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French communes

Hello Xeno, i was just wondering if that French communes thing (you know, the task you entitled Xenobot6 with) has been completed now, because i haven't been paying attention to it since you took over. Have a nice day, --RCS (talk) 16:04, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I sought further consensus and it seems that consensus for the edits are on shaky ground (see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 63#Attribution/GDFL_and_translations (and sourcing) and its related subthreads). Need further input for the present case, I requested it at WT:FRCOM#Xenobot6. –xeno talk 16:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Hm, looking at it it appears that the other editors don't realize the real nature of the problem. Ksnow has added a sentence "based on the article in French Wikipedia" (something like this) without actually checking if it was actually true. This is what made me doubt of her reliability - she seems to have assumed that any article on a French subject was automatically based on the French version of the article. The point is, she added according to the principle "when in doubt, add", so what i am asking for is "when in doubt, remove". I didn't think it would be so complicated. As far is i know, nobody has yet bothered to check if any of the 21.000 articles was indeed based on French Wikipedia! Cheers, --RCS (talk) 16:28, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I am cautious about running a bot where human judgment may be required though. But if this is the will of FRCOM (to mass-remove) I will run it. They've also made some suggestion to pull INSEE data from the infobox and put it into the INSEE ref, but that's probably beyond my limited expertise. –xeno talk 16:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
"Human judgment" - would that be to check every article to see if it was based, or not, on French Wikipedia? If you recruit an army of interns, you could manage it :-)--RCS (talk) 16:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
I think the problem here is that (perhaps? I haven't check) some small piece of information was brought over from fr.wiki. If so, this needs to be noted, either in an edit summary of the history (my choice) or in templated form in the reference section (community seems to tolerate these, I don't like 'em, but what can you do?). Please try to rustle the folks at FRCOM to come to a firm consensus that my bot can proceed upon. –xeno talk 16:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
I left a note on FRCOM. --RCS (talk) 18:02, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Hi, i checked your bot's work, everything seems okay. Thanks a million! —Preceding unsigned comment added by RCS (talk • contribs) 08:09, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
No problem. Credit is due to MZMcBride for writing the script =) –xeno talk 11:46, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

"Based on the article in the French Wikipedia"

Can you clarify here exactly under what circumstance you added this line to the articles you've edited? –xeno talk 22:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

(copied from WT:FRCOM)I am no longer adding this sentence. In fact, I am removing it when it appears. Ksnow (talk) 12:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)Ksnow
So you agree it needs to be removed entirely, rather than replaced a trans template? I can run my bot to do this en-masse, it's received approval already. –xeno talk 12:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes. It was pointed on my talk page that it is not really a valid reference. Ksnow (talk) 12:58, 29 April 2009 (UTC)Ksnow
Thank you. I will proceed on this information. Happy editing, –xeno talk 12:59, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


Is it possible to pull a value from an infobox field and then chop it up and put it into a different ref?

Moved discussion from WT:AWB. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The value would be pulled from an field of Template:French commune infobox called |insee= which gives a 5 digit alphanumeric code. This needs to be chopped into the first two and final three digits and inserted into another ref down in the references section.

Example: Calvi, Haute-Corse, |insee=2B050 <-- pull the value from here

Replace this: 


== References ==

''Based on the article in the French Wikipedia.''
*[http://www.insee.fr/en/home/home_page.asp INSEE]
*[http://www.ign.fr/rubrique.asp?rbr_id=1&lng_id=EN IGN]

with: 

== References ==

*[http://www.insee.fr/fr/methodes/nomenclatures/cog/fichecommunale.asp?codedep=2B&codecom=050 INSEE commune file]
                                                                               ^^         ^^^
Can either AWB or Pywikipedia do this? –xeno talk 14:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
You could certainly write a custom module of a few lines to do it. Rjwilmsi 14:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, if I was a wizard with regex and the like, but I'm not =] If anyone has some spare time, it would really help out the WP:FRCOM project and my bot's edit count! ;> –xeno talk 15:13, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Questions:

  1. Do you want to remove the ign.fr links?
  2. What do you want to do when a references section doesn't exist? (Saint-Vincent-Cramesnil)
  3. What do you want to do when a references section exists with only {{reflist}}? (Carentan) Or if the references section just contains a bulleted list? (Corbie)
  4. Do you want a script that's automatic or requires manual confirmation for each edit?

--MZMcBride (talk) 19:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

1. Yes, IGN needs to go, they used to be good, now they don't have the helpful info they used to.
2. This will only be run on articles that have the italicized line "Based on the..." and therefore they all have the ref sec (i.e. these edits are icing on the cake to removing the unnecessary line- should've mentioned this)
3. Per #2.
4. Automatic, this is an approved task: User:Xenobot/6 (consensus here). –xeno talk 19:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

So, the script is written (it was pretty trivial to write), but it uses wikitools. So in order to run the script, you need to setup wikitools (which is like pywikipedia, except doesn't suck ;-) There are installers for wikitools available here. Once you have it setup, you simply need to go to tools:~mzmcbride/xeno-commune, download the files, modify settings.py, and run the script. If you need help, I may be able to provide some, though it usually requires pig's blood and a full moon for me to get Python working, let alone Windows. IRC may be helpful here; I'm lurking about there. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:52, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, new toys! Don't know what I would do without ya, thanks again =) I'll take a look now, but might not start the run until morning (EST). –xeno talk 03:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, Vista is still gross, but I got it working.

First, __init__.py (in the wikitools folder) needs to be overwritten with: 

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
__all__ = ["wiki", "api", "page", "category", "user"]

from wiki import *
from api import *
from page import *
from category import *
from user import *

Second, you need to ensure that wikitools and simplejson are installed. Control Panel --> System --> Change settings --> Advanced --> Environment Variables

For "User variables," you need to create PYTHONPATH and set it to wherever the wikitools directory is located (for example, if the wikitools folder is on your Desktop, it would be C:\Users\MZMcBride\Desktop

For "System variables," you need to ensure that PATH contains C:\Python25;C:\Python25\Scripts; at the beginning of it.

To test whether or not simplejson and wikitools are properly installed, it's pretty easy. Open cmd.exe and type: 

python

Which opens Python; run these two commands: 

import wikitools
import simplejson

If you get no errors, you're all set. If you do get errors, you gotta figure out what's broken.

If you need to install simplejson, it's really easy—I just did it in a few seconds. You download and run the installer for setuptools, available here for Python 2.5 and here for Python 2.4. (You probably have Python 2.5 installed. To check, just go to cmd.exe and run: 

python --version

Run the setuptools installer for whichever version of Python you have. Then open cmd.exe and do: 

easy_install simplejson

That should install it. If it doesn't recognize the easy_install command, it means your PATH isn't set correctly (make sure it includes C:\Python25\Scripts;).

Let me know if you have any further questions. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


Another way to do this might be to split the infobox field in two (parser functions probably can't do it) and generate the reference(s) in the infobox. Afterwards, one just needs to add <references/> (Muro bot). -- User:Docu

That would certainly future-proof things, but I seem to recall some issue with references being generated in templates (Wikipedia:Footnotes#Known bugs: Template parameters do not pass to <ref> tags) . –xeno talk 12:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
If I recall correctly, an earlier version of Template:Cite WSB with named <ref>-tags worked fine. The main reason I removed them was that it appeared too complex to use. To avoid problems with AWB, it wouldn't allow the named reference created in the infobox the reused elsewhere in the article. Anyways, the INSEE link might just as well be displayed in the infobox. -- User:Docu
Might be a good idea, but it would require editing even more articles than is presently planned (every single commune with an INSEE ref). –xeno talk 14:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Given the numerous names used for the same or similar fields in the infobox, it might be worth cleaning up all articles anyways. For Template:FraAbbr, I somehow managed to get consistent values for the name of the department. As most infoboxes come from the fr.wp, one would probably need to check first, if it was sorted out there. -- User:Docu
Coding discussion collapsed. Signing so that this section stays up a while longer as the bot is still running. –xeno talk 15:48, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

UTF-8 woes

Make sure you're reading the output file in a text editor that doesn't suck, by the way. I just tested with version 0.5 and in most standard text editors (like the ones that come with the operating system), they don't support UTF-8, so the output looks garbled in them. Or Vista just sucks. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:18, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Wifey just got home with the little rascal so I don't have time to pay attention to it right now, but the logging isn't that important. What's boggling me is why http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=User:Xenobot/sandbox&oldid=287753571 isn't properly editing articles such as Baden, Morbihan (and other communes of Morbihan that have that particular ref). –xeno talk 02:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Your search is too restrictive (and the error reporting sucks!): 

            new_text = re.compile(r'''
== [ ]*References[ ]* ==

.*based on the article.*
*[http://www.maires56.asso.fr Mayors of Morbihan Association] {{fr icon}}
*[http://www.insee.fr/en/home/home_page.asp INSEE] {{en icon}}
*[http://www.ign.fr/rubrique.asp?rbr_id=1&lng_id=EN IGN] {{en icon}}''', re.I|re.U).sub('''

That snippet isn't matching because most of the character in there are special characters in regular expressions. You need to either escape each special character (?, ., {, }, [, ], etc.) or make the regex less strict. For example: 

            new_text = re.search(r'''
== [ ]*References[ ]* ==

.*based on the article.*
.*asso.fr.*
.*insee.fr.*
.*www.ign.fr.*'''

This regex ensures that the links are on the page in specific lines in relation to each other. (Notice how the first line accounts for things like == References == or ==References==. The other four lines ensure that the text is there, but they have a lot more leeway (.* matching any other characters except newlines) and they avoid nastiness like [ and ].

Isn't code writing fun? --MZMcBride (talk) 02:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It sure is =) Thanks, I'll futz around with this when I get home tonight. –xeno talk 12:33, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi again, i see there are still over 13,000 occurences of the sentence as of today, now. I suppose your bot will have finished the job by the end of the week. But look at Elne, for instance, it seems he has completly skipped the "change INSEE, remove IGN" part there. Is this normal? --RCS (talk) 12:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC) And this looks like an error to me. Leaving the link to the INSEE homepage makes no sense, don't you think? Cheers, --RCS (talk) 12:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

In the first example, the bot hasn't visited the page yet. In the second example, there was no INSEE numbers to harvest. I figured something was better than nothing. Someone cleverer than I should design a bot to pull infobox data from fr.wiki and import it to en.wiki... =) –xeno talk 12:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
I think you should remove the INSEE homepage link altogether. It doesn't help. People who know how to navigate the INSEE page will go there directly, i think. --RCS (talk) 12:37, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
The problem with that is that some of the pages have {{reflist}} at the bottom as well , and others don't. The bot would need to figure out whether there are <refs> to go with the reflist and if not strip the reflist (this probably isn't impossible, but it would require me to learn a lot of stuff or bug my friend up there^^^ ;). It seems less painful to just leave the INSEE homepage in there (so the articles are not entirely unreferenced/unreferencible), and perhaps someone will do a search to find the proper INSEE number, no? –xeno talk 12:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
You are the boss, boss. --RCS (talk) 12:45, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Does that make sense though? (Generic ref better than nothing...) –xeno talk 12:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
(EC) Well, i wouldn't count on "someone" to do this kind of search, because it might be very boring. But then you could be right and someone (maybe User:Ksnow?) will want to do it after all. You never know. Cheers, RCS (talk) 12:53, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

May 6 status report

Search engine reports 7,371 as of this writing, however I expect this number to reduce by at least half when the search engine db refreshes itself. –xeno talk 14:20, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I just checked, it reports 11,800 when i enter Based on the article in the French Wikipedia and click on "search", how come? --RCS (talk) 16:27, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Make sure you use quotes around the term (don't worry about the italicization), i.e. [1] Otherwise you'll find articles that have those individual words in them, but not necessarily the phrase. –xeno talk 16:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
I did wrap the term in quotes also, but obviously it was not the right type of font. Thank you! --RCS (talk) 16:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes you need the actual (double-)quotes and not single quotes/apostrophe that lets us make italics =) An example of what pops up without "'s: Le Train Bleu#Articles from the French Wikipedia (should probably be copy edited =) –xeno talk 16:53, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

May 8 inquiry

Sorry to be a pain in your possibly very cute ar*e, but do you intend to relaunch the bot anytime soon? Tshaw, --RCS (talk) 14:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

No worries. I had a "blonde moment" last night,,, (see User talk:MZMcBride#wtf if you're interested). With his kind assistance the bot should go on another run tonight... –xeno talk 14:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Wait, you never clarified whether or not you had a cute ass.... --MZMcBride (talk) 04:54, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
lol, yes, I glossed over that... I'll plead the 5th =0 –xeno talk 04:55, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

May 10

May 11

Interwiki attribution

re: Trun, Orne

Xenobot removed a tail ref there saying translated form french. That ref was EXACTLY what I was told to put. So either your bot is wrong, I am wrong, or MOSxxx is wrong. I don't care quite which at the moment I am just a little peed that a bot comes in and tramples over someone's good faith edits. 03:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SimonTrew (talk • contribs)

The line written by Ksnow is being removed at their request... If you are the one who actually incorporates a substantial amount of information from the French Wikipedia, please use the following template:
{{iw-ref|fr|(location of article)|(date of translation)}}

i.e. like here on Trun, Orne. if you want to get really fancy, you can record the oldid of the French page on the date of the translation, i.e. 

{{iw-ref|fr|Alette|April 29, 2009|oldid=38280739}}

would result in:

This is the standard way to actually attribute between language Wikipedias (you may also use Template:Frenchtrans and omit the "|fr"). Please feel free to add this template wherever you feel it is appropriate, even if the bot recently removed the "plain text" attribution note. For more on this bot's task, see User:Xenobot/6 and WT:FRCOM#Xenobot6, and let me know if you have other questions. –xeno talk 03:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I was only peed off momentarily I soon calm down, just you know when you've tried everything to follow what everyone tells you, be it a person the MOS (and subsidiary pages) and stuff, it's like OI BOT GET OFF MY LAND
What's the difficulty with the OE ligature? (Deliberately written as two characters).
Nice work and Xenobot is usually quite a good bot, I have a Xenobiscuit for him (her?) here. SimonTrew (talk) 14:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
No worries, I can see how it could have been interpreted as trying to deny your diligent translation efforts. The 'oe' letter was just really screwing with the bot - it would die whenever it hit one of those articles because Windows Vista doesn't handle the character well in cmd.exe - can't render it! Anyhow, happy editing/translating! –xeno talk 14:13, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
That's odd. OE (I dare not type it as a ligature) is at U+0152. Having been programming DOS before Windows existed, I am racking my brains to think if there would be a special meaning for this code, but being outside of the ASCII page it seems unlikely. Yet that hex number does ring a bell somehow. Is it specifically that character, not the ones around it (I am using other accented characters quite happily, though they are a sod to type?)
It leads to a secondary and maybe more interesting thing, using these ligatures nowadays is rather an affectation and probably should be deprecated, except maybe in historical names Aelfric etc. I am just coming from the point of view of, say, a primary school aged reader, not used to seeing those ligatures at all. They are not necessary and indeed before typewriters were rarely seen outside of professional typesetting, where they were counted as "penalty copy". SimonTrew (talk) 14:22, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, U+0152... but it was the small case, U+0153, that gave the most trouble, I think there is only one or two communes starting with the capital Œ. Not really sure if they should be deprecated to be honest. We just had a featured article with one of them in it, so looks like WP:FAC allows for it! Though, that was for a saint. You may be right in that for place names, the common usage probably uses "oe" rather than "œ". –xeno talk 14:30, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Unicode of course lets you also do composition characters, so you can get OE through composition, as a workaround perhaps (and the other characters of course). SimonTrew (talk) 15:18, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
If I have another task like this I'll get you to explain that to me. =) –xeno talk 15:28, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Please be my guest I am just a boring old software engineer who has done typography for about twenty years. My text editor is better than your one, but that's cos I wrote it myself. It so far has a total audience of, er, one. SimonTrew (talk) 16:23, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Xeno may I suggest this sec is moved to something more relevant, "French translation stubs" or something, because Trun is fantastically dull in both ENglish and French WP and in real life too.
I think I may have got the point of your nick (which is so cool by the way). I know that xeno is Greek alien, foreign so xeno goes round fixing foreign things. Either that or you are a Martian. (I was so tempted to type xeno in greek). SimonTrew (talk) 00:32, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
hehe, yes, from the Greek ξένος... My name used to be "xenocidic", but in sense of a hostile alien (extra-terrestial) species, not foreigners. I changed it so that people wouldn't be alarmed ! –xeno talk 12:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I won't bore you with details but Unicode composition characters let you whack two characters together, for example you can get CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE by using a ring diaresis and just an A. So you can compose the characters together. It ends up as the same thing but might be a workaround for some things, I wonder. If the font does not have the necessary glyphs, the typesetting software will try doing its best job of making them: not always perfectly, but better than nothing. They are a sod to program for but easy to write. SimonTrew (talk) 16:45, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

If I never come across another oe again, I'll be happy. but, it seems I have another mission in French communes, yet. =] –xeno talk 00:09, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

