasonably wait until that story's been out before we act. John Carter (talk) 19:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Well how long are you willing to wait. Is all this waiting necessary given that it has been approved? All we need to decide is what department it is to be under. I;ve never had much response from WP:Geography or WP:Cities on other issues either. I think it would be best as a task force of missing articles given that a lot of set up has alreadt been done there ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 19:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I say screwit, just start working as it is now. It's not like a few redirects or pagemoves can't fix things up real quick. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 21:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

New project to coordinate GEOBOT proposed at WP:Councils

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#WikiProject Missing Encyclopedia articles/Geography task force has been formally requested. Please feel free to add further comment. The sooner we get an official framework to coordinate established the sooner the bot can start work! ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 19:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Corliss P. Stone

So we Americans are supposed to put up with your British desire to create a stub for every little hamlet and village in England but if we use public domain material for a stub on a Mayor of Seattle a City bigger than Liverpool it gets deleted. What @#^& explitive deleted —Preceding unsigned comment added by RichardBond (talk • contribs) 22:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

If the hamlets and villages are notable, yes - I have dual nationality, so being British has nothing to do with anything. Write the article, in your *own* words - not just a copy and paste from a source that you claim is public domain, and make sure you assert the importance of the subject. No need to get huffy about it, you've been told how to fix this by multiple editors, and you just continue to upload the same page over and over again Fritzpoll (talk) 22:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Multiple editors keep making the same mistake because they do not know American copyright law. If a text was published before January 1 1923 it s public domain. There are no hamlets in Britain more notable than Seattle. I am appaled that there are editors in Britain who ave nothing better to do han vanadlize American articles based on their prejudice. RichardBond (talk) 22:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Please do not accuse me of vandalism when I am simply applying policy, and please stop using my nationality against me. I am well aware of American copyright law in this matter, but the text you are dumping into the article is not asserting notability - I don't care about the copyright issue, as, as far as I'm concerned, it is moot. I just care that the article asserts the notability of its subject. Hence why is is deleted per WP:CSD#A7 and not under copyright violations Fritzpoll (talk) 22:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Only a person from another country with a massive case of chauvinism would consider the Mayor of an American city to not be notable. Leave the article alone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RichardBond (talk • contribs) 22:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

(sigh) So now I'm a chauvinist as well - joyous. Not quite sure how that links in. I'm not the only administrator who deleted your article, so why only harrass me about it, eh? Off you go now. Fritzpoll (talk) 22:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Attack page

"The controversy continued in the spring of 2008 when Takenouchi, who suffers from severe bipolar disorder, abandoned her company Yaoi house while in a delusional mania state, leaving customers, investors, and authors to pick up the pieces. Takenouchi has since returned to the company and continues to generate censure for retaining the title of President, despite her now well-known mental condition. "

"Delusional mania state, leaving customers, investors and authors to pick up the pieces," isn't an attack? How so? Please elaborate. --Blechnic (talk) 22:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

You removed the material, so the page is not an attack page. An attack page is a page which has the sole purpose of disparaging its subject. This is not the case here Fritzpoll (talk) 22:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, right, someone created the pages with a group of spam accounts and the attackers came in about 24 hours and started using it as such. I'm sure it wasn't that purpose. But, now that it's solidly in the history of the article, everyone can read about her alleged mental illnesses. I'm surprised that no matter how much more clever the spammers and attackers on Wikipedia get, it doesn't seem to be a coevolutionary situation. --Blechnic (talk) 22:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The article is undergoing AfD - if you are worried about BLP issues, I suggest going to WP:OVERSIGHT, which may be able to help get rid of the edits forever. Fritzpoll (talk) 22:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't care, obviously more important on Wikipedia to provide highly visible space for attacking other people. --Blechnic (talk) 22:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Fritz is acting appropriately within the CSD criteria. Speedily deleting the page for attacks that are no longer in the current revision while the article is being considered at AFD would surely land us at deletion review. Oversight is the appropriate venue for this. xenocidic (talk) 22:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe. But I don't use policy, as it's usually used as a weapon against me, and no one at AfD cared one way or another about sitting around discussing an article with attacks against living people on them, so why should I? Or anyone on Wikipedia. I also admire how cleverly the attackers get away with using Wikipedia. And I don't admire how used Wikipedia is. Anyway, that's enough. I don't care about the article, the person, the attacks, it was merely something to do. --Blechnic (talk) 22:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

No maybe about it - it's in the text of the tag you used, which I quoted above. WP:OVERSIGHT is not policy, it is a procedure to do what you have been asking me to do. Unfortunately, I don't have sufficient access to do it Fritzpoll (talk) 22:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you that was exhausting I thank you also for the reformatting tag Sincerely RichardBond (talk) 22:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you!

Hello! Thank you for taking the time to explain your decision regarding the article on Richard Marshall Bond. My concern was that the late Dr. Bond is the head of a non-notable company (see the red links). Also, it appears the article's author may have more than an academic interest in the subject (notice the name), and the author also has a surprisingly long history of creating articles that get deleted. I hope you don't take offense, but I would like to offer the article for AfD consideration. Thanks again, and be well. Ecoleetage (talk) 10:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

P.S. As I suspected, there is some COI problems here: [2]

Hi Eco - I think you may well be spot on here: I was purely judging it on WP:CSD#A7 which essentially offers a wide-ranging benefit of the doubt in its conditions. Very borderline, and if you want to PROD/AfD, then you are free to do so. Best wishes, Fritzpoll (talk) 11:13, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi again. On Nick Holder, my research brought in less than marginal notability, and the article has no WP:RS. I will submit this for AfD, too. Thanks! Ecoleetage (talk) 11:25, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah - my advice is not to leap for CSD too rapidly. Read over the criteria carefully. A lot of the time, a PROD is a better first step Fritzpoll (talk) 11:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

In any event, the article is in AfD now and I will allow the community consensus to weigh in. Oh, I should say again that I am very glad that you took the time to discuss this with me. Please accept this token of my appreciation for your kind input:

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		For providing intelligent, sincere and friendly input to the Wikipedia editors. Ecoleetage (talk) 11:41, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Be well. --Ecoleetage (talk) 11:41, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

You're most welcome, Eco Fritzpoll (talk) 11:42, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

As a post-script: shortly after the Richard Marshall Bond and Nick Holder deal, I put in a Speedy Delete tag on a new article for The Blue Mountains (Elgar) as a copyright violation. The author who posted the article put in a hang-on notice, and I provided information from a British government web site showing the work was not public domain and was under copyright protection through 2029. I thought that was a bit clever on my part and just wanted to share that. --Ecoleetage (talk) 16:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

As luck would have it, after I posted the above message, the article was resubmitted in a Wiki-friendly format. This was done in response to my previous CSD warning. However, I commended the writer for his work in fixing it (no sense in not praising good work): --Ecoleetage (talk) 20:12, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I do hope you haven't tired of project? Busy? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 18:51, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Life is quite busy, and work is quite hectic. I'm a little too bsy to sort out where the project goes, etc. but I can't do anything else until we have somewhere - then I'll happily write all the instructions, advertise it and then get to work on the discussions. Just waiting to know where to put it! Fritzpoll (talk) 18:53, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Geography/Bot has been started. I've waited long enough with no response either at WP:Cites, WP:Geography or WP:Councils. Goven that these are major parts of wikipedia the response from them has been on existent. Anyway we have 22 members ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 21:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Settled

Issue dealt with. Too many cooks ought to be on the top of most Wikipedia pages. --Blechnic (talk) 21:52, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

That's ok - will just drop a note to twsk below as he has now asked me for a comment Fritzpoll (talk) 22:05, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your offer. The editor is accusing me of breaking WP:EW and WP:3RR for reverting an editor multiple times, who removed AFD templates. If you find the time to take a look at it and give your neutral opinion, it would probably be a good help. As far as my average knowledge about Wikipedia policy goes, removing AFD templates is considered vandalism, and reverting them is not considered edit warring, and not liable for the 3RR rule. ~ | twsx | ^talk_cont | ~ 21:52, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean the reverts at Yaoi House? Fritzpoll (talk) 21:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot about that. The articles in question is Yaoi House, yes, and Kira Takenouchi. ~ | twsx | ^talk_cont | ~ 21:58, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Meh. Wouldn't say it was 3RR on your part because any well-intentioned user would (in my opinion) regard removing AfD tags as vandalism. That said, you reverted many, many times, and what you probably should have done is report the user to WP:AIV. This particular user has now been blocked for a username violation, but by reporting them to AIV, they could have been stopped sooner without you having to revert so many times - such repetitive reversions are probably not the best uses of your time, as you'd probably rather be doing something else. Nonetheless, I don't think a 3RR complaint would hold up, but there was a slightly better way of handling it Fritzpoll (talk) 22:08, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

If i remember correctly, i was trying to do a report, but just couldn't get to it because i had so many things going on at the same time (both wikipedia and otherwise). Also, removing AFD templates is actually stated to be considered vandalism on WP:VANDAL. ~ | twsx | ^talk_cont | ~ 22:24, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I know it is :) I was mostly just saying that AIV would have freed you up to do some of the other things you needed to be getting on with. Like I said, a 3RR report wouldn't hold up (sorry if I seemed vague) Fritzpoll (talk) 22:26, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

police deletion

Mind if I bold your "delete" vote? Also, as far as a police department being notably non-notable is concerned: thanks for your appreciation of my humor; what I meant is that almost any police department gets coverage in reliable third-party sources. It would be notable for the police not to be in the news.

