User talk:Splash/Archive15

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Archive to end 1st August 2005 17th August 2005 11 September 2005 02:53 (UTC) 26 September 2005 22 October 2005 19 November 2005 5 December 2005 3 January 2006 20 January 2006 5 February 2006 4 March 2006 23 March 2006 3 April 2006 29 May 2006

Done with finals?

Hi - I see you're editing again. Do you think you'll be resuming your previous activity level or are you enjoying spending your time some other way? Just curious. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:05, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm no longer completely away from Wikipedia (although in fact I have made a few anon edits in the interim from computers I didn't want to log in to). Incidentally, it wasn't finals (I'm a thesis-writing PhD student) — it was an actual holiday, coupled with a lack of time immediately before and after, and then a pleasant feeling of not editing for a bit. I'm not really sure yet at what activity level I will edit...I do in fact have another 'real' project at present which I can spend large amounts of 'spare' time on and so this might well mean that I edit in fits and starts for a time. I'll have to see how it goes. Hope you're well. -Splash^talk 01:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm fine, although work and kids have occasionally been getting in the way of my Wikipedia time (my latest admin activity update at WP:LA and update to Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations were something like two months since the last ones). Radiant!, Who, and Eequor seem to be permanently gone. Kbdank71 is scarce these days. Seems like a bunch of familiar names simply no longer show up on my watchlist. I guess it's the wikiway. My gappei project is apparently going to literally take forever, and I've recently started editing some of the infobox templates so that things that look like rows are actually rows (rather than lines created with <br/>'s that coincidentally line up). The infobox thing is looking like it may become another forever project. Worldtraveller's trying to drum up support for Wikipedia:Static version - I'm not sure there's a reasonable compromise between open and closed. In any event, I hope you're well, too. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Just to add to the list. There is a new semi-protection like proposal (a link is posted on WP:AN) and User:VoABot has been updating WP:PP, so the list is a tag Ginormous. I had to unprotect 50 articles on 3 seperate days because it will pile up b/c (protect rate>>unprotect rate). If you don't mind picking off a few, I'd appretiated. Good to see you having the time to do some editing again.Voice-of-All^Talk 07:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi there, VoA. I have noticed that CAT:SEMI is very big, and that there's been a change to philosophy surrounding it by Jimbo (who calls it a proposal but clearly doesn't pretend that it is). Is AN about quasi-protection? I don't think that will get off the ground for the same reasons that RfR in its various incarnations hasn't yet. I'll take a look at the list when I find the time and energy; it was quite draining working over there so much. -Splash^talk 00:31, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

If you update your protection script, it will be a LOT easier. Even still it gets annoying. It would be better if admins looks at articles they protected and unprotect after some time. Anyway, yes, "Quasi" protection was what I was refering. It can mean anything form "approved editors" (done by boards) to "not newest 2% and has 100 edits" in order to edit pages with such protection. I do support the later, though the approval method is just way impractival, even with the voice of all bots :).Voice-of-All^Talk 22:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Yay!!!!!!!!!

Peace and joy have returned to wiki-land, for the hero of all has returned!! I hope you enjoyed your vacation, and it goes without saying that things have been falling apart without you! :) Wiki-worshipfully, Xoloz 17:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Xoloz. Good to hear from you again! I had an excellent break, thanks. Wiki is more resilient than all that, especially now that it has admins like you and the other recent promotions. But it's good to be involved again. -Splash^talk 20:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Well WP:PP starts to fall apart sometimes. Ironically, many of the people with my JS that were active there left (mainly due to Daniel Brandt, troll extradonaire). I think I'll take an other hack at it.Voice-of-All^Talk 22:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Prescience, or just good analytical skills?

[1] Guettarda 19:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Mmmmm. -Splash^talk 19:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Nicely done

Good job on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Philip Sandifer. It's great to see people actually taking the time to do some analysis instead of just slapping a "no consensus" on it. Friday (talk) 20:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It will be interesting to see what happens next, I suppose. -Splash^talk 20:24, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Ditto. Well done. Fagstein 21:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hey there- thanks a lot for that very thoughtful response! It helped me a lot, as no one was really telling me where I went wrong. So again, thanks...I appreciate it. --Osbus 20:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Donald Gage

Can I ask you to relist Donald Gage? With only four votes, I think a consensus is not precluded from developing. - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 22:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe in the closer relisting unless the debate is such that it is too thin to even be able to conclude that there is sufficient disagreement to prevent deletion. That's not the case here, with 5 editors participating, so I closed the debate. You can relist it yourself if you like, but do bear in mind that sometimes that upsets people and a waiting period can be a better choice. I think you will struggle to delete an article about an elected mayor of anywhere, though. -Splash^talk 22:10, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

No need, I accept it. - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 23:44, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

AfD

Re. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Philip_Sandifer. Thank you for taking so much care over closing this debate. My comment (which you wrote was "almost self-contradictory") was a rather abstruse reference to a comment by Albert Einstein. The story goes that Hitler wanted to discredit him as a physicist and so got 50 German physicists to sign a letter saying the Einstein was useless. Einstein replied that if it was true, one would have been enough. So here we have an article which over 60 Wikipedians have taken part in to say it wasn't notable. Next time I make a point like this, I'll link to a reference. PS I don't feel strongly about it, and I think your summing up was fair. Stephen B Streater 22:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That now makes much more sense! -Splash^talk 22:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the bull by the balls Splash. As the one, or at least one of the people, who mentioned sexual perversion articles, I was simply trying to point out [rather poorly, it seems] that the recent rash of deletionism hasn't bothered to touch that particular blot [in my view] on Wikipedia's claim to be a serious encyclopedia. (We don't have an article on any number of NFL hall-of-famers (I'd write them if I knew anything about the NFL), but we have separate articles for every conceivable genital piercing, by location, orientation, length, etc, for every conceivable form (and some inconceivable) of genital mutilation/alteration/"enhancement" [if you like]/cutting/slicing/splicing/whatnotelse...Personally, I'd like to see all of that stuff moved to WiXXXipedia, the online encyclopedia of sexxxy fun, that anyone can edit, or whatever.) In my mind, this points to three weaknesses of WP at the same time: nobody's making sure we have articles on noteworthy subjects, some people are making sure we have articles on every unnoteworthy concept in some subjects, and some people are trying to get rid of articles on unnoteworthy subjects, but they pick and choose their battles. Any AfD on meatotomy (or its extensions subincision and genital bisection) or Prince Albert piercing would fail miserably because a zillion perv connaisseurs would "vote" keep, never bothering to make any sensible argument about their notability, instead purposely misrepresenting the AfD as an attempt at "censorship", and screaming "go read WP:NOT!" (which they wrote to begin with...) Bleh. All of this to say, if 41 ppl voted "keep", at least one less than 41 is irritated with the decision you made. :-) Cheers, Tomer^talk 23:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