...aaaand we're done

I do believe that's the last of 'em. Here's the final one to be vanquished, a Z-word with one of those blasted œ's that gave me so much trouble. I'd like to thank MZMcBride, RCS, and of course, the academy, for their support. –xeno talk 03:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Victory is mine! –xeno talk 15:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Yesssssss!--RCS (talk) 14:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
I should probably just pretend these don't exist to save me some work, but do you see value in me going through and replacing the generic INSEE links with links to the INSEE commune file, and removing the generic IGN links? –xeno talk 14:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
First question: yes, absolutely. As i said, the links to the INSEE homepage have absolutely no utility, people who know how to navigate INSEE will have gone there themselves and the others will find the portal's design unappealing and thus discouraging. Second question: pardon me, but didn't you already remove all the IGN links? Or do you mean removing them from all the pages that were not concerned by the removal of this dreaded (RIP) line? There are 36,000 communes in France so this means it concerns a mere 15,000 other articles. So: why not? --RCS (talk) 15:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, Ksnow seemed to have added a lot of INSEE+IGN link pairs before he started adding the line-which-shall-not-be-repeated. I'll look at it tonight, I think it's only 2000-some-odd articles. –xeno talk 15:30, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
What a lazy b*stard Ksnow is! ;-) --RCS (talk) 15:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
heh... what I noticed going through these articles is that a lot of them are still missing infoboxes... surely some pioneering bot-writer could write a bot to import infoboxen from the French 'pedia? –xeno talk 16:20, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Or from German 'pedia? They are a bit different, but valuable as well. A new case for User:MZMcBride? --RCS (talk) 16:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Possibly, but imo, he's given me enough fish already. It's high time I learned to fish on my own, or stop asking for handouts ;>. –xeno talk 16:29, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Anyway, think of comparing both types of infoboxes (rooster and eagle) before launching. --RCS (talk) 16:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
When I translate French articles I tend to change the links to the appropriate English INSEE pages. They are not perfectly translated but, I assume, better for an English audience than just directing to the French page (and certainly better than just directing to the home page). SimonTrew (talk) 16:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Summing up

Dear Xeno, could you now just sum up exactly the next steps you intend to take because ultimately you were not very clear about it. Removal of remaining IGN links - okay. But have you definitely made your mind up about INSEE? Cheers, --RCS (talk) 06:19, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll be removing the IGN link always, refining the INSEE ref when possible, and probably leaving the generic INSEE ref in there per my previous comments that it's difficult to test for the various combinations of has or has not "reflist" with or without refs (and also so the sub-stub articles don't remain entirely unverifiable). Above Simon mentioned an "English" commune file, is this different than the link I've been using? [3] –xeno talk 15:02, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Only the homepage exists in an English version ([4]), the subpages are all available in French only.--RCS (talk) 15:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
kk. Then, to be clear, I will be doing exactly what Xenobot was doing in the first phase, but obviously the-line-that-shall-not-be-mentioned is not present in the articles. –xeno talk 15:25, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
http://www.insee.fr/en/regions/ - just so you are warned. :-)--RCS (talk) 15:27, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
k. I'll probably do this over the weekend. Happy May 2-4 =) –xeno talk 13:19, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


Just checking

I'm sure you're not using "English" on your templates, but I thought I'd just make sure my edit to {{ISO 639 name}} hasn't mucked anything up. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:51, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Hm, shouldn't be a problem =) Unless someone transwiki's the template to another language 'pedia... Might be a good idea to have a different prefix for "Explicitly cited English". actually, they'll hopefully be diligent enough to fix the english notation, and instead apply the verbiage to their own language. –xeno talk 20:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Well let me know if it might be needed for something. If so, we'd have to put the exception in {{lang}} instead. This is all because of a CfD regarding Category:Articles containing English language text! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:58, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I think it should be fine. even if the template is modified to also accept iw-ref from other-projects, english is the default when referring to another project anyway. –xeno talk 21:59, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you explain your motivation for splitting the external links section on 2009 Swine flu outbreak in Canada? It creates an entry in the table of contents for no reason, and for such a small number of external links, seems entirely unnecessary. –xeno talk 23:13, 2 May 2009 (UTC) copied from User talk:Green Squares

The article is for Canadians, so the links are separated into Canada and Others. This is acceptable to me. Green Squares (talk) 10:12, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
The article is not necessarily "for Canadians" it is about an event in Canada. Splitting the external links section gives undue weight to Canadian external links, and is also unnecessary because it makes extra room on the table of contents when there are only 10 links in total. –xeno talk 13:16, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Gracie Richardson

Hi,

There was a page deleted on Gracie Richardson born 31.01.1979 Please can this be emailed to me i was basing some research on her and wrote this page. She was a ballet dancer in NY. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lilaboo (talk • contribs) 12:02, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

My reply here.

DougsTech

Dear Xeno, why did you block DougsTech indefinitely from editing without any discussion? See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Xeno.2C DougsTech.2C and indefinite block. Have a nice day. AdjustShift (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't realize discussion was required to prevent dirsuption to the enyclopedia. Thanks for the note. –xeno talk 16:55, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
AN/I

I've started a discussion of your action with respect to DougsTech on ANI. Skinwalker (talk) 16:54, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the note. –xeno talk 16:56, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Have a little something-something

The Rogue Admin Barnstar
For your indef block of DougsTech, which no other admin would have had the balls to do because they knew it would be reverted. Congrats! Xclamation point 19:52, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
heh... thanks. =) –xeno talk 19:54, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Just when you thought you were about to be trouted... a barnstar shows up on your talk page! I'm not sure whether I agree with the block or not and I have no opinion on the Doug issue, but hell, at least you stood up for what you felt is wrong. Kudos to you. :) Master&Expert (Talk) 20:32, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

2009 flu outbreak

Hi, Xeno. Could you come to my talk page to discuss the page protection. I have moved 2009 flu outbreak as a purely editorial action. Several editors suggest the page was protected, but I did not see any warnings, and was not aware I should not move the page. Moreover, there seems to be a rough consensus in favor of the move, and editors have generally supported it after the fact. Could you have a look and comment. Thanks. Jehochman Talk 22:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

My comments here and there. –xeno talk 12:23, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

More userbox moves

I have some more user boxes to move, I will be assembling the list later. This is just a place holder until then.

new batch

--Jeremy (blah blah) 07:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll probably delay fixing these until after my bots present task for WP:FRCOM is completed. Also feel free to list these at User:Xenobot/workspace rather than here, as you can see I've got three on the docket already. –xeno talk 14:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up my user page.

Do you know what the correct procedure is for notifying admin to get a repeat offender blocked? Roger (talk) 07:56, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

For a vandal that is active,, WP:AIV. Vandal IPs who aren't active are usually left alone until they resume. –xeno talk 12:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Oops...

I... umm... I think I may have triggered an edit war by citing common sense as the basis for keeping something in. I still maintain that it is common sense but... uh-oh.

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Half-Life_2:_Episode_Three

What do I do now? I'm scared to get involved in case I anger more people. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 10:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Just noticed a big section on the talk page about this. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 10:16, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I wouldn't worry about it too much... Common sense as an argument usually loses to those with a very strict interpretation of RS and V... I mean, it's patently obvious that Modern Warfare 2 will be released for Xbox 360 and PS3... But no..., we must wait for an RS!!! I don't necessary disagree when it comes right down to it. We can't all be just adding The Truth™ wherever we feel like it. –xeno talk 12:21, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
RS and V? But basically, I'm not going to get into trouble for it? *sighs* That's good. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 15:52, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
WP:RS and WP:V. No, you won't get in trouble, you were just acting in good faith. –xeno talk 15:53, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I thought RS was reliable sources, but it doesn't hurt to check. Thanks again. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 15:58, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

RE: Mask

It doesn't look like it was actually set yet. Is that right? If you just filled out the form, it might take up to a few weeks to be set. - Rjd0060 (talk) 14:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I forgot about that. All set now. - Rjd0060 (talk) 14:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

how's My adminning?

Yo, I know I am not an admin but the title was weird so I put it in. i am I allowed to steal your 'Hows my adiminning?' and change it to 'how's my editing?' or something along those lines, and also chage the content so it doesn't include adminstative things? 'The Ninjalemming' 13:25, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure thing. It would be like a personal editor review. –xeno talk 14:50, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
So no one else other then admins have one? Oh, what did you do to get the funky textboxes and the small print underneath? Cheers, and if you wish to lok it is located here; but will only appear in a few minutes 'The Ninjalemming' 15:38, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm sure some others have similar things... The text boxes are transcluded from User:Xeno/review, using {{notice}}, {{caution}} and references in a {{reflist}}. –xeno talk 15:58, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
So whats a simple low-down on the reflisting thing? I am stupid again to day (like most days then) -) 'The Ninjalemming' 13:35, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
View the code for User:Xeno/review. See the comments placed inside ref tags and then the reflist in the table. –xeno talk 13:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Cheers! =) 'The Ninjalemming' 13:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
My one is just a carbon copy of yours, bu with a few word changes so I don't appear to be an admin. Could you check it to make sure it's ok, and add a line to seperate the reviews from the top bit as when I try it it...VDfdsjcvsdtgvckvdf up. Cheers (again) 'The Ninjalemming' 17:23, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 Done. Just FYI when borrowing code from another page you should put in the edit summary "code taken from (link to page stolen from)" for GFDL attribution purposes. –xeno talk 17:36, 5 May 2009 (UTC) 17:33, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Should I do that now? I am guessing a no will follow due to latness. Thanks for the help though, it was much apprecated —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ninjalemming (talk • contribs) 18:01, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
better late than never =) –xeno talk 18:03, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 Done hehe, I used your done thing.=) 'The Ninjalemming' 18:12, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

DougsTech (talk) has given you a fresh piece of fried chicken! Pieces of fried chicken promote WikiLove and hopefully this piece has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a piping hot piece, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Bon appetit!

Spread the tastiness of fried chicken by adding {{subst:GiveChicken}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

At least I got chicken!^^^ –xeno talk 03:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

ANI thread regarding the article Notability and its repeated deletion/undeletion

I have opened up an ANI thread regarding this issue, which you were involved in. Find a link here. Oren0 (talk) 07:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the note =) –xeno talk 11:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Just darn to swell!

The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
For all you do this ones for you!Mrpotatohead 2 (talk) 21:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
You need another too! Mrpotatohead 2 (talk) 21:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Hmmmmmm....thank yar... though, it is generally frowned upon to just hand out barnstars willy-nilly to any random folk you come across... (Not trying to be a wet blanket or anything...) –xeno talk 21:46, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
The Wet Blanket Barnstar
Your reply earned you a barnstar! Keeper76 (talk) 22:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
oooo I totally deserved that ! Good to see you up and around again, keeps. –xeno talk 22:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
The Bragger's Barnstar
For thinking you deserve barnstars!Keeps (Seventy-six) 21:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Wow... So many barnstars for someone whose singular best contribution(according to the venerable website Wikipedia Review [5]) to the 'pedia is User:Xeno/RFAQ??? –xeno talk 22:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Warning: Infinite loop detected. Aborting. J.delanoygabsadds 22:21, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
File:GoatMilksYogurt.jpg The Yoghurt of Undeserved Praise
For nothing at all. ~ mazca t|c 22:23, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
ULTRAKILL!!! –xeno talk 22:25, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
File:GoatMilksYogurt.jpg The Mazca spelled Yogurt wrong on Xeno's page Barnstar
Because I can! ~ Jeepers|Keepers 22:23, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
The 'peeds disagrees with you... (WP:COMMONNAME) –xeno talk 22:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
The peeds. What do they know???[citation needed] Keeper | 76 22:31, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
No doubt! The other day I got laughed at by a med student because the 'peeds told me that Naegleria fowleri (colloquially known as the brain-eating amoeba) was actually just an AMOEBOID [6]! How could I be so stupid? –xeno talk 22:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

← For those keeping score at home, the initiator of this thread has just been blocked as a sock of someone or other. –xeno talk 22:40, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

That's simply divine. LMAO. I wonder if there's a MRpotatohead 1 out there? Keeper | 76 22:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
The admin who blocked him also mass-rv'td any of the barnstars that weren't replied to... poor folk, may've been their first-ever barnstar! –xeno talk 22:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Well aren't you lucky that I happened to be scanning my watchlist for the first time in months :-) Keeper | 76 22:46, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Indeed I am, Keeper. Indeed I am... –xeno talk 22:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Believe it or not, the sock puppeteer was originally blocked for barnstar spamming. --Kanonkas :  Talk  22:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

heh... diluting the sacred institution of the barnstar... –xeno talk 23:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Being too nice with too many accounts! God, I love this place. Keeper | 76 23:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
the windup... [7] –xeno talk 00:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
actually not a bad response to be honest... some solid proposed improvements to California Golden Seals. i've unblocked, let's see where it goes. –xeno talk 19:02, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the second chance

Won't let you down :) Mrpotatohead 2 (talk) 20:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem...Happy editing, –xeno talk 20:28, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

thanks for the use of your bot.

I know its a bit prelim, but I'd like to thank you for the use of it. I'd also like to know if you could implement the stuff all the stuff I requested (assuming it gets consensus) or will it just be categorizing unassassed to low?じんない 23:26, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

You mean fixing the malformed parameters? or? –xeno talk 00:31, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
fixing malformed parameters and adding the two parameters "screenshot" and "cover" to all articles without them, but with a blank field (mostly because these were added later and most people don't realize they're there because they are somewhat unique to our wikiproject).じんない 00:49, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

VG delivery

I guess this is the what we're going with:

Due to lack of interest, the VG Newsletter will be switching from a monthly delivery to a quarterly one. The next issue be delivered on July 1, 2009 and will pertain to the second quarter of the year. If you have any comments or suggestions to improve the newsletter, please post at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter.
—VG Newsletter Contributors

(Guyinblack25 talk 13:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC))

k, I'll get that out today. –xeno talk 13:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 Done

Thankyou for the notice. Afkatk (talk) 14:55, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem! –xeno talk 15:31, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

A note regarding the WPVG Newsletter

Due to an apparent lack of interest, the WPVG Newsletter will be switching from a monthly publication schedule to a quarterly one. The next issue be delivered on July 1, 2009, and will pertain to the second quarter of the calendar year. If you have any comments regarding this, or suggestions to improve the newsletter, please post at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter.

—VG Newsletter Contributors

XenosLaw

Self-admitted sockpuppet Hammersoft has got his knickers in a twist over your excellent block of waste of space troll DougsTech. See here. It's quite amusing. I'm thinking the last option - ban him :) Can't say he would be missed. Majorly talk 18:07, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the note... Not sure if I should feel honoured, or...? –xeno talk 18:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't know either. Just Hammersoft having a bit of fun. Anything is better than writing articles, obviously. Majorly talk 18:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
yea, eww, mainspace! (made some comments there) –xeno talk 18:16, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Commenting here to keep with the thread, but I should note that nobody has given any evidence that Hammersoft is a sock, let alone a self admitted sock. —— nixeagleemail me 20:39, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Anyone that agrees with me/supports me must be a troll, sock, or vandal according to Majorly. He just wont give up. --DougsTech (talk) 20:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
  • It's pretty simple Xeno. I'm not having a bit of fun. You owe DougsTech an apology for your gross error in blocking him. I don't expect you will give it to him, but I make the protest anyway. Someone has to stand up to such things. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
    • Yes, Xeno, in the future when you run across a disruptive SPA please remember blocking is inappropriate, a barnstar is the right thing to do. The sad part is Xeno is such a nice guy you will probably succeed in harassing him into apologizing to Dougs. Landon1980 (talk) 22:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Hammersoft, I've read what you wrote at the various venues and perhaps I may have erred in saying that DougsTech had done nothing at all but to disrupt RFA; you did point out a few diffs that I indeed missed. However, I still believe that at the time, DougsTech was presenting a net negative to the project (nixeagle successfully divined my analysis at your talk page [8]). On the other hand, he's now contributing in a positive way and has taken steps to explain his voting pattern to minimize disruption caused by his templated voting (which has always seemed to cause disruption, irrespective of the message and/or the messenger). I didn't block him to be an abusive or "rouge" admin - my goal the whole time was to further the goals of the encyclopedia. I've already extended an olive branch to him, and he seems to have accepted it. I don't blame you for standing up for him - a good friend of mine is also quite vocal when he feels a wrong has been committed against a fellow editor. And he's not always wrong, either. But his methods often leave something to be desired. I suppose the same could be said here. –xeno talk 00:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I've never claimed that you blocked him to be abusive or to act as a rogue admin. I have and continue to claim that your block was way out of line and DougsTech deserves an apology. The conundrum here is that if you can't see the necessity of that, you should step down as an administrator, but if you can't see the necessity of that, you won't step down. The blocking record is a permanent mark against him. He can't remove it and neither can you. As it stands now, if he is questioned on it in the future he has little to go on to indicate that the block was in error. If instead you made an apology to him indicating the block was in error, he could point to the diff and say "The blocking admin acknowledged it was an error, see diff". You are human, just as all of us are. Being unwilling to acknowledge error makes you less of a good administrator, not more of one. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, xeno, let ClueBot and the Terminator have a go at being an admin! (I'd pay to see that, for future reference). --Thejadefalcon (talk) 13:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I would acknowledge an error if I felt I made an error, and have done so in the past. In this case, I don't think the block "was way out of line". It was probably not the brightest idea, given the very recently closed topic-ban discussion and tendency of people to conflate issue of whether we should litigate acceptable RFA votes (which I feel we should not) and whether we should block an account for doing almost nothing but causing disruption (which I feel we should). Even if I were prepared to offer an unconditional apology, at this point it would no doubt seem forced anyway - given your XenosLaw ultimatum. Nonetheless, the fairly swift unblocking with related message shows that the block was debatable, at least. If someone questions DougsTech on the block, he can tell them to come talk to me; I will tell them that at the time I felt the block was appropriate given his lack of recent encyclopedia-building activity but now that he's resumed positive contributions I would oppose blocking (or topic-banning, for that matter). –xeno talk 13:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
  • It's interesting that you maintain this line, that one must edit in article space to be a contributor here. This is why my self prohibition on editing in that space remains. If you truly, actually believe this stance then you must block me too. Maybe not yet, as it's only been 9 days since I last edited article space, but certainly by the time I reach the end of self-imposed lack of editing article space. I'm not saying this to bait you or be a troll. I am saying this (and not editing article space) to highlight that the position is unsupportable. If you can show a policy or guideline that indicates an editor MUST edit in the article space to prevent being blocked, I would rescind my self-imposed lack of editing in article space. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
  • You aren't spending months trolling RFA though. Xeno's excellent block (which should have not been overturned) was regarding a particular set of circumstances, not just his total lack of edits to the encyclopedia. If you want to make a point and go on strike from article work (which you did little of anyway), no one is going to mind. If you start disrupting processes, and start soapboxing a ridiculous and contradicted idea, perhaps a block would be a great idea. Majorly talk 14:02, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Hammersoft, one could completely avoid mainspace and still present a net positive to the project (another fact astutely pointed out by nixeagle on your talk page). Obviously a block in this case would be wholly inappropriate. Please do not try to ascribe scientific precision to your so-called "XenosLaw". From WP:BLOCK: "Blocks are used to prevent ... disruption to Wikipedia... Blocks sometimes are used as a deterrent, to discourage whatever behavior led to the block and encourage a productive editing environment." –xeno talk 14:09, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
  • The requirement that you laid on DougsTech in blocking him was that he had to edit mainspace in order to be considered to be contributing to the project. See for yourself. You've already admitted he wasn't using his account solely to cause disruption, as I pointed out several diffs proving that inaccurate. The only other standing reason on which your block was not in error was that he hadn't edited mainspace in nearly a month. Now you're telling me that's an invalid reason to block. Ok, fair enough. Then your block was fully in error. You can't have it both ways; you can't be fully in error and have made a legitimate block. You seem to admit the block was fully in error. So apologize to him. I'm not going to keep after you about this, as I think the point's been clearly made now. I do hope you have the self responsibility to apologize to him. To have such a glaring error clearly marked out and then not apologize to the person you directly affected by your error is highly reflective on you. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I blocked him because he "[didn't] appear [to be] interested in building the encyclopedia" [9]. Not editing the mainspace was simply an example. Please don't miscontrue what I've wrote - I said that someone could not edit the mainspace and still present a net postiive to the project: in my opinion, at the time I blocked DougsTech, this was not the case. I will contemplate further on this. –xeno talk 14:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Unrelated, but taking the opportunity of the same edit to comment...I saw your edit/revert on my talk page. It's a curious point. Should a trophy be copyrightable? Is it a 3D work of art and capable of being protected against derivative works? I actually tend to think yes, but our current practice says no, as the examples I noted show. If they can not be copyrighted, where is the line in the sand? When does a trophy become more than a trophy and capable of being protected? Interesting. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Copyright isn't my strong suit to be honest. This should be raised somewhere for further comment. –xeno talk 14:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Talking about self-refs...