So I am inclusionist towards emergency service agencies. By the way, as an aside, one of the reasons that I'm inclusionist as to the police is that the police in my community have their own article (they are notable because of the sniper investigation), and I don't see why the police elsewhere shouldn't; the other reason is that I think that inherent notability belongs to public institutions, which both museums and police are. Please reply on the AfD discussion and then put {{talkback}} on my talk page. Thanks. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 19:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the duff formatting of the !vote. I think the problem here is that things are not inherently notable. The real question is whether or not the police department here has recieved reliable, independent non-trivial coverage in third-party sources. The non-triviality means that it isn't enough to read an article simply mentioning the police department, it has to be at least partly about the police department. That's where this article, in my opinion, fails WP:N. I'm happy to keep discussing this, but posting my reply to the AfD will look a little disjointed Fritzpoll (talk) 19:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that our positions are well stated. There are some topics (such as, for example, individual instances of this) that I think to be inherently notable, but the boundaries of inherent notability are subject to discussion. Anyhow, I predict the Oak Park Police will either be a redirect or a no-consensus keep, either of which will be fine with me. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 20:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

About the more recent debate, I can't find WP:NOTPROFORMA; even if I lose all credibility, I have to agree with Col. Warden until I can get my hands on a copy of it. [Please put {{talkback}} (or your reply) on my talk page.] 69.140.152.55 (talk) 01:39, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

There isn't such a page - the more important point is that the source Col. Warden is trying to use is not independent of its subject because it is affiliated with the police department. This is clearly written in WP:N and means that you can't use the source he cites to assert notability Fritzpoll (talk) 07:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, except that the point of independent sources is to ensure neutrality of point of view. And the provincial government's inspections are designed to be neutral. Of course, if they were, hypothetically, to gloss over human rights violations or other such things, that would make them non-neutral, but there is no evidence of that.

If we take policies literally, we would also not include published court decisions as a reliable source for information about themselves, but I don't think that's the point of the policy. Anyhow I am okay with whatever is the outcome of the police-deletion debate, and as the nominator said, let's "agree to disagree." 69.140.152.55 (talk) 15:38, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but you are talking about reliable sources for an article. There is a difference between verifiability, that is, that we have enough reliable sources to reference an article, and notability, which is how we decide whether or not to write a reliable article. As I said on the deletion page, there are a large number of reliable sources that mention me by my real name, with real facts about me. That doesn't affect my notability. The point where 'independence' comes into my argument is that the report was not independent of the subject - I woul be perfectly happy for this to be used as a source within the article, because it is reliable, neutral, and clearly a rich source of information. But it is not entirely independent of the subject, so we can't use th source to say "this subject should have an article". If you understand the distinction I am making, but still don't agree, then yes, let us agree to disagree :) Fritzpoll (talk) 16:39, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! 69.140.152.55 (talk) 18:15, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Queue

I've been trying to figure out how to add data to the queue of entries the bot is going to make, but all I see is a row with coordinates. Am I misunderstanding how the bot is going to function? Phlegm Rooster (talk) 07:50, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

We're not quite set up yet, give me 24-48 hours, and I'll drop a line to your talkpage telling you where to join in. The coordinates you're looking at are not going to be used. What country are you working on? Fritzpoll (talk) 07:52, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

None really, I just made Am Dam, population 77,593, in Chad because it was in the news today. I would like to work on wherever the largest (by population) missing cities are. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 07:58, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Great - give me 48 hours, and I'll have the pages ready Fritzpoll (talk) 08:00, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

A note--The population figure you gave for Am Dam was for the sub-prefecture, not the town. Please do not add that to the town's article, although the sub prefectures need starting. I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 11:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

How are you Mr. Fritz? Sorry if I've nagged you at all, I just see potential thats all! ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 12:19, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, still busy - looks like you have boldly found us a place to house the project, so I'm going to sit down, probably this evening and actually build the project's pages. Then we can advertise widely, and get people involved from all parts - and then, finally, we can start collating sources for me to manufacture lists Fritzpoll (talk) 12:33, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

No more diffs

not interested. It will simply result in Ryulong doing whatever the hell he wants and me being blocked. --Blechnic (talk) 13:29, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I can promise that you won't be blocked for answering my question - there's nothing to block for! I've only glanced over the AN/I page - but if you want something done, you'll have to show me what the problem is. I don't know Ryulong at all, so I'm hardly partial towards his cause Fritzpoll (talk) 13:31, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not interested. I have been treated so badly by so many people on Wikipedia that it's disgusting. I assume this is just how Wikipedia is: a hostile community. Yet, every time I go to the web to do a search for something I need information about, some crap from Wikipedia shows up, like a cell diagram of a cell that's biologically neuter. So, no thanks. --Blechnic (talk) 13:35, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I can count three people who you feel have treated you badly. The problem for the admins at AN/I is that there doesn't seem to a lot to act on. This stems partly from your obvious, and perhaps understandable, upset over what happened meaning that you are naturally quite emotive on this issue. Consequently, there are very few diffs cited for other admins, like me who are neutral, to pick through and work out what has happened. I think that it's awful if you don't feel able to contribute here as you clearly know your stuff, but I can't help without you providing some evidence (can't find it on my own) - I do, however, understand you not wanting to go on and on with it.

You may feel like you've gotten off to a bit of a shoddy start here, and I can't blame you for feeling that way. On the other hand, I think you could benefit from a bit more experience here, so you have an idea of how our policies and guidelines work, which you'll pick up if you get editing. It'd be a shame to lose you, so I hope you'll stay, and if you do, consider my talkpage open for questions, queries, comments, and anything else (even some venting, if it helps). Hope to see you fixing up those articles soon! Best wishes, Fritzpoll (talk) 13:45, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I've posted dozens of diffs on AN/I, and no one has bothered to read one. Don't worry, MBisanz wasn't the first jerk, first I got a perfectly decent edit reverted by bot, then threatened with being blocked for questioning the edit. I stuck through back to create a halfway decent article from crap on Marine Bacteriophages. The fact is, I posted diffs, no one read them. That's enough. I don't need a community like this. --Blechnic (talk) 13:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Templated warnings from bots and other editors that say "you may be blocked" are just templates - and are ignored by administrators if there are no grounds for issuing them. The community appears to have dealt with User:DougTech since users commented on his talkpgae that his actions were vandalism and his means of conducting his reverts was not good. I read your diffs, but the thing is that, for most of them, several edits later, it is handled by someone else coming along and settling it. That only leaves the matter of the blocks and this "stalking" accusation. For the former, the community has to wait for Hershfold to defend his actions by syaing what was in that e-mail. He deserves a right to reply. For the latter, you've only provided one diff, and it isn't enough to take action, and that's why I came to your talkpage to start with. I understand your frustration, and if you feel you can no longer edit, then I'm disappointed, but I do get it. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:59, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't get a right to reply. Why is it so important that he gets one? Why the double standard, I get no rights, and everyone else gets all of them? What is it about this and Wikipedia, gag the nobodies? Why does everyone have to keep shoving it in my face, that Hersfold can shut me up and prevent me from replying, but he/she gets the right of reply. I'm sick of hearing about that.

And none of this deals with what started it all: MBisanz blocking me after I had stopped "edit-warring," after a single warning. No one has dealt with that at all. If a tag is a warning, then if the editor stops, they shouldn't be punitively punished by an administrator. No one is dealing with that issue. MBisanz is certainly too busy to bother with that. And, that block is permanently available for anyone and everyone to look at and use against me forever all of the time I spend on Wikipedia. All you're really doing is making me wish I had never come to Wikipedia, so please, don't continue to remind me what I loser I am for having any part of this community. My block record, created by MBisanz reminds me and everyone else of that quite nicely.

I also accepted Ryulong's apology, and he continued to harass me on AN/I with multiple edits. No one has dealt with that. He just looks silly following me to the cell diagram page to protest that Wikipedia should keep some biological original research, though, so it's not really that irritating. --Blechnic (talk) 14:06, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you did get that right - hence the lengthy AN/I contributions you have made. And who cares about a block log, provided all the edits after that are fine - loads of editors have blocks. Hell, even User:Jimbo Wales has a block log. It's not that big a deal. And if Ryulong looks silly doing what he's doing - great! Then everyone can see it - the point is, he hasn't done anything to violate policies. I need to look more closely at the block timings compared to your contributions, but basically, we have an issue of a possibly bad initial block by MBisanz - just focus on that and it'll be easier to keep track of your complaint.

People can want to help all they want, but if you keep diverging off about various other things that aren't actually policy violations, people will naturally lend less credence to you other complaints - that's just human nature. Bluntly, if you just start editing, and keep editing, noone's going to bother you. We'll look at the block once all the parties are back, but for now, my advice is just to let it go - it's only the internet! Fritzpoll (talk) 14:14, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I care about it. And, no, I didn't get any right to respond to Hersfold's block because he/she blocked my talk page after he continued to harass me to support Ryulong's right to keep posting on my talk page after I told him not to. And, since my user page was blocked, and my e-mail was blocked, I couldn't request an unblock. When I finally figured out how to do it via e-mail to the list serve, they just ignored it. So, no, I didn't get a right to respond, while everyone is totally concerned that he/she get this right. And, guess what, when people get treated like shit, they don't like it, and they get pissed off. Wikipedia seems to be the only community on the web that allows users to inflame other users who are otherwise already being inflamed, it's like it's actively encourage, it's like a gang rape. There's no way I'm counting on anyone helping me. MBisanz showed me that policies don't apply when an administrator has a temper tantrum. And, I care that I have a block record from that. I don't care if no one else cares, I care. --Blechnic (talk) 14:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Fritzpoll (talk) 14:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in like this, but I think everyone cares a little bit about a block log. For example, I received a (well deserved) block back in January, for which I am sorry for. You just have to move on. Oh, and you say you don't count on anyone helping you. I'm no admin, but I'll be glad to help you (I apologise beforehand for not knowing a thing about it.) A bunch of admins thrive off the drama and practically contribute solely to the ANI. Fritzpoll is an exception, a very kind user that had to go through a lot of stress with the FritzpollBot. Just surving such a massive, drama-admin debate like that is a plus for you. You, amoung all people, would be (along with Blofeld, but he doesn't want to be one) my top prospect for adminship, and I want to congradlate, belated perhaps, becoming one. I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 15:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

RE: StewieGriffin! Bot

Butting in? Anyway. I'm going to leave it a little while. It's hard! StewieGriffin! • Talk Sign 15:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Meh - I'm older than you so have older English phrases clunking round my head - just means interrupting a conversation. Yeah, there's a bit of learning to do before you can make bots. That said, programming is easier than people would have you believe Fritzpoll (talk) 15:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Pictures for bot-generated place articles

See Commons-l discussion - [3], thread at [4] - could be useful! - David Gerard (talk) 11:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Mistake?