That's a relief! I do think you have a good meta-point about that kind of article (as well as a good solution!). Given the usual nature of such AfDs, it is very difficult even for an admin exercising the fullness of their latitude in closing to decently delete such an article. I suppose that is a serious failing of AfD, and would require invocations of IAR that even its most fervent adherents wouldn't try. That said, it isn't necessarily the case that carrying articles on the, let us say, less salubrious topics degrades the quality of the encyclopedia as a whole. It is only a problem when those articles are essentially the outcome of overheard conversations during trips to the pub or simiarly-fevered imaginations or when we finish up with such fine detail that we move from the non-salubriously-encyclopedic to the fetishistic (in whatever sense of the word) and minutiae-obsessed. AfD does manage to nobble such things sometimes, though. I find the (as I mentally call it) 'Pokemon Test' very unpersuasive because it latches onto a quirk of Wikipedian's personalities and amplifies it into some kind of quasi-quantitative "Absolute Notability" scale against which all things and sundry can be judged. We all know the world's not like that. People choose their battles, certainly, but then there isn't much other way to do it. A well-targetted 'battle' can work sometimes, too, like with Sexual slang which went from a beer-induced sub-dictionary listing to the reasonable construction it now is after some determined work on various talk pages and assistance from a failed AfD. Sorry for singling you out; I find sometimes it is useful to set out which kinds of arguments I did and did not find persuasive so that people can see how I dealt with things and also to hope that I might encourage the use of stronger, more targetted argumentation in future. Well, I can dream anyway. -Splash^talk 00:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Edit conflicts

While I haven't completely understood the edit-conflict-merging code either, I think the second thing you said is what happens. I believe the code tries to read the line above and below the two edits, and if they don't match, it merges the conflict automatically. If the top line is the same, then the test fails and it whines asks for human intervention. By the way, it's nice to see you back... I had been trying to drag myself here, but there's an awful lot to do at WP:V0.5N... Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 23:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, the first thing I did when I started there was to submit one of "my" articles... can't blame you though. We'll see how that goes. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 00:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

RE:Careful with the anons

Indeed you're correct. I just saw what looked like random dates (one was a lot different than another), so I reverted. I usually avoid reverting such topics because I have no clue if the edit is true or not, but I guess in this case I forgot about that. Anyway, thanks for catching my mistake. Cheers, Master of Puppets ^{FREE BIRD!} 02:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Roman Canon

"This article was redirected to Text and rubrics of the Roman Canon." It does not seem to have yet been redirected. But perhaps I misunderstand. Sorry for the disturbance. Lima 03:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

When I click Roman Canon I get taken to Text and rubrics of the Roman Canon. Have I misunderstood something? -Splash^talk 13:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: Baa!

(As opposed to "rebar"). My compliments to your humour detector. Maybe I wasn't being sufficiently clear in my sardonism. I felt that the closing administrator might like to take into account the utterly trivial nature of what was being voted about; as well as the (IMHO) threatening phraseolofy of "afdsock" -- some people do actually go through AfD without having to be directed there, and not everyone sheep-votes. However, my apologies for however long it took for you to realise that there were no other sheep (in cubs' clothing or not) -- SockpuppetSamuelson

Graffiti patrol

Thanks for this revert. --Uncle Ed 17:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome! -Splash^talk 17:51, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Protection script

I am starting to think that the if (!addtab) thing is bugged....yes it is. I tried to have JS not waste the time reaffirming that func. by testing if it already exist. That "if" and its { } should be removed, so that the functions is always loaded.Voice-of-All^Talk 05:52, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I just ran and debugged your monobook, addlilink was defined 3 different ways: I killed the first, simpler def and replaced the second's name with addlilink2 and everything that used it (using regex replace for speed). I am surprised that it did not give more error messages since addlilink at two definitions before the protection stuff was even added (maybe both are compatibale somewhat). There seem to be at least 2 incompatible addlilinks floated in a lot of scripts, as I had to do this for two other users.Voice-of-All^Talk 23:02, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

TB2

Yeah, I've whitelisted the user in question, still trying to find the exact word that triggered it, I see it was unblocked before I got back to a computer, thanks for the notice first. Just FYI in the future you can stop the bot (shorter term / from reverting a specific user) by going onto freenode channel #tawker-bot and opping (/chanserv op #tawker-bot) and then issuing "ctawkbot norevert" into the channel or for a specific user ctawkbot wl add (username), that will stop it from commiting edits -- Tawker 18:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

Thank you for voting in my recently unsuccessful RfA. I plan on working harder in the coming months so that I have a better chance of becoming an admin in the future. I hope you will consider supporting my if I have another RfA. Thank you for your comments. --digital_me^(t/c) 15:56, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

My first admin muck-up

My Lord,

Help! I cleared out Springfield M21 from DRV, where there was a consensus to allow the recreation of the redirect and undelete the history. So fine... I deleted the redirect to restore the entire history. I restored, but the history didn't appear. I tried again, this time check-marking all revisions to be safe. Now the redirect is restored, but it seems to have NO HISTORY at all. The history screen is unlike anything I've seen, so I'm not sure what I did. Eeep! Did I encounter a bug, or was this my routine stupidity. Dunce-cap wearing, Xoloz 16:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

My RFA

Thanks

Splash/Archive15, thank you for participating in my RfA. It passed with an amazingly unopposed 77/0/1. Thanks for the support everybody! If you see me doing anything wrong, want to ask me something, or just want to yell in my general direction, leave me a note on my talk page. I promise to try and knock out Wikipedia's problems wherever I may find them!

Staxringold _talk^contribs 20:12, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey there

Thanks for commenting on my RfA...it was greatly appreciated! --Osbus 21:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello

I was wondering, why did you remove all the internet slang words? --Alexie 00:31, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

List of Internet slang

Hu? I thought the stuff was referenced by the links at the bottom. Maybe we should port the list over to Wikitonary, as wikipedia isn't a dictionary anyways. Referencing is much lower standard for dic defs.--Rayc 03:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I see, cut off the cruft and let it grow back refereced. Little extreme in my opinion, but if it works. Do you remember time magizene's list of internet slang, that might be a starting point for peer review sources.--Rayc 03:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Whilst I can understand that you wish to actively protect this page from vandalism - a good thing - you are deleting many entries which are perfectly valid and historically-accurate as a side-effect of your actions. Please consider your actions in this respect. Whilst citing a source for new terms is to be recommended it is not the case that a source is obtainable for everything (otherwise all of our more-than-one-million pages on WP:en would just be references off-site). As such one must use common sense it what to leave in place and what to delete. --AlisonW 21:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

AlisonW, this is not what the verifiability policy says. Everything in Wikipedia is supposed to be referenced to a published source. If a source is not obtainable, then the item cannot be in Wikipedia. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Well

If anything we reached a clear consensus on sports scores on the main page, believe it or not IRC had nothing to do with it, I just felt bold. -- Tawker 04:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I added it first without discussion, and Sasquatch just decided to add the final score citing the rationale of the in progress world cup scores. If anything it's gotten a firm policy on main page. Nothing wrong with a npov with respect to sports but I guess it would look silly to have every single game, even kids games on the main page so the new policy of no scores whatsoever is likely the best one. Speaking of IRC NickServ doesn't seem to have a recent login date for you, have you parted with freenode? -- Tawker 04:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Ack

It seems like my browser is hit by the bug too... back to IE, I guess. :( Titoxd^(?!?) 05:18, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

?

