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User talk:A. B./March 2009

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Archive This page is a chronological archive of past discussions from User talk:A. B. for the month of March 2009. Exchanges spilling over from late February or into early April may have been retained elsewhere to avoid breaking their continuity.

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Talkback

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I added a citation where "citation needed" was requested and got this message "Browser wars ‎ (remove statowl.com material added with an apparent conflict of interest; unrelated, established editors feel free to restore if it meets our reliable source rules) (top)". The citation in question was here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars#Mac_OS_X and linked to http://www.statowl.com/web_browser_market_share.php?timeframe=last_6&interval=month&chart_id=4&fltr_os=Mac The information I linked directly corresponds to the requested citation and validates the information asserted in the article.

I'd like to understand more about why there is a "conflict of interest". I developed the statowl.com site - is that why? If so, what happens if someone else adds the citation linking to the statowl.com site? How is a conflict of interest determined? The link in question provides raw data in table and graph form validating the requested citation - doesn't raw data qualify as a neutral point of view? Raw data by its nature does not have a point of view - let alone a neutral one.

This page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COI states that "COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups" - how was my citation doing that? Simply by virtue of linking? If that is the case, there are thousands of links to individuals, companies, and groups throughout wikipedia (mainly in the external links sections) so this policy would seem to be in contradiction with basically any external link if that were the case.

Is "conflict of interest" determined because the site runs google ads? If so, what if I remove all ads? Is it then not a conflict of interest?

Everything I have ever added to wikipedia, either under this profile (if I remembered to login) or anonymously, has always been directly inline with the subject content and added information that was not there previously. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caffeinejolt (talk • contribs) 20:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If other editors like it, they're free to add it back. I have a couple of web sites, but I don't get to link to them either, even though they have great relevant content. I'd like to, but I can't do that any more than you can. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 23:24, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The continuing problem of talk-page deletions

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MZMcBride is still busy with deleting old talkpages. He does now detect some terms on talkpages which are spam related. I am busy with some ranges on User:Beetstra/DeletedTalkPages (page loads slow, we really should remove as many as possible parserfunctions out of these templates). I am in the process of working out an active example of cross wiki spam (public-domain-image.com), and I am worried about the current state. Of the 12 editors I have found thus far, 4 have warnings relating this case, only one of them having a warning regarding spam in them. Without the spam-detection, those 4 warnings would be gone, otherwise 3 of the 4 would be gone. This is .. sad.

I am still busy with the case, but any further input would be nice. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment now on the talk pages at MZMcBride's arbitration:
He should not be continuing his deletions while it's under discussion. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 13:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I reported to AN/I .. there is already way too much damage, it does not matter if it goes on for a couple of minutes more. And I don't have time to work on this thát much anymore. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Situation becomes sad. I provided evidence on the RfARb. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:02, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I saw and I endorsed your proposal to temporarily desysop. It's such a waste. I never thought he's push it so hard and far. He does good work, but I'm beginning to wonder if he should be an admin at all. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 17:20, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It was not me who proposed that. I have started yet another section on WT:CSD, there are many cases which need a closer look then I first expected. I am afraid that automation is completely impossible here, there are way too many flaws in the system. I want to say, I think MZMcBride applied policy, but the policy was broken (and indeed, when it was pointed out that policy was broken, it was still enforced .. ). --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User talk pages

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Hey, I was actually going through this list here: Wikipedia:Database_reports/Ownerless_pages_in_the_user_space. I guess a lot of these are just people mistyping user names or experimenting. I don't really see how keeping these are useful in fighting spam as the accounts themselves were never used. But I'll try to avoid tagging them.--Sloane (talk) 19:03, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just don't tag them for deletion if they have warnings about spam, advertising, or conflicts of interest. Also, you'll find some talk pages with spam warnings where the user has no contributions -- that's normally because their edits were to deleted pages (most often spam pages they created for their businesses}. Admins can still see a record of those edits. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 19:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, that is not enough, there are many pages out there where spam warnings are blanked, still these are spam related ... Can we please completely stop deletion of these pages until this is properly resolved? --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, it is in testphase .. but