[5] Tan | 39 15:47, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Phew, for a sec I thought you were leaving us :-) Tan | 39 15:48, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Lol - no: I wanted to show someone how to mark a page for CSD U1, but there were several conflicting answers in the templates, so I used Twinkle to tag my own page as a quick fix! Of course, in between adding the tag and removing it, my internet connection died. Glad to know I'd be missed though! Fritzpoll (talk) 15:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

The FritzpollBot

Hi Fritzpoll. Whatever happened to the FritzpollBot? It got approved, and now there's a geobot group, but I haven't heard of the bot's progress. Are you still going to run it and how so? I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 14:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Strange I was about to ask if there have been any devleopments? We now have 25 editors on board and think when you have moment we should make ago of it. It seems silly to spend weeks in approving it and then not using it ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 14:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Somebody else also has a question for you:

The Procedure section on the project page is a little vague, so I haven't quite figured out exactly what needs to be done and how I can help. What do we need to do to verify item's on the list, so they can be generated by the bot? Please be specific. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 03:16, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

100 people in the "community" happened to strongly approve of the initial proposal as it was, and actually many weren't as pleased with the newer proposal because it was too conservative and limited. Even many of those who were against the bot creating similar articles said that they have no problems if humans are adding them, provding they can be expanded later. It was the prospect of a bot creating two million stubs with little info that turned many people off. Probably the best way to fill in the unknown places intially is using the lists but please don't deter me from expanding the encyclopedia in my own right. Many editors would support the work I do. I would urge that we create the lists by country but it seemed it would be a long time before it would be attended too, particularly as American Samoa is now on the number 1. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 16:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, Blofeld - I was mostly worried that you might think I had abandoned the geo project, and so were feeling compelled to keep hacking away at it yourself. This is another drive-by message, so hopefully the meaning gets across better in this one! Fritzpoll (talk) 12:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Cool! Yes that sounds good. I'm getting itchy fingers though to start all these places! I know that each country will be worked out eventually and we'll be creating lists of places but where the coverage is extremely poor at present I want to continue adding a few stubs. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 13:14, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes OK, its just I've always tried to be as productive as possible on wikipedia and try not to waste too much time. Where there are thousands of articles missing I tend to feel the need to begin addressing it. I hope the bot will be up and running soon! ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 13:37, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Should be - the pages are now ready. Pick a country, follow the insructions, and we'll get underway! Fritzpoll (talk) 13:40, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. I did want to go through them alphabetically as was planned. E.g with Afghanistan, we should generate lists by province and create redirects to the lists. If we can't find much info, rather than skip it, I think we should still create the lists. Would it be possible to generate tabled lists with minitature locator pushpin maps in as appear in article?. I know the globe is recommended but if we could have both I think it would be useful. If we could evise a way to do this and not bloat the tables this would work great I think. I'd like the see Afghanistan finished off with lists ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 13:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think I suggest that in Phase 2/3. But we'll just need to work out the wikitext to make that work technically Fritzpoll (talk) 13:55, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking something like this with a globe also and any other useful columns we can find

Place name	Province	District	Description	Altitude	Nearest settlements	Map
Assio						Fritzpoll/Archive 2 (Burkina Faso)
Fritz town
Bald City
Giobo
Silouk
Mbogo
Tsawa
Dario
Esewa
Wafene

Looks good - propose i on the main talk page. We'll now need to contact our volunteers and get them crawling all over the pages. Then we can advertise it more widely to keep the community suitably involved and relaxed about it Fritzpoll (talk) 14:04, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

We'd need to find a way of creating own own pin mpas for the lists at a smaller size also. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 14:09, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The more I think about the more I think creating a full set of world lists would serve a comprehensive platform to build on. Once the lists are started then we could work through and try to create indivudal articles using the bot where there is enough info available. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 14:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Simon David von Heine

Thanks for your note. Please enlighten me: exactly which sentence in this article do you believe is a weak assertion of notability? I read it again, and I just don't see any. Keep in mind that this article was part of a series, roughly half of which have now been deleted for non-notability. There were a few that I thought were borderline so I did not tag them for speedy delete, but this one seemed pretty clear to me. Maybe you can take a look at the others? They are all listed together at PNT. Thanks. Cbdorsett (talk) 06:50, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• Looks like you found the others. You could have told me you deleted all the db-bio tags. Since you think these are notable, maybe you could help out a bit here. If you have time, translate the sentences you think make an assertion of notability. Otherwise, just quote them. I'll take it from there. Cbdorsett (talk) 07:20, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

johnny Cooper American Musician article

Can you resend the link to the sharonbrain/johnnycooper page for the rework... Cheers Sharonbrain2 (talk) 00:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User_talk:Fritzpoll" Thank you that sounds great to have your assistance in getting the page back up. What is the best way to work on it. Can you highlight the point of concerns in red so that I can address them? That would help. Is it that I need to add more sources? Thank you Sharonbrain2 Sharonbrain2 (talk) 23:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Specifically, you need to find some sources that prove that he is notable. Have a look at WP:N and WP:MUSIC and see if you can find any sources to show how Johnny Cooper satisfies these guidelines in some way. If you have a look and think it can be done, I will restore the article to your userspace for you to work on. Hope that sounds fair Fritzpoll (talk) 23:43, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I have read over the WP:Music info. Where do I document the media sources, music charts, and record label info that proves he is notable? Do I add this info to the talk page?

I am curious about events on this article - Earlier this year I had discussion on his notablility with someone on Wiki (administrator?) from my old login (Sharonbrain) and they pointed out to others on Wiki to look at the links that I had on the page...such as press/media articles about Johnny Cooper as well has his appearance in the documentary "North of Austin/West of Nashville:Red Dirt Music". From this experiance, I thought all was well. Can you tell me was there a complaint on the page, was this a delayed deletion, ...

Appreciate any insight or process on where to provide inclusion evidence.

Cheers Sharon —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sharonbrain2 (talk • contribs) 00:05, 23 June 2008 (UTC) Oooops Sharonbrain2 (talk) 00:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Just cite the evidence as an inline reference. What you need is something along the lines of "Fritzpoll is a Wikipedia administrator, well-known for his contributions to geography<ref>Some article, some newspaper, some date, by someone</ref>". The problem with the article is that it didn't even say why he was thought to be notable - not sure about the delay, but sometimes these things take time to spot. Let me know if/when you find sources for notability. Remember, independent sources are needed. Best wishes Fritzpoll (talk) 00:12, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

ANI

Bravo. Tan | 39 00:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Saw your comment in there as well, but it seems to have gotten lost in the mire of accusations. A new one has just been posted (sigh) - nearly my bedtime Fritzpoll (talk) 00:19, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Richard Marshall Bond

The office of the Pergrine Fund is not open yet and so though I requested that some one of my uninformed critics check on whether my fathers work with Peregrines was one important to the field it was deleted out from a position of ignorance. The Caribbean has the population size of Britain. One of my critics a Hawaiiian living in Japan said that CFCS has no importance. To him maybe but who would I be to try and dictate what is notable in Hawaii or Japan. Wikipedia gives an initial appearance that it is a means to share knowledge among people who have it and instead it is a paradise for cyberbullies. RichardBond (talk) 13:40, 23 June 2008 (UTC) It looks like I should have mentioned his Bernice Piauhi Bishop Fellowship classifying Hawaiian seashells for the American Museum of Natural History. RichardBond (talk) 13:48, 23 June 2008 (UTC).

Sorry, what are you talking about - my only deletion relating to this page is the orphaned talkpage. I didn't delete the article itself. Looking at the AfD, you were told what was needed to prevent deletion, but you ignored it. If you are unhappy, I suggest deletion review. Hope that helps. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Whoops--thanks for catching the talk page! And to Richard I might add that 1) my job is only to weigh existing consensus rather than levy my own opinions and 2) you might want to read my userpage a little more closely :) --jonny-mt 15:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The Minister of Agriculture in Costa Rica will probably recognize Caribbean Food Crop Society. RichardBond (talk) 16:07, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Richard, seriously, what do you want from me - I have had nothing to do with this article beyond removing an orphaned talkpage. You need to talk to jonny here, or just read WP:N. Plus, what has the Carribean Food Crop Society got to do with it - the article was aout your father, not the society. Noone seems to have argued that the Society shouldn't have an article. Fritzpoll (talk) 16:10, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Is there a page on say Baden-Powell if so why he was merely the founder of an organization or Justin Morgan originator of a livestock breed. One of the detractors said CFCS was not notable. There is an obvious subjective value judgement involved. RichardBond (talk) 16:24, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Right, that's it: leave me alone. I have nothing to do with your article being deleted - I don't know exactly why jonny-mt (who did delete your article) determined consensus that way at the AfD. So coming here and getting all snotty with me is a waste of time. Take your arguments to the right place or not, just don't bring them here Fritzpoll (talk) 16:27, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

And one final word of advice: take my previous advice and read WP:N, which tells you how notability is determined at Wikipedia and may lend some clues as to why your stuff keeps getting deleted Fritzpoll (talk) 16:29, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Coffee

My new article Coffee production in Costa Rica. Do you reckon I should start a world coffee production series? I of course owned a global coffee company in Austin Powers 2 which allowed me to have my "Belgian dip"

Something like

♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 15:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

If they're as good as that, I'd say go for it. Well done! Fritzpoll (talk) 16:05, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Huggle

Saw your comment on Giggy's talk. Please run Huggle! I miss it! Shapiros10 ^{contact me}_{My work} 00:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