You blanked the entire page. Yes, they may all be unverifiable, but making a page a borderline A3 isn't how to resolve that problem. You should discuss it on the talk page or AfD first, as unilaterally blanking a page because it's unverifiable is clearly a violation of WP:POINT and certainly not following any process. --Rory096 07:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

That wasn't a terribly detailed response, particularly as it didn't deal with any of the things I asked about. POINT is frequently bandied about when all people are really doing is making some kind of point, without being disruptive, experimental or spiteful. But you didn't say how I have violated POINT, nor really which other processes, other than an unusually bold editing (another policy there) choice. Removing unverifable content can only be dealt with by removing it: it is unverifiable! Anyway, I just added back in a term that is thoroughly referenced, like a good encyclopedia should be. -Splash - tk 07:09, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

You're disrupting Wikipedia by blanking an entire page! The correct way of getting rid of an entire unverifiable page when there's nothing left when you keep the verifiable stuff is by going through AfD. If you just tried to make your point on the talk page that it's not verifiable or encyclopaedic, then you would not be violating WP:POINT. If you blank the entire article, then you're disrupting it. Note also that WP:BOLD says "'be bold in updating pages' does not mean that you should make large changes or deletions to long articles on complex, controversial subjects with long histories." --Rory096 07:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I did not leave a blank page behind. I left the category, a template and a TOC. Someone added a list-stub tag a bit later. Sometimes, simply starting over is the only way to go. It takes one sweeping edit to get a page back on track, which is where that article now is. The effect of starting over is amazing, see for example List of sexual slurs which got the same treatment (from someone else) a while ago. Removing unverifiable content that is dicdef pubspeak is a good thing, not disruption. -Splash - tk 07:18, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

More Sockpuppets

In response to my request for investigation on a couple of afd's, I see that you blocked a few users. Here's who else you can block who have had similar traits: MrPhillyTV (talk · contribs), TVXPert (talk · contribs), and anyone from this link from when he did the same exact thing (in a more overblown fashion) last year. Just a heads up. ErikNY 22:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I should add to what ErikNY just said. The knot of socks you just blocked were accounts used by the same person using Spotteddogsdotorg (talk · contribs), Toasthaven (talk · contribs), Toasthaven2 (talk · contribs), WashingtonWillie (talk · contribs), TheSpottedDogsOrganisation (talk · contribs), Melvis (talk · contribs), SquirrelKabob (talk · contribs), ShyLou (talk · contribs), Frühstücksdienst (talk · contribs), Hohokus (talk · contribs), WestchesterGuy (talk · contribs), MilesToGo (talk · contribs), WWACArtist (talk · contribs), and a bunch of other accounts. A few of these are already marked "suspected sockpuppets of Spotteddogsdotorg" and it might be good to combine them. Spotteddogsdotorg, Melvis, and TheSpottedDogsOrganisation were indefinitely blocked last year. Should this be suspected sockpuppets of the first account of these created (which I think was Spotteddogsdotorg) or some other criteria? I did some digging last week after the WWAC-TV hoax and it was pretty easy to find out this user's real IRL identity. I won't post it since it's against Wikipedia rules but all of his accounts definitely need to be blocked. 70.108.73.24 23:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Results of more digging: Unless there were some earlier edits from an account or IP that I haven't found, this person's first edits were in December 2004 from 209.137.173.69 (talk · contribs) and he still edits from that IP from time to time. Spotteddogsdotorg appears to be his first account created in early 2005. Some socks were created a week or so after Spotteddogsdotorg was. Another IP he has edited many times from is 68.83.229.146 (talk · contribs). 70.108.73.24 00:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Ok, so I've looked through their editing patterns, interests and styles, and read the stuff presented at the link ErikNY gives. It's all circumstantial, but it's thoroughly compelling. These users all share the same interests, have closely aligned editing bursts, all seem to visit AfDs in groups, some even use the same edit summary style, which is different from the norm. Looking at a couple of old AfDs, I found a few more, too: JAA01A (talk · contribs), JER53Y (talk · contribs), ShigeruNomi (talk · contribs) and NYTVGuy (talk · contribs) also have the same fingerprints. See Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Spotteddogsdotorg for the full list. Not much can be done about the IPs, unfortunately, but they might act as useful canaries-in-cages for locating new topics etc. For the others, they are now indef blocked. -Splash - tk 02:30, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I noticed The_Matt_Feldman_Experience! (talk · contribs) in the RfCU for FunkyChicken!, and he looks like a good candidate too, so also indef blocked. -Splash - tk

He also recently poped up in the afd page for Dave Roberts (reporter). And that anon responding here isn't me. As someone in the NYC area who is interested in local tv (and someone who went to school in the Philly area for a couple of years), I have an interest in this subject and was furious last year over his biases, particularly against Philly TV subjects and NYC's CBS station. ErikNY 03:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I can imagine he's very frustrating, appearing in so many incarnations as he has done/does. I've cancelled that other AfD too, and I believe I've already blocked all the socks that were in it. Most of the 'editors' there were him! -Splash - tk 04:12, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Also KingsCountyToasterAssociation (talk · contribs) found in an IfD. -Splash - tk 04:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• We are quite amused! We get innocent users banned forever and make you guys waste a lot of time. There are more, hundreds more just waiting to pounce. You will have to ban whole ranges of ips and hundreds of accounts, some created in libraries, stores, cafes, etc. We use accounts with non-static ip address connections. You'll wind up pissing off alot of people and your experiment will fail until you get some standards for editing! With love, The Wikipedia Vandalism Task Force. 201.250.214.91 05:47, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
• Oh, 70.108.73.24 is one of us, too! 201.250.214.91 05:47, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• Did we mention unsecured wi-fi connections or wi-fi hot spots? Our laptops love them! Nothing like leeching off of unsuspecting neighbours! 201.250.214.91 05:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
• And I forgot to mention that this is all to piss somebody off and wound up getting out of hand and quite fun. 201.250.214.91 05:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• Our original goal was to fuck with someone who's website we didn't like and it spiraled from there. We'll stop, we promise. 201.250.214.91 05:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

  Stop being ridiculous, Mr. DeCesare. How's your work exposing the bacteria problem in Amtrak's water going? 70.108.131.99 10:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for blocking the socks. Much appreciated. Check Kramden4700 (talk · contribs) too. He redirected Jim Gardner and Dave Roberts (reporter) during the AfDs, and then redirected them again after you closed the AfD's. 70.108.108.15 03:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

This is where it gets tricky. That account has not sockpuppeted in such a means as to disrupt an AfD (redirecting an article doesn't actually affect the debate materially much, and doens't give false impressions within the debate). By convention, on the assumption that the editor is not simply banned by acclamation, he is allowed one account to edit from. If he chooses this one, and does not edit tendentiously or abusively, he can keep it. The moment it steps out of line, of course, I'd like it if someone could let me know. -Splash - tk 00:02, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Dang! Here I've been looking all over the net for info on the computer system (AN/FSQ-31V SACCS DPC) which I got my start in computers on in 1972 and the closest I could find on Wikipedia turns out to be the creation of a sockpuppet!! So I guess no one would object if I were to fix it in spite of not being able to cite sources since I have yet to find any that fit WP's requirements...
Chuckharding 08:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

How very random! I wonder how you got here searching for that. Anyway, it can be hard finding sources for that kind of thing, and Wikipedia:Verifiability is important. That said, it actually only becomes an issue if someone challenges the information in an article. -Splash - tk 15:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