...here is a really nice one. Cheers, --RCS (talk) 09:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

dear god ! =) –xeno talk 17:18, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Vandal?

Can you, temporarily at least, block this user? He seems to have it in his head that every unreleased video game ever is appearing on December 31, 2009. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 11:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd prefer you left a message on his user talk page explaining this rather than going straight to blocking. The user is probably acting in good faith, sites like IGN use "Dec 31, 2009" as a placeholder release date for TBA games. He's only edited three articles, and this was last night. Perhaps extend an initiation to join the WP:VG wikiproject (see User:Xeno/welcome) –xeno talk 11:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
They do? That's just remarkably stupid. Okay, though. I just presumed he was a vandal with nothing better to do. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 12:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Done. I suppose what really made me suspicious was that he even changed the website address for one citation which, though I can't check due to Kotaku being blocked, would likely have made the link useless. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 12:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Yea, probably just a well-meaning newbie. –xeno talk 12:37, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
If you say so. I'm keeping an eye on him though. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 13:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

rambling man...

Xeno, he wouldn't need a nomination to be reflagged. For that he just needs to make the request. But if time passes and he wants to be a bureaucrat again, simple reflagging might no longer be an option, and a nomination might be the correct route. Kingturtle (talk) 20:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, yes I see your point; i.e. if time passes and community outlook on RFA changes significantly, etc. Thanks for clarifying. –xeno talk 20:48, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Tronji - self promotion?

Xeno - I read Wiki articles regularly but this one seemed to be very self promoting. Just a plug for a new show. Is this what wiki is here for - for companies to sell their stuff and the BBC to get free publicity. Not impressed I am afraid. There are too many companies plugging their products on here these days... WebMonitor77 (talk) 11:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

It does appear to be written with a somewhat promotional tone. In cases like this, you could tag it with {{advert}}, you could improve it yourself, or you could nominate it at WP:AFD if you felt the subject was not notable or suffered from a dearth of 3rd party sources (this last point doesn't fit [10] but those need to be used in the article). –xeno talk 12:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

RfD nomination of Wikipedia:ABUSELOG

I have nominated Wikipedia:ABUSELOG (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Many otters • One hammer • HELP) 14:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Dashboard it up

Is this fine? 'The Ninjalemming' 17:15, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Of course... Don't see why not... –xeno talk 17:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Ar, you moved it. 'The Ninjalemming' 17:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
ya, it was hanging off the coattails of a thread about to be archived... –xeno talk 17:29, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh...okay then. 'The Ninjalemming' 17:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

My Sig

Is there anyway you can edit that on my sig page (see here)? I am unsure as to how to make that work with the setup I have on my sig. Thanks and my apologizes for the problems it caused. - Neutralhomer (talk)

No worries. It only occured when you were the only thread participant. {{subst:User:Neutralhomer/Sig}} = NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
^^^ All set I believe. –xeno talk 23:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
For some reason it is not coming up with a time code, just 5 tidles. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC) 23:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
I've botched something then... –xeno talk 23:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
No worries. Does it matter that I only use three tidles ~~~ for my sig? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Using three tildes should work fine now. I've used your method instead. –xeno talk 23:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
...and it is working with the way you showed above :) - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:49, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Good to go then. =) –xeno talk 23:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Sweet! Should we do a quick test with Miszabot to make sure? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
MiszaBot runs on her own time, but would probably be a good idea to double check. I don't see why it wouldn't, I believe MB ignores everything but the timestamp. –xeno talk 23:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
We could both keep an eye on the WP:TVS thread that goofed it up to begin with, since when you reworked my sig, it reset all the others, it should reset the ones in the WP:TVS thread too. If that works tonight (I think it archives nightly) we will know. Would that work? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

← The trap is set: [11]. –xeno talk 23:59, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks for your help :) Take Care...NeutralHomer • Talk • 00:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

AFL user box migration

A) Why did you move all the Arena Football League userboxes to User:UBX? B) I created them. If anything you should have moved them to my user space. Crash Underride 19:04, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

They were moved per WP:UBM; feel free to move them to your userspace if you wish. –xeno talk 19:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Newspaper

I tracked you down through user:Prodego, whose name appears in the semi-protection box at the above article (19:06, 6 May 2009 Prodego (talk | contribs) protected Newspaper [edit=autoconfirmed] (expires 19:06, 6 June 2009 (UTC)) [move=autoconfirmed] (expires 19:06, 6 June 2009 (UTC)) ‎ (Excessive vandalism) (hist)). I'm asking to lift the semi-protection at Newspaper, and there is an item on the Talk Page there. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:39, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done, replied there. –xeno talk 19:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you use Mozilla Firefox?

Just wondering; if you do, then you might be able to help me with a problem I've been having with it recently. -- Commdor {Talk} 20:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, whats up? –xeno talk 20:39, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I only moved over to Firefox from IE 8 a few weeks ago, mainly because IE was horribly slow. Things worked out fine until last week. The problem is that whenever I click on a link anywhere on nearly every site I go to (except Wikiedia for some reason, it seems like the only site that works as normal), it always opens in a new tab and redirects me to a random site. For example, when I edit on The Fallout video game wiki, if I try to navigate to a particular article by using the in-article links or even if I click the edit option, a new tab is opened and takes forever to load. This new tab either opens where I wanted it to (inconvenient at worst), or more often opens to something completely unrelated, like an online ad for tires or the search results for a term from the article's title. On the status bar at the browser's bottom, I've consistently seen a url for "google-redirect.com" or "tebe.us" before the tab finishes loading. Anyway, not sure if I outlined it clearly enough, but does this sound like anything you know of? Is there something I can do to stop this unwanted redirecting? -- Commdor {Talk} 21:09, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
That's peculiar. It sounds to me like you may have a bit of malware, if there's random websites being opened up. SpyBot can usually root out the common ones... ( http://www.safer-networking.org ). –xeno talk 21:12, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
That's likely, I switched to Firefox right after a bout with a particularly bad virus infection, and while my laptop works fine now, it isn't the same (System Restore is inoperative, MS Paint sometimes doesn't load, little things like that). If it is malware, then it's affecting only Firefox since IE 8 has no problems (aside from the usual sluggishness). I'll check it out. -- Commdor {Talk} 21:20, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Well, that took ages to finish, but finish it did: the program removed a few bits of malware. Unfortunately, the browser problems remain. I'm running a few other anti-malware scans, but I doubt I'll ever have things completely back to normal without resetting my hard drive back to factory defaults (if even that works). If none of these other programs are successful, I'll be back for more suggestions, if you have any. -- Commdor {Talk} 16:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Installing the Adblock plugin may help ... –xeno talk 16:37, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Issue resolved. Firefox is working fine again, Adblock seems to have done the trick. Thanks for your help. -- Commdor {Talk} 20:11, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
No problem! Glad it helped, –xeno talk 15:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Protection of a user page

A certain user has decided to leave wikipedia but has not stated whether it s for ever or just a long time, due to his absuence some cowardly IP's have decided to put personal attacks on his page, so much so I am now permenantly keeping an eye on the page to make sure it lacks vandalism. Do you think it would be a good idea to protect his page from IP editing (or maybe higher) incase he comes back? 'The Ninjalemming' 14:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's probably appropriate. –xeno talk 15:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
But how would I go about doing it? 'The Ninjalemming' 20
18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
just tell me the page name and I'll check it out. –xeno talk 21:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
User:Mr T (Based) 'The Ninjalemming' 08:07, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
Hasn't been vandalized since Apr 22, but if they hit it again I'll sprotect. –xeno talk 12:58, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
'spotect' it ah, well I never expected anything as drastic as a spotect but oh well. If I vandalis it then revert myself, then I report myself could you protect it then? 'The Ninjalemming' 16:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
er, no =0 –xeno talk 16:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh well Now to secertly make a sockpuppet then vandalise it, then after that I'll go and find out what the HELL a sockpuppet is hehe =P'The Ninjalemming' 16:49, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

1 vs. 100

No kidding. But I knew they would be split again at some point. I just wanted them to learn their lession. >:) JAF1970 (talk) 05:08, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed - What a terrible idea! (I wondered why I saw you in there and you hadn't smacked 'em around ;>) Going to try and play the beta on the 12th and then I should be able to beef up the article some more. –xeno talk 05:09, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
It wasn't worth the trouble. Besides, 1 vs. 100 was delayed. I'll pick my battles. ;) JAF1970 (talk) 16:55, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi

I came across the status updates script. i copied it in to My monobook yet the status is not gettin updated.Plz help me —Preceding unsigned comment added by Subash.chandran007 (talk • contribs) 13:08, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Try bypassing your cache and you should see the status changer buttons along the top of your screen. –xeno talk 13:11, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
Got it working now ! Thanks Subash.chandran007 (talk) 13:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
No problem. =) –xeno talk 13:17, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Job For Ya

Noticed How to spot the next enron on the Recent Changes page. User:Gryphon Financial has been the only editor (obvious COI no matter what the page says). The page is serious spam and the above user has removed all attempts to PROD the page. Could you please take care of this page for me? Thanks...NeutralHomer • Talk • 15:16, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much :) - NeutralHomer • Talk • 15:22, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
No problem. Though, whenever I see your name, I get that silly tune in my head (I am Evil Neutral Homer, I am Neutral Hooooo-mer!) –xeno talk 15:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Did a quick Google search and found this. Now you can listen all day. :) Take Care....EVIL!NeutralHomer • Talk • 15:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

In the Night Garden page

Hi Xeno,

I work for Ragdoll Productions and have been updating the information on the 'In the Night Garden...' page - I noticed that you have reverted my changes and although you have citied a third party resource for the information, the information they have is incorrect.

This information is taken from our website regarding 'In the Night Garden...' which I hope will clear up the matter. http://www.ragdoll.co.uk/html/newsarchive_board.htm http://www.ragdoll.co.uk/html/pressrel_itng.htm

If you have any queries please don't hesitate to contact me and hopefully you will be happy with my changes and revert them. Thanks Rob —Preceding unsigned comment added by RobertPBham (talk • contribs) 15:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... Please keep WP:COI in mind when editing these pages... Also see WP:SELFPUB regarding referencing the company website. That being said, since Anne Wood was the creative director at the time of ITNG's creation, could you not say she was, in effect, a co-creator as reported by the Winnipeg Sun? –xeno talk 15:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi Xeno,

I perfectly understand your points and obviously don't want to go against any of the standards set out by Wikipedia. I will speak to the relevant people in house and see what other sources we have that are 3rd party references. Please leave as you see fit until I can update and ask your opinion before changing anything on that page. Thanks Rob (RobertPBham (talk) 15:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC))

Sounds like a plan. In the meantime, I'll try to think of a better way to position the statement on the page in terms of the first party versus the third party sources. –xeno talk 16:02, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Makka Pakka

Hi Xeno, I've just seen your message about Makka Pakka. Makka Pakka was only played by Justyn Towler and nobody else. :-)

Thanks (RobertPBham (talk) 13:59, 11 May 2009 (UTC))

Thanks muchly. I haven't gotten around to doing what I said I would do above, but it's on my roadmap! =) –xeno talk 14:03, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

compromise suggestion

Does this edit more accurately reflect the landscape? Also, though I've pointed you to WP:COI there is nothing restricting you from editing the page as long as you keep our guidelines regarding neutral point of view in mind. –xeno talk 14:06, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi Xeno,

Thanks for the edit. Unfortunately it is still incorrect. Obviously I have read the guidelines and we currently cannot find a 3rd party source with the correct information (we are still looking). As it stands, Ragdoll knows that the information is incorrect on the page and would like to correct but I am now stuck as to what to do for best. I don't want to break any rules and cause conflict, but in the same sense it seems silly to have incorrect information on the page that people would use.

Is there any recommendations for this on how to proceed.

Thanks for all your help. (RobertPBham (talk) 14:24, 11 May 2009 (UTC))

Could you clarify what's wrong with it still? As I said there's nothing wrong with you editing the page directly but we often favour RS over first party sources. –xeno talk 14:26, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi Xeno,

Hopefully I've posted this message correctly. :-) Sorry for the delay in a reply, but I've just been working through exactly what we would like to change it to which I have listed below.

In the Night Garden... side box: Created by Andrew Davenport (linking to Andrew Davenport's Wikipedia page) Produced by Andrew Davenport and Anne Wood (linking to both wikipedia pages) (Remove reference to Winnipegsun as incorrect)

Main Body Andrew Davenport (linking to wikipedia page) created(ref 1 and 2), wrote, and composed the title theme and incidental music for all 100 episodes. It was produced by Andrew Davenport and Anne Wood, both of whom co-created the Teletubbies.

(Correct age range for program - currently 1 to 3 years change to 2 to 4 years)

Producer Anne Wood said..... " "

Producer Anne Wood stated "

Add BAFTA award for 2008.


References 1) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/in-the-night-garden-bedtime-for-teletubbies-445102.html (just for your info is a paragraph from the article) In the Night Garden: Bedtime for Teletubbies – The Independent, 18th April 2007 by Jonathan Brown and Josie Robinson “The inspiration for the new series came out of a growing disquiet felt by Mrs Wood at the way young children were responding to the world’s all too harrowing problems in a media-saturated age. But she says it was Mr Davenport who invented the characters, composed the hypnotic music and wrote the scripts.”

2) http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2007/nov/25/features.magazine47 (just for your info is a paragraph from the article) Night Fever – The Observer Magazine, 25th November 2007 by Harriet Lane “In the Night Garden reunites Wood with Teletubbies’ co-creator Andrew Davenport. It was Davenport who came up with the concept for Night Garden, designed the characters and the sets, and wrote the music as well as the script, after Wood articulated ‘a feeling that we were living in increasingly anxious times for one reason or another’ …”


Can you see any problems with this as I believe we have now covered the 3rd party sources successfully?

Thanks for all your help (RobertPBham (talk) 16:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC))

One problem pops right out is that my son loves the show (he even does the little circle drawing on his hand when it comes on) and he's not yet 2 ;> When I can concentrate on this I will implement those changes, or you can go ahead and do so yourself now that you have proper sources to back up the changes. –xeno talk 16:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I've got no problem implementing the changes - just wanted to check with you first. :-) I'll start doing this now.

