User talk:Xdamr/Archive 3

Orphaned fair use image (Image:VictoriaCrossRibbon.jpg)

Thanks for uploading Image:VictoriaCrossRibbon.jpg. I notice the 'image' page currently specifies that the image is unlicensed for use on Wikipedia and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable under fair use (see our fair use policy).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any fair use images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BigDT 04:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actors by series

That collective CfD nomination was a great idea. You really need to go back and add rationale to the deletions. Plenty of people who will contribute to the discussion were not part of our past discussions on these issues. Some already are voting to keep simply because the nominator did not provide more rationale for the deletions. Doczilla 23:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It most certainly was not a good idea. You nominated a load of categories without proper notification, without checking to see if the situations of some categories matched those of others, without checking to see if the alternative you proposed was even in place before nominating, and, most likely, simply nominated categories based on their name, and not any other criteria. This was the worst possible way to deal with what is apparently a pet peeve of yours, and the only advantage is that it is likely doomed to fail, or at least, gather no consensus. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On the above

Why are you doing a massive batch nomination? I don't see a reason to delete nearly a hundred categories because they are all the same thing. Could you at least post your reasoning at WP:CFD while you are in the process of batch nominating?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At least fix the links in each CFD then so it directs to the right section :P—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the date is wrong, too...—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Superpower

If you're involved with the rewrite there, I'm sure the article will fare well. You're an excellent editor.

I'll drop by the article some time and see how it looks. CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Great power

Please check the article and review the many recent changes. There's reason to believe that many of these must be reverted. CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Emerging superpower

Emerging superpower articles are up for deletion. — Nobleeagle ^[TALK] [C] 06:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

why?

I dont gettit. I edited the page "steven presley" and changed a word - which, is infact what we, in Scotland, UK, call players of his calaber.

It was a modification that should not have been changed back. It was NOT "vandilism" as you suggested. Look up that word in wiki if you want to know what it is

FYI

In light of the debate about Category:Iranian polygamists, I have nominated Category:Polygamists for deletion. However, I've made it a separate nomination. Please see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_February_3#Category:Polygamists. Pascal.Tesson 16:08, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jay Clark

Hello Xdamr, thanks for your comments related to the mentioned article. I also suppose the article is not notable but as author requested to make it notable I have restored it for the time being. If the article remains untouched or seems non-notable for the long time it would be deleted as I have the article in my watchlist. Regards, Shyam ^(T/C) 21:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey

Just some friendly advice. When your discussing a CfD, don't put "I don't think that it is" for your reason for deleteion/keep/rename/merge. This is not a policy, but an essay (WP:IDONTLIKEIT). Also, if your going to put "overcategorisation", put some reasoning behing it. (Just a policy or a guideline). Remember, CfD's are for discussing, not !voting. If you don't put a little reasoning behind your choice, then the closing admin might consider it a !vote just to rack up edits. Don't take this to offense, I'm just trying to offer some consrtuctive criticism. You don't have to listen to me though. Cheers, —mikedk9109^SIGN 15:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Universities and Colleges at CfD

Good Hello. Sorry to bother you but I've just read your post here. This is interesting information and I was wondering if you would be so kind as to explain to me what are the defining characteristics of university, college, school etc. in the UK. Here in the States, any degree granting post-secondary educational institution is a college unless the faculty performs research in addition to teaching, then it becomes a university. Thanks for pointing out the Americocentric POV, I had no idea there was a difference across the pond. Cheers. L0b0t 19:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note

There's a note for you at my talk page under the usual subject (suspect?), about a CSS trick that would make your sig even more WP-friendly (the user I point you at has a sig even more vertically sprawling than yours, but gets it to "squish" vertically as far as line spacing goes. Pretty interesting really, if you like geeky CSS futzing, anyway. Heh.) Hopefully of interest. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 02:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Energy power pages

Xdamr, I'm just giving you the heads-up on the result of a editorial decision (and following spat) on the idea of "emerging" energy superpowers/potential energy superpowers on the actual energy superpower page. I just edited in a page called "great energy power" to describe the countries we can no longer call "emerging energy superpowers". If you could help edit the international power template at all due to this it'd be much appreciated, and also, if you should have time, I'd appreciate if you could look over and improve the article. Drakeguy 03:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Category:Medal of Honor recipients

You recently changed the information on the Category:Medal of Honor recipients page from WPMILHIST to ODM. I'm not sure that this is appropriate. (Perhaps the category is within the scope of both progjects.) I am a member of the WPMILHIST project and have created and edit many articles on Medal of Honor recipients — which, in my personal opinion, are completely within the purview of WPMILHIST.