How I got here - I found the Q32 article created by TVXPert which has some erroneous information in it. While looking at the history of the article I looked at the user page for TVXPert where it states that he may be a sockpuppet and found a link to your userpage. ChardingLLNL 17:23, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I think he may be back. Look at Kramden4700 (talk · contribs), Adam 1212 (talk · contribs), Travel Plaza Babes (talk · contribs), Wrath of Roth (talk · contribs), Pressure Thirteen (talk · contribs) and Rekarb Bob (talk · contribs). They all share the same editing traits, and have voted in a series of complex Philadelphia TV AFDs lately, one of which has been successful. Kirjtc2 22:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Right. Interesting that you should mention Kramden4700 again (he got fingered slightly further up, too). I'm a bit busy at this precise moment in time, but I will take a look at these tomorrow (I think that's still within the AfD time-limit). Interestingly, there is the pattern of always participating in the same debates, and on both sides. Not that necessarily maketh a sock, but still. -Splash - tk 23:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Found another possible one: Buckner 1986 (talk · contribs). No worries, take your time. I think the one that was deleted (Marc Howard), and anything that may be deleted in the future, could be taken to DRV if the sockpuppet allegations are proven. They're singlehandedly changing consensus on the Irv Weinstein AFD as we speak tonight. Kirjtc2 02:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

And yet another one: Cheesehead 1980 (talk · contribs), who left me an NPA warning at the very mention of Spotteddogsdotorg. Kirjtc2 16:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Right, so after some studying, I've blocked all the ones you listed, apart from Buckner 1986 (talk · contribs) about whom I am unsure. I found Cabled Substitution (talk · contribs), who certainly appears to have the whole NJ thing going on and was registered about the right time, but doesn't actually seem to touch TV-related stuff. (If you're watching, Cabled Substitution, then yes, I'm watching you, too.) What do you think? I've cancelled one AfD, taken to task another, checked a couple that were unanimously deleted (although I wonder about some of the editors there) and am going to take a look through those still running. -Splash - tk 21:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I've done a mixture of striking and cancelling on most of the following AfDs; some were already closed adn I don't think the outcome was determined by socks. The later of these remain open and are worth watching as a result: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WCAU Personalities Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/KYW-TV Personalities Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marc Howard Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Angela Russell (second nomination) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/KYW-TV Personalities Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WPVI-TV Personalities Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tom Jolls Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Harry Mabry Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stu Kerr Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Irv Weinstein Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wilhelm Hennis Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Great Portland Street Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Great Network Switch Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WPVI-TV Personalities Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adam Joseph Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/October 2 in baseball Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Demon Beast (Kirby series) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Demon Beast (Kirby series) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Donoghue Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christine Caine Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brute Force Committee Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benefiber -Splash - tk 22:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Some of those deletions were completely legit (I would have voted delete on some of them). The ones at the bottom started by non-suspected sockpuppets are totally OK except for the fact that one/two of the socks voted on them. The TV personality AFDs, however, were simply disruptive. Look at how with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Irv Weinstein, when the first 5 votes were all "keep", they only then decided to send in the troops.

Thanks for doing this....it's gotta be like Wikipedia's version of whack-a-mole. Kirjtc2 22:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, it makes me feel useful! -Splash - tk 00:19, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

• I think that I have found two more. User:Sidestreetchat seems to have the same sort of editing habits. The abuse and nonsense from User:CoolKatt number 99999 leads me to think this user may be another one. I do hope you take the proper action. 12.226.115.107 17:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

  As an attempt, that's quite creative, but not nearly clever enough. Sorry. -Splash - tk 22:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

  CoolKatt's not a sock of any of the others. Until he got blocked for running afoul of ArbCom, he was in an edit war with Kramden, Rekarb Bob, and Buckner on WWCP-TV. Morgan Wick 18:02, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

  Yeah, I know that's just the puppetmaster trying to get Coolkatt blocked too. So you reckon that Buckner 1986 is a sockpuppet, too? I'm inclined to think he is. -Splash - tk 20:15, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, thank goodness: requiring sources for List of Internet slang

Thanks for doing this. It's about time. Well, long past time, actually. I don't know why people think the verifiability policy doesn't apply to lists, or "fun" pages, or popular culture topics... Dpbsmith (talk) 01:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! It's generating an interesting balance of comments... -Splash - tk 01:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Revisions

I hope that either a)"Oversight" will be expanded in the coming months (I talked to several arbcom members, and they agreed not to expand it now) or b)This[2] will be implemented sometime soon. I just had to delete a page with 1200 revisions due to personal info, and 1000 is a low number in a lot of cases. Its still faster then spamming oversights and AN to wait for a response though.Voice-of-All 03:02, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that a while back. Interesting. I rather expect though, that if it is implemented, the functionality will be available only to those who a)are Arbitrators, b)spend lots of time on IRC or c)preferably both. -Splash - tk 12:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Director templates

I notice that you deleted {{Template:Steven Spielberg's Films}} back in October. I came across {{Template:Steven Spielberg}} today: is this the same, or was there a different decision reached on film director templates? (And, in the same vein, there's {{Template:Francis Ford Coppola's films}}, which I ran across and what prompted my searching in the first place, as some editor is creating microstubs to blue-link the titles within ("TITLE is a YEAR film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. {{Template:Francis Ford Coppola's films}}").

(I tried looking this up in Templates for Deletion, but frankly it was as clear as mud understanding what people were deciding in there.) --Calton | Talk 06:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

That said, the arguments for deletion remain valid: they are categorified and, if the templates were completed, they'd be in the Massive Ungainly Excuse for Content class.

That, and they're inconsistent (as a sampling of a bunch of them at Category:Film templates shows), weirdly varied (The Films of Irvin Kershner?), and encourages the creation of articles on films that, frankly, don't deserve articles (this is Wikipedia, not IMDB2).

So perhaps a new TfD? Probably, though I'm loathe to do so immediately. Maybe later. --Calton | Talk 00:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:DRV#Lost:_The_Journey

Hi, thanks for your comments, I'll be putting a comprehensive reply together later but a couple of points I wanted to raise here first rather than there:

• Personally, if I had commented, it would have been "delete", not keep... I'm not a big fan of single episode articles. The factor for me was that there was mediation going that was perhaps going to influence this... why rush to decisions that might make things more inconvenient or need undoing (although they're easy enough to undo)?
  • Well, I suppose it can be argued that AfD has simply removed the need for mediation by making a decision that the editors couldn't make for themselves. Mediating content found to be unencyclopedic seems unnecessary. Also, WP:RFM#List of Lost episodes vs. Episodes of Lost (season 2) doesn't seem to usefully apply here anyway. -Splash - tk 16:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
• A big takeaway for me on this is that I need to explain non clear closes better, I didn't explain my reasoning very clearly.
  • The close does sound rather whimsical, and from reading your message here, I seem to have managed to misinterpret it some, as do others. -Splash - tk 16:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
• Use of IRC wasn't really a "revelation" the way you painted it, it was no secret... as I mentioned it in the discussion, farther up. You may not have seen it before you commmented, if you hadn't read all previous comments carefully, though.
  • I didn't paint it as a revelation, and I did just discover it from reading your talk page. But yes, I missed it in my speed-read of the DRV to (then) date. -Splash - tk 16:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
• I am not sure it's fair to characterise all IRC channels as being "That's fine, but one should remember that being trendy and brutal and treating AfD as a stupid bunch of idiots is extremely fashionable there, and that decisions made based on who goes "yay" to earn a laugh on IRC are generally decisions made poorly and in haste" because that's not the sort of channel I was on when I asked... while there is laughing, it's also a pretty serious channel (it's not public) and the comments I got were thoughtful, not snickerish. That comment of yours is a bit pejorative in my view when cast broadly the way you cast it.
  • You were in #wikipedia-en-admins, I guess. That is fractionally better than #wikipedia, but still not really capable of rendering considered decisions on such things, imo. It is the nature of the beast to usually produce a snap response. I've also observed an increasing trend (not necessarily from you) of people doing X odd thing on-Wiki, then saying, sounding rather surprised, "but Y told me to in IRC", as if this somehow exonerates them from X. IRC is not wiki, does not operate like wiki and is rarely a substitute for it, in my opinion. This is not to remove its usefulness entirely; I've sought advice there many times, although lately I find it useless unless in -admins (the number of times some newer editor in CVU's channel has refused to provide a snippet of info until I discover WP:NPOV...). But even so, the advice I receive there I firmly evaluate independently as only one input to the situation, and do not allow the importation of an IRC 'decision' wholesale; I simply do not trust its collective judgement enough. -Splash - tk 16:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
    • No, I was in a different channel, a private cabal if you like, I guess you can say, which has much more reasoned discourse than even en-admins... I think it's useful to seek quick guidance, but absolutely feel that one should not take it as a replacement for judgement, and I don't think I do take it so, which is what your words imply, at least to my eyes. That's the major bone to pick here remaining. Lar: t/c 16:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Wheels within wheels...anyway. Well, I saw that you'd used IRC at least in part to reach your decision, had reached what seemed to be an odd conclusion, and had said words to the effect of "but IRC told me to". That seems to tally with the admittedly fairly pejorative observations (that nevertheless I stand by) I made above, given that you'd simply referred to 'IRC' rather than some uber private channel where the dross is less. But if you trust the environment and judgement of those you were speaking to in #wikipedia-en-noone-else-but-us, then clearly you are entirely right to rely on it heavily in informing your thinking - that itself is a judgement call for you to make. I suppose just be careful in the on-Wiki presentation of that fact: people often phrase their "but IRC said" sentences with the tone that "because IRC said it, it must be right and you must be wrong", and so when I read such comments I tend to view them through rather coloured glasses. That's my problem, rather than your fault, though. I guess we have slightly different approaches to how one might handle an AfD that one is unsure of. -Splash - tk 17:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Hope those commments are helpful. I'd rather get your personal feedback on them here before I do my general reply. If this gets overturned I'll delete the article myself unless someone beats me to it, but right now it's not quite the learning experience I had hoped for... "Absolute travesty" and "saintly" as some others commented, don't help one learn too much... Lar: t/c 15:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I think perhaps the key problem is the reliance on a single opinion which people do not (on DRV at least) find to be as weighty as you do, coupled with what reads as a highly personalised closure statement based on it. Given that it was also a fairly brief statement, it is difficult to have that stand up to scrutiny since it probably doesn't lay out your reasoning clearly or persuasively enough to avoid the challenge in the first place. I don't think the pre-emptive challenge to go to DRV was helpful, probably. On deletion review in general, well, it certainly can be a learning experience. I don't know how many of my deletion/keeptions have gone there (almost universally to be endorsed, but still) and I certainly learnt which kinds of decisions will stick, and which won't (ones with thoroughly reasoned closes usually do). I guess that too is part of the 'consensus' process. Don't take it bad if it is overturned, though, just take it as feedback. -Splash - tk 16:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, see my comments there. My BIG learning so far is that I did not explain this well at all, that close statement wasn't any good. Usually I'm more verbose, but I really wanted to try to get 6 June closer to archivable.. it still has some thorny ones in there yet like the Lightsaber one (go try to make sense of that one!). As for mentioning DRV, I believe strongly in accountability, if I thought it was close, I wanted to not give the sense I wasn't open to review and feedback. Lar: t/c 16:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course. I was just examining things that might make that particular closure statement less likely to stick than others. I'm going absolutely nowhere near that Lightsaber debate! -Splash - tk 17:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Summing up: Thanks for your thoughtful comments, they have been very helpful, I think we're done... don' t worry, I'm not going to take it badly no matter what, and don't be a chicken about Lightsaber! Lar: t/c 20:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh! You said "I guess we have slightly different approaches to how one might handle an AfD that one is unsure of."... There's an essay in there no doubt. So maybe the question to ask here is how DO you handle an AfD you're unsure of? Mine is (if I've decided it has to be me that closes it for whatever reason... perhaps because it's old) to seek additional input and to review the article, the comments, the contribution histories of the commentors, and weigh things. I'm not fond of relists as it seems to just postpone the issue a bit, but sometimes they're the way to go... Lar: t/c 20:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Huh, yeah, there probably is an essay in there somewhere, but I'm not going to write it! I'd go with your mix, pretty much, but throw in a dose of precedent just for stability (not too much; just enough) and examine the arguments to see if any are on my list of "bad ways to argue an AfD" (no, I won't write that down, either!) and usually deal with those, by name, explicitly, in my closing comments. However, if I am genuinely unsure what to do with an AfD, and don't want to take the cop-out route of "no consensus" because I'm not sure that's right either, then I simple don't close it. I just leave someone else (e.g. you!) to take the heat - perhaps their thinking will be clearer than mine. But I don't generally seek multiple opinions on how to close an AfD; if I can't do it myself, I just stand aside. I agree with what you say on relists and I think they should only be used where the debate is too short to be able to call it any kind of decision at all. If there's more than minimal participation, but no agreement, then the closer should say so and be done with. None of this "relisting for a clearer consensus" nonsense: if I find there to be no consensus, I say so! -Splash - tk 00:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Chocolate!

Hmmmm, chocolate...

Want even more, Splash? ;)

True, dear Splash, Kimchi.sg doesn't give out chocolate... so I think I'll just share it aaaaall with you ;) *slurp*! Have a nice day! A chocolate-covered kiss, Phædriel ♥ tell me - 09:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Mmmmm...tasty! <licks lips>. I know where to come when I need chocolate in future! -Splash - tk 13:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Removing the stink

Thanks for the quick unblock. How'd you notice so fast? :-) --Uncle Ed 15:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: Re: Infinite/Indefinite

What's the difference between an "infinite" and an "indefinite" block? In what cases should I use each one? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:36, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

This was a confusing change that someone made to the interface. The two are technically identical, only the "infinite" one is practically incorrect. It's been removed now. -Splash - tk 16:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Then why doesn't someone remove one of the duplicate "indefinite" choices in the expiry box on Special:Blockip? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I don't know, and I just did. -Splash - tk 22:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you sir

Thank you sir for restoring the page. Our only intention was to try and help others, and I thank you deeply for seeing that. Thanks again, Thetruthbelow 00:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for restoring the main page, but could you also restore the sub-pages like designers and such? Thanks, Thetruthbelow 00:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry One las thing. On the subpages, all of them are protected from editing, and I was wondering if you could unprotect them. Thank you again, Thetruthbelow 00:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

There. I'm done. I'm not likely to directly intervene further, however. -Splash - tk 00:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

That's fine, you did more than I could ask for. Myself, Moe, Georgemoney and everyone else appreciates your civility and kindness. Thetruthbelow 00:40, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway

Could you review the last section on Tony's talk page. He makes a personal attack against me. Thetruthbelow 00:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not intervening at a personal, inter-editor level, no. -Splash - tk 00:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Can you...

Keep an eye on Female_ejaculation, a user keeps added an uncaptioned pick, with a crappy license, no reason to be there, and it may even be fake. Regards.Voice-of-All 19:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

RfA thanks!