Thanks (RobertPBham (talk) 16:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC))

working with me on innate love.

Re I believe this concept is sound. Please help me develop it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Austinrufener (talk • contribs) 13:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

My reply here.

Hi,

If you were able to understand what I pulled out of that movie based on Piaget's cognitive stages of learning than you must have excellent understanding of Piaget's cognitive stages of learning. I'm asking you to help me develop this concept and make it logical to other people.

Once again, here it is, since it got deleted already.... even as a stub that was marked as "hangon"

love is innate, all other emotions are learned responses that a child in the concrete operational mind learns to deal with things. When they are given no love at the sensorimotor stage, they then learn to cope by developing a learned response (usually anger) because of the love they were denied when it was most crucial at the sensorimotor stage. However this does mean that love can be learned.

Please reply on this page.Austinrufener (talk) 21:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Excellent understanding?... Not so much. More of a hazy recollection of a text book chapter I read many moons ago. Nevertheless, Wikipedia is simply not the place for you to develop this idea. Perhaps Wikiversity? I'm not quite sure what they do over there. –xeno talk 21:30, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Need some help

Hey xeno just need to know how do add templates to my user page (for example, your wikiproject xbox thingy) thanks SupaRebel35 (talk) 23:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure... You simply find the appropriate code which is wrapped in {{curly braces}} and add the code to your page. So, for the xbox one, you would just add {{User WP Xbox}} somewhere on your userpage. You can also put them in a {{userboxtop}} enclosure. Just look at the code of my userpage to see how its done. To find more userboxes, see WP:UBX#Gallery –xeno talk 23:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay figured it out thanks alot. SupaRebel35 (talk) 23:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

No worries. –xeno talk 13:07, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Help!

Hey Xeno, it's just me asking a favor from my favorite Canadian admin. If you take a look at The Beatles: Rock Band you will see that I added an image of the Höfner 500/1 bass controller that will be used in the game. It's a useful addition but it takes up a bit of space. What suggestions can you give me?--Ezekiel 7:19 S†rawberry Fields 23:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

A gallery might be appropriate once we get pictures of the other instruments. For now, I think it looks ok. –xeno talk 23:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Well, your the expert so I'l follow your advice. By the way I'm trying to switch my sig to look like this, [[User:Ezekiel 7:19|<span style="color:#E32636">'''Ezekiel 7:19'''</span>]] <sup>[[User talk:Ezekiel 7:19|<font color="#E32636">S†rawberry</font>]][[User:Ezekiel 7:19/Guestbook|<span style="color:#E32636;"> Fields (sign)</span>]]</sup> , which appears like this Ezekiel 7:19 S†rawberry Fields (sign) . So can you identify why it won't work? Thanks!--Ezekiel 7:19 S†rawberry Fields 23:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
You are missing quotes around the final color hex. HTML must be spot on in the signature field. –xeno talk 23:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Damn it, you my friend are good. I would have never seen that in that huge mess of words. Well I am always thankful for your help (especially the fact that your always online when I need you). Cheerio!--Ezekiel 7:19 S†rawberry Fields (sign) 23:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
By the way, your talk link next to your name in your sig doesn't link to anything, or at least it doesn't for me. Is that supposed to be like that?--Ezekiel 7:19 S†rawberry Fields (sign) 23:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
it links here, but since we already are here, the link doesn't allow itself to be clicked. =) I've been tricked by this in the past too ;) –xeno talk 00:10, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Haha, even the best of admins can be tricked. Well you do always leave messages on this page so I guess that can happen. Very well, Cheerio ol' chap!--Ezekiel 7:19 S†rawberry Fields (sign) 15:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

DrilBot

Hi! Could you take a look at my proposed temporary solution at User talk:DrilBot? Thanks. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 12:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Replied there. –xeno talk 13:03, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Your work.

Just writing to thank you for deleting the pages, etc. relating to the issue raised in the header link. Thanks,

Hunterd is back! 14:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem. regards, –xeno talk 14:53, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

See what happens when you RfA?

And I'm stalking you to this day. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

LOL! It's a good thing I rarely delete things. ;> –xeno talk 15:37, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Everyking 5

Everyking's response in question 15 is an inappropriate attack on me. I cannot just "walk away". It is a strong violation of NPA and he knows it. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:56, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

and you made your views known. there's no need to continually post to the RFA, badgering supporters, etc. would appreciate this being contained at the ANI, so I can bow out when I feel I've made my point, per my usual letting you have the last word. –xeno talk 16:05, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment from Dlohcierekim

Hi Xeno. Ottava apparently does not realize that these efforts may become counterproductive? Sometimes less is more; and more will be . . . . Oh, well. Dlohcierekim 22:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed; just as a spirited defense of a candidate can garner opposition, so too may a spirited offense solidify and augment the support. –xeno talk 22:33, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

RfA

Seeing as how four people came out against the "ban" directly, and someone even pointed out that she couldn't ban, you better strike your comments as inflammatory or I will. That thread on ANI was shut down which proves that it wasn't proper in any regards. Do yourself a favor, before I point out on the WT:RFA page how your comments suggest that you are definitely not neutral enough to be making such comments. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... I didn't realize you, or anyone else, had objected to your ban from the page. and here I thought my comment might elicit a thank you from you - I must admit I didn't expect this. Do what you want. –xeno talk 21:44, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I think the above is why so many people complain about you. You never seem to understand others and always tend to put forth ideas that are backwards. The fact that you think "As Ottava Rima has been asked not to edit this page any longer," would be appropriately and not prejudicial is troubling and shows a lack of judgment. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
So you weren't asked not to edit this page [12] ? Also, many people complain about me? Really? That's news to me. –xeno talk 21:52, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I guess that was the attempted two-by four on the head. And even that might have been missed?

A man sold a mule to a farmer and promised that as long as the farmer was nice and polite to the mule, the animal would perform any task without hesitation. For months the farmer politely tried to get the mule to work but the stubborn animal wouldn’t do a thing. Finally, fed up, the farmer called the man who sold him the animal and complained that no matter how polite he was he got no cooperation. The man told him he’d come over to help.

The man showed up at the farm and asked the farmer what he wanted the mule to do. The farmer said he wanted the mule to plow his field. As the farmer watched, the salesman walked up to the mule hit him on the head with a two-by-four — hard. He then calmly and politely asked the mule to please plow the farmer’s field. The mule went right to work.

Shocked, the farmer exclaimed to the salesman that he told him to be nice and polite to the mule to get him to do anything, yet he had hit him on the head with a chuck of wood. The salesman replied that he was polite, but he first had to get the mule’s attention. Bill Bowerman

David D. (Talk) 22:06, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I've annotated my comment, is this sufficient? –xeno talk 22:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Ottava, I took Xeno's comment to be in support of you and to tell those of us making comments about your position to politely back off in order to deescalate the situation. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 22:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC).
At least someone understands me =] Yes, I was trying to achieve some very neutral middle ground. ("asked not to edit" rather than "has been banned from" &c.) Ah well. –xeno talk 22:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Xeno, for the record, I've never complained about you either. Cheers, and peace. Dlohcierekim 22:43, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Drama? At RFA? This is simply shocking. Ottava: The tone of your original post here was completely unhelpful; "much easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar" and all that. You know this. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, at RFA one generally may post whatever arguments one feels appropriate. However, sometimes an overly vigorous campaign results in a backlash. Dlohcierekim 22:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • ^^^ Thanks all, for the help explaining my motivation. I honestly did not expect this response at all. And for the amusing anecdote, David =) –xeno talk 22:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

vandal report

On the vandal report what does stale report mean? 'The Ninjalemming' 17:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Stale report means the vandal hasn't vandalized recently. We typically only block active vandals. –xeno talk 17:28, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Okay then, by the way check out my userpage, doesn't look much different (except the things that I nicked from you) but click on the edit button at the top; I am rather impressed with myself, but I am sure you do that sort of thing everyday. Oh and also, am I the person who has asked you the most stuff? 'The Ninjalemming' 17:30, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Ah, yes. I see you have made it to the transclusion phase. =) As for your second question, yes, probably. –xeno talk 17:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Yay, I am the most inquizitive person on the wiki (most likly), and what does transclusion phase mean, sounds like some illness. 'The Ninjalemming' 17:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
It's part of the ten phases of userpage editing, a fictional scale I haven't yet made up. –xeno talk 17:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Well you better get started then hadn't you. =) 'The Ninjalemming' 18:16, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Same with Adolphus79 infact. And he has disappeared again, probably to go and invade some more helpless articles in serious need of help; I don't know why he doesn't considerbeing an admin, his more then capable. 'The Ninjalemming' 19:28, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Holy crap I've edited this page too much (dammit, here's another)... I did consider being an admin once, and am still considering running again one day... been quite busy IRL lately, without much time to sit in front of the puter for extended periods of time (I had to break down and get a real job, and the schedule is killing me)... I still try to make a few edits each day though, just to keep myself active... I'm still here, and checking my watchlist almost daily, just not doing much else at the moment... - Adolphus79 (talk) 19:51, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
heh, not enough, it seems, what with ninjalemming have surpassed you and all =) [and closing in on MiszaBot...] F working, imo! –xeno talk 19:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I would support you Adolphus if you went for it again, oh and I won't be working for another 8 years; just because of education (well actually it would be 2 years if you count part time as proper working. I am sure I can beat Mizabot (especially as this is another edit towards it), but it is highly improbably that I would beat xeno himself. -) blarg 'The Ninjalemming' 18:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Not unless I start ignoring you... =] –xeno talk 18:45, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
In which case I will make random edits on your talk page, o n e l e t t e r a t a t i m e. Till I hae made several million edits on your talk page. Blarg that crazy foo' 'The Ninjalemming' 18:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Actually xeno, could you delete this page that I accidently created, the stupidist thing about is was that I even put a edit summary. 'The Ninjalemming' 19:07, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Cheers, even though your ignoring me now arn't you; thats why you haven't been making sarcy replys. 'The Ninjalemming' 19:13, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
;> –xeno talk 19:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Thats not a reply! This is a reply...Baaarrrsebadieraberindashuttlehouse with cats. Nice picture though. =D 'The Ninjalemming' 19:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Userbox moved

Why was Template:User Aint broke dont fix moved to user namespace? I though that - precisely the other way around - many userboxes were moved from user namespace to template namespace. Debresser (talk) 20:44, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, most userboxes belong in userspace. Typically only stuff like {{User en}} and the like, should be in templatespace. See WP:UBM for more on this. –xeno talk 20:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for pointing me to that Wikipedia page. Now I finally have clarity on a subject that has bothered me for a long time. I will update some category pages displaying userboxes accordingly. Debresser (talk) 20:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
No problem. Let me know if you have any questions, or need me to update transclusions of userfied userboxen, or delete redirects no longer being transcluded, etc. –xeno talk 21:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Actually I do. I am talking about belief-related userboxes that exist identically both in user namespace as well as in template namespace. The category pages display both of them. I saw something about problems with belief-related userboxes. Perhaps I should not do anything, meaning: not only not changing them on userpages but not removing the displays on the category pages either.? Debresser (talk) 21:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Potentially divisive userboxen in templatespace should be eradicated. If they're still there, it's probably just because no one bothered to clean up the transclusions and then delete the leftover redirect... Did you have a specific example I can look at? –xeno talk 21:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I'd rather take care of it myself, as a main contributor to those category pages and userboxes. I'll also have a second look at that note. Perhaps there's discussion in the archives of the talk page. I'll let you know. Debresser (talk) 21:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Sure thing. Anyhow, door is always open for further questions. –xeno talk 21:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I see now. That note was about categories (in belief-based userboxes). Ok, I'll get started. I'll let you know when we get to deletions. Any advice? E.g., do you change all links to a userbox from template to user namespace or only the actual transclusions? Debresser (talk) 21:52, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I usually move the userbox from templatespace to userspace (usually a subpage of User:UBX, with the same subpagename as it had in templatespace, i.e. Template:User Foo would be moved to User:UBX/User Foo)), update all the transclusions, and any links that shouldn't be kept as is for historical purposes (just a judgment call really), then delete the templatespace redirect. –xeno talk 21:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you please delete {{User yeshiva}}, {{User Yeshiva}}, {{User chareidi Yeshiva}}, {{User Yeshiva Orthodox}}, and {{User kosher}}. Debresser (talk) 00:52, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done... Histories merged from the templates to the userspace duplicates and templatespace redirects deleted. Note User:Ashley Y/Userbox/Kosher is a near-exact duplicate of User:Olve Utne/Userboxes/Kasher. –xeno talk 12:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Why are you restoring them? Debresser (talk) 12:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC) Ok, that's probably technical. Will come back in three hours to see the result. Debresser (talk) 12:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
The histories needed to be merged for proper GFDL attribution. When Ashley Y migrated them, s/he did a cut and paste move, rather than a proper move. –xeno talk 12:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
As you can see on my talk page, I only removed those templates that were dublicates of userboxes in user namespace.
Two questions. 1. Would you know somebody who would agree to host all the other templates from those categories? 2. Is there anything to do about that userbox you mentioned that is the same with 2 users? They are both in use on about the same amount of pages, and I can't go around delete pages from userspace, now can I? Debresser (talk) 16:06, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
1. You can put them in a subspace of User:UBX. 2. I would probably suggest redirecting one to the other, so that future improvements can benefit users of both duplicate templates. (No need to delete the leftover redirect). –xeno talk 16:10, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
If you could please do the second point yourself. I don't know these users, and wouldn't know if this might offend them. Debresser (talk) 22:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
k, that's done. –xeno talk 23:16, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. And thanks for showing me the {{Ubxdisplay}} template. Debresser (talk) 23:34, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to do 1 migration today. By way of experiment. If all goes well, I'll do all templates in that specific corner of userboxes of my interest. I'll keep you posted. Debresser (talk) 21:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure... If you can do me a favour and just record your userbox moves at User:Xenobot/workspace. I will update the transclusions when I have a good number of userboxes to fix at once - this way I can minimize edits on people's pages if they have more than one of the userboxes I'll migrate and then delete. –xeno talk 23:16, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Sure. Good idea. In the end I decided that I understand the idea well enough to do without tests. I'll just do all of them at one time. I've decided, I don't want to use User:UBX. For my personal, subjective reasons. I've ask somebody else. If and when he/she will agree, I'll do it at once. Debresser (talk) 23:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
That's certainly your choice, there's no rule that dictates to whose userspace userboxes should be migrated. FWIW the reason I like "User:UBX" is it is exactly as many letters as "Template:" so in some cases there is a 0 byte disruption to the user's page. But this is a minor issue that I doubt anyone cares about. –xeno talk 23:29, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
I see a like soul here. Ever were a math sudent? :) Debresser (talk) 23:34, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
;> A long while ago yes, but I didn't continue. I must admit I am slightly obsessive/compulsive when it comes to things such as that. For example, I would be quite cross whenever my gamerscore didn't end in a 0 or 5. –xeno talk 23:37, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Interesting. I'd have expected a revert on the bolds (with "And I like them!" as a correct counterargument), or even on the code line (although that was a very important and constructive contribution), but not to the capital (since grammatically I am right). You did teach me how to make distinction between pages using the {{BASEPAGENAME}} magical word. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 23:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
hehe... barely even noticed the bold change, and the documentation change was helpful... , but you may have noticed I oft leave off my capitals. someone scolded me for doing that once... told me it made it hard to tell where sentences end. but alas! down with the capital letter ;> (actually now that I look over my talk page, it looks like it's a habit I've almost shook) –xeno talk 23:49, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed many ommitting capitals on sms or chat. But I've never associated that with anything worthy of emulation. Rather to the contrary. Present company excluded, of course. Debresser (talk) 23:58, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, don't worry I have my moments of linguistic prescription too =] –xeno talk 00:03, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Canadian

You're Canuck? Sheesh I thought I had got rid of 'em all out of my life.

Na love Canadians, have many good friends from there. Must be getting almost warm the there now.

This is perhaps odd to say but I am guessing you're female I dunno why just somehow how it sounds in the way you say things. And do you do French Canuck that is really weird? I usually get confused for a Canadian in France and an idiot in Canada.

Best wishes and thanks for all your great work. SimonTrew (talk) 19:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the winter has finally left (though we did have some snow in early April). Not female, maybe just extra polite though (comes with the Canadian thing)... Not French either, I just got co-opted to do some work on French communes because of an AN thread I responded to... Thanks for your kind words! =) –xeno talk 19:29, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
And the politness again *burp, scratch arse etc* 'The Ninjalemming' 19:30, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Next step?