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[12:02:13] <EnLinkWatcher2> en:GPS signals http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=276727158&oldid=276726892 en:User:217.46.231.121 http://www.labsat.co.uk (7, 6, 4!, 1) http://www.spirentcom.com (REDIR: spirent.com) (7, 6, 3?, 1)

.. COIBot will do the same, soon. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AfD nomination of Sahara Care House

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An article that you have been involved in editing, Sahara Care House, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sahara Care House. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Binary TSO ??? 08:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:
  1. I really recommend you run a quick Google News and Google News archive search before taking something to AfD. This is great tool for determining notability, although you need to evaluate the results carefully since even established media will often re-run corporate press releases like this. (In fact I've done Google News archive searches, gotten 100+ hits and found them all to be warmed-over press releases -- a byline at the top is a good sign while a corporate contact with phone number at the bottom is a bad sign).
  2. See CSD G11:
    • "Pages that exclusively promote some entity and that would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic."
      • If you see a subject is definitely notable, you can cut it back to a stub, tag it for needing references and make a note about notability on the talk page. Otherwise, don't waste your time if the article is a G11.
  3. Many articles that start out as adverts are actually copies of corporate PR material. See CSD G12:
    • "Text pages that contain copyrighted material with no credible assertion of public domain, fair use, or a free license, where there is no non-infringing content on the page worth saving."
      • Run a few text snippets in quotation marks through a search engine to check for plagiarized material Unless the company give us clear permission that meets our GFDL requirements, we have to delete. Even giving just Wikipedia alone permission is insufficient since others copy our content.
      • Note the comment in the G12 section about Wikipedia mirrors
  4. With any CSD (not just adverts), don't forget to notifiy the author (I'd even do that first, then hang the CSD tag). Otherwise, they just keep uploading the same stuff, making themselves and everyone else very frustrated and eventually getting blocked. In some cases, they could be steered toward using their industry expertise to neutrally edit related articles. For instance, the Sahara Care House author might be knowledgeable on the topics of non-resident Indians and expats sending money home. Probably only 15% of such authors will stick around if you invite them, but it's worth the extra 60 seconds to try. Personally, I like the {{welcomespam}} template. I put that at the top and the CSD notification tag below it.
Most importantly, thanks for keeping an eye out for problematic articles! --A. B. (talk • contribs) 15:11, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the input. I did a quick search of the content and it turns out that it was copied directly from [1]-Binary TSO ???

Reply

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Thanks for the heads up. His links/material didn't seem to be terribly overreaching or spammy, so I tried to help him out (steering in the right directions, etc). Thanks again! DP76764 (Talk) 15:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

rhye.civfanatics.net

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I have answered, thanks. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:COIBot/XWiki/rhye.civfanatics.net#Discussion Rhye20 (talk) 09:33, 24 March 2009 (UTC) (moved here from your userpage --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:21, 24 March 2009 (UTC))[reply]

UofA

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I have enabled warning in Special:AbuseFilter/36. Editors in the two used ranges, and unestablished editors now get MediaWiki:Abusefilter-advertising (feel free to tweak this one), having the choice still to save the edit. If they persist, I am going to tweak the system, create a second rule that blocks the edits from the IPs, and from specific users on these articles. It would in all cases be less disruptive than blocking the accounts, protecting the article or blacklisting the links (and I am curious if the filter can be used to do this in a proper way too, it could help us with a lot of problems in the future). --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:29, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They choose to ignore, hence .. usernames in filter and filter set to disallow. As soon as a new editor comes up, add the name to the filter. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note on my talk page, A.B. It will be a few days before I do anything meaningful as real life is intervening. In a short while I will be posting a wikibreak notice on my user page and talk page. --Orlady (talk) 14:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK -- I hope the real life interventions are positive! --A. B. (talk • contribs) 14:47, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

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Thanks, A.B. That was very uncharacteristic of me and I seemed to have missed something. I appreciate your understanding, and I'd like to offer my sincerest apologies. I can't even explain what a fool I feel I've been, haha. Cheers. --Aepoutre (talk) 21:08, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]