I'm not familiar with WP:ODM, but my impression is that it is oriented more to the medals than to the biographies of the recipients. The articles on MOH recipients generally cover more than just the action for which they were awarded the MOH; but, rather their full biography (as much as is available).

I'd appreciate a discussion. — ERcheck (talk) 00:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response and for re-adding the WPMILHIST tags. Your work on the broader category of national honours systems is appreciated. Thanks. — ERcheck (talk) 00:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence needed

Hi Xdamr, thanks for your comments at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_February_13#Westminster_constituencies_in_Wales.

As per my reply there, I think that you are right to insist on WP:V and WP:OR. So I'd be grateful if you could provide some evidence there for your assertions, which seem to me to be rather curious. Presumably you have some references which explain the clear distinction you appear to see between the terms Assembly and a Parliament: if so, then per WP:V, please share then at CFD. Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 19:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

NI paramilitaries

Thank you for understanding the logic of my nomination with regard to this category. As the originator of the NI WikiProject, I'm striving to keep some consistency. Obviously Northern Ireland can be a politically sensitive area, and I see you've had an award given to you by another user in respect of editing controversial articles.

In my life, I have always known these groups in Northern Ireland - the ones that place bombs in attempt to blow people up, and shoot people etc - as being 'terrorist organisations'. Of course, they have always also been 'paramilitary groups' as well - the two descriptions or designations not being necessarily mutually exclusive. Over the past ten or 15 years though, I've noticed a trend to defend terrorists and terrorism, glossing over their very real acts of terrorism by replacing the word 'terrorist/ism' with the politically correct term 'paramilitary'.

Apparently Wikipedia is not censored. Yet that appears to be what's being attempted here. I don't care what 'side' these terrorists claim to be on, or what 'cause' they claim to represent - they are, all of them, anti-establishment groups that target citizens and try to disrupt normal life in a given region.

Government mismanagement, tyranny, abuse etc, in my opinion, is a different thing, and should not be confused with terrorism. That's not to say that governments and the establishments can't be just as bad, or worse, than terrorists. They are different though. To deny the existance of terrorism and terrorists, is to re-write history, and to ignore the very definition of the word, rendering it superfluous to the English language.

Now that I've got my views on terrorism 'out in the open', I'd like to explain that I care less about that than I do about consistency in Wikipedia. As I've already stated on the cfd page, I think most contributors have misunderstood my proposal (perhaps I haven't explained it adequately). My proposal has less to do with whether "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" or whether the replacement with 'paramilitary' is PC white-washing, than it has to do with making sure all these similar groups get treated in exactly the same way in Wikipedia. In other words, if consensus is to replace the word terrorist with paramilitary, I would happily (well, begrudgingly really!) accept that all the categories are changed.

Consensus has consistently been that we keep all the categories as they are (the group has been nominated for deletion or renaming 3 or 4 times since the end of 2004), but now we have one solitary category within that group having been changed - against consensus and precedent. The formalities in Wikipedia can be confusing. There are conflicting rules, policies and guidelines throughout, and administrators who are more than happy to block you if they deem you as being disruptive, and other editors who are able and willing to 'play' the rules. To that end, I was wondering if you had any advice with regard to making the community understand my position, and avoiding what I consider to already have been a disruption. Wikipedia suggests that you can ignore the rules (I forget what the link to this policy is), that you should be bold and that if something is 'broken' then fix it. My gut instinct is to rename the category in question, back to what it was, then nominate all the categories in the group for renaming as Fooian paramilitaries.

Any suggestions..?

Thanks for taking your time to read this. --Mal 12:24, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome

Hi, Xdamr, and welcome to WikiProject
Africa!

We are a growing community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to identifying, categorizing, and improving articles relevant to Africa. Here are some points that may be helpful:

Our main aim is to help improve Africa-related articles, so if people ask for help with an article, please try your hardest to help them if you are able.
Most important discussions take place on the project's main discussion page; it is highly recommended that you watchlist it.
The project has several ongoing and developing activities, such as article quality assessment, which you are welcome to participate.
If you have another language besides English, please consider adding yourself to our translation section, to help us improve our foreign Africa topics.
You may also be interested in joining one of the descendant projects related to a specific African country.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask on the talk page, and we will be happy to help you.

Again, welcome! We hope you enjoy working on this project.