It's people like you who will let my robots take over the world... :) I'll see what is said, and if people are happy for me to do it, and finally if I'm happy to do it once I've read through the code Fritzpoll (talk) 00:46, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm happy. And give your robot some extra oil from me! (robots use oil, right? Haven't seen that many science-fiction movies.) Shapiros10 ^{contact me}_{My work} 00:51, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Huggle stuff

Well if you do end up developing huggle,which i see no reason that you wouldnt, ill try to make your life easier by having a list of stuff that needs to be fixed / changed in the next version. Ill look after the feedback page, archive the stuff and find out what needs changing e.t.c the add it to the list. I hope you accept ^^ ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 01:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

(yawn - should have gone to bed!) That sounds great - I just need to know where to get the latest source from, and I can look it over - I'm guessing it may be a scrambled mess of horror!. Fritzpoll (talk) 01:16, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I did start on a newer version but you should just user this This is the source for 0.7.10. You can find a list of stuff to be fixed here. Im trying to include links to the archived reports to give you a better idea of what you need to do :> Really we want a new version released soon with the major bugs fixed such as the "Exception when exiting application" bug which you should find is a bug with huggle trying to save logs and failing. If you need more help contact me on my talk page. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 02:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I just released a new version so new source (0.7.11) now out. message me when you get round to it :> ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 18:16, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Just wondering tdo you have an instant mesenger? skype, msn, gogole, irc? If so tell me so we can talk :D ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 17:18, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Fritzpoll/GeoPageTemplate

How goes this? (I can't wait!) (and good luck with Huggle!) giggy _(:O) 09:46, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Go to WP:GEOBOT and find out :) Fritzpoll (talk) 17:17, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Physics participation

You received this message because your were on the old list of WikiProject Physics participants.

On 2008-06-25, the WikiProject Physics participant list was rewritten from scratch as a way to remove all inactive participants, and to facilitate the coordination of WikiProject Physics efforts. The list now contains more information, is easier to browse, is visually more appealing, and will be maintained up to date.

If you still are an active participant of WikiProject Physics, please add yourself to the current list of WikiProject Physics participants. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 14:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

More Huggle: Welcome to hell

Now that you're the new incarnation of Gurch, do you want me to carry on doing what I did with him and notifying you of problems/issues that come up with it? (For reasons that are too boring to go into, and much against my wishes, my talkpage seems to have evolved into the Huggle Complaints Department – search my last couple of talk archives for the word "huggle" and you'll see what I mean.) I'm more than happy to continue passing problems on as they come up, but equally I'm more than happy to leave you to it. (Although, please don't give in to the permanent calls to remove "using Huggle" from the edit summary!) – iridescent 17:37, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, but here's the deal: can you notify me, but on a separate talk page like User:Fritzpoll/Huggle? With FritzpollBot and Huggle, I fear I would start to miss messages! Fritzpoll (talk) 17:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the best place is maybe the huggle feedback page? :D That is kind of what it is for. Also to edit summary advert isn't coded into huggle but is in the config no program change needed to remove it. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 17:44, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Right, I've examined the code. I guess I need to enable Huggle for my account so that I can run tests, and then a list of what needs fixing! Fritzpoll (talk) 17:51, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Gah fritz you havn't got the most recent version :D. The to fix is here once you have fixed it move it to the version number you are currently on. If you ened more info about a bug feel free to ask me and maybe take a look here as this is where most of them "should" get reported. You have any instant mesenger (skype, msn, xfire, google) i cant contact you on? ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 17:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Fritzpoll is on Skype Fritzpoll (talk) 17:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

(to Addshore) Do you really want conversations like this, this or this (and believe me, there are plenty more) spread across your feedback page, especially given that some of your more – ahem – "overzealous" users will no doubt all want to join in the fun? Cabalism is a bad thing and all that, but sometimes there are excellent reasons not to invite all-comers to join a conversation. In case you missed it (I don't think either of you were involved), last time Gurch tried to raise the systemic problems with Huggle in a public forum, this was the result. (Because of archiving, the link in the discussion no longer works; the conversation between Gurch & myself that the discussion references was here.) – iridescent 18:14, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, bug tracking/researching/discussion isn't suited to the wikithreaded discussion format. I'd probably suggest a forum or similar to hold it all. Let me know if you want one - gazimoff.com is sitting idle at the moment. Gazimoff ^Write_Read 18:54, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

(message to Fritzpoll (skype died)) I have added the bugs subpage for you and added all the content I can find on the bugs. Really now that is the only page you need. As more things get bugged ill add them to the changes subpage and the bugs subpage adding info for you. Once you have fixed the bug it would be nice if you could just move it to the right section on the changes subpage so we know its done. Then ill send a message the the reporter and fix the bugs page (archiving the bug) in other words Wikipedia:Huggle/Bugs is now your home :D I hope to see your transformation soon :E If you need any more help with finding something in the code or a cfg file on wiki or can't understand the bug report please just message me on my talk page. Thanks ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 19:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

(Reply to Iridescent) There have already been many discussions about the edit summary tag on the feedback page for example here which you took part in. Really yes I do think that discussion like the one in your archive should be on that page as that is its purpose. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 19:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Urgent

Please! Block User:Велетень and move=sysop User:Maxim! You're the first admin I know who I saw was on. Shapiros10 ^{contact me}_{My work} 11:49, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Bit confused here - the user is already blocked, and the page was move protected 10 days ago. What's going on? Fritzpoll (talk) 11:56, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

oh. They're just putting the...look through the history. I can't describe it in words. Shapiros10 ^{contact me}_{My work} 12:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Getting going

Hi any idea when you could start generating lists in the mainspace? If we are going to include all of the settlements you listsed in the directory at least in the lists do you think it would be best to resume uploading more again to the directory. The sooner we get all of the places into the tabled lists, the sooner we can seek out sources and use the bot to generate new content where sources are adequate. I'm just concerned that we haven't really gone places in over a month. There is such a huge amount to do I really think the sooner we start putting things into action the better. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:34, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm waiting for people to pick a country, then give me a source beyond the NGIA data to work from. The instructions I wrote at WP:GEOBOT are literal! We need to get our volunteers and get going :) Fritzpoll (talk) 11:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

We've got 25 people on board with the project but first of all we need to create lists. We don't need tons of volunteers to do the lists. We just use the coordinates /province/district info as before and generate them into the mainspace in lists. Ideally I wanted the bot to create 2 million new starter articles like Reva, Mozambique so I could concentrate on expanding them ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 17:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC) I say we carry on as before with Afghanistan but instead of creating seperate articles we transfer it into new lists ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 17:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to get to work on creating a list for one of the Afghan provinces manually. Once this is done you;ll see little manual labor is needed and the bot should be able to transfer the data from the directory straight into the tabled lists with coordinates. Before we start on each country we'll need to check which ones (and consult with the wikiprojects if relevant) could have a seperae article but creating basic lists of places should be done anyway as groundwork. To generate the lists we don't need anything more than the NGIA data. It is only if there is enough sources for a seperate article we will create a seperate article. I would suggest we lay out the tables first. It was only agreed at the village pump not to create two million seperate stubs using the basic data, few would object to merging the ones where more sources can't be compiled into full lists. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 17:50, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Somewhat agree ith blodfeld. We should create the lists first (in the Wikipedia Space) and if we find a government source, scrap the Maplandia/Fallingrain/NGIA lists and only use those sources for coord, elevation etc. I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 18:07, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I need to reread what the two of you are saying, but from first glance, this is not in keeping with the consensus at the Village Pump, which was to involve the WikiProjects first. I'm sorry, but if you're suggesting anything else, I will not participate. In haste, but I will recheck later Fritzpoll (talk) 18:20, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The geobot group is ready for action. For many of the wikiprojects, Blofeld and myself basically are the wikiproject, so that won't be a problem. And how so are we to involve the wikiprojects anyway? Ask them to find a government source? The village pump discussion really was a mess. I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 18:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

It was decided at the village pump not to create two million seperate stubs. Many of those who opposed were perfectly happy to see a lists of places containing the same information providing we don't have two million perma stubs. Then for the places where we can find adequate sources to generate fuller articles we create seperate articles. At the end of it, we end up with the encyclopedia recognizing every place from NGIA and maplandia, but we only use the bot to create seperate articles where further sources can be obtained beyond these sources as agreed per village pump. Being highly cautious, do you think it should be necessary to propose the lists at the village pump again??? It was clearly agreed that the bot would not create two million stubs on articles but nobody objected to creating structured lists dpeending on how much is avialable. We stick to the agreement 100% in that we only generate new seperate articles if we can obtain further sources than these. 95% of those who strongly opposed before were those who didn't want to see 2 million sub stubs. A comprehensive list by province of each country would surely be excellent groundwork for any encyclopedia. Everybody at the project discussion thinks this would be th best way to start too. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 19:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I think this needs to stay as far away from the village pump as possible. Make the lists, consensus already said go. The WikiProjects step in to approve the lists/dabsort/spin out "approved for article creation for Fritzpollbot" after the lists are done. Correct me where I'm awry? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. Nobody is going to be doing anything contrary to that discussion anyway. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 19:27, 26 June 2008 (UTC) We start on Afghanistan. We consult WP:Afghanistan -see if anybody has any sources. We generate full lists by province anyway with coordinates and the basics into lists from the directory into the mainspace. This process should be repeated for each country. I think we should create a full world list anyway for comprehensive purposes and then make the decision which articles can be started independly in their own right through project consultation and research. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 19:30, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

• Stage 1 -we upload the directory into the missing article space as Fritz began doing before
• Stage 2 - we dab them anyway and create redirects later depending on sources available (see below)
• Stage 3 - we copy the directory lists into the mainspace by tabled lists by district/province with coordinates with place names un-wiki-linked.
• Stage 4 -IN consultation with the relevant wikiproject or research team we evaluate which articles can be generated in their own right if additional sources can be found. If not we redirect those in which "info isn't adequate" to the lists until a later date when enough info can be found
• Stage 5-After drawing up the full world lists we are in a strong position to evaluate which articles can be started. This is when the source compling and research begins for those places in which the bot can generate new articles under "village pump criteria" Sound good?

♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 19:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Approved, well at least by me. The consensus part is done is my main point. Consensus to use the bot when approved. The lists come before the bot. So, yeah. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

That's all fine, but using maplandia as a source is a bit of a no-go, as the province data has proven to be less than adequate. I can, however, extract all the populated settlement data, but there'll be no province info. What you'r proposing is what I thought we'd be doing anyway - I think I just got gunshy at the mention of the dreaded "2 million" Fritzpoll (talk) 20:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes occasionally it has been shown to not e correct. This is where I'd suggest that we check other sites to try to affirm what the current province situation is. Usually there is a main government site which will show what the official provinces are currently. If maplandia doesn't equate then for that particularly vcountry we don't mention province (e.g Azerbaijan, Armenia etc ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 21:12, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, how about we start with Burkina Faso. We have a government source for the population, departments, provinces, and regions--we just ned to use maplandia for the coordinates. If Maplandia contradicts the government source, then we simply skip that town, at least for the moment. I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 21:19, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Burkina Faso was one of the countries maplandia isn't fully updated on -remember some of them overlap.

Something like this. I'd rather have a small pin map and a column for reference but if we could generate a full gazetteer like this for each country this would be an important first step. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 21:22, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Can I temporarily butt in on a conversation I know nothing about, and suggest that Afghanistan is a really bad country to start with, as the discussions about how to Anglicise Afghan place names are currently only at draft stage? – iridescent 21:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you think Afghanistan is the only example? 3/4 of Asia has such transliteration problems. Are you suggesting we ignore it? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 21:49, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

No, no - definitely not my point; my point is that if there's a discussion ongoing that is going to standardise placenames in at least one country (and given that it affects the military, it'll presumably be resolved fairly soon), there's no point in doing that particular country until the matter's been resolved, since if they decide on something different to what you use, someone will have to go through all the lists/articles renaming them. There's no reason countries have to be done in alphabetical order. – iridescent 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

List of cities, towns and villages in Badakhhan Province

Place name	Official name	District	Description	Altitude	Nearest settlements	Map/coordinates
Ab Gach	Āb Gach	Bald District	It is on the left bank of the Ab-i-Wakhan about a mile upstream of the meeting of that river and the Amu Darya.	450m	About ten miles southwest of Kala Panja	36°59′N 72°42′E
Amurn	Āmūrn		Located on the M41 motoway which connects it with Tajikistan near the border
Andowj	Andowj
Anjoman	Anjoman
Arakht	Arakht
Arghandakan	Arghandakān
Artin Jelow	Ārtīn Jelow
Arun	Ārūn
Ashkasham	Ashkāsham
Ashnam	Āshnām
Baharak	Bahārak

I appreciate your input

Hello! I just wanted to say that I appreciate your input in the G1/G3 discussion on the other talk page. Be well. Ecoleetage (talk) 14:20, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: Robert Kennedy assassination

You're welcome. I'm glad that you have a GA in your resumé, if that's what you meant by the article going beyond GA. Anyways, for the future, if there's a particular article you'd like for me to review, just hit me up. ;) --  ThinkBlue  (Hit BLUE) 20:11, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Cape Verde again

Hi Fritzpoll. I noticed you had a list of "240+ Cape Verde google map locations" here. Can you give me that list so I can start mapping them to the table I compiled in Wikipedia:WikiProject Cape Verde/FritzpollBot? Thanks, Waldir ^talk 23:14, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The first task for Cape Verde is to rid of the existing old silver infoboxes and add a standard infobox instead using Template:Location map Cape Verde. Creation of new articles will depend on what sources you have available -e.g population data etc ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 23:45, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I had that in mind, the infoboxes will be updated. But I wanted to get the source data straight first, I believe that should be the first step. I already found some sources for geo coordinates which I added to the page linked above. But having the google data to check against these would be good. --Waldir ^talk 00:25, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Origins of the Harp in Europe

Hi I just thought I’d thank you for the removal of the speedy deletion tag request by an unsigned editor 93.107.128.92 for the origins of the European Harp in Europe page. I have researched this article well and have cited academic references throughout and despite 38 references in the Irish section alone, the unsigned editor has placed a dubious tag and has requested the whole page be deleted for pov violation. I feel that this view is unjust and I have merely cited the views of academia and all of my sources are backed up by recent Irish centric and empirical publications.

Most of these sources range from 2000 – 2005 and the lyre prodonminates in Irish carvings rather than a triangular harp within an Irish context is nothing new as cited by one of the great celtic harp historians Roslyn Rensch (1989) and has been even commented Edward Bunting (2000) originally published in 1843. I feel this editor cannot find a valid source to back up his accusations of pov and wishes to remove the page which is backed up by refrences. Also studies from Edward Bunting 1843, JASTOR Grey University of Michigan 1956, Kenneth Mathieson 2001 and Daibhi OCoinin in a New History of Ireland, prehistoric and early history (2005) conclude the triangular harp was not evident in Irekland till the Anglo-Norman invasion.

How can I get the article peer reviewed as far as I have seen the majority of studies cite the lyre and not the harp as the Irish instrument of choice before the anglo-norman invasion? I have even had random acts of vandalism on the page [[6]] where another unsigned editor 78.19.156.62 changing researched sources to a gaelic pov totally taking the cited sourse out of context. Can you help? CheersCeltic Harper (talk) 11:45, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Deletion review for Bearforce 1

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Bearforce 1. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this article, speedy-deleted it, or were otherwise interested in the article, you might want to participate in the deletion review. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 19:15, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Bot question

I've been manually removing US flags from a lot of BLPs because of this. Couldn't a bot be designed to search for use of the flag in BLPs or something? I figure it's a simple task, and it'd save me time. Enigma ^message 17:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Hope someone sees this...

Writing this on a mobile-so forgive the brevity! Will get a net connection once i get a phone line next week, so give of a fortnight to get back. Thanks to keep for the message above, and happy july 4th. Congrats to gwyn. Blofeld, I'll be back doing the bot as soon as i can. I vote to restore the page above at deletion review. Can't edit it due to an ip block. See you all soon. Fritzpoll

Hey, nice to hear from you. The DRV was successful already, and the deletion was overturned. It's now at AfD again, and it looks like it will likely be deleted again. Enigma ^message 22:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I felt honored to see the only edit Fritzpoll made in the intervening week was reverting vandalism on my userpage for some reason! Thanks. ~ mazca ^{t | c} 16:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

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! 04:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:GEO

You might consider following the lead of Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates and use {{coord}}. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:00, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi! Would you mind dropping a note on WP:GEO about this WP:GEOBOT project? There's a topic at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Maplinks and FritzpollBot. --Para (talk) 15:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Lists

Hi. You;re in luck I've just logged in!!! Hope the house moving is going great, I did discuss it with User:MJCDetroit about having the maps in the tables. Personally I'm thinking that if we have a list of several hundred places a pushpin map would bloat it. I'm thinking we just have the global wiki map in the final column ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 10:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

List of cities, towns and villages in Badakhhan Province

Place name	Official name	District	Description	Altitude	Map/coordinates
Ab Gach	Āb Gach	Bald District	It is on the left bank of the Ab-i-Wakhan about a mile upstream of the meeting of that river and the Amu Darya.	450m	Ab Gach class=notpageimage| 36°59′N 72°42′E
Amurn	Āmūrn		Located on the M41 motoway which connects it with Tajikistan near the border		Amurn class=notpageimage| 38°11′51″N 71°21′10″E
Andowj	Andowj
Anjoman	Anjoman
Arakht	Arakht
Arghandakan	Arghandakān
Artin Jelow	Ārtīn Jelow
Arun	Ārūn
Ashkasham	Ashkāsham
Ashnam	Āshnām
Baharak	Bahārak

I'm thinking something like this but we'd need to sort out column structure to make editing it easier. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 10:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm uncertain about a few of the columns, nearest settlements and altitude are listed on falling rain but that site concerns me. I'd be interested to hear your ideas!! The description column would probably be left empty to start with. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 10:32, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Insert the columns, leave them blank and look for sources that we can extract the information from? Fritzpoll (talk) 10:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I think they should be generated like the seperate articles were before but in the tables. Then they can be researched and once the "decription" becomes full they then qualify for a seperate article. The best thing initially will be to lay down the groundwork e.g the name, native name, possibly altitude, and coordinates or province/district. What I'd propose we do is do a quick googe search initially before creating each country list to see what kind of info is available. With Afghanistan we know there is little out there on the web (yet) so we start them in a list without a description. If however the country has enough details for seperate articles, we create the lists anyway (for comprehensive purposes) but add basic details (such as population if possible) and generate new articles.

I'm thinking it might be good to create a population column, and leave it empty until population figures become avialable. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 10:38, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi. We must be connected telepathically as I haven't thought about it for days and now today I've been thinking about it again!!! I've just been adding a few Bangladesh places to add some to the empty categories as I don't want them to be deleted. I would love to start with Afghanistan and continue as before but create lists. Look forward to starting! Regards ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 10:28, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Fritz. I would be happy to see the format as above as I've just adjusted. The nearest settlements column would look a bit cluttered so I've removed it, anyway apart of that can go in thee description. I know I said before about the maps bloating the tables, but I believe if we are to emulate having seperate articles this would be best. I'll see if I can get the map sizes reduced by 100px or so. Done!! ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 10:48, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks and wow!