Any idea what the next step should be based on the current discussion? I'm thinking the bugzilla bug for MediaWiki may take awhile to resolve to restore the functionality of all the {{R ...}} templates. Tothwolf (talk) 02:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Not quite sure to be honest. DRV maybe? –xeno talk 14:53, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
I see DRV was filed: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 May 14#Template:R from other capitalisation. –xeno talk 17:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
I guess a DRV is probably the "official" way to go about it. I suppose pages such as Wikipedia:Redirect, specifically things like WP:RCAT need updating to clarify the intended functions of the {{R ...}} templates. Tothwolf (talk) 23:34, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Resident Evil 5

I know you tried it before, but could you please protect the article in question; there are many IPs (meaning one on two different adresses and some others) who won't take into account the facts about guidelines we are giving them or the dicussions we have had. They will not stop and this will only result in many more edit wars and banning, please stop them; all the actual users are now discussing it on the talk page. Use your wiki brain and sort it, oh and the talk page on the article has some funky stuff too. Cheers lady, no I meant laddy. 'The Ninjalemming' 16:54, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The most trouble some IP being 97.106.45.44 (who has anouther IP to, I will try to sort him out but could you handle the page please. 'The Ninjalemming' 16:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
No, sorry, I don't like to use semi-protection to disenfranchise non-autoconfirmed users from content disputes (and I also noted at WP:RFPP that there appear to be logged-in users on both sides of the dispute as well). I tried full protection, NGG objected, now I leave it to AN3, or another administrator to semi or fully protect. –xeno talk 16:59, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
What the hells AN3? And I guess semi-protecting the small story section is out of the question (that is, if it is even possible). I know there are users on both sides, but we are now discussing it, but could you at least tell the IP not to, and also tell him to get the link to his contributions working too. I guess this is going to involve a lot of editing, over several months as to avoid edit warring, and I am having to wait till tomorrow to revert the thing any way as one more would mean that it counts as a edit war. By the way, do you think it is best just to leave out the 'he is dead' bit, and just to leave it as he was fired upon, as like this it implies both side of the argument with out mentioning them. 'The Ninjalemming' 17:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
WP:AN3. I have no comment, I haven't played the game. Seems like something that would qualify for addition to WP:LAME, though. Who the fuck cares? –xeno talk 17:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
What the hell happened at the end, was that an insult aimed at me, I am trying to get it right by being on both sides by leaving them out completely, others are acting childish(ly) by trying to get what they want, and not excepting they are wrong. Other then that, yeah, I think I will put it in LAME. Don't insult me by the way (if you were), its not nice. Bye sonny jim (oh course that depends on hw old you are, I am guessing around 20-24. Blarg.2 'The Ninjalemming' 17:19, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
No, it's not an insult at you, it's commentary on the ridiculousness of edit warring over the supposed fate of a fictional character. Basically, it's "Niko: Serbian or Croatian?" all over again. –xeno talk 17:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh well thats okay then, I know it's ridiculous but the wiki must be correct: no matter how stupid the things you have to do are. =)) (the almighty double chin, and I don't have one if your wondering) 'The Ninjalemming' 17:26, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Although I would say his either Yugoslavian or Bosina-hertsagovnian (I spelt that wrong didn't I), so I will now go and start a HUGE edit war; nar I jstkidding I don't care were he comes from, his only fictional. 'The Ninjalemming' 17:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
FWIW your solution of just describing what was done to him, but not speculating on what result those actions had seems ok. But I doubt it'll stand. –xeno talk 17:29, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
When you say 'describe what was done to him' does this mean saying something along the lines of 'the RPGs were shot at him' and leaving it at that are substantial? If they are, that is what I have been trying to do. And what does FWIW mean in a nutshell, unless it has one on the page? 'The Ninjalemming' 17:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
FWIW means "for what its worth"... i.e. just my opinion , for what it's worth. And yea, something like "Player shoots RPGs at Wesker, and he was struck and fell into a pool of burning hot magma", something along those lines. Though, you're already at three reverts so I wouldn't try doing this until tommorow, or proposing it at the talk page. –xeno talk 17:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Cheers, there are a few of us saying this already, but now we have the backing of an admins expericence and knowlede (but we won't use it wieldly or like a letahl weapon and strike down anyone who opposes us; as this is conter producive); oh and that truubblesome IP won't play ball, could you please talk to him. he won't even try to understand what i am trying to say and justs blankidy blanks the entire talk page (his one not the Resi talk page). Oh and just for the record, I don't do the burp, scratch arse thing or anything related to it and never will do; it just wierd and is degrading for people who see you doing it; in actual fact I don't think I have ever burp, oh no I lack a physial property! Da da daaa =)) 'The Ninjalemming' 18:00, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Do you actually see his head fly clean off in the game? If not, we shouldn't say he was decapitated. –xeno talk 18:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
His head is seen for a while, then after the RPGs pass mostly through his head his head disappears but he still moves and his body does not react to this and the RPGs do not explod. However as ths last for about eight frames it can only be seen in slow motion; in fast it is extremely unclear. And the character in question, called Wesker, has survived much more including beng killed once by decapitation, bu this is another part of te arguement abot is he dead or alive (we need a poster and reward). Oh and the IP reblanked his page (this is the fourth time) from my last comment. Please talk to him. 'The Ninjalemming' 18:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Then I would hazard to say that perhaps you should just say that RPGs were shot at him and struck him and whatever happened to him after (he falls into lava or something right). If the IP is blanking his talk page, don't bother trying. –xeno talk 18:27, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
he is already floating, rather unscathed, in the lava of which a normal person would not be able to do (or even get close to it for that matter, but what the hell, it's fictional). There is just a rather large explosion then he is gone; but were to, this would leave a body surely. And there is no confirmation from the characters. But surely saying what happened as a consiqence goes passed a certain guideline that we can't be too etailed about video games are any related media texts. But I don't know what or where it is. 'The Ninjalemming' 18:30, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Better to accurately describe exactly what is depicted in the game rather than speculate as to the end-result of the same. –xeno talk 18:31, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Fine, even though I wasn't going to speculate, I was going to let the readers decide themselves his fate; by just leaving out everything except he was fired upon and the helicopter was freed (Freed by Wesker, who had just taken a special thing that would make him even more superhuman then he already was, and he is capable of using it to grab the helicopter about fifty metres away). But if you say so. 'The Ninjalemming' 18:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Try to DGAF a little more. Sometimes I have trouble not giving a fuck either, but it really does help. Also maybe [13] this will satisfy both sides. Seemingly really is my favourite word. It's so versatile. –xeno talk 18:40, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Seemingly was our first proposal, but like artillary fodder, it didn't last long before being utterly destroyed and then stamped on and shat on too. It is weird how people get so wowned up (yes I couldn't be arsed to spell it right like you said), over tiny things that are not important in any way to any one. 'The Ninjalemming' 18:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Ouch, that must sting, even an admin is being revert, I think I'll go and tell him. hee hee 'The Ninjalemming' 18:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
No, don't post to his talk page again, but maybe someone will report him to WP:AN3; he's at 4 reverts now. –xeno talk 18:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
well, when I came back and read what you put, I quickly went and undid what i just wrote; luckily I it said nothing incrimenating and he didn't read it, I doubt he did; he normally waits for about three or four minutes before reading it, which I did that speed run in less then. Soabout the LAME thing? 'The Ninjalemming' 18:56, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Nope, I am fine, Geoff B just left a warning on his talk page; can i tell him about this little convo? 'The Ninjalemming' 18:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
If you like. but admins aren't infallible. we can be wrong so people are allowed to revert our edits. I still think it could be argued his head was seemingly decapitated, for all we know, the virus gave him the ability to retract his head into his body like a turtle. ye? speculation? or just leaving open the possibility. don't draw me into this lame edit war! =) –xeno talk 19:00, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
How about i draw you into adding this lame edit war onto the LAME page itself under a funny caption thing; which I need your help for Mr.Comedian. I am not really that funny as you may have gathered, I just act light heartedly as acting moodily is boring in every way; and no one will like you etc. Oh and I read the Weasel word thing, which is anoying as whe I tried adding this on I got a stupid edit conflict. 'The Ninjalemming' 19:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Yea, I'll add it a bit later. Need to come up with something funny. –xeno talk 19:06, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Cool, cheers. The main reason I kept this discussion going was because I am drawing in on Mizabot. He he, I am coming Miza and will strip yu of you rank of second most addy-ony person/thing (Miza being the person/thing and me being some weirdo in the background). 'The Ninjalemming' 19:09, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
You're already ahead of MBIII by 15 and this is my 2800th edit to my talk page, so let's end this monster thread on that note. =) –xeno talk 19:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Fine =D ha, okay I'll stop now 'The Ninjalemming' 19:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Actually, one last thing, I know I sad I stopped but this IS the last one on this thread; just archieve it after this. The IP we were alking about has (rather rapidly) been banned from the wiki, although he has another IP to go to this is cool. See you blondy. =) 'The Ninjalemming' 19:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
I'll keep an eye out. –xeno talk 19:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
He also happens to have a proper account under MarkAldred. He doesn't appear to be wanting to make another edit on it. But I did say archeive this. 'The Ninjalemming' 16:32, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Flavoured userboxes

Re Thanks for the suggestion. I have created a composite userbox at User:Strdst grl/ubx/flavours. I would be very greatful if you could check I have written the template correctly, since I've never tried using that format before, but otherwise, thanks for showing me how to simplify my sprawling subpages! strdst_grl (call me Stardust) 19:34, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep, looks great. You can also use words as well as numbers for the options i.e. [14]. –xeno talk 19:40, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Deleting the pages would be great, thanks. strdst_grl (call me Stardust) 19:56, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 Done –xeno talk 20:09, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Email deleted page, please

Not that I have anything to do with it, but could you email me a copy of Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels? Doing some Wikihistoy research. Oldlaptop321 (talk) 02:08, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done, though I've redacted some information for privacy reasons. –xeno talk 12:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Oldlaptop321 (talk) 12:59, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

template length text

Thanks for fixing the warning template. I'd nearly given up trying to fix it. So many vandals, so little time.... —EncMstr (talk) 15:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem - I'd recommend Twinkle for that kindof thing. Works pretty well, or User:Animum/easyblock is even better. –xeno talk 16:00, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Newsletter

Hi Xeno: Last month, you mentioned that you could do a newsletter delivery for me. I've been waiting (and waiting) for my "regular" bot guy (who's getting less and less regular!) to do the delivery, but it appears the wikibreak must be ongoing. Any chance you could do the honors?

The newsletter is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Outreach/Newsletter. The link is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Outreach/Newsletter link (it has currentmonth/currentyear as parameters, which Cbrown usually changes somehow to the actual month/year—and it stays that way on the talk page, even as time passes). The list of active participants is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Participants#Active. The list of who should get what (full contents, link only, no delivery, etc.) is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Outreach#Delivery options.

Thanks! MeegsC | Talk 19:31, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

 Doing... –xeno talk 05:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 Done =) Let me know if you need this again next month. –xeno talk 06:34, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Xeno! I'll definitely be coming to you next month... MeegsC | Talk 09:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

IP recreating merged pages

As far as I can tell, 201.8.251.241's recreation of dozens of deleted pages is precluded by Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/True Assassin, which was an AfD resulting in a Merge. This IP has undone all of the closing user's edits, reinstating the sub-pages, after the AfD.

I wasn't involved in any of the leadup. I just found the IP through recent changes, investigated a little, and found this pattern. I don't know if there's some valid backstory, but if there is, it's not at all obvious to me. Shadowjams (talk) 07:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep, I noticed that after. Waiting for the IPs response. Obviously some discussion would need to take place before a mass-reversion of an AFD decision like this. –xeno talk 07:59, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Question

Hi, Xeno. Hope you are doing well. What is the appropriate way to deal with a user repeatedly removing a CSD tag? User:MonsterRancherRivals created the article Monster Rancher Rivals (imagine that) and is edit warring to keep the speedy tag off of there. I politely asked him/her to stop, but that obviously did not work. Thanks. Landon1980 (talk) 08:02, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I can't seem to find even a single hit on this alleged series, not even one. I think it might be a hoax. Landon1980 (talk) 08:09, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh, never mind...
Monster Rancher Rivals

So the author can remove the speedy tag? --T'Shael MindMeld 08:06, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

No, he can't. I'm not sure if another tag would apply, but A7 doesn't apply to (what I gather is...? [15]) a TV series. May be a hoax though... –xeno talk 08:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree. Perhaps 11 since he has the same name as the article he has created? --T'Shael MindMeld 08:10, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Could just be a well-meaning fan. –xeno talk 08:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
This is true. I could always create the article on the Vulcan T'Shael and not have it be advertising. I see your point .. thanks. :) --T'Shael MindMeld 08:13, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Turns out it was actually a web series so A7 does apply. My mistake. Deleted. Will leave a note for creator. –xeno talk 08:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh, okay. Thanks for your help. :) --T'Shael MindMeld 08:17, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Deletion

I have transferred all my work to another place. Please delete everything. --Iho (talk) 08:47, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done, thank you. –xeno talk 09:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
I've forgotten to copy User:Iho/O... Could you restore it in my talkpage? --Iho (talk) 10:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Content left in a hidden comment at your talk page. –xeno talk 14:10, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Thank you! --Iho (talk) 15:59, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for an appropriate closure

For the record, KillerChihuahua's mere participation, whether it was for or against the concerns of the filing party, was not the reason I didn't consider him uninvolved. I was of that view because there was clearly incivility directed at him by the filing party, and because it was my view that KillerChihuahua's own approach contributed to that. But despite possible differences in our opinion on this issue, I wanted to thank you for appropriately closing the thread. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:13, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I meant to poke you about that ;> I know I didn't return to the Eddie thing, partly because I was too lazy to adequately review those diffs you graciously provided. I think that you may be right in that, in certain cases, a filing or involved party can appropriately close a thread, confirmed by common practice. However, to avoid the appearance of impropriety, I think it is best they leave it to someone else to ensure fairness to all parties. best regards, –xeno talk 15:14, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2

Hi, I remember you corrected that cut-and-paste move I did a little while ago by moving it over the original redirect. Do you think you could move Ninja Gaiden Σ 2 over the Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 redirect? I feel it should be there owing to Wikipedia's naming policy, as well as the fact that official material such as the website for the game, suggests the "sigma" is spelt out in full. SynergyBlades (talk) 17:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done. –xeno talk 18:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Article restore

Could you please restore the article Victoria (soda)? I am trying to fix some redlinks in the coca-cola brands template. I will fix any advert info lean. --Jeremy (blah blah) 18:49, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done –xeno talk 18:51, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:User Canada123

This template is different than the other Canada templates and is in the familiar format of other places. Now put it back and stop abusing your administrator powers! Green Squares (talk) 20:36, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Templatespace is not an appropriate location for your single-use forks of existing templates with adequate customization options. I've provided for your version in template:User Canada - just add |alt=yes as an option. –xeno talk 21:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Templates

If I do Template:I Seek To Help & Repair/example template name would that be acceptable? I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 00:39, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

What should I do? The page link you gave me is a THOUSAND feet long, could you tell me in a sentence what I should do?

I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 00:42, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see, the templates that are currently expired but still in use, could I just blank out their template pages & nominate it for speedy deletion?

I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 00:49, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Bitch

No, shouldn't him not understanding be moved into the discussion section? I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 00:56, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Not really, threaded discussions are easier to follow. –xeno talk 00:57, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


When is a survey over? Is there a time limit?

I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 01:07, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

How can I locate my templates to do a universal edit?

I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 01:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, DUH! Thanks, I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 02:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I should be fine now, Thanks, I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 02:05, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
RM tag

Thanks for the explanation, sorry about removing the tag. Ed Fitzgerald t / c 01:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

no worries. –xeno talk 01:24, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject User Rehab

Would you be interested in joining this project? We need more editors who share a burden for rescuing promising editors who have gotten into serious trouble because of behavioral issues. IF (a fundamental condition!) they are interested in reforming and adapting to our standards of conduct, and are also willing to abide by our policies and guidelines, rather than constantly subverting them, we can offer to help them return to Wikipedia as constructive editors. Right now many if not most users who have been banned are still active here, but they are here as socks or anonymous IPs who may or may not be constructive. We should offer them a proper way to return. If you think this is a good idea, please join us. --Abce2|AccessDenied 02:07, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

National Mentoring Month Logo
National Mentoring Month Logo
This user is a participant of the WikiProject User Rehab




Feel free to put this anywhere on your user page. To edit this box for improvement click here

I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 06:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

userboxes

What do you do with a userbox after you have put it in the new userbox section? --Abce2|AccessDenied 02:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Find a home for it in the WP:UBX#Gallery. –xeno talk 02:22, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Unblock request

Hi
If it's still open when you read this, would you mind having a look at the unblock request from Br4011 (talk · contribs)?
Thanks & Cheers, Amalthea 10:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

No more active unblock requests. I'm always one for second chance but copyvio is a pain to clean up after, unrepentant violators don't get much sympathy from me. Perhaps a {{2nd chance}} offer, if another unblock request goes up? –xeno talk 15:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Good morning. Yes, Daniel came by and declined. I already gave him a second chance by unblocking a couple of days ago, but since he went on as before I am not prepared to try that again, as much as I want to believe that he has learned his lesson now. Sometimes I wonder, with editors who'll just create another sock anyway, if it isn't always better to unblock, to better keep an eye on them. The sock that you know …. But my discussion with him today made me wonder how well he can contribute here anyway, his communication skills are a bit lacking. Anyway, I knew that you were pretty lenient with blocks, so I thought I'd come here for another opinion.
Thanks anyway, Amalthea 16:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

red matter

thanks for adding it into the list of fictional elements. it was on my "todo" list, but i got bogged down in the stupid arguements on the afd page. >__< ...whenever i end up spending more time on that stuff, than i do on actual creative work, i know i'm in trouble. lolLx 121 (talk) 12:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem. =) Note if you want to expand on it, you could also transmogrify it over to List of Star Trek materials. –xeno talk 15:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Your insight would be appreciated

Hi Xeno,

You commented on my 3R ban recently on my talk page. I haven't had a chance to put my thoughts together on this issue until today [16]. It's important for me to know if I was clearly in the wrong on this issue. Your personal opinion would be appreciated.