Thanks for voting! Hello Splash/Archive15, and thank you so much for voting in my recent RfA. I am pleased to inform you that it passed with a final tally of (119/1/3), into the WP:100, so I have now been cleared for adminship and will soon be soaring above the clouds. I was overjoyed, shocked, and humbled by the tally, and, most importantly, all the support. Thank you. If there is ever anything you need, you know where you can find me. Take care.

--Pilot|guy 22:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

YHBT

...Well, not literaly. We seem to have a paradox, dictionary.com is listed a reliable source, but it references Jargon file, which isn't. So would this [3] be a reliable source or not?--Rayc 23:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Monkey

Splash, as I see you've unprotected Monkey, could you remember to remove it from the list, please? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't know about the bot. This place changes so fast I can't keep up. :-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Please review a deletion made contrary to consensus

Please review the deletion of Names of European cities in different languages, and the related articles Names of Asian cities in different languages and Names of African cities in different languages. These were discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of European cities in different languages, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of Asian cities in different languages, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of African cities in different languages.

The vote was: Keep: Future Perfect at Sunrise Interlingua Trialsanderrors Atillios Carlossuarez46 (me) Kierant Adam78 Khoikhoi Goldom Pasquale Eivind F Øyangen Fastifex Aguerriero Slowmover Lambiam Irpen Olessi Travelbird Nightstallion Agathoclea Folks at 137 Lethe Qviri Riadlem Peteris Cedrins Reimelt Nick C

Delete: Motor Theoldanarchist Mangojuice Dawson Isotope23 WicketheWok Centrx Angus McLellan Masterhatch Tychocat

That is: 27-10 to keep. While I know that it’s not a strict vote-counting exercise, the usual rule of thumb is not to delete unless there is a strong consensus expressed to do so – i.e., give the benefit of the doubt toward keeping. Here, process was thwarted.

The administrator closing the AfD acted contrary to the consensus expressed at the AfD by making his/her own judgment that the content was not encyclopedic. The whole issue of alternate placenames is very much encyclopedic and has been the subject on ongoing debate among Wikipedians, for example at: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names) and the various disputes about whether to use “Danzig” or “Gdansk” for that city near the Baltic, etc.. Also, similar articles remain extant in several other Interwiki’s (since the article is deleted, the interwiki links are gone too, otherwise I could cite which), so they appear encyclopedic to people who speak other languages. Please restore the articles. Carlossuarez46 19:02, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Deletion protection

Does this change make sense? [4] Haukur 19:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: Thanks!

You're very welcome. :) You just happened to be caught in yesterday's WoW attack. [5] :( G.He 23:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Memory jogger

Hi. Just a friendly reminder that you need to keep an eye on [6] SP-KP 21:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Splash, thanks for your supporting comment on the Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Consensus_on_redirect_and_delete thread. It really bothered me how quick some of the admins were to attack me merely for questioning why these admins weren't following procedures and guidelines with regards to redirects. I mean, shesh, here I was thinking that we admins had to set a good example and follow the rules. Now I know better :-). Anyway, I appreciated the support on the issue and if you ever need any help please let me know. Best,--Alabamaboy 14:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, well, I think an altogether gentler approach to dealing with an entire class of things needs to be adopted, and calling admins/editors on it when they doing things the wrong way is probably the only way to get that fixed. -Splash - tk 16:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)`

May I ask why you turned original research into a redirect for research? The consensus on Talk:Original_research was to have org. research as its own article with a link to the Wikipedia policy. While I agree that original research is "research" that merely takes us back to the original point about the original research redirect, which was that it was not displacing a worthwhile article. This also revives the previous problem of over a 1000 talk pages now linking to the wrong item. --Alabamaboy 20:41, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The sole and singular purpose for retaining that article standalone was to allow the selfref template to be used. That is not a good enough excuse for what is a silly place to have that article when we have research. If people really want the Wikipedia selfref (and really it's doing no one any harm) then it should become what it was before, a redirect to WP:NOR. If people don't want that, then fine, but it should then be treated properly, not cackhandedly with a self-admitted piece of hacky stuff to sort-of-not-really avoid a selfref. -Splash - tk 21:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I've responded on the talk page. In short, I'm not going to spend any more time on this issue.--Alabamaboy 22:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for revert on my User page

My second User page vandalism (the first was by Tobias Conradi on my old camelcase WilliamAllenSimpson), and you noticed it before I did! Thanks!

--William Allen Simpson 23:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. -Splash - tk 11:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: Image copyright problem

Hey, there! Now, now, we aren't commercial users are we? Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, isn't it? I don't actually know, but, I think, under Indian law, use of a product for educational purposes doesn't classify as commercial use. I'll look it up and let you know. rohith 14:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey Splash, it classifies for fair use!! You see, it is the screenshot from the Indian (Malayalam) movie Rajamanikyam. rohith 14:33, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You know what, I was right, right from the beginning. Section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 clearly states that:

Acts done in pursuance of ends specifically authorised by the Copyright Act, such as advancement of education, use in libraries and/or research, in the course of instruction, performance in classrooms, broadcast recorded for educational use, etc. are exceptions to Copyright Infringement and qualifies as fair use.

Since all who are involved with this movie are Indian, The Wikimedia Foundation and/or the people responsible for the upkeep of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia are extremely unlikely to face prosecution under Indian law (especially since the matter comes under the jurisdiction of Indian courts and Indian courts alone). rohith 15:05, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh boy! Fun!

My Lord,

As you may have noticed, I was recently subject to some vigorous criticism for closing DRVs regarding cross-space redirects. Since the criticism included some remarks which might be called personal attacks, I have forsworn closing such cases for now, for reasons of possible bias. There is only one Wikipedian I know with the Solomonic wisdom and universal respect necessary to effect these closures without inducing wiki-unrest: My Wiki-Hero! I'll understand totally if you have other matters more pressing to attend to, but I felt compelled, for Wikipedia's sake, to seek the help of our best and brightest. Best wishes, Xoloz 15:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Beep

Every once in a while I wonder over to check your inter-cranial pressure. *tap tap* Hmm, might be a bit on the high side. Any article that you'de really like to see cleaned up I could do to avoid you suffering over-stroppy-azation? - brenneman ^{L} 06:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

ITN

Hey there, Splash. Thought I'd give you and a few other regulars a heads up about this straw poll which concerns a possible name change for "In the news." Your feedback would be greatly appreciated. The Tom 00:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

RfD Transwiki

I'm terribly sorry, I didn't know about this policy, I just bumped into this cross-namespace redirect (I don't like cross-namespace redirects because they break the fourth wall), and nominated it for deletion per "avoid cross-namespace redirects". I saw it was created by Angela, but I thought it was obsolate because she created it in 2003. Anyway, I closed the RfD as speedy keep and left a comment at Talk:Transwiki so this won't happen again. I do apologize. --Zoz (t) 14:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand, but in this case it did cause some confusion (at least for me:)), because I was hoping to find either an article about the tranwiki process or nothing, as I explained here. So I understand your point, but I did not nominate it "robotically": I found it confusing and there were no notice on it or on its talk page which would indicate that it's an exception. --Zoz (t) 14:23, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

RFA Front matter

Why do you keep saying that the wikilink is to WP:NOT? --ScienceApologist 17:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Because I didn't realise it wasn't. I still think that linking to a semi-humourous lecture-essay is unhelpful at best, however. -Splash - tk 19:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