It never ceases to amaze me how many people watch Keeper's page! I appreciate how quickly you dealt with the request, and I won't misuse the tool. Thanks, S. Dean Jameson 15:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

There isn' a single Keeper - he is an amalgamation of all the people watching his talkpage. His name is Keeper, for he is many... Fritzpoll (talk) 15:29, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

He's a jaguar handler, actually. —Giggy 10:31, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes yes, this is what I need. A new conspiracy theory about who and what Keeper actually is...just last week I was accused of being Jimbo's "badhand" account, in so many words. All great fun for me really, because I'm actually a shockingly boring suburb livin' white-American person IRL. If I robbed a bank, no one would catch me. I look like everyone else's brother, or distant cousin, or that guy from that office where I used to work... Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 20:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Well if Jimbo was as decent as yourself and has helpful as you are then I would rather you were him rather than the guy who ignores 95% of editors who speak to him. I used to have my suspicions that User:Squeakbox was Jimbo. The guy seems to act like Jimbo's secretary and always seems to be around answeting questions that Jimbo won't. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

RfA thank you

		Thank you!
		Fritzpoll, 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) 04:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

I see no need to second guess you. Thanks. --Blechnic (talk) 16:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome Fritzpoll (talk) 17:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Was that...

....ahem... goat .... I dont even want to say. Clicked on the screen then immediately option-Qd my browser. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 00:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Fortunately, I couldn't make out what it was, and now I'm certain I don't want to go into my revision history to work it out. Nice to see I'm a Grawp target now (sigh) Fritzpoll (talk) 00:08, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's just hope my RfA fails ... :) Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 00:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Glad to see that you can see a light side to it. I'm not as deeply unhappy about your RfA as Keeper obviously (and fairly) is, since I am confident that it is no big deal for you - that's why I was so keen to support. That said, a few more supports (get up to 60) and you'll be over the magic 80% again, so don't pull it, will you? Fritzpoll (talk) 00:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's just say if I was ever in war... I'd want Keeper to be my commanding officer. I had certain standards of when I would pull it, not based on precise numbers anything, and it hasn't hit that yet. Might be optimistic to say I have 50/50 chances at this point, but we'll see how things develop. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 00:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

My fingers are as crossed as they can be without hindering my ability to type Fritzpoll (talk) 00:20, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Getting started

Please keep in contact with me and let me know when we can start. You can send me messages too!! ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 09:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

For the +Rollbacker. I promise you will not regret granting me this privilege. :-) --Hfarmer (talk) 02:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Rollback

OK. My request didn't demonstrate knowledge of when to use the tool. I should have also mentioned that while I am looking for advertising, I frequently revert obvious vandalism and the tool would be handy. When can I apply again? --Carbonrodney (talk) 12:38, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

My advice would be to wait a few weeks - you have fewer than 500 edits, and you need to demonstrate that you know what obvious vandalism is. This is in no way a criticism of you, and from the look of your contributions, you are a very productive editor. Rollback is just quite a powerful tool, so I'd want to be sure that you can use it appropriately...tell you what - come back in five days or so, and ask me for it here on my talkpage (perfectly allowed) and I'll check your contribs over and grant it if there are no problems. Fritzpoll (talk) 19:25, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot?

[7] :) Enigma ^message 22:04, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes - sorry, I've only just got online again after weeks away, and I'm sort of re-acclimatising to it all. I need to get the GEOBOT doing its magic, but then I will get on to your request. Will that be alright? Fritzpoll (talk) 22:06, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure thing! I'm still away, myself. Limited Internet access until I finally return home later this week after a 17 day absence. Enigma ^message 22:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Bad bad administrator - if you are one

I attained perfection yesterday.... Not that big of a deal, especially since Antandrus was big about it. --Blechnic (talk) 22:42, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

If you are an administrator can you delete this redirect which is now just a redirect to its own redirect, otherwise known as an infinite loop without my having to request its speedy deletion? Redonda Formation --Blechnic (talk) 22:44, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done, friend. Feel free to drop a line here if you need anything else. Fritzpoll (talk) 22:48, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Speedy on Chipmunkrock

Hi - you tagged this article as a recreation of material deleted via a deletion discussion (WP:CSD#G4. This was actually inappropriate for this page, as the article had only been speedy deleted in the past, and G4 is for cases where an AfD discussion has taken place. I have, however, deleted it under the more appropriate A7 (group) criterion, so this is an educational notice. Feel free to ask me any questions Fritzpoll (talk) 22:58, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I kind of already knew that since I have been notified about it in the past :). I (very rarely though) use a G4 to signal reviewing admins to check the deletion log, which most times explains the meaning of the tag. While not technically the meaning of a G4, i found it helpful to counter articles that are disturbingly often re-created (To signal it might be appropriate to salt) or in case an article is a recreation of a salted page. Excirial ^{(Talk,Contribs)} 23:09, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, although admins can see the previous deletions as we have the ability to view deleted articles. So I understand your reasons, but it's a lot less effort for us if you just tag it with the reason it should be deleted :) Of you need anything else, drop another line here Fritzpoll (talk) 23:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I Will do so then :). For me the G4 was just a means of pointing to the matter at hand, which can be done just as well by using a {{comment}} template or a custom CSD message, in case the amount of recreations starts to grow wild again. Excirial ^{(Talk,Contribs)} 23:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Mentoring

I've replied on my talkpage (I tend to keep discussions together, that's all). Many thanks! Gazimoff ^Write_Read 15:02, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Huggle

So I can't use huggle? ~~Sealim~~ (talk) Reply at MY talk page —Preceding undated comment was added at 19:22, 21 July 2008 (UTC) Ok! Thanks ! ~~Sealim~~ (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 19:26, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Aaron Tuten

Hi Fritzpoll, I've cleaned up the article a bit; nice job finding sources. As Xeno mentioned, removal of content without an explanation is vandalism, so don't worry about 3RR. Does the article look okay to you? GlassCobra 22:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Was about to drop a line to your page saying what a good job you did. I've not had a day or evening to unwind since I moved house, which is all I can attribute to the fact that, despite being an admin, I got the 3RR rule wrong (looks sheepish) Fritzpoll (talk) 22:32, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

You're fine. This is a learn-on-the-job type deal. ;) GlassCobra 22:46, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Speedy delete - Category:House of Montagu

Hello, I requested the speedy deletion of a category I created Category:House of Montagu, but you declined because it was not unpopulated as my request suggested. I wanted to have it deleted because a Category:Montagu family category already existed, which made my category totally superfluous. Which deletion template should I have used? Regards, FusionWarrior (talk) 11:08, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:CSD#G7, which is that you are the sole author seeking deletion. Might I suggest, however, that you depopulate the category, so that there aren't a lot of redlink categories around the articles. Then drop a line to my talk page, and I will delete the category under C1 Fritzpoll (talk) 11:16, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Done and done, thanks very much for your patience and for your help! PS I hope you enjoyed your stint as a member of the House of Montagu.FusionWarrior (talk) 11:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Happy to do so! Let me know if you ever need ay other help Fritzpoll (talk) 12:08, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Blofeld edits

Please see my response here. Kaldari (talk) 23:47, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Done and replied Fritzpoll (talk) 23:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I have posted a further question for you at the AFD page. Kaldari (talk) 01:28, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I've replied on my talk page. Hope you are well ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 09:56, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Looking forward to the bot. As I said I won't be creating too many en masse in future if we can compile lists instead. Just trying to fill in some gaps on districts which are several thousands km in area but didn't have ANY articles whatsoever. I still think they can be expanded if somebody researched them properly. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 09:58, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not that concerned about the ones you've created at present, but Kaldari raises some good points at the AfD Fritzpoll (talk) 10:11, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes an AFD in which I wasn't evne notified about. SHouldn't it by customary to at least notify the article creator it is up for the nuke? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 10:19, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't look at me - I didn't nom it for AfD, and I am well aware of your staggering contributions. Fritzpoll (talk) 11:03, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I added most of the places in Bhutan the other day many with population figures and they are not all stubs. Some of them like Paro, Bhutan, Gedu, Deothang etc are much better than if we didn't have them. I do a lot more than create sub stubs on here. I'm sure you are aware of this. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:02, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I know I just find it bugs me when people think all I do is create worthless stubs. This is why the BOT will be such a valuable prospect because it will allow us to work more on quality rather than trying to tackle the almost single handedly. I hope Kaldari is aware that this why I sought for a bot and a new project to undertake this ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:09, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

How is the new dwelling anyway? Happy? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Empty! Girlfriend has gone off on holiday for a few weeks, whilst I have to work - almost finished now, though! Hayfever passed? Fritzpoll (talk) 11:17, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Cool. I remember my parents telling me they sat on deck chairs for weeks!!! My sister on the other hand had everything immediately. Shes off travelling around SOuth America at present. She visiting the Iguacu Falls today. Yes my hay fever was only bad for a week or two, perhaps it was helped by the not so good weather. I've been sneezing a bit yesterday and today but nothing Baldy can't handle. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

WHats the plan then for Afghanistan?. Do mean create lists or create seperate articles with new info ? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 12:01, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Lists in our project space to begin with, for checking and sourcing. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Tomorrow then? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:56, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, tomorrow - need to buy a desk for my computer! Fritzpoll (talk) 12:30, 24 July 2008 (UTC) Go the IKEA. Thats where I got mine. Cheap but it is quality and solid. LOL I've just been reading that in Shintoism many of the cars are blessed as they are manufactured. I thought that was rathing amusing given that the Japanese seem obsessed with automobiles and business ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 12:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Rollback permission

Thanks for granting me rollback permission. I'll use it wisely as advised. - House of Scandal (talk) 17:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem! Fritzpoll (talk) 17:47, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Rollback request

I thought it was not different to installing Twinkle. The only reason I asked for Rollback again is because Vandal Fighter is crashing my laptop constantly, which actually makes it hard to "gain more experience with reverting vandalism". But, it's cool. I'll try again next month, I guess. Hamako 17:30, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:TWINKLE is fine, just a little slower than rollback. If you're having trouble getting Twinkle working, I can probably set it up for you. Fritzpoll (talk) 18:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Beer

Haven't forgot about this Fritz, wanted to offer quick thoughts. The problem (or lack thereof) of Beer is that its generally written well (so not much in terms of obvious copy editing) and finding quick internet sources to verify some of the facts has proven tougher. Of course... I'd actually love to start getting into non-internet sourcing, but that isn't as readily available, so I haven't done it yet. To sum up... Beer is a large project that I'd prefer to work into later.