— Emiellaiendiay 03:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Axis powers of World War II DISCUSSION

You left a comment but not a VOTE. Here's hoping you will return and register your opinion. Thanks. Pastorwayne 13:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC) Category:Axis powers of World War II[reply]

Helping out with the Unassessed Wikipedia Biographies

Seeing that you are an active member of the WikiBiography Project, I was wondering if you would help lend a hand in helping us clear out the amount of [unassessed articles] tagged with {{WPBiography}}. Many of them are of stub and start class, but a few are of B or A caliber. Getting a simple assessment rating can help us start moving many of these biographies to a higher quality article. Thank you! --Ozgod 23:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion

Interesting idea ... I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work but I'm somewhat concerned that there was no activity at all in the several hours afterwards. At first I thought something terrible had happened ... I agree 7 days worth of log files is getting awfully big, but meybe at least the few days should be transcluded. What are your thoughts? -- Prove It ^(talk) 03:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and please don't misunderstand, I only reverted when I noticed it had been 2+ hours with no activity, a little unusual for CFD. I was worried something was broken and reverted just in case. A few minutes later people were using it again. It could just be a coincidence ... -- Prove It ^(talk) 04:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note. The last thing that we want to do is break Cfd, but I don't think that this should have too much effect, other than a slightly disorientating those used to 7 days on one page. This is one of those changes that is more minor than it looks. I'm inclined to agree that there should be some transclusion, perhaps today's debates? Once we get past the current day, I'm not sure where you would draw the cut-off point.

Perhaps to ensure that the 7 days of debate logs aren't overlooked we could move them closer to the top of the page? Have it so that the debates are the first thing to be seen as the page is viewed, everything else following.

Best wishes, Xdamr^talk 12:50, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As I recall, the templates all work directly on the transcluded file of the day, so there's no practicle reason it shouldn't work. What would really be good is if there were some way to list the table of contents for all seven days. I'm concerned that if we only show a couple of days, it would tend to limit discussion to just those days ... out of sight, out of mind. On the other hand WP:AFD works with just a list of daily files, and it seems to work just fine. I'm coming to like your idea of moving the current discussion list close to the top, like AFD does. The instructions and speedy are so big we we have to scroll a long way just to see them. If people saw the list of days first thing, I think it would be ok. What do you think? -- Prove It ^(talk) 14:29, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

re. 'Out of sight, out of mind'

Those with a vested interest in the category will respond to the debate via the cfd/m/r template.
Those active on CfD will probably look at each day's logs as a matter of course.
Less active CfD participants will see the current day's debates transcluded on the main page and links to the logs will be prominently displayed, to be perused as desired.
Those who have contributed to a particular discussion, via whichever route, will be likely to remember the debate, revisiting it to make further contributions as and when appropriate.

That covers most eventualities of usage that I can think of. I do agree that it sounds like a very good idea to have all open debates listed in one place, with links to the discussions. Category:Categories_for_discussion along with its subcategories seems to do this, although in category form, and for longer than 7 days. Perhaps some sort of script could extract the debate headings in the logs and include them on a 'debate list' page? The basic mechanics of this approach are beyond me though!

Essentially I think that we agree to move debates up to the top, tranclude the current day, and prominently list logs for the other 6?

Xdamr^talk 15:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

resetting indent ...

I've changed my mind about transcluding the current day after looking at WP:AFD. Your original suggestion of moving the list close to the top will probably be all that is needed, and just after the rollover the current day is empty anyway. I'm also thinking that transcluding just one day might somehow give the impression that today is more important than yesterday, etc ... I'd also add a temporary little note explaining that the format has changed and everyone is welcome to comment or criticize on the talk page. At ~350K, CFD is getting a little too big to work with easily... Yeah it's a bold change, but there are good reasons for doing it. -- Prove It ^(talk) 17:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and I'd love to somehow generate some kind of executive summary of current discussions, but I also have no idea of how to do it. -- Prove It ^(talk) 17:13, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok re transclusion, it might be nice, but we'll see how we get on without it. I'll change things over after rollover tonight, leaving a note on the talk page inviting comment etc.

Xdamr^talk 18:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiproject Biography March 2007 Newsletter

The March 2007 issue of the Biography WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. Mocko13 22:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CFD

Hi Xdamr - the changes to CfD have been reverted, but I've made a compromise suggestion on the talk page which might keep everyone happy. Your thoughts on it are welcome! Grutness...wha? 05:08, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]