That's cool.
I was writing you a long note about the background of that article when I saw your earlier comments and stopped. What you saw on that talk page was just the tip of the iceberg. If you printed everything out, many trees would die. Your eyes would bleed.
Start with the never-ending wikidrama about all things cold fusion:
Throw in a dispute here and on Meta-Wiki over the blacklisting of cold fusion related links (lenr-canr.org):
Widen that to a broader investigation of a tight admin cabal controlling and possibly abusing the blacklist:
Low and behold, the lowest-paid of that cabal had even blacklisted a university! We're talking about the same admin so clueless as to be unaware of the great Wikipedia alchemists' debates about palladium, deuterium and the end of the energy industry as we know it. A total spam-gnome beavering away at the fringes of admin-dom on spam problems:
A university, no less!
And what a university, too:
A tweedy school with a long New England tradition of excellence now based in the leafy suburbs of Atlanta and the sister of a great Texas school.
Like I said, "just the tip of the iceberg"!
--A. B. (talk • contribs) 02:54, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry! I wanted to respond earlier, but had some major real-life deadlines to meet recently. No offence taken, really. In fact, I thought your comments were hilarious. And thanks again for being so understanding. Your assumptions aren't quite accurate, but not too far off from what (I suppose) I felt at the time. While my background is Nazarene, I certainly don't agree with everything that every Nazarene says, or even every official doctrine; my heritage is more of a source of fascination for me, especially the wildly varying perspectives among members of the Church of the Nazarene. Anyway, the reason I say you weren't too far off is because, while it had nothing to do with an adherence to evangelical Christianity and probably more to do with some other stress I was under (poor excuse, I know), my past experiences with User:Orlady haven't been entirely positive (mostly due to my desire to heavily cite information, I suppose)[2]. Thus, when I saw said user (who I didn't realise had previously been involved) suddenly appear with that unhelpful (or at least unverified) statement in the edit summary,[3] I was admittedly a bit worried that perhaps it was some attempt to "gang up" on me. Silly, I know. I feel like a huge idiot, but I appreciate your kind words very much. Thanks again, and many blessings. --Aepoutre (talk) 22:11, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I had previously invited Orlady's help. I've occasionally interacted with her before and I think of her as the ultimate editor's editor. What I'd seen in my dealings with her in the past was that she was scrupulously fair in her dealings both with reasonable and unreasonable editors. Where she disagreed with me, I ultimately came to see she was right. She seemed very focused on getting the content right and in congruence with the broader community guidelines (WP:RS, WP:NOTE, etc.) I wasn't pursuing an agenda in this case, rather I was looking for the ultimate neutral party to make sure the various existing editors (including myself) didn't tilt the article too far away from Wikipedia's "trifecta" of verifiability, neutrality and no original research. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 13:00, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Right. As I said: silly. Perhaps I shouldn't even have mentioned it! Take care. --Aepoutre (talk) 15:12, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I finally found some time to read what you'd sent me earlier, and I guess I'm just not well-versed enough to understand all of it, but I think that I understand what you meant and appreciate your having reached out. I also appreciate your kind words re: User:Orlady. I think that our particular disagreement eventually resolved itself, so I hope you didn't infer any sort of bad blood on my part. Cheers! --Aepoutre (talk) 21:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Need your Help

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I am working on a page with another person and have come to a snag with licensing of images. I have all of the information needed to properly license, I just need an admin to fill in the information for the image; or at least guide me in the correct direction. The images(s) in question are located on my talk page. If you could take a look and let me know, I would be very thankful.Keystoneridin (talk) 01:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

m:User:COIBot/XWiki/japaneseprints.blogspot.com

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Hi A.B., I'd appreciate if you could take a look at this one (posting here since links are only readded at en:wiki presently). The user has been complaining about reverts at User_talk:Finnrind#Japanese_Art_History_-_Edits. (and on my Commons talk, but I've copied that here). BTW, on top of this page you say you'll be offline much until March 23rd, that message seem a bit outdated ;) Finn Rindahl (talk) 12:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dmoz

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Thanks for the heads-up about those two users. One of them seems to be confused about the difference between dmoz and Wikipedia, so I posted a message on the user's talk page. I could not find evidence that the other user is a current dmoz editor, but the website is listed on dmoz (and has been listed there for a long time, without hankypanky). --Orlady (talk) 03:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 12:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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