...on the other hand, Jack Daniel's has a lot of potential to become a good article and potentially a featured article, and for some reason I think I'd feel more comfortable starting there. It's more specific so it'd be easier to research, plus I'd imagine there is ample reliable sourcing for it. Of course, I'm just posting here to keep you informed, and advising that I'd likely need help from here to there so hopefully you won't mind watch listing that article. Thanks. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 19:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah damn. I saw the section header in my watchlist and thought it was a party. Damn article writers...Keeper ǀ 76 19:48, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh good, was gonna cross post this to you Keeper. Already have a confusing issue with the article, if you have some time, mosy on over to the talk there and give an opinion. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 19:52, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Which one, beer or Jack? Keeper ǀ 76 19:58, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Jack. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 19:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Heading there shortly. Need to find my cape and my form-fitting red and blue suit with the giant K on the chest...Keeper ǀ 76 20:03, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict on my own damn page!) Watchlisted, and having a look over the article now, G. Fritzpoll (talk) 20:05, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

You get used to it (the edit conflicts, that is).  :-) Keeper ǀ 76 20:08, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Edit conflicts are for the popular. Nothing leads me to the conclusion that this was moe than a freak occurrence... Fritzpoll (talk) 20:09, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Rollback

G'Day Fritzpoll,

My previous paragraph has been archived. I am requesting rollback here, to help quickly revert vandalism... this is an example of vandalism where rollback would be acceptable (but as it was a single edit not necessary) and same here

Cheers,

--Carbon Rodney (Talk but be nice) 01:25, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done and made a comment on your talkpage Fritzpoll (talk) 10:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Fritzpoll. --Carbon Rodney (Talk but be nice) 13:12, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:PERM

No probs. :) Sorry about that, blame the software. :D At least we said the same thing! Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 18:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, would have been awkward if we'd disagreed! Fritzpoll (talk) 18:51, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Hallo

for you naerii 20:10, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

POV in Indian articles

Hi there is an IP address probably from India which is wreaking havoc with some of the Bollywood articles. See his contributions. He persistently keeps adding POV to an article or glorifying an actor or film further than they or it actually is. It is a major nuisance for the editors on here who work on Indian cinema articles to have to keep reverting him day in day out just to maintain some sense of article neutrality. He has been warned many times. Could you please warn him and try to make him aware of wikipedias neutrality and why his edits which are intent on putting POV or glorifying the subject of the article unnecesarily may be construed as agains tpolicy and therfore vandalism. Its doing my nut it keeoing track of him. User:Shshshsh (Shahid) raise my awarenss of it initially and other editors such as totalfilmi99 have to keep reverting him e.g here. Should he be blocked do you think? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 09:11, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Why is it admin are never here when you need them most!!! ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:41, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Notability - Places

As a member of WP:GEOGRAPHY, I would appreciate your views on the discussion I've started at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(Geographic_locations)#Using_an_Atlas_as_a_source_for_notability Thanks AndrewRT(Talk) 13:36, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

A hunble request

I've been thinking carefully over how to approach this, partly because I respect your opinion and trust your judgement, but also because I have to play by the rules. To come to the point, I've been strongly encouraged to request the tools in order to further help and support the project. As a result, I owe it to you out of common courtesy to let you know, as the last thing I wanted was for it to be a surprise to you. I would also ask that whatever happens, if you'll be happy to continue our mentoring agreement in the future. You've done more than you know for me, and I hope to be able to learn more from you whatever the future holds. Respectfully with thanks, Gazimoff_{(mentor/review)} 11:11, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I will be happy to continue with the mentoring if you think it is necessary, regardless of your usergroup. I'm glad that you've found it helpful so far, and can only say that were it not for my lack of Wikipedia-space clarity, I would happily offer you a co-nom. I'll go watchlist the page.... Good luck. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:09, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Fritzpoll. You have new messages at Washburnmav's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Uploading

What time do you plan on beginning. Probably this evening when you get home? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 14:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

That's quite possible, but it looks like I'll be at work quite late tonight. I'll do my best to dig out the machine tonight and code up the additions I need to make to the bot, and worst comes to the worst, I'll upload sometime tomorrow morning. My deadlines always ahve a tendency to drift at the moment because of work - very hectic, this discovering new things Fritzpoll (talk) 14:31, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I thought you would have been out enjoying the sun today, thats where I've been. My shoulders are burning a little from the sun. It was quite intense this afternoon. Probably the same in Bristol ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:01, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

By and large I was! But did some editing while my dinner cooked Fritzpoll (talk) 20:03, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey I made some templates for El Salvador at Wikipedia:WikiProject El Salvador/Department templates. El Salvador has to be one of the poorest covered countries on here. At least we now have the municipalities connected ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 21:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

That's cool. I'm having to rewrite the bot quite a lot - really sorry. I'm feeling quite bad about the slipping deadline Fritzpoll (talk) 21:47, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:TIND --NickPenguin_(contribs) 15:16, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: Huggle

Gurch - when you first left, I offered to take over the maintenance of Huggle when the issue was raised at one of the noticeboards. I then promptly lost access to my dev machine for a bit, and now have the access back. But I'm not sure if you're back or not, so can you give me a ping so that I know if I should start work on the bugs or not. Cheers Fritzpoll (talk) 15:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

See Huggle's Google Code page. You can get the source from there; if you don't already have a Google account, create one, then send me the e-mail address so you can be added to the project members, which gives you SVN commit access -- Gurch (talk) 15:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Admin

Hi yes people seemed to be away!! I asked many people and couldn't get hold of anyone who was online!! Its odd that everybody seems to have returned at once!! Thanks for your note on adminship, at times I really need more tools to do things more efficiently but there will be too many editors who will try to make me look like a bad editor. They'll hound me for my lack of consistency with edit summaries for a start you name it, depsite the fact I am undertaking an enormous task of template/category structuing where edit summaries every time are an extra burden when I'm trying to perform the task as quickly as possible. I try to do things quickly and focus my mind on the task I often forget to leave a summart. Perhaps I should set my preferences to prompt so I get a "100%" edit summary ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 18:15, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Might be a good idea :) I'm going to ask around a bit though with some more objective people and ask about your prospects for adminship. See if other people agree with your assessment. Do you mind if I do that? Fritzpoll (talk) 19:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Can anything be done to stop this craziness?

In my time here, I don't believe I've ever been accused of incivility. Can anything be done to stop OR's dragging my name through the mud with these accusations? S. Dean Jameson 21:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Just let it go. No-one else appears to agree, no sanction has been sought or applied. If you just ignore it, it will go away. Fritzpoll (talk) 21:20, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Will do. It's just frustrating because this is the second time I've had my name dragged through the mud of a notice board for no reason. Yesterday (or the day before) an anon IP "reported" me to ANI for rolling back his edits to my talkpage, after I'd told him I didn't wish to communicate with him further. Now this? It's just a bit frustrating, as I'm sure you understand. But I'll just ignore it, and hope it goes away quickly. S. Dean Jameson 21:37, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure it will end pretty fast. These things tend to escalate less if you don't respond to them as frequently - it gives everyone a chance to cool down between comments. Fritzpoll (talk) 21:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay then. I'm not going to respond any more to that ANI thread (I just made one last post there), and I guess we'll see if Ottava Rima lets this nonsense go. S. Dean Jameson 21:45, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Regardless, you should say no more. Trust me, noone can have an argument with themselves. Fritzpoll (talk) 21:48, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I demand you refactor, straightaway! ;) S. Dean Jameson 21:55, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Trouble brewing

Could you watchlist Dan Crow (computer scientist) and Blurb.com? I've been dealing with a banned editor "JP" (who was allowed to vanish and had her WP:CSN banning thread blanked). More eyes may help. Jehochman ^Talk 08:29, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Consider them watchlisted. Fritzpoll (talk) 10:15, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Apprentice Clean-up

Hello you! long time no speak :-) just thought I would pop along and ask what we should all do to task force together and continue witht the clean up, get articles to "Good" status? hope all is well your end. Many thanks, δ²_(Talk) 13:51, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes - I've been a a little bit busy these past few weeks, getting to here but I think we need to band together and agree a course of action. Shall we meet over at the Wikiproject? Fritzpoll (talk) 13:53, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I also have another quick question. Been trying to upload a new version of an article picture (a logo) and it seems that it is now not displaying properly? is it me or is it just my brwser being funny - care to have a look? also, I seem to have mucked up my menu bar on my user pages, you don't know how i can sort them out do you? Many thanks, δ²_(Talk) 14:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

What picture is it? Fritzpoll (talk) 14:14, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

LOL!! was that all you had to do to my menu bar? remove just one "-|" from it??? Many thanks for fixing! Er, the picture I am trying to update is for the article on Southampton Solent University. I have followed the guidelines, but on my browser can't seem to get it to view? I'm just wondering if its me or the browser having a funny turn. The image is here and also I tried uploading it twice but I don't know if this has caused problems?Many thanks, δ²_(Talk) 15:41, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, whenI look further down that page, all I see is that it is unused (which incidentally renders it liable for speedy deletion) and the fact that it is a duplicate - seems you uploaded it in a different place, and it is the other file which is on the article. As to that, I can see it just fine. What browser do you use? Fritzpoll (talk) 15:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Greg Roberts (musician)

Why did you nominate my Greg Roberts (musician) for speedy deletion? He was the drummer with Big Audio Dynamite and Dreadzone and a sessionman. ®∂бЯέЩ§τЄґ♪♫♪ 18:29, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

In fairness, I nominated that article in February, and my memory ain't that good! Fritzpoll (talk) 19:12, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Getting started