{{copyvio}}

"Any objection to subst:ing the parts of the date? At the moment, the link on each copyvio'd page changes each day. Or should I be subst:ing the whole template? I had thought not since "what links here" is probably useful in this case. -Splash 00:21, 18 August 2005 (UTC)"

Yeah, let's! There was no objection - and I think it's a great idea! I wanted to post something similar on template talk, but first decided to scroll up to see if it has been proposed before. Anything stopping us? - CrazyRougeian talk/email 14:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that it wouldn't work! You can't subst something in a template that is not itself substed; it's a contradiction in terms. It would not be good to subst the whole of that template, either, for the reasons I gave somewhat later in that section of the talk page. I was mistaken to make the suggestion. -Splash - tk 15:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

OAIS

Hi! I'm trying to figure out why the article OAIS was deleted. It's a well-known digital preservation standard. Could you help me? Thank you! betakate 15:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll work on bringing it up to quality. betakate 17:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Fish

Not exactly "on faith". It's a term with a long provenance, well known, and the only reason I'm having trouble coming up with references is that it's a really, really nasty term and only used in a misogynistic context. Someone might call a woman a bitch or a cunt but to call her a fish is to suggest that she smells like rotting fish because she's a woman. Nevertheless the term exists. --Tony Sidaway 21:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, but the deal really is that when challenged (particularly in good faith) the material is referenced before being reinstated. The thing about "verifiability not truth" matters. For now, I guess a "citation needed" label will do, but not indefinitely; if it cannot be reliably sourced, it can't stay forever. (As an aside, I don't think that tagging with {fact} should become a kind of 'free pass' if someone manages to work that out at some point.) -Splash - tk 15:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Better example for CNR search

Hello. I do realise that "page update" wasn't the best example, but I think another current rfd might be a slightly better example, the redirect in question is the top search result for "a crystal ball". (a more plausible search that returns useful google results) However, the actual article "crystal ball" only appears at #10, and over half of the top results are self references in one form or other. Regards, MartinRe 13:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Re:notes about blocking

Was just about to. But thanks anyways. Welcome back --Jay(Reply) 15:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

65.60.219.176

Why was this editor not blocked..? Contributions prove repeated vandalism over the course of mere minutes. See the history on Ryu Hayabusa, paticularly edits such as this: [7]. The vandal IP has stopped for now and so I won't press the issue. Your reasoning provided on the edit summary was extremely unhelpful [8]. What was the purpose of not invoking a block on these manner of edits...? -Randall Brackett 20:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Linkification is standard for lists

See the talk page for discussion Talk:List of sexual slurs. --List Expert 15:54, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I am well aware of the talk page, having posted there many times. But thank you for the handy link to it. -Splash - tk 16:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm working on the links - it's a work in progress. I need to see the links inorder to process them. It's a snail's pace unless they are linkified. Did you read my post about managing links on the talk page? Please discuss this out on the talk page, because you keep interrupting my edits with edit conflicts, which is making this more difficult than it needs to be. By the way, I'm not a newb. --List Expert 16:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I am well aware that you are a sockpuppet. Please keep the discussion to the article's talk. I don't see any value in duplicating it here. -Splash - tk 16:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Though not a misuse of the sockpuppet concept. I prefer to keep work on lewd subject areas seperate from my main areas, so it doesn't distract others away. --List Expert 16:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

DRV templates

I've responded at some length on the talk page. How's it going, anyway? Always happy to bf of service if there is something that needs doing. - brenneman ^{L} 02:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I replies there. I'm going to resist the brutalisation of the closure process. Technical wizadry for elegance of wiki-syntax is a terrible idea on a page like that and is one of the central causes of admin not doing things that were formerly easy, and the techno-wizards turning up on AN/I complaining that nobody has cleared backlog X in the last week. Apart from that, I'm fine, thanks. -Splash - tk 20:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Broken redirects

You've made a number of double (and thus broken) redirects as a result of whatever you've been doing to the list of sex slurs. -Splash - tk 20:15, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm aware of that, and was about to work on them when I got unexpectedly and mistakenly banned. All better now though (the ban -- I haven't gotten to the double redirs yet). Thanks for the heads up. --List Expert 19:35, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Your attack on Danny

I'm absolutely appalled. Please stop. --Tony Sidaway 19:17, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm absolutely appalled too, so we're in the same club. -Splash - tk 19:19, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I suppose I'm the third member. Aren't members of the same club supposed to treat each other with respect? Mackensen (talk) 19:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Welcome! -Splash - tk 19:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

It does seem unlike you. Leave it maybe until you can offer a thoughtful talk post as you've done so often before. Marskell 19:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Having no confidence in a bureaucrat is unlike me. Danny doesn't use the tools of either bureaucracy or stewardship in a way that gives me any faith in the outcome of his decisions. I'm not entirely sure that waiting until I think of a woolly version of that would make much difference. But since your advice is generally good, I'll leave RfA talk alone for now. -Splash - tk 20:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Reliable sources

However you protected to a page about which there was no consensus. If you see my revert previously I had reverted to a page about where there *was* consensus. So your protection isn't helping the situation. We are modifying this page co-operatively in talk as you can see. Wjhonson 20:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

No, you are modifying the page by reverting it repeatedly. -Splash - tk 20:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I reverted the page, one single time, what are you talking about? Wjhonson 20:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I mean the collective "you". -Splash - tk 20:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification Wjhonson 20:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I generally concur with Splash's decision to protect WP:Reliable sources. Revisions of the project page and discussion on the talk page were occuring rapidly and concurrently. I reverted to the version that Splash protected. I picked that one not on the merit of the contents, but only because it had been undisturbed for several hours. Beginning at about 1600 UTC there was a flurry of edits that I could not untangle.

My rational for reverting, as stated in the Edit summary, was that it is inherently impossible to reach a consensus when a proposed or actual change has only been visible for a few minutes.

Gerry Ashton 20:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Please don't remove AfD tags

Yea, sure. --GoOdCoNtEnT 00:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I have inserted a redirect to both pages but left the AfD tag. --GoOdCoNtEnT 00:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Can you please redirect it for me the way you said I should do it? And wouldn't blocking me be a little too extreme? I do edit a lot of valuable projects on Wikipedia, especially on Russia. --GoOdCoNtEnT 01:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Surreal

		The Barnstar of Good Humor
		For this great post [9] on the Administrators' noticeboard. When I first stumbled on your user page in August 2005, I knew that you were cool to be named (albeit coincidentally) over my favorite Las Vegas show...but that was just awesome. Hbdragon88 03:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! -Splash - tk 16:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Rayleigh fading

I have been thinking about this for some time...in Rayleigh fading, where you have the model distribution

$p_{R}(r)={\frac {r}{\sigma ^{2}}}e^{-r^{2}/2\sigma ^{2}},\ r\geq {}0$

I wonder if it might be better to define say, $\Omega =2\sigma ^{2}$, and set this quantity as the reference total power? After all, the radial distribution arises from the summation of two Gaussians, so, I wonder whether it is necessary that both of these components contribute only half of the total. What do you think? --HappyCamper 03:29, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to check with a textbook on that... -Splash - tk 16:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:RS and protection

I think we might have enough concensus to unprotect WP:RS now. Terryeo 19:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I left a note on the talk page and unprotected it. -Splash - tk 21:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

x-space redirs

Yes, thank you. It has been explained to me in the last twelve hours quite how wrong I was - and indeed, it was because, as a less-experienced user, I had taken that notion as a form of gospel. Go figure! :) - CrazyRussian talk/email 02:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: Template:Copyvio

I have responded to you at Template talk:Copyvio#Dated categories. —Centrx→talk • 20:34, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I think we need to be a little bit clearer on the tradeoff in this particular case. It's not quite the same sort of process as PROD. -Splash - tk 02:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Question about Deleted article

Hey Splash,

In March the article Ryan Scott Ottney was deleted on AfD. (And you did the deleting - that's why I'm writing to you.)[10] The article was mainly created by Ryan himself. Now someone has recreated the article. Looking at the user contributions of the person who is recreating it[11](focusing on the publishers and works of Ottney and his cronies) it seems as though Ryan (or someone very close to him) is back. What is the etiquette for this? Does this get prodded, speedied, AfDed? Or does nothing happen? Thanks for your help.