Thanks,

--scuro (talk) 19:56, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I replied at your talk. –xeno talk 06:35, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Scuro ANI discussion

I hoped to get this archived and marked as unresolved seeing that the circular discussion won't cease. Being that the involved parties have stated that they believe another go at mediation would be a waste of time, I am unsure of the next step. Though it seems the RFAR idea was acceptable to most except Scuro himself. As you've been looking over things there, would you mind doing the archiving when you feel the time is right? Thanks. Nja247 07:55, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it doesn't appear to be going anywhere. I'm off to bed at the moment so if it's still open when I wake up, I'll see about closing it. –xeno talk 07:59, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Sleep? You're not allowed to do that! Nja247 08:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

do you think it matters?

I could collect the diffs of say my last 10 or 20 edits on the ADHD page, and then the reverts. It would conclusively show page ownership. I could then show that Abd kept me off the page before Doc James. But, do you think any of this would matter at all? I'm being railroaded by a band of POV editors and by a few other editors with an axe to grind. Yeah, as Nja stated, I'm playing the victim. I can't keep up to it all, you read that stuff and the way it is twisted and untrue, and that really isn't good for your soul. It's been two weeks of this sort of stress. I could counter pretty well every significant issue that they have raised and then show that page ownership was the root of this whole problem. It doesn't matter, now they are sifting through every edit I've ever made. Whatever I state, will be refuted, and they will generate 10 times the material that I could. So there you have it. My version. You ask me to defend myself at the arb. This case doesn't belong there. It hasn't hit any of the criteria necessary to file. One on one, with mediation this could be slowly worked out. I've offered that, but why would anyone bite? They know that they don't have to follow any dispute mechanism to go to arb, get it accepted, and have me sanctioned.--scuro (talk) 10:52, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Does it show page ownership or does it show someone trying to push a POV without providing sources? I am trying to remain neutral here, scuro, but I am having trouble sympathizing with you when the only thing that you are being asked for is to back up your claims with reliable sources. When there's half a dozen editors (even Abd, who is known to defend underdog editors to a fault) who hold differing points-of-view telling you that you are being disruptive, there's some point where you must look inward and try and recognize in yourself what must be changed to move forward. Instead, you seem to continue not to hear them. Frankly, I don't blame them not wanting to bother with another lengthy mediation or dispute resolution mechanism. Endless rhetoric helps no one. Sources do. –xeno talk 13:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

RE: WP:CHECKPAGE

Hi there,

My name was on the checkpage from before I was an admin for the AWB checklist. I'm fine with my name being removed from the "Bots" on the checklist, as my bot, Thehelpfulbot is already on that checklist.

Regarding the archiving, thanks for telling me about that - I'll archive the threads manually!

Thanks,

The Helpful One 17:40, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Forgetting something

Yeah, are you forgetting something, something funny and LAME; or am supposed to add it on. Or the more likely possiblities, # You are ignoring me (again!), # You still haven't got round to it, or # you completely forgot. Lets go with three shall we, (never one =B) but if your not caperable of doing it due to work (on the wiki not real life, as if you'd have a job in real life, haha; yeah thats a joke and half, especially as you said 'Screw work' your self) then should I do it and you change it later? Yo, spocie (your choice) 'The Ninjalemming' 19:49, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure, why not take a stab at it? Make sure to be neutral in your description of the edit war. –xeno talk 19:50, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Do it tomorrow, after the exam I forgot to revise for, whch infact is a GCSE; v.important. Remember to check it after I have written it though, tumblela weedo (I have resorted to writing random things at the end of talk things do to writing insanity after the war of the article in question, the article which I will never view agin, can you ban just me from it) 'facial features of a slightly nasty splinter' club 'The Ninjalemming' 20
03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

What is the rule, or is there one, regarding posting links on one's own user page - particularly, links to youtube stuff? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 20:42, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

See WP:UP –xeno talk 20:44, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

97.106.43.95 has a new sockpuppet.

JohnRamirez. I have opened a SPI. Geoff B (talk) 21:28, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

First Edit

This was my first true edit (as in adding something brand new instead of merely expanding on something). How did I do? There are two updates later on that I did quite quickly. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 11:48, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

It looks great, but you might want to add a {{cite web}} at the end of it. –xeno talk 15:09, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
See the next edit. That was what took the longest time I think. :P --Thejadefalcon (talk) 15:58, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Ah yes - nice job all around then =) –xeno talk 15:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Really? Yes! I just kept thinking that I probably messed something up. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 16:01, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I suppose you could've linked to Artificial intelligence rather than its redirect ;p –xeno talk 16:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Smeg. Didn't even think of checking if AI had been redirected. I'll correct it now. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 16:05, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I was half-joking. ;> At the moment it's a perfectly legitimate redirect. Now if AI had redirected to AI (disambiguation), then you'd have a problem =) –xeno talk 16:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Ah, but you were only half-joking. :P I did correct a few disambiguations and dead links while I was previewing it all. I was slightly surprised to find that heavy weapons didn't get an article, even if it's only a games-related article. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 16:18, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps an idea for your next edit... =) Once, I was surprised to not find cover system. –xeno talk 16:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh, good grief, no! :P Creating articles seems like a step too far right now. Although... hmm... I could try and draft one and ask people's opinions on it. It'll be up within the decade, I assure you. :D --Thejadefalcon (talk) 16:26, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Or just do what I did, and tuck it into a section somewhere. =) –xeno talk 16:28, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
True, but I want more points on that Wikipedia addiction quiz. :P I have been considering an article lately... I'll ask about it when I've given it more thought as I'm not too sure if I can write the article or if it would be deleted out of possible bias. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 16:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

← Bias? Why? –xeno talk 16:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

It's about a published author/sculptor, but I've known her for about a year. Therefore, any personal information (e.g. marital status etc.) that isn't on her site or in interviews is going to be useless in the article. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 16:36, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Ah, I thought you meant bias as to making a heavy weapons article =) You can certainly write about this person if you maintain a neutral tone and don't include that information that can't be drawn from reliable sources. –xeno talk 20:05, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, I thought it was clear that it wasn't about heavy weapons. That's the problem, though. I can't find all that much infomation on her outside of our e-mails. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 10:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

RfA desysopping toothiness

Seeing your comments on LHvU's reconfirmation RfA, I have a question for you. Could RfA actually have teeth to desysop involuntarily if the consensus is overwhelmingly Oppose? My logic:

  1. Stewards desysop based on the desysopping policy of the local wiki: "If a user requests that another user's rights be removed, be sure that the action complies with the local wiki's policy on removal of rights. This will often involve sifting through a lengthy debate on a local request page to confirm the validity of the procedure." (from meta:Steward handbook#Removal of access)
  2. No policy on desysopping per se exists on English Wikipedia, but there is WP:DESYSOP, which says "The community also has the power to remove administrator access from any contributor." This how-to guide effectively acts as a policy, or is the closest thing we have to a policy.
  3. If 80%+ (generally considered consensus) of RfA respondents Oppose the admin retaining their bit, and a crat in good standing closes the RfA in agreement, the community's will can be considered against the admin retaining their bit.
  4. A Steward can then desysop the admin, since it reflects the will of the community, and the community's will is a valid reason given in the closest equivalent to a policy on the matter.

I'm not saying RfA is a good way to do this. I'm just thinking it does have teeth, if certain overwhelming conditions are met. Perhaps my logic is wrong though. Your thoughts? -kotra (talk) 00:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

  1. I believe that is for smaller wikis & other language wikipediae that don't have as developed an admin structure. AFAIK local en.wiki policy only allows stewards to use their own judgment in emergency circumstances. ArbCom can ask them to desysop, but that's about it.
  2. I actually just tweaked the wording of that recently, see what it said before [17] ("in theory," - I felt that we do have the power, it's just a little difficult; i.e. congregating before ArbCom or the GodKing's talk page) It's definitely not a policy though =)
  3. If that many people were opposing a voluntary reconfirm, then the admin would've been brought before ArbCom by then. If that happened, they could bring the RFA to ArbCom, but as I said at the RFA, ArbCom has neglected to enforce voluntary recalls in the past.
  4. See point 1. It's my understanding that stewards are not permitted to use judgment here except insofar as judging whether an emergency has presented itself such that they should use their power as permitted by local policy. –xeno talk 01:37, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. My comments:
  1. It's my understanding that stewards wouldn't be using their own judgment in this case, except to judge that the result is approved by the community (which wouldn't be much of a judgment, more a basic observation of the fact). Stewards don't question ArbCom's desysop requests because the community has approved ArbCom's ability to make such decisions on behalf of the community. This would merely be a more direct decision from the community, so I don't see they would have a problem with it, even despite the unconventional process. But I suppose there's no way of knowing without asking stewards what they would do.
  2. I thought I recalled the wording being less definitive before, but didn't check. I wonder if it should be a policy, though. Lacking an official policy on desysopping seems to be a major gap to me.
  3. Possibly you're right. At 7 days, though, it's a much quicker result than most ArbCom cases (except for initial motions, like Aitias's), so I can see how it might be more desirable in certain non-emergency-but-still-urgent situations. But I was more asking if it was possible to desysop with RfA, not better. I don't honestly know which is better; I can see benefits and drawbacks of each.
-kotra (talk) 17:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think it's possible, not without re-writing our local policy for stewards, expanding the remit of bureaucrats, or using a RecFA as the basis for an ArbCom motion to desysop. –xeno talk 17:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for discussing! -kotra (talk) 18:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Signature

Do you know how to personalize your signature? I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 01:52, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, just go to preferences and enter a new sig. If you use code, click "raw signature". –xeno talk 01:55, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I have created my personalized signature, should I copy & paste it's formula to the raw signature box, use the template... what? I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 02:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, paste it into the signature box. You'll need to shorten it to 255 characters, per WP:SIG#Length. –xeno talk 14:31, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

When I copy & paste my signature's formula to the box a check "Raw" I get a message that says... "Invalid raw signature. Check HTML tags.", what does this mean?

Thank You, I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 03:10, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The fact that you have an & in your name is what's causing the problem. Try this –xeno talk 03:19, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Also, could you give this page a created a glance, I just want to make sure it's approved, also, if you do not approve, do not tag it with deletion until I'm notified first

Thanks For Your Time, I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 03:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

It seems to pretty much duplicate our good and featured article processes... You might consider developing it in your userspace first. –xeno talk 03:22, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

WikiLove

Xeno, I Seek To Help & Repair! has sent you a symbol of WikiLove and hopes this has made your day a little better. This user wants to thank you for the guidance you have provided them & I Seek To Help & Repair! would still like to be on good terms with you after the recent disagreements.


Also, smiling also promotes WikiLove, to Smile at someone, add the {{subst:Smile}} template to their page>

Of course, no hard feelings. –xeno talk 20:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Checking In

"remember, the enemy's gate is down..."

Just reading the books for the first time, made me think of you. I should be back editing once I re-enter the blissful, test-free summer. I haven't quite reached your namesake yet, is that your favorite one? Hope all is well. Washburnmav (talk) 03:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
It's been so long since I read the books... I can't really remember... I think the original is still my favourite, but I'm also fond of Speaker. –xeno talk 14:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

History merge

Hello again!

While trolling around I came across List of Ben & Jerry's flavors, a redirect to Ben & Jerry's flavors. These articles were merged some time ago with a cut and paste merge. Would it be proper to do a history merge? If so could you do so? Thanks again, --Jeremy (blah blah) 06:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done... The latter only required the talk page to be moved. –xeno talk 14:15, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Jmho, but pages like this are pretty unnecessary... I think the redirect class is designed for when there was previously content there and it's now a redirect. Not to create it on every possible redirect in the project. YMMV! –xeno talk 14:34, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Random shizzle

I see you have been trying the ol' Resi 5 article, to no aveil also I see. As I said, I gave p on that (which is almost definatly a good thing) and only check the history once in a while to laugh at the huge amounts of reverts. I reckon if I put 'Adolphus' in the edit summary, he will come and see why; should I do it with a strange comment attached to it? And also the LAME thing will have to wait till I can be bothered, which will be in a few days. lastly, how many pages have you started and how do you find things to start? oh, and whats 'unencyclopedia'? 'The Ninjalemming' 13:19, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Most of the 26 pages I started were newly announced video games. I would obsessively watch http://xbox360fanboy.com to try and be the first. Now I can't be arsed. Uncyclopedia is a humourous/satirical/parody encyclopedia. –xeno talk 14:08, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Xeno, 'can't be arsed' doesn't have a page (to nobody's surprise). --Thejadefalcon (talk) 14:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I know, I decided to link anyway... =] I suppose I could've piped directly to wiktionary, but that would be too easy, wouldn't it? ;> –xeno talk 14:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Hi, Adolphus smells! That should get him running. I wonder what he says. Mind you, nobody else better edit thispage or the edit summary will disamepear 'The Ninjalemming' 15:20, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Preferences -> Watchlist -> Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent –xeno talk 15:23, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Well he didn't appear, maybe he didn't do the strange thing you said to do. 'The Ninjalemming' 12:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Some help

Hi Xeno.

i`d to ask some help to you.

I just found an agressive and fraudulent article about a brazilian politician. i have reported that and fixed all inssues, but the local admin undo my changes and blocked the article. All my tries to reverse were "deny". But its clear that the article has fraudulent sources. What to do? some of my explanation

i would like to push this question to commons. is it possible?

thanks Malves12 (talk) 13:46, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry; though I hold an account at pt.wiki, I don't speak the language at all. Also, administrative rights do not traverse wikis (except for global admins, one of which I am not). "Commons" doesn't refer to a common area for dispute resolution across language wikis, it just means a common repository for PD images and other files. The only thing I can suggest is perhaps making a post to pt:Wikipedia:Votações, (pt.wiki's ANI) to get outside opinions. –xeno talk 14:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Tool

I seem to recall a tool for checking pages where two editors both edited at close times to each other. Do you know of such? Thanks!  Frank  |  talk  14:59, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The contrib comparison tool (affectionately known as wikistalk.py?) –xeno talk 15:00, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

In need of mentorship

Hi,

I saw your name over at WP:ADOPT.

I need the advice of an experienced Wikipedian.

I'm currently coordinating development of Wikipedia's Outline of knowledge, which has grown to around 500 pages, and I am having trouble recruiting editors to help build and improve it. I need some mentorship here.

I also need advice on the guidelines I've been writing for the Outline of Knowledge at User:The Transhumanist/Outline of knowledge. Is it good enough? Did I miss anything important?

My latest effort to recruit help on the outlines is a proposal for a contest between all of the country WikiProjects on Wikipedia (about 200 of them). This will be a very big event, and I'm not sure I'm going about it in the best way.

So you see, I've taken on a lot, and I need as much advice as I can get.

I look forward to your reply on my talk page.

The Transhumanist 19:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm probably not the best person for this, so I'm glad to see you're asking others the same. I'll take a look later and see if I can lend any insight. –xeno talk 19:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Madame la Comtesse!

re: Indeed, you've made your point Giano. Perhaps you should take your advice... You are doing the good countess a disservice spending so much time on this. [18]

The good Countess you so sarcastically refer to, which is far from my usual field (as many will tell you very happily), was a page I found perchance here [19], as a bio, it was the worst I had ever read and I commented on it, then realised my own advice is don't moan fix it. So as penance for my own big mouth - I researched for hours and fixed it. That is what proper editors do. So don't you even infer sarcasm at me. Giano (talk) 19:46, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

My point was that you've already killed the horse, so you should get back to doing what you do best. There's still some sourcing and tone issues there. –xeno talk 19:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Then take my advice and if you don't like it fix it! You people have proven yourself a huge joke - I suugest you don't compund it further! Tone issues - you clearly would not recognise a well written page by a wikipedia editor if it punched you in the face. You can't even tell what is by a Wikipedia editor. Giano (talk) 19:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
PS: I saw your edit [20] - amazing stuff! Wikipedia is lucky to have you. Giano (talk) 19:58, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Indeed - it seems you are too close to your own prose to recognize your glaring tone issues. I'll see what more I can do. Do you normally leave your leads entirely unreferenced? –xeno talk 19:59, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I would reiterate my civility reminder to you as well Xeno. Prodego talk 20:02, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm being perfectly civil. Giano likes straight talk, so I'm not beating around any bushes. –xeno talk 20:04, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
You are a pathetic little runt [21] You exemplify exactly what is wrong with the project, and why so many are bailing out. You are a person to be despised and ridiculed. You are obnoxious and stupid. You are ignorant and to the project a handicap. Yes, this is probably a personal attack, and I shall be banned, but do yoy know, having seen the results of the last few days, i'm really not that bothered. Giano (talk) 20:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Eh, I thought the changes were pretty good... NPOV/RS/V and all. warm regards, –xeno talk 20:12, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Xeno, you did not handle this discussion well. Prodego talk 20:15, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

How else would you have handled it? –xeno talk 20:16, 20 May 2009 (UTC)"
Regardless of if another editor acts uncivilly, you are expected not to. Comments like "it seems you are too close to your own prose to recognize your glaring tone issues" exemplify how not to respond to less than civil comments. Prodego talk 20:20, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, perhaps "glaring" wasn't particularly constructive. Responding in kind only served to escalate. FWIW, I'm not particularly bothered by what Giano said above and I wouldn't object to unblocking. –xeno talk 20:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I would object. Prodego talk 20:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Re "Do you normally leave your leads entirely unreferenced?" – er, it hasn't done me any harm. Custom and practice is not to cite facts in leads that are cited in the body text. – iridescent 20:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't appear to be the case here, though. What are your thoughts on my neutral tone changes Giano so strongly objected to above? (This is a sincere question). –xeno talk 20:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
If you mean this – personally, I think "well dressed" is an improvement over "immaculately dressed", but it's not something I'd lose sleep over. Remember, Giano's writing in a second language and "immacolata" is a commoner usage in Italian than a literal translation like "vestito bene". – iridescent 20:35, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I didn't know (re ESL). It was the bulk of my changes [22] that made him lash out, I'm not sure if it was the [citation needed] tagging or the tone changes. What of "collapse of her third marriage" -> "third divorce" ( collapse is awful loaded, no? ). And "A larger than life figure" ? –xeno talk 20:37, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I'd say both are accurate terms to describe the public perception of the events, even if not totally neutral; probably a "widely considered" would have done the trick. The romance-novel tone of the biography in the Independent used as a basis for our article does sum up the tone of coverage after the death of Diana pretty accurately; this is one of the most pompously sober publications in the world writing, remember. (FWIW, I think this is an awful block – three weeks for an "attack" where even the target doesn't seem in the least bothered by it?) –  iridescent  20:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your insight. –xeno talk 20:47, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Iridescent, feel free to discuss it with me. Perhaps my talk page? Or email if you prefer that. Prodego talk 20:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

If I might butt in. 'Immaculately dressed' is entirely different in meaning from 'well dressed'. The intended meaning was the former, and if the intended meaning is true, then the former should stay. Don't confuse neutrality of tone with accuracy of meaning. Peter Damian (talk) 21:00, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Hm, I see your point. Lacking a cite for "immaculate" I felt "well"-dressed was more appropriate, but feel free to change back. –xeno talk 21:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Xeno, per this conversation, can you tell me how you came to edit the aforementioned article?--Tznkai (talk) 21:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I notice that you changed "Now in old age, her appearance at any public function, always well-dressed and coiffured and usually with a huge smile" to "Now in old age, her appearance at any public function, always well-dressed, coiffured, and cheerful" and added a "fact" tag. Why would you change smiling to cheerful without a citation stating that she is cheerful? Smiling does not mean cheerful - they are not synonyms. I don't want to revert you - because you appear to have much knowledge about this area - I'm just curious how you know that she is cheerful and why you believe cheerful is more fitting than smiling 144.189.100.25 (talk) 22:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Good points all around. I was just trying to help with the mainspace effort. Will have more on this later. –xeno talk 23:57, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Better be good. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:37, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, yes, you were just trying to help... and not bait in a pretty clever manner. Minkythecat (talk) 01:04, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
one measure...