Fritz I am beginning to doubt that the bot will ever run. It has been at least two months since we had the village pump discussion. If you are no longer interested or don't ever intend to run it I would rather you were completely honest with me. It is a week since you announced on the project page that you would begin compiling a list with it. Theres no pressure but I'd rather if you make an announcement that within reason I can expect some sort of follow up. I certainly hope it can be done in a relaxed way and in our time but I am also keen that we begin to make some sort of progression with it. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 15:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

[8] Fritzpoll (talk) 16:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh I didn't see that! You replied to it on a totally different subject where I didn't even mention the bot!!!! Just let me know when you have sorted out that coding!! I'm not concerned about how fast we get things done, but rather that we somehow make a start and make a gradual progression after the long discussion that went into it thats all. Take care ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 16:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Ping

Just wanted to let you know I haven't forgotten about our mini-project. Had a minor family crisis this week, combine that with an increased interest in my actual job (I have no idea on this one) and baby Gwynand taking up more of my waking and sleeping hours, my contributing time is lessening. I admit, in retrospect, that the failed RfA for some reason deflated a lot of my initiative, something I always thought it shouldnt do. Anyways, I'm certainly not going anywhere, although August will be a busy RL month for me, in case I look to be drifting away. Thanks. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 18:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Nah, that's ok - my working life has become quite busy too, trying to desperately salvage an idea I've invested a lot of time in. Might just have cracked it today, but still need to work on it. Did you get those sources through yer inbox, and if so have you looked at them, and if that, what do you think? Fritzpoll (talk) 19:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Kennedy

When I meant background I meant the Alternative theories section. I'm sure I've have seen numerous reports on the web and journals discussing possible motives and theories for the assassination, probably enough for an article of its own. I just wondered if there was anything missing that might add to the evaluation of his death. As it stands the paragraph and article is very concise which is a good thing but just thinking about the possibility that something has been left out. I'll check it out later and give the article a reread and then make my decision. OK? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 10:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean. Actually, I got started on this article because its conspiracy section was about 30K long and it was posted at the Fringe theories noticeboard. What's in the article is thus delibrately small per WP:FRINGE and [{WP:WEIGHT]] and also because this is as sourced as this section could be from reliable sources! Anyway, I'll let you do your thing, because I may well have missed something. Cheers Fritzpoll (talk) 11:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Cool. It might be a good idea if you branched out into a seperate article on that because I'm sure a great deal could be written about it and to me I find it an interesting read. However in the main article obviously you don't want a huge section compared to the rest of the article but I just wondered whether in the cutting porcess you left anything of note out. Would you object if I moved the original 30kb section to a seperate article? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

For the moment, yes. I think we need to actually work out what could be branched out, because a lot of that material was original research, completely unreferenced, as well as including theories obviously made up by editors. Some of it may be salvageable, but I don't think, with a controversial piece like that, we'd want to do it without a lot of picking over in a sandbox first. What do you think - a little side-project? Fritzpoll (talk) 12:18, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Your're quite right. I just checked what was there before. There really was a lot of babble -many of the sections were unnecessarily long and might I say you've done a mighty fine job of condensing and rewriting it and sticking to the main points. If it was to branch out further then it would indeed be best to do it with references and in a planned and coordinated fashion. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 12:25, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Once the current FAC ends, and I've given the GEOBOT group something to do, I'll pop this on my to-look-at list. A balanced on this subject might be worthwhile and is a good idea of yours. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes something along the lines of Conspiracy theories of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Such an article would need a lot of referencing and WP:Neutral view though which isn't easy. Potentially it could be written as a full article I'm sure and provide a further insight to the subject that is summarised in the main article on it. It would be interesting to read some of the government reports and newspapers of the time as research ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 13:02, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Need source info for Bangladesh villages

Hi Fritzpoll, I was wondering if you had any recollection what source was used to generate these lists. I've been trying to go through and add sources and info to some of the stubs that Blofeld created using those lists. At first I thought the lists were generated from GeoNames, but your lists have the districts and divisions that each village belongs to, while GeoNames doesn't. For most of these village stubs I haven't been able to find any sources stating what administrative divisions they belong to, so any pointers on where you got the info originally would be helpful. In fact, it would probably be a good idea for you to list information about sources on any such lists that you generate. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 20:54, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Those are old lists generated pre-GEOBOT discussion at the village pump. Be wary of using them as a result. I'll dig out the old source material if I can find it. Fritzpoll (talk) 21:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Just drop me a note on my talk page if you dig anything up. Kaldari (talk) 21:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

IP at Wilhelmina Will's talk page

I deleted and warned the user (or am in the process of the latter) for the comment about "power trip"ping. --Blechnic (talk) 23:55, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Good call. Fritzpoll (talk) 23:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:ANI

I have mentioned you, in a good way. Jehochman ^Talk 23:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that :) I read your idea, and believe it to be a good one - I personally love the idea of cleaning up articles, and am sure others could be made to feel the same. If you need any help with any organisation that might be involved, let me know. Fritzpoll (talk) 00:02, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

You've done fine work these last few days, wading through the whole WW/Blechnic/OR mess. If I gave barnstars (which this mess has convinced me not to--another story for another time) you would have one right now. S. Dean Jameson 00:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Heh - trying to keep people calm is meant to be part of the job, but thanks for the kind words. I hope you feel able to get back to article writing now? Fritzpoll (talk) 00:15, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, for sure. My contributions for 1 August look a LOT different than the ones from 29-31 July, that's for sure. I've been doing some image and IfD stuff, which can get chippy, but I don't think I'm in anything too contentious right now. If I can just keep User:Abd from reopening the OR can of worms, it will all be good. Regards, S. Dean Jameson 00:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

You can leave him to me and the rest of us - we have another 7 days to all cool down. I think some relaxation is in order. I don't know your age, otherwise I'd offer you a rum and coke. Fritzpoll (talk) 00:27, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm old enough for a rum-and-coke--both virtual and real. :) S. Dean Jameson 00:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm obviously old enough for both simulataneously Fritzpoll (talk) 00:37, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

LOL. I'm not quite there yet (21+21, I assume you mean), but old enough for sure! Thanks again for what you've done the last couple days. Regards, S. Dean Jameson 00:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Alas, I'm a spritely 23, but feel like a 36 year old (or, given my German roots in regards to beer, 32). And I don't mean I want one brought to me... Fritzpoll (talk) 00:46, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Why is it that I'm drawn to your talkpage whenever talk of alcohol comes up? It's like I can smell it, and can't resist posting...Keeper ǀ 76 00:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

For God's sake somebody give S. Dean a bottle of good rum and some coke, if he should so choose to butcher the former. He's taken enough already. --Blechnic (talk) 00:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Why is it ironic that there are exactly twelve steps to the cupboard where I keep my booze? Fritzpoll (talk) 00:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow are you really only 23. I'm 25. I thought you were in your thirties ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:07, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah - sorry for the disillusionment: I just behave a lot older than I am, even in real life. I'm sure that trend will reverse in time Fritzpoll (talk) 13:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Resolution of Wilhelmina Will

It's not resolved until her edit to DYK is reverted or removed. She had plenty of warning about the impending community ban, and she chose to ignore it. An official warning of the ban is in order, but this is not an excuse for allowing her to violate the ban. Please remove or have someone else remove her edit from DYK, whatever the official procedure is for dealing with banned users violating bans. --Blechnic (talk) 00:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Fix it yourself. You are just as qualified to edit as I am. This issue as far as AN/I is concerned, is resolved for now. Fritzpoll (talk) 00:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

• I was going to, but then I though, Ummm... no.' I'll let someone else step in that steaming pile of bovine excrement. S. Dean Jameson 00:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd steer clear of this until the wreckage is cleared. Fritzpoll (talk) 00:51, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind fixing it, but I assume that enforcement of community bans is something admins have to do. Heck if I know if you're even an admin. Is this something anyone can do, then? S. Dean Jameson, back away from the trap! --Blechnic (talk) 00:52, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Meh, I am an admin (sigh) Keeper never told me about this side of it...on my way over there now Fritzpoll (talk) 00:54, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops, too late. I did it. Now all hell will break lose. --Blechnic (talk) 00:56, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't see a problem with that - admins aren't special. If someone gets uppity about it, point them to the archive, or send them to me. Fritzpoll (talk) 00:58, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, nothing happened when Blechnic reverted her nomination. He had the right to do that, as did any editor, as you correctly noted. There is a topic ban in place. However, this did not address the content issue. When I came across that nomination and reversion, I looked at the article. It seemed fine. So I restored the nomination. User:Gatoclass seems to have interpreted this as a challenge to the ban, which it was not, and, without discussion, reverted my restoration. I discussed it with him a bit, but because of the time issue, the soon-expiring deadline for consideration of the article for DYK, and because I think his issue may have been with the manner of my restoration (I originally restored it as it was originally, verbatim, with WW's signature, and then added my own as endorsing it), I renominated without mentioning WW. I also changed the DYK text a little to make it tighter. It's my nomination now, not hers. But it is still her article, she created it, and others, including myself, merely edited it a little. Blechnic may have overlooked that a topic ban on nominations at DYK has no effect on the user's ability to create articles, which is her main goal, one which she seems to be doing rather well, what with 28 successful DYK articles. She doesn't want to go through the wikidrama, it seems, of trying to rescind the ban, and I don't blame her. I appreciate what you have done, and I will do what I can to reconcile her to you, for I see you as far more of a supporter than otherwise. It is my understanding that, if subsequent developments seem to justify it, you can unilaterally determine that the ban has served whatever legitimate purpose it had, and you may lift it. I've suggested that if people want the ban lifted, they could talk with you or discuss it in the most obvious place, Wikipedia talk:Did you know, which is where this whole matter should have been kept in the first place, until there was a need for tools. At least the matter of a topic ban. Blechnic has charged WW with all kinds of offenses that were really irrelevant. (Whether or not WW made an uncivil edit summary has no bearing on whether or not a DYK nomination should be promoted.)--Abd (talk) 17:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)