ADDITION: I found this discussion on the WHAT LINKS HERE on the Ryan Scott Ottney page. I am Ryan, and I did not create this page. The page was created by Rob Levin (clerk976), but not at my request, or even my knowledge. Previously the page was taken down because I created it and it was considered a vanity page. It was removed and now someone else - the Managing Editor of Top Cow comics, no less - has created a new page (to which I have added content). This new page was not created by me, I had no part in it's return, and it focuses on published, professional work credits cited throughout WikiPedia. As a published professional, I would argue it should stay. But I just wanted you to know it was NOT me who created this page.

Undeletion request

Hi splash. I am concerned that some material may have been inappropriately speedy deleted from Eagle High School. Can you please review the deleted histore and restore any of the non-libellous content so that we are kosher with GFDL and such? Thanks much, Silensor 05:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. In these sensitive times, I've left one revision deleted, and it was independant vandalism anyway. -Splash - tk 10:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Ryan Conferido

Splash, would you please give me your opinion, on whether or not the Ryan Conferido article was appropriate to speedy-delete in its latest version? Would you consider undeleting it? Or do you recommend that I go through Deletion Review? Thanks. --Elonka 23:05, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

That makes a clear enough assertion of notability, and since the deleting admin doesn't seem to be responding to talk page messages, I've undeleted it. -Splash - tk 23:31, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much.  :) I've been wanting to expand it for awhile, it's good to have it back! --Elonka 00:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Weird

I've never quite seen a personal attack like this:[12]. I reverted most of his edits as unhelpful trolling, but I haven't bothered to block as it appears to have been a one-time role account. -Will Beback 21:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

How odd. The only thing I did recently to attract such ire was block another bunch of socks; I guess that must be why. Thanks for cleaning up! -Splash - tk 12:15, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Recent sockpuppets and nationalism

(This is in reference to More Sockpuppets above.)

In the message "More Sockpuppets", regarding User:Kramden4700, you said "he got fingered slightly further up, too". I suppose you have seen my suspected sockpuppets nomination. I trust you for your judgment, as you made a stronger case than me. As your reasoning holds, this User:Spotteddogsdotorg is very abusive.

But I want to direct your attention to my recent edit war with Kramden and Wrath of Roth. Reading the following will tell my story and the responses:

• Talk:Philadelphia#Dispute over redirect of Philadelphia
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Philadelphia and other places by User:Kramden4700
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias#Nationalistic bias in global city names/redirects

The puppet master seems to be expanding his reach. So if you're monitoring Spotteddogsdotorg, I suggest you look out for edits to redirects of place names (and perhaps people) by WP:DAB#Primary topic in the name of "nationalistic/geographic bias" and disregarding primary topic disambiguation. I think you can do the investigation yourself (and with others as you wish), but if you need my assistance, you can always talk to me.

Finally, I am repulsed at my possible assistance of a sockpuppet. But I didn't know the whole story, you did. So for that, I know better, and I thank you. Tinlinkin 07:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I'll keep an eye out for that kind of thing, and add it to my mental fingerprint of the editor in question (though I have to be a bit careful not to make it so all-encompassing that I start blocking real editors!). When being the victim of a sock, it's basically impossible to have done anything about it: the whole point was to deceive and mislead. I looked through the discussions you mentioned, and I don't think there are any pointers there to any other currently active socks, although I have an eye on two users still (Cabled Substitution (talk · contribs) and Buckner 1986 (talk · contribs)). If Spotteddogsdotorg would just choose an account and edit properly from it, there'd be no problem. -Splash - tk 12:15, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Fidel Castro

Hi. I've seen that you unprotected the Fidel Castro page earlier and you have since stated that protection shouldn't be too long. I very much differ in view here. This isn't a common and garden biography, this is a very serious political issue that has massive implications for a lot of people. Given Wikipedia's well publicised poor record with Cuban issues [13] which is repeated in many journals discussing the failings of wikipedia, there can be no margin for error. If enough people get the wrong idea over the next 48 hours that Castro is dead, or has resigned due to our users vandalism or poor editing this is big trouble for wikipedia. I urge - as I have on the admin noticeboard since the start of this latest affair - all admins to treat this case with upmost caution.--Zleitzen 00:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

There is always margin for error, and semi-protection does not remove it nor make it appreciably narrower on such a high-traffic page. There were some stats once that most vandalism is removed within 5 minutes; on pages linked from the Main Page, I will hazard that it is closer to 30 seconds. People shouldn't be reading an encyclopedia for their news, in any case. -Splash - tk 00:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

We can't have misinformation like this appearing under Castro for 30 seconds. This is a very serious issue with big consequences. People have been hanging on this for years and themselves virtually live or die by news of Castro's health. There were street parties for hours in Miami when they heard he was in hospital.--Zleitzen 00:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we can. People should not use Wikipedia when deciding whether to revolt or not. -Splash - tk 00:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's off my watchlist for the time being. I'm back to editing other Cuban articles. But I'm more than aware of what's been happening with Cuba, wikipedia and the outside world. It's a whole different game and always has been. There's a conference in Miami on Thursday where a speaker will be specifically using wikipedia as an example of a tool for misinformation on Cuba [14]. But no one can say I didn't try to warn anyone! --Zleitzen 00:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:RFBOT

Please see my notes at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals#BetacommandBot_expansion_of_task. I do not disagree with your block of that bot at all, but should you not be around would you agree to allow anyone to unblock it if it will only operate under the new trial conditions? (I also respect that you disagree with it's usefulness, but would like to give them a chance to demonstrate usefulness during the trial during which comments can be gathered. Perhpas linking the bot discussion to CFD talk may help bring in some more experienced category editors as well.) — xaosflux ^Talk 02:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I replied in the relevant section of the talk page. Unblocking is fine, of course, once the owner understands things more precisely. It's only indefinite in the "don't know when in advance" sense. -Splash - tk 02:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

For this. I was just fighting with Cyde on IRC about it =D. AmiDaniel (talk) 03:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. -Splash - tk 03:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Protecting pages with links on the Main Page

Raul's user space page is User:Raul654/protection ([15]). Raul's page, WP:SEMI and, as far as I can tell, long-standing practice only apply to the featured article on the Main Page, not to every single article with a link on the Main Page. That's quite a lot of articles, they don't receive the same monitoring as the featured article, and they aren't intended to be the singular showcase of Wikipedia for the day. I don't see why they couldn't be semi-protected for a few hours. —Centrx→talk • 03:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)