...of one's impact is the quality of insults one suffers. For example, I have never been called a "pathetic little runt". And if I were, I would immediately challenge that claim, on the grounds that I stand over 6 foot. :) Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 22:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

It was quite a spectacular dressing down, wasn't it? –xeno talk 15:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

ANI

Hello, Xeno. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Someone requested you be notified. ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 21:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. –xeno talk 15:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Unblocked

You seem to have mistakenly blocked yourself. Therefore, I have taken the liberty of unblocking you. If you feel any stress from recent events, please try WP:TEA and a short wikibreak. Happy editing, Jehochman Talk 05:09, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. –xeno talk 05:11, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Heed my goddamn advice and be more careful. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:14, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes... ;p I think I will go back to simple things for a while. There's a reason I unwatched WT:RFA many moons ago. Too much drama surrounding RFA. Just give everyone the mop and let us duke it out, imo =] –xeno talk 05:16, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
unblock

I was just about to unblock you too. In my opinion neither of you should have been blocked. A cooling off period would have been preferable, but unfortunately that chance was lost. I hope this is a lesson learned for all that blocks just lead us to a melt down and an even worse situation. David D. (Talk) 05:11, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your attention to this. –xeno talk 05:13, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm sure that you've got far more important things to think about at the moment, but... I was wondering, in your block-log, your self-block says 2009-06-10T20:14:14Z instead of a duration... why is that? :P ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 07:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
To coincide with the other block. –xeno talk 12:32, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Giano wheel war case

Hey. I went and added you as a party here, since as you said, you started the snowball rolling, and played a big enough role in the matter that it makes sense to me. Wizardman 14:55, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. –xeno talk 14:57, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Removed comment Altoghether

I removed altogether, reading the posts it looks like the dispute is allready big enough and I definitly not interested in brining any bad attn to me at all. I'm still trying to establish myself after a VERY rough start. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 14:39, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

That's probably best. –xeno talk 14:40, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Page protection

Hi, do you think you could take a look at air pollution and genetically modified organism and semi-protect them if you think it is necessary. They are both heavily vandalised and I can't find any constructive edits by IPs recently. Cheers Smartse (talk) 22:59, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks reasonable enough. both Semi-protected for a period of 3 months, after which the page will be automatically unprotected. –xeno talk 02:12, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Smartse (talk) 10:50, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Xenobot

Two/three things; firstly, why haven't you blocked the xenobot page (except the emergency button, which I am glad is for admins only due to may excessive curiosity) incase of vandalism? (this is a question not a critisim); secondly, how can I make 2'000 edits in five seconds or less?; thirdly, can I sayhi to xenobot? Yo 'The Ninjalemming' 13:56, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

because we normally don't protect pages preemptively, also, xenobot isn't an anti-vandal bot so it's unlikely he would be targeted by vandals. –xeno talk 13:58, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
That would mae sense, and what about the other two questions? 'The Ninjalemming' 14:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
you cant, and i guess. –xeno talk 14:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
damn and cool 'The Ninjalemming' 14:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Another Bot related thread

Can you check here to see if I have got MiszaBot III to propally archieve my page. 'The Ninjalemming' 15:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it looks fine. –xeno talk 15:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Yay, however the new secion didn't as you have changed it. Do you think I should click on the random article button and edi the articles that come up? 'The Ninjalemming' 15:08, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
If you can improve them, yes. That's one way to go about working in the mainspace. –xeno talk 15:11, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Does changing wording and adding links to make the articles more fluent and relatable to other things, 'improving' them. 'The Ninjalemming' 15:13, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, but be careful of WP:OVERLINK. –xeno talk 15:16, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Whoops! =B 'The Ninjalemming' 18:11, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Photos

How do you make a photo's background disappear, much like this photo See how there is no background? How do you do that?

Thank You, Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There? 23:57, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

You'd need to make the background transparent in a picture editing software. I'm not the best person to ask about this, but I think MS Paint can do this. –xeno talk 00:03, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Unless Vista has an updated version of Paint that can do transparency, it can't. But most other image editing programs can do this, including GIMP, which is free. If you need help with editing an image on Wikipedia, you might try asking at Wikipedia:Graphic Lab. Alternatively, you could just make the background white, which is just fine for Wikipedia. -kotra (talk) 00:20, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Funny joke re: transparency in MS Paint "It was taken out in XP, presumably because it's the only thing people used it for." [23] –xeno talk 00:27, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh, Microsoft... -kotra (talk) 00:43, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Graphic Lab duh! Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There? 08:39, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

ANI

I've been trying to take your advice and cut back on WP:ANI activity. That effort was aided to some degree in early May when I had no access to a computer at all. As I've seen the last few days, by mostly just reading it rather than jumping in, frankly there's a lot of stuff there that's appalling. You like to hand out the proverbial fish. If I were doing it, I would very quickly run out of fish. Petty bickering over minutia, childish name-calling, stalking/hounding... all things that make me more glad every day that I'm not an admin, and hence don't have to do anything about this stuff. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 07:04, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed; it reminds me of high school. –xeno talk 13:21, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Well, I keep hearing that a lot of the editors and admins are in high school, so that fits. :) Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 14:02, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
I was going to say "when I was in high school I wasn't bothering fooling about on an online encyclopedia", but I guess Wikipedia is to them what BBSes were to me. –xeno talk 14:16, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
There ya go. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 15:02, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Page move

Could you move this article to Charles Anthony. The current Charles Anthony article would be merged as per the discussion. Btw i was wondering if this belong to you?. --SkyWalker (talk) 07:18, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The best thing to do would be to move Charles Anthony to some disambiguated name (I can't think of one right now), then moving tenor to Charles Anthony over the redirect. You should be able to do this without admin intervention. Yes, the gamertag is mine. –xeno talk 13:19, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
I have moved the page. Now Charles Anthony needs to be deleted. Iam unable to move the page. --SkyWalker (talk) 14:59, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
It should have let you just move it over the redirect while it still had a single revision, but anyhow,  Done –xeno talk 15:02, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Yea. I never done double redirects. So i was kinda confused on what would happen next. Btw i was wondering how come you did not get Gears of War 2--SkyWalker (talk) 15:06, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Next time when you vacate a page leaving a redirect behind, try just moving the page you want over top - it should let you do it. I haven't got Gears 2 because I haven't finished Gear 1 yet!~ =] (I was a latecomer to the 360, so the Gears 1 ship had already sailed by the time I got there... Shadowrun was the first multiplayer shooter that I really sunk my teeth into.) –xeno talk 15:07, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks again Xeno. :). Once i get a new comp that lets me play GFWL game i surely will add your name. Btw Shadowrun is a crossplatform. Have you played with PC users?. --SkyWalker (talk) 15:18, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
But of course! According to my achievements, I've killed at least 100 of them, to boot... =) [They're rare; I played the game fairly obsessively starting from 5/30 and didn't get the acheivement until 8/9/07] –xeno talk 15:21, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Wow you just need 1 achievement. Go and get that. --SkyWalker (talk) 15:43, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
That (Godlike) achievement is nigh-on-impossible without Boosting, an activity I decline to participate in. –xeno talk 15:49, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The User:Xeno/RFAQ

Hi Xeno, I am from the Chinese Wikipedia and I just saw your RFAQ page. I found it very interesting and I would like to translate it into Chineses and use this to ask the RfA candidates. Would you like to give any suggestions before I start? thanks a lot—Ben.MQ (talk) 12:13, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...Not really... Does vandalism like this typically occur at the Chienese Wikipedia? Might not translate well? Anyhow, feel free to, just make an attribution note when you bring it over "Translated from en:User:Xeno/RFAQ". –xeno talk 13:10, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
The language people use will be much different from direct translation, but the general scenario is quite similar. Surely I will indicate that I translated/modified it from your RFAQ page. Many thanks! —Ben.MQ (talk) 14:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
No problem. For what it's worth, this particular user became a very constructive contributor. –xeno talk 14:49, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Infobox

If you can, please give this infobox I created a quick run by and give me any critiques or edit it yourself

Thank You X 1,000,000, Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There? 15:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... Seems a little specific. You should consider asking for opinions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers. –xeno talk 18:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

You beat me!

@Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Don't poke the bear, I was just about to remove that IP comment myself. Since that IP user is clearly a troll, should this be reverted as well? Cheers! John Sloan @ 18:25, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Probably. –xeno talk 18:26, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 Done John Sloan @ 18:29, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikiproject Wikibundle

If you could, please give this wikiproject I created a quick run through, and tell me if it's acceptable, if not, I'll just move it to my user space.

Thanks X 1,000,000,000,000,000!, Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There? 00:04, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

It looks like a worthwhile concept. There is already the "article suggester" but this seems like it would provide some additional benefit and has collaborative elements. Nice idea! Technically, new WikiProjects should be floated at the WikiProject Council, so maybe drop a note there. –xenotalk 00:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Okay, Sure! Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There? 00:12, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Where do I propose my Wikiproject? Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There? 00:14, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Just drop a note on the talk page I guess. It's not a requirement, now that I look, but it will help get more eyes on your project. –xenotalk 00:16, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I misinformed you. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. –xenotalk 00:22, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I followed your new link, and everything's all set, Thank You, Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There? 00:39, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Commented there. No problem. –xenotalk 01:05, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Spyware

After clicking on the Blender (software) link form the Graphics Lab, I followed the URL to the website (www.blender.org). After installation began, I got a pop-up from my Comcast Spyware software saying it had found large ammounts of Spyware in the software. Then I tried it again today to see if there was any difference, and sure enough, still Spyware. Should there be a note on the Blender (software) page & Graphics Lab's page?

Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There? 04:39, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Erm, not unless you can find a reliable source to verify this information. –xenotalk 04:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

User Rehab

This thing is really getting out of hand. Now I'm starting to wonder about some of the contributers. I'm about to wash my hands of this thing. Maybe I'll give a go at your suggestion of regrouping and trying wikiproject mentorship. But not for awhile.Drew Smith What I've done 05:23, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, it really is a "Just do it!"™ project; if you want to mentor someone then go ahead. The "user rehab" with the criminalistic language, the comparisons drawn to WP:AMA, it definitely faced a tough crowd. The same can be done from within adopt-a-user. I got the picture the users that user rehab was going to be taking in weren't the kind getting sanctioned by ArbCom, but maybe the kind that an admin granted a {{2nd chance}} to after some choice vandalism. –xenotalk 05:28, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Greets

Hiya,

Thanks for noticing I accidentally 'welcomed' that user, and thanks even more for removing you message. I was about to try to explain myself when it had gone...

You will see from my contribs that recently I've been on a bit of a mass-welcoming spree; I'm still making up my own mind about this, so am perfectly open to criticism; so far, it seems to me that from welcoming many, it is overall constructive - because, out of perhaps 500 welcomes, about 10 will be 'serious' trolls, and 1 might become a valued contributor...this is the pay-off ratio. As I say; not sure. It's hard to gauge, because just one regular is gold-dust...and trolls/vandals can be blocked, no worries.

Anyway. I appreciate what happened, very much. We need both angles, for a better world. I think I need to filter welcomes more accuratly to avoid this sort of thing; I'll work on that. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  06:20, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

fair enough... I removed it because I realized it was partly my fault for redlinking the vandal's talk page rather than using a blocking template. –xenotalk 11:55, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

What

Why did you revert my closure of Chirstian Cult? Is there a chance in hell that it might get deleted? No? Was there anything wrong with the closure? No? Would you have reverted if it were someone else closing? No? Do you have a problem with me??????????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arma virumque cano (talk • contribs) 17:13, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

No, but it should be allowed to run for at least 24 hours before anyone tries to determine the weather. –xenotalk 18:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

If someone wanted to have a copy of a deleted article emailed to them would they have to ask the admin that deleted the article, or can any admin do it? Thanks, --T'Shael MindMeld 00:06, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Any admin can do it. –xenotalk 01:28, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
Splendid, thank you. --T'Shael MindMeld 01:30, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Trolls

Shouldn't some have done this a long time ago?

Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There? 01:46, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Isn't that just a copy of the meta:What is a troll? page? –xenotalk 01:48, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, but isn't it more convenient? When you type in WP:TROLL it takes you to the redirect instead of automatically redirecting you Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There? 02:00, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
Also, can you have multiple topicons on your user page? If so, how? Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There? 02:00, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
And, If you upload the pic yourself, How can you delete images from the Wikicommons? Thank You, Sought | Knock Knock | Who's There?
It's more convenient but there are certain "global" essays which are put on meta to benefit from a wider degree of collaboration (m:DICK, etc.).
Yes, you'll have to offset them somehow. See [24] for an edit I made to a topicon to give it offset functionality.
Use {{delete|uploader requests deletion}}. That should work. –xenotalk 14:10, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

ThankSpam

My RfA

Thank you for participating in my "RecFA", which passed with a final tally of 153/39/22. There were issues raised regarding my adminship that I intend to cogitate upon, but I am grateful for the very many supportive comments I received and for the efforts of certain editors (Ceoil, Noroton and Lar especially) in responding to some issues. I wish to note how humbled I was when I read Buster7's support comment, although a fair majority gave me great pleasure. I would also note those whose opposes or neutral were based in process concerns and who otherwise commented kindly in regard to my record.
I recognise that the process itself was unusual, and the format was generally considered questionable - and I accept that I was mistaken in my perception of how it would be received - but I am particularly grateful for those whose opposes and neutrals were based in perceptions of how I was not performing to the standards expected of an administrator. As much as the support I received, those comments are hopefully going to allow me to be a better contributor to the project. Thank you. Very much. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:19, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, back to the office it is...
No problem. =) –xenotalk 13:58, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

FYI re: boilerplate opposes

Hey there Xeno, how you doin today? Just wanted to mention something that had been discussed previously. A while back, the issue of "ban" and/or "block" surfaced regarding RfA !votes. I know several folks have found fault with your actions in this matter, and I freely admit that I've opposed the suggestions that any disciplinary preemptive action should be taken for an editor who believed that there were "too many admins", which has since been defined as "of a certain kind". As I look over a current candidate at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/CactusWriter, I'm hopeful that I'll see a change in !vote patterns, but consider the possibility that this may not happen. I'd have to give serious (re)-consideration to my support or oppose of some sort of sanction should previous patterns continue. So what does this mean to you? meh, maybe nothing. Just that I'm willing to entertain the possibility that you were right and I was wrong. For What It's Worth. ;) — Ched :  ?  17:48, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I've refined the header from simply "FYI". From what I understand, he'll only template if someone else has already opposed, as he doesn't want to provide his own reasoning. Now that there is an oppose, I'm sure you'll see the boilerplate text soon. Thanks for your note. –xenotalk 13:56, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
noted and I agree. Your reasoning is sound. — Ched :  ?  19:02, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

My signature

No, I'm not going to plead my case about my signature ;). Consensus has been met, I won't change it. Just a question. I see you change the border back to 2 px. To be honest, I don't see THAT much of difference in my browser between the 2px and the 5 px. Just in 5px the border looks slightly more visible. (I'm using Mozilla on a 1280 x 1024 monitor (WIN XP PRO). Does the change from 2 to 5px really look that different on your end ? Naluboutes, Nalubotes Aeria gloris, Aeria gloris17:44, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

It's 2½ times wider. And now I will actually and permanently disengage ;-) ╟─TreasuryTag►hemicycle─╢ 17:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes, as I commented at AN, it obscures the tails on letters above the sig. (eg. turning Treasury Tag into Treasury Taq). –xenotalk 17:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Sig

Yeah, good idea, on the whole. I'm no bloodhound ;-) Thanks. ╟─TreasuryTag►hemicycle─╢ 17:45, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. –xenotalk 17:47, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

User:Sochia007

Thanks for fixing all my markup - I made a real hash of it.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:07, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem. If you're not using the dreaded IE, you may consider checking out Twinkle for assistance with tasks like this. –xenotalk 21:08, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Will do. Thanks again.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:16, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Daymeeee

Daymeeee has edited the bit of text on the Resident Evil 5 article about Alpha team that me and him are debating. This is very disrespectful to me and, as you know, could potentially lead to an edit war, or the re-protecting of the page. Could you please go into the talk page and let him know that things that are being debated are not to be changed? He did this many times with the decapitated thing before, and I could see him doing it continually. I'll be watching the page as much as possible, but I'm done opposing his ridiculous comments until I can get some other editors (not necessarily a third opinion, though) in there. I don't like arguing for the sake of arguing, and he's clearly not about to help us get anywhere. I think he'll see that as resignation and continue to edit the page back. Just please notify him via talk page that he should not do this. I don't want any more trouble involving him. I just want a nice, clean consensus regarding the subject, which is impossible without other editors. I want him to understand that. As an administrator, your word is more lawful than mine. So please, if you could help. Thanks. --The Guy complain edits 02:05, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I made a comment at the talk page. If things really have to go to straw polls for every paragraph on the page, some other form of dispute resolution may be in order. –xenotalk 02:33, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

For learning a difficult lesson

The Barnstar of Integrity
For blocking yourself after realizing you compromised content in order to provoke another editor. It wasn't pretty, but you had the guts to do what no other admin was willing to do: follow procedure and block an editor for disruptive editing. I respect you for performing this admin duty, and I sincerely hope this gives you pause to reflect in the future. Moni3 (talk) 16:50, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for this Moni3. No doubt - I won't repeat the same mistake. –xenotalk 16:54, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Which Bloody English?

I have to ask. Is this site in English or American? Because I'm getting fed up of Americans reverting British English because they're too thick to know how to spell properly. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 10:58, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

  • sighs* That probably counts as a personal attack on Americans, doesn't it? Sorry. I've had a rash of incidents in the last half an hour which has made my temper stretch to breaking point. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 10:59, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
how dare you forget Canadian English =) see WP:ENGVAR for guidance on this. rule of thumb: British-centric topic (i.e. Tony Blair) would be British, Barack Obama would be American. –xenotalk 11:59, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
I didn't forget Canadians (*salutes*) but as far as I know, Canadian English is English English (i.e. correct). :P What about game related articles, for instance? Or Star Trek? Take... Fable and Star Trek XI as examples. Both were released across the world, but made by American companies. But Star Trek had at least two British people in. And Fable was set in Albion (an old name for Britian) and is populated (at least, according to Zero Punctuation) by immigrants from every corner of the British Isles. And I really need to stop speaking in sentence fragments. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 10:44, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Local consensus will determine this in the case of disagreements. In Grand Theft Auto IV (and all GTA articles), the British variation is used because the developer is in Scotland. it usually sticks to whatever "makes sense", but absent some compelling reason to use one variation over the other, whatever variation was used in the genesis of the article should be left in place. –xenotalk 13:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 13:30, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

some tomfoolery

Because that would be boring 'The Ninjalemming' 10:47, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, but while it provides me, as a proofreader, with either a) many laughs or b) loss of faith in humanity or c) both, if they're going to spam someone, surely they should try to, you know, learn English? --Thejadefalcon (talk) 10:56, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Why would they learn English when you could simply learn their language, obviously. =) 'The Ninjalemming' 11:29, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Because they're the ones trying to advertise penis extensions, perhaps? --Thejadefalcon (talk) 11:36, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Eh? Never seen that one, never want to see that one either. ={ 'The Ninjalemming' 12:50, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
That was my view as well. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 12:54, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I think that was every ones view except that unfortunate guy over there; hey wait, why is he crying in my back garden? 'The Ninjalemming' 12:56, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
It was just a morc, hence to say I put him down (with a [[Insert Humerous item here]]). Well, lets not get onto the subject of 'odd creatures'. 'The Ninjalemming' 14:31, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
You killed him with a [[Insert Humerous item here]]. You should be ashamed of yourself! ... What were we talking about again...?--Thejadefalcon (talk) 14:35, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I have no idea, I think it was something to do with language though. 'The Ninjalemming' 15:02, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Hey Xeno, the achieiness i tryed to do on my page appears not to be working; can you help, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaase! =) 'The Ninjalemming' 15:41, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Cheers! =) 'The Ninjalemming' 16:26, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

xeno, just a question, but why haven't you deleted this off-topic gibberish yet? --Thejadefalcon (talk) 11:21, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Because he archieves all, even stuff sch like dfgvukdyasgfsfgvudksegja\f,; this is still suppose to go in 'The Archieves'. 'The Ninjalemming' 11:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, but there's archiving useful things and then there's archiving anything I've ever written (except my Mass Effect 2 edits, which are clearly approved by ninety-seven different deities (oh, must make new edits)). --Thejadefalcon (talk) 11:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
MiszaBot archieves all, and Xeno doesn't care what he (yes he, MiszaBot 1 and 2 are she) archieves. 'The Ninjalemming' 11:57, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Umm... what's MiszaBot? --Thejadefalcon (talk) 12:02, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
MiszaBot is a bot that does rapid amounts of tedious stuff in a very small period of time; MiszaBot III archieves pages that have been registered to it, every time it is meant to. User this link for more info. 'The Ninjalemming' 13:23, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. Silly bot, archiving this garbage. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 13:26, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough. I know the feeling. :P --Thejadefalcon (talk) 12:38, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi Xeno, what about the removal of the IGN links in all the French communes pages where there are still some? I thought your bot would take care of it but apparently you haven't taken it out of the garage for a while... Cheers, --RCS (talk) 19:19, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes... I've been lazy... =) Will try and geterdun sometime this week. –xenotalk 14:03, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Commenting again so MiszaBot doesn't take this thread off into the cold, black night. –xenotalk 12:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

User talk:Sochia007

I see one of the girls is back. They have blanked the content left by you, and put up some more girly offerings.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:37, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've blocked. –xenotalk 12:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

miszabot'en

What did those letters do anyway? 'The Ninjalemming' 16:39, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Some kind of regex or something. I don't know, I use numbered archives. –xenotalk 16:42, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Any real difference though? And Miszabot 3 will just make a new page every month/year right? 'The Ninjalemming ' 11:06, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Yep... The way I see it numbered archves are better because perhaps one day one will becomes somewhat inactive, Misza won't be making a new page to hold a handful of threads... –xenotalk 12:36, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I never even read the link I just knew it was there, checking it now I see that it is infact a link to many othe (some actually helpful) links. Any way, check this bot, it is my friend; unfortunatly last time I said hi to it I think I my have gven it botal damage, as xeno had to undo my edit. 'The Ninjalemming' 13:59, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Hey xeno, how do you leave a note or MiszaBot to tell 'him' to do something; like when to archieve stuff. 'The Ninjalemming' 15:57, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
MBIII will only visit your page once a day. I think user:ClueBot III has some kind of (archivenow!) functionality, but I'm not familiar with it. Seeing as you've decided to use numbered archiving, do you want me to delete the month-based pages MB created? –xenotalk 16:01, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
eah sure (unless I can do it), and cheers for the countery stuff, I thought I would change it to look like yours considering what you said; but that day when 'non-activeness' *shudder* occurs is hopfully a long way off. =) 'The Ninjalemming::' 16:09, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
counter 1 means misza will archive to /Archive 1. –xenotalk 16:15, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I guess it will increase automaticly 'The Ninjalemming' 11:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, it will increment whenever the maxarchivesize is reached. –xenotalk 12:35, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

RfD nomination of Alien sideboob

I have nominated Alien sideboob (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 17:20, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Your repeated spurious noms are really starting to get on my nerves. You do realize that you're doing more harm creating spurious nominations than are caused by most of the redirects you're nominating, yes? –xenotalk 17:22, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

XFD

Re Seriously, XFD isn't all I do by a long shot. Didn't you notice that I spent a lot of time working on The Kentucky Headhunters yesterday, and created a new article, Jesse Lee (singer)? I should also note that there is a precedent of deleting meme redirects, such as Squadala, Gay Luigi, Lotsa spaghetti, all of which turn up nearly as many hits as Alien sideboob. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 17:39, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Then please keep it up, and consider not doing the stuff that doesn't improve the encyclopedia. The fact that you've wasted your time and convinced administrators to delete other harmless redirects doesn't make it A Good Thing™. –xenotalk 17:42, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Aaaaaand perhaps you, xeno, could be less rude in your requests to others. Thanks, لennavecia 18:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I was a little more diplomatic when I asked him to stop bringing spurious noms a while back (here, slightly less so here). It appears to have fallen on deaf ears, as did this similar request. –xenotalk 18:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:Ubxdisplay

This was a great edit. Frankly speaking, if this would have been available before, I would have used the template a lot more. I would even make it the other way around: the default not showing. Debresser (talk) 18:09, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Hrm, it was meant to be a single-serving version of the "{{Usbk}}" family of templates that provide a "transclusions" button. –xenotalk 18:12, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
How this, then? –xenotalk 18:22, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Nice. Debresser (talk) 18:24, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I didn't know there were more such templates. Debresser (talk) 18:24, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
See also's to teh rescue !! [25] [26] ;> –xenotalk 18:37, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Well, I forgot about that one. But your template is fit for the collapsed tables I like to use on category pages. Debresser (talk) 19:32, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Glad you like it! And I spelt Teh correctly, FYI! ;> –xenotalk 19:42, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

{{Bartending-stub}}

Hello, as you may have noticed there is a small movement in the Food and drink, Mixed Drinks and Bartending WikiProjects to get everything in order including templates and article ratings. We need this template to work with the Bartneding Projects WP 1.0 Ratings. Could you please restore this stub template? (It had originally been nominated for deletion because of under use) --Jeremy (blah blah) 19:11, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done –xenotalk 19:24, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: ANI

That link is fine. I'll try to keep my eye out, but if you do happen to see any more discussions, now you know where to point them. Thanks, Xeno. --Deskana, Champion of the Frozen Wastes 19:16, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

No prob. Hopefully he gets bored. –xenotalk 19:18, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your cleanup efforts at the Rehab project. It is needed! In the beginning there was a combination of talk and project page. That needs fixing now that things are moving again. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:22, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem. Best of luck, I'll keep an eye on the project and lend a hand wherever I can. –xenotalk 05:34, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: DougsTech

Please take a look at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#DougsTech. As you overturned my indefinite block of this user, you should consider whether or not community consensus now supports re-instating it. Best regards, –xenotalk 07:17, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the update. At this point I really don't care, the only reason I unblocked the first time was that no consensus had been reached on WT:RFA to ban and you hadn't read through the whole discussion. Too many things to do than worry about one user... whom everyone else is already giving all the attention he desires. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 13:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, but my block wasn't to topic ban him from RFA, it was to indefinitely block him from Wikipedia. While the latter may have had the effect of doing the former - since he had been doing little else - there is a distinction to be made. I staunchly disagree with topic banning anyone from RFA, no matter their !vote templates or slant. The fact that I blocked him near-immediately after the topic ban was closed conflated the issue: that was my fault and I admit that. However, my position remains the same: disruption-only accounts should be indefinitely blocked. Thanks for looking at this, I understand if you decline to take action, but wanted to give you the opportunity to de-enable his disruption. –xenotalk 13:54, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "deny" has got to do with it, people sure like to toss that abbreviation around... I do hope that we act here in the knowledge that we're in a very public forum. Their criticism of us on this topic is absolutely on point, correct, and we would do well to heed it. They suggest we not feed trolls, but we seem to LOVE doing it.

Of course they're laughing at the humongous troll banquet we've just served. I'd be laughing too, except that I care too much about this project to enjoy our community dysfunctions. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:30, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

The real reason was the "etc.", I will email you on that. –xenotalk 00:38, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh, okay. Thanks. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:40, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
I note that LHvU has given DT some excellent advice [27]. Hopefully he takes it on board. –xenotalk 01:25, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Time to unprotect Worm?

Worm was apparently protected by you on March 4, 2009 - just under three months now. Page needs to be edited. Time to unprotect for a while? -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 15:15, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done. Let's give it a try. –xenotalk 16:21, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Another new section

Scrolling through articles I came upon this, which most of it is written like an advertisment for it; is there a special bannery type thing to put on it too say that it needs rewritingbecase of this? 'The Ninjalemming' 15:39, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Put the {{advert}} tag. It actually looks like someone might have cut and paste the verbiage from somwhere. Try a google search and see if it's copyvio. –xenotalk 16:21, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes it has been copied and pasted from a website; does this mean that it is in a copyright violation? I am guessing it does. 'The Ninjalemming' 16:39, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes. Please try to re-write entirely yourself or use {{subst:copyvio|url=paste_the_link_to_website_here}} –xenotalk 17:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Done the copyrightvio thing and all the other ?necersery? things that I was meant to do with it. I had to as I do not have enough time to edit it myself, but it will be done by other users right? 'The Ninjalemming' 18:52, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
It turns out it was just those two horrid paragraphs that were copyvio so I just removed them. No longer adverty, so removed the tag as well. In future, the copyvio template needs to go at the top of the page. –xenotalk 19:28, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Oh :O 'The Ninjalemming' 19:35, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Applying for rollback

Hello,

I though of asking for Rollback function in quite some time, so I decided to request it here :). I want to revert vandalism, especially at Montenegrin related articles as some Admins don't react very quick and let articles vandalized. So please, judge if I can get the function. Thanks for your time. Best regards! Rave92(talk) 15:49, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I would say yes, as you seem reliable enough to be able to judge, a low number of edits doesn't mean lack of qualty or judgement; but I would say yo'd have to promise no to get in any more edit was as some people ould consider this to not be proper judgement and take the rollback away from you. You also seem enthusiastic enough about reverted vandalism surronding a group of articles that you know alot about so you could easily judge correctly. Alas tough the desicion is up to xeno, but I wanted to voice my opinion as this is all I can do; even thogh xeno wants other people to do his job as he is lazy I cannot do it so ha, xeno has to do his own job for once. hehe, bye 'The Ninjalemming' 16:12, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Hrm...Most of the undo's I see that you've done involve some sort of apparent disagreement over whether Montenegrin's are Serbian, or something of the sort [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] (sorry if this description is overly simple). This strikes me as a content dispute and rollback wouldn't be appropriate to use in these cases - you should continue using undo with a descriptive edit summary. You may consider installing Twinkle which allows you to rollback an edit, but provide an edit summary. At this time I am going to decline to grant native rollback because I don't see any significant history of actual vandalism reversion. Feel free to re-apply once you've demonstrated you recognize the difference between content you dispute and content that is blatant vandalism (For examples of blatant vandalism, see User:Xeno/misc#Some funny stuff).
  • On a side note, you can modify your sig to remove the image? See WP:SIG#Images. –xenotalk 16:21, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Um

If you want to know who I am, just email. I don't keep it secret. And I don't have any account on WR besides Ottava, which is blocked to the point that I can't read IMs even though I get emails saying I have new ones every once in a while. I find it amusing. However, to be honest I find that the person closest to me there is "A Horse With No Name". He did disagree with me two times I think and bashed me once (that I saw), but most of it was "wow, I would probably have said this". I am sure that the mods have the IPs of everyone and know my standard IPs (I only have two standard connections) so they can verify. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:43, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S., I don't hate you. I just think that you are a horrid admin. I'm sure you would be perfectly fine if you were a normal user. :) And Apathetic? You never really said anything spectacular under that name so why even bother revealing? Ottava Rima (talk) 23:48, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) If s/he's the person you agree with most you can tell why I might have thought you two were the same =) Thanks for confirming you're not. cheers, –xenotalk 23:49, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough ;>. Re: revealing - too lazy to make a new name just to post there. –xenotalk 23:49, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Not really, I would post there only as Ottava. Regardless, the accounts are mod approved, so they would look at IP and email identification. All of my personal information is on the table for them, even the stuff that was private (as Moulton made sure that all of the mods had every last detail). Ottava Rima (talk) 00:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
By the way, you would seriously believe a denial from me? lol. I don't know how to take that. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 00:05, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
No, not necessarily, but one of the staff there has assured me there's no technical evidence to support a link. And, it doesn't really matter that much who it is. Horse has revealed themself as a troll, plain and simple. –xenotalk 11:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Who cares? It is a troll site. The whole point of it is to troll Wikipedia and disrupt things enough until problems happen. Look at the shameful Coren thread for instance. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:21, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Yea, that's kindof my point. –xenotalk 18:28, 1 June 2009 (UTC)


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